Part of this magazine's review was written back in 2024, but everything has been greatly updated and expanded since, especially keeping in mind the magazine's evolution over time.

Still priced at $3.50 for a newsstand copy, the January 1994 issue of Nintendo Power featured Mega Man X on the cover, with the subscription version of this magazine featuring a silvery outer cover, perhaps distracting from the fact that for the first time since Volume 7 they changed the font used for the "main game". The Fandom article for Volume 55 explains that the new font is "Chairdrobe Black" as opposed to "Dynamo Bold Condensed".This is also the last issue in which the cover used the "Dynamo Bold Condensed" font for the "cover story" game's title, which had been in use since Volume 7. The covers would switch to using the "Chairdrobe Black" font for 1994. The 1994 updates for the magazine aren't too dramatic compared to revamps in years past, though this is only a breather before 1995, 1996, and beyond. In the listing of the magazines staff this month, George Sinfield has quietly returned from leaving for T*HQ but the magazine has admitted that no one liked George & Rob's Now Playing anyway. George will stick around for the next decade and a few years more (seems he left when Future took over).

After Player's Pulse we jump straight into the cover feature, Mega Man X. (I never played Mega Man as a kid but was confused why Mega Man went from Mega Man 8 to Mega Man X. Mega Man 9 seemed to finally fill that gap until 2010's Mega Man 10...what a mess!) In addition to Mega Man X, the other strategy pages included stuff on Flashback, Claymates, Soldiers of Fortune, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, and Super Solitaire. The back side of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters's strategy (the Super NES version, the NES version was covered last month) had a poster for Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage. Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage would make cover this month, and in recent issues covered this time around (I upload my magazine reviews a few at a time each month), the poster one month to poster next month has been accurate enough to note, with the posters for Volume 53, Volume 55, and Volume 56 making cover the very next month. It's too unreliable to make a prediction based on especially as some of these posters come in earlier in development than what's actually released (notably, Volume 37 featured Ultrabots, which was axed before released).

Classified Information still features a graphic of Shuju Imai's Nester at the bottom as usual, but that's all you'll see of him in 1994. The games in Classified Information this month are WWF Royal Rumble, Final Fight 2, The Ren & Stimpy Show: Veediots!, Super Strike Eagle, Super Star Wars, ActRaiser 2, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, Mighty Final Fight, Super Spy Hunter, and the original Metroid. There aren't any Game Boy games if you don't include the password bonus section to celebrate the new year (Rock 'n Roll Racing, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, ActRaiser 2, Aladdin, Fire 'n Ice, and Mega Man IV (Game Boy). Mario returns with another "Mario vs. Wario" comic similar to Volume 44. It's only eight pages but it's fun.

The most interesting feature of the main magazine was "Only in Japan", a showcase of Japanese-only titles. 20 games were mentioned, which was a big deal as for some of these information was extremely scarce. The magazine misnames a few, but there's a few of note:
Going over a few of these titles:
- The Game Boy title they call "Bar Code Battle" talks about the novel concept of scanning standard UPC bar codes, but the Barcode Battler had already been released in America (and flopped). This was actually the Barcode Boy Set 2 by Namco, and the game was Monster Maker: Barcode Saga.
- "Legend of the Fire Emblem" (likely Fire Emblem Gaiden was compared to what we'd know as WRPGs today. It would be another decade before the Fire Emblem series showed up in the West.
- Mother makes its first notable appearance in Nintendo Power since around Volume 18. They do mention that Mother, titled as "Earthbound", was to be released in the U.S. but cancelled on account of low sales of Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest). While the translated game was of course found and dumped on the Internet in the late 1990s ("EarthBound Zero"), it wouldn't be until 2015 when Nintendo officially released it as "EarthBound Beginnings". I don't call it that. It's Mother to me. They also mention the sequel was in development but wasn't sure if it would come stateside (but more on EarthBound another time).
- Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! was listed as "Dragon Ballz II". Calling DBZ "Dragon Ballz" is considered highly offensive to the wrong people. You might as well use a racial slur...but what's even stranger is that they did right back in Volume 38. They mentioned that the same artist that did Dragon Warrior characters did DBZ, that would be, of course, the late Akira Toriyama (Toriyama was also known for Chrono Trigger, but that was still over a year away). Outside of an obscure subbed version only shown in Hawaii later in 1994, the DBZ anime wouldn't premier in the West until 1996, and then not gain much traction until Cartoon Network aired reruns of Funimation's dubs in 1998 and ordered more.
- Dragon Quest V (listed as "Dragon Warrior V") is shown, which was not localized after its 1992 release, and with Enix America Corporation's closure, the NES game Dragon Warrior IV would be the last Dragon Quest game to be localized for a long time.
- The "other" Final Fantasy titles were mentioned. Of note that "Final Fantasy III" was supposed to originally be Final Fantasy V (not VI), which is corroborated by Wikipedia. It would not receive a North American release until 1999 as part of Final Fantasy Anthology on the PlayStation.

Beyond these, the other games covered include Famicom titles America Daitōryō Senkyo (translated as "United States Presidential Race", and called "U.S. Presidential Election" by the magazine), Dezaemon ("The Game Designer"), Otogirisō ("Mystery Novel"), Mindseeker, America Ōdan Ultra Quiz ("Ultra Quiz Across America"), and Shin Onigashima (translated as "Famicom Folk Tale: New Demon Island" and called "New Demon Island" by the magazine). Game Boy has 3-Fun Yosō Umaban Club ("Off to the Races"), with Super Famicom (Super NES) having Pachinko Wars II ("Pachinko") and Shin Momotarō Densetsu ("Momotaro Densetsu II"). Getting into the subscriber extra part of the magazine ("Super Power Club"), there's a (pull-out booklet?) list of every Super NES game released up to that point plus the ones expected sometime later in 1994. I haven't been paying too close attention to what was skipped over. I don't think they talked about Musya: The Classic Japanese Tale of Horror, released last year, nor The Great Waldo Search. There were four "Stare-O-Grams" depicting Mario, Luigi, a Goomba, and Yoshi, respectively.

"The Top Titles of 1993" will probably end up being the nominees for the Nintendo Power Awards as they did last year, at least most of them. For the Super NES, these titles included (in order) Star Fox, Super Mario All-Stars, Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Mortal Kombat, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, The Lost Vikings, Batman Returns, Secret of Mana, and Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!. Game Boy games include The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Mega Man IV, Darkwing Duck, Rampart, and Kirby's Pinball Land, while the NES list has Mega Man 6, Battletoads & Double Dragon, Kirby's Adventure, Jurassic Park, and Yoshi's Cookie. Aladdin might have been too new to earn a spot on the list, but despite getting a cover feature, The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt didn't even make honorable mention.

Elsewhere in the section, there's an article on how sound on the Super NES works and the people that make it, be back, don't worry) along with the "Top 20 Sound Tracks" of the Super NES. They put The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past first, Final Fantasy II third, and my boy Plok 9th, below Super Mario World. Rock 'n Roll Racing gets #2, which is a travesty. Not that it sounds particularly terrible, per se, but that was what you were looking for, then Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (released back in 1990) would've trounced all of them. On the other hand, the game they gave #4, ClayFighter, has a fully-sampled main theme with voices (impressive for the time), which the Genesis version didn't.

There's some previews for the new titles coming in 1994, including Super Metroid, NBA Jam, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, and Wario Land (released as Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3).

That's it for the subscriber-exclusive features, so after one more Super NES game (the Super NES port of Battletoads & Double Dragon), the Game Boy section begins with Batman: The Animated Series and the Turtles' third Game Boy adventure, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue. Will it make the Game Boy lists...? There's also Tetris 2 for the Game Boy covered.

The NES section is still kicking, this time with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2, but that's it. At this point, NES coverage is going to be smaller and smaller and will be gone by January 1995.

Counselor's Corner has a new logo with some tips on Shadowrun, The 7th Saga, and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

The Player's Poll Contest was themed to Super Off Road: The Baja and spending a day with Ivan Stewart and crew at the Baja 500 in Mexico. (At least he won that year.) The grand prize winner gets to "take home of one of Stewart's racing helmets" (in addition to Super Off Road: The Baja, of course) but the second prize winner gets an official Axo Driver's Helmet autographed by Stewart. Guess the winner gets a scuffed-up, used one that smells like vinegar and the second-prize winner gets a new helmet. They do have a new (Nester-less) jersey, er, t-shirt, featuring Mario as the third prize. For future reference this will be "Version 4 for '94" in future issues.

Top 20 (another apperance of Nester) continues the "shake-up" trend of last month. Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II Turbo take the first two slots of the Super NES charts. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past climbs back to #3 (from #4) but it's still over 20,800 points behind Mortal Kombat and 9,000 points behind Street Fighter II Turbo. Super Mario All-Stars takes #4 (down from #3), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is #5 (up from #7), Star Fox is #6 (down from #5), Super Mario Kart is #7 (down from #6), Final Fantasy II is #8 (up from #9), Mega Man X premiers at #9 and Mario Paint holds #10. Other games to mention is that Aladdin has dropped to #12 (from #8), F-Zero still holds #13, SimCity dropped to #15, Super Mario World dropped to #16, and Secret of Mana appears to be gone again (as is Bubsy).

For months at this point, the Game Boy list has been duking it out with Mario and Samus, with Kirby and Link joining the fight as old stand-by Tetris stays near (but never at) the top. Now, Mortal Kombat has moved from #9 to #3. The final list is The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening at #1, increasing its lead against #2 Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins with the same margin (around 2,000 points) putting Mortal Kombat in third. Kirby's Dream Land takes #4, Metroid II: Return of Samus takes #5, edging Super Mario Land (fallen to #6 from #3) by just over 100 points, pushing Super Mario Land from the top 5 for the first time in a long time, possibly ever. See Samus, you CAN beat Super Mario Land. Tetris is now #7 (from #6), Jurassic Park moved from #7 to #8, Faceball 2000 is now #9 (from #11), and Final Fantasy Legend III is at #10 (from #8). Mega Man IV was pushed from #10 to #12.

Very little action in the NES charts this month. Super Mario Bros. 3 is #1 (from #2), The Legend of Zelda is #2 (from #1), Kirby's Adventure holds #3, Tecmo Super Bowl is #4 (up from #5), Jurassic Park is #5 (down from #4), Metroid is #6 (up from #7), Mega Man 5 is #7 (up from #9), Final Fantasy is #8 (down from #6), Monopoly re-premiers at #9 (must be really high sales from a budget re-release), and Battletoads & Double Dragon return to top 10 (#12 to #10). Also to note, Mario Man 6 dropped from #8 to off the list, and Dragon Warrior IV also disappeared. Dr. Mario is at #15, stalwart Mega Man 2 is at #16, and Tetris is #17.

Now Playing once again boasts a strong list in the Super NES category. ABC Monday Night Football (Data East), The Adventures of Dr. Franken (DTMC), Asterix (Electro Brain), Battletoads & Double Dragon (Tradewest), Bebe's Kids (Mandingo), Beethoven's Second (Hi-Tech Expressions), Captain America and the Avengers (Mindscape), Claymates (Interplay), Flashback (U.S. Gold), Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3-D (Electro Brain), Last Action Hero (Sony Imagesoft), The Lawnmower Man (T*HQ), Mega Man X (Capcom), Metal Marines (Namco), Sengoku (Data East), Soldiers of Fortune (Spectrum HoloByte), Super Battletank 2 (Absolute), Super Solitaire (Extreme), T2: The Arcade Game (Acclaim), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Konami) while NES just has Asterix (Electro Brain), Cliffhanger (Sony Imagesoft), and Last Action Hero (Sony Imagesoft). Game Boy has Asterix (Electro Brain), Batman: The Animated Series (Konami), Battletoads & Double Dragon (Tradewest), Popeye 2 (Activision), Tetris 2 (Nintendo), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (Konami).

A few notes as far as these go...

* Bebe's Kids would be discussed in Volume 100 as the worst Nintendo title of all time, and play control is rancid, but it doesn't score lower than 2.2 in that category (or any others).
* The Lawnmower Man has Storm listed as a co-publisher. They published the title in Europe.
* Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3-D does in fact include 3D glasses.

Pak Watch is nothing too interesting. FX Trax has been renamed as Stunt Race FX, Zoda's Revenge, the sequel to StarTropics finally appears after over 30 issues ago when it was first discussed. It's not in the "coming soon" list, but it is on the "next issue" page, which was redesigned. The magazine also included the Super Power Supplies catalog for 1994 (which I don't have at the moment) for subscribers and those pogs, as well as more Super Power Club cards.

As of this writing, I don't have anything written up for Volume 57 yet (wait a month!) but you can see some future issues that I previously reviewed.

Written September 10, 2026

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