Let's Talk Game Manuals - Any favorites?

The trend of including a decent manual with a game has slipped by the wayside, and now you usually just get a two-sided pamphlet with some legalese and seizure warnings. But back in the day there was a glorious age of gaming manuals. Anyone have any favorites? My most vivid memory of a good one was with Microsoft Space Simulator in the early 90s. The thing came on like 12 floppy disks and had a 400 or so page book describing the finer details of space flight. I distinctly remember learning what "apogee" and "perigee" meant from that thing.

Well, as I've said in my Persona 4 blog, I really like the Persona 4 manual, because:

• It's a manual, and...
• ...it features some decent lessons on Japanese culture.

Back in the days of the Sega Megadrive, I was crazy about video game manuals. I would read through Sonic manuals time and again, and at some point I even started typing up manuals for Sonic games that didn't exist. Ah, to be ten years old again...

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/documentation/dcs_a-10c_flight_manual_en/

669 pages of what all the buttons and switches do.

@Video_Game_King said:

Well, as I've said in my Persona 4 blog, I really like the Persona 4 manual, because:

• It's a manual, and...
• ...it features some decent lessons on Japanese culture.

Yeah that was a pleasant surprise when I bought the game. I wish more Japanese games were that accommodating.

Personally I remember the 2004 PC Sid Meyer's Pirates! remake. That manual was thick as hell, spiral bound like a boss, so it looks like an operator's manual or something. But it's for piracy. Teaches you about ship classification for the time, how to regonize ships and their portential value, info on wind speeds and navigation techniques, and encyclopedic knowledge on the items in the game. It was pretty useful, and a fun read. Classy paper map in the box too.

@MikkaQ:

I imagine you mean "Japanese games where Japanese culture plays a large role in understanding the story", because I'm not sure how relevant that would be to something like Phantom Brave.

Link to the Past - SNES

Street Fighter 4 has a decent one. I can't remember any others. My time with manuals usually results in me realizing the data I need, typically about how exactly a RPG stat is calculated, isn't in there.

The Vice City manual was a tourist guide for Vice City. There was a section on areas of interest, night life, facts about the city, different cultures in the city (aka gangs) and a whole bunch of ads for the in game brands like Knife After Dark or Howlin Pete's Bike Emporium.

Donkey Kong Country for the SNES.

@ztiworoh: Great thread idea!

The first thing that springs to mind are the old NES and SNES manuals that came with Nintendo's top franchises (Mario, Zelda, and Metroid series). I loved the smell of the ink, the coated paper, and the vibrant and colorful printing. On the ride home from the store I would slowly page through them, reading every word and staring in awe at the pages where all the character's moves were mapped out.

God of Wars I and II (haven't seen 3's yet) also stand out. The design and illustrations of the different gods and monsters had an impact on me that made them stand out from other manuals.

Star Wars Galaxies stands out as well because of how think it was. It spiral bound to keep it all together. Are MMO manuals usually like that?

@Video_Game_King said:

@MikkaQ:

I imagine you mean "Japanese games where Japanese culture plays a large role in understanding the story", because I'm not sure how relevant that would be to something like Phantom Brave.

There's a bunch of Japanese games that have small cultural references that could be better explained, even when Japanese culture doesn't play a huge role in the game. Nothing comes to mind now though.

But yeah also games like Okami and shit would be a lot simpler if they just put all that in the manual. There would be a loss less to explain. For that game to make sense you need to know enough about Japanese, Shinto mythology. About as much as your average schoolchild knows about Greek mythology in North America.

While in the process of sharing my collection on another site, here's a snip from when I posted some of the manuals I've collected.

I always like the original Pokemon manual as well as the story book manual for the text adventure 'The pawn'

Conker's Bad Fur Day had an awesome manual! The funny writing from the game also found its way into the manual and the descriptions of things.

In Germany, we often got the equivalent of the North American player's guides included with the big RPGs (Secret of Mana/Evermore, Terranigma, Illusion of Gaia, Lufia II) and no regular manual so I'd say all those qualify. That also is the case with Super Metroid which came with a guide/manual hybrid like that. Earthbound in NA had that too. All those were awesome because they had tons of artwork and maps and guides that offered hints and basic direction instead of straight up walkthroughs "go here, do this".

Blizzard used to make the best manuals. The ones for Warcraft 3 and Starcraft were like mini novels, extensive backstory, unit story and tech breakdowns tons of art. Those were awesome. Starcraft 2's was like 2 pages.

I liked the Guild Wars games' manuals. Little books, almost. It was really exciting when I was younger and more enchanted with those sorts of things.

Baldur's Gate I and II. These were like books, not booklets.

Manuals make new games smell nice, that's all I ever needed them for.

I'm really fond of the original Neverwinter Nights manual, but then again I think I'm just partial to anything spiral bound.

Snake eater's is good. The mechanics are explained in a comic book type format, and there's a timeline leading up to the events of the game.

The Baldur's Gate 2 manual is one of my favorites, I still go through it every so often because I replay that game so often.

I always loved the huge map that came with the original Final Fantasy. You could flip it over and it had pictures and stats on all the monsters.

Fallout 3 had the last memorable game manual.

I love manuals which give you alot of backstory of the world of the game such as Fallout 1, Diablo 1 and 2 and and this sexy beast pictured here.

Mechwarrior 2. That thing had all sorts of made-up-gibberish info. Loved it.

I re-bought the original big box version of Bladur's Gate 2 last year just for the sexy manual in side. I remember the first time I bought that game years ago and spending the whole day just reading that sexy ringed manual.

We <3 Katamari's is fantastic!

I recall some rpg pc games having some interesting game manuals (most have already been posted here so won't copy that) but while current games can do a lot with the in-game pdf manuals, it would be nice to at least have a single sheet with the game box with the controls on it.

Any manual EA puts in their games nowadays is really good -_-
 
But seriously, as a kid I loved any game manual that had information about the characters and background plot.