Strategy Guide Reviews

A Strategy Guide for your Strategy Guides

Unboxing the Horizon: Zero Dawn Collector’s Edition Strategy Guide

By Leave a Comment

We’ve been patiently waiting for Future Press to publish their strategy guide for Horizon: Zero Dawn, and it’s finally here. Many of you lucky ducks got yours on Friday, but I had to wait until Tuesday for mine. Doesn’t Amazon KNOW I’m the strategy guide aficionado around here? I’m supposed to get this stuff first. I think most of the rest of the world knows this by now. Amazon needs to step up their game!

I am pretty blown away about this guide, and I haven’t even used it for the game yet. I admit I’m a little biased toward Future Press off the bat, but they haven’t let me down with a strategy guide yet. I think Chris can concur with me. He still raves about their Dark Souls and Soul Calibur V strategy guides.

But without further ado, here is Future Press’ Horizon: Zero Dawn collector’s edition strategy guide.

Nioh Strategy Guide from Future Press Available for Preorder

By 1 Comment

Nioh strategy guideFuture Press has been so quiet for so long, and now they’re doing ALL THE THINGS! It’s been confirmed that they are publishing a guide-ish book for The Last Guardian and an official Horizon: Zero Dawn strategy guide. Now an official Nioh strategy guide has popped up on Amazon for preorder.

Nioh released on February 7, 2017, and its tales of extreme difficulty have already made the rounds. I personally hated Nioh within the first two minutes of playing, due to its steep difficulty. I wondered if there would be a strategy guide, as both the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne had fantastic strategy guides. Oh wait, Future Press did all those too, didn’t they? Why am I not surprised?

But I digress. Nioh is already out, but the strategy guide will not hit store shelves until April 12, 2017. Future Press did something quite similar with Bayonetta, where the book released months after the game did. That said though, the strategy guide was impeccable. Since the Nioh strategy guide is releasing a couple of months later, it will include the game’s DLC as well.

Team Ninja’s Nioh is the very definition of an epic-scale game in need of an encyclopedic tome, and we’re not going to let it go without.

The Future Press Collector’s Edition Guide contains the sum of countless hours, innumerable deaths and monumental victories to bring you everything you’ll ever want to know about Nioh’s incredibly deep and expansive world. From its myriad combat options and strategies, to its wonderful fusion of Japanese culture, history and mythology, we’ll share every little nuance. Nothing is omitted or overlooked – we explore the game’s creation, from concept art stage to release, delve into its story and illuminate its darkest areas with highly detailed maps. Covering not only the base game but all three of the upcoming story DLCs and PVP additions, this book will arm you with the knowledge to send samurai, Yokai and other online players back to the world of spirits.

Now all I have to do is convince Chris to pick up the game so he can review the guide. This game has his name all over it.

Horizon: Zero Dawn Strategy Guide Hailing From Future Press

By 9 Comments

Words cannot express how stoked I am that Future Press is producing the strategy guide for Horizon: Zero Dawn. I haven’t had a Future Press guide in my hands in a long time, and I cannot wait to see what they do with Guerrilla Games’ new IP. I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I can’t help it with this strategy guide. Just look at how beautiful it is:

Horizon Zero Dawn strategy guide

Above all else, I know that Future Press’ guide will be of high quality when it comes to presentation. The paper will be high quality as well as the artwork within. The organization should be rather fantastically efficient as well. The question, of course, always comes back to the quality of the content, but I have faith in Future Press. It may be misplaced faith, but they’ve never steered me wrong yet. I know Chris can vouch for them as well.

Who will be preordering this beauty? It’s already up on Amazon!

Initial Impressions of the Dark Souls III Strategy Guide by Prima Games

By Leave a Comment

I finally got my grubby hands on the Dark Souls III strategy guide by Prima Games. As we’ve had some questions come in about this guide I figured I would make a small video covering unboxing, initial impressions, and should you buy it. The biggest question I start to tackle is how well does the Prima Games guide stack up to the rock solid guides that Future Press published on the earlier games in this series. Well, a small spoiler on that. It doesn’t hold up well. Yeah, I’m sad and I haven’t even finished the guide.

The Corner of Randomness: I Will Miss You Future Press

By 1 Comment

future-pressOn the SGR Coffee Break this week, Keri and I talked about the differences between strategy guide companies. Over the past few years of being a part of this site, I’ve had the privilege to review guides form all manner of publisher. Some guides have been shockingly terrific, while others have been total letdowns. It almost didn’t matter who published them. I would have low expectations for a guide, just because of the game it was covering, but the guide would totally surprise me. Meanwhile, the opposite would happen when I had high expectations for a guide based on prior experiences with the publisher.

Yet, there is one company that has never let me down. That company is Future Press. Yeah, their guides might not be as flashy as some. The pages tend to be loaded with text and a few screenshots here and there. They feel more like a text book than what other companies put out for strategy guides. They often didn’t include a whole lot of extras in the way of additional e-guides, PS4 themes, or even artwork sections. The nicety you got was pretty much limited to a kick-ass cover with some artwork completely befitting the game. At this point, you might be questioning why I say Future Press has never let me down.

My second (more on the first in a bit) experience with a Future Press strategy guide comes in the way of Soul Calibur V. Yeah, they made a guide for a fighting game. This isn’t something new. Lots of fighting games receive strategy guides. Well except Mortal Kombat X. Grrr. /frustration Anyway, back on track. The guide covered the game well. Lots of charts with vital information on attacks and combos. It contained a lot of meat. The guide couldn’t do jack for my lack of frame perfect inputs, but it sure did teach me the finer nuances of this game. Out of the Future Press guides I have reviewed, this received the lowest score of a 4/5. Yeah, it’s still a solid score.

To me, Future Press shines the most with their Dark Souls (my first Future Press guide), Dark Souls II, and Bloodborne guides. All three of these guides provided a wealth of information on the games they were covering. True, the pages were not all shiny and sparkly, but rather something that felt ripped from and encyclopedia. Yet, that’s fine as the data they presented was so spot on. The guides never really let me down. As I mentioned in the podcast this week, the Dark Souls guide was so good, my brother-in-law had to buy himself one after I took mine back home with me. He subsequently also bought the Dark Souls II guide just because of how good the first one was.

As Keri mentioned in the podcast, it is uncertain if Future Press strategy guides will be coming to the U.S. anymore. With all this licensing garbage we have to deal with now, added to the fact that they are a European company, the financials just might not be in-line for them to keep shipping us guides. Let’s face it; dealing with all the licensing contracts, manufacturing costs, shipping costs, and then have a small amount of guides roll off store shelves isn’t exactly a high profit game. Yet, I hope they do keep making strategy guides. You can bet your ass if they make a Dark Souls III guide that is only available in Europe, I will be importing that sucker.

I do hope we see more of Future Press. Their strategy guides have always set a high bar when it comes to the quality of information they provide. Yet, I’m not delusional. I know that Bloodborne: The Old Hunters might be the last guide the US will see from them. Future Press, I already miss you and our future together is so uncertain at this point. Can we hold hands and walk off into the sunset just one last time?

Top Posts & Pages