Favorite Hint Books?

[Tulpa 3,198]

I had the Official Nintendo Player's Guide back in the day, and it had some great hints and information. Anyone have any other hint books and booklets that were great for cryptic parts to our favorite games?

[MeganJoanne 365]

Always enjoyed looking through them, mostly at the pictures, Nintendo Power in general, always enjoyable back then. The ones that were like larger expansions of game manuals were always good for a refresher when it came to items, monsters or with maps to find your way around. The Official Nintendo Player's Guide was my favorite, little bits of this at that for various popular games and summaries of all of the other games that were out at the time. A very nice companion to an NES game collection.

[RH 4,444]

I think this has to be my favorite.  My grand father picked it up when I was a kid. I  enjoyed reading through it. Many of these games I was aware of but I always loved reading about games I'd never heard of or even seen at K-Mart.  The cover's not a bad piece of art either.  Actually... are those veggies on the cover because of Gun+Nac?! The one game I keep missing when someone offers one FS in this community?

[Tabonga 2,088]

One item I have always found really useful was the Nintendo Power Index.  (I realize that you need a lot of Nintendo Power issues for this to be of much use - fortunately I have a complete run until the demise of the SNES.)

 

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Edited December 12, 2019 by Wandering Tellurian

[guillavoie 1,140]

On 11/12/2019 at 8:52 AM, RH said:

I think this has to be my favorite.  My grand father picked it up when I was a kid. I  enjoyed reading through it. Many of these games I was aware of but I always loved reading about games I'd never heard of or even seen at K-Mart.  The cover's not a bad piece of art either.  Actually... are those veggies on the cover because of Gun+Nac?! The one game I keep missing when someone offers one FS in this community?

I love how all the games' titles are in alphabetical order, except for Bionic Commando screwing the whole thing in the middle.

[Link 2,247]

Nintendo Power #13. SMB3 strategy guide. It covers everything. Every hidden block, secret area, every white mushroom house. The sun in 2-2 is a piece of cake if you read this. Complete guide to the best NES game ever. How can you beat that?

It was also my only hint book, so I may be just a little bit biased. But god damn if it’s not a fantastic guide. (I take that back. I also had Jeff Rovin #2. So that’s a strong contender.  )

On 11/12/2019 at 7:52 AM, RH said:

re those veggies on the cover because of Gun+Nac?!

This book is three years older than GunNac, so no.

[mbd39 1,864]

Remember these?

 

[Reed Rothchild 8,528]

Loved the Mario RPG and Earthbound guides back in the day.  And the Squaresoft PS1 guides were things of beauty

[cj_robot 490]

On 12/12/2019 at 1:02 PM, mbd39 said:

Remember these?

 

Yes! Had a few of those. Definitely would not have gotten through Castlevania II as a kid without one of them. (#3 I think?)

[Tanooki 4,829]

I never liked those Rovin books much.  Fairly recently (last year) I had the first couple of volumes and I tried to basically use them as bathroom readers as they're not very helpful with those NES games they covered and for the wonky reviews they were moderately entertaining but that was about it.

Yeah it's a cheat but for me the favorites were the older era (pre-3D) Nintendo Power magazines, back when they did large full blown layouts in an issue if not two of multiple games with all the maps of the stages laid out, the very helpful classified information and hints/tips spaces they had too.  That stuff was so extremely helpful, even more when part of that map was a full on roll out on the back of the poster.  Beyond that though, the official Nintendo Players Guides in the 8/16bit era were hands down the most helpful as they really were not cutting corners but felt like the natural extension of what NP did, then NP's 4 odd extra magazines dedicated mainly to laying out one entire game (FF1, SMB3, etc) and then that.

[DarkTone 919]

Kirby's adventure and duck tales 2 are up there for me. 

[Bearcat-Doug 4,940]

I liked the hint books for the PC versions of Deja Vu, Shadowgate and Uninvited. They had the guides separated between vague hints, regular clues or straight answers depending on how much help you wanted or needed. I can't think of any other hint books I've seen like that.

[twiztor 712]

maybe i'm just more of a maps guy, but i've got a soft spot for the NES Game Atlas.

 

[Link 2,247]

19 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I never liked those Rovin books much.  Fairly recently (last year) I had the first couple of volumes and I tried to basically use them as bathroom readers as they're not very helpful with those NES games they covered and for the wonky reviews they were moderately entertaining but that was about it.

I don’t think anybody likes them much. They were cash grabs then and they kind of suck. I agree with “moderately entertaining”. They’re a precursor to gamefaqs and an interesting artifact of the time. 

Correction to above, I had #3, not #2 - thanks for the picture @mbd39. I also had the TMNT quiz book. I wonder if I realized at the time it’s the same author. I don’t think I did. I am pretty sure I got them both from the book fair at school. Do they still have those?

[Tanooki 4,829]

You know what was better than moderately entertaining, and at least did have some solid tips in those books?  The World of Power paperbacks.  Each end of the chapter has an up side down  (and backwards -- so meant for a mirror) tip/trick for the game it was covering.  I own 5 of the 8 of them (there are +2 Junior Editions too) and they're so bad they're good.

[Tabonga 2,088]

I don't know if it is my favorite but it is certainly the most well put together guide I can think of.  Full color glossy pages all the way through with full page pictures of the battlefields.  Also has a list of all the mutlitudinous spells tied into the weapons.

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Wandering Tellurian