RCU005
Member
One of the most disappointing aspect of going digital is missing out of game manuals. Or so we thought, since the gaming industry got rid of them much earlier than the digital takeover, and now opening a physical game is just a plastic box with a plastic disc. Not much else, if any.
However, at $70 a game these days (is that just Sony at the moment?) we as consumer we need to know we are purchasing value. One way of getting such value (at least a little) is getting instruction manuals back.
Back then, well done manuals included incredible art, story bits, character introductions, tricks, tips, etc. Instructions were only a cherry of the cake where they should've been the entire cake. The manual was also the starting point of the quality of the game. Most of the time, a quality game had a quality instruction manual also.
One way to bring them back is digitally, of course. Sony did them with the PS Vita. I remember that the one from Gravity Rush was incredibly well done. It was the standard of digital manuals for PS Vita (In fact, Gravity Rush set such a high standard for everything about PS Vita, such as features, controls, etc). Other games had very good manuals, too but I don't remember them. Of course, there were many that were just a Word document looking thing with words that resembled instructions.
I can only imagine the beautiful instruction manuals Nintendo would do with games such as Breath of the Wild, Splatoon, Kirby, Metroid, etc. Square Enix would do incredible instruction manuals for Final Fantasy XVI, Dragon Quest XI, Nuer Automata. OF course Capcom's Street Fighter 6 with its art-style.
Of course instruction manuals don't serve its purpose that much anymore, since many games already have tutorials (some even too long), but they were much more than instructions, as I mentioned above.
Yeah, I know, let me have my dream. It's obvious they'll never come back.
However, at $70 a game these days (is that just Sony at the moment?) we as consumer we need to know we are purchasing value. One way of getting such value (at least a little) is getting instruction manuals back.
Back then, well done manuals included incredible art, story bits, character introductions, tricks, tips, etc. Instructions were only a cherry of the cake where they should've been the entire cake. The manual was also the starting point of the quality of the game. Most of the time, a quality game had a quality instruction manual also.
One way to bring them back is digitally, of course. Sony did them with the PS Vita. I remember that the one from Gravity Rush was incredibly well done. It was the standard of digital manuals for PS Vita (In fact, Gravity Rush set such a high standard for everything about PS Vita, such as features, controls, etc). Other games had very good manuals, too but I don't remember them. Of course, there were many that were just a Word document looking thing with words that resembled instructions.
I can only imagine the beautiful instruction manuals Nintendo would do with games such as Breath of the Wild, Splatoon, Kirby, Metroid, etc. Square Enix would do incredible instruction manuals for Final Fantasy XVI, Dragon Quest XI, Nuer Automata. OF course Capcom's Street Fighter 6 with its art-style.
Of course instruction manuals don't serve its purpose that much anymore, since many games already have tutorials (some even too long), but they were much more than instructions, as I mentioned above.
Yeah, I know, let me have my dream. It's obvious they'll never come back.