Physical strategy guides are definitely a dying breed, and, as far as I know, the only two prominent companies still in the business at this point are FuturePress and Piggyback (which, thankfully, are also arguably the two best). Physical guides becoming obsolete in the age of the internet was always inevitable, but it still makes me sad to see them go. There's always a special nostalgic feeling I get thinking about having a handy physical guide by my side for my favorite games in the past. Whether I just used them for when I was stuck, or for help with completionist objectives, or for full walkthroughs.
So what were your favorite and most memorable guides from the past? Which are/were your favorite companies that made guides? What in your opinion were the most well put-together guides?
Here are some of my favorites:
Nintendo Power's Banjo-Kazooie Guide: Nintendo Power were probably the most consistently reliable guides - purchasing them meant that you were always assured the information inside was fully accurate and complete. The highlight of them were always the maps - almost always the best quality for any particular game, with easy to digest structures that highlight key points without getting too bogged down in text dumps. The Banjo-Kazooie guide from them was a great example of all of their strengths - a clear, concise breakdown of everything you need to know about the game, excellent maps that laid out all the collectibles, and advice for every Jiggy and boss fight. There was nothing particularly standout about it from other NP guides, but I just always think back to this one when I remember their guides.
Versus Book's Majora's Mask Guide: Versus Books was a more low-key guide company, and, from what I remember, I don't think they were around for too long, but they did make some excellent guides. Their MM guide in particular was an excellent resource of everything in the game, and was a god-send for my childhood self playing it for the first time and trying to navigate the convoluted time system in the game. As a bonus, the guide had a lot of comical commentary of the game, which added a lot of personality to it.
Prima's Skyrim Guide: Prima is probably the most well-known guidebook company, and the quality of their guides was probably the most varied of them all, with some being noticeably not-so-good and others being huge efforts that you can tell a whole bunch of time and passion went into. The Skyrim guide falls into that latter category. The dictionary-sized guide has every single thing that exists in that massive game within it - it's pretty much an encyclopedia of the game. That sometimes makes it hard to quickly find the exact info you need, but I can't help but admire the amount of effort that went into putting together this thing.
Piggyback's Breath of the Wild Guide: Just an all-around amazing quality guide. Their structure of laying out information reminds me a lot of Nintendo Power with their maps and highlighting of key points, and everything, from the text, to the section structure, flows extremely well that you can easily utilize it in any way you want for the huge game it covers - either as a quick reference for when you're stuck, as a guide for collecting every Korok seed in the game, a compendium for all the resource types/materials in the game, or as a full-on walkthrough of every step of the game. I have both the hardcover original version and the hardcover expanded version that covers all the DLC, and I love just looking at and browsing through them from time-to-time.
FuturePress's Bloodborne Guide: FuturePress I feel is the only company ever equipped to cover Soulsbourne games. They do their absolute hardest to make the brutal games less daunting, and do a damn good job at it. Not much else to say other than I make it a priority to get their guide for every From Software game that they make.
So what are some of your favorites? And just for fun, you can share some of the....not so good guides you've experienced as well. I know someone is going to mention that infamous Final Fantasy IX guide at some point haha.
So what were your favorite and most memorable guides from the past? Which are/were your favorite companies that made guides? What in your opinion were the most well put-together guides?
Here are some of my favorites:
Nintendo Power's Banjo-Kazooie Guide: Nintendo Power were probably the most consistently reliable guides - purchasing them meant that you were always assured the information inside was fully accurate and complete. The highlight of them were always the maps - almost always the best quality for any particular game, with easy to digest structures that highlight key points without getting too bogged down in text dumps. The Banjo-Kazooie guide from them was a great example of all of their strengths - a clear, concise breakdown of everything you need to know about the game, excellent maps that laid out all the collectibles, and advice for every Jiggy and boss fight. There was nothing particularly standout about it from other NP guides, but I just always think back to this one when I remember their guides.
Versus Book's Majora's Mask Guide: Versus Books was a more low-key guide company, and, from what I remember, I don't think they were around for too long, but they did make some excellent guides. Their MM guide in particular was an excellent resource of everything in the game, and was a god-send for my childhood self playing it for the first time and trying to navigate the convoluted time system in the game. As a bonus, the guide had a lot of comical commentary of the game, which added a lot of personality to it.
Prima's Skyrim Guide: Prima is probably the most well-known guidebook company, and the quality of their guides was probably the most varied of them all, with some being noticeably not-so-good and others being huge efforts that you can tell a whole bunch of time and passion went into. The Skyrim guide falls into that latter category. The dictionary-sized guide has every single thing that exists in that massive game within it - it's pretty much an encyclopedia of the game. That sometimes makes it hard to quickly find the exact info you need, but I can't help but admire the amount of effort that went into putting together this thing.
Piggyback's Breath of the Wild Guide: Just an all-around amazing quality guide. Their structure of laying out information reminds me a lot of Nintendo Power with their maps and highlighting of key points, and everything, from the text, to the section structure, flows extremely well that you can easily utilize it in any way you want for the huge game it covers - either as a quick reference for when you're stuck, as a guide for collecting every Korok seed in the game, a compendium for all the resource types/materials in the game, or as a full-on walkthrough of every step of the game. I have both the hardcover original version and the hardcover expanded version that covers all the DLC, and I love just looking at and browsing through them from time-to-time.
FuturePress's Bloodborne Guide: FuturePress I feel is the only company ever equipped to cover Soulsbourne games. They do their absolute hardest to make the brutal games less daunting, and do a damn good job at it. Not much else to say other than I make it a priority to get their guide for every From Software game that they make.
So what are some of your favorites? And just for fun, you can share some of the....not so good guides you've experienced as well. I know someone is going to mention that infamous Final Fantasy IX guide at some point haha.
