I used to be a person who would never dare look at a guide unless I was completely stumped about how to proceed in the story.
Nowadays, however, I find myself depending a lot on guides and, if applicable, wikis. Generally I gravitate towards wikis, but it depends on the game and the dedication of its fandom. The World Ends with You has a phenomenal
wiki, with all badge evolutions well documented and displayed in a variety of ways to make searches so much easier. Beyond that, there's extensive discussion on locations, fashion brands, characters, post-game bonuses, and so forth.
However, I'm not looking simply for an abundance of information. An example of what not to do would be
the Last Remnant's wiki, where there's information, but it's full of holes, poorly organized, unverified, or extremely difficult to find. In this case, I go to guides.
But yes, I now general use guides to make sure I don't miss out on nice things.
Jam it back in, in the dark.