Nintendo Power Magazine and the Counselor's Corner
Nintendo Power
I was never an official subscriber to Nintendo Power Magazine but I did pick up random issues here and there from the newsstand or the electronics section of local retail stores which include Venture and K-Mart. One of the better feature’s of every issue was the Counselor’s Corner.
There was no Internet. Well, technically, the World Wide Web was a thing by 1989 but not designed nor intended for general public use. It wasn’t what it is today. So, no quick search for an FAQ or YouTube video. And not every video game at the time had a strategy guide. That is where the Counselor’s Corner came in. It featured text-based walkthroughs of some of your more challenging games and was written by the Nintendo Game Counselors.
If you were stuck in a game, you could call Nintendo’s Power Line, which was a paid phone service, to get advice on that game from a Nintendo expert. This feature continued in the magazine until it was eventually canceled in 2002. And by 2005, the hotline itself was closed.
But how many of you remember the Counselor’s Corner in Nintendo Power Magazine? Also, how many of you actually wrote to it? I have. Quite a few times and for quite a few games. One such game: Crystalis for the NES. The irony is: this was snail mail and I would eventually figure things out on my own by the time I got a response.
Sadly, I never saved those responses. I did however save one of the responses for Final Fantasy 3 (i.e. 6) for the SNES.
How many of you had your own experiences with either Nintendo Power’s Counselor’s Corner or even some other video game support / hotline? I would love to hear or read about it in the comments section.