why do strategy guides suck

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

every single one ive ever owned or read has been filled with critical errors and mistakes that should of easily been caught.

now ive been screwed again by one in my quest to score all bromides in lunar. rather then following a free internet guide like i usually do i decided to go and use the "official" one i got as part of my game purchase. after the first few errors i should of switched to the more accurate internet guides. due to the guides error i have now missed a bromide and have to restart my game, 20 hours of time lost (im a completionist).

i cant seem to understand why an "official" guide would be so inaccurate. are these developed by people outside of the games influence? who is quality control checking these things?

lets hear some of your horror stories with guides. this isnt the first time ive been burned by a guide and it most likely wont be my last.

[Valkysas]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

I rarely get guides for help in the game, I just get them to have as part of a collection. like the two N64 zelda guides by Versus books. those are both great. I dont think there's a single mistake in either one.

[Magus]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

The Versus Books guides are awesome. I have the RE3 and MGS ones. Wish I got more.

The Vagrant Story guide from Brady is great as well. And the Nintendo Power guides are choice~ I still have my Chrono Trigger one.

And I thought the official Lunar guides were helpful AND hilarious.

[orius]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

The thing is is that the guides only cover the surface of the game and don't delve too deeply into the game mechanics. Since they're generally written to be available at about the same time the game launches, there's not going to be a lot of secrects revealed except what the programmers want to reveal. I also suspect many of the guide writers don't really spend a lot of time actually playing the game so they're less aware of errors. Since there's a deadline involved in writing and publishing the guide, probably to coincide with a game release, the writers aren't going to be spending as much time with the game as some of us perfectionist gamers, cause they wouldn't get much work done on it. Most of the "secets" are stuff any player who's paying attention can figure out most of the time anyway (then again, I also take notes when I'm playing to help me keep track of information in the game).

Also, keep in mind that internet guides are sometime more informative, since they're written years after a game release, and there's been plenty of time for the really hardcore gamers to crack the game and its mechanics.

Also:
http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/...ad.php?t=15533

[Patryn]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

Most of the time the guide writers get little to no help from the game maker (this is especially true for so-called "unofficial" guides).

They're basically written based on one person's repeated play-throughs of a game. Generally done over a very short period of time and with a harsh deadline.

Hence why the guide may make one battle out to be really hard that you find easy and say a battle is easy that you find ridiculously hard (hello, Persona 3!), since it's based on that one player's experiences..

Also, often the guides are written based on the Japanese version of the game, after which names are substituted, hence why they may miss the small changes that were made when the game was localized (again, Persona 3 has the wrong names for a few items).

Really, game guides are just like a pretty good FAQ on GameFAQs, just with better art, graphic maps and better production values.

So if you think that the guide is written by people with access to all the design documents, you're very wrong.

Guides are also occasionally bound by weird restrictions. That's the only thing that could explain the Dragon Quest VIII guide, which omits any mention or help with any of the major bosses, and completely omits the necessary information to get the best weapon and armor in the game, not to mention all the optional super bosses.

Seriously, is a game guide the proper place to keep secrets? If somebody buys one, they want help, not to be told to figure it out themselves. If they wanted to do that, they wouldn't have bought your guide!

[Valkysas]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

The official final fantasy IX guide is the worst I've ever seen. the stupid "look this part up on playonline.com!" segments that littered the pages actually make the guide useless now, as those pages it tells you to reference dont exist any more. I never thought it was possible for a book to become 100% obsolete before this guide's existence. if you got the game and the guide, and you didnt have the internet, you were ****ed.

[Duel]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

The Oblivion book is HUGE and MEATY!

[John Mora]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

The LUNAR guides were very helpful and hilarious. Cut 'em some slack. Also, sometimes EVERY guide will be wrong about something because the developer changed something at the last minute. Silent Hill 1's zodiac puzzle near the end had incorrect answers in just about every professional source because of this.

[gray]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

The official final fantasy IX guide is the worst I've ever seen. the stupid "look this part up on playonline.com!" segments that littered the pages actually make the guide useless now, as those pages it tells you to reference dont exist any more. I never thought it was possible for a book to become 100% obsolete before this guide's existence. if you got the game and the guide, and you didnt have the internet, you were ****ed.

that's why i didn't play ffix. i thumbed through the guide and noticed all the massive whoring that gimped it. i figured if that was the direction square had decided to take with things, the game itself might have similar issues.




best guide i ever saw, to me, was an old one for ffvii. i think it was versus, but i'm not sure. it wasn't the official guide. it seemed alot looser than the official guides, like the people actually had played the game alot and were enjoying what they discovered, such as wacky materia combos and weird possibly japanese only enemies they had found

[Red Dragon]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

I remember getting a guide for SSB.

So. Many. Errors.

Like Cpt. Flacon's Falcon punch being a smash attack (hold thems B buttons)

[Translucid]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

my original FFT guide fell completely apart after consulting it too many times. and the lunar guide was the best ever, I would only buy a guide now if it was as funny as that.

[Manji]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

my original FFT guide fell completely apart after consulting it too many times.

ah, mine too! the glue wore out on me.

i also remember i had what must have been the first printing of a FFVII guide because the bestiary wasnt even alphabetized. i think they had been somewhat grouped by locations you encounter them in, but not always and it still was a mess trying to find what could be stolen or what items could be gained by using Morph, etc.

nintendo's player choice guides have always been of pretty good quality, especially during the snes days. chrono trigger and final fantasy III had great books to go along with them. i also agree about versus books! they had some of the best.

so i guess i don't have too many horror stories other than horrible black and white, colorless, artless guides like the one for vandal hearts..

[AbstractOrigin]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

Brady Games' guides are pretty good.

Prima is just ass though (and they did RPG Maker 2's guide of all things!
All it was was a glorified extended instructional manual in color.).

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

the lunar guide is pretty funny, lots of quirks and interesting captions. the mistake in there is a bit large, but they probably didnt realize that it was a key flag for the bromide. to add insult to injury i restarted my game and forgot to save and had to restart it again, whoops!

rpg 2 guide i have is not bad though i havent given it a lot of attention yet. brady ff7 guide was useful during my first few play throughs when i got too carried away with exploring and forgot where to go next. ive used the alundra guide to get through one puzzle only because i suck at stacking things. i also have a zelda orcarena of time guide though it wasnt always the best reference.

[marcus]

Re: why do strategy guides suck

I rarely get guides for help in the game, I just get them to have as part of a collection. like the two N64 zelda guides by Versus books. those are both great. I dont think there's a single mistake in either one.

Versus made AMAZING guides. Their Baldur's Gate 2 guide listed every quest (and the location of the minor quest), easter eggs, item lists, cheat codes, monster lists, trap locations, every character class, spell, and guides to the character classes, shops-- it felt really complete. I also had their RE2 guide which specifically mentioned how many bullets it would take to defeat every enemy, it had a guide for using the gameshark to unlock the hidden prototype features that were cut from the game, they showed a stupidly precise guide to playing as Tofu and Hunk, and they did humerous easter eggs like pointing out the developer's names in the graffiti.

The internet kind of killed strategy guides but they used to be really fun. I still own the original 1995 Nintendo guides for Final Fantasy 3 and Chrono Trigger and they were filled with gorgeous full color pictures and artwork among the information. Brady's guides were pretty massive and I loved their Secret of Mana guide which was written from the third person like a story book.