Anyone else LIKES using guides?

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

Only if I was stuck stepbro

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I really liked "narrated" guides, a style that was very popular for a brief period before going extinct in the early aughts.

They were guides written as if they were chapters on a novel, often told from the first person perspective. A lot of them had highly quality standards and were a joy to read, on top of being actually helpful guides.

The one for Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade was simply amazing.

 

[_Lorenzo_]

I really liked "narrated" guides, a style that was very popular for a brief period before going extinct in the early aughts.

They were guides written as if they were chapters on a novel, often told from the first person perspective. A lot of them had highly quality standards and were a joy to read, on top of being actually helpful guides.

The one for Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade was simply amazing.

A perfect example of the kind of game guides you mentioned is the one for SaGa Frontier 2 (not surprisingly published by PiggyBack—always extremely polished from an editorial standpoint, detailed, and excellently translated). I could also mention the guides for FFX and XII.
In my case, I’ve been collecting them pretty much forever, and like some friends above, I only use them during my second playthroughs to complete the games 100% and beyond.
I own around thirty of them, and over the past few years they've been attracting a lot of interest among video game collectors.
This SF2 one is written in French (as far as I know, no Italian version exists), and I bought it very recently.

 

[MasterChiefX]

Only if im going for 100% really, which doesn't happen a lot.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I really liked "narrated" guides, a style that was very popular for a brief period before going extinct in the early aughts.

They were guides written as if they were chapters on a novel, often told from the first person perspective. A lot of them had highly quality standards and were a joy to read, on top of being actually helpful guides.

The one for Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade was simply amazing.

I like this idea.

Personally I use guides mostly in case there's something to do to not screw up your playthrough.

 

[AkiraSO4]

It REALLY depends.
If I'm going for a game with way too much hidden crap like classic TR, or a game I just wanted to be done with like Tormented Souls, then yeah.
Either that or when looking around for how to do achievements and stuff.

 

[Theriise]

Same, I love game guides. I buy them for games I really love or games thst havent been translated yet so I can see parts of the games I can't get to on my own. I think I got my first one at 14, I used to fuss over and flick through bits while imagining getting to that part of the game. (I had big dreams because it was pokemon battle revolution =.=)

I also treated my diamond/pearl one as a bible of sorts. I love how the formatting and editing is different on different language ones. One of my prized items is the japanese guide for my favourite final fantasy game. (5!)

I also loved going to game faqs. Back when I lived in a time where you couldnt just use your phone or have your turn on the family computer when you need it, I used to print out game faqs and cross out the sections that I completed. Currently I'm obsessing over how much detail and love fangamer put in their earthbound/mother 3 guides as well as loving the ones that show the differneces between translations of the games.

 

[SBLAST91]

Only when the section I am stuck on begins to actively hurt my experience of playing the game.

Games are meant be fun. And if your fun is never or heavily relying on guides all the power to you.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Only when games get cryptic and/or don't tell you about certain mechanics

 

[Skeetos]

Certain games require it I'd say. I recently started Parasite Eve on my Vita, and I've since not touched it. But not because the game is bad. I figured out that the game is quite grindy if you don't want to struggle later on, which is par for the course for Square games and I should've known, but looking at the guide, I decided that I should play it either on my PS3 or on an emulator since I need to be fully invested and I usually use my Vita for chill games while I wait for something or on lazy days where I lie in bed.

Sometimes I do actively avoid guides for as long as possible though. I gotta at least try to find my way. Can't completely lose the function of my brain for comfort.

 

[depes]

I like using guides, but I'll specially go out of my way to seek the ones that are commentated by the author. Reading their experiences like "this area sucks" "this boss sucks" "this game sucks" makes me feel a bit of connection with someone who wrote some guide 20 years ago. It's pretty nice

 

[MrFabulous]

I really liked "narrated" guides, a style that was very popular for a brief period before going extinct in the early aughts.

I came here to post this and can't believe I found it already here with the exact opposite experience lol.

I respect the effort that went into the creation of those, they're on the other end of the axis from those 'full 100%' guides from guys who were maxing out materia and item count on every screen of FF7 but with an altogether different form of dedication. I remember one guide for Prince of Persia: Sands of Time that was particularly egregious because the guy needed to give precise instructions but was limited by his own prose, 'the prince gripped the wall as he fell' indeed.

 

[NobodyHere]

The Wizardy games have a really amusing guild called the ‘The Ultimate Wizardry Archives

 

[Masterofthefalcon]

I use them a lot on NES/SNES era games that I've never played before. Since a lot of those older games came with a pretty hefty manual and things like gaming magazines provided a lot of hints, I don't feel too bad using them. Back in the PS2 days, if I couldn't buy a guide we'd go up to the game store with a notepad and write down the parts we were stuck on.

 

[job32]

For quite a while I was this tryhard who didn't wanted to use guides in any occasion... then I realized I wasn't beating a lot of the games I were playing lol

I still try to avoid using them, but not at any cost anymore.

This, pretty much. I hate to use them but sometimes when you do, you realise whoever created the game had a glitch in his brainframe, at this point in his game (alternatively, t'was I with the glitch, but highly unlikely). Sometimes after skipping the mindglitch, things run smoothly. If I keep finding mindglitches that can't possibly be from my brainframe, I ditch the guide of dementia.

 

[Bluewyne]

I've only followed a guide back in the day to 100% complete Jump Ultimate Stars, because I can't read Japanese.

Otherwise, I don't buy or follow any guides. I prefer figuring things out for myself rather than getting railroaded from point to point. I do look up crafting recipes and cheese strats for bosses online though.