Hulk Hogan and Earthquake are on the cover of this one (follow along in Archive.org, the quality doesn't stink this time), and to make it Nintendo-themed, a controller was drawn in Hulk's hand. We all know Hulk Hogan (Terry Gene Bolea) passed away in July 2025 but Earthquake (John Tenta) passed away over 20 years ago. So it's now April 1992, Volume 35, what's going on this issue? Before the games, Gail Tilden brings a special report in Player's Pulse about the dangers of epilepsy in video games. This is long before Nintendo had seizure warnings in its consoles (instituted sometime in the mid-2000s, so affecting late Game Boy Advance games and GameCube games, and hard-coded into systems moving forward). It also meant that the quick color flashing of Link's death in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link would never be seen on re-releases.

In our first game covered, Captain America and the Avengers (Data East), there's cities to go to but they're all largely just generic platformer levels. Still, there's rare locations for video games like Columbia, South Carolina, or Montgomery, Alabama. The magazine discusses that there are additional cities to visit in the West Coast but if VGMaps is anything to go by it covers Houston, Dallas, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas, but not California. Guess that's West Coast Avengers territory...

Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage was released a bit before Nintendo Power's time, but they cover the sequel to it, T&C Surf Designs II: Thrilla's Surfari (LJN) with a few pages on Yoshi and like last issue, Classified Information before the Zelda comic. This issue mostly covers SNES games as the NES is beginning to fade out, even though it was still available in stores, and all three are given equal treatment in Nintendo Power. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Gradius III, Super Earth Defense Force, Extra Innings, Super Tennis, Over Horizon, Sword Master (the ONLY NES game this month), Elevator Action (for the Game Boy), and FaceBall 2000 are covered in this section this month.

The Game Boy section focuses on the Game Boy title Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, which is completely different game from both the computer version OR the NES game and with Interplay not involved at all, it's published by Ultra and developed by Visual Concepts. There's a double feature on Game Boy flight simulators, Absolute Entertainment's Turn and Burn: The F-14 Dogfight Simulator and Konami's Top Gun: Guts & Glory before getting to Ultra Golf (Ultra), Boggle Plus (Parker Brothers), in another video game adaptation, and Missile Command, an arcade port by Accolade (licensed by Atari Corporation). The Super Mario Adventures comic follows, but before Counselor's Corner, there's the "Super NES Technology Update: CD-ROM", a two page article, which is more about the power of the CD-ROM than the Super NES CD-ROM or the games on it. They bring up Cosmic Osmo & The Worlds Beyond the Mackerel, some of the educational software that was being made on computers, and several screenshots of The 7th Guest, but nothing specific. At this point in time, Sega CD was only recently released in Japan but the reality is the Sega CD demonstrated the limitations of disc-based media when the system itself was underpowered. Compare the original Sega CD release of Night Trap with its heavily dithered, low-resolution 64-color video with the later Sega 32X CD version (which is closer to what the computer versions got).

Counselor's Corner includes questions on beating Asura and getting back to the underground in Final Fantasy II, the two secret exits in Chocolate Island in Super Mario World, three questions for Final Fantasy Adventure, and two for StarTropics. I do have issue with the questions and answers..."How do I find all 96 worlds?" I know the box implies there are, but there's NOT 96 levels in Super Mario World, there's only around 76 and that's IF you count Yoshi's House, Top Secret Area, and the Back Door of Bowser's Castle as separate levels. It's 96 exits.

The SNES games are considerably less exciting less month than previous...The Addams Family (Ocean), WWF Super WrestleMania (LJN), and Super Smash TV, Acclaim's console port of William Electronics' arcade hit.

Amidst Link getting selected by the Master Sword and Princess Toadstool escapes from the Koopa Kids, Nester meets Gomez Addams, in a crossover for The Addams Family game. I hate to say it but I miss the Art Nichols era of Nester's Adventures already.

The Player's Poll Contest following the Power Players column is a RoboCop 2-themed contest in which the second prize is RoboCop 2 for NES or Game Boy and a VHS copy of RoboCop 2. The Grand Prize winner is the actual Ford Taurus used in RoboCop 2, but it does not come, contrary to the picture, with flashing lights (those are illegal to use if you're not emergency). The little Detroit Police badge (not used by the real Detroit PD) was kept, as a later issue would show.

George & Rob's Now Playing has a number of NES games beyond what got full features: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance (FCI), Gemfire (Koei), Hook (Sony Imagesoft), Race America (Absolute Entertainment), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (Konami...the actual review due to their previous mistake where it was just L'Empereur again), Toxic Crusaders (Bandai), Wacky Races (Atlus), and Wizards and Warriors III (Acclaim). The Game Boy games also has Hook (Sony Imagesoft), Mousetrap Hotel (Electro Brain), Prophecy: The Viking Child (Gametek), and Soccer Mania (Sony Imagesoft). Surprisingly, there's no additional Super NES games than what was covered.

In the Top 20, Super Mario Bros. 3 still beats Battletoads but that generous margin has evaporated. The Legend of Zelda is now at #3 (up from #6), Mega Man 4 is now at #4 (up from #15), Dr. Mario is now at #5 (down from #3), Final Fantasy is now at #6 (up from #10), Tetris is at #7 (down from #5), Mega Man 3 is back on the top 10 at #8 (up from #14), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is now at #9 (down from #4), and Tecmo Super Bowl makes its appearance as #10. With three new or returning faces, Super Mario Bros. 2 is down to #13 (from #7), Batman went from #8 to #14, and The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants went from #9 to dropping off below #20 again.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past rockets up to #3 on the SNES list (it WILL be the one to "topple Super Mario World", possibly next month). Final Fantasy II went from #3 to #4, Super Castlevania IV from from #11 to #5, Final Fight went from #4 to #6, SimCity is pushed further (from #5 to #7), ActRaiser drops to #8 instead of the #6 it had held for the last two months, Contra III shoots up from #20 to #9, and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts gets #10 after being at #16 last month. The ones that are off the top 10 now are Pilotwings (#8 to #12), U.N. Squadron (#9 to #13), and Super Bases Loaded which continues its fall from #10 to #14.

Metroid II: Return of Samus snatches the #1 slot from Super Mario Land by a razor-thin margin (187 points), ending its multiple-issue run. The others are Battletoads at #3 (up from #6), Dr. Mario at #4 (down from #3), Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge at #5 (down from #4), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan at #6 (down from #5), Final Fantasy Adventure at #7 (up from #13 and back on the list), Super R.C. Pro-Am at #8 (up from #10), Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge at #9 (up from #12 and back on the list), and Operation C at #10 (down from #9). These take off Home Alone (formerly #7, now #13) and F-1 Race (formerly #8, now #11). Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters makes a big jump, but unfortunately can't seem to crack the top 10, it's still at #12. Will it succeed?

Celebrity Player Profile is Terminator 2's Eddie Furlong, but I don't see much in Pak Watch worth discussing. True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach Golf Links is in the "Blast Off" category but again, like I mentioned a few issues ago that would be the last "real" golf course sim, at least for the Super NES. Sadly, if you were expecting something like Augusta National Golf Club or Pine Valley Golf Club, forget it. We'll cover True Golf Classics: Wicked 18 when we get to the 1993 issues.

According to "Next Issue", they'll be doing Darkwing Duck (NES), Batman: Return of the Joker (Game Boy), Contra III (Super NES), and Super Adventure Island (Super NES) all in Volume 36.

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