As of this writing, I've skipped ahead from Volume 50 (trying to get a spread, see?) and I'll edit it when I get back around to it. By this time, the magazine has gone through a radical change in design and even physical size. In 1996, they even took out the magazine's spine.

Volume 81 is also unique in that it's the only time an arcade game showed up on the cover, with Killer Instinct 2 never making it to Nintendo consoles under that name (it became Killer Instinct Gold, and the port made cover with Volume 91).

So, we open the magazine to have...the infamous toenail clippings ad, part of the "Play It Loud" gross-out era Nintendo. Although that looks like more like toasted coconut shavings than toenails. Moving on.

Top 20, renamed Power Charts a year or two prior, has the Super NES list with the following in the top 10, Donkey Kong 2: Diddy's Kong Quest in the #1 slot (up from #3), then Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island in #2 (up from #5), Donkey Kong Country in #3 (up from #7), Killer Instinct in #4 (down from #1, where it had been since October 1995), Chrono Trigger in #5 (down from #2), The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past holding #6 (a long favorite of the chart), Mortal Kombat 3 in #7 (down from #4), Final Fantasy III in #8 (up from #9), Earthworm Jim 2 in #9 (up from #11), and Super Metroid in #10 (down from #8). While Super Mario Kart still holds a place in Top 20 (at #14), most of the other games that once dominated (besides A Link to the Past, which had held the top 10 almost continuously) had since withered away. There's no Star Fox or Mario Paint or Final Fantasy II or SimCity or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time or Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, which was so powerful for months on end. If you stack it against last month, it was only Secret of Evermore and Earthworm Jim 2 effectively swapping out for a placement in the top 10, and Secret of Evermore still got #11.

For the Game Boy Top 10 (there's only the Top 10), there's Donkey Kong Land at #1 (up from #2), The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening at #2 (down from #1), Tetris (didn't rank last month, but marked as being 40 months on the chart), Killer Instinct (on the Game Boy) at #4 (down from #3), Mortal Kombat 3 (on the Game Boy) at #5 (down from #4), Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 at #6 (down from #5), Donkey Kong reappearing on the chart at #7 ("Donkey Kong '94"), Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins at #8 (down from #7), Metroid II: Return of Samus at #9 (down from #6), and Galaga/Galaxian at #10 (didn't chart last month).

If you look at the actual page, what I don't get is what constitutes "months on the chart". Ignoring the thing saying that there were three months for Super Mario Land 2, that's a typo, I know there was a time when The Legend of Zelda was off the Top 30 but got forgiven, but I don't think Tetris left the top 20 for that long, if at all, as Metroid II: Return of Samus has 50 months but Tetris has 40 months. And that's not counting the pre-Top 20 Game Boy lists. Whatever.

There's also the Virtual Boy Top 5 (which already covers a huge percentage of its library). These are, in order, Wario Land, Galactic Pinball, Mario's Tennis, Nester's Funky Bowling, and Red Alarm. The only movement was that Mario's Tennis went from #4 to #3, and Golf was already thrown out.

I should note that I believe by this time, there were no longer "points" and was determined solely by readers, which kept the lists clear of unreleased titles and third-party trash but presented issues that would be more apparent later.

In the magazine's main features, we start out with an article on Killer Instinct 2 in the arcades, then ten pages on Mega Man X3, going onto MechWarrior 3050, and then Toy Story. I remember Toy Story on the Super NES, that was an unforgiving platformer (not just difficult but not very generous with continues and lives, and no save function either) with some dubious mechanics. They have a lot of maps for this one but they don't have the proper level names. The first level is "That Old Army Game" (not "Toy Deploy"), the second is "Red Alert" (not "Hide and Seek"), the third is "Ego Check" (not "Lighyear's Ahead"), and the boss level is "Nightmare Buzz" (not "Big Buzz"). The second "world" of the game starts with "A Buzz Clip" (not "Crash Course"), then "Revenge of the Toys" (not "Avoid the Toys!"), then "Run Rex, Run" (not "Dino-Might", they don't print a map for this one), "Buzz Battle" (not "Radial Roundup"), "Food and Drink" (not "Fast Food"), "Inside the Claw Machine" (not "Mean Machine"), "Really Inside the Claw Machine" (not "Hello Dolly!"), "The Claw!" (not "Clawber It!"), "Sid's Workbench" (not "Sid's Toys"), but after that the magazine stops it and you have five levels left anyway (including the boss levels).

Classified Information this month covers Killer Instinct, Ogre Battle, X-Kaliber 2097, NBA Live 96, The Ignition Factor, Urban Strike, Batman Forever, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (the "bomb and bow" trick), Judge Dredd (correcting an error from Volume 79), Mario's Tennis (the only Virtual Boy game listed), and NBA Jam Tournament Edition (Game Boy and has a full page). Afterwards, there's six pages on Syndicate (the Ocean-published game ported from the 1993 Bullfrog Productions title for DOS and Amiga). "Donkey Kong Country 2: Cranky's Greatest Tips" follows as a special feature. (If you're really going for 102%, just buy the Player's Guide, there's no need to torment yourself like this by grinding for extra lives). The poster for this month is Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run stuck near the start of Epic Center. Epic Center, among other things, talks about a forum thread on Nintendo Power's America Online presence with an interactive Metroid-themed story going on (probably way outdated even by the time the magazine got to the mailbox), eight pages for Breath of Fire II, four pages for Dragon Quest VI even though it wouldn't be localized until 2011 with a Nintendo DS remake (I'm sure that by that time there was a translation patch floating around for emulators), and two pages for Secret of Evermore tips.

Counselor's Corner discusses the last four red coins in World 1-7 of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, the "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy" level. The level is annoying but the last of the red coins are in a well-hidden spot. I had to look it up when I played. The other one is about defeating one of the bosses. The other games covered are Rise of the Phoenix, Secret of Evermore, and Donkey Kong Land.

Immediately following this is the only Virtual Boy game this month (no Game Boy coverage this month), Nester's Funky Bowling, a North American exclusive title bringing the defunct mascot Nester back from the grave. Sort of. I can't fit this on the page, but look at the JARRING difference between old-school Nester and how he appears in-game. The game also also introduces Hester, Nester's twin sister...who has never appeared in the comics but just looks a lot like Nester wearing a skirt. Anyway, this wasn't even Nester's first outing in a Nintendo game, he appeared in NES Play Action Football as an announcer, and there he actually looked like Nester instead of some bastardized Calvin.

"Titus Returns" is the next feature. Apparently, Titus Interactive had hit some hard times the previous year or so before and mostly stopped production of games, but good sales of their back catalog allowed development to continue (they only released ONE title in 1995, Virtua Chess for DOS). This section covers Prehistorik Man, Ardy Lightfoot, and Sink or Swim, with both Ardy Lightfoot and Prehistorik Man gotten more coverage in previous issues (the former in Volume 70, the latter in Volume 73). "The Sports Scene" section covers PGA European Tour (Black Pearl), the Game Boy version of NBA Live 96, and FIFA Soccer 96 (also for Game Boy). There's Arena (Power Player's Challenge was renamed to Arena a few years ago), and finally Now Playing.

There's some poor editing in this month's Now Playing, but the SNES games this month are Ardy Lightfoot (Titus), MechWarrior 3050 (Activision), Mega Man X3 (Capcom), PGA European Tour (Black Pearl), Prehistorik Man (Titus), Sink or Swim (Titus), Syndicate (Ocean—written as "The Syndicate"), and Toy Story (Disney Interactive). Game Boy games are NBA Live 96 (Black Pearl) and NFL Quarterback Club '96 (American Sammy), with the Virtual Boy titles being Jack Bros. and Nester's Funky Bowling (Nintendo). Despite having poor editing itself, the magazine questions Jack Bros.' localization (questioning "fairies on Halloween") probably not realizing that it was supposed to be "demons", which later games would localize correctly without censorship. Now Playing also covers the XBAND modem, which sits awkwardly on top of the SNES as a pass-through device. Unfortunately, few games were compatible with it, it was released too late in the SNES's lifespan to make a big difference, and by the time this magazine made to subscribers the service was about 18 months away from being taken offline.

Pak Watch talks about the Nintendo 64, some Game Boy ports of existing titles, and a few other games, with nothing beyond winter 1996 (the N64 is not on the list), except for Bound High for Virtual Boy (listed as "undecided"). If you really wanted to play Bound High on the Virtual Boy, it would be a much longer wait.

The Player's Poll Contest, now at the end of the magazine at this time is themed to Toy Story. The Grand Prize winner gets to travel to the greater Los Angeles area to visit Disney Interactive, get a trip to Disneyland, $250 to spend on Disneyland gifts, and a copy of Toy Story for Super NES. The second prize winners get a 13" talking Buzz Lightyear figure, the game, and $100 worth of Disney toys. The third prize, just a t-shirt (because I'm currently jumping ahead from Volume 50, I'm not sure how many iterations they've had).

The next issue, Volume 82, features Super Mario RPG. I'll probably re-edit this page when I come around to it again when I do the rest...

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