Exor's Dungeon - Magazine Reviews - Nintendo Power Volume 46

Volume 46 is March 1993 and the cover feature is another Super NES title, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!, the first game based on the Fox Kids series to be on the Super NES. In Player's Pulse, someone asks how to be a Game Counselor, the same thing that someone asked back in Volume 10. They talked about that you should be able to explain complex game strategies among the requirements...but again, you need to have good phone skills. If you're the type to play video games and your phone experience is limited to friends and getting delivery, probably not. There's a recap of the contest winner from Volume 33, seeing Space Shuttle Atlantis take off in Florida. The contest winner was from Houston, ironically where Mission Control is located, though the museum component Space Center Houston didn't open until 1994.

Player's Pulse also mentions Video & Arcade Top 10, a Canadian video game show, though despite until 2006, it was only in the Canadian market.

Super NES opens with a preview on Star Fox, the new game by Argonaut and Nintendo and showing off what the Super FX chip inside the cartridge could do. There's also coverage for Super Strike Eagle, Super Conflict, Wayne's World, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! (with a poster for Taz-Mania on the back), and King Arthur's World. It seems that now the formula is Nester's Adventures before the last SNES game (Wing Commander this month).

Classified Information this month covers Wing Commander, Prince of Persia (SNES version), Sküljagger: Revolt of the Westicans, Pilotwings, Pac-Man (Game Boy version), Top Gun: The Second Mission, Smash T.V. (NES version), Super Spy Hunter, and Power Punch II.

The Star Fox comic follows this. The Game Boy games follow with Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise. Just as the first Adventure Island for the Game Boy was essentially the NES Adventure Island II, this title is essentially the NES Adventure Island III, and the Nintendo Power admits that from the start. There's also Milon's Secret Castle, which had a NES release that Nintendo Power barely talked about. The Empire Strikes Back is another NES-to-Game Boy port covered in this section and they recommend the maps from Volume 34. This isn't a continuation of that strategy, it's essentially a two-page discussion.

For Counselor's Corner this month, there's questions for Super Star Wars, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Mega Man 5, and King's Quest V. Going back up to the question about wanting to become a Game Counselor, they certainly pick some eccentric personalities. For Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, we have the unfortunate-looking Shannon O'Neil, while Andy Frickel looks like he belongs in a 1980s movie, either the cruel bully or the dim-witted but lovable comedy relief character.

The NES games start with Alien³ with maps for the first four levels, Dragon Warrior IV with six pages. After so much press Nintendo Power gave the Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior series in the early years, Dragon Warrior IV would basically be curtains on the series domestically. Dragon Quest V had been released in Japan by that point, but Enix America blamed the non-release on "programming problems". There's two pages on Mickey's Safari in Letterland, an educational title for younger gamers (made by Hi-Tech Expressions rather than Capcom, notably), and Widget (based on the animated series).

There was that developer profile with Sculptured Software a while back that sadly never became a recurring feature, but this month, there's an article titled "What's So Hot About Capcom?" that has, among other information, a list going back to 1984 listing every title Capcom has made for arcade, Game Boy, NES, and Super NES.

After that, it's time for the 5th annual Nintendo Power Awards. This is also where the monthly contest is, with 25 games of YOUR choice (any system, though subject to availability). After recapping some of the previous winners, a lot of it carries over from the previous year with "Best Graphics & Sound", "Best Challenge", "Best Theme & Fun", and "Best Play Control" being the same as last year. The shared categories include Best Hero (this wasn't done for 1991), "Best (Worst?) Villain" (renamed from "Best Overall Villain"), Most Innovative Game (same as last year), and "Best Sports Game". This used to be Best Multi-Player Simultaneous and most of the nominees (and winners) were sports games anyway. Like last year, the Best Overall category is split between three systems with seven candidates each. For the Super NES, these games are Contra III: The Alien Wars, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Mario Paint, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Mario Kart, Super Star Wars, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time. It was a pared-down list of the "Top 10 Games of 1991" from a few issues ago (Out of this World, NCAA Basketball, and Road Runner's Death Valley Rally, the last three, did not make the list). It doesn't hold quite true for the Game Boy's candidates. Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break made Volume 44's #4, but didn't get in. Nor did Gradius: The Interstellar Assault (#5), Track & Field (#6). Instead, Kirby's Dream Land, which was #7, is nominated. Yoshi is the fourth game neglected from the list and that got replaced with Virgin Games' Prince of Persia. Still, the other games listed (Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Mega Man II, Bionic Commando, Batman: Return of the Joker, and Looney Tunes) did. The NES games are almost completely different with only some overlap—Darkwing Duck, Dragon Warrior IV, The Empire Strikes Back, Krusty's Fun House, Mega Man 4, Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project.

Speaking of lists, the Top 20 is next. In the SNES list, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior continues to take the Super NES lead with a margin of 5,000 points but Super Mario Kart takes #2 with a margin of 33 points just edging out The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which is knocked to third. Mario Paint holds #4, NCAA Basketball holds #5, Final Fantasy II goes from #9 to #6, Super Mario World drops to #7 (from #6), F-Zero holds #8, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse rises from #20 to #9, and Road Runner's Death Valley Rally rises from #18 to #10. I'm guessing that these games were actually released now, which is why they go up so much. Super Star Wars is off the Top 10 (#7 to #11) as is SimCity (#10 to #13). I have a good feeling that SimCity will not recover.

For Game Boy, Metroid II: Return of Samus may have bested Super Mario Land (now at #4 from #2) but doesn't hold a candle to Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins which commands a lead with 12,000 points. Kirby's Dream Land goes from #4 to #3. Tetris, FaceBall 2000, and Dr. Mario hold #5, #6, and #7 respectively, but #8 goes to Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (it was previously #14 last month), Battletoads is back on the top 10 (#11 to #9) and 1991's classic F-1 Race is at #10 (from #17). It used to be on the top 10 but I can't remember when. The classics returning meant that The Simpsons: Escape from Camp Deadly is off the top 10 (#8 to #14), Final Fantasy Adventure (#9 to #19), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan going from #10 to #16.

Finally, the NES section is still Tecmo Super Bowl taking #1, though takes the spot by just 210 points against Super Mario Bros. 3. The Legend of Zelda continues to hold #3. Battletoads fights for the top 5 (from #9 to #4). Mega Man 4 drops to #5 from #4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project holds #6 as it has since January 1992. Final Fantasy dropped from #5 to #8, Metroid returns to the top 10 (#19 to #7), Tetris is back to the top 10 (#11 to #9), and Dr. Mario as well (#15 to #10). The three that had to drop off the list were Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (#7 to #14), Super Mario Bros. 2 (#10 to #15), and Mega Man 5 (#8 to off the list...only one Mega Man game in the Top 10 this time).

Because it was a preview, Star Fox isn't in Now Playing. (Mixing strategy and preview articles would continue. I think this is the first time this has happened.) The Super NES games this month are Brawl Bros. (Jaleco), King Arthur's World (Jaleco), Super Conflict (Vik Tokai), Super Strike Eagle (MicroProse), Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! (Konami), Ultimate Fighter (Culture Brain), Wayne's World (T*HQ), and Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (Hi-Tech Expressions). Didn't Konami port the NES version...? Ah well.

Game Boy games this issue are Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise (Hudson Soft), The Empire Strikes Back (Capcom), Krusty's Fun House (Acclaim), Milon's Secret Castle (Hudson Soft), Sumo Fighter (DTMC), TaleSpin (Capcom), and Tumblepop (Data East).

NES games includeAlien³ (LJN), Break Time (FCI), Dragon Warrior IV (Enix), Kid Klown in Night Mayor World (Kemco), Lethal Weapon (Ocean), Mickey's Safari in Letterland (Hi-Tech Expressions), and The Terminator (Mindscape). Widget wasn't reviewed or scored.

Kid Klown in Night Mayor World, besides having the awkward "Kid Klown's klan" phrasing ("KKK? That's not good") was actually the third Crazy Castle game. The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle and The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 had been released (the former for NES and Game Boy, the latter a Game Boy exclusive) but in Japan the themes were different. The NES version (FDS version there) was Roger Rabbit, with the Game Boy version of the first game being Mickey Mouse and the Game Boy-exclusive second title being Mickey Mouse II. The third game was a NES exclusive but instead of being "The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 3" (they couldn't get the Mickey Mouse license when it was localized) and released as Mickey Mouse III: Balloon Dreams in Japan became an original character-based game instead...meanwhile, in Kid Klown in Crazy Chase, Kid Klown looks completely different and has a different backstory. Making matters more confusing is that Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle 3 was released in the late 1990s, but that was a port of a later title. More on the crazy story of Crazy Castle later.

Pak Watch opens with Battletoads in Battlemaniacs for Super NES, though it would never make much of an impact as their NES debut. Mario is Missing is announced for the NES and Super NES, marking the first time that Mario had been licensed out to another company. Its listed as being made by The Software Toolworks. Like I mentioned back in Volume 18 Mindscape had been acquired by The Software Toolworks, and TST used it for almost everything they put out for Nintendo (hence, referring to games published by Mindscape). The release of Mario is Missing for Super NES and NES (and Mario's Time Machine) would be the first time The Software Toolworks used their own name in a long time. In 1994, Pearson would buy The Software Toolworks and make the change to Mindscape permanent. Also in this section, the preview for Superman (the SNES game) makes reference to the ongoing Death of Superman storyline.

Pak Watch also contains two pages on the Winter CES. Some notes from reading this...
* The Game Boy "Zelda IV" gets a name...The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. This of course would be Game Boy's best title for the next five years.
* They mention Mick and Mack, which I assume was Global Gladiators...which never got a Super NES release. It doesn't look like a SNES version was planned, though.
* There's a title by LucasArts called Monsters, which they dedicated more time to than any other title. (Flash forward...see Volume 48).
* Tradewest and Rare also announce another NES game (though would ultimately release on a bunch of systems), Battletoads & Double Dragon. We'll see more of that later.
* Happily Ever After is mentioned again. It first showed up way back in Volume 16. One of the reasons it had been delayed for so long is that Filmation kept missing the film release dates (see that article I linked back in Volume 16).
* There's a picture of a "Goomba" from the Super Mario Bros. movie to be released later that year. They'll likely talk about that soon...
* They talk about Ubi Soft's Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade for NES, which is an oddity in the NES category as it is not to be confused with a game with the same title by Taito from 1991 (how did Nintendo allow this?!) with Ubi Soft promising Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis, which presumably was NOT going to be based directly on the graphic adventure game but rather an original title...and I can't find any MENTION of it online, not even as an unreleased title...at least as of this writing anyway!

Finally, "Nintendo Teams Up with Kellogg's" looks like an advertisement (there was a Kellogg's ad last issue) but this is actually listed as a full article!

The next issue covers Star Fox with others, of course (also listed: Kid Dracula, DuckTales 2, and Yoshi's Cookie).

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