How many of you buy and use strategy guides with your games?

Bluevoodu

Bluevoodu

Site Founder
Just curious... how many of you either buy strategy guides with the games you get.... or buy them after the purchase of your game (later down the road after you played your game for awhile).

I am just curious as to the popularity of strategy guides.

Post it up :)

†B†V† :hat
 
I never have, I just don't see the point. I'll get codes for some of my games on the net once I beat them and they're boring, just for some replay value, but I've never payed for a strategy guide before. It's like letting someone else play through the game for you.
 
Humm I bought one, it was for the Zelda games on GB, accually i didn't really buy it, my friend game it to me. ::D
 
I feel like a lamer because I almost always end up getting strategy guides. They are especially useful for RPGs, I find.

Also, some stores have a deal where if you buy the strategy guide at the same time you buy the game, you get 20% off the strategy guide. If I know I'm going to end up getting the strat guide anyway, I just buy it with the game.

A lot of strategy guides are just because I find visuals more helpful. I could probably find more useful info on GameFAQs but I like to see the pictures in the strategy guide.

And finally, when we stop selling certain strategy guides at work, they just get thrown away if none of the employees take them, so I have picked up a few free strategy guides that way.
 
I also get strategy guides for Zelda games. They come free with a Nintendo Power yearly subscription.

:af :af :af
 
I've only gotten two guides, one for FF7 and one for SCII. I got the one for Soul Caliber II one Christmas (along with the game and VJ). The FF7 one I got elsewhere, about 3 years after I actually got the game. I did find a few things I missed (actually quite a few), and was able to get the Knights of the Round" Materia, which pathetically killed the final boss after its use.
 
ive got quite a few guides =P lol

I won't use them first time round. well i try not to anyway unless im completly suck and about the throw the computer out the window lol. But if i want to play it again and get everything or things i missed then ya ill use it
 
The only time I will not stab you for using a guide is when you grab one for a FF like RPG, any other time you will be shot on sight. Why only RPG? Because I belive that a lot of people, like myself, only play RPGs for the story. And like a good book we don't want to be held back reading as much as we can. I don't want to spend hours on some kind of dumb search quest for one friggin person in one friggin town on the entire planet. They take no skill to them so I just bust out an online guide, find where he is, and save myself a couple hours of bordem and frustration.
 
They are good for boss strategies, too. Sometimes I've come across bosses that I just can't figure out how to beat, and the strategy guide came in handy.
 
I don't agree with using a guide for an RPG. I know a kid who buys the guide with the game, like Mai, and then he just follows the guide through the whole game so he can make sure all his guys have the best stats and items and such. I think that's ridiculous, you may as well just watch someone play through the game for you. Hell, you you may as well just read the strategy guide, because that's all you'll be doing anyway, exactly what it tells you.

Now, it's different if you get stuck or are playing through a second time, that sort of thing, but the fun of getting stuck is figuring out what to do. The reason I enjoy games like Zelda so much is that when I get stuck, I go and find something else to do, and once I get stuck there, I go back to what I was stuck on before with a different perspective, and most of the time, this method works for getting around obstacles. If you're just gonna read a guide telling you how to do it there's no reward in figuring it out yourself, you're missing half the experience. However, if you just want to see how the story progresses, that's different too, but I still think you should do it on your own, the first time through anyway.
 
Yeah stealth, i only use them when i get stuck in the game, like i might start and stuff if i get stuck i try to find out what to do for a few minutes, but if i dont get it then i turn to the guide.
 
Guides are great for when you're stuck. I've had times when I've tried everything and nothing works. Instead of quitting the game I check the guide and get back to playing. :af
 
I completely agree with stealth. Video games should be experienced by yourself, using a guide just skips through the experience.

One of my biggest regrets of my gaming life was using a Final Fantasy VII strategy guide I found in a Playstation magazine to get the ultimate weapons for my party. This was both the first time I played FFVII and the first time I played a FF game. Thinking back on it, I wonder how much more of a challenge and an experience I would of had if I either came across the weapons by self experience or just tried to beat Sephiroth the honest way. I feel like I sold out. Now I just see Strategy guides as the steroids of the gaming world :p

They're not all bad though. I see nothing wrong with using one to pick up one what you missed after beating a game yourself, or when you play through a game for a second time. If people want to use them during their first playthrough, fine...just don't try and tell me that it's not a big deal because i'm extremely obsessive when it comes to rules and the "honest way" of playing games.
 
Heh.
I get mine free from Nintendo Power, though I don't use them until I'm done, to see if I missed anything.

Oh, and I use gamefaqs.com . Or I just use my own walkthroughs I make myself :lol
 
If you had sold strategy guides for the Neogeo titles I bought from you, I would have bought them the day of purchase. Unfortunately though, I think that all Neogeo strategy guides are in Japanese, and I would very much like an English version. :(
 
For all of the games I have strategy guides for, though, I have always tried to get through the game without using it. If I get stuck and can't figure out something for the life of me, though, I will check out the strategy guide. It's a last resort kind of thing. And there are some hard games, including rpgs, that I don't have guides for at all, including Fire Emblem and Ninja Gaiden. I've been able to get through Fire Emblem pretty well just by trial and error.
 
:lol so it seems like 50/50 ....


well... lets say this... what type of games do you use stategy guides the most for?
RPG? Fighting? Sports? etc?

†B†V† :hat
 
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