“Now you're playing with power!”
November 15, 2022 9:37 AM   Subscribe

Someone Named Gumball Uploaded All 285 Issues Of Nintendo Power To Archive.org “All 285 issues of Nintendo Power are now unofficially available in .cbr format. At just over 40 gigabytes for the whole shebang, the vast majority of the collection comes courtesy of Retromags, a community-run project dedicated to archiving classic video game magazines. A couple of remaining issues were sourced via Reddit by Gumball. Scanned in full color, the collection is a wonderful way to browse through gaming and media history.” [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz (26 comments total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
Thank you Gumball. 🍬
posted by Fizz at 9:42 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I so remember Nintendo Power—got me through some rough spots in games I played back then!

Thanks so much for the post!
posted by Silverstone at 9:45 AM on November 15, 2022


Bowties were cool long before they were cool.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:49 AM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I hope someone here downloads a backup of this, because I doubt is this going to remain on Archive for long and I don't get off work until 7:30pm tonight.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 10:25 AM on November 15, 2022 [10 favorites]


I've got a couple big deadlines I'm juggling at the moment, and while I'd usually appreciate a minor distraction...

I really don't know how my brain would react to this level of concentrated nostalgia. I must have read dozens of these cover to cover as a kid, and opening this archive would probably knock me out for days.

So thanks for this. Bookmarked for a couple weeks from now.
posted by Alex404 at 10:51 AM on November 15, 2022


I hope someone here downloads a backup of this, because I doubt is this going to remain on Archive for long and I don't get off work until 7:30pm tonight.

FWIW, I downloaded the entire collection of Compute! magazine from archive.org about a decade ago and those are still available.

https://archive.org/details/compute-magazine
posted by Sauce Trough at 11:03 AM on November 15, 2022 [7 favorites]


What an amazing world!
posted by Going To Maine at 11:29 AM on November 15, 2022


Get the power!
posted by box at 12:02 PM on November 15, 2022


Electronic Gaming Monthly has an archive that runs to 2003 (with a lot of but apparently not all individual issues thereafter). EGM is where my personal nostalgia lies. I still remember my friend trying to tell us at lunch that he'd unlocked Sheng Long.
posted by penduluum at 12:12 PM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]


> I downloaded the entire collection of Compute! magazine from archive.org about a decade ago and those are still available

the difference is Nintendo is notoriously aggressive with it's takedown policing. while it may be a techical issue of the moment on archive.org's part, i just got home and currently am unable to pull the .torrent down to start backing this up. i suppose they have their reasons for not using a magnet link but damn.
posted by glonous keming at 1:20 PM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


I was stuck on Shadowgate. I read in Nintendo Power that I should use a hook to pry up a tile to get holy water to throw at the Hell Hound. But there was no hook, I looked everywhere for it. I asked my friends, none of them knew. Weirdly even kids who had completed the game. I rented it off and on a few times, maybe borrowed it, I never had complete leisurely access to it.

One night, I woke up from my bed late at night, and heard someone playing Nintendo downstairs. It was my older sister and her boyfriend. I asked him if he could beat Shadowgate. He said yeah, and I asked him where the hook was. He says, there's no hook, what are you talking about? And I say Nintendo Power said I have to use a hook on this tile etc. He thinks for a minute, and figures it out: there was a category error. There is no hook. You click the "use" command on a small hook on one special floor tile.

Upon hearing that, I startled awake in excitement. Awake in my bed. It was all a dream. But it made sense right? I ran downstairs early to try it before school. And damn if it didn't work perfectly, just like that.

So thanks, Nintendo Power, I'll never forget that.
posted by SaltySalticid at 1:26 PM on November 15, 2022 [29 favorites]


ok i followed the trail, a lot of the recent reddit comments are also having problems with this but someone posted it as a discord chat link over on /r/datahoarders and someone i know slapped a mirror up elsewhere. looking pretty healthy now, with about 250 seeds. it's about 37GB but i don't have any files complete yet to verify.
posted by glonous keming at 1:33 PM on November 15, 2022 [11 favorites]


Thanks for that mirror link.
posted by Blienmeis at 1:42 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Guess I'd better get downloading, to this day I am still *incensed* when I think about an old childhood friend who moved — without telling anyone — and absconded with my copies of Street Fighter 2: Turbo and issues 30-38 of Nintendo Power.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:05 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Upon hearing that, I startled awake in excitement.

So I'm not the only kid who solved a puzzle from a video game in a dream, quickly tried it out in the morning before school, and then had to spend a torturous day in class learning pointless facts when all I wanted to do was get back home and resume my life's real forward progress, i.e. the eighth dungeon in the Legend of Zelda or a new area in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 2:29 PM on November 15, 2022 [11 favorites]


One of my good friends used to subscribe to Nintendo Power. I remember sleepovers at his house, playing games, looking at the maps of the levels in the magazine. Those were great times. I bet he still has all his issues too (I don't think he has all 285 though).
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:48 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I started with Issue #2 and I think my subscription lapsed around issue #75. It's funny, I don't remember deciding to let it go. All of a sudden around the time of the N64 launch, video games just weren't my thing anymore.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:31 PM on November 15, 2022


That may have been bc N64 kind of sucked unless you were in the exact right age/class/mindset.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:36 PM on November 15, 2022


Awesome.
posted by eustatic at 8:28 PM on November 15, 2022


OMG, the first issue and the last issue have the same cover!

Also, is it just the CBR reader I downloaded or is anyone else seeing some seriously washed out colors on these?
posted by keep_evolving at 11:00 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


nice post
posted by nthdegx at 2:05 AM on November 16, 2022


That may have been bc N64 kind of sucked unless you were in the exact right age/class/mindset.

Maybe. I definitely couldn't afford an N64. And IMHO playing Turok with that thumbstick on a small CRT divided between four players couldn't compare to keyboard Doom a LAN (even on my crappy computer hardware)

But I also think Nintendo Power's promotion of Killer Instinct also kind of did it for me. That was the first time I started noticing that the "attitude era" that had started during the Genesis/SNES console war was becoming more pervasive. The kids at school who had obsessed over Mortal Kombat fatalities were now the obnoxious kids with Playstations complaining about how childish anyone who had a Nintendo was, and instead of being ridiculed I just gave up gaming.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:42 AM on November 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


Oh man. One of my vague regrets is getting rid of my nearly-complete collection of the first three or four years of Nintendo Power. They weren't mint or anything - I read the shit out of them - but I bet someone would appreciate them now. (I can't remember if I ever put my hands on on the first one or two - I think my subscription started with #3.) I am downloading them now as I can get archive.org to respond and wow, the nostalgia.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:47 AM on November 16, 2022


is it just the CBR reader I downloaded or is anyone else seeing some seriously washed out colors on these?

It's probably just the reader you downloaded? There are a lot of CBR readers so it's difficult to be sure. On the other hand, CBR is basically a gussied-up archive file anyway, so if you rename the file to have a .rar extension you can get programs to unzip it to become a folder with each page as a separate jpg.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:49 AM on November 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


I got a Nintendo Power subscription to get Dragon Warrior, which is still probably the best RPG for the original NES, which isn't really saying much as they were dramatically improved by the SuperNES. Still those maps were super helpful, and the tips on how to play got me through lots of games.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:22 AM on November 16, 2022


Sadly, one of my favourite 8 bit computer magazines - commodore format - was actually taken down from archive.org. I assume that someone thought that a 30 year old magazine about a computer that was 10 years old when it launched.... had some value to them, that archive.org was reducing. My other favouite, zzap!64, is still there though, and is an awesome nostalgic read if you weren't a nintendo kid
posted by jaymzjulian at 2:29 PM on November 16, 2022


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