Topic: The Best Nintendo Magazine?

I grew up in the UK reading the Official Nintendo Magazine (ONM). Now that I've picked up my Switch I'm looking for something to fuel that nostalgia. Some of the most popular Nintendo magazines seem to be Nintendo Force, Pure Nintendo, and Switch Player. At first glance Switch Player looks pretty good, is priced similarly to the magazines of yore, and since its based in the UK was hoping it might have a similar vibe to ONM.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about these magazines, and if they feel like they have a real sense of community around them? I suppose I could just get all my news from Nintendo Life, but the magazine nostalgia is too strong!

I bought a couple of issues of Switch Player and it's pretty good but the issues are very small (the pages are A5 size) so I couldn't really justify buying it regularly for the amount you get for the price. And apart from a comic page at the back it felt a tad dry, without the creative and witty style of ONM. I'm glad it exists though, and it was a few years ago that I got it so it may have improved since then.

I use to like Nintendo Power, I still have two issues I like to flip through once in a while. From fall 2006, as I remember highlights being a preview of the then new Sonic GBA port, Star Fox Command, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, a Final Fantasy DS game, various Wii coverage, and a feature showing off then available games with DS Download Play multiplayer games. Also, it has a Pokemon comic based on Mystery Dungeon.

I miss this magazine, it was the only Nintendo centric magazine I had. Other magazines I read were just general gaming ones. Nowadays, I mostly use Nintendo Life for news, and a couple of other Nintendo related news sites, but this seems to be my main one for many years, even before signing up for an account.

I'd be interested to hear about people's feelings about the mags that are around now as well. I do think NL does a good job of channelling some of the spirit of the golden age of games mags, but I understand the nostalgia. I used to be well into magazines in the late 90s.

I got ONM/NOM now and then, but my main mag was N64 Magazine (which grew out of Super Play and later became NGC). The early issues of the mag are really interesting because there were practically no games for the N64 in 1997, in Europe and to a lesser extent anywhere, so they had to get really creative and write about aspects of the video game industry and fandom that didn't get covered so much; marketing, fanzines, Mario-themed recipes.

If anyone else remembers the glory days of Paul's Plant, Worldy Bloke and Wil Overton's obsession with mahjong, there's a bunch of scans on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/n64magazineukcollection/

@Dogorilla That's interesting about Switch Player! It's a shame it lacked the banter of ONM though. Since it's so cheap I might buy an issue just to give it a test run.

Slightly off topic from Nintendo, but it looks like tonnes of gaming magazines have disappeared over the years. I only just noticed that the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) ended in 2020. Changing times

@Hughcifer Yeah it would be worth giving it a go, let us know what you think of it if you do. The one thing Switch Player definitely does better than ONM is the cover art, which you've probably seen if you've looked at their website. The artwork they commission for it is very impressive for what must be a low-budget magazine.

By the way, I recommend checking out ex-ONM writer Chris Scullion's website, Tired Old Hack, if you haven't already. There's several years' worth of gaming articles on there in a similar style to his old reviews in the magazine (albeit with more swearing). That and Kate Gray's articles for Nintendo Life help to fill the ONM-shaped void in my heart!

Nintendo Power without a doubt. I remembering subscribing to that from issue 2 all the way to just after the N64 came out. There was just something magical about getting one every month (every other month original). My brother and I would pour over them reading every page. Sometimes if it was a particular big game like Super Mario Bros 3 for example we would read it over and over again. Nintendo Power was the first place I heard of games like Mega Man II, Ninja Gaiden, River City Ransom and many more. I loved how some of thr games had full blown pictures of the levels, it was amazing. Counselor's Corner the Top Secret tips. I remember the posters you would get with each issue. I wish I still had my NP but sadly they just fell apart over the years from reading so many times over and over.

Yeah Nintendo Power was the best Nintendo magazine at least in my opinion. Really a shame that they stopped making it.

Definitely Nintendo Power for me.

I think the first ever issue I got was a Pokemon Diamond cover story which I picked up at the grocery store, and it was not long after I ordered my first subscription (which also came with a Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones strategy guide, now that I think of it). I subscribed to it on and off until it met it's untimely demise (and tried to pick up single copies during the times I wasn't subscribing when I could). Still sad to see it go & it's been about a decade since then.

I tried reading the occasional other mag during the time (usually Game Informer or Official Xbox Magazine), but they just didn't have the same appeal (though I'll admit I loved that OXM used to come with demo discs, and bought many issues just for that and largely ignored the magazine itself, lol).