39,327
edits
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 3:
* Brady Games seems to make their guides half done, requiring you to actually go online for a different source of help, thus a double Guide Dang It! Examples include:
** ''[[
*** Even more ridiculous was the instructions on how to get the Infinity Plus One Sword. This, the most infamous Guide Dang It in the entire game, requires you not to open four arbitrary chests. They hadn't yet figured out which four and simply tell you what they've narrowed it down to.
*** The guide for FFXII had many more issues than that. Several maps are in error and there's no map ''at all'' for most of the Great Crystal (you know, the dungeon where the player's need for a map is very, very dire). It doesn't do anything more than ''hint'' at how the monographs actually work (they're items that cause some monsters to drop worthless pebbles and the others to drop very valuable loot, for the curious). No information on character growth over the course of leveling, either. Perhaps worst of all, though, was its complete uselessness with regards to finding the rare game enemies and utter silence on enemies with complicated spawn conditions. And while this isn't related to strategy, per se, the guide was itself poorly realized, poorly organized, and its binding fell apart within months. It's probably not coincidence that a different company made the guide for ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]''.
*** The official guides for ''[[
*** For an idea on how bad this was for the FFIX guide, not only was there no help in the book on the final boss, ''they refused to even put a picture of the boss in the book''. Want to know how to beat him and what he looks like? "Go to Play Online!".
** ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: San Andreas''. The locations of oysters, horseshoes, and photo ops were completely mixed up and one of the cars listed was never present in the game. Some say that the strategy guide was based on a beta version of the game.
*** Don't forget the 'Spray tag the gang signs', which are completely messed up. (Don't go by the eye-straining photographs they give, sometimes a beige tag will be on a beige wall and thus blend in).
** ''[[Parasite Eve
** The guide for the [[
** Prima's ''[[Kirby]] [[Super Title 64 Advance|64]]: The Crystal Shards'' guide similarly ends directly after the battle with Miracle Matter - of course, they threw in an "Or is it?" line along with a picture of the possessed fairy queen, suggesting that there was something more to the story. They actually showed you how to get all the crystal shards in the game, so it's not like they skipped one and got the bad ending or anything.
*** Not only that, but the guide even shows the Trading Card picture of the final boss, and makes the claim that it is "A benevolent creature living in the clouds high above Shiver Star." Which is, of course, an outright lie.
** The Brady Games guide for ''[[
** Thankfully, they redeemed themselves with their guides for the DS versions of IV, V and VI (especially VI), as well as IX, which were all incredibly detailed and helpful. However, even then the IX guide loses a few points for not showing where items and equipment can be bought/found.
** Brady's guide for ''[[
** Brady's guide for ''[[
** The guide released for the [[Updated Rerelease|Anthologies]] version of ''[[
*** Other jarring mistakes with the guide include misrepresenting the aim of a particular sidequest (an NPC promises a reward if you ride a yellow chocobo all the way around the world; the guide tells you to stop at Easterly Falls and grab the Magic Lamp, but that's just something you can do on the way - you can go completely around and return to the NPC for a Mirage Vest) and bad directions through the Phoenix Tower (It leads you directly into avoidable battles, which in [[That One Level|a very long dungeon with no save points, dangerous monsters, and no chance of escaping from random encounters]] is a significant problem)
** The guide for ''[[
*** The guide points out that from after that battle you have {{spoiler|permanent Auto-life}} and thus, ''cannot fail''.
** Ditto FF9. The guide goes up to Deathguise, and then tells you to look at their (now non-existent) website if you still need help.
** The official guide for ''[[Final Fantasy X 2
** The Brady Games ''[[
** Brady Games' guide for ''[[
** The guide for ''[[
** The guide for ''Xenosaga Episode III'' completely omits the whole Ha Kox mini-game, only telling you that it's where you get some powerful equipment.
* Prima's guide for ''[[Super Smash Bros]] Brawl'' is pretty awful. The author was apparently unaware that ROB's Arm Rotor can deflect projectiles... and, worse, that Fox's Firefox (a move which dates back to the original SSB) can be aimed. Additionally, the fact that Lucario's recovery move can be controlled mid-dash seems to have been omitted.
Line 32:
** You think the bios are bad enough? The unlockables section got incredibly lazy after the first few characters. The first few characters listed not only did not get ALL the info on unlocking (they didn't mention that playing 50 or 70 matches were one of the few requirements for challenging Falco and Captain Falcon respectively), but after all 3 of Ganondorf's unlocking methods were listed, every character afterward had their methods listed as "have (name) join you in The Subspace Emissary." Did they just give up and figure everyone used that mode for getting everyone?
* Similar to the San Andreas guide, the guide for Vice City screwed up at least one package location, which claimed that it was in one of the movie studios when it wasn't. This guide is also rumored to be based on the beta.
* The Prima Games guide for ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
** It also failed to mention the Big Poe locations. Then again, so did the Brady guide and Nintendo's official guide. Versus was the only one that could be bothered.
* The Prima Guide for [[Jade Cocoon]] features a "Monster Compendium" which would make you think they'd have all the minions in there. Despite there only being 171 there are several repeats (including wind and air?? minions), they missed the two secret minions (Sherrick and Tweengo) and somehow missing Arpatron who is the FIRST MINION YOU GET AND ARE REQUIRED TO CATCH.
* Prima's [[Spore]] guide shows that they ''never made it to the center of the galaxy'' or fought the grox.
* Prima's ''[[
** You think that's bad? The official one from '''Nintendo''' (who ''published the games'') lists the name, number, Abilities, and locations of Sinnoh's 150 Pokémon. And nothing else. No list of levelup moves, Egg moves, or compatible TM/HMs.
** And to address all this, they have a second book, the "Pokédex" which has the entire amount of Pokémon, with everything that's not in the original guide. They even have a route-by-route breakdown of where everything can be found, and a post-game guide detailing the Battle tower area. But that's more like [[One Game for
*** Said book also incorrectly states to give your Pokémon evolutionary stones to hold instead of using them like a normal item on said Pokémon.
** And Prima did the exact same thing with their ''HeartGold and SoulSilver'' guide by covering Johto in one book, and Kanto in another.
Line 46:
*** Hollinger's ''Ruby'' and ''Sapphire'' guide: Introduction, Using This Guide, Battling (against wild Pokémon, against Trainers, the menu choices), Double Battling and how certain moves differ from single battling, Status Anomalies, Type Chart, advice to put different move types onto Pokémon, Multipliers (type-based, critical hits, STAB, weather, item boosts), Physical vs. Special Attacks, Natures, Effort Values and Vitamins, Using HMs in the overworld, Catching Pokémon (grass, tall grass, surfing, fishing, diving, Rock Smash, breeding, swarms), Poké Ball types, Evolution (leveling up, stopping evolution via level-up, Elemental Stones, trading, trading with items, happiness, and the special cases of Silcoon, Cascoon, Milotic, and Shedinja), Breeding (the species that hatches, Egg Moves, hatching Eggs), Egg Group Charts, Pokémon Contests and how to play them, Pokédex (stats, how to catch, where to catch, TMs and HMs, Abilities, type-based strengths and weaknesses, Level-Up moves, evolution line), Moves as used in battle, Moves as used in Contests, TMs and HMs (locations, price, and assigned move), Contest Combos, Item Chart, Mail Chart, Poké Ball Chart, Secret Base Items, Items as held by Wild Pokémon.
** On top of that, there are numerous errors in the FR/LG guide itself, such as listing Pidgey's rarity as "Only One," the occasional reference to the nonexistent Full Revive item, and the wrong pictures for some Pokémon.
** The ''[[
*** The hardback Special Edition guide, released at the same time as Volume 1 for $10 more, does include the Unova Pokédex (Snivy to Kyurem, and Victini), but no item or move lists like those found at the end of other Pokémon guides, and no entries for Pokémon found after finishing the game.
*** On top of all this, the guide on how to clear the Abyssal Ruins might as well not be there. All they give is a picture of the first level that isn't very detailed. Two huge things wrong with this; 1) The Abyssal Ruins has more than one floor, and 2) While they show ''where'' the items are, they don't say ''what'' they are, instead dividing them into two vague categories (things you sell and things used in battle) and telling the player to "figure [the rest] out yourself". No mention of how to move the pillars, either.
** Hold on, what about Brady's guide for Ruby and Sapphire? Among other things, no maps for the Trick House, and a Pokédex that consists of the names, height, weight and "species" of the 200 Hoenn dex Pokémon. No moves, no stats, absolutely ''nothing'' of in-game value.
** Prima's Emerald strategy guide was good and bad at the same time. There are no maps for the Team Aqua Hideout, it doesn't list the Gym Leader rematch teams neither the Frontier Brains ones for the Gold symbol battles (the Silver ones were listed), and (at least in the Italian version) every pic in the guide (included maps and the extremely needed ''Braille key for the Regi quest'') is low-res and blurred.
* Prima's guide for [[Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
** Furthermore, the guide leaves out several locations of Hoo Beans, to the point of not showing enough to ''get'' the Piranha Suit. Luckily, [http://themushroomkingdom.net/board/index.php?topic=12388.0 this forum post] details the locations of all of the hidden Hoo Bean blocks, including the ones the guide left out.
* The Official Nintendo Guide for ''[[Animal Crossing]]: Wild World'' blantantly omits the entire Nintendo Set, which includes the Master Sword, Triforce, Arwing, and Metroid. In fact, that guide is chock-full of errors.
Line 58:
*** Hardly anything of how to go about having a perfect-ranked town and the factors that play into getting it (such as the number of trees on the lot, flowers, etc), a full checklist of flowers but no idea how to get specific kinds or how to grow hybrids of specific types (every flower is categorized into two groups, those that "can be bought at Nook's", and those that "grow in the wild", and the vague advice that "if you plant different colored plants of the same type, you may find that a new flower will grow nearby in a new color!"), and absolutely no advice on the Flower Fest (including, say, what criterea Tortimer would judge a house on, such as whether or not hybrids or gold roses are taken into account, what patches of the map qualifies as "yours", what happens if you were to destroy/steal your neighbor's flowers, if groups or rows of one color or type play any importance if not also the size of your "garden", if non-flowers, such as jacob's ladder, clover, dandelions or turnips hold any impact on this, etc.)
**** Among other things, there were also references to turn to a page that had nothing to do with why you're looking there in the first place (such as advice that going to page so-and-so would lead you to how to make a personal bank (not to be confused with the post office's bank) like Redd, only to lead you to pages that barely skirt between the post office's mail section and the outdoors section), lies that transferred from the website to the guide (at one point, the main website advertised "Gardening tips galore in the official player's guide!", which said advice can be summerized as [[Captain Obvious|"plant flowers, water flowers, rare flowers are good, running over them is bad, take out weeds when you can"]].), or missing sections of things ideally ommitted due to them being unlocked by promotions, yet were blatantly showed off ''in the game itself'' (such as the aforementioned special items above, including the Arwing and the Master Sword, which were displayed in Pudge's and Lucky's house as their default furniture respectively and can potentially be obtained by them through chance without the promotions behind either two objects).
* Similarly, the Prima guide for ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Oracle
* In an infamous example, the official guide packaged with Earthbound stated that the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Gutsy Bat]], Ness's ultimate weapon, was dropped by Kraken. This weapon, like several other pieces of ultimate equipment, were dropped by specific creatures at a 1/128 rate. Unfortunately, the game features both Krakens and Bionic Krakens. The Bionic Krakens actually drop the Gutsy Bat, while the regular Krakens do not. Adding insult to injury, regular Krakens are only encountered at the very end of Magicant, so if you attempted to obtain this on console with the official guide's advice, you could spend 30-45 minutes to kill 3 of them...and they never respawn unless you reset and redo the entire dungeon.
** The Earthbound guide further stated that the "Broken Parabolic" item could be repaired into Jeff's ultimate weapon, but did not specify where to obtain it. The end guide item tables vaguely suggested that it was found in a treasure box (it was not). Not only did the actual item drop from a fairly difficult enemy (another 1/128 chance, and the enemy caused explosion damage on defeat, every time), but it was actually called the Broken Antenna. The official guide for this game had quite a few other minor errors both in text and photos, due largely to the fact that writing began while the game was in beta.
* Prima's guide for ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' has several glaring flaws. Among these are absolutely no information on the companion sidequests aside from small snippets in each character bio, containing at least one falsehood, (It claims that {{spoiler|Sten will abandon you if you defeat him in a duel at Haven}}, when in fact {{spoiler|it actually raises your approval with him}}), ''and'' leaves some key details about certain quests out. (For example, nowhere does it say that {{spoiler|its possible to make Wynne immediately hostile if you bring Morrigan along for the Circle Tower quest.}}) On the plus side, the guide's data tables for talents and items are decent enough.
* Prima's guide for Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation repeatedly tells you to use the revolver and laser sight to take out skeletons in the Coastal Ruins and Catacombs, while forgetting that you don't actually get the revolver until the first Cairo level, City of the Dead. Apparently Prima used the All Guns cheat to write their guide.
* The Brady Games strategy guide for ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater]]'' featured a section that lists the location of the 64 Kerotans. Hitting all the Kerotans is one of the two methods for unlocking the Stealth Camouflage. The only problem is they only list the location of 61 Kerotan. The missing three have a section...but all it shows is a picture of a Kerotan with the words, "Find Me!". There also seems to be absolutely no mention of the Tsuchinoko or the method for unlocking the EZ Gun for difficulties other than Very Easy. They also give you the WRONG method for acquiring The End's special boss camo, twice!
* The Prima guide for the original Grandia is a monument to [[They Just Didn't Care]], lacking, among other things, any information on how to beat the many bosses in the game, any mention of some of the secret dungeons, any maps for any of the non-secret dungeons, and loss of synchronization between the guide text and the photos near the end of the game. Ultimately, the guide ends before the final boss is reached.
* The Prima guide for ''[[Digimon World]]'' deliberately omitted information on three Digimon from both the American and British types. Because of this, these three are considered secret characters by many and forums are flooded with questions on how to obtain them. The British version, otherwise pretty detailed, also forgets to mention the requirements for the second part of the Grey Lord's Mansion quest and gives one location for where you can encounter Nanimon (there are five, and you need to visit all to recruit the character).
* ''N64 Magazine'' put out a fantastically useless guide for ''Body Harvest'' which among other things didn't include the location of any of the Weapon Crystals and skipped over all the bosses.
* ''Nintendo Magazine System's'' guide for ''[[Turok (
* The Nintendo Power Guide for ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]'' goes up to {{spoiler|Raem's first form}}; after this, the advice they give for the last boss (They don't show an image or anything) is that it requires you to clear your head and your memories ( {{spoiler|letting the boss do that will result in a game over}}). It doesn't help that the fight in question is a Guide Dang It.
* The Prima guide for ''[[
* The PSM guide for ''[[Silent Hill]]'' was based on a beta version of the game, where some of the puzzle solutions and/or hints were different, for example the astrological sign puzzle in Nowhere, which initially was a numerical order puzzle, but changed to a "count the appendages" puzzle in the final version.
** The guides for the game featured in ''Tips & Tricks'' and its competition, ''Xpert Gamer'', made the same mistake, as they were all based on the beta version. At least ''T&T'' corrected it, if not all of these three magazines.
Line 77:
* Did you know there was a Bradygames game guide made for ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', too? Yeah, obviously a guide for an MMORPG, or even a constantly changing game with numerous free patches and updates, wouldn't be that much of a good idea...the original guide had some maps (which are always useful), guides, levels for skinnable creatures, profession lists, and a list of ''some'' equipment. But it also listed talents and abilities that weren't in the game (or were removed), doesn't mention Silithus, only really gives you the idea of what level you should be by the level of the skinning creatures and mobs, doesn't tell you ''how'' to obtain equipment, gives inaccurate class information (when the guide was published, the Feral and Balance tree for Druids was broken), and most importantly, doesn't tell you ''HOW'' to do the quests - you know, the stuff people are more likely to have difficulty with (like Mankrik's Wife and Fiona Longears). There are also no maps for dungeons; those who kept struggling with Uldaman would have ''loved'' a guide like this to tell us what we were in for. Basically, don't buy a guide for an MMORPG; they only have so much pages. It's better to use wikis or fansites. (The [[World of Warcraft]] guide is 432 pages - taking pages and quest walkthroughs from wikis would easily make it ''over 4,000'')
** Largely ditto for ''[[Guild Wars]]''. The Bradygames guide had maps and info for quests and missions, which have been only slightly altered from the game's launch (though you can almost always find a player to team with that knows them inside and out already). Everything else was extremely general advice, or was hopelessly obsolete within the first few months, including the way [[PvP]] works.
* The Prima guide for ''[[
* The Prima guide for ''[[
** While we're on the subject, the Nintendo Power guide does not make a mention of being able to walk on the sidewalls in [[That One Sidequest|that one bonus level in Delfino Plaza]] with the FLUDD-powered leaf boats and [[Proton Jon|DEATH]] [[Scrappy Mechanic|WATER]]. Although this minor oversight might be due to Nintendo [[Good Bad Bugs|accidentally leaving it in]], since Nintendo Power does tend to somewhat care about the completeness of their guides.
* Prima’s guide for ''[[The Legend of Dragoon]]'' contains [[Rouge Angles of Satin|numerous typographical errors]], [[Did Not Do the Research|describes enemies and items that do not actually exist in the game]], and makes only the vaguest mention of the [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]. It was obviously a [[Obvious Beta|rushed first draft]], because at one point, it tells you to consult the “provided map” to navigate a confusing dungeon… except there are no maps to be found anywhere in the guide. However, that certainly doesn’t excuse it from ''spoiling every single plot point in the walkthrough.'' That said, it has HP totals for every monster in the game, and its boss fight strategies are usually pretty decent, so it isn’t a complete failure. [[Shmuck Bait|So long as you don’t read ahead.]]
* Prima's guide for ''[[Lego Adaptation Game
* The guide for ''[[Dragon Quest IX]]'' is actually pretty good aversion of this trope - while it doesn't cover ''everything'' you'd want, you'd probably only find yourself looking up guides on [[Game FAQs]] to find stuff about grotto maps and how to complete come quests in specific. The game guide still tells you how to do several of the ones in the base game without DLC, too. Did we also mention that this is for a [[Nintendo DS]] game and that it's over 400 pages? That's a ''lot'' for a handheld game!
* Prima made a 2 pack guide for the GBA ''[[
* The official Nintendo Power guide for ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]'' led you up until the penultimate boss, and states that the final battle requires to clear your memories. It doesn't tell you anything about the final boss. {{spoiler|Images of your family appear and you cast cure on them. They turn into "???" magicite, which will cast a level 3 spell or make you invincible for a while. Every image you turn into magic takes away one of your memories. I never lost all of them, but it will probably either make the images quit appearing or you will lose.}} On the upside, the battle is too awesome to spoil. Also, the book lists pretty much every single other variable possible in the game.
* A nice aversion: The Versus Books "Perfect Guides" that were around a lot during the N64 and Gameboy Color days were in fact, perfect.
** Versus Book's otherwise quite well-done guide for ''[[
* Prima's guide to ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]: The Eternal Duelist Soul'' goes into [[They Just Didn't Care]] territory, especially when it comes to the four [[Bonus Boss]] duelists. They did not publish an unlock condition or even a description for two of them ( {{spoiler|Simon Trusdale and Solomon Moto (Yugi's grandfather)}}), and while they included a vague strategy for Pegasus, they neglected the unlock condition. The rest of the guide wasn't so hot, either, as they missed a number of cards.
* The Nintendo Power guide for ''[[
* The no longer valid after patches variant is lampshaded in ''[[Dark Souls]]'', the patch notes for 1.05 contain "Official Guide nerfed".
* The ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
* The Prima Guide for [[Time Splitters|TimeSplitters 2]] had a few problems. The big one was the entire (very helpful and extensive) Mapmaker guide told you how to make a map using the Gothic tileset - which unfortunately was [[Dummied Out]] before release, making the entire sample map they teach you to build (and various reference screenshots) completely irrelevant. In addition, some of the strategies for missions outright say "this is a good method for finishing the challenge, but you won't be able to get a gold medal with it", before offering no other alternative. Fortunately most of the time it is possible to get a gold with the methods provided anyway.
* Many guides from gamefaqs.com fall under this premise. Many of them are clearly guides for the ''japanese'' game versions and thus contain information about features that were modified or removed entirely. Why else would a game guide use all japanese names when the american version does not, or advise you how to play minigames that were [[Dummied Out]] in the international export?
|