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Thank you! I was very blessed to work for this company at 16 years of age! I got hired because I had been living in Redmond Washington in the 90s and was a huge square fan. I sent in a reply card to them and they called me one day asking if I would be interested in testing Secret of Mana?! Umm yes please. It was really cool there were about 12 of us similar ages and we went to Square every day for like a week during the summer to test it. They fed us pizza and we got to make some contributions. I named a couple of enemies (Snap Dragon and Tsunami (formally Mr. Water) Also got a free copy of the game when it was over and some merchandise. They kept calling me back to test and it culminated with Final Fantasy 6. I got to bring my brother and sister with me and play through it. They had me take a game play phone call during this time and then after the beta test they hired me. My brother discovered the relm sketch glitch but they didn't fix it for some reason. Working for Square as a game play counselor was really amazing. I got to play video games all day, test unreleased games, hang with the us developers, visit Nintendo etc. I even contributed to Chrono Trigger by naming Ayla. Frequently work with Ted Woosely and I want to confess that I borrowed his final fantasy v music cd and didn't return it.

I watch for anything Game Players related on a daily basis. Been doing it for years, looking for copies of the PC game iteration. The Nintendo ones are common as %$#$, especially the very early issues, which were kept in print for ages. At any given time, you'll find multiple copies of most issues on sale. The Sega version is perhaps a bit less common, but still rather painless to find if you're patient, though some issues perhaps are somewhat rare. This series, regular Game Player's, isn't quite as common, but you'll still be able to find most issues without stretching your patience too much. Certain issues are certainly harder to find than others, though, and this is one of the less common ones (I only see one copy of this issue on sale right now, and it's part of an expensive set of 11 different Game Player's issues). The Game Boy variants are more rare, with some some issues only very infrequently appearing on sale. The PC version is bat-#$%@-insane-rare. As I said, I've been watching every single day for over two years, and not one of the issues I'm missing has appeared on eBay even once. Of course, whether a mag is rare or not, eBay is a stupid place where almost no one ever even lists things as auctions anymore. Just a bunch of lunatics listing common magazines for buy-it-now prices that no sane person would ever pay. So anytime someone either lands something at a decent price or just breaks down and pays through the nose anyway for the benefit of everyone else here, it's cause for thanks and celebration. Hell, even if someone scans an issue that's common as balls that they paid 50 cents for, it's still cause for thanks and celebration, but there are precious few people who bother showing any gratitude, sadly. So thanks, dablais! (and if any missing issues of Game Player's PC mags ever show up on eBay, you'd best back the #$^&@ off. They're MINE! )

Thanks MkMoveList!!!! Issue 21 of Tips & Tricks is officially the only one missing!

Great job with this one!!!!

Thanks for the dedication and hard work my dude.

Thanks for taking the time to put these together with such great care. I will make sure to go through them all soon when I have time, but I have enjoyed the few I've looked at so far. I'm glad they are preserved here (or at least, soon to be).

thanks @Rodrigo2012 for the donation. Looks like some good reviews in here.

This is the kind of magazine that might of caught my eye but probably wouldn't buy because of lack of money as a kid. Thanks.

I had my eye on this one for a long time, until I found it last December! So another set completed!!!

Hi I just wanted to note this book released in 2004, not 1996. It is a strategy guide for a PS2 game, which wasn't even released until 2000. I think the confusing is there is a more visible copy-write to Kazuki Takahashi on the copy-write page but that is when Yu-Gi-Oh was released rather then this game adaption/strategy guide.

I approved the DB link, so you should be good there. The idea behind the video game database was that eventually it could be used to link all references or appearances for specific video games to all of the magazines where they appear, and in what capacity (review, preview, cheat code, etc...). Thus, if you wanted to know where and when Chrono Trigger was mentioned across various mags, you could go to its DB page and see, "Ah, there was a strategy guide in this issue of Nintendo Power, and GamePro did a preview of it here, and EGM reviewed it here...". Each of those links would then take you to the entry for the appropriate magazine, where you could browse the index or download the issue. I like the idea, it's just going to take a lot of time to populate, especially since I think only Admins have editing permission for it at the moment.

Great Job!!!

The magazine I got mentioned in!

Happy New Years !!

Happy New Year, dablais, and everyone else. Thanks for the upload, bud.

Thank you for this wonderful New Year's gift, dablais! This is my favourite game of all time.

we're so close!

Thanks, I’m a bit slower these days because of work, but you’ll still see some from me. I have not given up!

*has yet to find a way

Yes you can see this is a huge difference in quality. And it is good for a magazine like this because IIRC they used VERY cheap paper stock, even cheaper than other cheap paper mags. And did anyone else think that the ink they used in this mag made it smell bad? Maybe it was the chemicals in the paper? GamePro in the summer of 1994 in particular had a very odd scent. The paper quality seemed the same as their prior releases, so I always assumed if a mag smelled bad it was the ink. So what I am saying is be thankful as fastidious and exacting as Kitsune is that he did not find a way to synthesize the odor of these magazines as well

This scan turned out great, as always Thanks.

Don't be too surprised - I don't actually read these things lol. Haven't played games in over 20 years, so I've never even heard of most of the stuff in this issue, let alone have an interest in it. (And even games I HAVE heard of, I know nothing about - it occurred to me the other day that I don't even know what genre of game either Splatoon or Fortnite are. Luckily, I've at least seen Minecraft since kids are allowed to play it on their tablets at school.) I'm usually more focused on the colors or whether there are any rips in the page when I'm editing more so than the content printed on the page. Once I'm finished editing the mag is the first time I even flip through it from cover to cover, first of all to make sure everything looks right in two-page/book mode, and also to see if some random thing catches my eye so I have something to talk about in the "about this file" section, since it is a pet peeve of mine that everyone else around here leaves theirs blank (well, with just the issue title copy/pasted, since the site's software won't let them submit the file if that space is completely blank). But good looking out. Anyone interested in marketing might want to give that article a look-see. I honestly don't remember game marketing catch-phrases from back in the day, other than "Sega does what Nintendon't" and "now you're playing with power." I DO remember the "SEGA!!" scream at the end of all their commercials, as well as the sort of robot-with-a-Japanese-accent "Playstation" at the end of their commercials (they had that in Western marketing, too, right?), but those aren't really catch-phrases.

Surprised you didn't speak about the history of キャッチコピー or taglines in games this issue cover. I knew in the past, it was fairly important in marketing that could make or break the game or system. Not too sure now in the digital age. I remember hearing the original Xbox in Japan having a poor one like Jump in 飛び込む or something and critics used that as a reason for poor sales of their hardware.

"Special Collector's Top-Secret Babe Issue", you say? Why, don't mind if I do! All joking aside, this is my absolute favorite era of gaming: the late 90s PSX-era E3 shows are absolutely insane, and I ate the coverage up every single year.

244 pages to be exact. That's actually a pretty average size for Dengeki PlayStation. I've scanned several mags over 300 pages. The longest being a 338 page issue of Famitsu. Dunno if I've got any mags sitting in my closet waiting to be scanned that are bigger than that, but I sure hope not.

Thanks for the hard work you put into these scans. I know you mentioned it before, but since these Japanese mags are big in size, and must take weeks of your time to finish. I just looked through your latest, Dengeki PlayStation Vol.109 and it was 200 pages. I would be surprised if most of the Japanese magazines on the Internet Archive came from you (aside from the illegal scans that some post anyway). Good work as always. There are a few interviews I need to go back and goggle translate for later. It's so nice to have access to this content. And I can confirm -- no coverage of ANY Tomb Raider game in the whole issue. Weird.

I'm sure the mag itself was in the same condition more or less. The actual scanning equipment used was different, so that probably contributed somewhat to the difference in appearance, but a lot of what you're referring to is due to what happens during the editing phase. Some people crop and straighten whatever pops off their scanner, slap an "edited by" credit on it, and call it a day, but for me it goes far beyond that. If I had to guess, I'd say that marktrade didn't do any post-processing of the images and what you see is more or less what came directly off of the scanner, as some people prefer the authenticity of that type of scan. I can promise you that my copy of the magazine was yellowed and even brown around the edges as well, but that's where editing/Photoshop comes into play. I prefer pages that look more like what they probably did when they first hit the newsstands, not what they look like after sitting in someone's garage for 30 years. It takes significantly longer to edit that way, but I'd rather spend the extra time and effort to create something I'm satisfied with. But I'm always pleased if other people appreciate it as well.

Wow! I hope to see more "Improved kitsunebi editions" one day. The color stands out so much better. Maybe the original one was more of a faded magazine? The white part defiantly is "dirty" or whatever happens when this kind of paper isn't stored properly. Good job. Much improved.

I'd suggest getting rid of the black box that hides the "scanned by" text. It's not a spoiler.

I don't know if you, @MigJmz, got together with @dablais so you two could bombard us with 7 or so Play Magazines back-to-back -- but it was a nice surprise. Thanks to you both. (oh, the smiley face has a cowboy hat because I'm in Texas, so, you know...). And thanks also to @TheRedEye since they seem to be the ones donating all these issues. Great job all around.

Finally! Keep it up!!

Oh wow!!! This cover straight up acknowledging arcades are as addictive as smokes.

I just noticed that they advertise "color screen shots" on the cover. That might seem ridiculous to some people, but at the time, the only other USA publication covering computer games was Computer Gaming World, which (ads aside) contained mostly black and white images.

I’m glad you like it! Yes, I was a away on vacation for two weeks and this week l’m travelling for work… so soon I should be good to keep a better pace at posting new magazine in the following weeks.

The file is missing pages 70, 71, 72, and 73, FYI.

Thanks for setting me straight on that. I believe I may have mentioned that I'm a nerd that stays inside all day hating sports, so I only know what I know by osmosis of living in a country with that dude on the brain.

Thank you so much for sharing this book! I’ve recently started reading Nintendo Power from the first issue and this is such a cool bonus!

They literally were. I can't remember which publication it was in (probably EGM), but I remember an issue where someone on the staff claimed that they needed ads to comprise 50% of the page count in order to stay profitable enough to remain in print. Dunno if that's true, but as circulation dwindled, so did the amount of ads. I've been uploading ads to the gallery lately, and I've noticed that once you hit 2013 or so, the ads all but disappear from mags, with nothing but a few in-house ads from the publisher and maybe a single game ad on the back cover if you're lucky. So it makes sense that video game magazines started their double-time march into extinction around that time. I appreciate your appreciation Btw, can you imagine what a 90's era EGM would look like if they arranged their mag like this Tech Gian? You'd have to flip through over 100 pages of ads before the magazine even started.

Don't forget to credit the scanner.

Absolutely amazing job!

Geezus, I never noticed the game's name was "Cyber Org", not "Cyborg". I suck worse than I thought I did...

I actually have this variant of the figure. I have spent HOURS trying to contort my face into that exact expression. I cannot do it. That is the most killer RBF of all time.

Of course, you can @Areala! @StrykerOfEnyo enjoy it.... not too much, I wouldn't want you having other pants issues....

I was looking for this one! Thanks!

Thanks for donating several of these @matrixman. I had a subscription to Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine around the time they started doing demo discs for PS2 at least. Im not sure if this is a direct follow-up to OPM since they stopped in 2007, but it looks very similar. I missed out on this mag around release, so its GREAT seeing them. Great work as always @dablais. Many of the big mags were disappearing around 2009-2012 so its nice they were still making these back then.

I always try to make the small repair when it's possible.

Great scan, you even cleaned up that bent corner on cover. Thanks for scanning!

thanks for donating these @matrixman. I haven't gone to a Best Buy in 10+ years so I never saw these issues laying around, but it's nice seeing them all come out now. And @dablais, you know about my thoughts on you. I said something nice about you yesterday, so you already had your compliment for the week. Once a week? Does that sound fair? Otherwise, you will get too proud of yourself -- thinking your better than the rest of us. Uh, never mind. I can't starve you of my praise. Good job on the scan and editing. I can't stay mad at you.

This is the first official spin-off from GameFan that received a separate publication, and it seemed to last for only 3 issues. Dave Halverson was the Editor-in-Chief for the first issue, and he insisted that "MegaFan is a completely new concept." The mag focuses on four categories: strategies, tips and tricks, behind the scenes/interviews, and arcade. Look at my comment for Issue #1 for a few more details. If you loved GameFan then SOME of the names are still recognizable -- David S.J. Hodgson is the Editor-in-Chief for this issue. You got Greg Rau, Nick Des Barres, Ryan Lockhart, Jody Seltzer, Jay Puryear and a few more. Terry Wolfinger doesn't return for the artwork, and Hodgson mentions in the editorial that a whole new team worked on this issue. We don't have much info about this publication aside from possibly what some former members have mentioned in forums from a while back (I'm still searching through them:). We do know that sales were low, with multiple months in-between releases. EGM2 and Tips and Tricks did a much better job back in the day. This second issue is a full-sized magazine now, with 116 pages. The Arcade section is gone. Tekken 3 has a strategy section, along with Street Fighter III, Fighters Megamix, with moves lists and some combos. Powerstone has some tips. Suikoden has a write up on all 108-characters, and Wild Arms has some nice maps. Super Mario Kart and StarFox 64 get some coverage too. This issue holds up well, but there's not much that stands out from the several other mags that featured strategies and tips at the time. The Tekken 3 coverage is solid, but once again, several places have hard-to-read text. The colors use in the Suikoden write-up section look messy, and the Powerstone text is very thin. Thanks for making this available -- these issues are rare to find.