Best and Worst Strategy Guides ever?

[VACRMH]

My favorite one of all time would have to be the versus guide of Final Fantasy VII, had tons of info and no spoilers (well, except for some Phantasy Star 2 ones ;) )

Sadly, the worst one I own is the Wild Arms guide, I would have liked some maps and such, but it should just be called "How to beat Wild Arms is 665 easy steps"

Not trying to insult anyone here :(

Any other favorites and least favorites?

[Sylentwulf]

I would have to say:
Best - Gamefaqs.
Worst - I haven't bought a strat guide since FF7 because of the above mentioned "Best"

I could get a new game for $15, or a strategy guide. No question for me.

[digitalpress]

I could get a new game for $15, or a strategy guide. No question for me.

I get all of my strategy guides for a penny. And since I rarely ever get to play a game when it's new, I've got lots of "relevant" strategy guides.

On the other hand, I never use them except in some rare cases with RPG's. The best I've used to date was the Final Fantasy Tactics PS1 guide, but I'm really not a good authority on best vs. worst. I've got hundreds of 'em but I only look at them for the pretty pictures.

[joshnickerson]

Bradygames guides tend to suck for me. They seem to spend more time talking about stats and stuff rather than show you how to beat a boss or where to find a secret.
Prima guides are generally good. Nintendo's own guides are hit or miss. For instance, their Wind Waker guide was great, but why did they even bother with a guide for Mario Kart?

[zmweasel]

My favorite one of all time would have to be the versus guide of Final Fantasy VII, had tons of info and no spoilers (well, except for some Phantasy Star 2 ones ;) )

Sadly, the worst one I own is the Wild Arms guide, I would have liked some maps and such, but it should just be called "How to beat Wild Arms is 665 easy steps"

Not trying to insult anyone here :(

Any other favorites and least favorites?

I would've liked some maps, too, but Sony never came through with 'em, and we didn't have time to make 'em. (I assume something similar happened with the Fable OSG.)

Incidentally, my friends at Agetec said the Wild Arms guide was an invaluable reference during the localization of Wild Arms: Alter code F. So I'm glad someone got something out of it. :)

-- Z.

[petewhitley]

Most recently, the Star Wars Battlefront guide has been incredible. There's so much hidden strategy there, reading the guide cover-to-cover has enabled me to absolutely DOMINATE online in that game.

[Famidrive-16]

I've got that Mario Kart guide here somewhere....

Worst I've read was an unofficial Diddy Kong Racing guide. They called Banjo a hound dog and the badger guy a skunk, and a good ten pages were missing from the copy i bought.

[Gideon Zhi]

I don't really use guidebooks all that much, but Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne's is really, really nice. It includes strategies for beating all of the forced battles, charts for demon stats, skills, and fusion, general maps and lots of bonus information and stuff about how the game's systems work. It does -not- hold your hand and tell you to do this/that/theotherthing all the way through, which, if you ask me, is the perfect approach.

Final Fantasy 9's guidebook, on the other hand, was rather painful. It was like an excersize in to-be-continued episodes of a TV series - it'd lead you through the easy bits, then tell you to go online to get the solution to the harder bits :p

[SoulBlazer]

I'd say Working Designs's hint books, the old ones from the 80's, and a anything by Hollinger (Suikoden II, Valkrie Profile, Star Ocean 3) are the best guides in my collection.

Worse? Some of the 'How To Win' books from the 8 and 16 bit games that had no maps, hard to look at pics, inaccurate and often wrong information, and was just about worthless for anything. :roll:

[jdc]

I buy the N64 ones to go along with my N64 collection, along with any relevant guides for any RPGs that I might own on other systems.

My favorite has to be the FFX-2 collector's guide with art book. I also like those hardbound Lunar ones along with the bigger seperate Vanguard Bandits one. I also like the pack in Sword Of Vermillion guide for Genny. Kind of a cool bonus for the game purchase.

The one that I've used the most has to be my Gran Turismo #1 guide from when Turismo #1 was the hottest racer on the planet. My FF guides get well thumbed as well.

[Mangar]

Best Strategy Guide ever was for Bards Tale 1.

I picked it up as a kid for the last dungeon, and the guide read like an actual story - unlocking the various secrets of the game and dungeon all in the narrative. I remember loving it, and re-reading it on occassion. The story(At least to me back then) was fantastic.

Not sure how it would hold up now. Guess it's another thing i should pick up from Ebay when i get a chance.

Other then that - I just use Gamefaqs :)

[Nez]

The guide book for Vay. "go here, kill that, boss fight, then go here" Wait wait how do I kill this fucking boss!? No real stratagy just a road map.

[zmweasel]

The guide book for Vay. "go here, kill that, boss fight, then go here" Wait wait how do I kill this fucking boss!? No real stratagy just a road map.

Two of my guides voted as the worst ever. Hack status confirmed.

-- Z.

[Nez]

The guide book for Vay. "go here, kill that, boss fight, then go here" Wait wait how do I kill this fucking boss!? No real stratagy just a road map.

Two of my guides voted as the worst ever. Hack status confirmed.

-- Z.

Sorry, It just didn't help me when I needed it.

[zmweasel]

The guide book for Vay. "go here, kill that, boss fight, then go here" Wait wait how do I kill this fucking boss!? No real stratagy just a road map.

Two of my guides voted as the worst ever. Hack status confirmed.

-- Z.

Sorry, It just didn't help me when I needed it.

No need to apologize. It was a rush-job guide, as mentioned in the intro, and it shows.

-- Z.

[Dangerboy]

I'm in the same boat as Joe. I wait for the discontinued guides/$1 - 3 ones at Game Crazy(s). The only game I had to use a guide, and I mean use as in every freaking 20 minutes was the Gamefaqs Alundra one, along with Z's official Guide from WD. That game, as much as I loved it, has th emost screwed up quests and serious lack of direction ever. I vividly remember e-mailing Z and begging for help before I tore the disc in half.

As for worst, practically anything Brady puts out. Their MK: Deception guide was released like...half finished. :hmm:

Jason

[stuffedmonkey]

Best: By far Gamefaqs.com - great guides for free. can't beat that. Also there will be different styles of guides. Some will have how to win - with each step in exact detail. Some will just be an overview or a level map. Did i mention it was free?

I haven't really liked the trend in the pay guides recently. They have this crappy overproduced feel. For you basketball junkies out there - gamefaqs is the NBA on TNT, and the Brady type guides are NBA Inside Stuff.

[SoulBlazer]

Don't feel bad, Zach -- I happen to like the Wild Arms guide. ;)

And I wager many people would say the guides you wrote during your time at WD are among the top of their books anyway. :P

Speaking of guide books -- for the book for Lunar 1 remake for the PSX, how come the book has a number of pictures of screen shots that are not in the game? I thought WD did their books AFTER the games came out, unlike the vast majority of hint guides, so it's strange. :hmm:

[zmweasel]

Best: By far Gamefaqs.com - great guides for free. can't beat that. Also there will be different styles of guides. Some will have how to win - with each step in exact detail. Some will just be an overview or a level map. Did i mention it was free?

I haven't really liked the trend in the pay guides recently. They have this crappy overproduced feel. For you basketball junkies out there - gamefaqs is the NBA on TNT, and the Brady type guides are NBA Inside Stuff.

Lemme get this straight: you don't like BradyGAMES' guides because they're too professional?

-- Z.

[zmweasel]

Don't feel bad, Zach -- I happen to like the Wild Arms guide. ;)

You and the Agetec folks. That's five people. :)


Speaking of guide books -- for the book for Lunar 1 remake for the PSX, how come the book has a number of pictures of screen shots that are not in the game? I thought WD did their books AFTER the games came out, unlike the vast majority of hint guides, so it's strange. :hmm:

For both PS1 Lunars, I was working on the game text and the guides at the same time, so I was taking screenshots of early text drafts as I went, and replacing them with final-draft screenshots later on. A bunch of text got changed near the end of the development cycle, after the book had been sent to the printer. Think of those screenshots as peeks into an alternate-reality Lunar. :)

-- Z.

[SoulBlazer]

I'm not surprised some of the text was changed, since using the B word in a game is something I can't see WD doing. :P

Hey, there were only two Wild Arms guides published, and everyone agrees the Dimension one is much better. ;)

Some other guides in my collection I really enjoy --

The special limited edition FF X-2
The Kings Quest book covering games 1-7 -- nice stories
The Morrowind Prophices (the book for Morrowind)
System Shock and System Shock 2
X-Wing Alliance

[-hellvin-]

Guidebook for Disgaea. Didn't really help worth shit. I didn't like some of the map strategies it had. On one of them the freaking guy is like...the runes are too far so just fight the wooden stumps with monster boost x3 ect ect and deal with it. I'm like ok....why not do a simple two party 5 person stack and throw them to the runes? Bleh. It was nice for reference on certain stats/items but online is where I dug up all the wonderful tricks and what not you can do in that game. Oh well, at least I sold it for 3 times what I bought it for, which is what I was going after in the first place ;D. Thank you Gamezone.

[racecar]

best guide - internet(free)
worst guide (reg$ 17.99), but i still buy some of them to make my collection look complete( RPG games mostly) !!

[norkusa]

My vote for "worst guide ever" goes to the recently published Mortal Kombat: Deception guide from Brady Games. The thing is soooo incomplete, it's not even funny.

A big part of MKD is unlocking the "Krypts" for bonus content and characters (there are 400+ of these things). Most can be opened with coins earned in the game but many can only be unlocked with special keys found in the Konquest mode. Did Brady bother to include these key locations in their gude? Of course not. At the very least, they could have divulged the locations
of the keys that unlocked the hidden characters but they wouldn't even do that.

The individual character charts are a joke too. They basically just re-printed the commands list from the in-game menu and added a couple of combos to go along with it. And half of the Fatalities aren't even listed for cryin' out loud!

This guide is the biggest waste of money ever. DO NOT buy this thing even if it's a penny clearance guide from Best Buy.

[Melf]

Worst guide ever= FF3 guide for SNES. The big one (like 600 pages or something). It had no pics and was unwieldy and just so "blah."

[Daria]

Well to jump on the Zach hate wagon I've got this "Link to the Past" guide...

;)

Seriously though I don't own many strategy guides at all but my favorite has to the flippy guide for Oracle of the Ages/Seasons. I have no idea how useful it is to play the game with but having one guide on each side of the book can keep me mindlessly entertained for hours... >.>

[Bratwurst]

I haven't touched a game guide in a long time, but when I picked up a Bradygames book for Mega Man Zero 2 I was expecting screenshot maps and didn't get them. If that's the current state of guides in general then I'll happily settle for text-based faqs, at least you can excuse the poor writing there.

Gone are the days of Nintendo Power with elaborate maps and icon keys, apparently. Of course the more complex games take time I imagine, but a Gameboy title? There are tile viewing programs on the internet for that.

[SoulBlazer]

Melf, you don't mean the Official Nintendo Players Guide for FF3, do you? What other guides came out for that game?

Master of Orion 3 was a bad guide also. The book came out before the game did, and by the time the game finally came out a lot of the book was useless due to the changes.

I think it's more important to look at the AUTHOR and not the company that published the book. Hollinger, for example, is one of my favorite authors and almost all of her stuff is rock solid.

[hezeuschrist]

Worst, Prima's Grandia guide. 9 screenshots a page, each with a caption, usually with something like, "Get ready for this boss fight, it's pretty tough!"

Followed by, "As soon as you best that boss, go here to the save point."

No maps for any of the usually difficult to navigate areas, no best strategies to gain the magic and skills that are most useful... I ended up using an old copy of Xtreme Gamer that had a 5 page guide more than the 1400 screenshot guide.

Best, Earthbound. I don't think I can explain why, but that entire guide just kicked so much ass, and actually reading all the "ads" in the guide was not only entertaining, but added lots of background to the completely outlandish locations in the game. It had stats on all the enemies, great boss strategies, and very very helpful maps.

Honorable Mentions: Most any RPG guide by Brady. Recently: FFX, FFX-2, Star Ocean 3. The first WD Lunar guide was another one that was very helpful and also just a good read, I'd say the second one and the other WD guides, but I haven't played on those games yet, so I haven't used any of the guides.

[lendelin]

Every guide for a RPG or action adventure game without maps is awful. That goes from a Wild Arms to the recent Mega Man X7 guide. For me guides are about archiving the game content, and maps are THE absolute necessity.

Besides the WD guides, some early Prima guides were great. Blood Omen Legacy of Kain is one of the best guides I ever got (unfortunately the thing is rather expensive nowadays); great maps, great text, the text flows so nicely with the startegies. Secret of Mana was very good too, great strategies and great maps, all in black and white.

The NP guides have overall great quality, there isn't one big disappointment among them in 15 years. Bradygames caught on and delivers for some years now good guides, the recent Star Ocean guide is great.

One of the best guides ever produced is the NES Game Atlas (Nintendo, 1990). 18 games completely mapped out, great stuff.

[Sylentwulf]

I get all of my strategy guides for a penny. And since I rarely ever get to play a game when it's new, I've got lots of "relevant" strategy guides.


:( I have very corrupt Best Buy Employee's I never get da phat lewt from there. Pisses me off.

[zmweasel]

My vote for "worst guide ever" goes to the recently published Mortal Kombat: Deception guide from Brady Games. The thing is soooo incomplete, it's not even funny.

A big part of MKD is unlocking the "Krypts" for bonus content and characters (there are 400+ of these things). Most can be opened with coins earned in the game but many can only be unlocked with special keys found in the Konquest mode. Did Brady bother to include these key locations in their gude? Of course not. At the very least, they could have divulged the locations
of the keys that unlocked the hidden characters but they wouldn't even do that.

The individual character charts are a joke too. They basically just re-printed the commands list from the in-game menu and added a couple of combos to go along with it. And half of the Fatalities aren't even listed for cryin' out loud!

This guide is the biggest waste of money ever. DO NOT buy this thing even if it's a penny clearance guide from Best Buy.

BradyGAMES's hands are tied with its MK guides because, as I understand it, Midway won't allow Brady to reveal all the secrets. A minor inconvenience that doesn't prevent Brady from cashing in with incomplete books.

-- Z.

[El CiF]

i had a Nintendo Power guide for Super Mario RPG that i loved
i would just read through it just to see the pictures and stuff
but it was a very good strategy guide.

ive seen probly two really bad guides.
one would be both guides for final fantasy XI
the people who wrote em totally lied about everything in the game
also a certain guide to Yoshi's Story for the n64 comes to mind
the whole guide was about finding the melons in the game
there was not a single thing about trying to beat the game

[AB Positive]

Best - I'll second the Versus FFVII, and add the strategy guides for the entire MYST series. You had a choice, either straight walkthrough... or you could read it novel style, giving you plenty of time to avoid spoilers.

Also... Versus' Street Fighter Alpha 2 guide is the best fighting game guide ever, by far. Easily.


-AG

[norkusa]

My vote for "worst guide ever" goes to the recently published Mortal Kombat: Deception guide from Brady Games. The thing is soooo incomplete, it's not even funny.

A big part of MKD is unlocking the "Krypts" for bonus content and characters (there are 400+ of these things). Most can be opened with coins earned in the game but many can only be unlocked with special keys found in the Konquest mode. Did Brady bother to include these key locations in their gude? Of course not. At the very least, they could have divulged the locations
of the keys that unlocked the hidden characters but they wouldn't even do that.

The individual character charts are a joke too. They basically just re-printed the commands list from the in-game menu and added a couple of combos to go along with it. And half of the Fatalities aren't even listed for cryin' out loud!

This guide is the biggest waste of money ever. DO NOT buy this thing even if it's a penny clearance guide from Best Buy.

BradyGAMES's hands are tied with its MK guides because, as I understand it, Midway won't allow Brady to reveal all the secrets. A minor inconvenience that doesn't prevent Brady from cashing in with incomplete books.

-- Z.

That's what I was thinking what happened with the guide. But why even release one when it doesn't even reveal anything new to the game? Really. All the moves are explained in the in-game command lists. Combos are learned during training exercises in Konquest mode. And the maps don't reveal anything but the landscape for a particular realm. To make things even worse, the entire guide is printed in this ridiculously small 6-point font, making it impossible to read with the aide of a microscope.

I've bought a ton of crap games and accessories over the years, but I've never felt more had than I did after buying this guide. A complete waste of money.

[DDCecil]

Melf, you don't mean the Official Nintendo Players Guide for FF3, do you? What other guides came out for that game?

I believe he is talking about the Prima's Unofficial FF3 guide. The funny thing is all the weapons/armor are the JPN version names. I actually drew things in mine (what items look like), correcting all the mistakes, and a special intro by Zeromus. LOL

Not ot mention, my own arena list and some accomplishments:

http://img79.exs.cx/img79/3037/100_0312.jpg

The Infotainment FF3 guide is also a great guide. It's like a novel.

For me though:

Best - Any JPN guide. Especially the Dragon Quest guides. So many screenshots and lots of info.

Worst - FFIX - Want to beat the boss? Go to Playonline.com for more info. I paid for the book and what if I don't have access to the internet...

[qbertandernie]

i bought a guide just because i thought it would be terrible(used for $1). NBA jam..

why the hell do you need a guide for a basketball game?

and can you actually set up plays as outlined in the guide?

i dont know..seemed like a waste of time to write, and a waste of money to buy originally....(although ive never read it)

[postulio]

BEST: the Original/Official Secret of mana Guide. the damn thing was written like a novel with pictures, instead of directing and telling you what to do it was like a story "The boy figured out that the monster's weakness was ..... and ...." i thought it was great, and ive never seen it since

WORST: ARCANUM for PC (PRIMA GUIDE)- i got it free but still, this is like 2000 maps/steps to the end. no secrets, no interesting factoids, no connection at all. just go here do this look at that. blah.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've had very little experience with guides, and at that all of them have been guides for Nintendo games (outside of a wad of Shining Force guides from Japan, that is, which are rather useless for me at the moment).

Zelda: OoT's guide is solid, looks good, and has that foreword/doodle from Miyamoto for the fan...s. So anyhow, it's not bad. On the flip side, it would've been hard to mess that one up, seeing how much money was put into it, that the writers had direct access to the publisher, and that Zelda is indeed a very linear game. Heh. Metroid Prime's guide from Versus (I think?) is good stuff though! It isn't the "official" guide but the walkthrough for the original Metroid is a great bonus and WORKS, too!

[SoulBlazer]

Yeah, I can't see the point of buying guides for sports games. Nor would I buy one for platform games.

I COULD see the value in buying for a fighting game, cause you can have the moves and what not in front of you.

I mostly just buy adventure/sim/RPG guides.

[zmweasel]

The Infotainment FF3 guide is also a great guide. It's like a novel.

That's Peter Olafson, one of the best videogame journalists ever. He also wrote the rave-worthy Morrowind guide. I'm hoping to have him contribute to Video Game Collector at some point.

-- Z.

[SoulBlazer]

Indeed, that Morrowind Phophecy book is a GREAT book. TONS of usefull information and hints, maps and charts and everything else you need -- AND written in a very humerous and easy to read style. It's a great read as well as a hint guide. :D

I never knew anything else he wrote though. I'll have to do some research. :D

[zmweasel]

Indeed, that Morrowind Phophecy book is a GREAT book. TONS of usefull information and hints, maps and charts and everything else you need -- AND written in a very humerous and easy to read style. It's a great read as well as a hint guide. :D

I never knew anything else he wrote though. I'll have to do some research. :D

Peter was AmigaWorld's resident game journo when I started up my Amiga fanzine in '89, so he's been around a good, long while. Last I heard from him, he was working on what sounded like a PC version of the Digital Press Collector's Guide.

-- Z.

[demented-yoshi]

The best guide I ever bought had to be the majoras mask prima I one got everything.

The worst I don't actually own it but my friend does god it sucks.

The FF9 guide it was a waste of money very little help and it made you go online to get better detail who has time to run upstaires turn on the computer look for the site just to get what you bought the damn guide for in the first place.

I think there was a sentance or two written on the last boss fight or something all in all not nearly enought info.

[mezrabad]

Gotta chime in for Morrowind's strat guide because I just bought the GotY edition (which includes the expansion packs) and it is nice.

I think because it reads like a very well done design document. That being said, i've never actually seen a design document. But if you don't have several life times to find everything, it's very easy to use the guide to find stuff you missed.

WORST Guide I ever bought (and I don't buy them often, not with gamefaqs.com being so easy to use): Daggerfall. OMG, this guide reads more like scribbled notes the programmers made while coding.

I AM an Elder Scrolls whore and it pisses me off because I will not get a cell-phone just to play their newest game.

[Neonsolid]

Gone.

[jetsetradio4ever]

I only have 3 guides. KH, FF IX and Enter The MAtrix (it was free, don't worry).

Best: Kingdom Hearts

Worst: Well, that's tough. The FF 9 one had that annoying Playonline connection thing (letting them not even tell you how to beat a boss.) Plus, it doesn't even woek anymore. Then again, that annoying Enter The Matrix one is just flat-out stupid! It sucks. And, the paper is.....well....rotting, or something.... Seriously. I've had The KH and Matrix ones for an equal amount of time. And, now, I can barely open the Matrix without a page falling out. Honestly, it's only been a year! Nice worksmanship!!

[digdug]

The worst that comes to mind is "State of Emergency" Absolutely worthless, thank God I only paid .01 for it.


The best one I have ever used has been the FFVII Guide by Versus, very detailed, and gave you step by step on how to use it.



Dig Dug

I have close to 2k in hint books, Is anyone working on a Hintbook rarity guide yet?

[G4MZ0v3R]

Best: Third for the Versus FF7 guide

[fairyland]

Remember them, strategy guides those paper things that you would buy in the store and use on games before the internet would provide all that stuff for you for free? Yep, those things. I'm wondering which one of those would you consider to be the worse store strategy guide? I'd have to say the Final Fantasy IX one. It had on every page at least 3 plugs for you to visit their playonline website to get more details. What's the sense of buying the book if 75% of it they won't tell you in said book? Pure junk!

[joshnickerson]

Nintendo Power used to pump out some EXCELLENT players guides (before they switched publishers and passed the guide publishing to Prima), but I'd say that the players guides they did for the Pokemon Stadium games were rather lame. A good 80% of it was just a stupid photo gallery of various Pokemon.

[Tupin]

Nintendo Power used to pump out some EXCELLENT players guides (before they switched publishers and passed the guide publishing to Prima), but I'd say that the players guides they did for the Pokemon Stadium games were rather lame. A good 80% of it was just a stupid photo gallery of various Pokemon.
Hey, at least Prima can do better than the last few times Nintendo tried to make a guide themselves.

[scooterb23]

Worse than what? We need a frame of reference before we can really start debating the issue.

[Tupin]

Worse than what? We need a fram of reference before we can really start debating the issue.
The Animal Crossing: Wild World guide really was a lot less interesting to read compared to the original, same for the Twilight Princess guide compared to Windwaker.

[Famidrive-16]

I bought some unofficial Diddy Kong Racing one that was terrible. It got the animals wrong (called Banjo a dog and Bumper a skunk), aside from that minor detail the strategies for each level were wrong (it would claim a hidden jump in an area that didn't have one) and one entire area was missing. I think the guy who wrote it honestly didn't even play more than five minutes of the game.

I heard that FF7 guide back in the day from Ultima was pretty bad, like every page it mentioned a website to check for tips.

[VACRMH]

Had a thread going a few years back about this.

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43583

Still gotta stand by my Wild Arms.

[Chainclaw]

I used to buy strategy guides all the time until Final Fantasy 9. That is one of the worst pieces of printed media. More than half of the strategy guide was not even in that guide, everything was "GO ONLINE TO SEE MORE."

Even before that they were going downhill, though. The developer would purposely not let them put in all the information so people could "discover" it six months later and reinvigorate sales of the game.

[Wraith Storm]

I agree with Final Fantasy 9. It is immediately what came to mind when I saw this topic.

Also what the #^@% is up with the Grandia 1 guide?!?!? Anyone else seen this?? If Little Golden Books put out a guide this would be it! Grandia: My First Guide. It's a picture by picture guide with little captions and everything. No maps or anything!!!

[Gameguy]

I have a few guides from the SNES era that cover a whole bunch of different games, they're thin like magazines. There's about 1 or 2 pages for each game and they barely mention anything except the obvious stuff(avoid getting hit or you'll take damage!!). I think I have a few for different systems that are like that too.

[kupomogli]

I vote for the FF9 guide, too. I've never owned it, but a friend of mine did and like everyone else here said. What's the point in having the guide if it forced you to go to playonline to actually find what to do on certain parts?

Another thing is that everything it told you about playonline nowdays is completely useless. Once FF11 came out, playonline has been a dedicated site towards that game rather than anything else. Looks like the people who bought the FF9 guide were pretty much screwed over altogether, but more so in the long run.

[Astrosmash]

Gotta go with the Final Fantasy IX guide too. Sure, by that point the 'net had made player's guides more or less obsolete, but the guides themselves don't have to remind us of that on every page.

Conversely, one of my favorites of all time is Nintendo's Mario Mania book. A full walkthrough/maps of Super Mario World, plus tips and tricks, lots of cool full-page artwork, profiles of the previous Mario games (even an acknowledgement of the Japanese SMB2), an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto... cover-to-cover awesome. Sure, maybe nowadays it doesn't sound so exciting, but when I first saw it back in '91 or '92 I hadn't seen anything quite like it for games.

I also recently got two old Ken Uston books from the early '80s, which are fun to read because of how technical all the diagrams and strategies in them get. Who knew you needed an engineering degree to get a high score in Pac-Man? ;)

[AB Positive]

Never having used/played FFIX I would have to volunteer the Lunar PS1 guide... first off it was difficult to make out anything happening in the screenshots due to it being [i]black and white[i] and even then the tips I remember making little to no sense. I had the hardest time with Lunar and is in fact why I still haven't really touched the series.

[GrandAmChandler]

Had a thread going a few years back about this.

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43583

Still gotta stand by my Wild Arms.

Threads Merged. Thanks VACRMH

Final Fantasy IX gets my vote. "If you want to know more on how to beat this boss, go online!"

What a waste.

-GAC-

[Natty Bumppo]

The best (in terms of being the most useful) guide for me was the one for Vandal Heart's II - covered everything about the game with complete maps and was in full color glossy paper all the way through. I bought a second one used at a game store that was falling apart - I separated the pages and put them in 8 x 11 clear sheet protectors in a ring binder. The ability to lay the pages out flat made an amazing difference in terms of usability.

Probably the worst guide is the one for Brigandine - much of the gameplay is not covered and there isn't a splash of color to be found anywhere between the covers.

[carlcarlson]

I would also nominate FFIX judging by what the rest of you are saying, but I don't personally own it so I'll nominate Rock Band for worst guide instead. I got it for a penny so I can't really complain, but I still feel gyped. I figured pretty much the only thing they could include that would necessitate a guide would be note charts. But guess what... no note charts! Why does this exist.

Best that I own would probably be Disgaea 2. It's something like 700 pages long and I would imagine covers practically everything. I've yet to make it out of the first game so I haven't actually used the guide, but I love reading through it anyway.

I also dig the recent Zelda hardcover guides. I've got about 8 of the Phantom Hourglass guides that look super nice. They're all sealed, though, so I can't attest to their usefulness.

[Astrosmash]

Probably the worst guide is the one for Brigandine - much of the gameplay is not covered and there isn't a splash of color to be found anywhere between the covers.

Ah, another bad one. Love the game - one of my favorite "hidden gems" on the original PlayStation - but the guide wasn't good at all. As I recall, not only was there very little useful gameplay/strategy information, but some of the character stats and things were incorrect too.

[jcalder8]

As soon as I saw this I thought of FFIX for the worst, as did lots of other people it appears. It might have been ok when it first came out but now that the website is down it's pretty much useless and if I had the internet right there why would I need the stupid guide?

[Natty Bumppo]

Ah, another bad one. Love the game - one of my favorite "hidden gems" on the original PlayStation - but the guide wasn't good at all. As I recall, not only was there very little useful gameplay/strategy information, but some of the character stats and things were incorrect too.

I also love the game - right up there with Dark Wizard for me. Always amazes me that the guide goes for so much when it is so pathetic. Did you ever play Brigandine Grand Edition?

[SegaAges]

One of the best has to go to GTA:SA. That thing is a fucking beast of a book.

[Astrosmash]

I also love the game - right up there with Dark Wizard for me. Always amazes me that the guide goes for so much when it is so pathetic. Did you ever play Brigandine Grand Edition?

I know of the Grand Edition, but unfortunately haven't played it. Price, availability and, well, not being able to read Japanese are the stumbling blocks there. Would love to check it out sometime though - maybe sometime a fan translation will come around.

I didn't realize the guide was that valuable now, heh. I got it several years ago used on Amazon for a few bucks. Kept it just because I like the game so much. Checking now, I see the guide going for $30 and up.

[The 1 2 P]

For the best guide I'm going to say Burnout 3: Takedown. It had tons of helpful info so that you could successfully get all the cars and awards. It also was the only way I could really learn how to do a boost start when racing online. When people try explaining that thru a headset, you are more likely to go "wtf???". I also liked the guide for the first Max Payne but I only needed it for those hallucinagenic levels. They were confusing as hell.

For the worst guide I'm going to say Darkwatch. Why? Because the strategy they have for the final bosses doesn't even work. And to make matters worst the final boss(one of the two) was super cheap. I had to improvise and spent more than a half hour on that last fight. I kept trying different strategies until final I came up with one that worked.

[TheGam3r]

Best:
Pokemon Firered/Leafgreen
Pokemon Crystal
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
Pokemon Emerald
Pokemon Diamond And Peral
Pokemon National pokedex


WORST:
Pokemon:Battle revolution

[The 1 2 P]

For the best guide I'm going to say Burnout 3: Takedown. It had tons of helpful info so that you could successfully get all the cars and awards. It also was the only way I could really learn how to do a boost start when racing online. When people try explaining that thru a headset, you are more likely to go "wtf???".

A funny story about this guide is that I originally got it for a penny at Best Buy. I tried selling it on ebay for about 1-2 months straight and nobody bid. So I held on to it for alittle while longer. Then several months later(6+) I actually got the game. So then I finally decided to keep the guide and the rest is history.

[Fuyukaze]

My best guide would be Shin Megami Tensei:Nocturne or Disgaea DS. Worst would be FFIX or DoA:Ultimate. IX should have been usefull but for all the reasons named, it was useless. Normaly I dont find strat guides usefull for fighting games but with all the unlockable content in it, the guide was little more then a damned manual that listed what each move was. Didnt tell anything on unlocking charcter costumes, charcters, or anything actualy. Total failure of a guide.

[Rickstilwell1]

The worst strategy guide I have is Beyond the Beyond for Playstation. It's all text! No mapped out areas or detailed descriptions there. Gamefaqs is much more useful for that game, but I've got that one down on my own. People tell me the game is hard, but I enjoyed it so much I beat it over 10 times as it was my first Playstation game other than Gex. And it it was the first RPG I played that had multiple characters you could see. Prior to that, I had only played Zelda games and Dragon Warrior 1 & Wizardry 1 for NES.

I wasn't exposed to the popular SNES RPGs so by the time I reached Beyond the Beyond I wasn't disappointed as many other gamers were. It sure beat Dragon Warrior 1.