Super Mario Bros. 2
The debut issue, dated July/August 1988 and mailed free to Nintendo Fun Club members, opened with a claymation Mario on the cover and a 16-page Super Mario Bros. 2 walkthrough inside. The departments that would run for years were all here on day one: Counselors' Corner, Classified Information, Pak Watch, the Player's Poll and the Howard & Nester comic. The Top 30 was a combined ranking built from separate players', pros' and dealers' lists, each printed with its point totals.
I should be president!
Nester's response to his and Howard's introduction
Power Profile
Celebrity profile · Volume 1
This issue featured interviews with Kirk Cameron — American actor (born 1970), Candace Cameron — American actress (born 1976).
The magazine's very first profile went to a pair of siblings who were on two of ABC's biggest sitcoms at the same time. Seventeen-year-old Kirk was Mike Seaver on Growing Pains, and twelve-year-old Candace was D.J. Tanner on Full House, then in its first season and not yet the institution it became. The interview finds a household where the parents play Golf and Pinball, the kids trade Game Paks with friends, and Candace has rescued the Mushroom Princess many times over but still can't find Zelda. Kirk went on to a second career making faith-based films like Fireproof and, lately, children's books. Candace Cameron Bure became the face of Hallmark's Christmas movies, revived D.J. for Fuller House, and now runs programming at Great American Family.
I am having problems getting past the Amoeboids (meatballs with arms) in Gradius. I think that I'll have to place a call to the game counselors soon!
Kirk Cameron, Nintendo Power #1
Sweepstakes
The very first Player's Poll dangled ten NES games of the winner's choosing, with the exclusive Nintendo Power T-shirt for the runners-up because, as the page insisted, you couldn't buy one in a store. Entry was the bound-in card or a plain 3x5 piece of paper with your name and address, mailed to Redmond.
Comics
Howard & Nester · Volume 1Howard & Nester
One-page strip
Howard Phillips, Nintendo of America's bow-tied Game Master, and Nester, the know-it-all kid who never took his advice. Two pages an issue from the first volume on, with a different game's world to get lost in each month.
Howard introduces himself as President of the Nintendo Fun Club and his good friend Nester, who thinks he should be president. Nester is playing The Legend of Zelda and can't find Levels 8 and 9, so Howard tells him: Level 8 is under a tree in the second screen up, third from the right, and Level 9 under a rock on the top row, with the map on page 35 of this very issue. Nester insists he already knew, and thinks Howard isn't so smart.
Classified Information
The codes and secrets this issue gave away.
- Ice Hockey
- Pull the goalie, Super speed puck
- Rad Racer
- Get on the fast track
- Athena
- Mushroom magic means maximum strength
- Contra
- Build up your forces fast!
- Gun.Smoke
- Heavy hitting hardware
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out‼
- Another world circuit
- Arkanoid
- Stage select, Continue mode
- Ring King
- Endless energy
- Ninja Kid
- Flame and fortune
- Zanac
- Turn an enemy into an advantage
Counselor's Corner
Game Counselors on callReaders wrote in to ask Nintendo Game Counselors questions about the following games: Ghosts'n Goblins, Ring King, Metroid, Super Mario Bros., Kid Icarus, Rygar, Castlevania, Ikari Warriors and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out‼.
Top 30
These were the top Nintendo games in Jul/Aug 1988, as voted by Nintendo Power readers. Arrows show the move since the previous issue's chart; the peak is the best position the game had reached by then.
| # | NES |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | NEW Metroid |
| 4 | |
| 5 | NEW Kid Icarus |
| 6 | NEW R.C. Pro-Am |
| 7 | NEW Ice Hockey |
| 8 | NEW Rad Racer |
| 9 | NEW Top Gun |
| 10 | NEW Double Dribble |
| 11 | NEW Pro Wrestling |
| 12 | NEW Castlevania |
| 13 | NEW Goonies II |
| 14 | NEW Kung Fu |
| 15 | |
| 16 | NEW Rush 'n Attack |
| 17 | NEW Mega Man |
| 18 | NEW Excitebike |
| 19 | NEW Ikari Warriors |
| 20 | NEW Spy Hunter |
| 21 | NEW Baseball |
| 22 | NEW Contra |
| 23 | |
| 24 | NEW Side Pocket |
| 25 | NEW Mario Bros. |
| 26 | NEW Renegade |
| 27 | NEW Section Z |
| 28 | NEW Gradius |
| 29 | NEW Ring King |
| 30 | NEW Rygar |