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Nintendo Player's Guides

T

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
guide_zelda.jpg
guide_metroid.jpg
guide_mario64.jpg
guide_snes.jpg


Anyone else still holding on their older Nintendo Player's Guides? I can recall loving every SNES-based Nintendo guide I could get my hands on. The Link to the Past one in particular will always hold a special place in my geeky little heart. What could be better than learning every minuscule detail about a game I loved when I was stuck in a situation where I couldn't actually play it? These guides got me through many a family trip / doctor visit / whatever in my youth. Try though they may, the third-party guys just never had the detail featured in Nintendo's guides. I found my Super NES player's guide, but can't find my LttP and Super Metroid ones for the life of me and am half tempted to blow way too much money getting them off eBay. Anyways, consider this just another pointless jaunt down Nostalgia Lane, or consider it an excuse to post pictures of your gaming literature collection. :D
 
I have the SNES, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, NES Atlas, and NES Player's Guide from Nintendo Power. They are all great to go back to from time to time to kind of re-live those eras.
 
The NES players guide is still legendary for the sheer amount of screenshot maps per page. It doesn't get much more complete than that.

This was still back in the day with NP's crazy deals though. A 1 year sub could get you the NES guide, Mario Guide (Basically the SMW walkthrough with great art spreads), SNES guide, LTTP guide, and one other one I can't recall.
 
Crazymoogle said:
The NES players guide is still legendary for the sheer amount of screenshot maps per page. It doesn't get much more complete than that.

This was still back in the day with NP's crazy deals though. A 1 year sub could get you the NES guide, Mario Guide (Basically the SMW walkthrough with great art spreads), SNES guide, LTTP guide, and one other one I can't recall.
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The code book.
 
these guides were pretty much the only reason I ever had a subscription to Nintendo Power. They just kept giving them to me for free. My favourite guide is Earthbound :)
 
I have Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country 2, Zelda LTTP, Secret of Mana, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen guides. Some of those probably aren't Nintendo Player Guides.
 
If Nintendo would just dump these guides into downloadable PDF files and plop them on their site for $2 a piece or whatever, I'd be all over them. You hear that Nintendo? I'm willing to buy some more of your re-released old stuff. Get crackin'.
 
I loved back in the day when RPGs were packed in with foldout maps of the dungeons and weapons/items/armor lists, and packed with 80 page hintbooks detailing where to go. Dragon Warrior III, Final Fantasy, etc. Nowadays you get a 24 page booklet in black and white with an ad for the $15 BradyGames guide in the back.
 
I used to freaking love all players guides. But, even when I was a kid I realized that Nintendo had the best ones. I even had the Mario Paint guide. Lazy, I know, but it had some sweet templates for stamps and stuff.

Man, even when I was like 8 I still read about games more than I actually played them..
 
FortNinety said:
The greatest book ever written...

guide.jpg


If someone had a mint copy of this, I would pay handsomely, and I'm not kidding.
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Yeah, that book was great... remember those awesome Goonies 2 maps?
 
vatstep said:
I used to freaking love all players guides. But, even when I was a kid I realized that Nintendo had the best ones. I even had the Mario Paint guide. Lazy, I know, but it had some sweet templates for stamps and stuff.
Click to expand...

The Mario Paint guide was _awesome_. Set up the Zelda theme for music playback, draw some sprites, and then animate them in the most gruesome deathmatch this side of GTA.

Zaxxon: The Earthbound guide was pure insanity on Nintendo's part. Nothing like making a giant box for your game just to hold the guide!
 
I considered trying to collect the official Nintendo Player's Guides at one time. But kinda gave up on it. I do have a bunch for games I never actually bought though. I really love their guides -- they always have a good amount of info and artwork from the games. I still have my Super Mario Bros. guide and that Official Nintendo Player's Guide (it ain't mint though).
 


I loved the clay models of all the characters and the monsters in that thing! Wish I still had it around..
 
tedtropy said:
If Nintendo would just dump these guides into downloadable PDF files and plop them on their site for $2 a piece or whatever, I'd be all over them. You hear that Nintendo? I'm willing to buy some more of your re-released old stuff. Get crackin'.
Click to expand...

At various points, parts of these have been available as PDF files. The Zelda.com site the map sections from the NES Atlas, and I believe that the Link's Awakening guide was available as an entire PDF download.
 
DavidDayton said:
At various points, parts of these have been available as PDF files. The Zelda.com site the map sections from the NES Atlas, and I believe that the Link's Awakening guide was available as an entire PDF download.
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Nintendo should release a compilation CD or download of these guides. They love to profit off of our nostalgia, so why not do it for this?
 
I have the Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III guides. They're pretty good, though I was spoiled by the quality of Versus Books Perfect guides, which are even better.
 
Teddman said:
I have the Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III guides. They're pretty good, though I was spoiled by the quality of Versus Books Perfect guides, which are even better.
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Strategy guides just aren't why they used to be. They were once meticulous labors of love, now we have a flood of inaccurate, feature-less guides with beta-build screenshots and crap art. I blame Gamefaqs.com. Fuck them up their ASCII-loving buttocks! :D
 
never had a guide ever. does it make the game better? I find faqs are good enough for finding all the stuff you never did otherwise.
 
catfish said:
never had a guide ever. does it make the game better? I find faqs are good enough for finding all the stuff you never did otherwise.
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FAQs certainly come in handy, especially if you're just stuck in one particular place and need a little help, but if you really enjoy a game a nice strategy guide is a great compliment to it. I can remember the Super Metroid and Zelda: LttP being particularly great. Awesome artwork and maps and they really detailed the game from start to finish.
 
catfish said:
never had a guide ever. does it make the game better? I find faqs are good enough for finding all the stuff you never did otherwise.
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Well, that's the thing. I stopped buying guides after I discovered GameFAQs in like '98-99. It makes sense that a well-written FAQ would make a guide less of a necessity. But back in the day, it was the only way to go.
 
vatstep said:
Well, that's the thing. I stopped buying guides after I discovered GameFAQs in like '98-99. It makes sense that a well-written FAQ would make a guide less of a necessity. But back in the day, it was the only way to go.
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There's some great FAQs out there, but it's just not the same thing.
 
FortNinety said:
The greatest book ever written...

guide.jpg


If someone had a mint copy of this, I would pay handsomely, and I'm not kidding.
Click to expand...

I bought this off of eBay for $5 shipped a few years ago. Pretty good condition (like new almost). The only negative was that some kid had taken the stickers out and put them on the front and back covers, but not a big deal IMO. Yes, the Goonies II maps in this guide rock.


I remember when Nintendo Power still came out every other month they started sending guides to people in the "off" months. I still have the Super Mario Bros. 3 guide and the Ninja Gaiden 2 guide. I wish I still had the Final Fantasy 1 guide. Was a pretty big collector's item a few years ago.

tedtropy, I too wish Nintendo would .pdf their guides and sell them for a small fee. Hell, I wish ALL guide companies would do it with their out-of-print guides.
 
Managed to find some of the guides I do have amongst my stack of old Nintendo Power and game booklets...

ted_guides1.jpg


And just for a laugh...

ted_guides2.jpg
 
I have TONS of old magazines lying around the house. I have two huge trunks full of old Nintendo Powers (lost some over the years but have most up to about 1995), practically EVERY EGM & EGM2 from late 1990 'til about 1997, old Game Player's mags, some old GamePros and Computer Games & Video Entertainment, and a few N64 release-era GameFans.

Don't really know why I still have all this stuff. I guess I never bothered to get bored of it enough to lose track of it. I guess it's pretty cool to thumb through the old stuff every once in a while and see how much of a big deal older games and gaming events were at the time.


Guides I have:

That black Official Nintendo Player's Guide
Ogre Battle (SNES)
Street Fighter 2 (SNES)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NP)
Ninja Gaiden 2 (NP)
Zelda: OOT (Versus Books version - aka, nice as hell)
Final Fantasy 7 (Versus Books)
Chrono Cross (Brady Games Guide)

A bunch of printed-out FAQ's from GameFAQs (and other sites) over the years. (Pain in the butt to get off your couch and keep checking a computer .txt file every time you want some info. :lol)

I also have that IGN .pdf Skies of Arcadia Dreamcast guide they had a few years ago lying around on one of my old CD-R's somewhere. (Thought it was pretty well done, although I didn't really need it or use it to beat the game).
 
I would sometimes throw FAQs onto whatever PDA I owned at the time. About the only damn thing they were useful for in the end.
 
The NES Game Atlas. That thing is legendary to me. Just a no nonsense, no bullshit guide. It gave you the maps for every stage to tons of great games. And none of this skimping out on the end shit that most guides do nowadays. I miss the days of ultra detailed laid out maps. That would get me interested in guides again. Now we get guides for EVERYTHING, when back in the day it was like "wow, this game has a guide for it? It must be good!"
 
I think this would be a good thread to write this in. I'm looking for a Nintendo Guide that I had back in the day. I'm wondering if any of you know which one it is or if you have it.

It was a thick black guide. Dimensions of a paper and probably about half an inch thick. It came out during the first year of the NES. I believe it was called "Nintendo Power Guide" but I'm not sure. This was before Nintendo Power Existed. There were guides for many Nintendo games and at the end og the book, they had a bunch little previews of upcoming games such as Contra and Metroid. I don't recall much more about it. There were no reviews.
 
ParkPace said:
I have TONS of old magazines lying around the house. I have two huge trunks full of old Nintendo Powers (lost some over the years but have most up to about 1995), practically EVERY EGM & EGM2 from late 1990 'til about 1997, old Game Player's mags, some old GamePros and Computer Games & Video Entertainment, and a few N64 release-era GameFans.

Don't really know why I still have all this stuff. I guess I never bothered to get bored of it enough to lose track of it. I guess it's pretty cool to thumb through the old stuff every once in a while and see how much of a big deal older games and gaming events were at the time.


Guides I have:

That black Official Nintendo Player's Guide
Ogre Battle (SNES)
Street Fighter 2 (SNES)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NP)
Ninja Gaiden 2 (NP)
Zelda: OOT (Versus Books version - aka, nice as hell)
Final Fantasy 7 (Versus Books)
Chrono Cross (Brady Games Guide)

A bunch of printed-out FAQ's from GameFAQs (and other sites) over the years. (Pain in the butt to get off your couch and keep checking a computer .txt file every time you want some info. :lol)

I also have that IGN .pdf Skies of Arcadia Dreamcast guide they had a few years ago lying around on one of my old CD-R's somewhere. (Thought it was pretty well done, although I didn't really need it or use it to beat the game).
Click to expand...

WAIT
"That black Official Nintendo Player's Guide"

Do you have a scan of the cover?

Holy crap that's it!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8205955571&category=3605&rd=1

Thank you man! I've been looking for it for almost 15 years now. It was the greatest guide ever but i lost it when i moved in 1990.
 
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