[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Crystalis Tips
July 2nd, 2012 by Benj Edwards
Frozen whipped gelatin on a stick.
I recently found this cardboard tip sheet for Crystalis in a pile of my old stuff at my parents’ house. As you can see, I cut it out of a JELLO Gelatin Pops box in or around 1990.
The tip sheet seems to serve a triple marketing purpose: 1) to promote NES games (specifically Crystalis, in this case), 2) to promote the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, and 3) to promote Nintendo Power magazine.
I love finding tie-in marketing artifacts like this — I’m glad I saved it all those years ago.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Do you remember cutting video game tips out of boxes, magazines, or other paper publications? Tell us about it.
July 2nd, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Yeah. A few years back, when Super Mario Advance first came out, the entire back of some captain crunch was dedicated to it. I still have the cut out.
July 2nd, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Wow, I love Crystalis so much.
Not tips, but one item I remember clipping is a page of game reviews of various SNES launch titles in the autumn of 1991. The magazine printing them was Entertainment Weekly. I was just ecstatic to see VG reviews in such a mainstream publication.
These days, I have found those same reviews archived of their public website.
July 3rd, 2012 at 11:47 am
Crystalis was a brilliant game. I’d love to play it again.
July 3rd, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Crystalis was an epic grindfest, but so much fun. A streamlined version without all the grinding for experience and money would be a fun replay. SNK made some great titles for the NES back in the day. A lot of my favorites on that console were by SNK: Iron Tank, Baseball Stars… Crystalis reminded me of Capcom’s Willow combined with Square’s Final Fantasy and Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda.
July 4th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I remember that the boxes of the Super Mario-shaped Kraft macaroni & cheese used to have tips for Super Mario All-Stars, but I don’t think I cut them out. I did, however, cut out the caped Mario graphic on the front of the box. Mario artifacts were slightly out-of-fashion by the time I was interested in the series, and so I collected them wherever I found them.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:44 am
This is too cool, Benj! I remember gelatin pops(delicious!), but I don’t remember cutting out any video game tips from any type of box. I did cut out my Pizza Points from TMNT figures, and the Flag points from my G.I. Joes though. A very cool find indeed!! 🙂
July 6th, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Like the Pacman Kill Screen?
http://edgclusif.com/reddit?tid=22
July 13th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
That game kicked ass. still play it from time to time among others. Thank you emulators! my NES console broke a long time ago!