In his post yesterday, @bozz mentioned an issue of Nintendo Power. When I was a kid, I was a subscriber. What a great magazine.
It gave tips on and reviews of all the popular NES and SNES games. It was preceded by the Nintendo Fun Club newsletter, which was game tips only and completely free. It became so popular that Nintendo eventually couldn’t keep it free, at which point it morphed into Nintendo Power.
I didn’t get my NES until after the Nintendo Fun Club era had already passed, so I missed that one. But I started my Nintendo Power subscription around issue 8 and stayed a loyal subscriber right through college. By that point I had a pretty sizable collection.
When I moved to Japan, all of those magazines were packed up in boxes and put in my parents’ basement. I honestly have no idea whether they’re still there or whether they were long ago thrown out.
BUT — the internet doth provide!
That site has not only every Nintendo Power issue (it ran for 24 years) scanned cleanly and packaged as CBR files, but also other early gaming magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, and many, many more.
What’s easy to forget now is just how important magazines like these once were. There was no YouTube, no walkthrough sites, no wikis, no datamining. If a game had a hidden mechanic, a secret ending, or an impossibly obscure trick, you either figured it out yourself, heard about it on the playground, or waited for a magazine to explain it months later. These publications didn’t just review games — they mediated the entire gaming culture of the time.
While digital scans can’t possibly replace the feeling of flipping through a physical magazine, it’s still wonderful to have access to all of these again. Paging through them brings back an avalanche of memories. The ads, layouts, artwork, even the writing style of the time.
Anyway, if you’re like me and have fond memories of video game magazines from this era, enjoy the archive.
[Title image created by ChatGPT. Man, if not for that unfortunate butchering of the Mario 2 NES cover, this would almost be the perfect image.]
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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |