Judging games that came w/ supplementary material

[mαrkαsscoρ]

Not talking about cool bonuses, I mean material that the game originally came w/ to help you progress.

Examples for this are the big hint book that came w/ Phantasy Star 2, the letter you were supposed to dip into water to find a certain frequency that came w/ Star Tropics, Meryl's codec number behind the game case in Metal Gear Solid 1, and heck even manuals in 8-bit/16-bit games that gave you the story and maybe even some tips on the game works.

Do you think it's fair to criticize these games nowadays for having necessities that were outside the game itself? Where unless you have them almost complete in box, you wouldn't know how to progress in some cases w/o looking it up.

 

[Link&Midna]

I think it's a cool concept but can affect the game's playability as it ages, which is a shame.

 

[Dizzi]

One of the laytons had one...something about the train ticket needing to be folded so thety put a copy in tje instruction manual...

 

[twilitfalchion]

In a time when the tutorials and features added to a game were limited, it's understandable why manuals were the place for info like that. That said, I would agree that it hurts the game as it ages, especially when said materials are no longer readily available.

I don't think it's exactly fair to criticize them for that though. It's just an aspect of older games that has to be dealt with when future generations enjoy them.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

I think it's okay to judge either way, since there are games from that era who don't have the same problems

 

[MapelSerup]

For tutorials, it's pretty obvious why information was included in the manuals; it was much easier to have them there than in the game. As for the crafty bits: while it's fine to look back and see that it may have been bad for the longevity of games, I think at the time it was a cool gimmick. It made the games more fun and caused them to stick in the player's mind, making them more likely to recommend the game to others or talk about that one cool part. At that point the developers had little idea how far back people would play games, and it was a better decision to hopefully increase sales now than to make it more convenient for people in the future.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Nope, I love stuff like that. It adds a little extra special to the game. Besides, with players being able to access walk-throughs, cheats, tips and guides for free on dozens of websites, it doesn't detract from the game's playability.

 

[the8thark]

I think this wins the debate

 

[Princess Niki]

Back when it was harder to find information it made sense, now you rarely see a manual with a new game. Pokemon has started to give out free pokeballs if you preorder their names which is honestly not necessary no one needs 100 Pokeballs at the start.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

I think this wins the debate

Ohh that looks neat. What do you do with it?

 

[Dizzi]

Ohh that looks neat. What do you do with it?

You spin it for a code i think....

 

[thePlinko]

One of the laytons had one...something about the train ticket needing to be folded so thety put a copy in tje instruction manual...

You’re talking about Diabolical Box (or Pandora’s box depending on the region). It wasn’t required to solve the puzzle, but the developers thought it might be hard to visualize so they included it with the game box.

Another one that I’d like to bring up is skylanders, or any other toys to life game like Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions. As much as I loved the Skylanders games, I completely admit that it was a complete gimmick locking entire characters out of a paywall.