N64 Nintendo Power 2001! Let’s take a trip back!

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

2001 was an odd year for Nintendo, as well as the industry. This issue comes from March, several months before the launch of the GameCube, and in the final days before the Color GameBoy became Advanced.

Sega had fired the first shot of the sixth generation and had fizzled out quickly, with the industry now reeling from the massive sales of Sony’s new PlayStation 2 releasing no more than four months prior. Microsoft’s XBox was actually announced and was a known player in the upcoming hardware battle. This issue of Nintendo Power shows us the side of history we often forget: the Nintendo 64 and GameBoy Color were still around in 2001 and were hot off the heels of some of their most memorable games.

Harvest Moon 64 had only recently released the previous year. Despite what sales data may say, it has always had a hardcore fanbase. One who was more than willing to send buckets of fanart to Nintendo, prompting them to make a Harvest Moon exclusive highlight page this month!

Also Tech Decks. Gotta admit: I laughed.

Mario gets his eyes blown out by the sheer, unrivaled power… of an iMac from the year 1999.

Easily the biggest news of the month: SEGA announced they were going THIRD PARTY in the late February of 2001. This came with the announcement of a slew of their games, most notably Sonic, coming to the upcoming GameBoy Advance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the first time the hedgehog was seen in the pages of Nintendo’s mag? It certainly wouldn’t be the last, as while the Dreamcast finished out its 2001 with one last year of great titles, Sonic would quickly become a staple of Nintendo kid’s childhoods for years to come.

Also, check out that XBox and PS2! Weird them here, but not as weird as the Nokia brick phone.

Nintendo Power is known for their posters, and my copy still has it. Zelda: Oracle of Seasons was the hottest new Nintendo game, so it gets the poster treatment here.

Also a foldout from the back, with some remarkably nostalgic art. I didn’t even know this series existed until reading this! It’s just that the art style brings back memories of a specific style from the late 90’s and early 00’s that bled into my childhood, growing up not long after.

Ads! The Pokémon GameBoy is still a beautiful looking variant of a game console! The Walmart prices are actually still accurate, as I can go out and spend $50 for Banjo-Tooie right now!

The rest of the mag is the usual reviews and walkthroughs. Paper Mario gets a walkthrough that gives tips and tricks for most of the game’s areas, with a special focus on Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Zelda: Oracle of Seasons gets a guide as well! Wouldn’t be Nintendo Power without some weirdos though: Mickey’s Speedway USA gets a guide! But don’t get too excited: it’s the GameBoy Color version. Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage gets a guide as well! It certainly is one game that needs it, and it’s cool to see it here, but WOW they do not make any attempt to hide how ugly the game is. You’ll just have to take my word on this one, since I can only attach so many images. And, of course, Pokémon Stadium 2 is all over this mag! Breakdowns of type matchups, items, and the tournament champions are in here, as well as a battle with Kurt which I didn’t know existed! He has a Raikou, so I guess his Pokéballs really are quality if he’s able to catch a legendary beast in one. Knowing him, it was probably the messed up Moon Ball that gives a catch multiplier for Pokémon that evolve with Burn Heal. He must have collabed with Blaine on that one.

The end of the zine teases us with the future, as the next issue would take a full look at the GameBoy Advance, making this issue we are reading here to be the final Nintendo publication before the launch of the GBA.

And, of course, this magazine ends how every Nintendo magazine ends. Don’t tell me you don’t know, because we all do…

Luck of the Irish on Disney Channel.

A true Nintendo classic.

 

[Bonkers225]

2001 was such a great year for me as a kid. GBA, Golden Sun, Circle of the Moon, Fire Pro Wrestling, Dreamcast, PSO, Sonic Adventure 2, Grandia 2, WWF vs ECW/WCW, Wrestlemania 17, etc..

 

[Don Patch]

I've always been fascinated by the "transitions in tech" moments like 01'.
Making the most of the old, getting the best of the new. It was exciting!

It feels like we have less of that now given how the medium is treated and how things seemed to have effectively plateaued in the "raw tech" of gaming machines.
Ah, change.

 

[fake-kun]

View attachment 45412
2001 was an odd year for Nintendo, as well as the industry. This issue comes from March, several months before the launch of the GameCube, and in the final days before the Color GameBoy became Advanced.

Sega had fired the first shot of the sixth generation and had fizzled out quickly, with the industry now reeling from the massive sales of Sony’s new PlayStation 2 releasing no more than four months prior. Microsoft’s XBox was actually announced and was a known player in the upcoming hardware battle. This issue of Nintendo Power shows us the side of history we often forget: the Nintendo 64 and GameBoy Color were still around in 2001 and were hot off the heels of some of their most memorable games.


View attachment 45414

View attachment 45416
Harvest Moon 64 had only recently released the previous year. Despite what sales data may say, it has always had a hardcore fanbase. One who was more than willing to send buckets of fanart to Nintendo, prompting them to make a Harvest Moon exclusive highlight page this month!
View attachment 45417
Also Tech Decks. Gotta admit: I laughed.
View attachment 45418
Mario gets his eyes blown out by the sheer, unrivaled power… of an iMac from the year 1999.
View attachment 45420
Easily the biggest news of the month: SEGA announced they were going THIRD PARTY in the late February of 2001. This came with the announcement of a slew of their games, most notably Sonic, coming to the upcoming GameBoy Advance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the first time the hedgehog was seen in the pages of Nintendo’s mag? It certainly wouldn’t be the last, as while the Dreamcast finished out its 2001 with one last year of great titles, Sonic would quickly become a staple of Nintendo kid’s childhoods for years to come.
View attachment 45419
Also, check out that XBox and PS2! Weird them here, but not as weird as the Nokia brick phone.

Nintendo Power is known for their posters, and my copy still has it. Zelda: Oracle of Seasons was the hottest new Nintendo game, so it gets the poster treatment here.

View attachment 45421
Also a foldout from the back, with some remarkably nostalgic art. I didn’t even know this series existed until reading this! It’s just that the art style brings back memories of a specific style from the late 90’s and early 00’s that bled into my childhood, growing up not long after.

View attachment 45426

Ads! The Pokémon GameBoy is still a beautiful looking variant of a game console! The Walmart prices are actually still accurate, as I can go out and spend $50 for Banjo-Tooie right now! View attachment 45424

View attachment 45423
The rest of the mag is the usual reviews and walkthroughs. Paper Mario gets a walkthrough that gives tips and tricks for most of the game’s areas, with a special focus on Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Zelda: Oracle of Seasons gets a guide as well! Wouldn’t be Nintendo Power without some weirdos though: Mickey’s Speedway USA gets a guide! But don’t get too excited: it’s the GameBoy Color version. Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage gets a guide as well! It certainly is one game that needs it, and it’s cool to see it here, but WOW they do not make any attempt to hide how ugly the game is. You’ll just have to take my word on this one, since I can only attach so many images. And, of course, Pokémon Stadium 2 is all over this mag! Breakdowns of type matchups, items, and the tournament champions are in here, as well as a battle with Kurt which I didn’t know existed! He has a Raikou, so I guess his Pokéballs really are quality if he’s able to catch a legendary beast in one. Knowing him, it was probably the messed up Moon Ball that gives a catch multiplier for Pokémon that evolve with Burn Heal. He must have collabed with Blaine on that one.

The end of the zine teases us with the future, as the next issue would take a full look at the GameBoy Advance, making this issue we are reading here to be the final Nintendo publication before the launch of the GBA.

View attachment 45425

And, of course, this magazine ends how every Nintendo magazine ends. Don’t tell me you don’t know, because we all do…

View attachment 45427
Luck of the Irish on Disney Channel.

A true Nintendo classic.

Mega Man Legends cameo.

 

[Shuriiu]

Ahh... I was born in 2006, did I miss out?

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Ahh... I was born in 2006, did I miss out?

I mean, I was born in 2003, so I’m with you there. Thankfully, plenty of documentation still exists which shows not only what came out, but how people felt about it!

 

[Zerpina]

I subscribed, or rather my grandparents did, to Nintendo Power when I was a kid. I remember looking forward to every month's magazine, mind you, when I was getting NP, the internet had just become a thing.

I looked forward to the game reviews, not because I cared about graphics or the like, but mostly to see what cool new game I might ask for on my birthday or Christmas. I was a kid at this time, and aside from chores for money, if you were like me and I’m guessing any of us here you either earned money by doing chores or received a couple of gifts on your birthday or Christmas. So I would always thumb through the magazines and circle the ones I wanted. TL;DR, I would have 10 games, then 5, then 2. I would re-read the reviews, look at the screenshots, etc., and think hard about whether this was the game I wanted until possibly 6-8 months later. It was a thing.

And the posters! I freakin' loved the posters; some of them were even double-sided posters featuring a game on either side.

I don't remember now, but Nintendo Power ran a Zelda/Mario/Metroid comic for a while too, and they were really good. You can find them by Googling. They even had or rather tried to start a T.C.G. sort of thing. There were 50, I want to say, Pokémon-type cards they put out for a couple of years. You would get 9 cards in the middle of the magazine, sometimes duplicates from last month, sometimes new, and they were randomized. A friend of mine at that time got NP too and would receive different cards than I would.

And the cover art! Each month, to a kid, it was like getting a priceless work of art—a Picasso, Van Gogh, Playb... err, never mind that. But I actually really liked the few live-action covers they did. There were 2, maybe 3, that I can remember. The one that stands out the most is the Castlevania one.

Anyhow, Nintendo Power was a fun magazine, and I fondly remember it.

The live covers

Zelda comic

The T.C.G. style cards

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I subscribed, or rather my grandparents did, to Nintendo Power when I was a kid. I remember looking forward to every month's magazine, mind you, when I was getting NP, the internet had just become a thing.

I looked forward to the game reviews, not because I cared about graphics or the like, but mostly to see what cool new game I might ask for on my birthday or Christmas. I was a kid at this time, and aside from chores for money, if you were like me and I’m guessing any of us here you either earned money by doing chores or received a couple of gifts on your birthday or Christmas. So I would always thumb through the magazines and circle the ones I wanted. TL;DR, I would have 10 games, then 5, then 2. I would re-read the reviews, look at the screenshots, etc., and think hard about whether this was the game I wanted until possibly 6-8 months later. It was a thing.

And the posters! I freakin' loved the posters; some of them were even double-sided posters featuring a game on either side.

I don't remember now, but Nintendo Power ran a Zelda/Mario/Metroid comic for a while too, and they were really good. You can find them by Googling. They even had or rather tried to start a T.C.G. sort of thing. There were 50, I want to say, Pokémon-type cards they put out for a couple of years. You would get 9 cards in the middle of the magazine, sometimes duplicates from last month, sometimes new, and they were randomized. A friend of mine at that time got NP too and would receive different cards than I would.

And the cover art! Each month, to a kid, it was like getting a priceless work of art—a Picasso, Van Gogh, Playb... err, never mind that. But I actually really liked the few live-action covers they did. There were 2, maybe 3, that I can remember. The one that stands out the most is the Castlevania one.

Anyhow, Nintendo Power was a fun magazine, and I fondly remember it.

The live covers
View attachment 45477

Zelda comic
View attachment 45478

The T.C.G. style cards
View attachment 45479

This all is sick! Seems like you were a fan of the magazine during the 90’s based on your memories.

 

[Zerpina]

Yeah, well i was a kid in the 90s. so it lines up

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Yeah, well i was a kid in the 90s. so it lines up
View attachment 45519

I think the SNES era was probably the objectively best era for Nintendo Power, but is it weird to say I’m drawn more to the later magazines? Specifically with the late 90’s and early 00’s ads that are truly… something special.

 

[Zerpina]

Yeah, I had Nintendo Power until I was roughly 14, maybe 16 I forget now. By the time I stopped receiving it, the Nintendo 64 or the 64DD was just being announced. Again, I don’t really remember.

I, like you, preferred the SNES era of the magazines more, especially looking back on it now. They had better posters, anyway. But by that time, I was going out more and doing Dumbass teenager stuff.

You know how it is. Then, around 17, Nintendo Power basically sent me a few free issues, trying to win my Money.... err, me back as a subscriber. By that time, though, I had moved on to work and such.

 

[Ikagura]

2001 was a sad year because they've discontinued the Dreamcast...

 

[ClarityZero]

Friendly reminder that the Magi Nation game on GBC is easily among the best RPGs ever made, and has an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack.

...The Japanese GBA version, on the other hand... Not so much.