23rd March 2015, 6:46 PM
I'm curious to read what your favorite printed game guide is (online FAQs, for the purposes of this thread, don't count).
I've seen a number of game guides over the years. I'm not exactly a collector, but I've got a fair amount covering just about every era of gaming. With that in mind, I've gotta pick a guide not just on how useful, complete, or accurate it is (though those three things are of course major factors), but on factors that go way above and beyond those basics, making the guide, all by itself, a notable collector's item.
Prima makes hardcover guides for practically every major game release these days, so while I might have made a special note for that, it's so common now that it's basically expected of a collector's edition of any guide these days. So, I can't very well add this or that guide for that alone.
Here are a few notable ones. Most of these are earlier guides, back when the whole concept of a printed game guide was itself pretty new. Heck, Nintendo Power themselves didn't quite get the hang of it until they made "Mario Mania", the first of their dedicated guides aimed at one specific game, instead of a large handful of them as their previous guides had been. Mario Mania may have been focused on Mario World, but it added so much more beyond that. It included a history of Mario games up until that point, including game cameos, a preview of the then-upcoming movie, some concept art where Miyamoto explained he'd wanted Mario to ride a dinosaur for years before World came out, and even some extremely super nerdy comparison lists like running speeds across the main series and so on.
Though, technically Mario Mania wasn't their first dedicated guide to one game. Before "Player's Guides" Nintendo Power had "Strategy Guide" editions of Nintendo Power that were focused entirely on one game. I distinctly recall their Super Mario Bros 3 issue. It was very well done, and included all sorts of deep level secrets, like how the coin ships worked, the pseudo-random nature of the card flipping game (which you could use to always win, first time every time), and so on. The only mark against it would be the intentional exclusion of a full map and strategy for the final level. That was left in the dark to, I think, leave some things unspoiled for the player.
Another of these Strategy Guide issues would come out with the release of Final Fantasy. In terms of information, it was exceedingly well done. However, the guide made a fatal error in deciding to locally source the artwork. It seems that they were so afraid of using Amano's weird and ethereal artwork (possibly afraid it would turn people off to the game) that they hired your uncle to draw the same artwork he drew for all his friend's D&D characters. The result looked pretty terrible, like your uncle after a weekend alone. (I meant no offense, Your uncle is the legal name of a relative of mine. A cousin I think.) (No it isn't.) Great guide, terrible art. Moving on.
I must give credit to the Earthbound player's guide. That guide was one of the best pack-ins a game ever got, as any fan will tell you. Mind, everyone can see that glory for themselves, as Nintendo has posted it, in it's entirety, online.
http://earthbound.nintendo.com/pl...
Check it out for yourself. It's the only one I can directly link to this way. From cover to cover, the whole thing has the conceit of being a clip book, with news articles, travel brochures, and so on. It's as though Ness grew up and and put clippings and photos of his whole journey in a book to keep the precious memories. The only problem, if I had to pick one, is that cover. Well, mostly the cover is fine. It too fits the theme, covered in photos of Ness' journey. It's also covered in vomit. Yeah, again this was part of Nintendo's "gross out" phase of advertising. Had they just skipped out on that, I couldn't find a fault to be had here. One thing to add. Unless you have some sort of smell add-on installed on your PC, you won't be able to smell the scratch & sniff. They were pretty neat, and the guide itself was written with notes to scratch each of them at various parts of the story, to add to the experience. Silly, a gimic, but heck I did it. Meeeemoriiiies....
Secret of Mana had not one but two very notable guides. One was a full, if basic, walkthrough included across 3 issues of Nintendo Power. Again they did some of their own artwork, but this time the artwork was actually pretty good, so I gotta give credit there. The whole style of that guide was a first person account, like a journal the hero is keeping during the journey. Very nice, and the backstory behind each of the weapon's forms were also nice touches. The second guide was ALSO done in the form of a journal, but this time in the third person instead of first person. This one was made by Prima, and is very exceptionally done (contrary to most of Prima's guides at the time). I'd recommend both of them. Two great guides for one great game.
We can't ignore the PC here. There were plenty of guides for PC games, but oddly there was a different culture around how such guides should be made. Most guides for PC games were almost exclusively text. This may have gotten it's start with the early text adventure games, but it stuck around long after "graphics" were invented through the power of white boards and 80's computer engineer mustaches. Most of these read a lot like modern GameFAQs style guides, but a few really stand apart from the rest, and those few are the King's Quest Companions.
Ah, I've got a special place in my heart for these ones. The King's Quest Companion guides were something else. Again, like most PC guides, they were almost entirely text with only a few sparse illustrations where words failed the author. However, it's what they did with that text that mattered. The author of these guides decided to make these guides in the style of a news report, like an interview with someone retelling the story as they heard it. It reads like a modern "alternate reality" game. A writer stumbled across a bizarre BBS connection on his computer where he contacted someone claiming to live in the fictional world of Daventry, retelling the story through a bizarre "skull" in a wizard's basement (a "square skull with a single black eye, and a strange lower jaw full of movable teeth with letters carved into them"). This third hand account then guides the player through all the puzzles of each game, going for the full point scores. The writer even goes on to explain some of the odd workings of the game, such as the wrap-around mechanic in the early games (a spell of warped space used as a defense against invasions), and even explain some of the bizarre moon logic employed in a few of the series' more obtuse puzzles. It was a novel approach, to say the least, and it makes the guides themselves a real joy to read even without playing the games.
Along these lines comes a much later guide, the Conker's Bad Fur Day guide. Whatever your feelings on this game are, know that the guide is just as hard to find and expensive as the game itself. In fact, I only have this guide now due to a stroke of luck. I ran into a library sale about a month ago. Normally the guide would go for a pretty penny, but in this case, the people selling these library books didn't seem to know what they had. I snatched it up for a ridiculously cheap price, and don't regret it a bit. I only recently read it, but it's definitely on my top 10 list already. Nintendo Power was by this point pumping out their guides in a very "by the numbers" way. Not to say they were bad, or incomplete, but they had gone a bit more bland, losing a bit of that old charm and unique flavor that set some of their old guides apart. With this guide, Nintendo Power's editors got a rare chance to really cut loose, and wow did they ever. The thing is filled with humor throughout, taking every possible chance to make all the jokes Rare didn't make in the game itself. They made the whole thing read like a seedy magazine you found in a truck stop bathroom. Heck, even the pages look dirty, with fingerprints on the edge and a general "grime" throughout. At first, since it was a library book, I thought it actually WAS this dirty until I looked closer and realized only the cover had been scuffed up (and considering the general look, that "lived in" cover only ADDS to the aesthetic). It's got weird fake ads and bizarre diatribes taking up whole pages and still manages to be a complete guide to the game. I love it already.
The most recent guide of real note to me has to be the fan-made Mother 3 guide. Again, this entire guide is available online for free.
http://handbook.fangamer.com/page...
But it's worth noting how well made the printed version is. It even has a hardcover version. I know I know, those are a dime a dozen now, but I'll give this one some note for being an entirely fan-made project without major backing. Never fear, there's nothing illegal about this. All the art assets are fan made, and the practice of making "unofficial" game guides is well established at this point (I've got a few "unofficial" guides for Street Fighter and Donkey Kong Country, for example, which use the "unofficial" label they had to put on there as "edgy" and "not controlled by The Man" style street cred, complete with backwards baseball cap 90's kid. I'm not kidding, look at it!
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/d...
That is like time travel.
Back on topic, that fan-made guide was lovingly crafted to resemble the Earthbound guide, with all sorts of additional clips and photos and pictures of clay models of characters throughout it, to really add to it. It's an amazing guide and deserves special note.
All that, to get to what is still my favorite player's guide. It was really a close call. By all rights, I'm REALLY tempted to put one of the two Mother series guides at the top, but if I had to pick, which I do, it would come down to the Link to the Past Player's Guide. This guide really set the standard for what I expect from any guide that goes beyond the bare essentials. Mario Mania was a nerdy festival of Mario in general, but the Link to the Past guide got all that nerdy detail and focused it specifically on the game it was supposed to be a guide for, and it was the first to do so. It really went all out. The first few pages catch you up to speed with the story of the first two Zelda games (including some really nice artwork), and then it jumps right into the thick of it. There are actually two different walkthroughs in it. The first is more loose hints and a general guide on where to go, and the second is the far more detailed and full explanation of every secret in the game. Both are done in the style of a historical account of the game's story (which makes sense, since Link to the Past was always intended as a prequel to the first two games). The guide covers secrets as you can get them, and then again reveals a full list of collectables at the end of the guide (standard now, but this one was the first to establish this). The guide is filled with some amazing artwork. It's not the same style as the game's own artist, but still very well done. All the items get their own new artwork and even some little tidbits. As I said, it reads like a historical documentary, so the details are actually explanations of the culture and items of the past. It even explains some backstory behind key locations. To be clear, this is actually a translation of the Japanese version of this guide (the author credits establish this), so all of this is basically cannon. From cover to cover, it's just a pleasure to read, and it established so many "firsts" in the art of guide making that many guide makers still can't keep up with. For all these reasons, seasoned with not a small amount of nostalgia, this is my favorite Player's Guide.
So, what do you think? What's your favorite game guide?
I've seen a number of game guides over the years. I'm not exactly a collector, but I've got a fair amount covering just about every era of gaming. With that in mind, I've gotta pick a guide not just on how useful, complete, or accurate it is (though those three things are of course major factors), but on factors that go way above and beyond those basics, making the guide, all by itself, a notable collector's item.
Prima makes hardcover guides for practically every major game release these days, so while I might have made a special note for that, it's so common now that it's basically expected of a collector's edition of any guide these days. So, I can't very well add this or that guide for that alone.
Here are a few notable ones. Most of these are earlier guides, back when the whole concept of a printed game guide was itself pretty new. Heck, Nintendo Power themselves didn't quite get the hang of it until they made "Mario Mania", the first of their dedicated guides aimed at one specific game, instead of a large handful of them as their previous guides had been. Mario Mania may have been focused on Mario World, but it added so much more beyond that. It included a history of Mario games up until that point, including game cameos, a preview of the then-upcoming movie, some concept art where Miyamoto explained he'd wanted Mario to ride a dinosaur for years before World came out, and even some extremely super nerdy comparison lists like running speeds across the main series and so on.
Though, technically Mario Mania wasn't their first dedicated guide to one game. Before "Player's Guides" Nintendo Power had "Strategy Guide" editions of Nintendo Power that were focused entirely on one game. I distinctly recall their Super Mario Bros 3 issue. It was very well done, and included all sorts of deep level secrets, like how the coin ships worked, the pseudo-random nature of the card flipping game (which you could use to always win, first time every time), and so on. The only mark against it would be the intentional exclusion of a full map and strategy for the final level. That was left in the dark to, I think, leave some things unspoiled for the player.
Another of these Strategy Guide issues would come out with the release of Final Fantasy. In terms of information, it was exceedingly well done. However, the guide made a fatal error in deciding to locally source the artwork. It seems that they were so afraid of using Amano's weird and ethereal artwork (possibly afraid it would turn people off to the game) that they hired your uncle to draw the same artwork he drew for all his friend's D&D characters. The result looked pretty terrible, like your uncle after a weekend alone. (I meant no offense, Your uncle is the legal name of a relative of mine. A cousin I think.) (No it isn't.) Great guide, terrible art. Moving on.
I must give credit to the Earthbound player's guide. That guide was one of the best pack-ins a game ever got, as any fan will tell you. Mind, everyone can see that glory for themselves, as Nintendo has posted it, in it's entirety, online.
http://earthbound.nintendo.com/pl...
Check it out for yourself. It's the only one I can directly link to this way. From cover to cover, the whole thing has the conceit of being a clip book, with news articles, travel brochures, and so on. It's as though Ness grew up and and put clippings and photos of his whole journey in a book to keep the precious memories. The only problem, if I had to pick one, is that cover. Well, mostly the cover is fine. It too fits the theme, covered in photos of Ness' journey. It's also covered in vomit. Yeah, again this was part of Nintendo's "gross out" phase of advertising. Had they just skipped out on that, I couldn't find a fault to be had here. One thing to add. Unless you have some sort of smell add-on installed on your PC, you won't be able to smell the scratch & sniff. They were pretty neat, and the guide itself was written with notes to scratch each of them at various parts of the story, to add to the experience. Silly, a gimic, but heck I did it. Meeeemoriiiies....
Secret of Mana had not one but two very notable guides. One was a full, if basic, walkthrough included across 3 issues of Nintendo Power. Again they did some of their own artwork, but this time the artwork was actually pretty good, so I gotta give credit there. The whole style of that guide was a first person account, like a journal the hero is keeping during the journey. Very nice, and the backstory behind each of the weapon's forms were also nice touches. The second guide was ALSO done in the form of a journal, but this time in the third person instead of first person. This one was made by Prima, and is very exceptionally done (contrary to most of Prima's guides at the time). I'd recommend both of them. Two great guides for one great game.
We can't ignore the PC here. There were plenty of guides for PC games, but oddly there was a different culture around how such guides should be made. Most guides for PC games were almost exclusively text. This may have gotten it's start with the early text adventure games, but it stuck around long after "graphics" were invented through the power of white boards and 80's computer engineer mustaches. Most of these read a lot like modern GameFAQs style guides, but a few really stand apart from the rest, and those few are the King's Quest Companions.
Ah, I've got a special place in my heart for these ones. The King's Quest Companion guides were something else. Again, like most PC guides, they were almost entirely text with only a few sparse illustrations where words failed the author. However, it's what they did with that text that mattered. The author of these guides decided to make these guides in the style of a news report, like an interview with someone retelling the story as they heard it. It reads like a modern "alternate reality" game. A writer stumbled across a bizarre BBS connection on his computer where he contacted someone claiming to live in the fictional world of Daventry, retelling the story through a bizarre "skull" in a wizard's basement (a "square skull with a single black eye, and a strange lower jaw full of movable teeth with letters carved into them"). This third hand account then guides the player through all the puzzles of each game, going for the full point scores. The writer even goes on to explain some of the odd workings of the game, such as the wrap-around mechanic in the early games (a spell of warped space used as a defense against invasions), and even explain some of the bizarre moon logic employed in a few of the series' more obtuse puzzles. It was a novel approach, to say the least, and it makes the guides themselves a real joy to read even without playing the games.
Along these lines comes a much later guide, the Conker's Bad Fur Day guide. Whatever your feelings on this game are, know that the guide is just as hard to find and expensive as the game itself. In fact, I only have this guide now due to a stroke of luck. I ran into a library sale about a month ago. Normally the guide would go for a pretty penny, but in this case, the people selling these library books didn't seem to know what they had. I snatched it up for a ridiculously cheap price, and don't regret it a bit. I only recently read it, but it's definitely on my top 10 list already. Nintendo Power was by this point pumping out their guides in a very "by the numbers" way. Not to say they were bad, or incomplete, but they had gone a bit more bland, losing a bit of that old charm and unique flavor that set some of their old guides apart. With this guide, Nintendo Power's editors got a rare chance to really cut loose, and wow did they ever. The thing is filled with humor throughout, taking every possible chance to make all the jokes Rare didn't make in the game itself. They made the whole thing read like a seedy magazine you found in a truck stop bathroom. Heck, even the pages look dirty, with fingerprints on the edge and a general "grime" throughout. At first, since it was a library book, I thought it actually WAS this dirty until I looked closer and realized only the cover had been scuffed up (and considering the general look, that "lived in" cover only ADDS to the aesthetic). It's got weird fake ads and bizarre diatribes taking up whole pages and still manages to be a complete guide to the game. I love it already.
The most recent guide of real note to me has to be the fan-made Mother 3 guide. Again, this entire guide is available online for free.
http://handbook.fangamer.com/page...
But it's worth noting how well made the printed version is. It even has a hardcover version. I know I know, those are a dime a dozen now, but I'll give this one some note for being an entirely fan-made project without major backing. Never fear, there's nothing illegal about this. All the art assets are fan made, and the practice of making "unofficial" game guides is well established at this point (I've got a few "unofficial" guides for Street Fighter and Donkey Kong Country, for example, which use the "unofficial" label they had to put on there as "edgy" and "not controlled by The Man" style street cred, complete with backwards baseball cap 90's kid. I'm not kidding, look at it!
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/d...
That is like time travel.
Back on topic, that fan-made guide was lovingly crafted to resemble the Earthbound guide, with all sorts of additional clips and photos and pictures of clay models of characters throughout it, to really add to it. It's an amazing guide and deserves special note.
All that, to get to what is still my favorite player's guide. It was really a close call. By all rights, I'm REALLY tempted to put one of the two Mother series guides at the top, but if I had to pick, which I do, it would come down to the Link to the Past Player's Guide. This guide really set the standard for what I expect from any guide that goes beyond the bare essentials. Mario Mania was a nerdy festival of Mario in general, but the Link to the Past guide got all that nerdy detail and focused it specifically on the game it was supposed to be a guide for, and it was the first to do so. It really went all out. The first few pages catch you up to speed with the story of the first two Zelda games (including some really nice artwork), and then it jumps right into the thick of it. There are actually two different walkthroughs in it. The first is more loose hints and a general guide on where to go, and the second is the far more detailed and full explanation of every secret in the game. Both are done in the style of a historical account of the game's story (which makes sense, since Link to the Past was always intended as a prequel to the first two games). The guide covers secrets as you can get them, and then again reveals a full list of collectables at the end of the guide (standard now, but this one was the first to establish this). The guide is filled with some amazing artwork. It's not the same style as the game's own artist, but still very well done. All the items get their own new artwork and even some little tidbits. As I said, it reads like a historical documentary, so the details are actually explanations of the culture and items of the past. It even explains some backstory behind key locations. To be clear, this is actually a translation of the Japanese version of this guide (the author credits establish this), so all of this is basically cannon. From cover to cover, it's just a pleasure to read, and it established so many "firsts" in the art of guide making that many guide makers still can't keep up with. For all these reasons, seasoned with not a small amount of nostalgia, this is my favorite Player's Guide.
So, what do you think? What's your favorite game guide?