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What I Look for in Strategy Guides: Achievements/Trophies

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I can’t imagine a publisher NOT setting aside an appendix for the Achievements/Trophies of a game, but I can say that if I come across one, that’s an automatic loss of two points. And I mean two points out of five for the overall score. A guide that fails to mention them is like a non-Wii game that fails to have them: upsetting to the user.

However, I look more to this section than just a simple list of the Achievements/Trophies and their point values. I check to see if the game announces what difficulty you play on to the world, which is something I personally hate. I don’t like seeing my list of Achievements announcing that I ONLY beat the game on Normal or sometimes, Easy. So I check the list to see how I will be potentially embarrassing myself with this game if I need to lower the difficulty to Easy. I never said I was the best gamer, and sometimes a game gets the best of me.

Once I check for that, I look to see if the guide gives any tips on how to complete some of the Achievements/Trophies. The guides for Bayonetta and Final Fantasy XIII both do this very, very well. They tell players where to go, what accessories to equip, what levels they should be if necessary, and then what to do. I have seen guides that just say, “Do this” without any real direction on what to do. I’m not an Achievement whore or Trophy hoarder, but many people out there are, and this info is important to them. Not only that, but a guide just isn’t complete without this info, just like a game wouldn’t be complete without these virtual rewards.

There are people out there who won’t play PSP games due to the lack of Trophies. This is the new world we live in, and I expect the guides to keep up. Fortunately, very few have not.

In My Mailbox

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Mass Effect and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars strategy guides

Two new guides for my latest expeditions. I’ve decided to bump Darksiders for now in favor of some RPG time. I’ve played several action games in a row, and I need a little break. I have a few friends who have been harping on me to play Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 for some time now, so this seemed to be as good a time as any. I have nothing demanding my attention until Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep releases in September, so it’s about time to get Mass Effect out of the way. It’s also written by two of my favorite guide authors, Bryan Stratton and Stephen Stratton, so I can’t wait.

There is actually a funny story behind the Mario guide. See, that wasn’t the guide I meant to buy. I meant to buy the guide for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, since that is the game that MattG actually loaned me. I’m going to have to purchase Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on WiiWare. But I got them mixed up on eBay, (they have similar names, after all) so this one came first. The other is on its way.

And yes, I will have guide reviews up soon of BOTH Bayonetta and Portal.

How hard is it to write a strategy guide when you dislike the game?

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Granted, this question doesn’t really matter, because a gig is a gig and you grin and bear it when there’s a paycheck at the very end. I know I’ve done it with a fair number of my freelancing projects (the Angel episode summary project comes to mind first), but it made it harder for me to open the laptop and write each time, even when deadlines were on the line.

However, when a guide writer dislikes a game, it’s more than a matter of just writing about it. They have to play the game they dislike for hours at a time for consecutive days, endure the bad gameplay, suffer through the poorly written dialogue and story, cringe at the sub-par graphics. At least when game reviewers suffer through a terrible game, they only have to spend an hour or two at most cranking out a review that reflects their utter (and tactful) disgust. Guide writers, though, have to spend several more hours constructing maps, writing every last detail of it, and basically relive it for another week or so. They have more to do each day than a journalist who is handed a crappy story that will fill 60 seconds of TV time or a small scrap of space on the sixth page of the Metro section.

As much as I love to write, play games and try to combine the two, I’m not sure I could be a cheerful participant on such a project. I grumble when I have to play and review PSP Minis I don’t like, and I can beat most PSP Minis within minutes. I can’t imagine giving that much time on playing and writing about a game. I suppose the paycheck at the end is worth it (it was with the Angel project), but I guess it depends on how much you really want to stay in the business. Take a few bad games and hope that the next one is a game you like.

Although when I asked Dan Birlew how he felt about writing guides for games he disliked, he said, “It’s all equally hard.” And no, he didn’t say and I didn’t ask which games he disliked, but I bet I could guess. 🙂

When Guides Don’t Give Good Advice

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The problem with guides is that the strategies they offer aren’t fool proof and they don’t work for everyone. The first example that comes to mind is the strategy proffered for defeating dragon Maleficent in Kingdom Hearts. If I remember correctly (too lazy to pull out the guide), the guide instructed the player to run up the back of the dragon’s tail and up her back so you could execute a flying Keyblade attack to the back of her head. As soon as I got near her tail, she bitch-slapped me across the room. I said screw that and used my tried-and-true RARRRRRRRRRRRR method, where I jumped around like a maniac and beat her dragonhead to a pulp. It worked, dammit. But I guess that’s not a good strategy to offer. The words don’t look as nice, anyway.

Last night I ran into a beast of a story mission. I had to protect a medical crate from waves of Reapers. The guide said there are four waves of them, but I couldn’t get past the second one. I tried what the guide told me to do, which was stand my ground and strafe the bombers with lightning bolts. I always missed one of them, which resulted in either the destruction of the medical crate or the destruction of me. Both ended in a failed mission. The guide also suggested using the Precision attack to slow time down and help aim towards the bombers. Well, when you’re having difficulty aiming quickly with the analog sticks, this method doesn’t help either.

I went to GameFAQs for help, and the lovely piece of advice each walkthrough gave was, “when you beat the bombers, your next wave is….” Seriously, how is that close to a strategy?

I was ready to quit the game, and I really didn’t want to. Thank God for gaming buddies. I e-mailed mine this morning with my dilemma, and he asked me if I tried lowering the difficulty level yet. You can do that?? Did the guide ever mention it?

To the guide’s credit, it does mention it in the very beginning when it goes over the controls and the menus. However, it would be nice if it occasionally suggested lowering the difficulty, especially when the guide points out that a particular scenario is difficult, which it does.  The guide is very good about offering additional tips to difficult areas of the game. It should offer reminders as well about lowering the difficulty when it offers additional tips for difficult missions.

Don’t tell me guides don’t do that, because the guide for The World Ends with You suggested the same for problematic boss fights.

I haven’t retried the mission on an easier setting because I spent all my gaming time hunting for blast shards. I hadn’t really searched for them before, and my gaming coach advised me to upgrade my battery cores a little bit before attempting the story mission again.

So wish me good luck tomorrow night. If I have as much trouble with the same bomber wave again, I may have to vent my anger on the game with a sledgehammer.

What I Look for in a Good Strategy Guide, Part 1

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A good strategy guide has more than a detailed walkthrough, although this is one of the most important pieces to the work. I’ll get to what the walkthrough needs in another post.

The first and foremost items of a good guide are the maps. Every area should include a map as well as a map of the Overworld (if there is one) either at the front of the guide or in the very back. The only exception I can think of for this rule is the Kingdom Hearts games, because the KH Overworld does not allow for pillaging for items or exploration for new areas, enemies, etc. The area maps should clearly designate the rooms, items to be found, save points (if any), and hidden areas (if any).

The next most important elements are the appendices of enemies, items, accessories, enemies, bosses, spells (if any), and equipment. One guide that went above and beyond the call of duty for this was the Lost Odyssey guide which also provided appendices of hidden items already plotted out on area maps. If I could meet these writers, I’d give them freshly baked cookies just for that.

Sure, you need the walkthroughs and boss tactics, but that’s just the meat of a good guide. These are the bread and cheese, and these are usually the things that seasoned players use a guide for, if they use a guide at all.

However, this doesn’t mean I can forgive a guide for a terrible walkthrough just because the bread is fresh and the cheese is tasty. It just means that I won’t stamp an “F” on the front cover and burn it in effigy.

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