Nintendo Power Issue #1 - July/August 1988
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Episode 48 - The premiere issue of Nintendo Power, from the summer of 1988. Nintendo had been sending out a free newsletter, the Nintendo Fun Club News, to registered Nintendo owners. But in the summer 0f 1988, they made the shift to a full-blown, Nintendo-centric magazine. Nintendo Power was available on the news stands for $3.50, or a 6-issue, 1-year subscription could be purchased for $15. In this first issue of the magazine, such NES classic as Super Mario Bros. 2, Contra, and Double Dragon are covered in-depth, along with previews of upcoming games like Marble Madness and Gun.Smoke.
For many gamers of my generation, this was the first magazine we ever owned. As such, its iconic status really can't be over-stated. I personally never had a subscription to Nintendo Power because we just didn't have the money, but I often read my best friend's issues and to this day the nostalgia pours off of each page.
Show notes:
This is the first episode of the show in which I used a 2-camera setup. I think this helps break things up visually and makes the show more interesting. The second camera also gives me "someone" to talk to when I'm relating personal anecdotes about the games being discussed.
I have wanted to do a read-through of this issue since I got the idea to do these magazine videos, but wanted to wait until I thought I had the hang of it well enough. Based on how this episode turned out, I'm glad that I waited.
Portions of this episode were recorded on three separate days, but I always put the same shirt back on, to maintain continuity.
All the usual crapola that no one reads:
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All video game footage featured on Classic Gaming Quarterly is recorded from actual game hardware, unless otherwise noted. As of episode 35, it is recorded in RGB using an XRGB Mini Framemeister and an Elgato Game Capture HD. Prior to that, it was recorded in s-video using am RGB to s-video encoder and a DVD recorder. All videos are edited on a Mac Pro using Final Cut Pro X.
Most box art featured in CGQ videos comes from The Cover Project (www.thecoverproject.net). Check them out for all of your video game insert needs. Other box art and magazine scans come from Matt Henzel Video Game Obsession (www.videogameobsession.com). Many, many other photos appear thanks to Wikimedia Commons and Evan Amos.
Theme music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod: (www.smartsound.com/royalty-free-music/incompetech)
#CGQuarterly #LetsRead
I've gotta be _that_ guy lol, that's Wart on the cover, not Bowser. The first Nintendo Power was about Mario 2 USA, not Mario 1 or 3! I'm assuming that was just a Freudian slip though.
Was thinking the same thing lol
Dangit, there always has to be a mistake in every episode! The slip wasn't Freudian, but it was obviously an incorrect comment. That's what happens when you speak off-the-cuff for an hour, though. Anyway, pinning your comment in the hopes that it mitigates similar ones from others.
Classic Gaming Quarterly don't worry about it man, it happens to everybody! Plus, not like Wart really matters all that much in the grand scheme of Mario lol, can't blame you for mixing him up!
Critical Unity Why you so critical, Unity? :P
Why does Wart get no love anymore? I'm thinking he should've been in Smash Bros/Mario Kart long ago.
The quality of this upload is awesome both in content and picture. Thanks a lot, Chris.
Words cant express how much i love this channel.
Thanks, Soup. I really appreciate that.
Just found your channel, seen it recommended before but there's so many retro game channels, but I'm glad I gave it a shot this time, your very thorough, other channels would make this a 6-8 minute video, which is fine, but I prefer your take on it. Nice work, look forward to going through your content. Have a great day everyone.
The golden age man. The 2600, ColecoVision, and NES were my main reasons for getting into the video game industry. Thanks for these. I still remember buying this issue at Caldors.
First off, as a 35 year old gamer I LOVE your videos. Definitely brings me back.
Second, Zelda second quest didn't just move where dungeons and secrets were. The dungeons were all very different (and more difficult).
Yea i remember it being way way harder.
80’s babies in the house 😎
I was gonna say if you’re 35 how the hell could you remember this?..Then I seen that this comment was 5yrs ago..lol..
(A part of me is secretly wishing on a star in the sky that CGQ goes through this level of detail and explanation of all 285 issues of Nintendo Power)
+Unknown That would be pretty fun, actually.
Then it's agreed
Actually I know that would be quite a daunting task, but man it would be awesome to go back through each of them. I was a subscriber to NP from day one and bought every guide they produced that didn't come as part of a resubscribe package. The best bonus to subscribing, at least in my opinion, was the Dragon Warrior promo. So in a nutshell, I owned everything they ever put out (that I know of). Unfortunately like so many other things from my childhood I wished I had taken better care of, my collection went into a large (and heavy might I add) cardboard box that was eventually tossed into a dumpster of a Domino's Pizza lol. "They were just vidja game magazines, you'll live!"- my grandad. The horror...
Yesss, at least the NES issues☺
As usual another fantastic video. Really took me back!
I found this amazing . I’m a retro-games lover from Argentina, and these things are totally unseen and unique. Thanks:)
This is one of the best videos I have ever seen here on you tube related to magazines. Thank you for the hour of pure entertainment and information. I am looking forward for more of these videos :-)
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
All the dungeons in the Zelda 1 Second Quest were completely new. And believe me when I say they were much more difficult. Also, the glowing skulls that you can't skill that take your sword away for a few seconds were split into 2 different enemies, a solid red version and a solid blue version. The Red ones would take your sword away forever until you could find a blue one somewhere to give it back. It made those things so dangerous to get hit by.
Loved the video! Can't wait for the next Nintendo Power issue video
When you talk about the page with films on it (the peewee herman photo) You say how its fun to get a sense of what was popular at the time, I completely understand that statement. I collect issues of Fangoria and Famous Monsters (Horror Magazines) And its fun because you get the same effect. Great video by the way!
Great job. Enjoyed this episode!
I love "let's read episodes" you have the best ones. I always look forward to your new episodes. Keep up the good work.
I really enjoyed this. It really took me back to see some of this, and the quality of the video was fantastic. I hope you look at more issues.
wow I remember bases loaded, I used to play that game when I was a kid, good times, bring me back a lot of memories, nice video.
I wasn't sure if this would work; looking through a magazine on video. Now I'm sure it does :)
Great execution. Great channel!
Thanks!
Hey, thanks a bunch!
Please do more videos like this. So fun to look back at this stuff from our childhood. You do a great job
Huge Labour of Love put into this video. Really appreciate the memories and incorporating your memories along with it.
Yep, I've seen people question at how Nintendo felt that The Lost Levels was "too hard and similar" to the first game and I just concluded that Nintendo of America was just being extremely careful and conscious of Mario's reputation. Having Mario's reputation damaged would probably mean they'd lose the hit they were building up since the recent video game crash had made many people hesitant to buy more games, so from that point of view, it made sense.
I really enjoyed this video man! The effort put into this is MUCH appreciated!
Dude this is such a great idea! Its like a time capsule to that year! I hope you do every issue 🤤
Nintendo power was basically one big instruction manual and I loved it!! Thank u for this would love to see more videos like this
these vids are great. You have a great soothing voice and all the nostalgia is great. I remember getting this magazine when i became a member of Club Nintendo.
I could listen to you all day, really nice throwbacks and nostalgia going on in my head - subbed :D
Great breakdown, dude. This is the kind of content that makes TH-cam so awesome.
Thanks! Coincidentally, I'm actually editing the read-through of Nintendo Power Issue #2 right now.
Find these really interesting/nostalgic, thanks for sharing.
Great episode. I also read "Console Wars" earlier this year and second your recommendation. So cool to go back and read all about the behind the scenes action of the Video Game Wars.
Loved this video format. I appreciate you taking the effort to add all the gameplay footage throughout to explain what's going on in the magazine page. It's funny how a lot of us had so many shared memories about Nintendo Power and gaming on the NES. Stallone's face in Rambo is classic. The movie reviews in the magazine I don't remember! My mom trashed all of my Nintendo Powers, so I can't read them these days. Thanks for sharing the premiere issue!
Awesome video thanks! You make the videos as long as you need. I didn't mind it being a longer video at all. I would watch a 4 hour magazine read through lol.
What a treat - a piece of video game history. Thank you for sharing!
It was a really relaxing and entertaining hour listening to you! Awesome video, thanks for all the hard work on that episode.
Simply awesome! I just found maybe around 3 years of the earliest issues of my old NP. Turns out I didn't read even half as a kid. This video is so timely for me.
What a great video. I read this magazine over and over waiting for SMB2 to be released. I also received it as a fun club member, and actually had my name printed in a later version by sending in a polaroid of a game I'd finished.
Please please do more of these :)
I had Nintendo Fun Club as well as Nintendo Power (including this issue). Your camera is such high definition. Excellent audio. You do a wonderful job on your videos. I appreciate your efforts.
Thinking back, Super Mario 2 has to be my ultra favorite game for the NES.
Ita great
Love these magazine reads. Thanks.
I will never forget this, seeing this brings back so many memories
Love the video. Awesome job. Thorough coverage.
The first cover was designed and produced by the dudes that did the Raisinettes commercials back in the day. the singing, dancing raisins dudes.
The "California Raisins".
They also did the very trippy and underrated film "The Adventures of Mark Twain" and the "Claymation Christmas Celebration" special, which is a Christmas Eve tradition for me.
Will Mistretta is that the one where they constantly butcher "wasseling" with "waffleing"? LOL
Did you hear that through the grapevine?
Really enjoy the two camera set up man. Feels like we are actually checking out the magazine with you, hope there is more Nintendo Power in the future!
Glad you liked it! I am definitely going to keep using the 2-camera deal. I think it makes the viewer feel more involved, but it also gives me "someone" to talk to when I'm telling a story or explaining something. Makes these mag reads a lot better, in my opinion. There will definitely be more NP.
Getting those in the mail was a highlight bro.
Fighting golf is one of my favorite games. It was the first 4 player game i had ever played, so me, my brothers and my dad could all play at once. I still play it to this day
mike all never got into it, but I'm gonna give it another try!
The nostalgia and quality of this channel is perfect.
Nicely done! Very enjoyable episode! You did come across the Official Nintendo Player's Guide so that was nice. Keep up the very good work!
My brother and I received a free copy of Dragon Warrior just for subscribing to Nintendo Power. Loved that game!
Daniel R Same here .But when I received it in the mail I threw the game out .Never liked the game ..Looking back , I wished I would of kept the game . I would of enjoyed and appreciated the game .What was I thinking ..
Worst game ever. How did you ever play that? 😱
Probably already mentioned. But the artist is Will Vinton. It's claymation. Same guy who did the California Raisins. He was prolific in 80's/early 90's.
This is a great episode. I remember reading this Mario 2 issue a lot in a school and even getting caught once or twice, haha. It brings back great memories.
This video was awesome. Thank you. Please do more
You totally missed a chance to talk about Dragon Power. The game wasn't good, but, it was based on the Dragon Ball manga and cartoon which was not known about in the States. Just a cool tidbit that they decided to release the game here.
I'm 32 years old. My family used to call them both "cassettes" and "tapes", but once I started to mature as a gamer I got familiar with the terminology.
Wow, whatever camera you're using in yourself looks really good, like extremely sharp.
Also love this inaugural issue of NP. So many great memories.
Nice! I remember getting that issue at a local Safeway! I was 11, and amazed by the graphics shown in the screenshots of Super Mario 2. I got an NES for Christmas that year! Great memories!
Your videos are amazing
Very nice video. I was never a very skilled player when I was a kid either, I beat very few games and I think that’s why I probably ended up getting out of gaming for the last 25 yrs or so. I’m making up for that now in my forties. I just finally beat Castlevania this morning as a matter of fact. Rediscovering gaming in middle age has been awesome.
Thanks for doing this series.
I was fortunate enough to be a fun club news subscriber prior to the NP inception so when I received issue #1 for free I was floored! So much detail, so many pictures and by then I had been struggling through Zelda's 2nd quest so it was great to receive some tips. I immediately convinced my parents to subscribe for me and walked home from school eagerly anticipating each new issue when the two months had gone by. Would today be the day the new issue arrived? I couldn't get home fast enough to find out. The gory volume 2 cover featuring Simon's Quest cemented my love of the magazine. Thanks for the flashback. Glad I still have all my old mags.
Wow, what a trip down memory lane. Thanks! I had this issue.. I remember all the artwork.. I spent so much time reading it and rereading it. =D And I eventually had all of those games. I had no idea about the chip shortage. I was a lucky Contra owner. Bionic Command forever! That was one of the greatest games ever.. luckily I had it as a child.
All this Mario Brothers 2 talk makes me want to throw a rutabaga at somebody
Miles Packer Ha!
Double Dragon was soooooooo hard I remeber phoning the helpline asking how to beat the final boss
Thanks for an awesome video. I remember Zelda being on the top 30 list for years and no other game lasting that long. They even acknowledged this at some point in the magazine.
Miyamoto has said that Doki Doki Panic had a lot of elements that he wanted to put into a Mario game anyways.
It's a Mario game. No one cared back then. No one questioned anything. Everyone loved this game. It was only when it became common knowledge on the internet, and all these tool bags started turning their nose up at it for irrationally stupid reasons in videos and articles that other sheep started taking that opinion.
Same experience. I didn't know until much later, sometime in the 2000s, that Mario 2 was created off of another game.
All I knew as a kid was that it was different, but I only played Super Mario Bros before that, so to me it didn't mean anything except for more options, powerups, and levels.
Also, gaming was different back then. Quality and content weren't as emphasized as challenge. Were you the kid who could claim you beat that game at school? To me, that was the big buzz and how games were designed.
Agreed. We loved mario 2 when it came out. And it was critically acclaimed.
Thanks, that was great trip down memory lane. I was really a fan of the mag and wish I had my old copies, still. I remember how sad I was when we moved and they sent two issues to the old house, even though I'd called or written to change my address.
Life Force was another one of those great games I played with the same friend after school.
What an excellent channel you run. Thank you for your videos.
Thanks, bud.
Glad to see your channel's growing! Keep up the good work!
+ShadowFox37 Thanks!
This is really awesome! I wasn't sure how this would go, but... I hope you've more of a collection of NP for future episodes :)
I do, but I would like to try to do them in order, and I am missing the next few issues. So right now I am trying to get my hands on NP issue #2. I have other magazines to do videos on, though. I like to jump around. Anyway, glad you liked it!
Right on man, no rush. I'm a bit indifferent with long commentaries here on TH-cam. I joined the channel because of your superb job via classic console retrospects. But I'll check out your other read-a-longs. Keep doing what you're doing!
Fantastic video, thanks for posting!
Love these videos please keep them coming
I know I'm late to the comment section but I love this video. Great reminder of a time when I was at my happiest. Still miss Nintendo power
Really enjoyed this episode
Finally got a copy today, long overdue, thanks for showing off the book
great job !! really enjoyed this video
I love this episode & I watch it all the time. I framed my original issue for my game room wall.
Thank you for another great video!
YES YES YES !!!! this is amazing , love this so much ! bonus its an hour long. I can't even tell how you i enjoy your magazine videos. Whats the next one ? GamePro , EGM ?
When I was younger, I sent out for that players poll contest not thinking I would win anything. A couple months later, I received one of those Nintendo Power jerseys in the mail. I completely freaked out and wore it all the time. I later outgrew it and sold the damn thing at one of our family garage sales. With only 50 being out there, it would be priceless today. My name was listed in a later NP issue along with the others winners I believe. I have few regrets in life, but selling that jersey is one I have trouble letting go. lol
+Ken Murawski That sucks, but at the time none of us thought that this stuff would be collectible down the road...
Classic Gaming Quarterly wish i kept my Original gameboy
yeah, I remember when some people would call their games "tapes". That was usually a dead giveaway that they were casuals, and by that I mean that their library of games was usually a handful of real stinkers. Tapes was more used for cassette or VCR tapes, at least in my vocabulary at the time. Great video. I remembered every turn of the page like it was yesterday. I think I was 12. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
great episode. love watching these!
As a kid I would have taken a Nintendo Power magazine even over a playboy, at least until I was probably 15 or 16. Loved that magazine and it was the source for cheat codes and tips since the internet just wasn't around. Truly can't stress how much I enjoyed this magazine as a kid. I would put it in my school books during class and read and reread it again and again.
Same here
Great stuff, man. I love your channel.
Wow great memories when i had these magazines back when i was 12 years old. Before the internet we just had Nintendo Power for tips and tricks. Great videos keep up the good work 😀👍🏼
$5,000 in 1988 equals $10,460.66 in 2017.
I was wondering how stupid is this ... a dude reviewing magazines ... instantly hooked ... good shit man love your channel
i love ur channel.u deserve millions of subscribers
great episode well done!
As a kid I also chose Luigi most of the time. After a couple years, I found myself choosing Toad exclusively. Now I just use Mario.
Space Harrier I just don't play that and play Mario 3 instead.
I was always into those fold-out posters that they included as a kid! Cool to see that they had these from the very beginning!
Awesome show- I had all those Nintendo Powers- great stuff!
Great in depth video!
Love the Williams crew shirt! (And the great episode moreso)
Love your channel bro!
The beginning with you on the iPad really shows how times have changed. A sleek new tablet next to a well read faded magazine
Never even thought about it like that, but an astute observation!
Great review. I felt the same you did. Mario 2 was so different but at the time, we didn't have any expectations and just accepted it. I loved the atmosphere though and it didn't feel out of place when we moved from Mario 2 to 3. I again accepted the changes in 3.
I just sold my copy and read through it before I sold it! So cool to find your video and hear someone else's thoughts on it. The covers are all credited to different design firms or ad agencies, so Nintendo wasn't producing those weird Mario claymation photos in-house. Maybe that was an ad agency's idea of "bringing the games to life" or something? The Councilors Corner questions must be like amalgamations of frequently asked questions from the hotline, or just tips that they wanted to write about. There's no way someone would say "I can't beat the bosses in Castlevania." You have to beat them in order! If you can't beat the first boss, you don't even know about the second one. Also all of the letters sounded fake to me. They don't so much in later issues, but in the first few issues, they really do. And where did the letters come from in the first issue, unless they were just inherited from Fun Club News maybe? Oh yeah, I totally remember kids back then incorrectly calling games "tapes." In my part of the country we called them "games" or "cartridges," but there was always one kid who insisted on saying "tapes." Anyways great video!
Dude... Digging the Williams shirt man. Got me a Williams hat at the race in Shanghai this year. The cars were nice... Except maybe no shark fin.... Lol
I never thought it was necessary either, but yes, CGQ, I can verify that the unlimited 1-up trick does work in Super Mario Bros.
Nice vid. 👍