As Jon alluded to in an earlier post, this week we were met with the news of Nintendo Power's impending demise. And since the entire premise of this website has the old magazine and the maps therein as its inspiration, I think this is pretty big news for all of us VGMaps.com goers.
I suppose I sort of have mixed feelings on the announcement myself. For one, I'm surprised it hasn't happened much sooner. In the era of GameFAQs, VGMaps, and online walkthroughs, it's actually rather impressive that NP has survived all the way to 2012. As superfluous as the magazine has become in recent years, it's almost held on more out of tradition and sentiment than anything else.
But it's very sad. Having been born in 1980 myself, I'm old enough to have experienced NP from its inception all the way on. I wasn't a subscriber in the beginning, though. I ended up using my weekly allowance to start a subscription in 1991 (maybe 1990?) and not only got the monthly issues, but back then NP had a really neat back issue order program too, so I started collecting backward too. I don't recall if I collected all the way back to Volume 1 from July/August 1988 or not, but I wasn't far off, I know that.
My best NP memories are from 1992, the entire year. For that year (when the Super NES was still brand new), NP ran a comic strip story based on both Super Mario World and A Link to the Past in all twelve issues. I got so into it that I would literally wait out by my mailbox in the desperate hope that the mailman was bringing that month's issue of Nintendo Power that day. I think because of this, even now there's this subconscious part of my brain that gets really excited whenever I see a mail truck, even today (despite the fact that nowadays the mail brings me bills more often than anything else!). Back then, I would go so far as to ask the mailman if he was sure that was everything for our house if the day's mail didn't include my NP issue.
I also really loved the Super Metroid comics they later ran, even though it didn't go a whole year as the Mario and Zelda ones did.
Anyway, at some point we ended up cancelling my subscription to Nintendo Power, either when I was in eighth or possibly ninth grade. So perhaps 1994 or (at the latest) 1995? Once I entered high school, my video game interest seemed to dwindle down to nothing. (I think Yoshi's Island, released my ninth grade year, was the last game I played for a very long time.) Sadly, I not only cancelled the subscription, but even later, having believed myself to have outgrown video games, I threw out all my NP issues. =/
Yes, I still rather regret that decision to this day. But I was a very erstwhile teenager, what can I say?
Oh, and I had collected a veritable library of those early Nintendo player's guides too. NES Atlas, Mario Mania, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid. In some ways, those were even better than the regular issues!
Anyway, even when I became addicted to gaming again in 2006, I never renewed my subscription--it was a bit pointless by then of course, due to the aforementioned GameFAQs. I still even now collect the occasional strategy guide (Prima nowadays, since NP let go of those in 2007).
Out of little more than sentiment, I have been keeping up with NP, occasionally thumbing through an issue when I see one in the stores. I'm also very keen on looking online to see what the cover for the next issue will look like. Hell, one day I put together a document listing the covers of all 200+ issues, from 1988 to the present! It's been interesting watching the progression from those old vintage clay model covers to the schnazzy computer art of today.
But now there will definitely be an end. Volume 285 will be the last issue, December 2012. So I suppose
the Mayans were right after all--except they weren't counting down to the end of the world, just the end of Nintendo Power magazine.
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