Did you read the manuals for games back in the day?
What about when you get into a older game nowadays? Do you look at its manual at all?
It's pretty much necessary for a lot of games.
Yes but a lot of the manuels to my old games have been lost :(
It's something I really despise about modern gaming, the decline of game manuals.
>>3189775
I never appreciated manuals, back in the day. Whenever I had a problem in a game, I never thought to look it up. I just played every game with a trial and error mindset.
But when I got older, and everyone stopped putting expansive manuals with their games, I missed them. I read them all the time, now.
Actually, as a kid I could never beat a certain level on this platformer. I can't remember what exactly it was. But, in it, there's a boss battle where you have to shoot projectiles straight up, and I never knew how to do it. Years later, I read the manual and found that you had to press a certain direction and button while crouched to do it.
Would have saved me a lot of frustration.
i've forgotten way more good manuals or in-box-bits than ones i can remember. guild wars had a lore book, and i remember syndicate wars having different themed manuals that were like written "in character" i think, like an operator's manual?
chuck yeager's air combat legit came with an aerial maneuvers bible, and it was almost as thick as the actual bible. that was the real deal from the man himself.
>>3189775
Yes, I did read them. A magical moment was experienced with the NES Prince of Persia manual near Xmas 1993. I already knew that my parents were gonna give that game to me as a Christmas present. I knew where the presents, the game included, were hidden. While they were away, I snuck to the cache and took the Pop manual out of the box and just spent a while reading it under the Xmas lights, preparing myself for my first run with the game on Christmas Eve. Great times.
I'd usually read them at some point. It was mostly out of curiosity to see what they did with it and how it was laid out. I remember some old game manuals had a surprising amount of character. The DK64 manual, for example, was entirely narrated by Cranky Kong. So he's giving you advice on how to play and also just insulting all of the other characters, and talking about how old games were, and all that.
Not /vr/, but Wario World on Gamecube also had a booklet like that, completely written and narrated by Wario, which actually managed to be funnier than I would have expected.
It was always nice when they'd do something fun like that, it kind of extended the package beyond the game itself in just a little way.
Back when I was naive enough to think I'd ever be a "Video Game Maker", I always wanted to make a huge, expansive Dungeon Crawl game that had came with a huge strategy guide sizes manual.
I remember drawing up a layout for how the book would look in my 6th grade English class, and getting in trouble...
>>3189775
Sometimes when I was stuck with something
Today only to see some pictures, some of them were really well made
I love game manuals
Where I live there was a publisher called FX Interactive that always made top quality manuals and i was always excited to check out what they brought.
If I had them. Most of the games I had were pirated and I only had the stuff to pass copy protection.
Nowadays I will if I can get my hand on them.
all the time
i used to always read the manual before i first started up the game. nowadays i usually have a quick run of the game, like 15min, and then look things up in the manual.
most retrogames i buy come without a manual, so i look up wikis or faqs online.
also i miss old style manuals, that actualla had several pages and were often beautifully illustrated, today you get something the size of a postcard with the basic moves on it.
The main one I remember is the one that came with Pokemon Red and Blue. The way it was set up to be like a trainer's field guide was really neat to me, and seeing the semi-filled out pokedex in the back of it really got me pumped up.
I'd actually kick the shit out of kids who'd brag about stealing the manuals out of rentals, I'd crack those things open and just devour them as reading material. Earliest games I could really understand them was X-Com: UFO Defense for our 386, but read them up until they stopped packaging them with rentals and around the time they became strictly control guides and nothing more.
I always really liked it when game manuals include comics in them. Off the top of my head, Comix Zone, Flashback, and Bubsy 1 and 2 had comics in the manuals. What other game manuals did that?
Used to love them.
>>3189775
I never touched the manuals, truth be told I don't miss them. I like game feelies though, art books and the like are great.
>>3190847
My local Video store would make black and white photocopes of the manuals and include those, the black levels were way too high though and all the art would be illegible.
>>3189775
http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php
have at it boys.
always used to read the manuals, specially take them to school as we didnt even have tamagotchi by then let alone phones or internet connected personal devices!
>対戦相手と自分のアイテムをチェンジ
wtf? I dont rember any switch item item even in competition mode
based Japan full colour manuals and 6 button controller
>>3191037
>I dont rember any switch item item even in competition mode
I remember it in sonic 2. Would always provide some hilarious fuck you moments.
JP manual has concept art!
>what sonic could have looked like haha
>>3191025
came here to post that.
I did love reading them, but not to know about the workings of the game, the fun part is finding them out as you play, but as a complement to it, another part of the whole experience.
http://www.gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Nintendo_Game_Boy//Manual/formated/Pokemon_-_Red_Version_-_1998_-_Nintendo.pdf
>>3189775
I would never play any cart w/o reading the manual.
Nowadays games typically lack manuals, or have replaced them entirely with in-game tutorials.
>>3191605
>Nowadays games typically lack manuals, or have replaced them entirely with in-game tutorials.
Which is super annoying. When you play a game for the first time you can read and re-read the manual at your own pace, you can look up bits, skip over the stuff you feel familiar with, etc. When you replay a game, you can ignore the manual entirely, as you know all the stuff already. And regardless of you being a beginner or a pro, the game assumes you know your stuff, and does not feel condescending or baby-talking.
With a tutorial, the speed of "learning" is forced on you. No going back, no retrying, no skipping over the things you know, and especially with the games that have tightly integrated tutorials, they'll always treat you like a noob, no matter how familiar you are with them. They'll always pretend you fell and forgot how to game. It's making re-plays very frustrating.
Tutorials are NOT a manual replacement, can not be.
>>3191640
Ocarina of Time has both a full manual and annoying tutorials. I get that they expected players to be less familiar with 3D games, but if I've got a manual saying I can open the door with the a button, and the a button symbol at the top of the screen says "open," I really don't need Navi to stop me and tell me I can open the door with the a button.
Bitches, leave.
Manuals were almost as interesting to me as the games themselves. Just loved the artwork and the lore. They were a vital part of putting yourself in the mood to play a particular game. Back then actually playing a game could be a let down because the game would not always be as good as the manual made it seem (I suppose you need to be a certain age to appreciate this). Also, like books you have that fresh manual smell. Each one had it's own smell which I associated with the game. I remember metal gear solid having this kind of waxy/oil smell like that smell you get from serious waterproof camping gear.
>>3191835
>Manuals were almost as interesting to me as the games themselves
got to keep in mind, manuals were also written to be that interesting. They had a design to reflect the game, some backstory, or a writing style matching the game. Look up the MDK manual and you'll be rolling on the floor. In the case of 8-bit and 16-bit manuals they were also a way to see the character design artwork, which really helped to fuel the imagination when playing these games. Not saying 16-bit is ugly, far from it, but for technical reasons they couldn't do what the manual artwork did.
Contrast with modern manuals, that are little more than a "how to load" card and an overview of the controller. All the little bits and details are gone.
>>3191835
>Also, like books you have that fresh manual smell.
That was always the best part. Forgot about how much I missed that new game smell when opening up a new game. I'm sure the manual was a big part in that.
I live way out in the woods so back in the day before internet shopping became big, I would have to ride in the car for an hour before I got home and could play the game. I would read the manuals and get psyched up for it, and then get super car sick and puke everywhere.
>>3189775
I miss the old days of manuals.
A lot of the time, the manuals would help to create the magic that the game couldn't - give you a backstory, gorgeous world maps and character breakdowns. I miss that lore.
One of my favourites was Ultima IV on the Master System which came with a whole fucking BOOK you had to read. The game even told you to read it during the intro before going any further. Pic related.
