Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
Volume 100 of Nintendo Power, published in September 1997, is one of the most recognizable and actively sought-after issues in the magazine's entire twenty-year run — and for reasons that go well beyond the milestone issue number. The "100 Best Games of All Time" feature that anchors this issue arrived at a genuinely extraordinary moment in the history of video gaming, one that serious collectors and gaming historians will immediately recognize as significant. September 1997 sat at the precise crossroads between two eras: the 16-bit generation that had defined home console gaming through the early 1990s was fully consolidated in the collective memory, the Nintendo 64 had launched in North America just one year earlier and was already producing landmark titles, and the industry as a whole was in the middle of one of its most creatively fertile and commercially explosive periods. A ranked list of the 100 greatest games ever made, assembled by the editorial staff of the most widely read video game magazine in North America at this specific moment, is not merely a fan feature — it is a primary document of how the gaming community understood its own history at the precise midpoint of the medium's formative decades. Collectors building around vintage Nintendo Power issues consistently identify Volume 100 as one of the essential issues to locate in any serious run of the magazine.
To fully appreciate what this issue represented to its original readers, it helps to understand the cultural position Nintendo Power occupied in American gaming life by 1997. For millions of American children and teenagers who had grown up with the NES and the Super Nintendo, Nintendo Power was not simply a magazine — it was the primary and often only authoritative source of information about the games they loved, the games they were anticipating, and the broader world of Nintendo as a creative and commercial enterprise. The magazine combined strategy guides, previews, reviews, reader mail, and feature content into a monthly package that functioned simultaneously as a reference work, a community forum, and a marketing vehicle, and its readers engaged with it with a devotion that most general-interest publications could only envy. By September 1997, those readers had grown up alongside the magazine itself, and a milestone 100th issue that looked back across the full arc of gaming history spoke directly to a readership that had experienced much of that history firsthand. For collectors focused on magazines from 1997, this issue captures a gaming culture at a moment of genuine self-reflection — an industry and its audience old enough to have a history worth ranking and debating, but young enough that the passion and excitement of discovery still infused every page.
The specific games that would have populated a "100 Best of All Time" list assembled in September 1997 reflect a gaming canon that was still actively being formed in real time. The Super Mario series, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, EarthBound, Chrono Trigger, and the early entries in franchises that would define the following decade were all part of the landscape that Nintendo Power's editors were surveying and ranking. The Nintendo 64 was already producing titles — most notably Super Mario 64, released in 1996 — that were beginning to reshape what gaming could be in three dimensions, and any list assembled in late 1997 would have grappled with how to weigh these new benchmark titles against the beloved classics of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. That tension between the established canon and the emerging new generation of games gives this particular ranking its specific historical character. It is a snapshot of a community actively negotiating what it valued and why, at a moment when the answers were neither obvious nor settled. That quality — of genuine cultural conversation frozen in print at a specific and consequential moment — is what elevates Volume 100 above most milestone issues of most gaming publications and makes it a document that rewards serious collector attention.
About the Publication
Nintendo Power was launched in July 1988 as the official magazine of Nintendo of America, replacing the company's earlier Nintendo Fun Club News newsletter and establishing itself almost immediately as the dominant video game publication in the North American market. Published initially by Nintendo of America itself and later licensed to various publishers, the magazine combined game previews, full strategy guides, reviews, reader-submitted tips, and Nintendo-focused feature content into a monthly format that was specifically designed for the young, passionate audience that had made the Nintendo Entertainment System the defining consumer electronics product of the late 1980s. At its circulation peak in the early 1990s, Nintendo Power was one of the highest-circulation specialty magazines in the United States, with a subscriber base that reflected the extraordinary market penetration of Nintendo's hardware and software across American households. Its editorial voice was consistently enthusiastic and accessible rather than critical in any adversarial sense — it was, after all, a publication produced in close partnership with the company whose products it covered — but its strategy content was genuinely comprehensive and practically valuable in an era before the internet made game guides universally and immediately accessible. By 1997, Nintendo Power had been a fixture of American gaming culture for nearly a decade, and its one hundredth volume carried the accumulated weight of that history in a way that readers who had grown up with the magazine felt personally and directly.
Key Highlights Inside
- "The 100 Best Games of All Time" feature: The centerpiece of this milestone issue is a ranked list of the greatest video games ever made as assessed by Nintendo Power's editorial staff in September 1997 — a document that reflects the gaming canon as it was understood at one of the most significant transitional moments in the medium's history, spanning the full arc from early Nintendo Entertainment System classics through the emerging Nintendo 64 library. For gaming historians, this list is primary source material; for collectors and fans, it is an endlessly debatable and deeply nostalgic artifact of a specific moment in gaming culture.
- Milestone Volume 100 editorial content: A hundredth issue of any long-running publication typically includes retrospective content that looks back across the magazine's own history alongside its subject matter, and Volume 100 of Nintendo Power would have treated its milestone accordingly — reflecting on the magazine's nearly decade-long run, its relationship with its readers, and the evolution of gaming culture across the period it had documented.
- Collectible poster attached inside: The inclusion of a poster — confirmed as attached and intact in the listing — is a significant detail for collectors, as Nintendo Power posters from this era are sought after independently of the magazine itself. A copy retaining its original attached poster represents a more complete artifact than issues from which the poster has been removed, and the September 1997 poster associated with a milestone issue would have been produced with corresponding care and visual ambition.
- Nintendo 64 era game coverage: By September 1997, the Nintendo 64 was one year into its North American life and producing a library of titles that was beginning to define what 3D console gaming could achieve. Any issue of Nintendo Power from this period would have included substantial N64 coverage alongside retrospective content — previews, strategy material, and reviews reflecting the platform at one of its most creatively exciting early stages.
- Gaming culture as historical document: The advertising, reader mail, tips and codes sections, and visual design of a September 1997 Nintendo Power are themselves primary historical material — a detailed record of what the North American gaming community looked like, what it cared about, what it was anticipating, and how it communicated with itself at a specific and consequential moment in the medium's development. These elements of the magazine are often as historically revealing as the editorial features that surround them.
Condition & Rarity
A Very Good to Excellent condition rating with newsstand origin and no label is the strongest combination of attributes a surviving copy of this issue can present, and collectors should understand precisely what each element contributes to that assessment. Nintendo Power in the mid-to-late 1990s was printed on reasonably good coated paper stock — better than standard newsprint, designed to reproduce the full-color game screenshots and illustrations that were central to the magazine's editorial identity — but it was never produced as an archival document, and copies that have survived nearly three decades in genuinely excellent condition have typically benefited from deliberate storage by readers who recognized the magazine's value early. The newsstand origin with no label is a meaningful positive attribute: subscriber copies of Nintendo Power were mailed directly to readers and frequently sustained address label damage to the cover that is permanent and detracts from display presentation. A clean, label-free newsstand copy preserves the full visual integrity of the cover, which matters considerably for a milestone issue whose cover design was almost certainly produced with special care. The protective plastic covering indicates deliberate preservation, adding confidence regarding the issue's recent storage history. The attached interior poster is the most condition-sensitive element to assess in any surviving copy of Volume 100: posters in Nintendo Power issues were frequently removed by original readers, making intact-poster copies a subset of all surviving examples, and the listing's confirmation that the poster remains attached and inside the issue is a meaningful positive distinction. Minor wear consistent with careful handling over nearly thirty years is entirely appropriate at this grade and does not compromise the issue's integrity as either a reading copy or a display piece.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Volume 100 of Nintendo Power is one of those issues that almost every serious collector of the magazine's run wants to locate in strong condition — the combination of the milestone issue number, the "100 Best Games of All Time" feature, and the September 1997 cultural moment makes it one of the defining issues of the magazine's entire publishing history, and finding a newsstand copy with the poster intact and minimal wear is the result of genuine patience. If this particular issue has already found a home, the broader Nintendo Power collection at OriginalMagazines.com spans the magazine's full run from its 1988 launch through its later years and regularly includes issues from the NES, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 eras that document the full arc of Nintendo's creative history through the lens of the publication that covered it most closely and passionately. Collectors with a specific focus on the mid-to-late 1990s gaming landscape — one of the most creatively fertile and historically significant periods in the medium's development — will also find the 1997 magazine archive worth exploring in depth, as it brings together gaming publications and general-interest magazines from a year that produced landmark releases, platform transitions, and cultural moments that serious collectors of gaming history continue to document and debate.