Mario Paint
Mario Paint made the cover with the Super NES Mouse, and TMNT IV: Turtles in Time, Kirby's Dream Land, Wings 2 and Contra Force filled the features. Kirby made his debut on Game Boy in this issue. Player's Pulse ran letters from mothers lamenting the NES taking over the house.
Of all the crazy, mixed-up creatures in this world, this guy beats 'em all!
Epheremelda, regarding Roam
- Kirby's Dream Land
- Lazlos' Leap
- Wordtris
- TMNT IV: Turtles in Time
- Wings 2: Aces High
Power Profile
Celebrity profile · Volume 39
This issue featured interviews with DJ Jazzy Jeff — American DJ, music producer and actor (born 1965), Will Smith — American actor and rapper (born 1968).
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was in its second season and the duo had a Grammy on the shelf. Nintendo had sent them a box of Super NES games: Will was deep in A Link to the Past with two pendants found and one to go, Jeff couldn't put down NCAA Basketball, and Jeff couldn't get Will to hear a word on the phone over the sound of rupees. On tour it was Game Boys in every bunk. Will became one of the biggest movie stars in the world and won the Best Actor Oscar for King Richard; a fourth Bad Boys film and a new album, Based on a True Story, both arrived in the last couple of years. Jeff remains one of the most respected DJs alive and still tours.
Game Boy is definitely the tour bus pastime.
Will Smith, Nintendo Power #39
Sweepstakes
A weekend in Hollywood for the winner and a guest with an exclusive private tour of Fox Studios and a chance to clown around with the Simpsons, valued at $3,000. The same page carried a photo report from the family who won the mountain-bike trip, fresh from their ride down a Hawaiian volcano.
Comics
3 in this issue · Volume 39The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Chapter 8 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 eight. The stranger is Roam, a swordsman with a bow, who challenges Link for the right to wield the Master Sword and crosses blades with him on the rocks. The Comm Fork proves its worth: through it Link hears Sahasrahla in the Light World, where the Eastern Palace has been shaken by a quake and the old man is sure he's imagining Link's voice. Trapped at the bottom of a pit only the faerie can fly out of, Link calls the wise man for help — and the chapter ends in a whirlpool, with a horned monster and a trident coming at him through the water.
Super Mario Adventures
Chapter 8 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 eight. Locked in a dungeon with flame-breathing Reznors, the gang buys Floyd's bombs by the dozen and blows their way out, and for a moment it's over: Koopas conquered, kingdom safe, lunch back at the castle. It isn't, of course — the Princess flies home for a rescue party, straight into Bowser's sinister plot, and he leaves the brothers to a bottomless pit with 'excuse me, I have a wedding waiting'. Yoshi eats a blue shell and sprouts wings, and the Yoshi Express follows the Koopa copter.
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.
Street Fighter II Week on television, with Guile as co-host explaining special moves like his Sonic Boom, and Nester as its star with moves you won't believe: a hair-raising throw on Zangief, a whiff of something illegal in 164 countries for E. Honda, and the patented Pretzel Punisher on Dhalsim. Guile wraps up the show by tying Nester's own tongue in a knot — he must be tongue-tied.
Classified Information
The codes and secrets this issue gave away.
- Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
- The ultimate match
- Gun-Nac
- Area select
- Abadox: The Deadly Inner War
- The end is near
- Infiltrator
- Mission select
- Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
- Dracula's sound test
- Final Fantasy Legend II
- Sound test
- Q*Bert
- Q*Bert the Movie
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Free green potion
- Super Soccer
- Super passcodes
- F1 ROC: Race of Champions
- Instant cash
- Arcana
- Stage select
Counselor's Corner
Game Counselors on callReaders wrote in to ask Nintendo Game Counselors questions about the following games: Drakkhen, Defenders of Dynatron City, Wizards & Warriors III and Boxxle.
Top 20
These were the top Nintendo games in Aug 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 Mega Man 4 | ||
| 3 | |||
| 4 | — F-ZERO | ▲4 Final Fantasy Adventure | |
| 5 | ▼3 Battletoads | NEW WWF WrestleMania | ▲1 Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly |
| 6 | ▼2 Dr. Mario | ||
| 7 | — Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge | ||
| 8 | ▲3 Tetris | — SimCity | ▼3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers |
| 9 | NEW Mega Man | ▼2 Final Fight | ▲1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan |
| 10 | ▲2 Mega Man III | ▼1 ActRaiser | ▲3 Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge |
| 11 | ▲4 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior | ||
| 12 | ▲4 Lemmings | ||
| 13 | |||
| 14 | ▼1 Metroid | NEW Prince of Persia | |
| 15 | ▼6 Dr. Mario | ▼5 Pilotwings | — Faceball 2000 |
| 16 | NEW Paperboy | ▼2 Joe & Mac | — Operation C |
| 17 | — Super R.C. Pro-Am | ||
| 18 | NEW Super Adventure Island | ▼7 Home Alone | |
| 19 | NEW Mega Man II | ||
| 20 | ▼3 Super Smash TV |