Exor's Dungeon - Magazine Reviews - Nintendo Power Volume 47

We open Nintendo Power (the actual content part, that is) to the latest in video game technology, the Super FX chip, and the game showcasing it...Star Fox. No, not the new Switch 2 title, the ORIGINAL Star Fox with the nonsense chirping from your crew (link). It's also the cover feature. Apparently whoever drew the cover interpreted the boots of Fox McCloud (and by extension, his crew) as having metal limbs, which has persisted to this day and often using this cover as proof. 12 pages of Star Fox content are here.

Next, similar to how Volume 44 did a roundup of sports games, "Super Fighting Games" has five games, covering one page each (plus the index, that equals to six games), the games being Brawl Brothers, Doomsday Warrior, Fatal Fury, Street Combat, and Ultimate Fighter. Next up is scrolling shooter Pocky & Rocky. FCI's SimEarth (originally released by Maxis for computers a year or two prior) gets two pages. Congo's Caper gets more, but it's because it's the reverse side of the poster for the upcoming Battletoads & Double Dragon. Nester's Adventures (Star Fox) is before the last Super NES game of the month, Super Black Bass, and then it's off to Classified Information, where there's stuff for Q*Bert 3, SimCity, Sküljagger: Revolt of the Westicans, Avenging Spirit, Ninja Boy, James Bond Jr., and Might & Magic.

There's part 3 of the Star Fox comic, then Game Boy games starting with Kid Dracula, then Joe & Mac, then Top Rank Tennis (published by Nintendo), and The New Chessmaster, published by Hi-Tech Expressions rather than The Software Toolworks/Mindscape.

No Game Boy titles in Counselor's Corner today, it's just Krusty's Super Fun House, Out of this World, Might & Magic (with maps!), and King's Quest V.

In Power Player's Challenge, there's a few people who completed The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with zero or one life...which is a little unfair to most people because it counts saving and restarting as a life lost, so it's basically "leave the SNES on" sort of thing like what you had to do with NES games that did not have battery backup.

The NES games cover DuckTales 2, Yoshi's Cookie, and two pages of Kid Klown in Night Mayor World (which was in Now Playing last month). Between DuckTales 2 and Yoshi's Cookie there was a six-page article on Koei ("The Koei Connection") and its strategy games.

The Player's Poll Contest was that you got to go to Los Angeles to "the exclusive four-day Rollerblade camp" and "Score your own Rollerblade Lightning TRS in-line skates and a complete set of protective gear" but not the actual video game which the runners-up got, which was Rollerblade Racer (for the NES), along with Rollerblade Lightning TRS in-line skates and "complete sets of protective gear, including helmets, wrist guards, knee pads, and elbow pads". And then there are the Nintendo Power...jerseys again (make up your mind!). It's the same design as what they've been doing for a while. Almost 50 issues in and they've only had three designs.

The Top 20 sees Street Fighter II: The World Warrior increase its margin to 7,000 points while The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past regains its #2 spot by margin of less than 1,000 points over Super Mario Kart which took #2 last month. Star Fox debuts at #4, pushing Mario Paint to #5, which pushes NCAA Basketball to #6. NHLPA Hockey debuts on the list at #7, with #8 going to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time which rose from #15 to be on the top 10 again. Super Mario World drops further (#7 to #9), and John Madden's Football '93 takes #10 (wow, so many sports games!). Those games probably won't stay on the list for too much longer, meanwhile the ones kicked off the top 10 were Final Fantasy II (#6 to #14), F-Zero (#8 to #12), The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse back to #19 (it was #20 two months ago, but #9 last month), and Road Runner's Death Valley Rally (#10 to #13). SimCity is at #20 now.

Metroid II: Return of Samus still plays second fiddle to Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins like last month with Mario getting an even bigger margin than before. Tetris, that old standby, takes #3 (from #5 last month). Super Mario Land falls from #3 to #4 (not a problem with the new game) and Dr. Mario goes from #7 to #5. Game Boy's Mega Man III goes from #20 to #6, FaceBall 2000 falls slightly (#6 to #7), Kirby's Dream Land drops from #3 to #8, Battletoads holds #9, and The Simpsons: Escape from Camp Deadly gets back on the top 10 (#14 to #10). That means Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge is off again (#8 to #15) as is F-1 Race (#10 to #13).

While Mario is enjoying his time in the sun in the Game Boy list, Tecmo Super Bowl also has increased its lead against Super Mario Bros. 3, besting it yet again. There are three Mega Man titles in the NES list this time on the top 10 starting with Mega Man 5 re-premiering at #4 and Mega Man 4 at #6 (from #5). Mega Man 3 is also at #10 (previously at #11). Final Fantasy improves from #8 to #5, Battletoads drops from #4 to #7, Tetris improves slightly (#9 to #8), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project, which had held #6 since January 1992 drops to #9. With the two Mega Man games on the list, Dr. Mario went from #10 to #11 (off the list), as did Metroid (back to #19), below Maniac Mansion which resurfaced yet again at #18. Of course, #3 goes to The Legend of Zelda for the fourth month in a row.

Under Now Playing, the titles this month for Super NES include Battle Grand Prix (Hudson Soft), Cool World (Ocean), Doomsday Warrior (Renovation), Fatal Fury (Takara), Mech Warrior (Activision), Pocky & Rocky (Natsume), SimEarth (FCI), Star Fox (Nintendo), Street Combat (Irem), Super Black Bass (Hot-B), Super NBA Basketball (Tecmo), and Vegas Stakes (Nintendo). Super NBA Basketball was listed but didn't get a review. The Game Boy games include Joe & Mac (Data East), Kid Dracula (Konami), Lethal Weapon (Ocean), The New Chessmaster (Hi-Tech Expressions), Ring Rage (Taito), and Top Rank Tennis (Nintendo). Finally, the NES titles are DuckTales 2 (Capcom), Kid Klown in Night Mayor World (Kemco), Yoshi's Cookie (Nintendo), and Hit the Ice (Taito). Obviously Kid Klown didn't get a paragraph as it got covered last month.

Pak Watch's main curiosity this month is mentioning that Yoshi's Cookie on the Super NES will be done by BPS (Bullet-Proof Software), due to a rights issue, with the short version being that it's a rebranded version of a puzzle title that BPS had already been working on before Nintendo bought the rights for the Game Boy and NES (Hermetica). That's about it for this issue. Kind of felt like a letdown, but oh well. Better luck next month.

Return to Main Page | Return to Magazines Index | Contact Me