For those of you buying strategy guides, you're stuck with Prima. *source*

[NDUDE]

I'm sure not many people would buy a strategy guide since if you need help, you have the Internet. Still, some people do, and they buy official Nintendo Power guides...

Well, not anymore. Nintendo has partnered with Prima to write strategy guides. I first read that in Nintendo Power as an answer to someone's question, but I thought it was only temporary due to the Future U.S. switch or something. Nope.

"Nintendo has partnered with Prima games to create player's guides for many of our popular Wii and Nintendo DS titles. Please visit www.primagames.com to see their available list of player's guides."

Source (scroll down a little):

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/magazine/index.jsp

Prima guides are known to have multiple errors per guide and being overall inferior to the official NP guides. Now, since NP is PARTNERING with Prima and not just letting them write guides on their own, hopefully they'll be good quality. Just thought I'd point that out.

The guide comes out with the game on Feb. 10, so those of you who like to buy guides early will still have to wait.

 

[Brockman5]

Thanks..I never liked prima and don't buy strategy guides so I'm good either way...

 

[War Raichu]

I got the Mario Galaxy guide, and it was pretty well done. It didn't cover

Spoiler

the Grand Finale Galaxy

, but otherwise it was good. Plus, it was hardback.

I agree that Nintendo officially partnering with them means the quality should really go up. Maybe the Brawl guide will be hardback too.

 

[NintendoWarrior]

When is the Brawl guide do out? I don't see a listing on ebgames or gamestop.

 

[Shiny Pidgey]

I used to buy guides religiously for almost every game, and back then Prima was my guide of choice. I don't really recall them ever getting anything too dramatically wrong.

On the other hand, brawl is the only game in several years now that I would even consider purchasing a guide for, and even then only if the guide comes out for sale several weeks early, like the TP and Galaxy guides both have (where I am anyway), and at the same time we don't already have a confirmed full roster from the Japanese guide.

 

[SU_Remo]

I think I might get the strategy guide. You can get it for $14 on Amazon. That's pretty reasonable. I imagine you can get most all of the information from it off in the internet and SmashBoards, but it'll be nice Brawl memorabilia to have.

 

[maxpower1227]

I don't really recall them ever getting anything too dramatically wrong.

Same. Back when I bought strategy guides, I NEVER preferred the official Nintendo guides.
They always seemed to look less professional, and the Prima guides were better at things like checklists, maps and other lists.

I just preordered the SSBB guide. 208 pages seems about right, I think. Their SSBM guide was only 112 pages. This one's almost twice as big XD

 

[NintendoWarrior]

Same. Back when I bought strategy guides, I NEVER preferred the official Nintendo guides.
They always seemed to look less professional, and the Prima guides were better at things like checklists, maps and other lists.

I just preordered the SSBB guide. 208 pages seems about right, I think. Their SSBM guide was only 112 pages. This one's almost twice as big XD

Where'd you preorder from?

 

[maxpower1227]

Amazon.com

 

[The Director]

The only reason I'm going to buy the strategy guide for Brawl is to get all the info on the game before it comes out.

The only strategy guides I actually use are for the FF games...if I get any other ones, it's usually for the free poster or whatever it comes with.

 

[Kinlap]

I used to buy strategy guides back when I didn't have cable for accessing the Internet pipes. Now that, I do... I don't need to anymore. I think I brought a few Prima guides in the past, and they varied in quality depending on the writer. I don't remember the company that I really liked back then though.

 

[NDUDE]

The only reason I'm going to buy the strategy guide for Brawl is to get all the info on the game before it comes out.

According to Prima's site, the guide also comes out on Feb. 10.

 

[MASTERLINKX]

I guarantee that they'll say something stupid in the guide.

Example: To unlock 'Squirtle' beat Subspce Emisery as Pickachu


I will not buy

 

[brawl1994]

WRONG! the guide comes out the 4th of feb. (according to gamestop's website)

 

[Darkurai]

I guarantee that they'll say something stupid in the guide.

Example: To unlock 'Squirtle' beat Subspce Emisery as Pickachu


I will not buy

Fake MASTERLINKX has a point.

 

[psyniac_123]

Not MUCH point of getting it ahead of release if you can since we'll finally get everything in 2 weeks (glorious no?) or so but meh. WOULD be cool to have.

 

[SlayerOfEvil]

Not MUCH point of getting it ahead of release if you can since we'll finally get everything in 2 weeks (glorious no?) or so but meh. WOULD be cool to have.

Yeah, so our "strategy guide" is pretty much these forums! And true, the release will show all soon. That's unless for some freak reason, we DON'T get leaks. That would be torture...

 

[Brentos4o8]

Same. Back when I bought strategy guides, I NEVER preferred the official Nintendo guides.
They always seemed to look less professional, and the Prima guides were better at things like checklists, maps and other lists.

I just preordered the SSBB guide. 208 pages seems about right, I think. Their SSBM guide was only 112 pages. This one's almost twice as big XD

I'm gonna have to agree with you...to some extent.

I had Prima guides for FF7 and FF8 and they were pretty good and thorough. Never found a mistake.

I had a NP guide for Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Which I never even opened until I was done with the game.

The AW:DS guide had such vague instructions and hardly told you do anything.
"Make b copters...and uh...tanks...such tanks..."
The Twilight Princess guide was pretty good from what I saw, the maps and all that were detailed and even had switched maps for the GCN version. So that guide was okay in my book even though I never used it.

The Advance Wars guide was pretty bad though (Good thing I got it free with an NP subscription), I ended up using the internet for a good Hard Mode guide.

I won't get a guide for Brawl because of the handy dandy [strike]notebook[/strike] internet.

(Oh Strikeout doens't work....Sorry bout that but you get the idea. )

 

[reu_1303]

I wonder if they will have a special edition Guide coming out? I might pick that up if they do.

 

[Brentos4o8]

Fake MASTERLINKX has a point.

Lolol yeah I noticed that too.
Didn't have the cool MLX sigs that the real MLX has.

 

[ilabb]

My friend has the Prima guide for Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.

There are a tooooooon of mistakes. Quite a notable one was where it had a picture of Roserade but the description of Gengar... the next page over had a picture of Gengar with the same description.

I'm pretty upset about this news... I like buying guides for collecting... but Prima... Prima is just bad.

 

[SubparSmashBrother]

I'm considering getting a guide, if anything for the pretty pictures. Maybe I'll use it for a trophy/sticker checklist too. Prima has always been my guide of choice though.

 

[MASTERLINKX]

Fake MASTERLINKX has a point.

Here we go again...

I hate visiting sites, and being called fake all the time.
I'm sorry if you can't tell whether i'm the real MLX or not because there are lots of imposters out there, but i'm getting tired of always being called a fake.

And one thing that got me mad was when I found out someone took my User name MASTERLINKX on this forum. So I had to take the 'E' out.

I'm going to be posting a lot on these forums now, because Brawl is close and I'm excited.
But just don't keep calling me a fake, or whatever.

But believe what you want.

 

[darkhamsterlord]

I wasn't planning on buying a Brawl guide (Then I'd be tempted to go look up spoilers) but thanks for the info, now I know not to buy guides for Nintendo games anymore. I despise Prima, ever since I got a guide FILLED with errors. I wound up having to use Gamefaqs, even though I paid for a guide.

 

[ff7freddy]

I never use guides as much either. But if they do bring out a special edition one just for brawl, I'd buy it just 'czuse it sounds important ;D

 

[Kittah4]

@Prima guides having errors: Almost all guides have errors, official Nintendo ones included.
Ditto was in pokeball pokemon in the Melee guide, and they made several logistical errors on the movelists of the characters. You can't trust any guide to be 100% error free.

Doesn't mean I won't get it though. I need me a nice shiny brawl book.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

I like getting the strategy guides for the pretty pictures

 

[gaph2000]

Comes out on the 10th? Not true. Acording to EbGames, it comes out on the fourth. Of course, EB isn't that reliable, so I'll go with the dates on the official Prima site. All 3 of them. (8th, 10th, and 13th)

 

[Shiny Pidgey]

I just preordered and the guy managed to sweet talk me into buying the guide, too.

According to him, I'll be able to pick the guide up six days early, which would be the fourth.

 

[Ignatius]

@Prima guides having errors: Almost all guides have errors, official Nintendo ones included.
Ditto was in pokeball pokemon in the Melee guide, and they made several logistical errors on the movelists of the characters. You can't trust any guide to be 100% error free.

Doesn't mean I won't get it though. I need me a nice shiny brawl book.

That's because ditto was programmed into pokeballs in the game, if you play it with action replay you can make him appear, though he just leaves shortly after.

 

[OnyxVulpine]

I never buy strategy guides. The Internet works far too well. Gamespot will probably make their own guide on it also.

I did get one for Final Fantasy X-2, first mistake: bought FF X-2..

Even with the guide I still haven't beaten the game to this day...

-Onyx

 

[Kittah4]

That's because ditto was programmed into pokeballs in the game, if you play it with action replay you can make him appear, though he just leaves shortly after.

Well, ok, but that doesn't excuse Bowsers "Ceiling Scratch Floor" as Up tilt and "Scratch" as his down tilt, and other such errors

There will always be typos or mistakes in guides, except probably those japanese "complete perfect bible" guides.

 

[Terradrius]

Prima's Ogre Battle 64 guide was horrendous for anything other than just making it alive through the game, and item locations. It didn't tell you how to get different endings (in fact, it didn't cover the issue of Chaos Frame at all, which meant it was completely useless for attempting to get specific units or endings or the hidden final level), it didn't tell you how to get MANY of the hidden units, it didn't account for making different choices some of the time. All in all, for what was supposed to be a complete guide to the game, it was awful.

 

[CowDude]

What was the first guide with their merge? Metroid Prime 3?