In the autumn of 1992, a British Super Nintendo owner who wanted to know everything happening on Nintendo’s new 16-bit machine faced a problem. The games officially available in Britain represented only part of the story. Japan had an enormous Super Famicom library, American releases did not always follow the European schedule, role-playing games could take months or years to cross the Atlantic, and many titles never received a British release at all. Japanese game magazines contained tantalizing screenshots and announcements, but for most British players they were difficult to obtain and even harder to read.
Into that gap came Super Play.
Published by Future Publishing and edited at launch by Matt Bielby, Super Play debuted with a November 1992 cover date. It was ostensibly a magazine about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, but the first issue already showed that its editors had something much stranger and more ambitious in mind. Alongside ordinary British reviews were imported games, Japanese previews, an anime section, player guides, interviews, and a lengthy guide to the console itself. The magazine looked eastward at a time when relatively few mainstream British gaming publications treated Japanese gaming culture as something worth exploring in its own right.
During the next four years, Super Play became one of the most distinctive magazines of Britain’s 16-bit era. It championed imported games and Japanese role-playing games, gave regular space to anime and manga, commissioned instantly recognizable illustrated covers from Wil Overton, and helped make a distant gaming culture feel accessible to readers who might never have seen a copy of Famitsu, visited Japan, or heard of many of the games being discussed.
Its original run lasted only 47 issues, but the short life of Super Play left an unusually long shadow.
Creating a Different Kind of Nintendo Magazine
Future Publishing was expanding rapidly when Super Play was conceived. The company already produced gaming magazines such as Amiga Power and Total!, and the arrival of a new generation of consoles made machine-specific publications increasingly attractive. Future prepared Mega for Sega’s Mega Drive and a separate magazine for the Super Nintendo.
There was one important complication. Future did not possess Nintendo’s official magazine license, which meant the new publication could not simply present itself as the official voice of Nintendo. Matt Bielby later remembered that this limitation helped push the team toward something more individual. Rather than imitate an official product, they embraced being independent and created a magazine with an identity of its own.
They had little time to do it. Bielby recalled that once the project was approved, the launch team had roughly three months to assemble a staff, decide how the magazine should look and sound, and produce the first issue. Jonathan Davies, who had previously freelanced for Future titles, became one of the most important early writers. Jason Brookes brought an intense interest in Japanese games and the Super Famicom, while the magazine soon drew upon the talents of people associated with Britain’s small but growing anime scene.
Even the name reflected what they were trying to build. Because “Nintendo” was unavailable to them, “Super” became the obvious connection to the machine. The resulting title, Super Play, was intentionally meant to resemble the slightly unusual English phrases British readers encountered in imported Japanese publications. Its logo followed the same philosophy, combining English lettering, Japanese characters, and a distinctive graphic element that made the magazine immediately recognizable on a crowded newsstand.
The Japanese influence was therefore not something added after Super Play became successful. It was part of the magazine’s foundation.
The First Issue Sets the Pattern
The November 1992 premiere ran to 100 pages with Bielby credited as editor. Its contents already contained most of the elements that would define the magazine during the following four years.
There was conventional material for British SNES owners, including reviews of Street Fighter II, Super Castlevania IV, F-Zero, Pilotwings, SimCity, and other familiar releases. Yet these sat beside a much larger world of imports. The magazine reviewed Japanese and American cartridges including Super Mario Kart, Xandra’s Big Adventure, Cameltry, Super F1 Circuit, and others, while also including an “Anime World” feature near the front of the magazine.
That combination was significant. A reader might purchase Super Play because he or she owned a SNES and wanted to know whether the latest British release was worth £50, then encounter games that were unavailable in Britain, Japanese art, anime, hardware information, and features that treated the Super Famicom as part of a larger culture.
Future itself emphasized the international approach when advertising the young magazine. A contemporary advertisement promised coverage of the full British SNES market while also stressing important American and Japanese imports. The magazine was selling something broader than a buying guide for the games found in a local shop. It wanted readers to believe that owning a Super Nintendo gave them access to an international hobby.
That promise became central to Super Play.
Import Gaming Before the Internet
It is difficult to appreciate the importance of import coverage from the perspective of modern gaming. Today a Japanese game announcement can be translated, discussed, streamed, and dissected around the world almost instantly. In the early 1990s, the distance between Japan and a teenager in Britain could feel enormous.
European players were also living within the PAL market. Releases could arrive later than their Japanese or North American equivalents, some games were altered for European television standards, and many Japanese titles were never localized at all. A dedicated player could buy imported hardware or cartridges, but doing so required money, specialist retailers, adapters, and knowledge that was not always easy to acquire.
Super Play made that inaccessible world seem navigable.
Jason Brookes later remembered being fascinated by Japanese gaming long before joining Future. His experience with imported machines and fanzines meant he arrived with the kind of knowledge that fit Bielby’s intended direction almost perfectly. He pushed for Japanese news, screenshots, previews, and obscure games, while the staff obtained Japanese publications and even used Japanese-speaking assistance to help translate information from them.
The result was a magazine in which an untranslated Japanese game could be treated as important even if most readers had little chance of buying it. James Leach, who later edited Super Play, recalled that Future generally supported this philosophy. The staff did not restrict themselves only to imported games they believed would become British hits. Part of the magazine’s purpose was to explore the Japanese game industry simply because readers found it interesting.
That distinction helped turn Super Play into something more than a consumer magazine. It became a window.
The Magazine That Took RPGs Seriously
One of the clearest examples of Super Play‘s unusual priorities was its treatment of Japanese role-playing games.
During the early 1990s, console RPGs had not yet achieved the broad European popularity they would enjoy later. Some of Japan’s most important games were never released in PAL territories, while others arrived slowly or in altered forms. For British players, following the genre sometimes meant reading about games they might never officially own.
Super Play devoted valuable pages to them anyway.
Its recurring “Fantasy Quest” material treated RPGs as a subject worthy of explanation, criticism, and sustained attention. When James Leach took over as editor with issue 12 in October 1993, the magazine expanded its RPG coverage with material explaining the genre and looking at games such as Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, Ogre Battle, and Mystic Quest. The same issue mixed those features with Japanese previews and regular British releases, allowing specialized RPG coverage to sit naturally within a mainstream games magazine.
As the SNES library grew, the examples became even more striking. The December 1994 issue reviewed the North American Final Fantasy III, the game later internationally standardized under its Japanese title Final Fantasy VI, and awarded it 95 percent. That was not a European release being covered for British shoppers. It was an American version of a Japanese RPG being treated as one of the major games of the month.
In November 1995, Wil Overton reviewed the American version of Chrono Trigger and awarded it 90 percent. That issue also previewed Super Mario RPG and Front Mission: Gun Hazard. Earlier in 1995 the magazine had reviewed the Japanese Front Mission and previewed Tactics Ogre and other titles whose names would have sounded exotic to much of Britain’s gaming audience.
Years before digital storefronts made international libraries easily visible, Super Play encouraged British readers to think of the SNES library as one global catalog rather than three isolated regional markets.
Anime World Comes to the Newsstand
The Japanese interest did not stop with games.
Anime and manga were still comparatively specialist interests in Britain when Super Play launched. Akira had attracted attention, imported tapes circulated among enthusiasts, and an organized British anime fandom was developing, but Japanese animation had not yet become the ordinary part of popular culture it would later be.
Bielby found an important connection through Anime UK, a British publication created by enthusiasts including Helen McCarthy and associated with artist Wil Overton. McCarthy became Super Play‘s anime specialist and contributed a regular column and reviews, while Overton became central to the magazine’s visual identity.
This relationship gave Super Play access to writers and artists who understood Japanese animation rather than treating it merely as an odd curiosity. The magazine’s readers could encounter anime coverage beside reviews of Nintendo games without being told that the subjects belonged to completely separate worlds.
McCarthy later argued that the magazine’s reach was important because Super Play was available through ordinary British magazine distribution. A specialist anime fanzine might reach dedicated enthusiasts, but Super Play could be found by a young Nintendo owner walking into a high-street newsagent. When Anime UK eventually disappeared, the continuing presence of anime in a mainstream gaming magazine helped keep Japanese animation within the conversation of British game fans.
For some readers, the magazine was therefore not merely where they learned about an unreleased RPG. It was where they first learned that an entire world of Japanese animation and comics existed.
Wil Overton Gives Super Play Its Face
Few gaming magazines can be identified from their covers alone as easily as Super Play.
Wil Overton had encountered Japanese animation years earlier and became increasingly interested in the visual styles he found in publications such as Animage and Newtype. His work with Anime UK led Bielby to ask him to illustrate the first Super Play cover. That commission turned into another, then another, until Overton’s artwork became inseparable from the magazine.
Rather than simply placing ordinary publisher artwork behind a logo, Super Play frequently presented familiar game characters through Overton’s anime-influenced interpretation. Mario, Link, Samus, Street Fighter characters, Final Fantasy heroes, and other figures passed through the same distinctive visual language.
Overton later described producing the illustrations by drawing and inking the artwork, transferring it to acetate, and painting it from the reverse in an effort to approximate the appearance of an animation cel. It was labor-intensive work to produce on a magazine schedule, particularly once he joined Future full time.
The approach made the publication itself collectible. A reader did not merely recognize the game featured on that month’s cover. He or she recognized a Super Play cover.
That visual consistency was particularly effective because it matched the editorial philosophy. The Japanese influence was not restricted to an occasional column hidden near the back. It extended from the logo to the page design, illustrations, import reviews, RPG coverage, and anime features. The entire magazine seemed to belong to the same world.
A Magazine That Felt Like a Club
Visual identity alone would not have kept readers coming back for 47 issues. Super Play also developed a strong editorial voice.
Jason Brookes later described the magazine as having a sense of belonging that made readers feel as though they were participating in a club. He credited Bielby and Jonathan Davies with establishing a warm, funny tone rather than presenting reviews as detached consumer reports. The writers had strong preferences, repeated jokes, recognizable personalities, and obvious enthusiasm for the games they covered.
That enthusiasm mattered because Super Play was asking readers to become interested in subjects they might never otherwise have encountered. A page about an obscure Japanese cartridge could have felt irrelevant. Instead, the staff approached such material as if discovering it was part of the fun.
The magazine also maintained the ordinary machinery of a popular games publication. There were letters, previews, reviews, tips, guides, competitions, news, humor, and arguments about scores. The Japanese focus worked because Super Play did not abandon the familiar pleasures of a gaming magazine in favor of becoming an academic guide to Japan. It placed specialist material inside an accessible, energetic publication.
Wil Overton later argued that the magazine’s ability to balance those two sides was one of its strengths. It could be unusual without becoming inaccessible.
From Matt Bielby to James Leach and Alison Harper
The people making Super Play changed considerably during its four-year life, yet its identity proved strong enough to survive those changes.
Matt Bielby launched the magazine and established its central direction. James Leach was listed as editor by issue 12 in October 1993, overseeing the magazine during a period when the SNES library was producing many of the games that would later define the console. Under Leach, Super Play continued to give unusually generous attention to RPGs, imports, and Japanese culture while covering the growing British SNES market.
Alison Harper later became the magazine’s final editor and was in the chair by issue 30 in 1995. The staff surrounding the editor also evolved, with names such as Tony Mott, Zy Nicholson, Ollie Anderton, Wil Overton, Jonathan Davies, and others appearing across different stages of the run.
The continuity was more important than any single masthead. A reader opening a later issue could still recognize the publication Bielby’s launch team had created. Imports remained important. Japanese RPGs remained important. Anime remained important. Overton’s art remained important.
This was particularly impressive because the console underneath the magazine was beginning to age.
The Super Nintendo Reaches the End of Its Era
By 1995 and 1996, the industry was moving quickly toward a new generation. Sony’s PlayStation had arrived, Sega was promoting the Saturn, and Nintendo’s long-awaited successor to the SNES was approaching.
For Super Play, that created an unavoidable problem. It was built around one machine, and the flow of important new Super Nintendo releases was slowing.
The magazine did not ignore the future. Nintendo’s coming 64-bit console increasingly appeared in its pages, and by the final issue the transition was unmistakable. Super Play issue 47, cover-dated September 1996, placed Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 at the center of its coverage. Overton reviewed the Japanese Super Mario 64 and awarded it 97 percent, while the issue also examined the Nintendo 64 controller and carried more information about the new machine.
At the same time, there were only a handful of SNES reviews left in the issue. The reason for closing a dedicated Super Nintendo magazine was becoming visible in its own contents.
Overton later recalled wanting to continue until the magazine could transition into the Nintendo 64 era, but Future ultimately chose another approach. Super Play ended after its 47th original issue, and a new publication, N64 Magazine, was allowed to establish its own identity for Nintendo’s next machine. Several people associated with Super Play remained within Future’s gaming publications, helping preserve some of its editorial spirit even though the title itself was gone.
The ending was not the result of the magazine suddenly forgetting how to appeal to its audience. The machine around which it had been built was reaching the end of its commercial life.
Issue 48 Arrives Twenty-One Years Later
For most magazines, a final issue really is final.
Super Play received an unusual second ending.
In 2017, Future revived the title for a one-off special timed to the release of Nintendo’s SNES Classic Edition. Packaged with issue 172 of Retro Gamer, the 52-page publication was presented as Super Play issue 48, continuing the numbering more than two decades after issue 47 disappeared from British newsstands.
The revival was more than an unrelated magazine borrowing a famous logo. Original contributors including Jason Brookes, Jonathan Davies, Tony Mott, and Zy Nicholson returned alongside other experienced Nintendo writers. Helen McCarthy’s “Anime World” returned, familiar features were revived, and Wil Overton once again created the cover.
The subject matter also provided a perfect excuse for resurrection. Nintendo was selling a miniature machine built around the games of the 16-bit era, while a generation that had grown up reading publications such as Super Play was old enough to feel intense nostalgia for the culture surrounding those games.
Issue 48 demonstrated something that circulation figures alone could not. Twenty-one years after the original magazine disappeared, enough people still remembered its tone, artwork, recurring sections, and writers for a deliberate recreation of the magazine to make sense.
Why Super Play Still Matters
The historical importance of Super Play is not that it invented British interest in Japan. Anime fans, importers, fanzine writers, specialist retailers, and game enthusiasts had already been building those connections before the first issue appeared. The magazine’s achievement was bringing several of those interests together and presenting them to a large gaming audience in one accessible package.
A reader could begin with Super Mario World and end up learning about Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Japanese game magazines, anime, manga, imported hardware, untranslated cartridges, and a gaming industry that extended far beyond the shelves of a British retailer.
Helen McCarthy later described Super Play as influential precisely because it had mass distribution. Wil Overton has encountered people who remember the magazine as their introduction to Japanese games or visual culture. Former editors and writers have repeatedly pointed to its willingness to be specific rather than attempting to satisfy every possible reader.
That specificity is what preserved it.
Many magazines covered the Super Nintendo. Super Play created a particular idea of what being a Super Nintendo enthusiast could mean. It suggested that following the machine meant looking beyond regional release schedules, taking unfamiliar genres seriously, learning about the culture that produced many of the games, and remaining curious about things that might never officially reach Britain.
The magazine disappeared because the SNES era ended, but the interests it championed did not. Japanese role-playing games eventually became major international releases. Anime and manga moved from specialist fandom toward mainstream entertainment. The internet made screenshots, translations, trailers, imports, and discussions available almost immediately around the world.
What seemed exotic and difficult to reach in 1992 gradually became ordinary.
That makes the surviving issues of Super Play valuable historical records. They preserve a period when discovering Japanese games could require specialist shops, imported magazines, adapters, photocopied fanzines, international contacts, and patience. They also preserve the excitement of discovering that another gaming world existed at all.
For 47 monthly issues, and then one remarkable issue 21 years later, Super Play did more than report on the Super Nintendo. It helped British readers imagine the console as a doorway into something much larger.
Sources & Further Reading
Future plc. Super Play. Issues 1–48, 1992–1996 and 2017. Video Game History Foundation Digital Archive. https://archive.gamehistory.org/folder/4241edfe-f81f-44c1-9c24-97892a9121ae
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Super Play.” Super Play, MAG-SUPERPLAY. Video Game History Foundation. The archival collection includes issues 1–48, supplements, posters, calendars, and related material. Game History Library https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future plc. Super Play, no. 1. November 1992. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future plc. Super Play, no. 12. October 1993. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future plc. Super Play, no. 17. March 1994. Video Game History Foundation Library. Game History Library https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/11878
Future plc. Super Play, no. 26. December 1994. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future plc. Super Play, no. 37. November 1995. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future plc. Super Play, no. 47. September 1996. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future plc. Super Play, no. 48. October 2017. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/119
Future Publishing. “Super Play.” Advertisement. Amiga Power, no. 19, November 1992. AmigaLand. https://amigaland.com/dataz/press_magazine/AMIGA_Power/PDF_TXT/Amiga_Power_Issue_19_1992_Nov.pdf
Amiga Power. “Matt Bielby.” Interview. No. 32, December 1993. AmigaLand. https://amigaland.com/dataz/press_magazine/AMIGA_Power/PDF_originals/Amiga_Power_Issue_32_1993_Dec.pdf
McFerran, Damien. “Super Play, the Japan-Obsessed SNES Magazine That Inspired a Generation.” Time Extension. https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-making-of-super-play-the-japan-obsessed-snes-magazine-that-inspired-a-generation
McFerran, Damien. “Jason Brookes Talks Super Famicom, Import Gaming and Super Play.” Time Extension, December 2019. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2019/12/feature_jason_brookes_talks_super_famicom_import_gaming_and_super_play
McFerran, Damien. “A Tribute to Jason Brookes.” Time Extension. Includes recollections from Matt Bielby and other Future Publishing colleagues. https://www.timeextension.com/features/a-tribute-to-jason-brookes?page=2
Forgotten Worlds. “The Wil Overton Super Play Interview.” Forgotten Worlds. https://www.forgottenworlds.net/blog/the-wil-overton-super-play-interview
McCarthy, Helen. “Magazines.” Helen McCarthy. Personal account of McCarthy’s magazine work, including Super Play. https://helenmccarthy.net/magazines/
Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. “U.K. Anime and Manga Fanzines, 1985–2000: Q&A with Helen McCarthy.” Sainsbury Institute. https://www.sainsbury-institute.org/news/manga/u-k-anime-and-manga-fanzines-1985-2000-qa-with-helen-mccarthy/
Stuart, Keith, and Keza MacDonald. “The 15 (ish) Greatest UK Video Game Magazines of All Time.” The Guardian, May 10, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/may/10/the-15-ish-greatest-uk-video-game-magazines-of-all-time
GamesRadar+. “The Rumour Is True: Legendary Nintendo Magazine Super Play Returns.” GamesRadar+, 2017. https://www.gamesradar.com/the-rumour-is-true-super-play-is-back/
Nintendo Life. “Beloved Magazine Super Play Is Being Revived for the SNES Classic Edition Launch.” Nintendo Life, September 2017. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/09/beloved_magazine_super_play_is_being_revived_for_the_snes_classic_edition_launch
Nintendo Life. “Video: Flicking Through SNES Mag Super Play’s First Issue in Over 20 Years.” Nintendo Life, September 2017. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/09/video_flicking_through_snes_mag_super_plays_first_issue_in_over_20_years
MCV/DEVELOP. “Future Closes Nintendo Gamer.” MCV/DEVELOP. Discusses the lineage from Super Play through N64 Magazine, NGC, NGamer, and Nintendo Gamer. https://mcvuk.com/business-news/future-closes-nintendo-gamer/
Retro Gamer. No. 122. Includes a historical chronology recording the end of Super Play in September 1996. https://electronicsandbooks.com/edt/manual/Magazine/R/Retro%20Gamer%20UK/122.pdf
Out-of-Print Archive. “Super Play Issue 1.” Out-of-Print Archive. Digitized issue and contents index. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/superplay/SuperPlay1.html
Nintendo Mags. “Super Play.” Nintendo Mags. Complete issue index covering the original run and 2017 revival. https://www.nintendomags.com/magazines/super-play/
UK Games Magazines. “Super Play.” UK Games Magazines. Publication chronology, dates, editorial information, and issue index. https://www.ukgamesmags.com/magazines/super-play
Forgotten Worlds. “A History of Video Game Magazines.” Forgotten Worlds. Includes discussion of Super Play, Japanese imports, RPGs, anime, and British gaming-magazine culture. https://www.forgottenworlds.net/history-videogames