Strategy Guide Reviews

A Strategy Guide for your Strategy Guides

The To-Be-Reviewed Stack

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And here it is, my current stack of to-be-reviewed guides, in the order I’d like to go.

I have Okami and Twilight Princess side-by-side right now because I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tackle Twilight Princess this year or not. As much as I love Legend of Zelda games, I really think that one a year is enough. Although if Spirit Tracks really does come out this year…arrrrrgh I just can’t make up my mind. I’ll probably have to leave it up to the god of the almighty coin toss.

Note that this stack doesn’t include my stack of retro reviews, which are pretty much only Final Fantasy games. Not in a huge hurry for any of those, except maybe Final Fantasy X because I have a friend that constantly pokes me about it.

Retro Reviews: Final Fantasy VII

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It’s really interesting to see how far strategy guides have come. Before the internet was so readily accessible, I believe Nintendo Power hosted the original concept for strategy guides in their magazine back in the 1980s. Oh the glorious Zelda hints. And weren’t we all thankful for the first two world walkthroughs for Super Mario Bros. 2? Well, those old enough to remember them or even existed were thankful.

So here I am playing Final Fantasy VII and using the guide, both created in 1997. The graphics of the game aren’t the only things outdated, that’s for sure. A guide of this caliber would NEVER make it today. Okay, that was a little harsh. A guide of this caliber would flounder today.

It’s helpful, don’t get me wrong. The dungeon mazes aren’t so obvious (to me) at times, so it’s been very helpful then and for pointing me towards wayward items. Without the guide, I’m more than certain I would never have found the Long Range materia for Cloud.

So what is my beef with it?

Final Fantasy VII, so far, likes to put you in these areas that you just can’t easily walk through. It’s like a maze or an obstacle course or a combination of the two. Things block your path, and you have to go over and under objects that aren’t clear you CAN go over or under them until you try. And while you’re trying to figure out where you can go (Will Cloud jump to that train? Or should I try to see if I can push the train over there and try to climb over it?) there are plenty of random battles to frustrate you.

When these instances come up, the guide only shows you a screenshot of the area and tells you to maneuver through it. There are no hints about where to go. No suggestions of which objects you can move. The screenshot and guidance are utterly useless here. I’m not here to debate about whether this sequence is hard. Obviously it really isn’t too difficult, or I wouldn’t be as far with the game as I am. But the point is, as a GUIDE, it should GUIDE you through these obstacle courses.

Before I close this portion of the FF7 retro review, I will say that the guide contains one item all RPGs should have: an OVERWORLD MAP! Glee!

Flipping Through the inFamous Strategy Guide

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Yep, I couldn’t help myself when I was in Best Buy today picking up inFamous. I just had to pick up the guide too. I’m still playing catch-up from my stint in the Bahamas so I have no time to play the game, but I wanted to flip through the guide just to see what it had to behold without reading too much of it (I’d like to avoid spoilers).

When I flipped open to a random page, I instantly knew I had made a great purchase. This guide is FILLED with gorgeous, comic-book styled art from the game. Every chapter title page is a large splash of game art. The back of the guide has an art gallery. I’ve never found a guide that looked so much like an artbook, something else I really really love. I’ve had guides with beautiful posters (Twilight Princess, Crisis Core) but none with art galleries. I’d recommend this purchase to anyone who likes collecting artbooks, no matter if they like guides or not.

After I closed my mouth and wiped up the drool, I looked at the table of contents. Everything seems to be in order. There’s a list of controls, characters, enemies, and trophies, a story walkthrough and walkthroughs for all of the sidequests. So far, the set-up of the game and the guide is very reminiscent of Crisis Core, which could be good. And it could be bad. I’ll have to find out when I start playing.

Of course, I started to wonder about the maps. I flipped through it with a little more purpose, and I found oodles of maps, much to my delight (and I avoided reading any spoilers!). Each Day in the story walkthrough and each sidequest have their own personalized maps. And… (drumroll!) there is a gigantic fold-out map of the entire Empire City in the back.

At a first glance, this guide is worth every penny. Even if it offers horrible advice, I’m still pleased just for the vast art content.

FF7 Almost Meant for PSP

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The night I was finally able to successfully download Final Fantasy VII on my PSP (no thanks to youuuu, Time Warner Cable) I had to try the game out. You know, just to make sure that it works. Does it save and all that jazz. A few hours later, after discovering within minutes it works fine, I had to stop playing because my eyes were too bleary. And I’ve been playing every night since.

I haven’t yelled at Cloud once (but it’s still early in the game) and I think it’s because the graphics are ten times crisper and cleaner on the PSP screen than on my HD TVs. Let’s face it; PSone games were never meant for our high tech TVs. And FF7 on my LCD TV was not a pretty picture. People kept telling me to not be so harsh on the old game. I was biased due to the current graphics-style and crap like that. People obviously forget that I play Nintendo games, which have never ever been about the graphic content.

But I wasn’t being harsh. The old graphics are heavily pixelated and this does not translate well on modern TVs. The images aren’t clean. The pixels are blown up and distorted. I think this is part of the reason why I kept getting Cloud’s toe stuck on God knows what. So far in play on my PSP, I haven’t gotten him stuck once.

I’m having so much more fun playing it on the PSP than on the big screen. I feel myself actually wanting to play instead of forcing myself like I did before. And even though the guide is incredibly old, I’m going to review it anyway. It should be a nice compare and contrast piece to how far guides have come.

So as for Tales of Symphonia… I honestly don’t know. I think I’ll give it another chance before I boot it for good. I hope that other Tales games aren’t this bad because I really do want to try out Tales of Vesperia.

More Difficulties with Lost Odyssey Strategy Guide

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I get the feeling that by the end of writing the Lost Odyssey strategy guide that the writers got bored of writing. Like most guides, the writers placed the guide information for all of the sidequests at the end of the guide, but before the appendices. (However, they placed the Achievement appendix before the sidequests, which makes no sense to me, but whatever.) Most of the sidequests are not that long, but they feel hastily written. A few lack maps, and while it makes sense for a couple of areas not to include maps — one area is like the Lost Woods from the original Legend of Zelda — the largest sidequest that has many floors does not contain any maps. Maybe they found it difficult to construct a map since you can alter the floor with a press of a button and utilize many elevator pads to go from one floor to another. However, it doesn’t mean constructing the maps is flat out impossible. The writers did include a detailed walkthrough, but without maps as a reference guide, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lost. Might have better luck forging ahead on your own.

The walkthroughs also do not contain any information about the enemies you encounter other than the typical picture list of the enemy and its stats. It really would have been nice to know that if you physically attack one enemy, he will counterattack with a severe beatdown. It’s not that you can’t recover from said beatdown, and if you die, well, you regroup, develop a new strategy and try again, as you’re supposed to do with turn-based games. But if you do that, then what is the point of having the guide?

Most of the guide section for the Temple of Enlightenment sidequest makes you wonder why you have the guide in the first place. For areas like these, you’re using the guide to help you get from point A to point B as quickly as possible or to help you find all of the treasures (and no, it doesn’t do that at all). You aren’t using it to wander all over the place and get lost or stuck. You could do that on your own. But the guide can’t really help you in the desired manner if there are no maps, and it offers walkthrough instructions such as, “The best way to navigate this section is to remember what route you took starting from the save location; it’s a good centrally located landmark to help you keep your bearings.”

This is really the first time I’ve even counted on the guide, because this dungeon features elements I personally hate with a passion. I wanted to skip through them quickly. Looks like it’s the old fashioned way for me. At least I’ll level up a ton in the process.

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