Star Fox (Electronic Gaming Monthly - March/June 1993)

I'd heard about Nintendo preparing a remake of Star Fox 64 earlier this year and meant to post this when that was released. Apparently, it released on June 25th, but I completely missed that as I've not been doing a good job of keeping up on the current game releases the past couple of years. I don't have many magazines from 1997, however, which is when the original Star Fox 64 released, and that is why I decided to post a little coverage of the first game in the series that debuted on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES).

While I missed my target, Fox McCloud did not, as his game won Electronic Gaming Monthly's (EGM) "Game of the Month" award in the June 1993 issue. Star Fox also made the cover of EGM's March 1993 issue where it was previewed. This was the first game to use Nintendo's Super FX, a chip that renders 3D polygons and can produce better 2D effects than the Super NES. Only seven other games used the Super FX chip.

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden Previews (Electronic Gaming Monthly)

Akira Toriyama
April 5, 1955 - March 1, 2024
(Image Source: Jiji Press)

As I was flipping through my gaming magazines in search of Mario and X-Men articles this past weekend, I came across previews for Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden and its sequels. Although I've seen a little of the anime and tried some of the Dragon Ball video games, I don't know a whole lot about Dragon Ball Z other than its significant impact on anime and pop culture. Unfortunately, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama recently passed away. He began working on manga (Japanese comic books) in 1978 and launched the Dragon Ball manga series in 1984. Other than his writings and drawings being used, I'm not sure if he was involved with these particular games. During his career he did provide character designs for other video games too, such as Chrono Trigger, Blue Dragon, and the Dragon Quest series. Of course, Toriyama-san wrote and illustrated other manga as well, including Sand Land, which is receiving its first video game adaption next month.

These previews are all from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), appearing in its coverage of Japan's Super Famicom games. All three released in Japan and Europe but not in North America for the Super NES. More recently the first one was available as a special pre-order bonus for Dragon Ball FighterZ on Switch and the second game was a pre-order bonus at Amazon for Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butōden on Nintendo 3DS.

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden (EGM #51 - October 1993)

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2 (EGM #57 - April 1994)

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 3 (EGM #65 - December 1995)

EGM's 1993 Super NES Holiday Shopper's Guide

Every year around this time I try to post an old holiday catalog of some sort. A few times I've posted Electronics Boutique catalogs and I might still do that but the one I've scanned is more than 80 pages and I still need to edit each scan before I can post it. This Super NES shopper's guide from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) magazine is much smaller allowing me to get it ready in a couple days. EGM polybagged this guide with an issue, something it did on occasion for things like this, as well as strategy booklets, posters, etc. Although I've posted the ads previously, I opted to include them here. From what I can tell, this guide is simply a list of games available for Christmas and doesn't actually take into account whether the games are good or not. I guess that's why it is a "shopper's guide" rather than a "buyer's guide."

I'm also considering scanning parts of a FAO Schwartz catalog but may wait until next year. Those tend to be 80+ pages too and not all of the products in it are interesting (like toddler toys) so if I do that I might just highlight some things. I wonder if people would want to watch a YouTube video of myself flipping through a catalog; would that be too boring? Let me know if that's something you'd want to see.

Nintendo's Super System

On March 3rd Nintendo will launch their latest console so this week I'm putting together a few posts of old magazine articles that relate a little to that. Since most of my magazines are from 1989-1993, I've compiled scans about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), also known as the Super Famicom. It hit Japan in November 1990, then North America in August 1991, and every where else during 1992. The first article from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) is from August 1989 so it's a bit before the SNES release and the information in it didn't all turn out to be 100% accurate, especially the release dates. My favorite part of the article is about the audio technology; the author says "Imagine playing a game with the latest Guns and Roses tune providing the background music. With the Super Famicom, effects like these will be possible..." I'm not sure if they meant the music would have lyrics as well, but we weren't quite there yet. My memory could be failing me but I think just having characters speak a few lines was still a big deal. This article is four pages that I broke up into two parts:

Electronic Gaming Monthly #2 (Part 1)

Electronic Gaming Monthly #2 (Part 2)

I've got two more articles from EGM as they're really my best/favorite source from my magazine collection. This one is a total of six pages with the first three being about the console and the last three covering a few games. For some reason they used white print on a light background for page one so it might be a little difficult to read. The most interesting part of this article falls at the end of the second page and beginning of the third where they speculate about the system's U.S. release. Rumors indicated that the Super Famicom, despite being a new console in Japan, would actually be an add-on to the NES in the U.S. and might be called the NES-SFX. That's certainly a good example of why you should always take rumors with a grain of salt. These scans are from a special issue called Electronic Gaming Monthly Presents The 1991 Video Game Buyer's Guide:

EGM's 1991 Video Game Buyer's Guide (Part 1)

EGM's 1991 Video Game Buyer's Guide (Part 2)

EGM's 1991 Video Game Buyer's Guide (Part 3)

The next article hit newsstands just before the console released in North America. It's from the June 1991 issue and is part of a larger 16-bit gaming article featuring Ken Williams. The spine cuts off the screen resolution which should read 512 x 448 if you're curious. This is a rather straightforward overview, Ken's wardrobe might be the most entertaining aspect here:

Electronic Gaming Monthly #23

Lastly I've got a scan from the third issue of Game Informer when it was produced by Funco, Inc.; Funco ran a chain of game stores that we know today as GameStop. This was written a few months after the console was on store shelves but is mostly about the system specs so it's not the most exciting read:

Game Informer Jan/Feb 1992

Personally I didn't have a chance to play a Super Nintendo until the year 2000 and I've still only played it that one time! I know that's rather late but I had a Genesis and didn't know many people that owned video game systems beyond the 8-bit era during the '90s. The only game I happened to play that day was Family Feud if you can believe that. Not exactly unique but a fun multiplayer game nonetheless and the guys I was visiting really dug the music from that game. If I recall correctly, after Family Feud we moved on to Gauntlet Legends on Dreamcast. Nintendo is still a big believer in couch co-op gaming and Sega's Dreamcast was a good system for that too but today most everyone else is all about going online. We'll have to see how well the Switch does with online gaming, though I expect multiplayer will still be best as a local experience for Nintendo's games.