Everyone who had an NES knew of Nintendo Power. The yellow and red titled magazine with its often amazing cover art, packed with news and strategy guides, unbelievably colorful designs. It was so much to look at, so much to read. It was entertaining as it was informative.

When I looked at Nintendo Power and compared it to every other magazine that ever passed my hands, all I could think was, “This is what magazines should be like.”

After 24 years of business, the closing of Nintendo Power is a big deal. As December is the last issue of Nintendo Power, writers at gaming sites are chiming in on the impact the magazine had on their lives. Not so much about recent successes by the magazine, but in the victories of the past.

The artwork was probably my favorite part about the gaming magazine. Nintendo Power took the extra effort to either create their own artwork or use colored artwork from the game itself.

The gamer’s guide for the original Final Fantasy was one of my favorite, as was that for Final Fantasy III (we now know as the sixth title). In the former, several pieces of new art were developed, with western style fantasy settings.

For the latter of the two, general acceptance of Japanese style fantasy artwork was more widespread in the mid 90s, resulting in my first exposure to the work of Yoshitaka Amano. That’s right, the gaming magazine helped expand cultural knowledge.

Another aspect that surprised me was the intense effort at creating solid strategy guides. Nintendo Power really set the standard for writing them, with everything from character analysis to monster glossaries, maps, battle tactics and strategy. They found everything you wanted to know. Almost all future gaming guides emulated Nintendo Power‘s informative approach to writing strategy guides.

And then there were the comics.

The earliest ones were comedy pieces involving Nester, the Nintendo Power mascot. But during the SNES age, we started to see some real comic book style pieces. These included The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by Shotaro Ishinomori and Super Metroid. Now that was some serious entertainment value.

The Nintendo Power that I remember is long, long gone. The internet revolutionized everything. Why bother with magazines when GameFAQs and individual game wikias can help with strategy? Why bother subscribing when sites like IGN offer the news and reviews?

But as nostalgic as I am, it’s just one of those things from one’s childhood they cannot really have back. All that remains are the memories.