What's your #1 game manual?

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

If I close my eyes and try to bring up some nostalgic feeling for a manual, oddly I get Ken Griffey Jr's Presents Major League Baseball on SNES. The Link to the Past manual was pretty special, too.

 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

Any of the classic-era RPG manuals that had "adventurer's guides" I loved as a kid.

[BriGuy82 | 771]

Kid Icarus had flying titties.

 

[Nintegageo | 582]

Ah yes, the manual that helped @BriGuy82 become a Briman

[DarkTone | 985]

"Her beautiful female form". 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

The most memorable manual for me is BlackThorne for the SNES.  It opens with this huge novel of a story that goes on and on with full pages of text for like half the manual explaining the whole backstory of the game.  And as someone coming from the NES era, that's what the manual was for: tell me the "backstory" and then whatever I do in the game is the current story of what's going on in that universe.  The whole idea of cutsenes in video games has always baffled me because I'm like "wtf! I didn't say/do/agree to that!!!"  What I'm doing is the story; I don't care about these other idiots!"

So my video game mantra is and always has been: give me a good backstory in a nice colorful manual and then turn me loose in the game world and I'm instantly on Cloud 9...

[Sumer | 221]

Always loved this one as a teen:

Edited July 29, 2021 by Sumer

[Tanooki | 4,936]

Wow that guide is that detailed eh?  I got one earlier this year, not sure why, thrown in with another WC pickup I had, it's still sealed.  That said, I still think the original Claw Marks big booklet thrown in with some full on fold out ship schematics really nailed it with the original Wing Commander.

[Sumer | 221]

8 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Wow that guide is that detailed eh?  I got one earlier this year, not sure why, thrown in with another WC pickup I had, it's still sealed.  That said, I still think the original Claw Marks big booklet thrown in with some full on fold out ship schematics really nailed it with the original Wing Commander.

Oh yes, definitely.  The original WC Claw Marks was great!  For the life of me, I can't remember what kind of manual WC2 had back then.  I suppose it was not as memorable as WC1 or Privateer's manual.

[Tanooki | 4,936]

14 hours ago, Sumer said:

Oh yes, definitely.  The original WC Claw Marks was great!  For the life of me, I can't remember what kind of manual WC2 had back then.  I suppose it was not as memorable as WC1 or Privateer's manual.

WC2 didn't have much, they didn't care by that point trying to save a buck.  I had 'borrowed' my friends WC1 back in the day, but WC2 I did pick up, floppies no less, including the add-ons and speech pack.  They really didn't do a whole lot, just a lame white staple bound manual.  NO great stories, no goofy articles, no novella tidbits, news briefs, ship spec layouts/diagrams, nothing.  That's why your book I still have sealed surprised me as much as when I found it free in the box.

See that box to the far right over there, I finally legitimately re-acquired WC1, just a later deluxe version on CD, but despite that, they still did even that late throw in every piece of booklet and paper the old floppy game had so I was all in.  The owner had stuffed Armada+strategy guide book too and white staple manual on that free, privateer guide sealed in there too with its white book, and oddly a loose WC2 deluxe CD with its white book.  That's when I started to look for what I was missing with WC2 to find basically, I miss the box, that's it, other than a generic insert or two so I gave up caring.

Edited July 31, 2021 by Tanooki

[Kguillemette | 1,545]

On 7/24/2021 at 7:27 PM, MrWunderful said:

I want to meet a real OG that beat earthbound without the guide

I'm currently in Threed and a bit lost. Might have to visit a hint store soon. On a side note, those exploding oak trees on the way to happy happy village were nightmarishly annoying!

On topic, Age of Empires 2. It's like a game manual and a western civilization textbook rolled into one!

[JeremiahJT | 75]

I cannot think of a single manual that jumps out at me as being my favorite. I would think one of the NES Dragon Warriors, but none are really coming to the forefront of my memories.  I do remember going through some of the guides for those, but no the manuals.  I was going through all my Jaguar games recently, putting them in protectors and going through the manuals to try to find a couple of misplaced overlays, and I noticed my Alien vs. Predator manual is rough.  Now I love this game and have played it a bunch, but it looks like I went through that manual hundreds of times.

So I guess I will go with Jaguar Alien vs. Predator as my number one manual.  I really feel there should be at least one manual that I remember from back then, but nope.

[Tanooki | 4,936]

It's not my #1 but I feel bad just not mentioning it.

Lucasarts Sam & Max Hit the Road

 

Ever seen this one complete in the box before?  What you see attached here is the pack-in supplemental manual, an official hint book.  Cover is beautiful and all, but look at picture #2.  The book is designed in layers, great ones.  You have what you see there with the hints laid out, but also panel art which is spread out all over the thing.  Towards the back half of the book, is a novella of sorts where you get the entire story written out so you can truly enjoy script of the game without all the point and click slowing it down.  There's also a few full spread comic book sections within there too all done by the creator, and it never was in any of the printed comics or compilations, so this IS it.  Only reason I have that is I put it up on ebay as it's a spare I had to show it off.


Along those lines, no images sorry, but Star Trek 25th Anniversary for the PC also had a similar hint book, but that one is as if not more special than this one here.  Why?  The hint book isn't (like the sequel) written like a hint book.  Instead it's essentially a paperback book of compiled novellas.  Each story from the game was written and scripted by various people tied to the old show and writing in some manner, most notable DC Fontana.  So each episode in the game has its own short story written start to finish, and you kind of can use this as a guide for the game, but it's so nicely done it's hard to really use as a guide since it's not written sloppy to go 'hey stupid click here' style stuff.  There is a small part of the book dedicated to that, but it's mostly a straight up paperback book.

 

[DarkTone | 985]

Gotta give a shout out to pokemon red/blue trainer manual. 

[Estil | 1,265]

The Zelda 1 manual really knows how to put you into the story and encourage you to use your imagination...like how the first two pages is a picture of how the Overworld looks in a non 8-bit way...if you guys get what I mean.

I wonder if Breath of the Wild was what they wanted to do all along with that NES picture in the manual and the artwork in its story...like the picture of Link looking outwards toward the Hyrule scenery?

[Tabonga | 2,322]

I have always liked the Electronic Arts Genesis games that came with a thick manual in the cases.

Right up there with those were the case sized guides that you could get for a few Genesis games.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Tabonga

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

On 8/21/2021 at 9:40 AM, Tabonga said:

I have always liked the Electronic Arts Genesis games that came with a thick manual in the cases.

 

...Except that they didn't design the cases to hold them properly...

[Tabonga | 2,322]

4 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

...Except that they didn't design the cases to hold them properly...

I only have a few but none of them have given me any trouble.

[Estil | 1,265]

On 7/26/2021 at 8:19 AM, arch_8ngel said:

Any of the classic-era RPG manuals that had "adventurer's guides" I loved as a kid.

I know I can't get over how huge (like up to 80 pages) even NES RPG manuals could be!  I bet Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 were about the most epic biggest quests/games you could get on the NES...in fact I think DW4 was the biggest of all NES games at a full megabyte (or eight megabits as the preferred measurement at the time).