If you want to know how a game is nowadays, it’s as easy as going on the Internet, searching for a thousand and one reviews, opinions on forums, YouTube videos, and even live streams on Twitch. It’s impossible not to know if a title is made for you. However, thirty years ago it wasn’t that easy and if you wanted to know what a Nintendo or Sega game was like, you better buy the Hobby Consolas magazine and, maybe, with luck, a promotional VHS would come with it. And that’s what happened in Christmas of 1992.
Happy news!
Normally, promotional videos for upcoming video games were more or less produced, but they were just that: a simple catalog of what was to come. But in 1992, things changed thanks to ‘Happy News!,’ a VHS that came with issue number 15 of Hobby Consolas. To give you an idea, at that time the cover was dominated by ‘World of Illusion’ and ‘Super Mario Land 2,’ and its flagship announcement was the Super Nintendo for 16,990 pesetas (a little over a hundred euros).
The video, sponsored by ERBE, which at that time had the rights to Nintendo in Spain, showed a kind of lost episode of the series ‘Super Mario World’. So much so, that it was clearly made up of different cut and dubbed episodes with the voice of Jordi Estadella playing an Italian Mario who said things in a clearly broken and “made-up” language.
The games that were shown were from both the Game Boy and Super Nintendo catalogs, and among them were ‘Tiny Toons’, ‘Castlevania II’, ‘Megaman II’, ‘Street Fighter II’ or ‘Super Mario Kart’ (with a “Super rearview mirror to see what’s coming at you!”). Finally, Mario and Yoshi managed to defeat the Koopas and recover the games, not before warning that the Club Nintendo, a hotline where you could call and get tips to beat difficult levels, was still active.
Time passed, Hobby Consolas closed, VHS tapes were replaced by DVDs and Blu-Ray, but in these Christmas times, at the end of the year, it is always nice to take refuge in 18 minutes of absurd nostalgia that at that time seemed amazing. Mamma mia!
