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Back in the day, most of us struggled in the same way, only we didn't have GameFAQs or other net resources so we had no choice but to experiment and persevere. Now most games point you in the right direction and tell you where to go and how to get there.
Nintendo's not exactly blameless here either; the helping hands in games like New Super Mario Brothers and Kirby's Epic Yarn didn't exactly force kids to think for themselves.
Thank heaven games like Dark Souls still exist or I'd lose all hope for the next generation of gamers.
Being serious, old games came with instruction manuals more like actual strategy guides so if you ever got stuck you just read the manual. Games like Monkey Island were pretty cool for things like that. Some old racing games had full guides on actual racing, cornering and overtaking concepts used. Some old RPGs would tell you about the various abilities you would learn and enemies you would encounter. Some strategy games had information on all the units you could build and all the tech trees available.
Modern games and remakes and ports of old games? Yeah you're told nothing because modern games come with tutorials and with the old games you're out of luck if you didn't know how to play them originally.
I'm not excusing stupidity here but I'm wondering how many people posting those images were even told the basic instructions and abilities involved and commands used while playing the game.
I'm pretty sure the only thing I never figured out how to do in Super Metroid as a kid was wall jumping and even that had an in-game tutorial even if I couldn't get the hang of it.
Nintendo's not exactly blameless here either; the helping hands in games like New Super Mario Brothers and Kirby's Epic Yarn didn't exactly force kids to think for themselves.
NSMB's super guide is purely optional, though. Not to mention they're either a layer of shame or punishment for using them depending on the game. Galaxy 2 gave you bronze stars if you used, as if to remind you of what failure looked like in kindergarten. DKCR's general attitude was that if you used Super Guide, fuck off, you're not seeing the secret world. I actually think that last one was the best use for it.
I'm not a fan of the super guide, though, and I think its been abandoned at this point.
Kirby's Epic Yarn just changed from survival to making it to the finish line with the most gems. Since it was designed as a 2-D co-op game, I think they were just looking for ways to make that less frustrating, Guacamelee lets player 2 turn into an intangible orb so platforming and progresion isn't needlessly difficult for the other player. Kirby's answer was making the levels fairly on-rails while Guacamelee is trying to do the Metroid thing and its solution is fairly reasonable.
Back in the day, most of us struggled in the same way, only we didn't have GameFAQs or other net resources so we had no choice but to experiment and persevere. Now most games point you in the right direction and tell you where to go and how to get there.
Nintendo's not exactly blameless here either; the helping hands in games like New Super Mario Brothers and Kirby's Epic Yarn didn't exactly force kids to think for themselves.
Thank heaven games like Dark Souls still exist or I'd lose all hope for the next generation of gamers.
Icemage
I never read the game manual nor touch Gamefaqs, etal. For certain games, as a completist, I'd import data books, but that's about it. I generally play it once through, making all the bad choices (and sometimes on purpose) just to see content and then start a second one, more thorough or more exploratory.
I remember doing that when I was little for some games
And now we have the internet
God how I cringe every time I see some poor retard suckered into buying a strategy guide at EB... I mean, really? Have you people never heard of GameFAQs? @_@
GameFAQs is all well and good, but a nicely put together full color map can make a world of difference. There are limitations to ASCII art and the amount of effort people on GameFAQs are actually willing to put into their guides.
That's not to say guides these days are worth purchasing however.
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