Nintendo Player's Guide


The Nintendo Player's Guides are a series of video game strategy guides from Nintendo based on Nintendo Power magazine.

Original format

The first Player's Guide was simply named The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, featuring dozens of different NES games. The following 22 games were covered in depth, with enemy descriptions, level maps, and strategy tips.
  • The Legend of Zelda
  • Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!
  • Commando
  • Super Mario Bros.
  • Top Gun
  • Ghosts and Goblins
  • Double Dribble
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
  • Metroid
  • Rad Racer
  • Ring King
  • Kid Icarus
  • Pro Wrestling
  • Castlevania
  • Excitebike
  • Arkanoid
  • Rush'n Attack
  • Rygar
  • Ikari Warriors
  • Spy Hunter
  • The Goonies 2
  • Kung Fu
Screenshots and short descriptions of other games were also included. As an early published Nintendo work, it featured some errors, including referring to Metroid heroine Samus Aran as a male, and referring to the playable bar in Arkanoid as "Bowse" instead of the proper "Vaus," most likely the result of a translation mistake.
The Official Nintendo Player's Guide was followed in the early 1990s by a number of publications, which were produced under the slightly different moniker of Nintendo Power Strategy Guides. These were sent between the then bi-monthly magazine issues to subscribers or mailed alongside them. Nintendo Entertainment System games covered by their Strategy Guides included:
  • Super Mario Bros. 3
  • Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
  • Final Fantasy
  • 4-Player Extra, which covered multiple four-player games on the NES.
Nintendo ceased production of these bimonthly Strategy Guides due to a lack of important game releases in the pre-holiday seasons of the year.

Player's Guide

After converting Nintendo Power to a monthly format came the more well-known mainstay of Player's Guides. Early guides covered groups of games in one book. These books covered strategy for:
  • NES Game Atlas
  • * Castlevania
  • * Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
  • * Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
  • * Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
  • * DuckTales
  • * The Legend of Zelda
  • * Mega Man
  • * Mega Man 2
  • * Mega Man 3
  • * Ninja Gaiden
  • * Ninja Gaiden II
  • * StarTropics
  • * Super Mario Bros.
  • * Super Mario Bros. 2
  • * Super Mario Bros. 3
  • * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
  • * Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
  • Game Boy
  • * Batman
  • * Castlevania: The Adventure
  • * Cosmo Tank
  • * Days of Thunder
  • * Double Dragon
  • * Dr. Mario
  • * DuckTales
  • * F-1 Race
  • * Final Fantasy Legend
  • * Fortified Zone
  • * Gargoyle's Quest
  • * Golf
  • * Gremlins 2: The New Batch
  • * The Hunt for Red October
  • * Kwirk
  • * Nemesis
  • * Operation C
  • * Quarth
  • * R-Type
  • * Revenge of the 'Gator
  • * Super Mario Land
  • * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan
  • * SolarStriker
  • * Solomon's Club
  • * Super R.C. Pro-Am
  • * Sword of Hope
  • * Tetris
  • * Ultima: Runes of Virtue
  • Mario Mania
  • * Super Mario World, along with a history of the character, Mario.
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System
  • * ActRaiser
  • * Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball
  • * The Chessmaster
  • * Darius Twin
  • * Drakkhen
  • * Extra Innings
  • * F-Zero
  • * Final Fantasy II
  • * Final Fight
  • * Gradius III
  • * Home Alone
  • * HyperZone
  • * Joe & Mac
  • * John Madden's Football
  • * Hal's Hole in One Golf
  • * Lagoon
  • * Legend of the Mystical Ninja
  • * The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
  • * Miracle Piano Teaching System
  • * Nolan Ryan's Baseball
  • * Paperboy 2
  • * Pilotwings
  • * Pit Fighter
  • * Populous
  • * RPM Racing
  • * SimCity
  • * Smash TV
  • * Super Bases Loaded
  • * Super Baseball Simulator 1.000
  • * Super CastleVania IV
  • * Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
  • * Super Mario World
  • * Super Off-Road
  • * Super R-Type
  • * Super Tennis
  • * True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club
  • * Ultraman: Towards the Future
  • * U.N. Squadron
  • * Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
  • Top Secret: Passwords
Outside of offering an optional Player's Guide as a free gift for a Nintendo Power subscription or subscription renewal, Nintendo Power did not include Player's Guides with the magazine. They were, however, made available separately, both through mail-order and at book and video-game shops. Nintendo did also once offer a subscription motive that included four of the aforementioned Player's Guides instead of only one.
Following these four Player's Guides, a fifth was released to Nintendo Power subscribers entitled Top Secret Passwords, containing passwords for a wide variety of NES, SNES, and Game Boy games. While initially billed as a subscriber exclusive, this guide was eventually sold at retailers.

Later era

In its later years, each Player's Guide published features one specific game, much like the earlier Nintendo Power Strategy Guides. These Nintendo Power branded Player's Guides were available for Nintendo-published games as well as select high-profile third party titles, such as Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger, but the concept is now emulated by other publishing companies such as Brady Games or Prima for major releases on all video game consoles. Almost all major video games released today will have one or more official Guides associated with them.
While the rise of the World Wide Web and the increasing availability of free on-line FAQs and walkthroughs has taken away some of the need for commercial strategy guides, there is still a market for them. Guides often feature extensive picture-by-picture walkthroughs, maps, game art, and other visual features that cannot be provided by a bare text online walkthrough.
Among the games that have been given Nintendo Player's Guides: