SNES Guide for Arcana, does it exist?

[Tanooki]

I got this game complete earlier today locally, inside the manual cover says: A strategy guide for Arcana is available from Hal America. Call (800) 468-5354 for information on pricing and availability.

I can't seem to scrape up anything in the last hour on google other than like there's a 2 page spread in NP Mag #37 showing the dungeon maps of the game as it could get easy to be lost since it's a first person dungeon explorer. It seems odd to me they'd print that and have nothing.

[SparTonberry]

But I was sure Arcana had ingame auto-mapping (and that NPs maps were actually the ingame maps).

[Tanooki]

I don't know maybe? I only touched it for maybe 20-30min and got to lv2 or 3 on the two characters. I detest 1st person map dungeon games usually but since this one is 'live' and handles like a normal RPG kind of like the interior areas of Phantasy Star 1 it seems nice so I hope you're right. Fantasy Anime.com has a nice shrine I found out to this game among others and it has some nice PDFs *b&w or color* of all the dungeons as to not get lost so I downloaded those.

[8-Bit Archeology]

I might have to download those too. I been thinkin about playing it full fledged. Great graphics. Could not turn up any more info than you on the search for the guide.

There's always the true old school way of graph paper. Lol.

[Blitzwing256]

The dungeons in this game are reaaaaaaallly simple, very hard to get lost, you can use the old trick of following a single wall to get through the entire game very easily, I played through it 3-4 times back when it came out without making maps (and I get lost easy in dungeon crawlers) really great game for it's time, just don't ever let any of your characters die in battle as it's instant game over (other than your spirits)

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, the dungeons aren't terribly complicated, and the in-game mapping is pretty nice. I wouldn't worry too much about getting lost.

Good game too. Moves at a nice brisk pace and shouldn't take more than 10 or so hours tops to beat. I wish more first-person dungeon crawlers were like this instead of the plodding timesinks many are.

[Tanooki]

That's kind of what got me to snap it up as it has been where I got it for a long time. I don't like dungeon crawlers as they confuse the hell out of me where I just bumble around bumping into walls until some random fight kills me and I lose everything as they make no sense. I get making a paper map could help in some of them a lot, but it's a VIDEO game, not D&D so I'm unwilling to bother with that. As such I can't stand the games, but this looks nice, and I mostly was just curious to see a PDF of the guide if there was any good info in it after seeing that inside the manual flap and I asked because I surprisingly came up empty on that. My job got me to where I had to learn a lot of backwards weird ways to google for stuff so I know if I can't find it, I'm usually a bit surprised so I asked if it existed at all or not.

As far as the terrain goes, I did notice on those 2 PDFs you're right that you can just blind man walk every wall of every dungeon to get out. It'll be a lot slower, but you'll get every(or nearly) item and not get lost. It's not my thing though, I'm more direct due to time constraints so Ill likely print up the black and white guide(easier to follow) and take a stab at the game.

[Rickstilwell1]

Yeah I would be interested in knowing if the guide was ever printed or cancelled just due to collecting sake. I've never played this game but if I ever do and like it, the guide will go on my list if it exists.

[Tanooki]

Well I know that there's a guy over at NA who has been whipping up a master list of SNES guides and I know last I looked at it, it was not even listed so I know I know some effort has been made to look but with no luck I imagine. Some of them perhaps were just noted and not made, or worse, made but so few like Lufia 2 it'll be a nightmare to get and maybe pay for too if someone realizes it's out there when you do.

[Steven]

Well I know that there's a guy over at NA who has been whipping up a master list of SNES guides and I know last I looked at it, it was not even listed so I know I know some effort has been made to look but with no luck I imagine. Some of them perhaps were just noted and not made, or worse, made but so few like Lufia 2 it'll be a nightmare to get and maybe pay for too if someone realizes it's out there when you do.

Thankfully, the Lufia II guide is so bare bones that I wouldn't pay over $30 for it. For a long while I wanted it (i.e. 2007-2012), but once I found out there are essentially no quality pictures in the guide, and that it's mostly just a wall of text, I was instantly turned off. The meat of getting strategy guides IMO is for the nice color pictures. Hell, even B&W is better than nothing. But no pictures, or a severe lack of one? Ugh, those are the worst. Hell, give me a free FAQ from GameFAQs in that case.

As for Arcana the guide, I've never seen one, and I doubt one exists. It was probably cancelled. If there were one, surely some kind of intel (i.e. pic, post, etc.) would have been made about it somewhere on the net by now.

[SparTonberry]

I never knew Lufia II had a guide.
I know Lufia I had one (by GamePro or the company affiliated with GamePro, I think). Still kinda regretting I didn't pick it up the time I saw it at GameStop/FuncoLand (way back in the day when they used to sell strategy guides. But I still have my $1 Breath of Fire guide. )

[Rickstilwell1]

Yeah Beyond the Beyond is like Lufia II in that its guide is also a wall of text. You have to do the puzzles on your own or use an internet map/faq. I managed to beat that game on my own without a guide thankfully and know where almost everything is because of spending so much time on the game.

I also dislike guides like the Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee one where the guide is incomplete. It doesn't give you full level maps or even tell you where every single one of the Mudokons to save are. It's almost like what's the point of getting that guide if it is incomplete? Other than to look at the pictures or to help a noob who is really stuck on how to jump over a hard part.

Both these books are pretty much just tips books rather than walkthroughs.

[Tanooki]

Steven no doubt. I didn't even look more than a fleeting moment for it when I discovered both how damn expensive it would get and the fact that there are FAQS out there with ASCII art in there of the puzzles that are better than what they officially offered up. I"m ok with black and white too, that bitchin Dragon Warrior 4 official guide which I have is much like that and it's more than enough. You take out the pictures you take out any form of usefulness over a freebie online.

Surprisingly though there is one guide I do have that might as well be a gamefaq. I found that awful third party original Zelda1/Zelda 2 guide 'Conquering Zelda' at a book store for like five dollars or less so for joke value I bought it. Inside you can tell it was originally done on a TYPEWRITER because of the typeset and the pictures/diagrams were done using keystrokes to make a faux map. It it wasn't so funny it would be sad, but surprisingly due to how basic those games are you really can't get lost using them which I suppose is kind of sad.