Famitsu Issue 0043 (February 19, 1988)

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:

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Here's a peek at what was selling in America in January 1988:

And here's my (rough) translation of the commentary on the sidebar (I'm not fluent, people).  They seem amused that a shitty game like Top Gun was so high on the charts.

• There's a reason why the rankings are as you see them.  Top Gun really IS doing well.  This is a good example of name value.  One of the factors in a game's success in America seems to be that the name is well known, such as a game that was a big hit in arcades or one with a celebrity's name attached.  There aren't many Americans who haven't heard of Top Gun.  That's why it's selling.  Mike Tyson, too.  And then there's "President Reagan's Absurd Big Advance (attack)"...or is there not such a thing?

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This is the reader's choice for the Top 10 Famicom games of 1987:

1. Dragon Quest II (yeah, big surprise there.  The only time a Dragon Quest game isn't at the top of the charts in Japan is if there wasn't a DQ game released that year)
2. Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium (released in the USA as RBI Baseball)
3. Hokkaidō Rensa Satsujin: Okhotsk ni Kiyu (a Japanese-style 1st-person menu-driven graphic adventure designed by the same guy who did Dragon Quest)
4. Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium '87 (proving that Madden wasn't the first to offer annual updates, this is the exact same game as #2, but with more teams and updated rosters)
5. Moero!! Pro Yakyuu (released in the USA as Bases Loaded)
6. Link no Bouken (released in the USA as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link)
7. Digital Devil Story Megami Tensei (the first in what would become a sprawling franchise of different series like Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, this one is a hard-as-nails first-person dungeon-crawl RPG)
8. Shin Onigashima (a menu-driven graphic adventure for the Famicom Disk System)
9. Momotarou Densetsu (a Dragon Quest clone from Hudson, the first in a series)
10. Sanma no Meitantei (a 1st-person menu-driven graphic adventure starring Japanese TV personality Sanma Akashiya)

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!