how essential were manuals to old video games and how much of peoples grievances with older games now is a result of not looking at the manual?
>how essential were manuals to old video gamesDepends on the game.>how much of peoples grievances with older games now is a result of not looking at the manual?Depends on the person.
don’t think they had all that much thought put into them outside of some pc games
>>12048469With every modern day game everything you need to know whether it comes to lore or tutorials is contained within the game and people assume retro games are that same way. But really they were multimedia experiences. The manuals and other things that were included like maps are essential parts of the game.
>>12048469>how essential were manuals to old video gamesthey were essential for many games.
I just found out today that you can recover from being thrown in Streets of Rage. Didn't have the manual as a kid so I was taking a lot of unnecessary damage.
>>12048469they helped a lot with the early stages of the game. even your example image is missing the top left corner of the map though. if you purchased the game, the manual gave you a fighting chance. that said, if you rented the game there was no manual and you were on your own. there was a whole strategy guide industry that mapped out every part of the game if you were willing to pay for it. but real old school gamers drew their own maps. that was part of the fun. can you imagine writing down hints given by NPCs with a pencil and paper in current year? >tceles dna b sserp
I've been playing since the NES was new. I've never once used info from a manual in a game. I looked at it on the way home from buying games at the store to get into the mood, but that's it.I see people lauding game manuals as if it gives them "OG gamer" cred, but it always sounds like horseshit to me.I never used a guide. I never drew maps. I didn't play dungeon crawlers but generally you don't need the manual at all for anything. Anyone saying "you didn't like the game because you missed one sentence from the manual" is 99% of the time being disingenuous.
>>12048469often essential for computer games, while more of a nice bonus for most console games
>>12048469Depends on the game, but mostly they were nice to have but not necessary. There were some NES games with esoteric controls or mechanics where it was more valuable to have. For a lot of games it was just a source of cool art and fun to read. For example, the Donkey Kong Country games had great manuals because Cranky had little speech bubbles making fun of things throughout.
>>12048472>don’t think they had all that much thought put into them outside of some pc gamesonly some ? pretty much every pc games i played the manuals were essential to play them properly like the ultima series,hell a lot of games had more than one document like one for control and game mechanic and another for lore.some games had document that were written better than some books that comes out today,just by reading the arcanum manual you know the game cant be bad.
>>12048636your problem is playing console games,good luck casting the spell you want in an Ultima without ever looking at the documents that came with the game.
>>12048674>But Ultima!I was a kid, I played what I got. We only had an apple IIGS until '98 so I played consoles only 'til then. Old school RPGs (or flight sims) are not indicative of gaming as a whole and 99% of the time manuals were useless.
>>12048636Good luck figuring out the combo's in street fighter.Also for other genres the manuals could still contain useful information that was not easily understood from just blindly playing the game
>>12048740Reminds me that Rare wanted to include an in-game cutscene to establish the story for DKC, but couldn't fit it into the game, so they put it in the manual.
To get through goldbox D&D games, you'd need the manual (rule book), adventurer's journal (lorebook with numbered passages the game tells you to read at certain intervals), and the codewheel (copy protection and translating runes for puzzles). You were also heavily encouraged to get the hint book that was sold separately, but you can figure that stuff out on your own through trial and error.There are no stats for armor, weapons, NPCs, or anything else listed anywhere in game. You can see enemy HP and AC during combat but no other stats. All of this is in tables in the adventurer's journal/rule book. Arcane mechanics like THAC0 and items weighing their cost at the store (except when they're too expensive for that to make sense) are completely opaque unless you read both books cover to cover.This thing ran on 8bit computers you know, so it's totally acceptable to enter the town bar and get, "You overhear Tavern Tale 28." or "You note Proclamation XXIV in your Adventurer's Journal." The manuals are literally part of the game, because it was already on too many floppies.
>>12048652Didn't Nintendo lose a lawsuit over exactly that or am I retarded
>>12048680>I was a kid, I played what I got. We only had an apple IIGS until '98 so I played consoles only 'til then.ok i guess since you didnt play ultima as a kid the manuals are useless,i was born a whole decade after ultima and played it for the first time as an adult yet the manuals were still very much needed.
>>12048778what game ?
>>12048802watch out,that anon >>12048680 is gonna tell you that those dont count because he only played bing bing wahoo as a kid.
>>12048820>All games are D&Dlikes or dungeon crawlersYou can also point out StarTropics needing the page to get wet, but that doesn't mean it was common to need the booklet to play games. 99% of the time you didn't need it.
>>12048824What do you seek to gain by entering a thread for the first Zelda game, which most certainly required a hint book, maps, or reading Nintendo power because you had to burn random bushes, and which was extremely derivative of a PC-88 RPG named Hydlide which also required you to read, claiming that 99% "of the time" you don't need it.If you are playing Zelda/Hydlide/Ultima/D&D and it's the 80s and you've never played it before, and none of your friends have either, you need some kind of outside help 100% "of the time."
the only time they've actually essential is for copy protection. but also, anytime someone is confused by an old game's premise/interface/controls/goals, the problem is solved if they RTFM 90% of the time
>>12048829Because OP asked about games in general. I've played a lot of games and never once needed the manual so that's what I said.
>>12048836>I've played a lot of games and never once needed the manual so that's what I said.because you only play games for retard.
Manuals served the same purpose back then as ingame tutorials do now.
>>12048469How about you actually play some games and find out?
>>12048818Redneck Rampage
>>12048493This is true but needing a manual and other pack ins was used to curb piracy and rentals.
>>12050064Sometimes. But you also had stuff like Raiders of the Lost Ark on the 2600 that was not playable without the manual. I dare these "you never needed manuals" guys to load that game up and figure it out without the manual.
I've missed and learned of essential game mechanics from reading/not reading the manual. Like being able to block in Shinobi 3. Was dumbfounded how you were suppose to deal with the final boss and didn't know you could block. In Unlimited Saga on the other hand I had no clue how I could leave town to explore so I had to look up a copy of the manual to know how to start an adventure and even how to rest mid adventure. Learned how to exit vehicles from the Tomb Raider II manual because i had no clue how to leave the boat. I generally don't bother reading the manual when I hop on blind. If I'm hopelessly stuck then I'll look at it because I figure I'm missing something important, and I'm right when I'm unaware of an important mechanic.
>>12048802Not even remotely as bad as gold box games etc, but when I was 6 or so I pretty much learned Ad&d through trial and error while playing eye of the beholder because I didn't have the manual. It went from dipshit kid thinking "why can't I use a key as a weapon" to "why does my fighter keep missing" to "oh, some classes can dual wield." Unless you had an autistic fixation like I must have then you'd be shit out of luck without the manual.The kicker was the first time I played almost a decade later D&D thinking I'd be able to jump right in only to find out how different 3.5 was from what I knew lol
>>12048820>because he only played bing bing wahoo as a kid.You'd be surprised about how many people didn't even know you can keep flying with the cape in SMW by pulling back because they didn't read the manual.
>>12048597>the first example of someone not having a manual itt is the one fucking cartridge-based retro console with clamshell game casesAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
>>12048624>tceles dna b sserpThe brooms say "TCELES B HSUP"
>>12048472>don’t think they had all that much thought put into them outside of some pc gamesbig box spectrum games shipped with manuals, novellias, keyboard overlays and posters and some used that material for copy protection asking for a word or humber on a page
>>12048493>But really they were multimedia experiences. The manuals and other things that were included like maps are essential parts of the game.this is a great insight
you couldn't even really play pool of radiance without the adventurer's journal.
bumping past spam
>>12048472
>>12050175Those people just say "lmao what do you even do? Game sucks"
I’m pretty sure I got stuck in New Washington in Flashback because I didn’t know about the running auto jump which the manual tells you.
>>12048472What was uo with old pc game manuals being the size of a phonebook. Some of them were crazy with how much info they had.
