Exor's Dungeon - Magazine Reviews - Nintendo Power Volume 58

Nintendo Power's 58th issue (March 1994) is the first with Wario on the cover (who wouldn't get another cover feature until Volume 212, over a decade away), and the first Game Boy title to appear since Volume 50.

While the "Sports Scene" section appeared last month and earlier than it was supposed to, today's "Sports Scene" is a "Sports Scene Extra" solely on NBA Jam, which is written very differently than your typical article on a single game, but after that, the usual Super NES coverage resumes. The next is a few pages on Wolfenstein 3D. It's censored from its original PC version with green blood, replacing dogs with rats, and has B.J. Blazkowicz fires at soldiers of the "Master State" and the ultimate boss, Staatmeister, who is "definitely not" Adolf Hitler, just like how Bionic Commando's final boss, Master-D, was "definitely not" Adolf Hitler either.

Next is a preview (four pages) on Stunt Race FX, though it will get a cover feature in Volume 63. After that, unusually, the coverage for the latest Consumer Electronics Show has its own article instead of being a part of Pak Watch as it normally is. (As they would later make separate articles for E3 events, it's not THAT unheard of, but this is the first time I really remember them doing this). There's not a whole lot of mind-blowing information here since most of the games were released. There are a few notes I did take:
* A Shaquille O'Neal-themed fighting game is discussed, tentatively titled Shaq Attaq, which we now know as Shaq Fu, one of the most notoriously bad Super NES games.
* Electronic Arts was also showing off another title, Jordan's Adventure, which was ultimately Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City.
* Spectrum HoloByte and Microprose are one company at this point, but both sides have different games, with Microprose promising a Super NES version of Civilization (which was released).
* Absolute purchased Extreme, but the wheels would start to fall off the company by the end of the year. The "most exciting products in the works at Absolute", Rise of the Robots would ultimately be published by Acclaim, while Extreme's Warrior of Rome III never would see the light of day.
* Citadel (no, not that one) was being developed by Electro Brain (actually, developed by Argonaut, the developer of Star Fox) as the first third-party Super FX game. It would be released as Vortex later that year.
* Kemco shows off Crazy Klown, which would become Kid Klown in Crazy Chase. It would be a reboot for Kid Klown's character (see Volume 46).
* It's been talked about before (see Volume 51, but Konami announced Batman: The Animated Series for the Super NES, which was released as The Adventures of Batman & Robin in December 1994).
* Activision's Radical Rex is shown off. The game was a port/remake of Beam Software's Baby T-Rex, Beam Software's shovelware title that had numerous licenses slapped on it. For the U.S., that would be We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. (The SNES version was discussed in Nintendo Power a few issues back, but not the Game Boy version, at least, not yet).

After that it's R-Type III, with some maps on the reverse side of a poster for Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, which would get a cover feature the very next month. Metal Marines and The Flintstones: The Treasure of Sierra Madrock wrap up the rest of the Super NES games covered this month. An article on video game colleges comes up next; at the time these were exclusive to Japan, though DigiPen had launched in Canada and was to do a collaboration with Nintendo around this time. Still, though, while you might not get into video games, in early 1994, if you actually knew stuff about computers beyond being able to navigate a spreadsheet (and even navigating a spreadsheet wasn't bad money), that basically got you admitted into a well-paying job by itself. Classified Information had a full page on Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, with the other Super NES games covered this month being Battle Blaze, SimAnt, First Samurai, Rock 'N Roll Racing, Super Scope 6, and Super Mario All-Stars. Classified Information discusses the Screen Warp bug of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The magazine warned that it "may not work on future of the game". The 1.1 revision of the game fixed it, but it was in 1.2 for some reason. It's not in the DX version. image 52: This isn't canon (the proportions...or the stirrups), but it was also in the Player's Guide.

We have the second part of the Super Metroid comic next.

Counselor's Corner has questions on Super Mario All-Stars with some of the hidden exits in the Super Mario Bros. component. If you didn't want to shell out the eighteen bucks for the Super Mario All-Stars Player's Guide, there's still How to Win at Super Mario Bros. available by mail order. Counselor's Corner has questions regarding The 7th Saga, Dungeon Master, Mega Man IV (Game Boy), and a condensed walkthrough for the original StarTropics.

After Power Player's Challenge we finally get to Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 with sixteen pages of maps and strategy, before covering the second part of Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II.

While they were still called "the Nesters" in the "next issue" last month, Nester barely appears at all in likeness or name. Once again, "Best Graphics & Sound", "Best Challenge", "Best Theme & Fun", and "Best Play Control" were brought over from last year and the years before that, as well as bringing back the shared categories, Best Hero, Best Villain (renamed from "Best (Worst?) Villain"), Most Innovative Game, and Best Sports Game. As I predicted, the titles in the Super NES category were taken from a few issues ago, with the nominees being 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, and Secret of Mana. (Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! and Batman Returns didn't make it).

There were seven Game Boy nominees, but only five listed in Volume 56, and of the ones in Volume 56, neither Darkwing Duck nor Rampart were inducted. Instead, the choices are the three that survived the cuts, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Mega Man IV, and Kirby's Pinball Land, along with Mega Man III, Felix the Cat, Yoshi's Cookie, and Kid Dracula.

The NES nominees carries over Mega Man 5, Battletoads & Double Dragon, Kirby's Adventure, and Yoshi's Cookie while leaving out Jurassic Park. It does, however, include DuckTales 2 and Fire 'N Ice.

Send in your nominations and you just might win 25 SNES games of your choice...or a random SNES game...or a Nintendo Power shirt (Version 4 for '94).

Mortal Kombat holds #1 for the fourth month in a row in the Super NES Top 20, while The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past finally got the jump on Street Fighter II Turbo (#2 last month)...if Star Fox hadn't leapt back to #2, keeping Zelda at #3 but moving Street Fighter II Turbo to #4. Aladdin (aka Disney's Aladdin) flies from #18 to #5, Jurassic Park holds #6, Super Mario All-Stars is now in #7 (as opposed to #4), Secret of Mana holds #8 (will it ever crack the top 5?), Super Mario Kart drops to #9 (from #7), and Madden NFL '94 premiers at #10. This throws Mario Paint off the list, tumbling from #9 to #15, with none of the 1991 titles appearing at all (except for Final Fantasy II).

In Game Boy's category, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening holds a safe #1 to #2 Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins once more but Mortal Kombat falls from third to eighth, allowing Kirby's Dream Land to advance to the top three. The other games in the top 10 here are Super Mario Land (#4, up from #6), Tetris (holding #5), Metroid II: Return of Samus at #6 (up from #7), Jurassic Park (#8 to #7), Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 premiering at #9, and Kirby's Pinball Land moving from #16 to #10. Bumped off the top 10 is Final Fantasy Adventure (#9 to #16) and Dr. Mario (#10 to #11). I should also note that they put Metroid II: Return of Samus as Metroid II: Samus Returns, not to be confused with Metroid II's 2017 remake, Metroid: Samus Returns, with early Game Boy title Golf at #18 (F-1 Race was on the list last month, seems these classics keep selling).

Tetris 2 tops the list for the NES games. It was #3 last month, and switches places with The Legend of Zelda while Super Mario Bros. 3 holds #2. Other than that we have Kirby's Adventure (#4, hold), Mega Man 6 (#5, new to the list), Jurassic Park (#6, up from #8), Tecmo Super Bowl (#7, down from #5), Final Fantasy (#8, down from #6), Dr. Mario (#9, up from #11), and Baseball Stars (#10, down from #9). The ones off the top 10 this month include Metroid (#11, down from #7) and Battletoads (#14, down from #10).

No NES games appear in Now Playing this month for the first time (they have not yet reviewed Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II) and not the last. Going through the list, we have Romance of the Three Kingdoms III (Koei...why are SNES games so expensive? $74.95 in 1994 dollars?), NBA Jam (Acclaim), Undercover Cops (Irem...basically a Final Fight clone), The Ren & Stimpy Show: Fire Dogs (T*HQ), The Peace Keepers (Jaleco...the first fighting game to use the Multi-tap), Legend (Seika...original property, not a port or licensed), Obitus (Bullet-Proof Software), Lost Mission (Vic Tokai), Andre Agassi Tennis (TecMagik), Wolfenstein 3D (Imagineer...they do note as a negative that the game is censored from the PC version to "omit some objectionable material"), The Flintstones: The Treasure of Sierra Madrock (Taito), Metal Marines (Namco), Chester Cheetah: Wild, Wild Quest (Kaneko), Lethal Enforcers (Konami), The Untouchables (Ocean), Super Goal 2 (Jaleco), Champions World Class Soccer (Acclaim), R-Type III (Irem), Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom (Capcom), and Wheel of Fortune Deluxe Edition (GameTek). Continuing to the Game Boy games, there's Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (Nintendo), Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade (Ubi Soft...see Volume 52), Total Carnage (Malibu Games), and the Game Boy version of Zool (GameTek, Super NES version covered last issue).

Pak Watch is a companion to the CES article. Given full sections are Super Metroid, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics, Impossible Mission 2025, Super Pinball: Behind the Mask, Time Trax, Sound Fantasy, and Donkey Kong '94 (that was the tentative name and still the colloquial name but was just Donkey Kong on release). Mr. Nutz and Soccer Kid share a section. Both were released in the United States, though the latter was named The Adventures of Kid Kleets. Pak Watch mostly reiterates the CES section, talking more about Shaq Attaq (wait, here they call it "Shaq Attack"), Spectre from Gametek (with its new Cybersoft label, more on that later), and talking more about recent M&As in the game industry like Extreme Entertainment getting bought by Absolute, or Microprose getting bought by Spectrum HoloByte. Both of these were disasters, Absolute would go bankrupt in short order, its games in development for the Super NES being some of the last ones they'd make, and Spectrum HoloByte would consolidate under the MicroProse name within a few years, before being bought by Hasbro Interactive in 1998. Overall, the "Future Games" list isn't too exciting (except for Super Metroid and Stunt Race FX) though by the end of the year the Super NES will have more wind in its sails.

Next up: Volume 59 featuring Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.

Written October 4, 2026

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