We’re continuing on with the Nintendo Power recaps with issue #45 for February 1993. Of note in the letters in this issue is one calling for the SNES getting Final Fantasy III, which they say we’ll get it as an adaptation of Final Fantasy V (sort of, we get Final Fantasy VI instead).

Cybernator Guide

Konami has a new mecha action game, and this is the guide for it. We get a map for the first stage, as well as notes and boss strategies for stages 2, 3, and four. Reading this, and seeing the plot summary – this feels like a Gundam game based on the original series. It’s probably not a Gundam game, but I suspect the plot similarities are deliberate for Japanese audiences.

Harley’s Humongous Adventure Guide

This is a platformer with a miniature (as in Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids) bent. We get maps for stages one through 4, plus a couple of notes for stage 5.

Wing Commander Guide

Being that this is a fairly complex space sim for a home console, this guide spend most of its time explaining the controls and giving strategies for dog-fighting, over giving mission-specific guides, which is nice. In particular, the game appears to account for micro-gravity to a certain extent.

Jeopardy Guide

The SNES is getting a new Jeopardy game. We really don’t need a strategy guide for this.

The Addams Family: Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt Guide

We get maps of all of levels 1 through 5. This game doesn’t look so hot though, so I’m not too impressed by it.

Worst. Nester. Comic. Ever.

Nester’s Adventures

This issue the game is Sonic Blast Man and there no hints of any kind here. No, seriously – nothing.

Aerobiz Guide

Koei’s business simulator is getting a guide. The guide gives advice for the first 3 quarters of the business year, as well as general pieces of late-game advice, such as stopping airline service to Iran when war breaks out between Iran and Iraq, and keeping an eye out for new airplanes going on the market.

Unsung Heroes of the NES

This is not a precursor to the “Real Men of Genius†commercials. Instead this is meant, I guess, to be some sort of “inside baseball†article discussing the promotion of video games, and what can lead to a game’s success, with examples from games that were featured in Nintendo Power but didn’t do well – some of which were even Quality Control picks, like Metal Storm.

Starfox Comic

There is a new comic for one of the SNES’s biggest titles. In the comic, Fox McCloud is, basically, running a sort of Robin Hood meets Captain Harlock space piracy operation. The art looks pretty good.

Game Boy Coverage

First up is some coverage of Darkwing Duck. Essentially, this is a port of the NES game for the Game Boy. We get notes for each of the game’s levels. We get notes for the first 3 acts of Spot: The Cool Adventure, but not much more than that. For Alien 3, we don’t get any level specific notes, instead getting some notes on navigating the game’s environments. For Ren & Stimpy there are some notes for the first 3 acts and that’s it. There are also some basic notes for Rampart and The Little Mermaid.

Zen: Intergalactic Ninja Guide

So, this is sort of like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Ninja Gaiden meets Captain Planet, in that you’re a ninja fighting evil polluters. We get maps of the side-scrolling levels but not the isometric levels.

Bomberman II Guide

Due to the way the game works, we get strategies for beating enemies (both in single and multi-player) instead of maps and walkthroughs.

Tiny Toon Adventures 2 Guide

We get maps of the Log Ride, Roller Coaster, and Bumper Cars stages, as well as notes for the Train stage.

Eon Man Guide

This is a superhero game with a plot involving time travel, and doesn’t involve Booster Gold. We get maps of the first 3 stages.

Top 20

Street Fighter II retains the top spot on the SNES, and Super Mario Land retains the top spot on the Game Boy. However, on the NES, the #1 spot has changed again, this time replaced with Tecmo Super Bowl.

Now Playing

Of note in the also-rans this issue is a port of Dragon’s Lair for the SNES that’s been turned into a platformer. The Game Boy has a port of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and the NES has Ultima: Warriors of Destiny.

Pak Watch

The notable upcoming titles this issue include Mechwarrior, Starfox and Shadowrun.

My Quality Control pick for this issue is Cybernator. I’m interested in seeing how closely it hews to the Gundam series.

Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read

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