Oh, sure, a select few modern manuals (such as the one created for We Love Katamari) display the kind of spunk we saw all the time back in the day, but the majority are little more than anemic, emaciated leaflets. I mean, when was the last time you encountered a game manual with this kind of character?
That's a scan of a few pages of the Kid Icarus manual, by the way. I must have read that manual a hundred times (at least) when I was a kid. It wasn''t the only one--I spent just as much time with the manuals for Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, just to name a few.
Actually, the Final Fantasy manual--and the fold-out map that was stuffed inside of it--is just a few feet from me right now, despite the fact that I no longer have the cartridge. I also have the Nintendo Power strategy guide that accompanied the title's release. Maybe I'll snap a few photos of both this weekend...
4 comments:
THe manual for the original Super Mario Bros is HYSTERICAL! Bowser is an evil magician, and the fireballs (Podobo, I think) are even sentient.
I'll agree with this one. Manuals today pretty much suck. I used to read every manual cover to cover before I'd play a game, just because I loved them so much. Dragon Warrior's instructions and map were the best.
I used to read the manuals cover to cover, too, Justin! Now, there's no need--every game has a tutorial as its first level. Ugh.
The tutorials in games are both a blessing and a curse. I remember how tough it was to figure out how to play a rented or borrowed game that didn't come with a manual, and no Internet to look it up on! But I loved manuals, too, and spent lots of my childhood flipping through their glossy pages.
Oh, I agree Tracey! Sometimes tutorials are needed, or at least helpful. I just wish more designers/developers would take a note from Miyamoto's book and have the earliest levels act as a tutorial of sorts--without holding the player's hand as many games do now.
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