80 files
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Famitsu Issue 0001 (June 20, 1986)
By kitsunebi
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこで誰でもでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！ *
*This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file is from Retromags, where anyone can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
OK, here it is, the first issue of Famitsu – a landmark issue if ever there was one. Please be aware however, that this IS NOT a scan of the original magazine (which is super-rare and costs hundreds of dollars) but rather is a scan of a reproduction. The gray borders around each page are new to the reproduction, allowing them to occasionally print some commentary on the contents of the page. Otherwise, the content of the magazine, including the ads, is identical to the original.
However, the reproduction is printed at about half the physical dimensions of the original. As such, the quality of small detail suffers somewhat – a fault of the magazine’s printing, not of the scan. The copy I had also suffered from some water damage, which is visible in a few places. Even so, unless someone is willing to scan a copy of the original #1 (I won’t hold my breath), this is probably the best we’ll get, and I feel it’s an important look at the origins of the most influential video game magazine ever published.
Finally…the cover. This is where most of the damage was evident. Warped by water damage and extremely faded, the cover was in such bad shape that I opted to repaint it (something I would normally never do with a scan). It wasn’t possible to repaint all of the tiny spaces between the Japanese characters, so the text is a little muddy, but on a whole I feel the cover is much more presentable than the unadulterated scan. For anyone who finds such digital manipulation an abomination (moreso than spot clone-stamping here and there, that is), I have included the original scan of the cover as the final page before the Retromags splash page.
Anyway, this issue is a special exception. I hope you can look past its faults to appreciate the history! Expect all future Famitsu issues from me to be similar in quality to the previous two I released.
2,181 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0002 (July 4th, 1986)
By MigJmz
Bi-Weekly Famitsu Issue 0002 (July 4th, 1986)
677 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0028 (July 24, 1987)
By MigJmz
Famitsu Issue 0028 (July 24, 1987)
A full year before the launch of Nintendo Power, Famitsu's cover story this issue is on the American NES.
413 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0043 (February 19, 1988)
By kitsunebi
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこで誰でもでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！ *
The credits on this one are more complicated than usual, so an explanation is in order. This issue was a collaboration between ccovell and myself. The magazine itself was donated by ccovell, but after I scanned it, I realized there were some pages missing. It turned out that there was a Dragon Quest III sticker sheet as well as a Dragon Quest III supplement missing from the copy that was donated to me. Normally supplements would be considered separate anyway, but in this case, the supplement was included in the magazine's page count, so I wanted to include it. ccovell was kind enough to scan the supplemental pages from another copy he owns.
So: pg 67-68 and 77-96 were scanned by ccovell. All other pages were scanned by me. All edits by me.
This issue marks the (as of yet) oldest issue of Famitsu to be scanned for our archives (the scan of issue 1 is of a half-size reproduction, not an original issue). Enjoy!
I'll also include some information about the best seller lists and game-of-the-year awards which I posted in my personal thread in the forums, since it's likely that most people downloading this will overlook it otherwise:
And for a complete breakdown of all of the Best-of-the-year Awards, please check out this comment (I can't copy it here without causing an error for some reason):
https://www.retromags.com/forums/topic/10237-kitsunebi77s-random-stuff/?do=findComment&comment=54381
*This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file is from Retromags, where anyone can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
921 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0049 (May 20, 1988)
By kitsunebi
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこで誰でもでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！ *
Thanks to ccovell for donating the issue. Also the gavas bucks page was missing, so he provided a scan of that page to make the mag complete. For anyone who missed it in my forum thread, Gavas were a big scam run by Famitsu to trick kids into thinking they could win fabulous prizes by buying every issue of Famitsu that hit the stands. Below is a closer look at just how impossible getting those prizes actually was. Listed are the prize, the amount of Gavas needed to win the prize, the number of Famitsu issues you would need to purchase in order to have enough Gavas, and approximately how much that many issues of Famitsu would cost. These are all in 1988 dollars, so it would be much more today.
As of May 1988 (these are not all of the prizes, btw):
A Famitsu Pencil Case - 780 Gavas - 49 issues - approx. $195 A Famitsu T-Shirt - 1680 Gavas - 105 issues - approx. $420 A Famicom Game - 2900 Gavas - 182 issues - approx. $728 A Famicom System - 9800 Gavas - 613 issues - approx. $2,452 A Sega Master System - 11200 Gavas - 700 issues - approx. $2,800 A PC Engine (TurboGrafx16) System - 16500 Gavas - 1,032 issues - approx. $4,128 It should also be worth noting that Famitsu was bi-weekly at this point. So assuming you really wanted that PC Engine and you bought one copy of every issue that hit the stands, you would expect to finally have enough Gavas approximately... 38 years later. So...sometime in 2026. Of course, Famitsu eventually went weekly, of course, so you actually would have been able to finally get that PC Engine sometime in 2009. Well, except that PC Engines had long since ceased production by then.😒
*This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file is from Retromags, where anyone can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
852 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0051 (June 17, 1988)
By kitsunebi
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、そこで「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！ *
*This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file is from Retromags, where you can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
751 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0054 (July 29, 1988)
By kitsunebi
This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file is from Retromags, where you can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、そこで「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！
PS: Please don't upload this file to the Internet Archive. K thnx bye!
682 downloads
0 comments
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Famitsu Issue 0056 (September 2, 1988)
By kitsunebi
This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file is from Retromags, where you can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、そこで「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！
PS: Please don't upload this file to the Internet Archive. K thnx bye!
546 downloads
0 comments
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Famitsu Issue 0067 (February 3, 1989)
By kitsunebi
This scan was made for everyone, so please download it, share it with your friends and enjoy! If you share this scan elsewhere, please say that the file came from Retromags, where anyone can download it for free. Magazine preservation is for everyone. Thank you!
このスキャンは皆のために作ったので、ぜひダウンロードして、友達に伝いて、楽しんでください！もしほかのところでこのスキャンを分け合ったら、そこで「このファイルはRetromagsからで、そこでタダでダウンロードすることできる」と伝いて下さい。雑誌電子化は皆のために。よろしくお願いします！
PS: Please don't upload this file to the Internet Archive.
656 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0069 (March 3, 1989)
By kitsunebi
Famicom Tsuushin Issue 0069 (March 3, 1989)
142 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0084 (September 29, 1989)
By kitsunebi
This is the last issue of Famitsu I have from the 80s. Though I normally work with Japanese mags, I just scanned a USA mag from the same year (1989) and it's shocking the difference in quality of the paper stock used. Japanese mags from the 80s - thick and white to slightly off-white paper. USA mags - tissue-paper thin and yellowed/browned with age as all get-out. (Nintendo Power perhaps being the exception - that mag had some $$$ poured into it, I guess.)
161 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0099 (April 27, 1990)
By kitsunebi
As one would expect, the usual info on Final Fantasy III, Dragon Quest IV and the like.
But the real news here is the food report where we learn that Jolt Cola has twice the caffeine but tastes disgusting, and Teddy Grahams are not only cute and delicious, but healthy, too! Whatever happened to Teddy Grahams...
164 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0106 (August 3, 1990)
By kitsunebi
As seen on the cover, Necky the Fox is so horny for the upcoming release of the Super Famicom he's done something downright desperate. Let's hope no one was hurt.
Meanwhile, the editors of Famitsu are so horny for anything that moves that they used the flimsy excuse of having a chick pose like the underwater enemies in Super Darius just so they could print some pics of her in a swimsuit.
Somebody get these guys a Pulitzer.
187 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0110 (September 28, 1990)
By kitsunebi
The Super Famicom was still 2 months away when this issue was released, and the anticipation was REAL. (See the disclaimer (apology?) on the cover.)
That doesn't mean there aren't SFC previews, of course. An interesting feature of the previews is the "my software tastes like this!" box which imagines what food each game would be. For example, Sim City is a pizza, because cutting the pizza up into equal portions is like zoning your city, and sometimes it can be fun to cut up the pizza/city in a crazy way. For some reason, they chose not to assign a food to Actraiser and gave it a "no comment..." ?
131 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0111 (October 12, 1990)
By kitsunebi
I'd like to look at the review scores in this issue. In particular Mega Man 3, which got a pretty terrible total score of 23 (out of 40.)
That's the same score as this issue's North & South.
That's the same score as Magic John (released in the USA as Totally Rad)
That's one point WORSE than freaking Die Hard.
In fact, it's the lowest ranked game in the issue, except for a couple of Game Boy games (I mean, come on, they're Game Boy games, what do you expect?)
So how did Mega Man 3 come to be so hated by the editors of Famitsu? The common complaint seems to be "Wah!! It's hard!"
Pretty sure you'll find this game on most top 100 NES games of all time lists. IGN has it at #16. Are Westerners just gluttons for punishment, or are the editors at Famitsu just weak as when it comes to challenging games?
121 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0112 (October 26 1990)
By kitsunebi
This mag has been upgraded/rescanned. See below for details.
1,126 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0116 (December 7, 1990)
By kitsunebi
This issue was published just as the Super Famicom was first entering the market, so most games being released and covered were still for the Famicom, though there is a 52 page guide to Super Mario World. But I'm usually more interested in the stuff that goes beyond regular game coverage anyway, and these are my personal highlights of the issue:
"Slim Air" - Like something out of Spaceballs, this is commercially sold oxygen, though it also includes a scent that is supposed to suppress appetite. What scent would do that? Rotten fish? Toe fungus? Cat vomit? The possibilities are endless.
Also, this "dream product" - the Den Den Boy - a combination phone/Game Boy that would let people play head-to-head Game Boy games over phone lines without a link cable. People playing games on phones?? What utter sci-fi nonsense!! HAHAHA, the imaginations of these people...
132 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0117 (December 21, 1990)
By kitsunebi
The review crew was working overtime with this issue -- 77 games reviewed! Part of that is the Super Famicom launch titles, with F-Zero as the top-rated game, handily outscoring Super Mario World, 37 to 34 (out of 40). I dunno. F-Zero is good, but I think they may have done the same thing the Western press did at the SNES launch and underestimate the quality of Mario Word simply because its graphics weren't flashy enough for the launch of a "next gen" system. I personally spent a lot more time and got more enjoyment out of clearing every level of SMW than I did finishing F-Zero, even if F-Zero is the clear winner when it comes to visceral thrills.
118 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0120~0121 (January 25-February 8, 1991)
By kitsunebi
May I present: issue 120! Also, issue 121! They're the same issue! So crazy~! (hmm, maybe Nekki's peace sign has a double meaning? Nah...)
Another one of those double number issues. Such an odd practice, and one I'm glad seems limited to Famitsu, as it made the initial construction of the database quite a pain.
232 pgs
124 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0129 (April 19, 1991)
By kitsunebi
Speculation on what the American redesign of the Super Famicom might look like LOL:
Though to be fair, who would have ever guessed they'd decide that purple and lavender were the way to go to appeal to Americans?
119 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 0143 (September 13, 1991)
By MigJmz
Famitsu Issue 0143 (September 13, 1991)
Would you like more Japanese scans like these? Consider contributing to JhonnyD's patreon.
303 downloads
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