Justified Tutorial: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

As games become more and more complex and the basic functions required become more numerous, players become less interested in reading through 20+ pages of manual just to find out how to open the inventory. For that reason, game designers are increasingly relying on integrated tutorials to tell the player what to do as he plays through the early parts of the game.

 

The in-game tutorials are sometimes dependent on the difficulty setting, meaning that they aren't present in higher difficulty playthroughs.

 

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

** ''[[The Wind Waker]]'' has Link engage in a sparring match with elderly wise man Orca at his cottage; doing so will obtain the sword needed to progress through the first half of the game. Players could also return much later to engage in a harder sparring challenge to earn some particularly nifty rewards.

** In ''[[Ocarina of Time]]'', the Kokiri and the elements that make up Link's home village perform a similar role to the ''Twilight Princess'' kids, i.e. one Kokiri asks Link to use his sword to cut the grass, another (sitting on a ledge) teaches him to use his new fairy to speak at a distance.

** ''[[Skyward Sword]]'' has the sparring hall, which while it is optional, allows the player to get used to the new motion controls, while being able to get the feel of the enemies seen in the game.

*** Closer to the trope, they justify the flight tutorial with two reasons: one, Link's just been gliding with his Loftwing recently (right before a ceremony which requires great control over a Loftwing); and two, said Loftwing was very recently imprisoned, and Zelda wants to make sure nothing's overly wrong.

* The ''[[Batman Begins]]'' [[Licensed Game]] starts, like [[Dark Knight Trilogy|the film]], with Bruce getting trained by the League of Shadows.

** While in the Playstation version of the game, the tutorial hits as Malfoy steals Hedwig, causing Ron and Harry to chase after him, Ron teaching Harry how to run, jump as well as everything else covered in the PC tutorial.

*** The latter games, by which time Harry really should know basic magic, find a roundabout way to do this. Generally, when the game wants to teach you how to do X, a character will ask Harry, "Can you teach me how to do X?" with the explanation actually being for your benefit and your attempts to do the spell being Harry's "demonstration" for the other character.

* In ''[[Legacy of Kain]]: Soul Reaver'', Raziel gets toasted by the bossman Kain and thrown into hell. When he is revived, he is still a bit torn up (wings shredded, lower jaw missing, etc.), and many of his abilities have changed. His new benefactor is kind enough to walk him through the use of his new abilities.

* Roughly a third of the gameplay of each ''[[Overlord]]'' game consists of Minion and strategy tutorials. The first game does it so well that it's hardly noticable - the sequel, unfortunately, is much less subtle about its tutorials.

* ''[[Pikmin]] 2'' has the first day spent controlling Louie.

 

** In the second one his armor is damaged at the beginning of the game and he only has limited systems available. It self repairs, however, and more functions return as the tutorial goes on.

* ''[[Terminator]]: Dawn of Fate'' for the XBox has a nice twist. The good guys just built a new training facility and so they invite the seasoned operative, Kyle Reese, to test it out and see if it is cool.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' used this in the form of a training run set up by Giles.

 

== [[Adventure Game]] ==

** The original ''[[The Journeyman Project]]'' was less successful, however, unless we are to believe that it is part of Agent 5's job each day to read the instruction manual for his biosuit.

*** The remake ''[[Pegasus Prime]]'' actually fixes this problem from the first game, as it transforms the review of the biosuit manual from a daily task into a small portion of Gage's punishment for being late to work for the ''fourth'' time.

** And parodied in the game's actual tutorial, where Strong Sad complains that he doesn't want to be in Strong Bad's stupid tutorial, and where Bubs has apparently been paid to read his part of the script.

 

== [[Fighting Game]] ==

* In the ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' game ''Burst Limit'', the tutorial is justified in that you play as kid Gohan being trained in combat by Piccolo; this fits in perfectly to the [[Canon]].

 

== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==

** ''Opposing Force'' details the HECU force preparing to leave for Black Mesa, and a crash course on how to utilize your [[Powered Armor|PCV]] vest and sniper rifle.

*** ''Opposing Force'' also has Shepherd end up in a section of the Hazard Course, with the hologram reciting part of the tutorial in-universe (without references to keyboard commands).

* ''[[Halo]]'' and ''Halo 2'' both start with your character performing basic movements like walking around and using the camera controls so that the technicians can calibrate his suit. Your reactions to prompts like "look up" also allow the game to guess your control preferences.

** ''Halo 3'' had an interesting take on this trope, as the tutorial takes place out in the middle of the jungle. Having jumped from a spaceship and falled several kilometers, Master Chief's armour needs recalibration, because it is still "in partial lockdown" after having taken the brunt of his impact. A medic stands in front of you in your crater and holds up a little card, saying "look up here... now down here..."

* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' had a few tutorials presented as various training rooms in the heroine's home base.

* ''[[System Shock]] 2'' presents player tutorials as cyberspace simulations, and in-universe they're actually recruitment aids for the government's three military branches. According to the manual, the protocol droid stationed at the recruitment center's entrance is there to keep local teenagers from using the tutorials as a free arcade.

* ''[[Call of Duty]] 2'' did the same, except without the van.

* ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'' has your character as a new SAS member; after passing Selection, it's his first day in the Regiment. As such, he has to go through some weapons familiarization (aka target practice) and a timed close quarters battle (CQB) drill... in a plywood mock-up of the beginning area of the first mission. This is not as useful as the real thing, since you're doing this solo instead of as a fire team in the real mission, where the AI teammates tend to beat you to the front of the line and thus block your fire while killing the tangos themselves... thus negating the point of that CQB drill.

** ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' includes a similar tutorial, justified as a demonstration for recruits in Afghanistan, with a similar drill as a test of your character's skill in preparation for a special mission.

* ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' starts out with Samus exploring a mostly-derelict Space Pirate vessel. Whenever she encounters anything that must be done, a message pops up on the screen telling the player how to do it (so, when she encounters a console that must be scanned, the ''player'' is told about the scan visor, while it's assumed Samus herself already knows how to use it). The tutorial mostly ends when Samus gets the [[Bag of Spilling]].

** It famously includes some [http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/01/americas-army-t.html First Aid information]. Which is infamously delivered to the player by making his character sit in a classroom and listen to a long lecture. Which, as anyone who has been through Basic Training knows, is [[Truth in Television|a very common teaching style in the military]]

*** The information given there is also real info given out to real medics. So much so that a man who had played the game used the info he learned there to save another man's life after a traffic accident.

* ''[[Geist]]'' never bothers with a how-to-shoot tutorial, but after the main character is separated from his body his spirit is immediately put into a training/brainwashing machine, where he's shown some of the basics of [[Our Souls Are Different|being a ghost]] - floating around, possessing animals, drinking plant energy. After that the machine is broken by a [[Creepy Child]] ghost girl, who shows him how to possess objects, do things with them, and then how to scare humans so ''they'' can be possessed.

* ''Chronicles Of [[Riddick]]: Escape from Butcher Bay'' has an extremely clever justification for the tutorial level and the 'Press this for that' button warnings. A daydream on the way to prison...

 

** ''X: Beyond the Frontier'' integrates its tutorial into you putting an [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|xperimental]] combat shuttle through its paces. Then your jumpdrive goes haywire and you end up several galaxies away with no way home.

** In addition to the obvious (and optional) "Flight School" tutorial, ''X3: Terran Conflict's'' first plot (there's nine altogether) is effectively one long tutorial, with "Press X for Y effect" popping up on your HUD.

 

** This has since been redone into a Tutorial basement located under Lumbridge, wherein the PC must perform a number of tasks for a high-levelled NPC as he explains the world to you.

** In the original ''Runescape'', it was just a house where a bunch of people told you how to do things.

** They later added a tutorial quest series that starts when you trade the coupon in, provided your character was created after that particular update.

* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' holds your hand and tells you how you're supposed do everything during the first quest, to get you started. The quest is, appropriately, given to you by the puneriffic Toot Oriole.

* ''[[The Matrix]] Online'' has a fairly well-integrated tutorial sequence, in which you, as a new Redpill, have to calibrate your in-world HUD (presented within your field of view directly by The Matrix) and are taught about combat.

** Other character classes in ''WoW'' don't get true tutorials, but they get a similar effect in two different ways. The most obvious way is, when you create a new character, every time that character is prompted to do something new (talk to an NPC, accept a quest, read the map) an exclamation mark appears. Click on it and it opens a window telling you how to do it. Experienced players or players who want to find their own way around can turn off that setting. More subtly, most classes get new abilities every other level until 40, more or less. That means you have two levels to learn to use the one you just got before you get another one.

* The MMO ''[[Fallen Earth]]'' begins with the player character freshly decanted from a cloning tube, after being [[Cloning Blues|cloned, mindwiped, and killed for hundreds if not thousands of cycles of life and death]], and thus justifiably unsure of how to walk. It goes downhill from there.

== [[Platform Game]] ==

* Similarly, the early ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' games allowed you to romp around Lara's house and training grounds to get used to the various different controls.

** Additionally, shorter tutorials are given by teachers whenever the protagonist learns a new psychic ability.

 

== [[Puzzle Game]] ==

* ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' seems to be unique in that it has the tutorial first (Ray explaining to Sissel how to use his Ghost Tricks to save Lynne), but the actual justification doesn't come until later. {{spoiler|Ray is manipulating Sissel into protecting Lynne, so the tutorial was actually a disguised way to make sure he saves her from the hitman.}}

 

== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==

** They integrate further minor tutorials into the first missions of the Zerg and Protoss campaigns as well (chiefly to explain the quirks of each faction).

* In ''[[Sacrifice]]'', the player character begins as a master wizard, for whom a tutorial would be rife with [[As You Know]]. Instead, the tutorial/prologue has the player control a different character, a novice wizard who appears in the game proper as an [[NPC]].

* The tutorial for ''Medieval II: Total War'' places you as a Lieutenant in William the Conqueror's army, in the battle of Hastings in which William invaded England and later became its king. The game itself begins in 1087, upon William's death, and the "suggested" campaign for new players is the English Faction campaign, which naturally continues that story if you've just played the tutorial. Whichever faction you choose though, the game will likely be heavily influenced by this new dynasty on the rise in the Island Kingdom.

** Except if you are playing Scotland, in which case you are going to destroy them within the first 10 turns, or if you play Russia/Byzantine (Maybe Sicily) and thus are sufficiently far away (And sufficiently not a crusade target) for England to not really care.

 

*** There's even a second tutorial room found later in the game {{spoiler|because [[Doomed Hometown|the town the first one is in gets destroyed]], and you'll find the ghosts of the people from the first room still available to provide game advice!}}

* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' handles this in an unusual fashion. Your character's formative years are used as the framing device for both the tutorial and character creation. The character's gender, name, and appearance are determined during your character's birth, the last by the protagonist's father looking at a computer simulation of his child's growth. The movement tutorial and stat assignment portion involves you sneaking out of your crib as a toddler and reading a children's book called "You're SPECIAL" (SPECIAL being the game's stats system). The menu, dialogue, and combat tutorials involve you getting a BB gun and a Pip-Boy 3000 wrist computer at your tenth birthday party. At the age of sixteen, you take [[Inept Aptitude Test|an aptitude test]] to help determine your three tag skills. Finally, stealth, hacking and lockpicking are learned when {{spoiler|you have to sneak out of the vault at age 19.}}

** While the original ''[[Fallout]]'' didn't have a tutorial, the sequel did. "The Temple of Trials" was a tediously uninteresting, empty, brown temple that the game forced you to go through every single time. It was supposedly added due to [[Executive Meddling]], and it shows.

* In ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'', there is a tutorial adventure when you have to win a competition in your starting village. Unusual in that you can opt to do this level without the tutorial.

** The [[Neverwinter Nights|first game]] starts you out in the [[Academy of Adventure]], which is [[Doomed Hometown|promptly attacked]] after completing the tutorial.

* The tutorial in ''[[Fable]]'' is made up to present the Hero being trained from childhood to young adulthood in a warrior's academy.

* Both of the first games of the ''[[.hack GU Games|.hack]]'' series (''Infection'' and ''Rebirth'') feature the main character first starting to play The World and being taught to play by other characters. Also subverted in Rebirth when, after Haseo gets changed from level 133 to 1, a group of characters try to give him a tutorial ''again'', causing an annoyed Haseo to explain that he knows everything already.

** There's still the <s>jacking in</s> pulsing in tutorial (justified, as usual, by it being repair work), but the tedious battling tutorial is skippable.

** The tutorial in ''Mega Man Star Force 2'' is skippable, but you still have to do the three virus fights.

*** To add injury to insult, the tutorial is bugged. Out of eleven parts, the player will typically only encounter eight and "tutorial 9" will never load. [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Tutorial The remainder tips do exist, so it's not just a psychological trick of some sort.]

** ''[[Morrowind]]'' had a tutorial "mission", too, albeit rather simplistic. All you had to do was to walk from the the deck of a prison ship, through a prisoner release procedure, to outside Seyda Neen. And that's it. You have notoriously not received any combat training at all...

** Although the sequence in II did explain (some of) how you wound up on Peragus, and more importantly can be skipped whenever you like.

* The first chapter of ''[[Dungeon Siege]] II'' is basically a chapter of tutorial, which has you go in a quick training just before being shoved into warzone. If you're replaying the game in higher difficulty, the game skips to the second chapter immediately.

** Van Grants, who is Luke's sword master, delivers the battle tutorial early in the game. While it's completely justified, it's awkward to hear {{spoiler|the final boss}} talking about "attack buttons" and "the Artes menu."

* ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army]]'' opens with your main character, an up-and-coming rookie summoner, being tested by the watchers of the Kuzunoha clan. Each test shows the player how to fight, summon, and capture demons. When the test is over, your character has the right to claim the title of "Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th" and become a full-fledged Devil Summoner.

** In ''King Abaddon'', Raidou must take the test again to prove that he is still up to the task of being the Capital's resident summoner. Not only does it teach/refresh the player about combat basics, it also gives you a crash course on the new features in the game, such as summoning two demons and using the dodge roll and triangle button attack.

* The opening mission of ''[[Might and Magic]] VII'' was meant to function as one of these, and beautifully so since it doesn't seem contrived or forced. New players will spend enough time hanging around [[Noob Cave|Noob Island]] to learn the ropes of the game, while veteran players will either have fun blasting through it in a few minutes flat or try to wrestle a [[Disc One Nuke]] out of the island's resident dragon.

* In Episode 1 Chapter 2 of ''[[Phantasy Star Universe]]'''s Story Mode, Karen teaches Ethan about forming parties and how mission points are earned. It's done fairly well, presenting a plausible in-universe system that justifies several gameplay mechanics that come up during online play.

 

== [[Simulation Game]] ==

* Averted in ''[[Steel Battalion]]'', which features a "tutorial" stage that is intended to emulate the very beginning of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]''. After being told you will receive months of simulator training before even being allowed near the cockpit of the [[Humongous Mecha]], a well-timed attack by the enemy occurs, and your main character says he will just use the manual to pilot it. The game is not only saying this for effect: It actually expects you to use the manual for the first, and likely subsequent, stages. Yes, it is that complicated.

** Thankfully, the buttons you must use to start your mech's engine ignition are lit up on your forty-button controller in the order they should be pressed in. Just don't play the game, if you're starting out, in front of a friend who is well-versed in the basic fundamentals of mech piloting, unless you have very considerate friends. You don't get very much help at all otherwise, which is great for immersion but bad if you fail to notice the blinking buttons in your lap.

* The player character of ''[[Naval Ops|Warship Gunner 2]]'' is a freshly-minted navy officer and the first few missions are a [[Flash Back]] to his basic training. A later tutorial runs him through the basics of submarine navigation.

* Each ''[[Harvest Moon]]'' features different characters, and most of them are newbie who have just gotten into a farmwork. Players from ''[[Rune Factory]]'' have amnesia, plus they're instantly put into a farm for almost no reason.

* Three of the four games in the ''[[Hitman]]'' series (''Codename 47'', ''Silent Assassin'', and ''Blood Money'') use this trope. In the first, Agent 47 is walked through the basics of being an assassin by the mysterious Dr. Ort-Meyer as he escapes from an asylum; in the second, 47 tromps through some ruins to get back in practice after having temporarily retired from his trade; and in the fourth, the tutorial mission is placed in the context of a simple hit 47 is carrying out on a carnie. Curiously, the third game in the series, ''Hitman: Contracts'', dispensed with the in-game tutorial in favor of a weird, shadowy dreamscape where 47 could go to brush up on his firearms and stealth skills; however, considering that pretty much the entirety of ''Contracts'' was a fever dream/extended flashback 47 had as he lay dying from a gunshot wound, this was entirely appropriate.

** Although ''Contracts'' did have a series of hints and instructions flash up on the screen in its first mission.

** In the sequel the player still controls Desmond, who knows how the controls in the Animus work (which is like a video game). So instead of having ''him'' learn again the game will feature multiple points in the new Assassin's life, allowing a Fallout 3-like tutorial that will teach the player the controls.

*** Specifically, the gameplay mechanics are introduced in the first two chapters as part of Ezio's life; for example, the first story memory has Ezio fist fighting on a bridge (to teach melee basics), then when Ezio goes to beat up his sister's cheating boyfriend grabbing is introduced, and more advanced moves are introduced in the second chapter when Ezio undertakes combat training at his uncle's request.

* The optional tutorial in the first game of ''[[Thief]]'' is a flashback to Garrett's training as a child just taken from the street, and in it he's given simple tasks to do the way he chooses. The third game's first level is a heavy-handed, mandatory tutorial where Garrett has to follow the blue footsteps on a routine job. The drop in tutorial justification subtlety is staggering.

* In ''[[Syphon Filter]]: Dark Mirror'' the player character (Logan) is stated as giving the new training a test run to give his opinion of it. He even tells the trainer to treat him like a new recruit and several times during the training has to remind the trainer, who says things like, "But, you know all this already." that he needs to be treated like a new recruit if he is to properly test the training.

 

== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==

* ''[[Gears of War]]'''s tutorial involves your newly-released-from-prison veteran soldier taking the long way through the prison blocks to get back into shape and shake out the cobwebs. The sequel has you training the squad's rookie. Unique in these tutorials is that both are integrated into the gameplay and are skippable depending on the choice you make. The first game allows you to fight enemies along the way with either path you take, as the whole jail-break is merely the prologue to the rest of the game.

** Actually, that's the second level. The actual first level may still count, being when John gains his psychic abilities and has to figure out how to use them in order to escape his cell in a hospital.

* Inverted in ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]: Elite Squadron'', as the optional tutorial level in campaign mode consists of X2, the protagonist, retraining existing clones.

 

* ''[[Fire Emblem]] 7'' was split into three stories, the first one being an elaborate tutorial when played on normal difficulty. The first time you play the game, you have no choice but to play the tutorial chapter and then the main story; after that, you can choose from any of the three, including a hard mode for the first section that removes the tutorial sequences and lets you do whatever you want. In addition, you can enter the menu and turn off the "handholding" option during the tutorial chapter.

* ''[[Nintendo Wars|Advance Wars]]'' had a whole tutorial campaign with Orange Star Chief CO Nell explaining most of the game in a series of fights against the invading Olaf. The real campaign picks up right after with Andy, who is a new CO that justifies every additional explanation or repetition. The later games instead had the tutorial during the first couple of missions in the campaign.

* [[Nippon Ichi]] occasionally justifies the use of tutorials.

** ''[[Disgaea|Hour of Darkness]]'' has Laharl waking up after oversleeping for 720 days, so his mind and body need a bit of a workout.

 

== [[Visual Novel]] ==

 

== [[Wide Open Sandbox]] ==

** [[Fridge Logic]] ensues when you begin to ask yourself: What kind of demented pilot test is your PC being forced through? Seriously. What average pilot would need to know how to do a loop-the-loop or barrel roll? Or ''how to blow up moving trucks from an aircraft?'' It might be [[Handwaved]] as {{spoiler|Toreno}} setting special tests so that Carl can carry out his covert missions, if not for the fact that almost all the bizzare stunts that you are forced to pull off to pass the test are completely unnecessary during the missions he gives you.

* ''[[Saints Row]] 2'' walks the player through a basic tutorial during the beginning prison break, and offers an alternative escape route in order to skip it.

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]