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Here's What You Hear When You Call Nintendo's Old Tips Hotline This Weekend

by Kyle Hilliard on Nov 11, 2016 at 07:30 AM

Starting today, and going until Sunday night, Nintendo has re-opened its old Power Line – a service players could call for game tips (for a fee) at the height of the Nintendo's popularity.

Calling won't put you in touch with an actual human prepared to walk you through The Legend of Zelda. For the most part, it's just a pre-recorded ad promoting the NES Classic Edition (here's our review), but there are a few interesting tips, as well as trivia about the old hotline. The recordings are from three gameplay counselors who worked on the hotline offering a tip for The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and Metroid. They each share a quick story about their time working on the hotline before offering their tip. Mark Doyle, who offers a tip for Metroid, tells a story about Star Tropics, which came with a letter setting up the game's plot. That letter also needed to be dipped in water to reveal a secret code necessary for progression, but since most people rented the game and it did not include the letter, Doyle said he would usually just tell people the code before they could even finish saying, "I'm playing Star Tropics."

You can hear the full recording below, or call (425) 885-7529 to hear it yourself.

[View:http://www.gameinformer.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-SiteFiles/media-audio-kyle-neshotline/NintendoHotline.mp3:610]

For more on the NES Classic Edition, head here for our review, here for some close-up photos of the console, and here for some video of the software.