Right. Let's talk guides.
 

So, I collect them. I know Skills' collects them. What about the rest of you?

What's your take on guides? Do you buy them like I do, largely for the art and second time through a game? Or are you a person who won't go through a game without a guide at your side to make sure you get that 101%? Or are you someone who views guides as an ungodly creation, a black spot on the history of gaming and gaming culture?

The reason this leaps to mind for me is that I spent the last 45 minutes making written in notes on my FF XII guide to make it actually, you know, useful. Hand written notes of when side quests become accessible and when certain places/people/things become available. It actually reminded me of having to go through my FF IX guide and make alterations galore thanks to the terrible, terrible idea that was PlayOnline. If anyone still has that guide, by the way, the common belief that it's useless because PlayOnline no longer hosts FF IX information is false. Square still has the information available, it's just at a different address.

That, for me, was the biggest joke of a guide I'd ever seen. It was worse than any of the old NES or SNES guides I'd used. Hell, even some of the unauthorized stuff from the early SNES days were better than the FF IX abortion. Myself, I find I generally know more than the BradyGames guides, though the boys at DoubleJump rarely let me down.

So, how bout it? Love 'em, hate 'em? Tell us why. Tell us who your favourites are in terms of publishers. Hell, tell us who your least favourite publishers are. What's your favourite book? Least favourite?

YOUR GUIDES. YOU SHOULD SHOW ME THEM.

I'm not so much into guides anymore but any hardcover guide I'll buy. I love collecting Working Designs guides. They're thick, some are hardbound, very detailed, and contain random bits of humor throughout. I still need to get a hold of a mint Lunar 2 guide though. The last guide I bought was for Super Mario Galaxy, and I only bought it because it was hardbound!

I've got a bunch of the Working Design guides. They're just gorgeous. You can hate Vic Ireland all you want, but the man put out some quality stuff.

I always buy strategy guides for RPGs, anything else isn't worth having a guide for. Everyone says to use gamefaqs if I need to know something, but it's so much more convenient to not need to be at the computer

Well, I like to collect game guides. As I wouldn't need to keep going back to GameFAQs just to look at the FAQs. And also I like the artwork. Like the authors would tend to blend characters, art rendering of certain locations etc...

I think the single most useful guide I own is the Super Mario RPG guide. Actual pictures of the hidden chests are so much more accessible than text-based descriptions.

Do Prima and Brady still dominate the guide industry? Because all they did was pump out rubbish back in the day.

Versus and Piggyback had the best guides, with fold-out posters and everything. Versus' FFVII guide was legendary.

Yeah, Prima and Brady are still the main names in the game. They're better, but still not as good as Versus, or DoubleJump.

Also, in an awesome aside, I had the FF VII guide from Versus and lost it in a move. But then, about two years ago, I see someone I buy from on ebay regularly has a no picture offering of "Versus Final Fantasy 8 guide." So I message him, asking if he meant FF 7. Turns out it's his wife, as he's off in the middle east somewhere, and he wants to sell off his game collection. So she's doing it. She's too lazy to alter the title, right? So I wind up buying a mint condition Versus FF 7 guide for 19 dollars. The other auction of the Versus FF 7 guide going at the time went for over 100. Score.

Love them for the same reason you did. Artwork. My favorite publisher is Double Jump and I wish Versus books lived still. They held the BEST comprehensive data ever. I cite FFVII's. There's others that I haven't seen but heard they were just as insane coverage. I mean really, Versus books blew the other guides out of the water. Double Jump guides were great though.

And yeah, I paid for FFIX PLAYONLINEWHATASUCKER GUIDE with my free 25 dollar birthday gift card. Its really nothing but seriously I rather NOT own it. It IS disgusting. Absolutely DISGUSTING. Worst guide EVAR.

My favorite book(s) ever is the comprehensive collection of Valkyrie Profile and Tales series artbooks. They're both imported but good god, the artwork is just downright amazing and you don't find these casually anywhere else.

BEHOLD

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...MES/guides.jpg

Well madame, your guide penis is larger than mine by several inches, I must admit. Very, very impressive.

Also, aren't those FFT figures just great? Mine are sitting in a glass cabinet under my Non HD-TV in the basement, wherein I play my Genesis, SNES and other such beauties.

I don't go out of my way to buy game guides since I'd like to complete a game at least once on my own. GameFAQs and other websites do a decent enough job of getting me out of a place I can't get through anyway.

However, my relatives tend to buy the game guides to the respective games they'll give me for Christmas and whatnot. Also, renewing my magazine subscription nets me quite a few complementary game guides. I usually read my guides either as a time killer or as a double-check for anything I might've missed in the first playthrough.

I could ask, what's your RAREST guide? I suppose a Versus Books guide is worthy but really now, I meant like a one time only print for limited release.

We got lucky and scored a Soul Nomad & The World Eaters' guide that is limited to print out like 5k. Yeah its an Atlus game. :\

And currently we're missing TWO guides from our current game collection that does have a guide for. Suikoden II believe it or not, and Koudelka.

SD used to have SII once but lost it in the move as well and we're trying to get that. Koudelka actually goes for like a 100 bucks on ebay just like SII. Why we don't know but gee. Koudelka is like a prequel of Shadow Hearts series. That's the only reason why we kept it even though its quite dated.

Koudelka kicks ass. I have that guide for that. And for Suikoden II, actually.

What's my rarest guide? The Versus FF VII is up there. Persona I and II, definitely up there. Could be one of the WD guides. Lunar, maybe.

Please tell me that Koudelka guide, was it extremely helpful? Man I tried playing it, and I guess I should had saved that ammo much better. I suppose looking AHEAD would be easier. I bought the game not knowing that it was much hardcore than I thought it was. I'm glad I kept it after all of these years. SD kept telling me that its extremely rare now.

The most helpful guide? Hmm I suppose any Nintendo Super Mario guides are indeed awesome. I really like their maps with decent legend icons pinpointing where every items are. An excellent example is Super Paper Mario, you have maps covering BOTH sides. Great great map work on that.

I can think of a few games that could benefit a guide. I kept asking SD if there's any HARVEST MOON guides. SILLY I know, but Harvest Moon is not something that a newbie can just pick up and play... there's a LOT involved and can easily overwhelm you right away. I tried playing the series but damn it. Its just not that simple! xD I could always retort to a basic FAQ instead. :\

There's other deserving games at the moment that I couldn't think of... that needed a guide so badly.

Had any of you ever d/led an "e-guide"? SD did for Grim Grimorie. Its great and has mapped out graphs just like Vandal Hearts 2.

I always saw guides as part of the package: you get the game, you get the guide. So pretty much any game I end up owning, I try and track down a guide for it. I still don't have a huge collection yet, but its growing. The art is one of the bigger draws, since we usually don't get artbooks on this side of the world, but I like to have all the secrets laid out in front of me in case I just can't figure it out on my own (Wild Arms guides and their puzzle-box solutions pay for themselves after about the first hour). I'm all for beating games on your own, and I usually don't use the guides to help me through the first time, but they're just that extra bit that makes the whole experience feel more complete.

I also notice that old guides are usually harder to find than old games. I got Dawn of Mana for Christmas, but the game itself came out in early '07. I thought it would still be around, but I looked everywhere for the guide with no luck. Same thing happened with FFIV Advance last year. Its like stores cycle through guides after a few months, with only the high profile stuff like WoW and Mario sticking around forever.

And Versus, yeah, those were excellent. I have the Versus Books guide for Street Fighter Alpha 2 complete with pictures of every attack from every position, along with the percentage damage of each hit, and strategies for every specific character vs. character match-up. Not to mention concept art, exploits, tournament reports, codes for every version, and a poster. Those guys didn't go out of business, they worked themselves to death.

Actually, the Koudelka guide wasn't very helpful. It's fairly old school and sparse. However, it is a bloody monster of a game no matter how you slice it. Just fucking mean.

I generally buy guides for my RPGs, but if one of the games in my collection is from another genre but very enjoyable, I will most often purchase a guide for that as well. I would say that my best guide is for the SNES version of Ogre Battle. I recall I had an opportunity to buy the guide for the SNES version of Breath of Fire, but unfortunately, I did not purchase it.

DAMN IT. Thanks. Looks like Koudelka is gonna get a beat down from me sooner than I thought. xD

Which brings us to another question (I promise, LAST one, no more spamming up your thread), if there's no guide for said game, do you ever print out a faq/walkthrough from GameFAQs?

I had a few times just for games that are begging for it. But that's very far few inbetween though. I really hate sloughing through that shit. Too often its not worth the ink. I really appreciate the bare-bones type of walkthroughs that doesn't include spoiler and such though.

ALSO, are you such a SUCKER for these guides that you'd buy every version? Yeah. SD is such a fucking sucker for Resident Evil 4 that he owned two so far. He now wants the one for the Wii.

I've collected quite a few thousand over the years.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13.../guides001.jpg
And here they all are!

The Xbox Buyers Guide came with my GameCube (no it really did). The SNES guides were pretty handy, they covered like a good twenty of so games each. Including games that really had no need for a guide!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13.../guides002.jpg
OH SO THAT'S HOW I RUN AND JUMP.

Yeah, I'll use GameFAQs if the guide sucks, or there is no guide. I'm a bit of a completionist freak.


Inernal: That's the most realest guide to a dog I've ever seen.

I try not to use guides on my first run through a game. I've done it before, and I have much more fun exploring on my own. I also enjoy the fun in a challenge. I'll only seek out help if something is ridiculously stupid or I'm completely stumped.

But I do like guides for going through a game a second time. Finding all the stuff I missed the first time is nice. I also enjoy reading any interesting notes the game may have on situations, or looking at the artwork in it. And there are some times when the maps in the guides are just so much more helpful than the text you can find on gamefaqs.

I don't own that many guides, but the best one I do own is the Lunar: EB guide. Working Designs put out some top notch stuff back then.

I think the most helpful guide I have is the one for Star Ocean 2. I can't imagine trying to keep track of the town character interactions without it.

I find it amusing when guides actually contain false information. Like the guide for Vanguard Bandits, there is an alternate path you can take in the game. But you have to not only beat the game first, but you have to get the good ending. The hilarous thing is I e-mailed them about the mistake in the guide where they simply said you had to beat the game and they denied that they were wrong.

I've got a small handful of guides, mainly from PSX and PS2 rpgs. I suppose my favorite ones would be my Versus Books FFVII guide, my original FFT guide, my Suikoden II guide, and my Valkyrie Profile guide. All of these guides are pretty good, and at one time or another have been hard to find. I might take a picture of my modest collection tonight.

Also, Koudelka was a great game. Loved the characters. And am I mistaken, but in order to get the "canon" ending, you had to actually lose to the final boss {like I had any choice in that matter}.

Thread is 2 months old, but who cares. I got a few in recently that's worthy of a bump. Ignore the games, they're just part of the "monthly purchases" of March he did the photo for.

http://i26.tinypic.com/2rpzdas.jpg

We have managed to get Koudelka and Suikoden II guides specifically finally. That Phantasy Star II book was phenomenal to look at! Completely in color and loaded with maps! OMG! (Its rather unheard of in old old guide days.)

Wow, I never expected a topic like this to exist. I've mostly thought of guides as wastes of money with the advent of GameFAQs (I was very angry when I realized I had bought a guide for Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on eBay instead of the actual game), but I guess art and maps and such are something I didn't take into account.

I actually just recently chunked guides for Spider-Man 3 and Onimusha 3 (complete with Jean Reno foldout). I don't feel too bad since I've never owned either game, but reading this thread did make me feel a slight twinge of remorse. Of course, now I'm gonna find out that they're extremely rare and worth a bazillion dollars and you'll be treated to a classic montage of me on my journey to the landfill to reclaim my lost fortune.

Edit: Also who is this "SD" you keep referring to, BTW?

Jesus Meia, you guys make me so jealous. I've always wanted to start a huge guide collection, but I simply didn't have the green to throw around for it. I did my share of purchases, but I about half of them have vanished on me one way or another.

I just placed a order for:

Super Mario Galaxy Collectors Edition Guide
Eternal Sonata (Brady Games)
Lost Odyssey (Prima)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Prima)
Mass Effect (Prima)

Ones that I have on me:

- Brady Games -
Final Fantasy Chronicles
Final Fantasy Anthology
Xenosaga Episode 1
Star Ocean 3
Phantasy Star Universe
Final Fantasy XII
Tales of Legendia
Tales of the Abyss
Chrono Cross

- Versus -

Phantasy Star Online

- Prima -

Breath of Fire IV
Starcraft 64
Wrestlemania X8
Resident Evil 2 Dual Shock
Fear Effect 2

- Nintendo -

Pokemon Diamond & Pearl
Super Metroid

M.I.A Guides that I remember having in the past:

Saga Frontier 2 (Brady)
Resident Evil 2 (Prima)
Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo)
Digimon World 2 (Prima)
Final Fantasy VII (Versus)
Driver 2 (Prima)
WCW/NWO Revenge (Prima)
Eternal Darkness (I think Prima)
Many others that I'm forgetting. :(

People tend to be too spoiler happy with FAQs. Plus, you can't beat having area maps right in front of you. My friend bought the GODAWFUL FFIX guide. As far as my most hated guide that I own goes, FF Chronicles has to take it. You know there's something wrong when the guide is barely 150 pages for TWO games... I also disliked the Nintendo Zelda: OOT guide a lot. Instead of explaining everything, they tried to write it like a story. Interesting idea that made it fail ever so miserably. My favorite guide is the Super Metroid one. Screen caps of all the whole game map is as good as it gets.

No, I think scratch 'n' sniff cards of game enemies is as good as it gets. That's one thing you just can't get on the Internet.

In case anyone hasn't heard, apparently EB is dropping guides from their stores in order to make "more room" for their other products. That means we fanatics are going to have to get our fix by buying online.

At least they'll be on clearance. :)

Yeah, but they're all old guides that most of us already have. Go check it out sometime, basically all you're going to find now is like, FF XI guides.

SailorDaravon for short, my other half. :) Which I SHOULD mention that, he's just as a serious collector as I. (Lol, similar interests is what got us together afterall.) So both of us collecting and having enough money as is, is what contribute to this massive collection as you can see. Of course our tax return paid for those rare guides too. So don't feel so bad for not having enough green for all that! ;)

And no kidding, I thought the stores already are doing this years ago Deni. :\ We managed to score a lot of decent guides from second-hand stores who scored from the official game stores' trash bins.

Except that no, for some reason, they ain't. Still full price.

Considering they're selling them to get rid of them and get more space, because no one was BUYING THEM, the logical next step would be to ENCOURAGE THEIR PRODUCT FLOW A BIT.

But no. Nope. No sir. Ain't happenin'.

I'm up to 90 or so, now. There's a few I want to order in from Amazon, but lawlshipping makes it more economical to search around locally for them first.

If I had the money, I would probably collect guides for the games I buy, because it's handy as a reference for any part of the game I need to look up spontaneously. GameFAQs has plenty of guides, but sometimes you just need one at your and and not run back to your computer to check something out. But alas, I don't have the money to keep up with that, not since I just unloaded a ton on PS2 games I need to catch up on.

I've got this guide for Quest for Glory 1-4 (I think it includes 4, might just be 3). It was done in a pretty neat style. There was one section where it just told you exactly what to do, with no story information or anything of that sort, and there was another section where the walkthrough was written more as a novel, including most of the character interactions and what everyone says. I wound up just reading that instead of playing the games after 1 since it was entertaining enough and I really didn't like the town interface they had swapped to in 2.

Also have a few guides that I got for subscribing to Nintendo Power ages and ages ago.

Ooh, I think I know what you're talking about! When I was a kid, I had those style guides for Space Quest 1-3 and Police Quest 1-3 (I think), in Dutch. They were awesome, I learned English through them/playing the game/dictionary. Way to go Sierra!

I've never really been interested in guides for whatever reason, but I've always wanted to buy artbooks from various games, but I didn't know where to look for them. Also, they seem really expensive, the kind of price where you're absolutely certain you're being ripped off because you're such a fanatic that you're just a captive audience.

Since I'm cheap, I never could bring myself to buy them. A friend has some of them though, and it's really awesome to see some of the WIP art sketches and such.

I use to collect them some time ago, usually though they were used and/or most likely when gamestop had that "buy 2, get 1 free" deal that went for Game Guides too.

I mean, 4 bucks for 3 guides? Awesome.

Before collecting them, I would especially like to get them for various games I had, most specifically Final Fantasy III. I remember getting one guide that was like the FFIII encyopedia which had TONS of information but agood bit of it was incorrectly named items.

Other times I got guides for the artwork, like Zelda: OOT. Good stuff there.

Only two game guides I possess are for Metal Gear Solid and Ocarina of Time.

I technically did have the FFIX LOLPLAYONLINELOL, but it has since disappeared long ago. It will not be missed.

I wouldn't mind collecting some more, but... I'd prefer the straight up artbooks.

I purchased the game guide for Disgaea 2 a week after purchasing the game. I'll probably search on Ebay for the guide to Disgaea 1 and pick it up. Other than that, the only guide I own is for Asheron's Call 2. Lol; it wasn't much help but it was interesting reading.

Just buy the Disgaea 1 special edition guide from doublejumpbooks.

Ah, yes, video game guides. Love 'em. But it's been ages since I bought one. I used to be mad in love with them. Mind you, the guides I have are basically Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon, all from when I was younger. All of my Pokemon guides are essentially torn to shreds. =P (The last guide I bought would have been my Ape Escape 2 one a few years ago~)

My authorised collection/piggyback interactive guides are probably my favourites. Never owned a Versus or Double Jump guide, but would definitely like to. I've also got some pretty lame ones; my Final Fantasy IX guide sucks ass (playonline?!), and I guess that sentiment is echoed throughout this thread. And rightly so.

Couple of questions: is there only one kind of Suikoden II strategy guide out there? (I wanna buy it, and I wanna know if there are any higher quality ones out there) Also, was a guide ever released for Suikoden? How about Chrono Trigger? (And Deni, or whoever, who published the Pesona I & 2 guides you mentioned?)

And is there a site for Working Designs? (Lunar etc) As you can say I really want to get a decent collection of quality guides; mine's pretty pathetic, and I enjoy them oh-so much. Not on the first playthrough though.

Only one authorized guide for both Suikoden and Suikoden II. CT has a player's guide, published by Nintendo. And I think both Persona and Persona II are Prima. But I haven't looked at the guide for I in a bit.

Unfortunately Working Designs folded, but you can find a lot of their guides in good quality on ebay.

Great stuff, thanks for the info. ^.~

Any time, mate. If you can get a hold of the Versus FF VII guide, do so. It's amazing.

Was it really helpful in the item creation aspects as well? I've been wanting to track down but I'm sort of holding off whenever it's confirmed that SO2 will be rereleased here for the PSP in hopes that they'll rerelease the strategy guide or at least some form of it as well.


I like strategy guides for the art and hints. My favorite one would have to be the Millennium version of Metal Gear Solid. That thing is awesome. Chock full of facts pertaining to the game that really add some background to it. Includes interviews with Kojima and many other people involved with the game and some great concept artwork. My second favorite would definitely be Earthbound. They put so much thought into it making it seem like a travel guide. Definitely not going to give that one up despite how beaten it is.

Oh yes. Very much so, however, I'm recommending you wait til you see the psp's version (I'd check it out myself too). I'm sure there's a lot of updated data (specifically character's probability percentage in learning a talent). I'm actually hoping that they fix that in the psp version (no more resetting til you got the specific initial talent).

Having that specific talent goes a LONG, LONG way to making item creation successful.

Hmmm... I'm not one for game guides. The few I own are actually my boyfriend's, and most of those are from his youth (good old Pokemon Red/Blue guide).

Only ones of real interest are special edition FF12 and KH2 ones (I was told this loooong story about how certain Sora covers are rare, and we got the yellow one... too bad that it got messed up it a small flood)... But I really like the Brady Metal Gear Solid Tiwn Snakes one. Has a ton of artwork for a guide... I don't know how the actual walkthough is, though.

I usually don't use walkthoughs or guides at all. If I get really stuck, I'd hop online real quick, but, that's about it. I think I should get a few though for some games, but... I don't really have the money for it yet. Ah well.

I've always been a collector of guides if it comes out for a specific game. My fiance and I have a pretty big collection of guides, if we pre-order a game we usually get the guide that comes with it.

I tend to use guides quite often, because I try to complete everything in a game the first time I play it. I do have certain rules when it comes to using guides. I never read stratgeies for boss fights, I try to beat them on my own accord. I also never read solutions for various puzzles as well since I try to finish them for myself.

I usually use guides more for item collection purposes and certain plot points or side quests in the game I might of missed. I also want to make sure I get all the endings if a certain game has multiple endings.

I've owned 2 Versus guides, and have enjoyed them tremendously. their Pokemon guide, along with being extremely informative (area %'s and whatnot) was absolutely hilarious. for example, in p2p strategies, they have about 5 different teams. The last one is 6 magikarps. The strategy is wait until your friend/enemy is literally ROFL, and pull out his GBC batteries and call it your victory.

Heh...I remember the FFIX guide. I own it unfortunately. That truly was a piece of a crap guide, it ruins the whole point of guides. "to beat this guy! go to this site" wtf was that about. Might as well go to GameFAQs. -_-

Anyway, I never really collected them. I only own a handful of them, and most of them are from games that I already beat a previous time, just to see what kind of stuff I missed before.

I used to have an immense desire to collect things and would buy the guides to all of the Final Fantasy games as well as a few others but I quickly realized that I only really had them because they looked cool, something I grew out of quickly in my late teenage years.

I became very disillusioned with paper guides due to their uselessness over internet guides, or rather, their just plain uselessness (take FFIX's guide as an extreme example of this).

Now, if guides where more often smaller, say, closer to pocket sized, more comprehensive, and better yet, written by the software developers themselves, I'd be more opt to purchase one.