My Favorite Magazine

I’m going to get sentimental today. A lot of people have a favorite toy or movie from their childhood. I have a favorite magazine. This isn’t just a magazine that I generally liked, it’s my favorite issue of my favorite magazine and, more specifically, my favorite issue of any magazine.

First, the magazine: Nintendo Power. Pretty self-explanatory, the magazine for all things Nintendo. It doesn’t exist anymore but I subscribed to it for a much of the 90’s (even though I rarely had many of the games they covered−I guess it was cheaper to read about games than own them).

My favorite issue of Nintendo Power was January 1994, volume 56, with Mega Man X on the cover. It was a limited edition “bonus issue” with a thick silver cover that had Mega Man etched into it. Mega Man has always been one of my favorite game franchises and this was the beginning of the new X series. See, this would be the first Mega Man game for the Super Nintendo after years of them coming out on the original Nintendo/Game Boy and back then I guess video game makers needed to explain huge leaps in the quality of graphics by setting the sequels 100 years in the future. There was just no other way to explain why the old games looked like crap!

So we have one of my favorite games from one of my favorite franchises from my favorite magazine. I was eight when this magazine came out and I would carry it around like a notebook or a teddy bear. I remember bringing it over my cousins’ house when I was being babysat, multiple times! I brought it over enough times that one of my cousins, who was younger than me, would ask me why I always carried it around. I was obsessed. The binding is partially held together with tape.

I still possess the magazine and I recently brought it out of hiding to take a peak at what made it so great (especially looking back on it 24 years later). Here are some of my favorite things I discovered while going through it:

• The first page has an ad with copy that says, “Get A Friend Into Something Besides Trouble. Get them into the Nintendo Power Super Power Club and you’ll pick-up 4 Super Power Stamps! All they need to do is fill out this form.” A time when we filled out forms on paper and mailed them in! Also, collecting stamps for rewards! (I did this with bags of Doritos in high school.)
• The next page has another ad that says, “Game Boy…take it anywhere!” with a guy snowboarding with a Game Boy in his hand. Video games you can take anywhere! Crazy.
• Player’s Pulse: The letters section where people would write in to the magazine! The most spectacular part was that people would use colored pencils to decorate the envelopes with really intricate artwork.
• The issue came with Mega Man X Pogs! These Pogs are, sadly, long lost to time. Fun fact: Even though at one point I played with Pogs, I did not realize that generically they are called “milk caps.”
• The magazine’s coverage of Mega Man X included maps of levels all the levels I could fairly easily beat. They covered the first two-thirds of the game with no help for that final third, the hardest section. I needed help on the final boss and I wasn’t going to get it. I still love this issue.
• Of the handful of games they covered, Super Solitaire was chosen as one of them. Owning this game for Super Nintendo would have made me so sad (and I own Mario Is Missing).
• Classified Information: The cheat codes section of the magazine. People would mail in tips for them to publish. The internet has completely eliminated the need for this. Magazines have a finite size, internet does not.
• There was a comic of Mario and Wario each competing for a kiss from Princess Peach. It got me, I thought Mario would win handily but it turned out that Luigi got the kiss. What a twist!
• Only in Japan: an official feature where they cruelly went over the games people in America would never get to play. Mother was among these games, which would eventually be sold in the US…nine years later!
• The issue came with an insert called the Power Index which was printed on newsprint in the middle of the magazine. I’ll let Nintendo Power explain it: “The Power Index is the ultimate Super NES quick reference. All the Super NES games that have been released, plus many of the games that are coming out in the first half of 1994, have been listed here along with their vital stats.” Vital stats being the Game Name, Company, Release Date, Player Info (if it was one or two players), and Game Save (if you could save the game and if you needed passwords to save or if it was saved by battery). So, basically, a list of games.
• There were several Magic Eye puzzles. I still don’t know how to do these.
• A snippet of information about Bubsy, the often hated goofball video game character.
• Counselors’ Corner: People would ask questions about a game and an expert would answer them. For example, one person asked about the game The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, “How do I get rid of the ghost that’s following me?” You ask questions by writing or calling them. Imagine getting stuck on a game and waiting at least a month on advice?
• Power Player’s Challenge: They would ask readers to take part in monthly challenges. These would typically be something like, “What is your high score in Dr. Mario?” They then asked people to take a photo of the screen and send them to the magazine. There are photo instructions. For film cameras. Gah!

Sadly, this relic of it’s time is no longer around, though there is some good news: Nintendo Power is a podcast now! It’s pretty good, so check that out if it’s your thing. Also, this blog has it’s own podcast now called, You Don’t Have to Listen to This Podcast, and I’m not going to be so overtly plugging it most weeks but this week it’s me going through the entire issue of Nintendo Power discussed above in real-time. I think it came out pretty good, so give it a listen!