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Inside the NES Worlds of Power Series

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shamed-and-amused-at-the-same-time dept.

If you grew up in the 80s, chances were you'd at least heard of the Nintendo Entertainment System. For those of us that read Nintendo Power, ate Nintendo cereal, and (ahem) for a brief time even wore a Nintendo hat, the NES experience was fairly powerful. As such, reading about Nintendo games is a perfectly logical step. 1up has a long piece looking at the World of Power book series, a series of novelizations of some of the most popular NES titles of the day. Castlvania, Master Blaster, and Metal Gear all received the literary treatment ... with varying degrees of success. From the article: "This trend toward whitewashing death and violence also extended the books' text. In Blaster Master, all the defeated 'underboss' characters that look like mutated animals turn out to be holographic projections placed over formless blobs. In Metal Gear, Solid Snake is described as a 'walking arsenal,' yet he only uses his various weapons to shoot locks off doors. In Ninja Gaiden, Ryu's father is shown losing a duel to the death in the game's prologue, and is said to have passed away in the book's early chapters. Yet he turns up at the very end of the book, very much alive. In Infiltrator, a double agent that is ordered to be sent away to be 'voided' has his fate described as either having his memory wiped, being exiled, or getting demoted." So, how many folks (besides me) actually read these thing?

6 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. This, at least, matches... by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Informative

    From TFA:

    In Ninja Gaiden, Ryu's father is shown losing a duel to the death in the game's prologue, and is said to have passed away in the book's early chapters. Yet he turns up at the very end of the book, very much alive.

    Tsk tsk tsk. Someone didn't play the game through. Ken Hayabusa IS alive until the end of the game.

  2. Re:Corrections by Allison+Geode · · Score: 5, Informative

    Blaster Master is a game. Master Blaster runs barter town.

  3. Blaster Master by cashpiles · · Score: 2, Informative

    I read Blaster Master along with Castlevania when I was about 12 years old. At the time, I thought Blaster Master was an awesome book. I'd get all pumped up and slightly frightened when I came to a part in the book where a boss battle would be described. From a 12 year old me's perspective, I give the Blaster Master book a 9/10. INTENSE!

  4. Re:Filthy Mega-Lies! by Firehawke · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe he used the shoot-two-pause trick. Shoot two metal blades, hit start to bring up the subscreen, and reselect Metal Blade. That resets the shot counter (on each third blade it would drop one weapon power bar) and allows you effectively infinite blades.

  5. Re:I did! by VGPowerlord · · Score: 2, Informative

    Shh, don't mention the forest of Metal Gear to Hideo Kojima. It didn't exist in the original version of Metal Gear.

    Metal Gear's appearance on the MSX2 system coincided with the most successful years of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The game later made its way to the NES but in an entirely different form than Director Kojima intended, who thinks of the NES version as an inferior adaptation of his much-loved series. Now you can experience the Metal Gear saga's landmark opus for yourself!
    --Konami's MGS3: Subsistence Metal Gear site

    For that matter, we also never got the real Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake until MGS3: Subsistence. Instead, we got Snake's Revenge, a cheap knock-off created specifically for English speaking audiences.

    --
    GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
  6. The Megaman 2 novel is online also by Ayavaron · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Megaman 2 novel is also online. Here's a link: http://themechanicalmaniacs.com/downloads/mm2book. pdf