This week a lot of Nintendo fans living in the UK opened their mailboxes to find something they have been looking forward too for a while now, but it also contained a ton of details they probably weren’t expecting. The new edition of the Official Nintendo Magazine has finally been released and the big topic in this coming months edition is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. ONM has rated this game a 98 / 100 the highest they have ever given any game being only the second to receive such an incredible score tying with Ocarina of Time 3D with other titles in the Zelda series following close behind. Anyways, with the release of November’s edition of the ONM we now have some great pics taken directly from the magazine along with some incredible new info on Skyward Sword detailing everything from weapons to the mysterious giant black beast seen in the recent videos that were released.

If you’re not afraid of any spoilers and you’re as excited as I am about learning more than ever about this amazing game jump inside for all the exciting new details and pictures from the Magazine. Just remember, we warned about the spoilers.

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The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is set to release on November 20th here in the United States. Much like with every major Zelda release in the last 5-years, Prima Games will be offering two versions of their strategy guide. There is the standard strategy guide, as well as the hard-cover collector’s edition version packaged with some extra goodies.

Now, this particular guide holds a special place in my heart. I’m a huge collector of Zelda strategy guides and I have over 150 different guide books in several different languages. However, back in August of this year, my fellow Zelda Dungeon Webmaster Caleb and I received a job offer from Prima Games to author this exact strategy guide. After carefully considering the offer, Caleb and I decided to decline for a variety of reasons, but we were grateful that Prima Games, and indirectly Nintendo of America, would offer a fan website like ours the honor of authoring the official guide. Well, a few months have passed and here we are promoting a guide that we could have authored! Jump inside to find out some more details.

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The latest episode of Mas’ Zelda Collection is now available and this time around it covers a relatively new item. Actually, it’s brand new item having just released a couple weeks back. The October issue of NGamer magazine comes with tons of Zelda goodies. It has a full preview article of Skyward Sword which is identical to the CVG article that we posted a few days back.

Additionally, the issue comes with some nice Skyward Sword themed stickers for your Nintendo Wii, a gigantic two-sided foldout poster of Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time 3D, and a full 66-page book entitled A Zelda Miscellany. This really is a gold mine for Zelda collectors in terms of getting the best bang for your buck. It’s not too expensive for folks over in the UK, priced at just £4.99 (pounds) per issue, but you can get a bulk discount if you subcribe. Unfortunately it’s quite pricey for folks around the world to import the magazine. Make the jump to see the full video of my latest goody.

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I’ve continued to update our Zelda Publications page of the website, adding several new Nintendo Power magazines to the listing. If you are unfamiliar with the project, the plan is to go through every single Nintendo Power issue and pull out all the Zelda related material. As long as there is a Zelda reference, outside of the top-listings of each month, the issue is listed on the Publications page, along with the cover artwork of the magazine, links to the pages, as well as descriptions of what is found within the issue.

The latest update takes us through the rather dead period of the Zelda series. The mid-90′s, after A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening had a few years under their belt, and Ocarina of Time was still a long time away, there wasn’t too much going in the Zelda series within Nintendo Power. However, there were still several goodies to be found and they are listed below.

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In the year 1991, mentions of the Super Nintendo began to slowly pop up in the Nintendo Power magazine. While the Super Famicom had already been released as of November of 1990 in Japan, the Super Nintendo didn’t release until Fall of 1991 in the United States. In the months before the release, Nintendo Power was slowly but surely building the hype by offering quick previews of many of the upcoming titles. Super Mario World got a lot of the attention, but there were a lot of games mentioned, including what would become known as A Link to the past.

In the July 1991, Issue #26, the very first screenshot of a Link to the Past appeared in Nintendo Power. You can view the screenshot by clicking here. You’ll notice that there is a lot different in the display of the number of rupees, arrows, and bombs that you got. In the final version, this material was displayed in two rows, rather than one. You’ll also notice the magic bar looks slightly different and a different sprite was used for the lantern. Read more…

Today I have for you all four more issues of Nintendo Power added to our Zelda Publications archive. If you haven’t been following along, what I am doing is going through all of the old Nintendo Power magazines and pulling out anything related to the Legend of Zelda series. In this update we have four issues ranging from November 1989 to February 1991. During this time period, the two Zelda titles for the NES were beginning to fade away, the Nintendo GameBoy was released, Nintendo Power went to monthly magazines, and the Super Nintendo was on the horizon. There was very little to offer in terms of Zelda content and listed below are some of the notable sections.

In issue #10 (January/February 1990), there was a game designer profile of Shigeru Miyamoto, in which it was confirmed that he was working on Zelda 3 for the Super Famicom.

In issue #12 (May/June 1990), Link from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link won the annual Nintendo Power award for being the best character.

In Issue #21 (February 1991), nearly four years after the American release of the original Legend of Zelda, four more questions were answered in the Counselor’s Corner.

I personally think it’s amazing that four years after the games release, the original Legend of Zelda still got mentioned in the Counselor’s Corner. Remember, Nintendo Power was available in an age where there was no internet to look to for help. So if you got stuck, you either needed a friend that beat it, needed Nintendo Power, the Nintendo hotline, or your were just stuck to do it yourself! The next few Zelda updates in Nintendo power should be concerning the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Before then though, I’d like to know what you guys think about the Nintendo Power archive project. Is it fun to look at? Does it bring you back to your early days? Do you think it is pointless? Is it nice but doesn’t need index page updates? Let us know in the comments below! Read more…

Today I’ve gone ahead and updated our Nintendo Power Archive collection adding two new magazines with all the Zelda references that there are. We now have the first 8 issues available in our Zelda Publications area of the site.

The first 8 issues of Nintendo Power each had some Zelda references with at least 7 of them having specific material dedicated to the games in the form of secrets revealed, strategy guides, a comic strip, etc… If you’re an old school gamer like myself, it really has a nostalgic feel to it when you glimpse through these old magazines.

Issue #007 – July / August 1989: View at Gallery
–The Adventure of Link has a tip about walking through walls in the Great Palace, found in the Classified Information section.
–The Legend of Zelda also has tip in the Classified Information section about leaving one enemy alive in the overworld to avoid enemy respawns.
–Listing of all six 1-up’s found in the Adventure of Link.

Issue #008 – September / October 1989: View at Gallery
–A question about how to get the hammer in The Adventure of Link is answered in the Counselor’s Corner.
–A secret tip in the Classified Information section about how to avoid monster scenes in the Adventure of Link.
–The Adventure of Link reaches #1 on the Nintendo Power Top 30 while the Legend of Zelda sits at #4.

We will be adding these on a relatively frequent basis over the next couple months. If you really enjoyed these, let us know by posting in the comments below. Also, remember you can make individual comments about the images with the image gallery. Read more…

Several months ago I started up a Zelda Publications page here at Zelda Dungeon. However, with the release of the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, the project was put on hold… until now.

We now have portions of the first 6 issues of Nintendo Power now online ready to be viewed. What I did is went through the magazines, and found all of the Zelda relevant information and put those pages online. You can view all the Zelda pages for the first 6 issues at our Image Gallery. Alternatively, you can take a look at the Zelda Publications page, which gives basic information about each of the first 6 issues.

Expect new issues of Nintendo Power and eventually other Nintendo Publications, to be put up on our gallery frequently over the coming months. Any Nintendo fan who has been with us since the late 90′s will surely get some nostalgia out of just looking at these old magazines. Back in the day there was no Zelda Dungeon, IGN, or any internet to go to for Nintendo news, but rather, there was Nintendo Power. Are you one of those gamers that use to just reading Nintendo Power? Perhaps you’re a gamer who missed the glory days of Nintendo Power and wonder what all the fuss was about. Maybe your just like me and you jumped on the bandwagon a few years after the magazine started but can still appreciate the old work.

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