Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden's cover was the first of two parts on Ryu's cinematic action game, alongside the second installment of the Zelda II coverage and a look at Hudson's Adventure Island. Previews covered Strider, Cobra Triangle, The Adventures of Bayou Billy and the first word of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. The issue also bound in an eight-page NES Game Directory listing every game then available.
Are you Howard's sister, or are you just having a bad day?
Nester, as the librarian drags him out
Power Profile
Celebrity profile · Volume 5
This issue featured an interview with Shalane McCall — American actress and model (born 1972).
Charlie Wade on Dallas for five seasons, and at sixteen a model with a how-to video of her own and more than a hundred pageant titles. She learned Super Mario Bros. at a 1986 Beverly Hills charity Super Mario-a-Thon, the sort of event where the Zappa kids turned up, and never put it down. She had just left Dallas to concentrate on modelling when this ran, and the magazine wondered whether an award for video games might follow the ones for acting. It didn't, but not for lack of interest: within a few years she had stepped away from the business altogether. She has kept out of the spotlight ever since, which makes this one of the last interviews she gave.
Super Mario Bros. is my favorite game. I learned how to play the game while participating in the Super Mario-a-Thon and have loved it ever since. I'm really looking forward to Super Mario Bros. 2!
Shalane McCall, Nintendo Power #5
Comics
Howard & Nester · Volume 5Howard & Nester
2-page strip · from p. 60
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.
Stuck in the library with a book report, Nester pulls down The Adventure of Link and falls into the story: he's Link, wandering Hyrule with a sword and a shield, arguing with the librarian's narration and offering a monster his entire collection of Metroid tips. He can't get Riverman to extend the bridge past Saria, so a knight — Howard, naturally — tells him Bagu is in the log cabin in the middle of the woods, and Nester refuses to let him ruin the story. Back in the real world the book thumps shut and he's been thrown out of the library.
Classified Information
The codes and secrets this issue gave away.
- Bionic Commando
- Apparatus Application, Stage Select
- Milon's Secret Castle
- Getting Started
- Adventure Island
- Bonus Stage and Continue
- Operation Wolf
- Greater Gratitude
- Spy Hunter
- Get a car with all the extras
- Zanac
- Choose your own stage
- Wizards & Warriors
- Bypass the Wizard
- Double Dragon
- Strange Weaponry
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
- Ironknuckle Strategies, Experience Transfer
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
- Invisible Elevator
- Skate or Die
- Super Skateboard Strategy
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Shortcuts to Birdo
Counselor's Corner
Game Counselors on callReaders wrote in to ask Nintendo Game Counselors questions about the following games: Bionic Commando, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Mickey Mousecapade.
Top 30
These were the top Nintendo games in Mar/Apr 1989, 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 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | ▲4 Contra |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ▲21 Bionic Commando |
| 8 | NEW Blades of Steel |
| 9 | |
| 10 | ▼5 Metroid |
| 11 | ▼1 Bases Loaded |
| 12 | NEW Blaster Master |
| 13 | ▲6 Mega Man |
| 14 | ▼1 Castlevania |
| 15 | ▲14 Top Gun |
| 16 | ▲2 R.C. Pro-Am |
| 17 | |
| 18 | NEW Rampage |
| 19 | |
| 20 | |
| 21 | |
| 22 | NEW Mega Man 2 |
| 23 | ▼15 Metal Gear |
| 24 | NEW Paperboy |
| 25 | |
| 26 | NEW Ice Hockey |
| 27 | ▼6 Life Force |
| 28 | |
| 29 | NEW Bubble Bobble |
| 30 |