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Pike
07-08-2012, 04:03 AM
So I know that these days you can just go to GameFAQs or whatever, but back in the day, these were all the rage. Do you have any gems lying around?

I've got a few; not as many as I'd like. I've got some for the original Starcraft and Brood War, though, which is pretty neat.

By far my most used and abused strategy guide was the one for FFTA, though. That thing is battered and dog-eared and glorious.

Madame Adequate
07-08-2012, 04:29 AM
Got a really nice one for FFX that I got sometime after the game itself, mostly out of curiousity. I think I have a Star Ocean 3 one as well, for some unknown reason. The others were little ones that came free with magazines, but some of those old FFVII ones were key to me actually learning where things were and how to breed chocobos and whatnot.

VeloZer0
07-08-2012, 04:31 AM
I've never owned a strategy guide. I'm fiercely determined to figure out puzzles on my own, even nowadays I am more likely to quit playing a game than look up the solution. Although nowadays the compulsive min-maxer I am and the increasing ubiquity of the ability to permanently f*** your progress up as you play through the game has forced me to be a little more dependent on guides.

Wolf Kanno
07-08-2012, 04:56 AM
I have a small collection, I mainly buy them to get my hands on the artwork or a family member bought me the game and grabbed the guide for my convenience. Probably my three greatest gems are the original SNES guide for Chrono Trigger, an FFIII (VI) complete guide that actually has early translations of stuff taken from the Japanese World and Character Guide Books for FFVI. I also have the Xenogears Strategy Guide, which much like the Official FFVII guide, has a bunch of missing stuff that you would think a guide would have gotten. :D

I never use guides the first few times through a game, unless I truly get frustrated at something. The MegaTen games are the only exceptions mostly because Fusion can be really tricky and it's not fun killing an hour trying to get a fusion to have a certain ability only to read later that the fusion monster is incompatible with the skill. After a few playthroughs, I'll read up on it through a guide or gamefaqs to see what I've been missing or learn more about the underlying mechanics.

GhandiOwnsYou
07-08-2012, 08:27 AM
Man, strategy guides were magical back in the day. I used them for my second playthroughs of Final Fantasy VII through XII, Kingdom Hearts I + II and Parasite Eve. Prior to that, I was too young to really buy them myself, and prior to FFVII any adventure / RPG game I played was usually dicking around on my dad's save file rather than actually trying to play myself. I recently tried to get back into the pure crack joy of official strategy guides, but I fear they have been bested forever by Wikia. I snagged the guide for New Vegas, and it was nigh impossible to navigate. An iPad and the Fallout Wiki made things a thousand times easier to find exactly what you were looking for.

Not to say there aren't still places where strategy guides excel though. Comparing different Armor / Weapons is much easier in a book form, and a huge gloriously detailed world map folded up in the back is amazing. I'll probably still collect them for big games, but they're not likely to end up as ragged as FF VIII's.

Rantz
07-08-2012, 09:15 AM
I had an Ocarina of Time strategy guide once, but it magically disappeared. :(

Sephex
07-08-2012, 06:02 PM
I have old Nintendo Power guides, tons of FF guides and various other guides that edczxcvbnm gave me while he worked at GameStop because they were zeroed out. In my early years, I obviously used them as there was no internet whenever I got stuck. As I got older, I mainly collected them for fun. However, Is stopped doing that altogether because the layout of strategy guides got more and more boring as time went on.

Hollycat
07-08-2012, 06:06 PM
I have ffx, crisis core, spyro the dragon, kingdom hearts 2.

I like having physical copies.

ReloadPsi
07-08-2012, 06:32 PM
FF7, Yoshi's Island and Donkey Kong Country 2. I only follow a guide on my second or later run through a game, and no sooner. There's no fun in being told how to beat the game on your first try.

Alpha2099
07-08-2012, 09:19 PM
I've got a good number of strategy guides. I have one for Legend of Dragoon, several Pokemon versions, Crash Bandicoot 3, Warcraft II, the list goes on.

Quindiana Jones
07-09-2012, 03:58 AM
I have more than six but less than twelve. Or maybe more than twelve...

I like to play games then buy a strategy guide if I think I'll be keeping the game forever and ever. I can't be arsed with online guides. I hate reading things through a screen.

Alpha2099
07-09-2012, 04:05 AM
Oh, I almost forgot. Years ago I bought the strategy guide for FFXII. It was only 20 bucks, and I loved how comprehensive it was. Trouble is, I never actually finished the game. As I recall, I may not have even got out of the Tomb of Raithwall. Oh well, it's still a cool guide.

Jinx
07-09-2012, 04:54 AM
I don't really care to use them, because I always have a hard time beating monsters the way the guide tells you. And as soon as I do it my way, blamo.

Also, Rantz, what kind of noob needs a guide for OoT? I just beat that game in 3 days after not playing it for 5 years.

Miss Lady Shelly
07-09-2012, 05:38 AM
The only ones i have are Conquering Zelda, Wizardry (NES), 2 others from Nintendo (NES) i can't remember for the life of me what they are called, Donkey Kong Country 1,2,3 (SNES), and New Super Mario Bros (DS).

Rantz
07-09-2012, 07:19 AM
Also, Rantz, what kind of noob needs a guide for OoT? I just beat that game in 3 days after not playing it for 5 years.

I got it after beating it several times. :monster:

Madonna
07-09-2012, 04:48 PM
Guys, smurf strategy guides. The only good one came bundled with the game and had scratch and sniff stickers. Everything else is the same stuff you can find on GameFAQs, and that is aggregated data you can shove in a three-ring binder. Nothing against it, but why is that tit in a book?

Alpha2099
07-09-2012, 05:07 PM
Guys, smurf strategy guides. The only good one came bundled with the game and had scratch and sniff stickers. Everything else is the same stuff you can find on GameFAQs, and that is aggregated data you can shove in a three-ring binder. Nothing against it, but why is that tit in a book?
I agree, the idea of a strategy guide seems a bit antiquated now that we're in a technological age. When there was no such thing as internet, you had no choice but to buy a guide or Nintendo Power or whatever. Even through the dial-up years, I was buying magazines for gaming help. But now that most of us have high-speed internet and can access nearly any piece of information in the blink of an eye, strategy guides have seemingly lost their place in the gaming world.

darkchrono
07-10-2012, 03:20 AM
I should of gotten a strategy guide to FF7 instead of reading it off the net from some joker (it was my very first rpg and I was pretty clueless on how to play rpg's back then). The guy who made up the walkthrough I was looking at gave a spoiler about what happened to Aeris.

He didn't necessarily say she dies but he gave reference that something happens to her. I guess he/she may not of considered that a spoiler since they didn't actually say exactly what happened but it was still more info than I would of liked to know.

Alpha2099
07-10-2012, 03:32 AM
I should have gotten a strategy guide to FF7...
You mean the Brady Games version? To my knowledge, that guide had a lot of wrong info in it. You probably wouldn't have liked it much.

darkchrono
07-10-2012, 04:05 AM
I should have gotten a strategy guide to FF7...
You mean the Brady Games version? To my knowledge, that guide had a lot of wrong info in it. You probably wouldn't have liked it much.

I was just being sarcastic in that a professionally done strategy guide or walkthrough probably would not of had any spoilers in it like the walkthrough I looked at over the net did.

Nice
07-10-2012, 06:17 AM
I still get guides, just for reading sometimes. I have the Skyrim guide and the Final Fantasy XII guide.

But my gems are the original Pokemon Red and Blue guide. I used to read the guide for fun.

Slothy
07-10-2012, 11:16 AM
I should have gotten a strategy guide to FF7...
You mean the Brady Games version? To my knowledge, that guide had a lot of wrong info in it. You probably wouldn't have liked it much.

I was just being sarcastic in that a professionally done strategy guide or walkthrough probably would not of had any spoilers in it like the walkthrough I looked at over the net did.

The Bradygames guide had pictures of Aerith getting stabbed and Cloud releasing her in the lake. That guide spoiled her death for me.

Jiro
07-10-2012, 01:40 PM
I need to buy a couple guides just to have them for the neat trivia and pictures and shit.

darkchrono
07-10-2012, 02:31 PM
The Bradygames guide had pictures of Aerith getting stabbed and Cloud releasing her in the lake. That guide spoiled her death for me.

What the heck. That is just wrong. I guess some of these people working in a company making up these strategy guides are jokers to, lol.

Slothy
07-10-2012, 03:46 PM
What the heck. That is just wrong. I guess some of these people working in a company making up these strategy guides are jokers to, lol.

Now, I should say that my love of strategy guides kind of mirrors my love of manuals. I like having that quick reference filled with pictures, artwork, backstory, etc. all right there at hand to flip through.

That said, strategy guides, at least in my experience, aren't held to a very high quality standard. Maybe a rung or two above your average games journalism these days, and a little bit below the tabloids by the grocery store checkout. It was worse in the 90's though. I have some guides that might as well have been (and very well might have been) written by some teenager doing a shitty guide for Gamefaqs. Quality was all over the map for years with these things so some are pretty damn good, others are a mess, some are horribly out of date (Starcraft 2's strategy guide that spent almost half it's pages on multiplayer).

Quindiana Jones
07-11-2012, 03:57 AM
I'm often impressed with the quality of strategy guides, myself, although I think there has certainly been a drop. FFIX and XII had amazing strategy guides (apart from the PlayOnline stuff!), and the Oblivion guide was great as well. Skyrim was a step down from Oblivion, though.

I'm in the same boat as Vivi in that I like the feel of paper and the turning off pages that the internet will never be able to provide, and while you can Ctrl + F things online, I prefer going through contents and indices every time. Books :heart:

Freya
07-11-2012, 04:36 AM
I don't actively buy any but I do get free ones form time to time working at "the store". I have an AC2 one? And a Borderlands one?

Jiro
07-11-2012, 07:18 AM
Can I have the Borderlands one? I figure you like AC so you might as well keep AC2.

Freya
07-12-2012, 12:51 AM
It's the collectors one so it's hard bounded and super large! And i'm not paying shipping so no! Otherwise yeah totally.

Faris
07-12-2012, 03:01 AM
I used to collect the FF ones (I've got Anthology, VII to X-2, Tactics Grimoire of the Rift, and Dissidia), special edition Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age Awakenings, Star Ocean: Til the End of Time, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, KH1, KH2, and Infinite Undiscovery. Jeeze, I didn't realize that I owned this many.

Jowy
07-15-2012, 08:26 AM
The Bradygames guide had pictures of Aerith getting stabbed and Cloud releasing her in the lake. That guide spoiled her death for me.

What the heck. That is just wrong. I guess some of these people working in a company making up these strategy guides are jokers to, lol.

the commercials for FF7 had the disc one ending FMV played along with the sister ray blowing sapphire weapon's head off iirc

super mario 3 nintendo power guide with the n-mark card locations was GOAT

Bubba
07-16-2012, 12:28 AM
I'm not one for strategy guides. I've got a lot of old gaming mags with cheats and guides in for old games. I very rarely use them though.

I do have a mint condition guide to Secret of Mana on the SNES though. It had some great artwork and the guide read more like a book. I really liked the way it was set out.