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Classic video game guide books, which were the best?


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So I'm in the market to get a hold of some of these old books. Specifically, I am talking about the "unofficial" types of books that would include a number of different games all in one book. These types of publications were prevalent before most people had the Internet. Certainly consoles like N64, PlayStation, Saturn, SNES, Genesis, etc, seemed to have a number of different books written on them. I figure a lot of those have redundant information regarding a lot of the same games.

 

I'm wanting to possibly narrow it down to just the BEST unofficial guides for each console, and avoid buying a lot of redundant publications with the same info in them, again and again.

 

Anyone here have experience in buying, or remember which were the best in terms of strategies, tips, etc, for games you played back in the day? Specifically, I'm curious to know for the above mentioned consoles, which you'd recommend.

 

Currently, all I have is Nintendo 64 Survival Guide Vol 1, How To Win At Nintendo 64, and Jaguar Official Gamer's Guide.

Edited by Warmsignal
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33 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

I have never found generic all-game guides to be much use, I have always appreciated the full-color maps and details of the singular games.

 

What would constitute a good multi-game guide for N64 in your opinion?

A good multi-game guide I'd imagine covers a lot of games, and has enough tips, hints, and level explanations to just help you beat the game. Doesn't have to a 100% completion guide.

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I always wondered as to who these were made for. They always felt like such a cheap cash grab. Just something cobbled together aaand print. 

https://www.amazon.com/Unofficial-Nintendo-Ultimate-Strategy-Guide/dp/0782121594#

image.thumb.png.d5614abbf84ed722da96395e5cc60e71.png

"Description

It's no secret that Nintendo 64 is the hottest game machine in the world--Nintendo can't keep pace with the current demand! Because there are relatively few games for the Nintendo 64, almost every one is guaranteed to be a winner."

 

oh boy.. 

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Personally, though it's largely with Nintendo based stuff, though they do apply I found a general order in quality of third party guides, and in the end even Nintendo agreed too with what I'll call #1.

- Prima (which eventually were Nintendo's 'authorized' guide makers post Nintendo Power era)
- Brady Games

- Versus Games

 

Prima in general used to have the best descriptions, and this is going back to when they went with another name on the cover but had the P logo etched into it.  Back then they didn't use pictures, the guides were all black and white and almost all text and those kicked up in the 16bit era.  They wrote for Nintendo, Sega, NEC(TG16) largely.  Eventually by the time of the N64/PS1/Saturn they emulated a Nintendo guide pretty well with color pages and images, lots, then even adding in area maps with the items/boxes marked off which was really helpful.  Brady I think along with Versus popped up in the back half of the 90s, they were ok, not as nice as Prima but Brady more so copied them pretty well so they're a good alternative if one doesn't exist or you find some images online and you prefer it.

 

Beyond that it gets weird, Sybex had a few guides, usually saw them do PC and a little Sega, not bad, but never stood out to me much.

 

Mostly though as a historical footnote and damn they're good for a laugh a bit on the end of each game covered usually due to a strange mini review, would be the Jeff Rovin books.  How to Win at NES games (4+), Gameboy Games (1), SNES games (1), Genesis I think had 1+2, one just on Super Mario.  They seriously are gamefaqs before there was gamefaqs.  A long form textual guide in good well written detail, and then again like gamefaqs has the review piece too at the end of each game.  I don't active grab these but when I find one cheap locally I'll get it.  Just days ago I had been trying to find for a time the Game Boy one, it's amusing, months ago the SNES one which is amusing too but leaned more on almost book novella form for the guides.

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On 3/9/2023 at 6:14 AM, Tanooki said:

Personally, though it's largely with Nintendo based stuff, though they do apply I found a general order in quality of third party guides, and in the end even Nintendo agreed too with what I'll call #1.

- Prima (which eventually were Nintendo's 'authorized' guide makers post Nintendo Power era)
- Brady Games

- Versus Games

 

Prima in general used to have the best descriptions, and this is going back to when they went with another name on the cover but had the P logo etched into it.  Back then they didn't use pictures, the guides were all black and white and almost all text and those kicked up in the 16bit era.  They wrote for Nintendo, Sega, NEC(TG16) largely.  Eventually by the time of the N64/PS1/Saturn they emulated a Nintendo guide pretty well with color pages and images, lots, then even adding in area maps with the items/boxes marked off which was really helpful.  Brady I think along with Versus popped up in the back half of the 90s, they were ok, not as nice as Prima but Brady more so copied them pretty well so they're a good alternative if one doesn't exist or you find some images online and you prefer it.

 

Beyond that it gets weird, Sybex had a few guides, usually saw them do PC and a little Sega, not bad, but never stood out to me much.

 

Mostly though as a historical footnote and damn they're good for a laugh a bit on the end of each game covered usually due to a strange mini review, would be the Jeff Rovin books.  How to Win at NES games (4+), Gameboy Games (1), SNES games (1), Genesis I think had 1+2, one just on Super Mario.  They seriously are gamefaqs before there was gamefaqs.  A long form textual guide in good well written detail, and then again like gamefaqs has the review piece too at the end of each game.  I don't active grab these but when I find one cheap locally I'll get it.  Just days ago I had been trying to find for a time the Game Boy one, it's amusing, months ago the SNES one which is amusing too but leaned more on almost book novella form for the guides.

Yeah, there's definitely some big time crap that got published in this niche as well. I took a gamble on "How to Win At Nintendo 64" by Hank Schlensinger. First of all RIP OFF title, it's not by Jeff Rovin, and this book SUCKS as there's no substance. As an above post suggested, this is a cheap cobbled together cash grab. Each title features a brief game description, a couple of the basic control schemes, and then a list of cheat codes. No effort whatsoever put into this. The opening chapter even says that there are no guides, because the author "doesn't believe in such a thing". But he believes in ripping off a guy who did write guides. This dude was a hack, riding the coattails of more successful authors. This one is kindling for the fireplace.

 

I also got The Big PlayStation Book by Prima, and honestly it's very lacking. Most of the games it's just a basic instruction manual info, and how to play. A lot of them have no real guides. The N64 Survival Guide by Sandwhich Island is a bit more in-depth, and actually has some pretty good guides in it, but just no a whole lot of games.

 

I was kind of expecting more out of these, to be honest.

Edited by Warmsignal
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I know these are one/two offs, but look on the Sega side at the Phantasy Star and Sword of Vermillion HINT Book books.  And then a true one off from Tokuma Shoten Publishing, oddly more in the US known for pre-disney contract for publishing all those Studio Ghibli movies in the states, is a guide they seemingly setup a US publishing house for.  That guide is the Dragon Warrior IV Hint Book.

 

In either case the artwork (drawings, mix of cleaned up sprite/maps from in game) along with quality boxes, paragraphs, other bits of imagery and text are real life savers for those games as they're super well done and nicely aligned to get through all the weird confusing things of those titles.

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I honestly think that the concept of a book written walk-through would be a great idea for a product today. Among all of the retro gaming inspired products that we now have, it seems like an untapped market. We have countless books on gaming history, and console and video game libraries and rarity guides. I'm surprised no one has taken the initiative to write up new walk-throughs and guides for the retro gaming scene. I suppose it's kind of a limited market, but really so is any type of book on retro gaming. Almost any type of information you want to know, can technically be found on the Internet, but people still enjoy retro gaming media in the form of books. It would be cool if people actually wrote guides again. I'm sure there are gamers who are passionate enough to do so. I'd be a buyer in that market.

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A book written walk through would be nice, perhaps in the style of the Clue Book for 25th Anniversary.  The book itself has chapters, each for a chapter in the game, and each a novella of its own by various authors.  At the back en dof the book is a basic guide and progression tree of what to do to not screw up clearing each space/room/screen you hit by the chapter.

 

In recent years a very few books have popped up on games like the God of War book, the few about Halo, but neither follow the game and just take liberties.

 

What if someone using God of War as a reference here created an entire novella or total novel for each of the original 3 movies in the trilogy to bring down the gods?  And then at the back end, reserve a chapter or so to just just do a straight up progression tree with images/tips of what to do per challenging section of said stages since they after all are linear.  I would so buy that, screw the guide, but a good quality fantasy writer taking that game/game story that's narrated into an actual readable format I'd drop what I'm doing now to go through.

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