The Strategy Guide

[Wolf Kanno]

So how many of you picked up the game's notorious strategy guide? I mean it was one of the first FF games that was trying to incorporate online elements to a limited degree and introduce the fanbase to PlayOnline. Did you think it was a bold move that just failed to pan out, or was it a terrible idea to begin with?

[theundeadhero]

I still have mine
It was stupid then and it's stupid now.

[Quindiana Jones]

Still have mine. Good guide, I reckon. The PlayOnline aspect was, as said above, stupid then and still stupid now. xD

[Pumpkin]

I love guides and would have loved a guide for this game, but I am told that it is garbage.

[Jiro]

Such a shame that an excellent game was saddled with the pain of experimentation.

[Parker]

It was a bad idea, I didn't have internet at the time so I couldn't use it. It seemed a little troutty that I couldn't get all the secrets of the game in the guide I paid for without an internet connection.

[Sephex]

It's a damn shame that this is the very strategy guide that caused Bill Gates to lose his entire fortune.

[Vyk]

It seemed so ridiculous at the time I completely went without it. Which totally threw off my newly started habit of getting guides for every Final Fantasy. I had gotten VII and VIII. Just to have around and thumb through down the line. They're still great to browse and feel all nostalgic and reminiscent and not have to plug 30 - 60 hours in to feel satisfied. But not IX!

[metagloria]

It's a pain, but it's not quite as bad as people think. Half the time, information that they tell you to go online for is available somewhere else in the guide. And they give you basic info on boss fights, only requiring you to go online for deeper strategy details.

[Skyblade]

It's a pain, but it's not quite as bad as people think. Half the time, information that they tell you to go online for is available somewhere else in the guide. And they give you basic info on boss fights, only requiring you to go online for deeper strategy details.

Um, that's, if anything, even worse. "Go get an online connection" followed by "no useful info"? Lots of unhappy customers.

[Vyk]

It seems like an idea that may have been better implemented on an iPad, as an app. The FFIX Guide App. Which is like a downloadable wiki or something. With links to other parts of itself and interactive bits with little videos and whatnot. Which would have been fine, since you have internet to download it, and once you have it, you no longer need internet or anything to use it. Requiring internet for a paperback seems like a bad idea even now. For anything. Or maybe I just don't get the angle they were going for. I may have a certain bias anyway, since I loathe that instruction manuals have went completely digital these days. And that's just a damn PDF

[Bolivar]

Haha haha the INFAMOUS strategy guide that epitomizes the early awkwardness of incorporation of the internet. This was in the day where your only connected computer was typically in its own space and likely away from the PlayStation so it just wasn't convenient at all.

That said, it wasn't the worst thing in the world once you got on and used the site, it was just very inconvenient, confusing and unnecessary.

[metagloria]

It's a pain, but it's not quite as bad as people think. Half the time, information that they tell you to go online for is available somewhere else in the guide. And they give you basic info on boss fights, only requiring you to go online for deeper strategy details.

Um, that's, if anything, even worse. "Go get an online connection" followed by "no useful info"? Lots of unhappy customers.

Not no useful info, just no necessary info. It would've been absurd (er..."more" absurd?) for them to sell a physical guide with no content, but they wanted to integrate PlayOnline, so they stuck the most worthwhile 75% of content in the book and relegated the least useful 25% to a series of coded interweb notes.

I mean, I don't want to defend the guide too much. It did suck. But it was still useful and worth having for people who generally bought guides.

[Vyk]

Hm, I certainly don't remember getting that impression at the time. Maybe a little better marketing would have helped in that aspect I guess, otherwise I would have bought it. I'm not a completionist, so I doubt I'd have lost sleep on the bits of missing content