ONM Remembered – Pokémon Week II, day 3
“This little yella fella screams when you press his tummy.”
from Pokémon Master Guide (1999)
One of the more shameless parts of the Master Guide is its absolutely rampant shilling of merchandise. If it’s not talking about the game, it’s about the toys, or the card game, or anything that demands you splash some cash. If I recall correctly, not even a single page is dedicated to the TV show, because you can’t spend money on that! You could argue that that’s not far from a regular issue from Official Nintendo Magazine, since free gaming was hardly a sustainable market at that point in time, but at least it tried to be objectionable, saying what you should and shouldn’t be spending your money on. Would I be an overreacting worrywart if I said pages like this almost felt predatory?
But heck if I cared when I was a kid, look at all this sweet stuff! I had absolutely no interest in owning a majority of this tat, but dang if it didn’t look good on a two-page spread. I can’t imagine ever touching that Pokémon Challenge game more than twice, but I’m sure it’d make a good ornament for a mood table or something.
