Guides...Do you use them or not?

[Feba]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

1- I bought the Brady Games FFXI guide. I think it's still around here somewhere, I don't recall ever getting around to burning it. It's great comedy.
2- I very, very rarely buy strategy guides. The ones that I'm interested in (due to size, design, quality) are typically for games I don't have (Elder Scrolls, Pokemon)

Those stated, I want to go into a story. I preordered FF12. It was the collector's edition; a nice tin box. It came with a strategy guide and art book. I spent the entire game with the guide on the floor next to me, telling me where to go and what to do next. I beat the game without much trouble. But it felt like work. I barely enjoyed it at all. A year or two later, I went back and replayed it, using only snippets of a leveling guide from gamefaqs (as I intended to get through the storyline and into the bonus content; plus early Zodiac Spear is hilarious). It was so much more fun. Even though I had already seen most of the world, I was exploring it for the first time. I was actually seeing Ivalice, and not reading a book about how to get through it as quickly as possible.

From the time I finished that first playthrough of FFXII, I've largely sworn off guides and walkthroughs. If you can enjoy a game with them, that's your thing, but I personally cannot experience a game while following words like I'm trying to just get it out of the way for the next game.

That said, I do use them when I get stuck. Which is rarely. I tend to rate games by how often I have to use guides-- if the way to proceed isn't apparent, it's almost always a problem with the game's design, not my problem solving skills. A good example of this being Majora's Mask's "this gate is too high" equaling "you need a horse, but before you can get that you're going to need to go up north, none of which is ever explained to you". Another being LifeLine (although I am seriously loving this game), I frequently have to fall back on a guide to know what phrase to use to get the character to do something. A game that is never so obtuse that you give up on a problem and seek a guide (assuming the answer isn't an "oh, duh" moment), but isn't so easy that you never use so head, is about the best compromise.

I sometimes go back after I beat a game to look at guides, especially for things with multiple endings (Indigo Prophecy, Shadow of Destiny, Persona 3), or lots of easter eggs (Metal Gear Solid), or otherwise things that are easy to not see the first time around.

[Vyuru]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

What we had was a nifty little long distance phone number in the back of the booklet.

>.>

Is it a bad thing that I remember those days?

Heck, I still remember manned service stations, not the self pump gas stations you see around here nowadays.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

>.>

Is it a bad thing that I remember those days?

Heck, I still remember manned service stations, not the self pump gas stations you see around here nowadays.

You're just getting old Vyuru, thats all. LOL Ya manned gas stations where they came out, asking you how much you wanted in the tank, washed your windows while it was pumping, and usually expected a tip. I wonder if there are any gas stations in the US that still do that??

Feba, I agree that following a guide step by step does ruin the experience. There were times when I'd try to find something in a guide and accidentally see things to come and boy that pissed me off. LOL I prefer using Find in my browser on GameFaqs if I get stuck now.

[Takelli]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

You're just getting old Vyuru, thats all. LOL Ya manned gas stations where they came out, asking you how much you wanted in the tank, washed your windows while it was pumping, and usually expected a tip. I wonder if there are any gas stations in the US that still do that??

I remember my parents telling stories about that. XD

I have heard about a gas station liek that coming in in C.T., but... I've just heard peopel talking about it...

But as the long distance phone calls... I remember looking at those, and just laughing at them at the back of the book. thats what the internet is for when you are stuck on something. LoZ was the worst with the Hidden Forest... I can never remember the way out of there. (NES zelda.)

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

I really miss their guides and giving Prima the rights to making guides for them was a HUGE mistake! Prima guides are teh suck!

Wow, I am so glad to know that I am not the only one in that boat.

Ping! Thanks x100 button! Stat!

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

But as the long distance phone calls... I remember looking at those, and just laughing at them at the back of the book. thats what the internet is for when you are stuck on something. LoZ was the worst with the Hidden Forest... I can never remember the way out of there. (NES zelda.)

Well this was back when the internet was a baby and there wasn't a lot of guide writing going on and if you had a computer in your house you were RICH! lol Wow....I'm so f**king old...

[Vyuru]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

You're just getting old Vyuru, thats all.

I'm too young to be old!!! I'm not even a quarter of a century old yet!! Or am I? Can't remember.... My brain is going already ; ;

[Raydeus]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

Only on second+ game throughs and mostly to save time unless I'm having fun finding out things for myself.

On XI it's quest/mission info that isn't stated on cutscenes (yes I actually read and pay attention to what npcs say so sue me) what I look for, or items/spells/skills to find out what I could be wearing/using at a given level.

Fight strategies for BCs and others I don't like that much, since I always like to find ways to kill NMs myself or trying different party setups even if I get killed 100 times in the process. Unfortunately not many people is crazy enough to go with me and try things, so most of my time is spent trying to get xp with my npc and trying to solo stuff I'm not supposed to be able to solo.


Edit > Just noticed I didn't mention this, but it would be easier for me to just burn my money in a pretty toxic bonfire than it would be for me to buy any kind of printed guide.

Maybe a subscription to a really incredibly awesome strat site (like a wiki +100 kinda thing) would be more my style, but those sites don't exist yet.

[Takelli]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

Well this was back when the internet was a baby and there wasn't a lot of guide writing going on and if you had a computer in your house you were RICH! lol Wow....I'm so f**king old...

I guess so. But, on teh very popular games though, you could find a stratagy guide farily easy. But, didn't the Librarys have Pcs back then though?

I just wouldn't call the long distance numbers. I'd call my brothers, and ask them for help, as they always beat the games before me lol

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

I guess so. But, on teh very popular games though, you could find a stratagy guide farily easy. But, didn't the Librarys have Pcs back then though?

I just wouldn't call the long distance numbers. I'd call my brothers, and ask them for help, as they always beat the games before me lol

Surprisingly, no there weren't a lot of guides online. Also there weren't search engines, so no googling shit to find it. It was hunt and peck which took a long friggin time if you didn't know where to start. You usually had to comb bbs's to find a mention of the game and read post after post after post until you finally came across someone mentioning that they heard someone wrote down how to beat that certain boss on a different bbs. Then you had to search for that bbs and weed through those posts until you FINALLY found what you were looking for OR just make a friggin phone call and get the answer in half the time. No offense but I'm talking about the internet that was around before you were born, it just wasn't as easy as you have it now.

[Armando]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

I don't spend money on strategy guides, just use GameFAQs. I never look up anything plot-related in my first playthrough unless I'm really, really stuck. Sometimes I'll look up obscure game mechanics if they're not explained properly in-game, but that's about it.

Usually, after beating a game once, if I still have interest in it I'll start to look up FAQs on glitches, tricks, challenges, and stuff I may have missed.

For Pokemon games I'll resort to database sites such as Serebii.net if I need to know a Pokemon's movepool or base stats, but I don't look up walkthroughs.

[Takelli]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

Surprisingly, no there weren't a lot of guides online. Also there weren't search engines, so no googling shit to find it. It was hunt and peck which took a long friggin time if you didn't know where to start. You usually had to comb bbs's to find a mention of the game and read post after post after post until you finally came across someone mentioning that they heard someone wrote down how to beat that certain boss on a different bbs. Then you had to search for that bbs and weed through those posts until you FINALLY found what you were looking for OR just make a friggin phone call and get the answer in half the time. No offense but I'm talking about the internet that was around before you were born, it just wasn't as easy as you have it now.

Dang... I can't live with out google. with out it, Idk what I'd do when I'm bored, and want to search up random stuff. >.<

Must have been really hard to find stuff without any type of search engine. >.< Thats how I find most of the forums, and such. I don't know the websites names or anything liek that, unless I got there fairly often.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

Depends on the game, really. Usually the decision is made, for me, after I've bought the game and played it a bit, and I decide I need help. Sometimes I really like to have a physical object in my hands to look at, I suppose I could print stuff out but then I'm paying for paper and toner, etc. Probably evens out.

I used the Brady guide for FFXI in probably my first year of playing. The list of quests and how to (for the most part) do them was fairly helpful. Before I even started playing, my ex-husband had played about two weeks, and I was reading practically everything in that book, to the point where I already knew where quests were in San d'Oria before I even started playing.

I looked at the WoW book at Wal-Mart the other day, and all it had was raid stuff, no real listing of quests. Although, with QuestHelper who really needs a printed guide? The fact that all that stuff is in the game (thanks to an amazing add-on) makes it so easy I don't really have to look a lot up.

I don't know. Like I said, depends on the game. Ocarina of Time? Didn't need it, bought it as a keepsake though because I fucking love that game. Tales of Symphonia, same thing, though that one did tell me about a bunch of little side-quests I could do, which I adored. Majora's Mask, however, I needed the book. Some of the shit in that game was stupidly hard. So it does depend on the game. Also, they make for great bathroom reading when you have to step away from the game for a few minutes, lol.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

Here's my policy about guides:

(1) If the game is of the massive/persistant variety and and RPG, I will buy and use the guide without guilt. I don't really use the walkthroughs either way, but use the guide for the finer points of the game. With Elder Scrolls, this would be reading up on what guilds built what skills for my character, how to become a vampire, how to make spells and constant effect enchantments and things of that nature.

For Pokemon, it would be breeding, how/where I can trigger evolutions and which pokemon are in the other games so I know which ones I need to trade for. Again, not following the walkthrough here. Even though pokemon is pretty lightweight on story, there's some encounters that surprise you anyway, no sense in losing some of the surprises as you play.

With FFXI, I use FFXIclopedia and forums for information. I'll admit I did have a Brady Guide, but in retrospect, printed MMO guides (unless they include nifty collectables) generally stink because they're loaded with superstitions that will eventually be disproven. Plus these games change so much over time that these guides would become dated quickly anyway.

(2) If its a large RPG, I'll use guides on the second run only. Rarely do I ever deviate from this principle as I want to enjoy the discoveries I make on the first time through. The most recent exceptions would be me looking up which demons to fuse to get Metatron in SMT Nocturne and then that whole Alchemy Pot list for Dragon Quest VIII. The Alchemy Pot is neat and all but the clues to making items are too vague and its a tremendous time sink just to make stuff. I didn't look up quested ingredents since many of them just dropped in your lap along the way or were rewards from Princess Minnie.

FFXII, I've used guides on second pass, but also went off the paths I had taken previously and made some discoveries of my own. Its more I find the Espers by just wandering around and look up how to get the best weapons. Zodiac Spear owns, but i want them all.

GTA, never used em, probably should just fo find all those doodads that get you the free weapons and stuff. Just don't care to.

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Guides...Do you use them or not?

I look things up online for MMOs and stuff like weapon trees for Monster Hunter, but otherwise I don't use a guide unless I am just trying to finish a game I am not that fond of but have on my shelf of games I need to finish.

Aside from wanting to collect them I don't even see a point in paying money for a strategy guide when the internet has all the same (or more) information readily available for free.