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[GloveSlap]

Nah not really. I used the Super Mario Bros 3 Nintendo Power guide a ton back in the day though.

I still have a bunch though, as well as old gaming magazines. There was a thrift store I used to hit in the early 2000s that had a huge magazine section for 20 cents each. This place would get tons of old strategy guides and classic gaming mags. Nice stuff too like 80s/90s Nintendo Power and 90s Next Generation/Diehard Gamefan. I would grab stacks at a time and they got new inventory constantly.

 

[RokkanStoned]

Definitely miss a good manual. I brought the one for FF7 to school all the time. Thing was like 80 pages long and beautiful.

I was thinking more in line with something like Warcraft 2 or 3, but the FF manuals were really pretty and made you feel hype about what's to come, though I'd say the FFVIII onewas better (although from searching FFVI seems to have possibly an even better one). Interesting thing to note is that seemingly a lot of early FF games included a whole guide in the manual and item lists, which would later be a part of the manuals. And the manuals just became shorter and shorter throughout the years from FFVII (70 p) to FFVIII (45 p) to FFIX (29 p) to FFX (19). FFXII did have a pretty good manual though (possibly even the best) and it increased the number of pages to almost 40.
But yeah, as a kid, the manual of a game you liked would often be read when you weren't able to play.

 

[Rentahamster]

No. Strategy guides are for chumps.

 

[SkylineRKR]

The Brady FFVII guide was incredibly bad, but I loved it regardless, The artwork, the overall design of the book. The guide had lots of errors though. FFVIII guide was okay too. FFIX was lol.

Chrono Cross and Xenogears guides were also mine. And I think I still have the Radiata Stories strategy guide somewhere.

 

[pokerlife]

I don't like to use them to be fair.

I remember being stuck in Zelda: ALTP, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario RPG for days because I could not understand what I had to do (imagine a 7-9 years old trying to play English games).... it was awesome.

So I never used these guides in fear of lose that feeling.

Late and older I played Resident Evil and everything... all the puzzles were done by myself so it took months to finish it (most because I did not have a memory card so I had to start from zero every time).

I do like games puzzles... that makes me put more effort to play them.

Today games are too easy to need a guide imo... there is no puzzle that really makes you get stuck in that part... it is very straight experience with simple puzzles with a lot of hints.

WOW no memory card? You must have built some great skills beating older games without dying lol. Either that or just leave the system on overnight huh?

 

[DrJohnGalt]

Since I was gaming long before the internet made things easy (I remember calling a hint line for the Eye of the Beholder games), I used to love picking up strategy guides. I'd pre-order hardcover guides with a lot of the RPGs I used to get. Never really used them much for easy answers to puzzles, but more for the artwork, maps, weapons and gear lists and character/monster stats. I think the last one I got for a new game was Fallout 4. Or maybe (do I even admit it?) Fallout 76. I still do collect old guides; most recently picked up all the Silent Hill books for $20.

 

[TexMex]

I was thinking more in line with something like Warcraft 2 or 3, but the FF manuals were really pretty and made you feel hype about what's to come, though I'd say the FFVIII onewas better (although from searching FFVI seems to have possibly an even better one). Interesting thing to note is that seemingly a lot of early FF games included a whole guide in the manual and item lists, which would later be a part of the manuals. And the manuals just became shorter and shorter throughout the years from FFVII (70 p) to FFVIII (45 p) to FFIX (29 p) to FFX (19). FFXII did have a pretty good manual though (possibly even the best) and it increased the number of pages to almost 40.
But yeah, as a kid, the manual of a game you liked would often be read when you weren't able to play.

Have the WC3 manual right behind me!

PC games really were the best for them. The Ultima games (Ultima Online and Ultima IX if I remember correctly) were awesome.

Since I was gaming long before the internet made things easy (I remember calling a hint line for the Eye of the Beholder games), I used to love picking up strategy guides. I'd pre-order hardcover guides with a lot of the RPGs I used to get. Never really used them much for easy answers to puzzles, but more for the artwork, maps, weapons and gear lists and character/monster stats. I think the last one I got for a new game was Fallout 4. Or maybe (do I even admit it?) Fallout 76. I still do collect old guides; most recently picked up all the Silent Hill books for $20.

Pretty much. I'm not sure a guide has ever made me better at a game, it's just a collectible I like for the games I enjoy. They're just fun. Yeah - I know solutions are easier to find on the internet and yes, I'm extremely impressed with your ability to beat games without guides. You're a master gamer.

 

[ethomaz]

WOW no memory card? You must have built some great skills beating older games without dying lol. Either that or just leave the system on overnight huh?

I did sometimes left the console on from night to morning lol
But it was just temporary until I really have a game that needed a memory card (FFVII).
Basically RE was the game I most played without memory card.

RE was fun because I can get the point I died or reached before in less than 3 hours... sometimes I did others path and so I discovered others puzzles... I remember the first time fighting a Hunter and getting head off lol... the second time I come with all the munition to kill that motherfucker.

After that I started to do speed runs in less than 3 hours to finish the game... at some point I asked a friend (that wanted to see the less than 3 hours ending) to translate all the notes and diaries found in the game (he was Brasilian but lived 5 years in United State)... it was great days.

My console was from gray market (aka Paraguai) and so I just brought a memory card when I asked somebody to buy FFVVII there

PS. It put a lot of issues in some games... like in Tekken I unlocked the character and played with him in the same game session... after I started the game again to unlock and play with another character lol

PS2. Mortal Kombat fatalities was a legend... you know one or two but never shared with others... people asked you to do the fatality at the end of the battle... there is not guide or place to look for them... so people just knows some... when somebody come from a travel in Sao Paulo with new fatalities moves it was a party.

Edit - Brasil was not used to gaming in 199x... so strategy guides was not a thing with the book editors... there were few magazines (1 or 2) montly.

 

[Knightime_X]

The last 2 guides i purchased really put the final nails in the coffin for me.
First was final fantasy 9 where all of the most helpful information were fucking links on the internet.
Like why even bother with a paper guide when 80% of the information i need is online???

The next and last guide i got was for mortal kombat 10.
Like 1/3 of the moves were incorrect.
I would look at the guide and the move list in the game itself and they were different.

Gamestop wouldn't let me return the book so that was the last time I bothered with guides.

I do miss competent complete old school guides though.

 

[ethomaz]

The last 2 guides i purchased really put the final nails in the coffin for me.
First was final fantasy 9 where all of the most helpful information were fucking links on the internet.
Like why even bother with a paper guide when 80% of the information i need is online???

The next and last guide i got was for mortal kombat 10.
Like 1/3 of the moves were incorrect.
I would look at the guide and the move list in the game itself and they were different.

Gamestop wouldn't let me return the book so that was the last time I bothered with guides.

I do miss competent complete old school guides though.

It is so boring today... you can hit start and see all moves from the characters in game including the fatalities
Most magazines here had a lot of moves incorrect.

 

[Sir Vilhelm]

I miss text in general, now if you look up anything to get help you have to sit through a 20 min youtube video

 

[sublimit]

The problem is that even if people were still interested in them unfortunatelly the nature of video games today has changed (and keeps changing) so much with day 1 patches and continuous updates that makes a physical guide almost impossible to be relevant today. For example i remember how much Future Press were struggling to make the Nioh guide but due to all the continuous changes and updates by Team Ninja they finally had to give up the project. They probably lost a lot of hours of work and i guess that is the reason they are even more cautious nowdays about which games they'd choose to cover...

 

[Calverz]

Future press all the way baby. The difference in quality when you compare the dark souls 2 guide to the dark souls 3 guide is night and day.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Never used them meself so no.

 

[Krappadizzle]

I miss text in general, now if you look up anything to get help you have to sit through a 20 min youtube video

I'll never go back from YouTube Premium. It's the one site I probably use the most and find the no commercial of Premium to be absolutely worth it.

 

[kingwingin]

I bought one for pokemon stadium back in the day and everything in that guide was wrong. Every single thing.

Never touched one since

 

[Kimahri]

I liked them. Kinda felt nicer to flip through pages and kinda stay in the game. Going online to find answers lead to all other sorts of distractions that take you out of the game.

Thread reminds me of Smartglass for xbox. That was pretty neat. It's a shame Microsoft ended that. I remember playing Fable Anniversary with the map showing on my tab in realtime, with hints and treasure locations etc.

It was a cool feature.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Absolutely. They rarely serve any practical purpose these days, just companion pieces that I'll buy if I like the game enough. I still love the stuff that Future Press puts out.

Lot of Future Press there. Don't forget to get the Kingdoms of Amalur guide!

 

[Jeeves]

I only used them in the N64 era, and I loved them.

The official Mario 64 guide had great art, including a badass Metal Mario poster, and the maps helped me figure out the huge (for the time) levels. There were some good tips in there, too.

The official Ocarina of Time guide read like a novel! Seriously, to paraphrase you had excerpts like "When Link took a step into the room, an unseen blade nicked his ear, and he jumped back! The lens of truth revealed to him the whirling scythe blades in the room's center, surrounded by seven silver rupees." As a little kid with nothing better to do, I spent afternoons poring over this one, reading it cover-to-cover multiple times.

The best guide I owned was the Versus Books guide for Majora's Mask. Impeccable layout, writing that was fun yet informative, and the flow of the guide matched the unique flow of that game well, helping to make sense of the at-times complex workings of the game and its world.

I never liked Prima, though. Those ones usually felt pretty phoned-in to me.

Eventually I moved on to Gamefaqs, which was...a step down, honestly. The lack of layout makes things tough to find and I still can't believe how many people apparently have a hard time with not mixing up their lefts and their rights.

 

[Maybe It's Medicine?]

Sure, purely for nostalgic reasons though. Having a book full of info and getting a look at all the secrets felt magical for a time.

The internet ruined a lot of things like that. With the power of so much information at any time comes some loss of wonder. You don't get fun rumors like Luigi being in Mario 64 anymore. Even cryptic ass pt was beat in like what, a day or two? I also enjoyed playing ff7 with the unofficial guide for example and getting some of the writers personality, jokes etc.

There was something very cozy about it. Wouldn't buy a strategy guide ever again but I do miss the feeling that a game could be filled with unexplored secrets and sharing my findings with my friends. That was fun.

 

[TexMex]

Lot of Future Press there. Don't forget to get the Kingdoms of Amalur guide!

Too expensive now.

I have Portal 2 somewhere too.

Bayonetta is the holy grail - that thing goes for 1000 on ebay, if you can even find one.

 

[sublimit]

A lot of people seem to hate the Prima guides lol. The only one i have is the Dragon Quest Builders one and i agree that thing was more confusing than helpful. Also the paper quality was really poor as well. :/
But even that would be better than nothing. I don't know maybe it's the lack of manuals that makes me feel buying a physical game "incomplete"and the strategy guide filled that gap even if i never ended up using it.
In fact i only ever use guides (physical or digital) in 2nd playthroughs and only in certain games.

 

[Sethbacca]

I don't think 10 year old me would have gotten through Final Fantasy 1 or Dragon Quest without a strategy guide, but I can't really recall having used them much outside those scenarios.

 

[DGrayson]

I don't think 10 year old me would have gotten through Final Fantasy 1 or Dragon Quest without a strategy guide, but I can't really recall having used them much outside those scenarios.

Not sure i could beat Dragon Quest 1 today without a guide TBH lol!

 

[Sethbacca]

Not sure i could beat Dragon Quest 1 today without a guide TBH lol!

Those were my first RPGs. Everything since has been cake

 

[DGrayson]

Those were my first RPGs. Everything since has been cake

Yup my first one too. I never could beat it when I was a kid. Ended up beating it years later with the help of Gamefaqs in some parts

 

[Fuz]

Never used them, never understood why would anyone buy them.

 

[Valonquar]

They went away because Gamestop pivoted into being a toy store instead.

 

[yurinka]

I don't miss them because most gaming websites have game guides. And if not, there are dedicated YouTube channels who make guides.

Now in PS5 at least some games will have them integrated in-game, which is I think the perfect option. It's quicker and made by the developer so the tips and tricks should be more accurate and being very specific it will avoid accidentally getting spoilers while trying to find what you are looking for.

 

[HaveButOneLife]

I feel like they're outdated, since I learn more from YouTubers who actually play the game and show you what to do, but I do love to have physical strategy guides for the games I enjoy.

 

[Fugitive Sex]

Not in particular. They were mostly crap, they didn't even have good artwork unlike the Japanese guides - those are ones still worth getting or collecting.

 

[sublimit]

Never used them, never understood why would anyone buy them.

If you actually read the replies in this thread you may have figured it out.

 

[Castorp]

Piggyback strategy guide were gold.

 

[sublimit]

Piggyback strategy guide were gold.

Yup.Piggyback guides were more than just strategy guides they were labors of love. I kept hearing people swear by them and i realized why they loved them so much when i got my first Piggyback guide which was the DQVIII one. They were the Future Press of their time.

 

[Xeaker]

I love strategy guides. Back when gaming was still exellent.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Would have never beat it without it. Back then, those old crusty RPGs were done in a way where if you're lost, you're lost. And if you kill NPCs you might be stuck. No hand holding or Skyrim compass guides.

 

[Malio]

Yes I miss them. Loved getting them and just sitting for an hour reading them. The Dark Souls ones were great for that.

 

[ZywyPL]

I miss the entire pre-internet times to begin with, where all we could count on were the magazines with demo discs, news, reviews, guides, tips$tricks, cheat codes and what's not, made by real enthusiasts rather than clueless attention whores who only care about clicks/views.