Well, our Nintendo Power recaps have reached our first issue without Howard Phillips – issue #26, for July of 1991. our cover story is another movie licensed game, Robin Hood: Prince Of Theves. It’s basically an intigration of a still from the movie with some artwork they did, and while it’s not great, it’s better then the last couple issues art. I’ll cut ’em some slack.

Letters: We get a couple letters of parents who got NESes and Game Boys from their kids, but more or toddlers playing (or trying to play) their parents NESs. We also get another letter about the invulnerability of the Game Boy. A soldier serving in Iraq had his Game Boy badly damaged in a fire, and he’d sent it in to see if he could get a replacement. They’d planned to send a new one out anyway but they tried the damaged Game Boy (which they show pictures of) to see if it worked. In short, it worked! I’m impressed!

Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves Guide: Robin Hood: Prince Of Theves is out in theaters and, like Willow, it’s been adapted to an action-RPG. I’m going to stop giving the ratings, as at the moment they mean s little. We get maps and notes for the first few quests, as well as some of the power ups. I’m not seeing any information on side quests either, but this was kind of before the major prevalance of side quests.

Nester: That’s right, Nester is flying solo now, and this time he’s giving advice for “Hunt For Red October”.

Rockin’ Kats Strategy Guide: Atlus has a mascot-themed platformer (not based around Jack Frost, unfortunately) with a Saturday Morning Cartoon show theme. We don’t get detailed maps for all the levels, but we do get notes for some of the missions in the game, and strategies for the boss fights. That said, we do get maps for the levels on Stages 3 and 4.

The Little Mermaid Guide: Another Disney Movie, another Capcom game based on it. Being that this is The Little Mermaid, there’s probably going to be a lot of swimming involved (a mechanic that, frankly, most games don’t get very well). We get maps of the first 5 stages and strategies for the boss fights.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Guide: Well, we had an interview with one of the stars of the film in a previous issue, and now we have guide for the game based on the movie. We get some general notes 4 of the historical areas in the game, but not much more than that.

SNES Preview: We have some more information on the SNES and more upcoming games for the system, including Actraiser, Super Mario World and F-Zero. For good measure, we have a poster of screen shots for 29 upcoming games, just to whet one’s appetite.

Game Boy Coverage: We also have coverage of the Game Boy version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which looks to be a pretty straightforward port. There also is some coverage of various productivity applications for the Game Boy, including a now very out-of-date travel guide. There’s also Sneaky Snakes and a Navy SEALs licensed game. This one gets the most coverage. There’s also Altered Space, a puzzle platformer which also gets some extensive coverage. Konami also has Blades of Steel.

Now Playing: Of note in the also-rans this issue is High Speed Pinball from Williams, as well as Legends of the Diamond – a baseball game from Bandai. Hot-B has the shump Over Horizon, and there’s an art application called Videomation.

Counselor’s Corner: We get some questions about what items to dump in Deja Vu, and how to rig the money making game in Legend of Zelda (or, rather, saving your game when immediately after winning, and restarting if you lose). We also have information on how to find the princess in Faria.

Top 30: Another issue, another ranking to go through.

1. Super Mario Bros 3 (9,739 pts.) – Up 1 (13 issues)
2. TMNT 2 (9,036 pts.) – Down 1 (7 issues)
3. Final Fantasy (6,251 pts.) – Up 1 (8 issues)
4. Mega Man III (5,637 pts.) – Down 1 (7 issues)
5. Bart vs. The Space Mutants (5,563 pts.) – Up 1 (3 issues)
6. Startropics (4,545 pts.) – Down 1 (4 issues)
7. Dragon Warrior II (4,003 pts.) – Up 2 (7 issues)
8. Tetris (3,818 pts.) – Up 2 (12 issues)
9. Crystalis (3,229 pts.) – Down 2 (6 issues)
10. Dr. Mario (3,117 pts.) – Down 2 (6 issues)
11. Double Dragon III (2,572 pts.) – No Change (2 issues)
12. Legend of Zelda (2,520 pts.) – No Change (22 issues)
13. Super Mario Bros 2 (2,519 pts.) – Up 3 (20 issues)
14. Dragon Warrior (2,011 pts.) – Returning
15. Destiny of an Emperor (1,833 pts.) – Up 6 (7 issues)
16. Zelda II (1,801 pts.) – Up 6 (22 issues)
17. Ultima IV (1,785 pts.) – Down 3 (4 issues)
18. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1,562 pts.) – Up 3 (17 issues)
19. G. I. Joe (1,446 pts.) – Down 4 (2 issues)
20. NES Play Action Football (1,287 pts.) – Down 9 (12 issues)
21. Caveman Games (1,169 pts.) – New!
22. Wizardry (1,138 pts.) – Up 5 (3 issues)
23. Little Nemo (1,089 pts.) – Down 1 (2 issues)
24. WWF Wrestlemania (1,047 pts.) – Returning!
25. Maniac Mansion (1,027 pts.) – Down 6 (6 issues)
26. Super C (955 pts.) – Returning!
27. Battle of Olympus (932 pts.) – Returning!
28. Duck Tales (927 pts.) – Returning!

Celebrity Profile: This issue we have Marsha Warfield, who is currently on Night Court (which was a pretty funny sitcom, if I don’t say so myself). As for what she’s done since Night Court – she’s done a variety of guest starring appearances, but no major recurring roles, which is kind of unfortunate.

NES Achievers: Normally, I skip this column, but this issue we have someone on here who claims that they finished Dragonlance: Heroes of the Lance. You, sir, are a damn liar and a cheat! Or at least you used cheats, because that’s the only explanation for being able to beat that thrice damned game.

Pak Watch: This issue, the games of note include Lucasarts’ superhero game Defenders of Dynatron City, plus a variety of games from Konami, including a port of King’s Quest V, and a Star Trek game. There’s also Ninja Gaiden III from Tecmo.

Letter from Gail: This issue Gail Tilden, our other editor is taking up the pen to talk to us about running a magazine. This issue we’re talking about using the likenesses of celebs. Apparently for their Batman poster, Michael Keaton’s agent objected because it made him look fat, and Sony Imagesoft is having simialr problems over Hudson Hawk in their game looking too much like Bruce Willis? The frak? Anyway – that’s why Kevin Costner does not appear in the cover of this magazine, or in Arcadia Software’s game (which is just a re-skinning of their planned Robin Hood game to reflect the movie after they found out about it).

So, for my quality control pick – Just for a change, I’m going with one of the Also-Rans – Over Horizon from Hot-B. I’ve been previously judging to see if the featured games were actually good – now I’m going to turn things around a bit, to see if a game that wasn’t featured deserved notice.