/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8515971
It would still be several years before the DCAU got to Justice League. It technically hasn't even started yet since the DCAU really began with Superman's cartoon.

>>8516017
>RIP John and Steve
But fuck you, Dan Pesina.

>>8515957
>even the contents page is eye cancer now
Because black text on a white background was too much to ask for, here's white text on a background that varies between black and light blue.

>>8515950
If you COMPETE WELL by cheating with this magazine you will become a COOL PERSON who goes to CONCERTS OR SOMETHING

>>8516145
>No Jamie Lee Curtis striptease bonus stage
I feel gypped.

>>8515951

Is that really how Hawkeye looked?

>>8516205
>X1 - Hadoken
>X2 - Shoryuken
A shame that X3 didn't give X the Hurricane Kick to complete the gag.

>>8516196
Someone needs to make an imagine Arnold playing this game copypasta because I gave up halfway through.

>>8516220
Kind if funny that only now is NP declaring war on the Genesis when both it and the SNES are already on their downslides.

Nintendo Power.......
Home.

>>8515961

Naomi Chiba is the only name I actually remember from these pages. For some reason they printed loads of her envelopes. I googled her and found a Kotaku article about her:
https://kotaku.com/nintendo-power-helped-a-shy-fan-show-her-art-to-the-wor-1786871046
It doesn't seem to show the envelopes referred to in the article, maybe because something is wrong with my browser setup or, more likely, because Kotaku is crappy, and unless I missed it it also doesn't explain why in the world they published so much of her work. But apparently she's still alive and does cosplay, which seems nice. Unless she's fat, but what can you do. She sounds Asian maybe? So there's a decent chance she isn't fat.

Maybe they just picked her out because she was the only better-than-average envelope artist who kept on repeatedly sending so many pieces, and so anybody else could have done the same? Oh well, it doesn't matter.

You can see a few of the other envelopes by doing a Google Image search for "naomi chiba envelope".

>>8516239
People in the comments seem to be reacting to images of them but I can't see them either.

>>8516148
>does not tolerate injuries to innocent bystanders
He gets angry that you killed a taxpayer.

>>8515962

Sweet World Trade Center reference. I bet that if the Evermore team had made a game called Secret of Murder, then it actually would have been really good. I don't think it's necessary to change Mortal Kombat to get more crime in it though... It already pretty much is Secret of Murder.

>>8515970

A lot of people are really going to be satisfied when Star Fox 2 comes out soon!

Issue #73

>>8516330
>Dracula X
Boy, will NP be kicking themselves over this.

>>8515970
>NU 64
Part of me wishes Nintendo had stuck to the Nintendo Ultra 64 name.

>>8515996

Oh nevermind he wasn't even Hawkeye. Wait Hawkeye is Marvel. Okay that explains it. I don't read comics.

>>8516424
He's a big guy.

>>8516239
>Maybe they just picked her out because she was the only better-than-average envelope artist who kept on repeatedly sending so many pieces, and so anybody else could have done the same?
It was not very uncommon to see envelope artist send their art to multiple magazines during that period. I remember one particular artist named Jen Seng who used to submit most of her art to GameFAN around that period. She's now a professional web designer last time I've checked.

>>8516607
NP's still mocking the "Save the Princess" cliche well into 1995.

More later.

>>8516356
For as much as they tried to promote Earthbound I'm surprised it didn't get chosen to be on the cover

>>8516474
>not one but three shots of Magus in the party
Nice use of spoilers, NP

>>8516652
>>8516660
I know it was janky and laggy due to the 56k(5Kbs max) or less speeds, I know it was prone to players causing connection issues to force the other player to quit the game and take a loss rather than sit and wait for the loser to get tired of it, but I always wanted one of these and to be able to play 2P games over the phone line.

>>8516024

Neither Stryker nor Sindel ever looked right to me in that game.

Is there a magnet link I can get all these in??? I'd undoubtedly seed back forever
?

>>8516973
Archive.

>>8516990
I figured as much. Was just hoping for something already put together. Appreciate nonetheless.

Did some digging and stumbled upon this. https://www.retromags.com/files/category/97-nintendo-power/

Also tpb has a good Nintendo power pack.

>>8516139
>Best Original Character
>Cranky Kong

>>8516129
>Lumps graphics in sound into 1 category

FF6 got screwed here, it so would've taken best music.

>>8516141
>>8516205
Could've told us all about the actual best move a little sooner, NP.

>>8516753
Same thing happened to Final Fantasy 3. Guess Illusion of Gaia is just that much better of a game.

>>8517279
Though apparently this is a cover that was made but went unused for that issue

>>8516574
Mario Clash looks like it got dumbed down for its final release. I wonder if they used some of their unrealized ideas on the Virtual Boy Wario Land game that came out a bit later.

>>8517283
Damn, that would've been cool too

>>8516129
>>8516136
>>8516139
I'm guessing with these the JRPG genre has finally cemented itself as a popular game type in the West? Or is the magazine just putting Final Fantasy there because it's new? NoA has a long history of trying to get Nintendo gamers hooked on them since NES, and Nintendo Power has always played a major role in marketing JRPGs outside Japan.

>>8517270
Nah, I still think DKC has the stronger soundtrack over FF6.

>>8517587
NP originally wasn't too big on RPGs. Remember that they cut some points from FFIII for being "not written for American audiences", but the fanbase clearly thought otherwise. This is likely why Epic Center is now a thing, because NP knows there's people who want more RPGs now.

>>8517587
I think it's neat how you can across the issues see an increase in more anime inspired style on fan art submitted to the letters page. Localization tries to stamp out the anime but it survives.

>>8516283
>find another use for game enhancement devices - like testing your trash compactor
Did nintendo power follow the sentiment of nintendo itself by shitting on game genie or did they usually just pretend they didnt exist? Maybe a one off propaganda piece with unspecific fearmongering? "using unlicensed accessories could IRREPARABLY damage your nes" or whatever.

>>8516079

This article was starting to make this game seem like it might be cool, so I downloaded it and tried it out just now. It was really unpleasant. You have a power meter that depletes to zero when you make an ordinary attack whereupon it slowly refills like in Secret of Mana, and this of course totally sucks, just as it does in Secret of Mana. You also have two AI-controlled companions like in Secret of Mana. Basically it's just that game over again except everything is a lot worse - or so the first ten minutes seemed to indicate. I'm sure it gets better but I lost interest. I'm surprised the magazine has poured so many pages into promotion of such an unappealing game. I guess Epic Center really needed to fill space? They'd have been better off just babbling for eight pages about SimCity or some random Koei game or something.

>>8518465

Wikipedia says:
>The title received generally negative reviews. Freelance critic Robert Schmitz[17] gave the title a score of 0.5 out of 11, calling it "awful" and explaining the game is almost "better left unsaid", Schmitz criticised Enix's decision to base the game on a little-known cartoon series.[18] The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly were divided. Ed Semrad and Danyon Carpenter said it was "okay", with the strong music, immersive sound effects, and epic quest balanced against the below-average graphics, while Al Manuel and Sushi-X said it was an all-around mediocre clone of Secret of Mana. Both Carpenter and Sushi-X remarked that the game would have a hard time getting noticed due to it being released in the same month as Chrono Trigger.[14] Allan Milligan, in a review for the Gaming Intelligence Agency, judged the graphics and audio both mediocre, the character designs "terrible," the plot generic and the puzzles not challenging. He noted that it is impossible for the player to know in advance which Knight is best suited for which boss.[3] Milligan called the game "staggeringly ill-conceived" and likened it to a "succession of fetch quests." He criticized the fact that all enemies on a screen must be defeated to progress through some passages, and the possibility for characters and enemies to be hidden from the player's view behind large objects. The Knights' artificial intelligence was also denounced, as was the lack of animation when a character or enemy is hit.[3]

>>8516094

Speaking of unappealing games... This one seems like it's probably actually pretty good though. People say a lot of nice things about it, while also acknowledging that it's hard to get into. But I can't quite bring myself to try it.

>>8516262
wow
look how far we've come

>>8518465
>>8518468
Unsurprisingly, it's also got a treasure trove of dummied out and unfinished content
https://tcrf.net/King_Arthur_%26_the_Knights_of_Justice

>>8518478
The worst thing about Brandish that takes a ton of getting used to is basically the game is top down with "tank controls", so when you change direction the map shifts accordingly... but the game is built from tiles so to do so it has to blink out and redraw everything making for a disorienting experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tFQipum6lU

>>8516218

This is really cool and it's too bad it never became big.

>>8516220
>If you want to challenge Joey personally, set up a match with Buck Satan--his personal ID.

>>8518515

That's actually something that makes me want to try it, strangely. I've never played a game that looked like that. I think it would be fun to get used to keeping track of a dungeon map by the dungeon's shape only, without reference to the rotational orientation of it. I'm a little weirded out by the way in which you can walk right past certain things without seeing them because the artificial "tilt" of the camera causes them to be hidden from you by walls, requiring you to rotate to reveal them even though the player character is already standing right next to them and should be able to just glance over and see them immediately, but that doesn't seem like a serious problem.

What puts me off is the general crudeness of the graphics and movement, and the seeming simplicity and potential tedium of the combat. Also I don't love excessively obtuse puzzles, but maybe the ones in this game are more fun than obtuse.

>>8516094
Brandish is interesting, as it's one of the only NA SNES games to just use anime art on it's box. Even a game based on a actual anime (Ranma 1/2) still ended up getting it's cover redrawn.

Although I do wonder how many people ended up buying it, expecting to play as the big tiddy sorceress on the cover, only to find out she is a antagonist, and not playable.

>>8516275

It's a good thing I can declare Fireteam Rogue to be my favorite game ever! ActRaiser and Contra III were just yesterday's trash, I've already forgotten them

>>8516290

This Godzilla game looks okay. I guess it got cancelled though. Too bad, I would have liked messing around with it on a rental.

>>8516674
>Talk about sleek. This baby is a Porshe,
I know it was the mid 90's but cmon, it's the N64.

>>8516205
it never occured to me to use weapons to retrieve that PUP, I always thought you had to use the flying platform and raged whenever I died because you can't get the platform back

God even in the 3D era they kept pushing that crusty old Flintstones license for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG3a8C4kQfs

I guess it's over now on the Nintendo side though, with this latest John Goodman freakshow on the SNES? Ctrl-f doesn't seem to be showing me anything "flintstones" or "bedrock" or "barney" on Wikipedia's listing of N64 games, anyway.

>>8516302

Porky Pig has bad music they say? Man the music is the main factor that has just now convinced me to actually try that game (after I watched a bit of it on YouTube).

>>8516308
>Flinstones
>Nights of Justice
>Porkey Pig

>>8516375

I'm surprised people liked Kirby's Dream Course this much.

>>8520438
I'm surprised Super Mario World is already taken off the list. You'd think that'd be evergreen.

>>8522736

Castlevania IV, E.V.O., Plok - ALL GONE like the trash they are, to make room for games that matter to me the reader: Brainies and Super Bonk.

Printing the list on a slightly larger page would simply not be acceptable. He who looks at trash becomes trash. GET TURTLES IN TIME OUT OF MY SIGHT FOREVER

>>8516409

What a transition, from their creaky Play It Loud-tainted performance around EarthBound to ABS AND BLADES

>>8516474
>Mr. Toriyama's video game fame comes from his character designs for Dragon Ball Z and the Dragon Quest series.
Wasn't Dragon Quest still known as Dragon Warrior in NA at the time? Interesting and strange they'd say Quest instead of Warrior.
also lol at DBZ being listed as vidya. Really shows it's before the time DBZ got big in NA.

>>8524104
When did DBZ get its first US dub, anyway?

>>8516661
I like the thought of some kid who enjoys Star Trek writing a letter to Nintendo Power in which he tells them which Starfleet simulation is the most "arduous"

>>8524120
1996, but it was in syndication and frequently put in a Sunday morning death slot. DBZ wouldn't really get its footing in the US until mid 1998 where it'd re-air on Toonami.

>>8516665
>Fun, down home music.

>>8516670
>Max's jumping ability is pretty amazing, but it isn't easy to control

This turns out to have been a charitable understatement. What a baffling design choice these people made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quZQl2-xayQ

>>8516671
>Limited save feature requires that you leave the Game Pak in the Super NES.

Are they just saying you have to leave the console turned on?? What a weird way of saying that. I mean every game with a pause feature has that.

>>8516673

Neither one of their two RPG-liking weirdos endorsed EarthBound?? Didn't they get the memo from their bosses about how interestingly the game smells?

>>8526193
Actually it's a little more complicated than that.

>>8516685
>this soccer game has nothing going for it

Head On Soccer getting the GridIron Glory treatment here.

>>8526251

Well that's a lot cooler than what I imagined. It sounds like a save file system without a battery, crossed with a normal checkpoint system, plus the quirk of having to pay for your checkpoints.

>>8524120
>>8525607
Many of the SFC Dragon Ball got import coverage in U.S. magazines at the time. I'm pretty certain even Nintendo Power covered a DBZ game once before the anime started being dubbed.

>>8526452
They've pointed them out once or twice, but (ignoring Dragon Power on the NES), the first Dragon Ball game wouldn't happen until Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout on the PSX. Which was it's own mess of confusion
>USA finally belatedly gets on the DBZ train
>they're barely halfway into the Freeza saga at BEST
>the most recent game to cash in on it is based on GT

>>8524104

I think they've been calling the series Dragon Quest for a number of issues now haven't they, in their occasional references to new Japanese games that may or may not come to the US? In fact here's a Dragon Quest VI news item in the previous issue: >>8516068 So it seems they simply chose to stick with the name they'd most recently used. But yeah it's odd that they wouldn't just explicitly include both names then, along with an explanation for those who haven't kept up. I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned in the magazine back in the NES days that the two names refer to the same series, but there's no reason not to refresh people on that.