Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II took the cover as it arrived on the Super NES, and the magazine marked its fourth anniversary with a retrospective feature. A tech update covered new hardware, and Might and Magic, Magic Sword, Wave Race, Jeep Jamboree and Toxic Crusaders filled the features. The Player's Poll asked which rival magazines readers read.
Free Mario--or get blown to bits!
Princess Peach, to the Koopalings
- Magic Sword
- Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge
- Jeep Jamboree
- Centipede
- NCAA Basketball
Power Profile
Celebrity profile · Volume 38
This issue featured an interview with Tori Spelling — American actress (born 1973).
Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, the hottest show on television, produced by her father Aaron, who had given her a first part on Vega$ at six. She kept a Super NES in her bedroom and an NES in her dressing room, played Super Mario Bros. 3 daily with Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth, and reported that Luke Perry and Jason Priestley were not as good. She stayed through the show's last episode in 2000, played Donna again in the 2019 revival, and has spent much of the time since on reality television and, lately, a podcast about her own life.
Every single day I play Super Mario Bros. 3 with Shannen and Jennie. Luke and Jason also play, but they're not as good as we are.
Tori Spelling, Nintendo Power #38
Sweepstakes
A Super Mario Bros. pinball machine, Gottlieb's 1992 table, was the Grand Prize. The survey on the card was unusually nosy, asking how long you had subscribed, which 1992 cover was your favorite and which rival magazines you read, with Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro among the choices.
Comics
3 in this issue · Volume 38The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Chapter 7 of 12 · 16 pages
Shotaro Ishinomori's retelling of the Super NES game, drawn in the same year it was released and following Link from the rainy night at the castle to the Dark World.
Chapter seven. Alone in the Dark World beyond Sahasrahla's telepathic reach, Link meets Epheremelda, the faerie the monsters were hunting, and a Zora who lends her as a guide and lends Link his own grotesque mask, since a human face is too conspicuous here. Ganon's servants have stockpiled explosive firecorn in the Palace of Darkness, and a girl is held there — but the crystal cocoon Link cuts free holds one of the seven maidens, not Zelda, and the dragon Gleeock guards her. Freed, she gives him the Comm Fork, and a stranger on the rocks demands that Link hand over the Master Sword.
Super Mario Adventures
Chapter 7 of 12 · 8 pages · from p. 62
Charlie Nozawa's twelve-part comic, in which Bowser proposes to the Princess, Yoshi eats everything in reach and Luigi gets no respect. Collected in a book by Viz the following year.
Chapter seven. Double trouble: two Princesses, one of them Luigi, and someone has pulled the switcheroo. The real one crashes the palace party with a fuse in her hand, threatening to take the castle up with her; the Koopa Kids are on Floyd's tail, who's offering a special rate on Koopa Crisis Kits; and Mario breaks out of all those locks to find what's behind the door. The Princess orders the charge — kick their Koopa keesters — and good will triumph, as always, next month.
Nester's Adventures
One-page strip · from p. 100
Nester carried on alone after Howard left Nintendo in 1991, walking into one game a month and finding out the hard way that reading the strategy pages would have helped.
Dragon Strike: at A-1 Pre-Owned Dragons a salesman in a plaid jacket talks up the new arrow-proof scales on a dragon that can barely manage a smoke screen — Nester has seen more flame from a birthday candle. He takes it up anyway, dive-bombs the dragon below for fireworks and gets a lecture on sore tonsils and flying too low, then a faceful of fire back at the lot. He informs the salesman he fired the dragon.
Classified Information
The codes and secrets this issue gave away.
- Bo Jackson Baseball
- All Bo squad
- Shatterhand
- Boss test
- Tecmo Super Bowl
- Sound mode
- The Hunt for Red October
- Cool codes
- Pipe Dream
- Freeze the Flooze
- Operation C
- Ten men code
- R-Type
- R-Type options
- Super Smash T.V.
- Circuit warp, Secret credits
- HyperZone
- Sound test
- Ultraman
- Option menu
- F1 ROC: Race of Champions
- Opponent switch, Sound test
Counselor's Corner
Game Counselors on callReaders wrote in to ask Nintendo Game Counselors questions about the following games: Mega Man 4, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Lagoon and Sword of Hope.
Top 20
These were the top Nintendo games in Jul 1992, 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 | Super NES | Game Boy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
| 2 | ▲1 Battletoads | ||
| 3 | ▲1 Mega Man 4 | ▲10 WWF Super WrestleMania | |
| 4 | ▼1 F-ZERO | ||
| 5 | ▲1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers | ||
| 6 | ▲2 Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly | ||
| 7 | ▼1 Final Fight | ▼2 Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge | |
| 8 | ▼1 SimCity | ▼1 Final Fantasy Adventure | |
| 9 | ▼1 Dr. Mario | ▼1 ActRaiser | |
| 10 | ▲2 Pilotwings | ▲6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan | |
| 11 | ▼2 Tetris} | ▲9 Home Alone | |
| 12 | ▲5 Mega Man III | ▲5 F-1 Race | |
| 13 | ▼3 Metroid | ▼3 Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge | |
| 14 | ▲6 Joe & Mac | ||
| 15 | NEW Street Fighter II: The World Warrior | ▼4 Faceball 2000 | |
| 16 | ▲2 Lemmings | ▼1 Operation C | |
| 17 | ▼2 Super Smash TV | ▲1 Super R.C. Pro-Am | |
| 18 | |||
| 19 | ▼8 John Madden Football | — Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters | |
| 20 | NEW Batman |