Topic: R.I.P. Nintendo Power (1988-2012)

[Rew]

As Jon alluded to in an earlier post, this week we were met with the news of Nintendo Power's impending demise. And since the entire premise of this website has the old magazine and the maps therein as its inspiration, I think this is pretty big news for all of us VGMaps.com goers.

I suppose I sort of have mixed feelings on the announcement myself. For one, I'm surprised it hasn't happened much sooner. In the era of GameFAQs, VGMaps, and online walkthroughs, it's actually rather impressive that NP has survived all the way to 2012. As superfluous as the magazine has become in recent years, it's almost held on more out of tradition and sentiment than anything else.

But it's very sad. Having been born in 1980 myself, I'm old enough to have experienced NP from its inception all the way on. I wasn't a subscriber in the beginning, though. I ended up using my weekly allowance to start a subscription in 1991 (maybe 1990?) and not only got the monthly issues, but back then NP had a really neat back issue order program too, so I started collecting backward too. I don't recall if I collected all the way back to Volume 1 from July/August 1988 or not, but I wasn't far off, I know that.

My best NP memories are from 1992, the entire year. For that year (when the Super NES was still brand new), NP ran a comic strip story based on both Super Mario World and A Link to the Past in all twelve issues. I got so into it that I would literally wait out by my mailbox in the desperate hope that the mailman was bringing that month's issue of Nintendo Power that day. I think because of this, even now there's this subconscious part of my brain that gets really excited whenever I see a mail truck, even today (despite the fact that nowadays the mail brings me bills more often than anything else!). Back then, I would go so far as to ask the mailman if he was sure that was everything for our house if the day's mail didn't include my NP issue.

I also really loved the Super Metroid comics they later ran, even though it didn't go a whole year as the Mario and Zelda ones did.

Anyway, at some point we ended up cancelling my subscription to Nintendo Power, either when I was in eighth or possibly ninth grade. So perhaps 1994 or (at the latest) 1995? Once I entered high school, my video game interest seemed to dwindle down to nothing. (I think Yoshi's Island, released my ninth grade year, was the last game I played for a very long time.) Sadly, I not only cancelled the subscription, but even later, having believed myself to have outgrown video games, I threw out all my NP issues. =/

Yes, I still rather regret that decision to this day. But I was a very erstwhile teenager, what can I say?

Oh, and I had collected a veritable library of those early Nintendo player's guides too. NES Atlas, Mario Mania, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid. In some ways, those were even better than the regular issues!

Anyway, even when I became addicted to gaming again in 2006, I never renewed my subscription--it was a bit pointless by then of course, due to the aforementioned GameFAQs. I still even now collect the occasional strategy guide (Prima nowadays, since NP let go of those in 2007).

Out of little more than sentiment, I have been keeping up with NP, occasionally thumbing through an issue when I see one in the stores. I'm also very keen on looking online to see what the cover for the next issue will look like. Hell, one day I put together a document listing the covers of all 200+ issues, from 1988 to the present! It's been interesting watching the progression from those old vintage clay model covers to the schnazzy computer art of today.

But now there will definitely be an end. Volume 285 will be the last issue, December 2012. So I suppose the Mayans were right after all--except they weren't counting down to the end of the world, just the end of Nintendo Power magazine.

[TerraEsperZ]

I remember when I first received the Mega Man 2 issue as a promotional thing for being a subscriber to Power Flash Nintendo (a small newsletter with tips from Mattel Canada). I couldn't read much English at the time but I was amazed at having so much content to go through. I subscribed the following year during the free Dragon Warrior giveaway offer and kept renewing for several years until a bit before the N64 came out.

It's weird to think that despite getting the magazine for so long, I never owned more than a simple NES with like, 5 games until the Wii came out. In the pre-Internet days, Nintendo Power was *the* place to get any worthwhile news about all the games and systems, and while I wasn't much of a paying customer, all those 50+ issues I had made me dream quite a bit.

I also need to mention all the incredible maps they included in every issue. Whether they were assembled from screenshots or hand-drawn, they ignited and fueled a passion for making screenshot maps of my own that has endured to this very day. Heck, it's a bigger passion that actually *playing* games most of the times sadly.

[JonLeung]

I've finally had a chance to look at the issue.  How sad that it's over.  I almost wonder how many more recent subscribers would appreciate the fact that most of the issue is a recap of the past.  And why is the last page an ad for Tank! Tank! Tank!, which (if I recall correctly) was the worst-reviewed Wii U launch game in the issue?  They should have added two more pages, to have a classier back page...and to bring it up to exactly 100 pages, which early issues always had.

I could reminisce about the best days of Nintendo Power, and my favorite features of it (maps, for one ), but I've done that more than enough before.

I will say though that times have certainly changed.  With the Internet, and its increasing ubiquitousness in our lives due to tablets and smartphones, information is so easily accessible almost anywhere and so the value of any singular piece of information is so little.  Back in the late '80s and early '90s, before the Internet was accessible to us common folk, we really valued the monthly doses of Nintendo information - straight from the pros, they said.  And at the time there were few magazines dedicated to video games, and here's one that was directly affiliated with Nintendo themselves, while they were on the top of the video game world!

I feel like I should dig my old issues out from the basement, especially 1991-1994.  Though I have found digital copies of earlier issues, if I see physical copies of the 1988 to 1990 issues available on eBay in good condition, maybe I'll scoop those up too.  That particular time period was awesome.  NES, and then Game Boy and Super NES.  The particular artwork, the comics, lots of maps (since it's the pre-polygonal era), and the era of good games...and just of simpler times in general.

ScrewAttack's list of the Top Ten Reasons We Love Nintendo Power surprised me when the Classified Information didn't appear at the top of the list, but at seeing what the #1 reason is, I agreed with that statement.  (Classified Information still should have been higher, though.  )

And now Nintendo Force is coming out.  We'll see how it is.  They admit they're not Nintendo Power - who can be? - but they say they're going to be the spiritual successor in every way possible.  So that's one way to get your fix.

I guess we can't go back to 1991.  But at least it's cool to know that I'm not the only one who remembers and loves Nintendo Power, and I still have those issues so I can still get at least a glimpse of what it was like to be 10/11-years-old.

Bye, Nintendo Power.    *sniff*  (You young'uns wouldn't understand...)