Exor's Dungeon - Magazine Reviews - Nintendo Power Volume 37

As we dive into Volume 37 (June 1992), there's another Father's Day Game Boy ad like last month. Player's Pulse talks a lot about reader responses to the changes to the magazine. Most people seem to like the comics, with one person whining about how the Super NES should have its own magazine...but if that was the case Nintendo Power would start going bi-monthly and be completely dead by the end of 1995. The contest winner to Volume 30 was discussed (wonder what games people got?) before moving onto the month's feature on Lemmings. While Sunsoft had made a name for itself with Blaster Master, Lemmings was not an original product; it was developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis on computers (with Psygnosis holding the IP). Sunsoft's Lemmings also featured a slightly different art style than what its original publisher, Psygnosis had done. During this time, Sunsoft was also funding Cyan's Myst (see the Wikipedia article) and despite contributing nearly half the budget, the game found success mostly on the computer side, published by Brøderbund Software. Sunsoft did get the console rights but by the time they did publish it for consoles (not for Nintendo) it was already old hat from the computer. Lemmings for the SNES was briefly covered back in Volume 34, for its cover feature appearance, it's the NES version.

The other two NES games are DragonStrike (FCI) and Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston, the latter being an original game by Sculptured Software (profiled last month) and published by Electro Brain. As we've established in previous issues, it's Classified Information before heading into the Zelda comic. The games in Classified Information this month is a complete list of passwords for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (following up from last month), the lives code from Rockin' Kats (this is a repeat from Volume 34), along with stuff for Dynowarz, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project, Faria, Turrican, Faceball 2000, Super Soccer Champ, Super Smash TV, and Super Soccer.

Metroid II: Return of Samus had its cover feature in Volume 31 and as of this issue is back as the #1 Game Boy game (a bit later this issue) but when we get to the Game Boy games this month there's more complete strategy including maps. Second on the list is Star Wars, but an entirely different developer and publisher, this time Capcom (the magazine credits the publisher as UBI Soft, which would publish it in Europe). NBA 2 All Star Challenge concludes the Game Boy section before Super Mario Adventures and Counselor's Corner (covering Final Fantasy II, Mega Man 4, Adventures of Lolo III, and Prince of Persia for the Game Boy.

Despite all this, Luigi's got a plan, and it's well underway.

Instead of looking at another developer like Sculptured Software last month, it's "Arcade Game Update", a special look at arcade games, using the excuse that many Nintendo games are arcade ports. The idea was probably for arcade games that COULD be ported over to Nintendo systems, so obviously anything by Sega was already out. Let's look at them and see if they went anywhere...

* Street Fighter II: Championship Edition wasn't exactly released for the Super NES, but Street Fighter II Turbo's port did incorporate the features of it.
* The X-Men arcade game remained an arcade exclusive for years. After all, it boasted SIX simultaneous players, something that home consoles just weren't able to do.
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time did get ported to the Super NES as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time.
* Midway's Total Carnage did get a Super NES port.
* High Impact Football (not Super High Impact, the port's name) did also get a SNES port...sans the trading card dispenser the original machine had, of course.
* Namco's Driver's Eyes remained on arcade.
* Namco's Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours was another title discussed, and it wasn't just some awkward sponsorship like I initially thought, the real event held in Japan was and still is sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company. It was ported to the Super NES under simply Suzuka 8 Hours with no Coca-Cola branding at all for reasons I'm not sure on.
* Grand Prix Star by Jaleco never left arcades.
* B.O.T.S.S.: Battle of the Solar System was another Jaleco arcade game and developed by MicroProse, but it too remained an arcade exclusive.

Maps for Arcana (HAL America) are on the reverse of a poster for UltraBots: Sanction Earth, an upcoming Super NES game by NovaLogic and Data East. For whatever reason, this was never released, with Data East pulling the plug. UltraBots did get a release by Electronic Arts...but only as a DOS exclusive. The rest of the Super NES games of this month consist of "Super Driving Games", a double feature on Seta's F1 ROC: Race of Champions and Kemco's Top Gear, and Krusty's Super Fun House, which was what Acclaim titled Krusty's Fun House on the Super NES and Genesis (and according to Wikipedia, the Amiga and DOS versions as well).

The Player's Poll Contest's Grand Prize is a full arcade cabinet of Street Fighter II: Championship Edition with the runner-up prize being Street Fighter II on the Super NES. The winner also gets a Nintendo Power shirt, er, jersey ("Version 3" as I've called it) though it does it also sheds some light on why the shirts are called jerseys are called shirts despite clearly being shirts...the shirts found in discount stores like Kmart were polyester or a cotton/polyester blends. I don't know when they started just calling them shirts as normal.

So innocent. He probably thinks the Chore Boys sold
in convenience stores are for a need of late-night cleaning products.

Nester's Adventures is RoboCop 3, Power Players, and then Now Playing. Let's see what these two knuckleheads have on the list. So excluding the main features there's Baseball Stars II (Romstar), Casino Kid 2 (Sofel), Defenders of Dynatron City (JVC), Roundball: 2 on 2 Challenge (Mindscape), and Power Punch II which back in Volume 23 was supposed to be Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch. The Game Boy games that didn't get full coverage but were in Now Playing include Pit Fighter (THQ) and Triple A (IGS), while the Super NES games include Space Football: One on One (Triffix) and Spanky's Quest (Natsume).

By this point in time, as Top 20 notes, The Legend of Zelda has been discontinued so most stores didn't carry it new. (Maybe on the used market). It ranks #5 (from #2). Super Mario Bros. 3 is still #1 but the real surprise is Tecmo Super Bowl shooting up to #2 thanks to sales, with Battletoads holding #3 and Mega Man 4 holding #4 like last month. Final Fantasy is back to #6 (from #5), while the Turtles reappear on the Top 10 with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project at #7 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is at #11 and the original is off the list). Dr. Mario improves slightly (#9 to #8), Tetris falls slightly (#7 to #9), and Metroid returns to the Top 10 with #10, so really, only Super Mario Bros. 2 got pushed off again (now at #13).

Super NES still sees the Volume 35 status quo, though Super Castlevania IV snatches the #4 slot from Final Fantasy II (now down to #5). Final Fight is at #6 (up from #7), SimCity is back down to #7 from its time at #5 last month, ActRaiser STILL holds #8, Contra III: The Alien Wars returns to #9 from #11 last month,Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts holds #10, and Pilotwings is off the top 10 again (#9 to #12).

Regarding Game Boy, Metroid II: Return of Samus gets the jump on Super Mario Land with a 2,000 point margin, Battletoads beat Dr. Mario on a tiny margin (less than 100 points), and Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge still holds #5 for falls to #4 (from #3), Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge holds #5 again for the third month in a row, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers climbs to #6 (from #9), Final Fantasy Adventure bumps down to #7 from #6, The Simpsons: Escape from Camp Deadly makes the top 10 at #8 (from #12), Final Fantasy Legend II shoots up to #9 from #19, and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge drops to #10 from #7. The fall of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan pushes it to #16 from #8, while the original Final Fantasy Legend drops to #13 from #10. Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters has dropped to #19. It's curtains for Kid Icarus, we won't see much of him for at least another decade.

Celebrity Player Profile is David Faustino during his time playing Bud Bundy in Married... with Children and around the time attempting to launch a short-lived rap career. (That did happen). Nothing too interesting in Pak Watch, though in the listings, Bio Force Ape is gone and replaced with "Ace Harding: Lost in Las Vegas" (Deja Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas), which was also never released. Screenshots exist and of course it was a port to a game that already existed...but for whatever the NES port never quite materialized. Afterward, the magazine teases Volume 38 to feature Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge '92, Wave Race , and NCAA Basketball. We also learn Player's Guide series has released its fifth title, a full book on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, out now! (You don't have to call the Counselor's Corner hotline!)