I'm really fascinated by the cover art - or more so, the decision to go with this particular art style. It says a lot about Japanese perceptions of marketing to American audiences: a topic I am not in any way prepared to launch, but which fascinates me.

I'm really fascinated by the cover art - or more so, the decision to go with this particular art style. It says a lot about Japanese perceptions of marketing to American audiences: a topic I am not in any way prepared to launch, but which fascinates me.

Well, it's interesting that you bring that up, because I doubt that Nintendo of Japan or Squaresoft had anything to do with this, other than "okay, yeah, that'll be a good idea." Nintendo Power was a company owned magazine that was run by Nintendo of America - I'm sure NoJ had overall control but I highly doubt they were interested in overseeing the editorial decisions of the American company to any meaningful level.

That would mean that every design decision - and I use that term pretty loosely - in the production of this guide would have had to come from Redmond. And thinking of American gaming in the early 90s... yeah, that makes sense to me.

To your question, they divide the game up into chapters, despite the game itself not ever really doing this, and each chapter has its own similar and awkward full-page illustration.

Here's a new topic for you, Spooniest. We talk about all the grandparents out there with this game, but is anyone else out there actually old enough to have gotten this in their mailbox?

http://imgur.com/rbl64Un

If you're wondering, those lousy photos were taken on top of my desk last night after pulling this guide off of my own bookshelf. It's still got my childhood address printed on the back page for mailing, even.

I'm not sure if this was ever on newsstands or if you had to be a subscriber to get it, but as a subscriber from issue one, I got this as part of my subscription that year (along with three others that are generally less interesting). It's got some ludicrous art and design, and isn't anything like the polished guides you saw later in the decade for various games. I definitely used it for a good long time, though, and this guide (and later, the Nintendo-produced Final Fantasy III guide) were big parts of why I decided to first make CoN.

So there, a bit of sideline nostalgia for the most nostalgia-ready forum.

I have the original guide, which is how I knew what to do in the game, and what dropped what.

This was the original guide, at least in the United States. Can't speak for wherever you are - in Spain, apparently.

I have the original guide, which is how I knew what to do in the game, and what dropped what.

Monsters do not drop items in Final Fantasy I.

Unless you're playing the GBA/PSP/Mobile version of the game perhaps?

Unless you're playing the GBA/PSP/Mobile version of the game perhaps?

We talk about all the grandparents out there with this game, but is anyone else out there actually old enough to have gotten this in their mailbox?