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Post by Ex on May 3, 2021 22:15:17 GMT -5
Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions and I don't expect anyone else to agree with them.TOP 5 REASONS I DON'T LIKE STRATEGY GUIDES OR WALKTHROUGHS
Number 5: They encourage bad business practices and subpar game design. It's no secret that some games of yesteryear were overtly designed to require a guide to beat. An official guide that you could conveniently purchase right alongside the game itself. That didn't necessarily mean the game was "unbeatable" without the official guide, but it could be seriously cryptic without it. This was on purpose so the publisher could make double money, and it encouraged bad game design that relied on said guide. Eventually the internet and sites like GameFAQs put a dent in official strategy guide sales. (Retail print guides are still a thing today though.) However, we've seen such online sites act as a crutch for bad game design to rely on regardless. It's been more than once I've seen a developer tell players to "go check a guide", when called out on frankly bad game design that left players scratching their heads. Sometimes even to get around bugs or glitches! It's better to encourage the developer to improve their game with a patch, than to let the developer take the easy way out pointing to someone else's guide.
Number 4: Spoilers!
Following a guide in tandem with a game you've never experienced before? There's a good chance you're going to ruin every surprise and plot revelation before it happens in the actual game. It's too easy to read ahead as you scan for the next pro-tip, because that pro-tip is likely buried within overly revealing context. Most guides don't bother at all to issue spoiler alerts, and even the ones labeled "spoiler-free" rarely are. I for one like my surprises to stay surprising, and the unknown to stay unknown, until I discover it all myself.
Number 3: They create unnecessary busy work. Fear of missing out. That's one of the big reasons people slavishly play games with a guide in tow. They are terrified of missing out on any little bit of content. Be it optional dungeons, super powerful gear, hidden party members, or additional plot exposition. Here's the thing, if it's so hidden you need a guide to find it, chances are you don't need that stuff to actually beat the game. And chances are that extra plot fluff isn't integral to the core story. It's more likely you'll burn yourself out doing the mundane busy work required to access the hidden extras. Or you'll acquire such powerful optional gear, that the rest of the game will be a boring breeze offering no interesting challenge as a result. Save yourself from the grind, mind-numbing check off lists, and lack of challenge - if it's optional and hidden, you likely won't need it.
Number 2: I want my gaming experience to be MY gaming experience.
If I follow a guide to beat a game, doggedly doing what the guide says to do, in the order and way the guide says to do it... did I really play the game myself? Or did I moreover engage in an interactive "Let's Play" by proxy? Is a cloned playthrough at all unique? But what if I played that game all on my own instead? Sure, I might miss a few things, like the "best sword in the game", or maybe not use the "most optimized combat strategy", and perhaps not get the "best ending"... who cares? I think it's far better that my own playthrough was my own. I did what I did, not what a guide did. The moment to moments and overall outcome of the play experience were all uniquely my own as a result.
Number 1: Frankly it's cheating. You're stuck at a boss, so you consult a guide. You get lost in a maze, so you consult a guide. You can't figure out how to intelligently exploit a complex level up system, so you consult a guide. At what point does all this artificial external aid devolve from "helping" to "cheating"? If I "solve" a Rubik's Cube by following somebody else's step-by-step solution, did I truly solve that Rubik's Cube? Or did their solution actually solve it? If you beat the final boss using that ultra powerful optional gear, with the strongest optimized party, utilizing the most exploitative combat strategy - if you used all those things to beat the game, yet only had those things because a guide somebody else wrote told you how - did you truly beat the game yourself? Well I say you didn't. I say the guide did. I say you copied someone's else's cunning and tactics and emulated their prior accomplishment. That's no proud win in my book. And completely "playing" through an adventure game with a walkthrough? Come on, man.
Exceptions? Sure, exceptions. Some people immediately, instinctively even, grab a guide when they start a new game. They then play that game lockstep with the guide until the credits roll. I don't do that for reasons I explained above. But that doesn't mean I don't begrudgingly (RARELY) resort to using a guide for artificial aid. I only do it as an absolute last resort, when I completely get stuck in a game, for a considerable amount of time. And by stuck, I mean I simply don't know where to go, or what to do, to advance the plot. (No I'm not talking about getting stuck in a maze or on a hard boss.) This usually only happens in an archaic story driven RPG. Though sometimes it happens in puzzle driven adventure games. I love 8/16-bit JRPGs, but we all know sometimes 8/16-bit JRPGs conveniently forget to tell the player where to go, or who to talk to, to trigger the next plot advancement. And anyone who's played an old adventure game with bonkers byzantine "puzzles", knows about putting a pulley in a rubber chicken. So I don't blame anyone who would use a guide sparingly to get passed the occasional hiccup in opaque game design. That said...
I don't respect using a guide religiously to beat a game in totality. Because in my book, that's plain ol' cheating. Look I've beaten many a "hard" RPG, all on my own, without ever touching a guide.* Chances are I'm not some kind of super gaming god, but rather I'm just stubborn and determined. When you mix determination and stubbornness together, you get a magical thing called gumption. And there's no video game that gumption can't beat. Guide-addicted gamers might be surprised what they can accomplish with a little gumption of their own. Forget the guides. Enjoy a growing sense of self-reliance. Hard won victories are so much sweeter. *Just a few RPGs I've beaten without ever touching a strategy guide or walkthrough for them, and you can too: Brandish: The Dark Revenant
Brandish 2: The Planet Buster Breath of Fire 1 & 3
Dragon Quest 1, 4, 5, 8, 9 Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl (Expert mode) Fallout (series) Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy XII
Front Mission (series)
King's Field (series) Phantasy Star (series) Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
Shadow Tower (series) Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (3DS)
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PS2)
Tactics Ogre (PSP)
Vagrant Story Valkyrie Profile
And many more...
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Post by paulofthewest on May 4, 2021 16:48:31 GMT -5
I definitely agree with most of these, except #4--I just don't care about spoilers but I understand a good number of people do.
I *usually* use one after I've beaten a game to see if there is a cool feature I want. For example Diablo II, after beating it, I would look up character builds to come up with different ideas. Of course I never straight-up copied the build. Instead I'd modify it for something I found interesting. The other times are when I simply don't know/remember which way I need to go in some RPG (ust like you mentioned with JRPGs.) This has been solved with plot arrows (like in FF10.)
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Post by Sarge on May 4, 2021 17:03:34 GMT -5
I tend to check guides for missable stuff, and gauge whether it's worth it. In general, though, I agree that playing via guide slavishly doesn't really lend to an enjoyable experience. Most games are, as you say, balanced towards a "normal" run, not an optimal, min-maxed experience.
I definitely don't see as much cryptic stuff anymore, and a lot of that probably ties directly into the decline of strategy guides as a whole. The Internet blows everything open these days anyway, so making a main path unreasonable just doesn't make any sense.
There's a fine line, of course, between "help" and "cheating". Used sparingly, I think they're fine, especially given some of the nutty design decisions some developers put in their games.
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Post by Xeogred on May 4, 2021 17:36:01 GMT -5
Number 5: They encourage bad business practices and subpar game design. - Isn't Valkryie Profile one of the biggest offenders of this? From what some here have told me. I still plan to play it this year hopefully. I just have to be in the mood for referencing a guide a lot along the way so I don't miss out on a good 20% of the best content here or something.
Number 4: Spoilers! - Yep, a big one for me. Should be expected with anyone glancing at a guide. So it's one thing that keeps me away from them sometimes.
Number 3: They create unnecessary busy work. - Back in the day when I lived and breathed JRPG's, I liked to get guides to eventually double check things I had already done, or devour the sidequests/secrets sections. I bought the FF9 guide when I was on the last disc, solely so I could get all the Tetra cards in that one. Guides can help fuel that often unnecessary craving to 100% games. Fun fact though, that PlayOnline FF9 guide was the worst guide I've ever seen in my life. You were expected to register an account online at PlayOnline, it maybe even had a subscription fee, just to see the actual answers to the boss strategies and tips. It literally said "Find out why/more at PlayOnline" a thousand times in that guide. A fun paperweight, but it helped me get the cards. I think I used a guide for FF8 but still never got one for FF4-FF7. So I guess I was kind of random with my habits for them back then. Always loved the art, additional bios, etc in there though.
Number 2: I want my gaming experience to be MY gaming experience. - I'll shamefully admit I'm using a guide with DQ6 a lot right now. But I get the vibe a lot of stuff in it is probably explained in the Japanese manual. That said, I strongly agree with this point because I am extremely stubborn or rather, prideful, in my own gaming skills. I will build my characters and parties MY way. I will beat bosses MY way. It's my way or the highway baby. If I'm going to min/max a game for a second playthrough, then I might mirror some strategies or build ideas I see online. But throughout all of my gaming life, I like doing things my way and putting in the work.
Number 1: Frankly it's cheating. - Yeah somewhat. I get a kneejerk reaction thinking back to one of my old friends who played through 99% of his games, all genres, while consulting guides every step of the way. It was bizarre.
Overall, I agree with most of these reasonings, but I'm not 100% allergic to using them sometimes. I oddly miss guides in a similar way to longing for the magazine days, but do I really? Hah... practically, I don't know. I still have a box of old guides somewhere. I think FF10 or FF12 were probably the latest ones I bought.
Anyways, as I alluded to at the beginning, when I know ahead of time that a guide is recommended, it definitely kind of puts me off of hitting the game up sooner than I would otherwise. I might have played and finished Valkyrie Profile by now if it weren't the case for that one haha. I've been frequently thinking in my head "After that one, I can't wait to play another JRPG without a guide again". lol, it feels like a literal sigh of relief not having that extra baggage sometimes. I want to be focused on the GAME, not turning to look at a bunch of text to parse having to carefully plan out tons of scenarios ahead for some extra game stuff. I'm not the 100% completionist quite like I used to be, back to Number 3 there.
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Post by toei on May 4, 2021 17:40:24 GMT -5
I tend to check guides for missable stuff, and gauge whether it's worth it. In general, though, I agree that playing via guide slavishly doesn't really lend to an enjoyable experience. Most games are, as you say, balanced towards a "normal" run, not an optimal, min-maxed experience. I definitely don't see as much cryptic stuff anymore, and a lot of that probably ties directly into the decline of strategy guides as a whole. The Internet blows everything open these days anyway, so making a main path unreasonable just doesn't make any sense. There's a fine line, of course, between "help" and "cheating". Used sparingly, I think they're fine, especially given some of the nutty design decisions some developers put in their games. On the other hand, a lot of gamers are spoiled and can't handle any type of exploration on their own. Some older games were definitely too cryptic for their own good, but I've often come across people complaining about things being cryptic in older games that really aren't; you just need to explore and pay attention. People don't want to make that effort. I agree with most points Ex made about guides, except that he systemically overstates the connection between guides and game design, every single time the topic comes up. A lot of that stuff was just normal then, and once you got a feel for it, you didn't need guides at all. You were expected to try things and find what works. Like, the first time I played FF4, I was with a friend, and he was impressed when I decided that a wall looked a little funny and walked through it to get some treasures, because he wouldn't have thought about it. But you could see there were treasures there, and no door leading to the room; there had to be a false wall somewhere. The percentage of retro games that actually *require* a guide is actually really, really low. I can think of a few Tri-Ace games, Valkyrie Profile being the most obvious example. But even then, part of that was the main guy at Tri-Ace really wanted players to figure that shit out based on cryptic hints. He talks about it in every interview. He really thought he was doing something clever. |
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Post by Ex on May 4, 2021 21:19:16 GMT -5
This has been solved with plot arrows (like in FF10) Compass waypoints have largely mitigated the "Uh, where do I go now?" problem with RPGs. I've noticed compass waypoints are ubiquitous in modern RPGs, both WRPG and JRPG. Also they appear in open world action-adventure games really often too.
I tend to check guides for missable stuff, and gauge whether it's worth it. Missable plot stuff is perhaps concerning. But missable gear? In my eyes not so much. I believe it's only fair that you either find that super sword on your own, or you miss it on your own. If someone is beating hard bosses because they're relying on ultimate equipment they only found because of a guide, to me that shows a lack of player skill. In my experience superior combat tactics trump superior gear, so I don't concern myself about missing S-Rank trinkets. I agree, especially with obtuse adventure games. No player can be expected to mentally resonate 100% with the developers' minds 100% of the time. Isn't Valkryie Profile one of the biggest offenders of this? VP is an extreme example of a game where a guide makes or breaks if you see the final 25% of the content. But I didn't need a guide to beat VP insofar as its gameplay was concerned. The guide tells you the cryptic stuff you have to do to basically unlock a bunch of content. After I beat VP, I later found out that I missed all that stuff. So I just watched some Youtube videos to see what I missed. No way I was replaying the whole thing just for that. I didn't feel cheated though, what I played of the game was still gratifying on its own. I also use Youtube to watch alternate endings in general, rather than beat a game multiple times, if I care about its story enough. I'm using a guide with DQ6 a lot right now. Is DQ6 really difficult or cryptic? That sounds weak and tedious. a lot of gamers are spoiled and can't handle any type of exploration on their own / I've often come across people complaining about things being cryptic in older games that really aren't; you just need to explore and pay attention / People don't want to make that effortAmen. I agree. The key aspects in that scenario, are that wall had visual indication that there was an irregularity. When I recently played The Final Fantasy Legend, there were hidden walls you had to walk through, that had zero tile deviation. And these walls didn't lead to optional treasure, they lead you into passages you had to take to finish the game. Unless you intentionally walked into every wall in the dungeons, you'd never know they were there. And walking into every wall of a dungeon is about like burning every bush in Zelda. Sure, a player can do it, but is it really fair to ask of the player? You are thinking from a console gamer perspective. There are troves of '80s and '90s PC games you'd have been hard pressed to beat without their official guides. |
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Post by Sarge on May 4, 2021 21:39:49 GMT -5
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Post by toei on May 4, 2021 22:24:23 GMT -5
Ex True, I'm thinking of console games, and not point-n-click adventure games on PC, since the only one I ever played was Monkey Island. I have played a few RPGs with hidden walls that have no visual indication, though. A lot of the time, you can get a feel for it nonetheless because they'll be in suspicious places, ie at the end of a long corridor seemingly leading nowhere. In some Zelda clone - I want to say it was Golden Axe Warrior - you could often figure out where a room should be by bringing up the map, and bomb walls accordingly. I actually respect games that do that. I can't speak for FFL, though, as I haven't and likely will never play it.
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Post by Sarge on May 4, 2021 22:35:55 GMT -5
Yeah, especially in the case of LucasArts games, they tended to not be so ridiculous in their requirements. As I saw it put somewhere else, it felt like they actually wanted the player to be able to win.
Oh, that reminds me, though, there was a puzzle in Dragon Scroll that was ridiculous. There was no NPC that I could find that gave any hint that you were supposed to do the following to reveal the way forward:
Maybe they missed it in the translation. Maybe I missed an NPC. But I never would have figured it out without the guide.
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Post by Ex on May 4, 2021 22:44:31 GMT -5
I have played a few RPGs with hidden walls that have no visual indication, though. To be fair, my beloved King's Field series is full of hidden passages in regular looking walls. In the earlier games, they usually look entirely identical to normal walls. However, even with the very first KF, you are given a hint that they exist early on. This is via the sound of a skeleton walking around behind what seems to be normal wall. When the action button is used on the wall, it slides up, and there's the skeleton slashing your face in (also a treasure box). KF likes to have hidden rooms within hidden rooms too. there was a puzzle in Dragon Scroll that was ridiculous. There was no NPC that I could find that gave any hint that you were supposed to do the following to reveal the way forward How many of us, honestly, could have beaten the original USA version of Castlevania 2, without any external aid? |
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