Fungi Forums
Video Games => Mario Chat => Topic started by: jdaster64 on August 05, 2009, 10:28:58 PM
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So yeah, I've considered getting a few Mario game guides, and after searching via Ebay and Amazon, these are rough estimates for lowest Buy-it-Now price ranges from reputable users:
Super Mario All*Stars guide: $35-40 USD
Mario Kart Wii guide: $10-12 USD
Super Mario Galaxy guide: $10-12 USD (though I don't own the game, so I probably won't get it)
Are any or all of these worth it?
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Personally, I would really go for the Super Mario All-Stars guide because it's probably pretty rare. Since you don't have Super Mario Galaxy (the game), I would recommend getting that as well.
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I'm going to go ahead and say no on all of them. I don't know anything about the rarity of the SMAS guide, but $40 for a strategy guide is probably way overpriced. Those MKWii and SMG guides are about normal price, but strategy guides nowadays don't usually include any extras whatsoever (such as posters or concept art) and are typically not worth the paper they're printed on.
And that's before considering the fact that I detest the very idea of a book that tells you exactly how to play through a video game.
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Since the SMAS guide is both a reference tool and a collector's item, it's probably the most reccomendable of the three (provided that you're willing to shell out forty bucks for something which cost ten a decade-and-a-half ago). Mario Kart games are straightforward enough that you wouldn't be checking the guide regularly for anything but the "how to unlock everything (http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/wii/code/942008.html)" section. Finally, do yourself a favour and pick up both Galaxy and the guidebook next time you're able to. The Prima guidebook comes in three editions: Regular, Premiere and Collector's, the last of which contains rare character and concept art, but is no longer available in most stores.
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If I had money, I probably wouldn't be able to turn down the SMAS guide. I don't know about the Galaxy guide, but the MKW one has a poster of this:
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mariowiki.com%2Fimages%2Fd%2Fde%2FMario_kart_wii_artwork.JPG&hash=f2896d5057d0e61b734cb59e5eeef795)
None of them rival the deal I got, though. Best Buy had SimCity 4 guides for a penny one day. I don't know why.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotos-f.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ak-snc1%2Fhs132.snc1%2F5650_544102308004_55303319_32283653_1786407_n.jpg&hash=87128c78c6dbbee98e98de8de525f25f)
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I remember paying $40 for Nintendo Power's *official* SMRPG guide. It turned out to be indispensible, since everything from turning the Mystery Egg into the Sheep Attack with the B'Tub Ring to finding the one-chance hidden chest is Toadstool's castle would be impossible to discover otherwise.
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I almost never buy game guides when most of the information contained in them can be found on the internet.
That said, I'd go for the SMAS guide.
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The SMAS one contains 4 games with level maps (the SMB2 ones would be especially helpful), so I'm thinking $35 is reasonable.
Also, I'm already double-starred in MKW, so do you think it'd be worth $12 to try to triple-star the remaining 24 GPs and further improve my Time Trials and multiplayer skills?
BTW, another caveat: I'm moving to college in a few weeks and I won't have a Wii with me, but I have SMAS on my PC and at home.
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I remember getting game guides back in the day. Half of the reason was to be able to get 100% on the games (and figure out what the darn password is to the Sunken Ship in SMRPG - I actually had to call the Nintendo Power Hotline for that one, and they just gave it out as if "stop asking us about it, here's your answer, now move on to some other part of the game please". The guide is similarly straightforward so you don't go through the drama of the clues). The other half was to marvel at the artwork and whatever extras were available. Oh yeah, and finding out what the heck that Mystery Egg and B'Tub Ring are for like Weegee said.
In retrospect, it was more fun hearing about these secrets from the neighbor who happened to be playing the same game you are. Then you exclaim "this game gets deeper all the time!"
Regarding the guides I thought were the most useless, Mario Kart 64 and Wave Race: Blue Storm. They're not going to tell you anything you don't know as long as you know all the shortcuts and best line through the track. Yeah, there's also unlockables and "best times to beat" (which amused me to no end when I used MK64's shortcut for Frappe Snowland, easily beating the pro time in the back of the book considering every other track had them using shortcuts - Frappe Snowland had the one shortcut they missed), but again you probably already know about those. I guess the only reason I'd be interesting in them is to see a topdown view of the racetrack. I'd especially like to see that for an Extreme-G game considering how they twist and turn. I also thought the Star Fox 64 guide was useless. Pretty much all it tells you is where to be or what to do to score big, but no, it still relies on fast reflexes. I followed NP's advice and still couldn't get those medals. Then a YouTube video makes it look pathetically easy. The maps they have aren't too helpful either considering how vague they are. I suppose when 3D games came along, map-making became a lot tougher. The old guides for 2D platform or action games like SMB3 and SMW2 were great because they could print the map directly and then just point to spots on it to tell you exactly where each tip applies to. In the guides for 3D games, we might get a number and then a little box two pages away corresponding to it. Or in the case of RPGs, no number and you just have to follow the series of boxes to figure out where in the sequence of events you are.
But the thing that really annoys me about guides is when it's for a game that has you collect stuff and they have a checklist in the guide (or a checklist of event points to hit). Let alone the likelyhood that I'll forget what I have and haven't collected, trying to re-collect old stuff because I forgot which one thing out of 20 is missing, I'm not going to write in my guide. Who knows, I might play the game again in the future. Last thing I want is to open the guide and see a series of checkmarks on each page. They would just taunt me, and it probably ruins the value of selling it off to someone else.
By the way, Super Mario All-Stars guide looks like the best guide ever if it's what I think it is. I glanced at the Mario Mania guide and was disappointed that it's basically a Super Mario World guide, SMB1-3 instruction manual, and a few misc pages (granted, interesting stuff like a comparison of Mario's jumping and running in the different games, but there's not a lot of it). I was thinking it'd be a full guide of all four of those games. So this is probably what I was thinking of. I remember back in the day of renting NES games from Half-Price Books at the mall, there were two player's guides for SMB2, one for each half of the game.
Edit: If anyone remembers getting SimCity 3000 Unlimited and seeing the 226-page manual that came with it... that's not a manual, that's a frickin' novel serving as a strategy guide. I think the manuals for flight simulator games are even longer. Wonder if anyone who played those games thought they might as well be doing the real thing, since I'd consider it work to get through a manual of that size.
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I agree with most of that. I do have Mario Mania, and treasure it, even in its increasingly decrepit state.
There was an All-Stars guide? Makes sense, though I've never heard of it. Definitely sounds rare--and worth the price, if this is all about collecting (the only reason I can really see to buy a player's guide--especially one for a retro game--in this day and age).
I've got lots of guides, all with varying degrees of rarity. I used to try to get them for all the games that had Official Nintendo guides, more because they were almost like a Cliff's Notes for the game in case I even wanted to just go back and rekindle some memories (or something like that). Nowadays, with there not being that many games I want to buy and even less that I can't just get decent info online for (I was strongly considering getting the pocket Pokemon D/P Pokedex, but now I think periodic checks on Serebii will take care of any leveling-up issues I have)--plus my own realization that all that money really should be spent on, you know, games--I don't really buy guides anymore. Of course, the guide+game deal at stores is always a possibility, but like I said, I don't really need the help as much as I used to think I might (plus, K-Mart totally *******ized the cover of Wind Waker and Wario World when I bought those there on said deal). It also irritates me that NoA stopped making guides, but maybe it's for the best. After all, Prima makes those cool "Collector's Edition" ones that seriously made me want to get a guide for games I've already beaten.
Someday, I'll start collecting guides. And consoles, and portables, and games...
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I remember some of my Mario game guides...
I got the MK:DD prima game guide...wow, so many mistakes it's not even funny. Prima used to be notoursly bad at making guides, but they've gotten better. Though not a Mario guide, everyone knows the famous Official NOA AC:WW guide. Over like, 70 mistakes or something that Nintendo made, including a picture that includes an item you'd normally need AR to get.
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Well, the folks at Nintendo Power can't edit to save their lives, so no surprises there... what was the item, anyway?
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The only one I'm still realistically considering getting is the SMAS one. I also plan on purchasing M&L 3 and NSMB Wii (and likely the corresponding NP guides) soon after release.
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(and likely the corresponding NP guides)
Nintendo Power hasn't produced a guidebook in nearly two years. Aside from more-comprehensive RPG item listings and whatnot, NP guides couldn't really hold a candle to its competitors anyway.
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Nintendo Power hasn't produced a guidebook in nearly two years. Aside from more-comprehensive RPG item listings and whatnot, NP guides couldn't really hold a candle to its competitors anyway.
I meant the Prima guides, my mistake.
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The Prima ones technically are the official Nintendo ones now...
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I used to always buy the player guides for the games in the day of the N64. It wasn't really an issue when we were all playing old NESes back in the day since the games were simpler and the more complicated games (such as SMB3) had already been figured out along the line so some people knew of a tip or two. I had a friend who had a Nintendo Power guide to SMB3 so most of us would figure out warp whistles and things like that whenever he had us over (he was the only one who had a guide out of all of us). Sometimes we'd just swap tips--I remember a lunchtime conversation in fourth grade where all we talked about was how to get through SMB3. I wound up being the first one of the gang to beat it and one of my longtime friends just beat it for the first time at the ripe old age of 22 on the VC a few months ago! (He got the game when it first came out in 1990). In irony of all ironies, the guy with the guide never beat it, at least not before he went off to college (and I don't think he took his NES, which was a top-loader, with him).
When the N64 came along I was one of the earliest adopters in my school (April 1997). Since a lot of things in SM64 were a bit tricky to figure out I got the player's guide. Two other early adopters of the N64 did not. However, in this case, the guide really did make things easier. I remember watching one of my friends trying to get stars in Shifting Sand Land without a guide. He spent over an hour and wasn't successful with anything he tried (this was before I had the game so I couldn't help him, nor could the other guy we were playing with that day). I was able to beat SM64 within three months thanks to the guide and would typically get one with every other game that came out for the N64 and GameCube because the Nintendo ones were so well-written. I didn't get the guides for the Game Boy Advance Mario remakes, however, because the games were the ones I already knew a lot about from the olden days.
About midway through the GameCube era someone told me about GameFaqs, so I just started going there instead. Double Dash was the first game I bought without a player's guide. Given the prices of these guides these days I usually just use the free resource, which actually is better-written some of the time. Believe it or not, I've found out stuff I didn't know about SM64 from re-playing it with GameFaqs guides.
I've saved hundreds of dollars by not buying these guides, although I did splurge on a MarioKart Wii guide since the rest of my family likes to play the game and I wanted a reference for them to consult in the house. (My mom is still upset that I never got a Double Dash book).
(Quick note: My mom is a MarioKart addict. She used to play it my N64 when I was at school and when she got a job once considered buying a GBA for Super Circuit alone, which she wanted to play on her breaks).
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Well, the folks at Nintendo Power can't edit to save their lives, so no surprises there... what was the item, anyway?
The orange paint can you see at Tom Nook's store. You can't actually GET IT, but there's some picture in the guide which shows it on the ground a room in a house. They also hinted at a non-existent picture for Sable and/or Able.