Strategy Guides: worth buying for certain games or never?

[Luceit]

Meh, I'm sure I could get the PB artbook for RM 59 at Kinokuniya; if I got the strategy guide, it'd be RM 119. See the vast price difference?
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[jjrrs]

Anyone noticed that Prima guides for japanese rpgs seems to be much more valuable down the line than the Brady games ones? why is that? do Prima print in less numbers or make guides for fewer titles?
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[Luceit]

I think Prima guides are only available for certain titles. Perhaps it also has to do with the amount of content in it.
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[Dakota]

If I seriously need help, I go to a website like for instance Gamefaqs. But I have very rarely had the need to buy a strategy guide, I did once for a game I cant think of off the top of my head..I needed visual aid for this puzzle or something.
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[LordKratos]

Well Strategy guides are good for those games that have things that you would never know about without hearing it from someone, who has been given the secrets of the game... or just games that are enormous and very expansive and would take the rest of your life otherwise usually I don't like to strategy guides anyway but if I have to I will.
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[Beck]

I'm one with those people who won't pay for information since we can get it free somewhere in the internet or through friends sooner or later. Call me cheap but I would rather save my money for other much important stuff.
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IN AMERICA!

[Assassin01]

I usually don't bother with strategy guides (it costs too much for me, cause i'm really tight with my spending). If i'm ever stuck in a game i would usually:

1) Try to figure out where to go myself (if possible).

2) Go to internet sites and see what to do.

3) Stop playing the game for a while until i become focused enough to play it again.
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[Lord Rengo]

I used to buy them all the time. When I mean used to, I mean a while ago. The guides that I know I own (well, between my brother and I) are:

1) Final Fantasy VII
2) Final Fantasy Chronicals
3) Final Fantasy Anthologies
4) Final Fantasy VIII
5) Final Fantasy IX (completely useless)
6) Final Fantasy X
7) Suikoden II
8) Metal Gear Solid
9) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
10) Xenogears

We have more, but that's most (and most important) of them. I got in the habit of getting guides for most of the games I had back near when we got Final Fantasy VII. At the time, my mother didn't even have a computer, let alone the internet. So, if we got stuck anywhere, we had to use a strategy guide (or figure it out ourselves) if we wanted to get past that part. After a while it became more like a collection type thing. It's not that we needed the help to beat the games anymore, we just always used to get the guides and they were fun to look at.

I stopped caring much about guides after Final Fantasy IX since that one was awful. I don't think there ever was a worse guide ever created. I did get a few afterwards, though, but the guides lost their interestingness. The Final Fantasy IX guide might as well have been posted on gamefaqs. The guide kept referring to specific website. It said something like "Go to blahblah.com if you want to find out how to do so and so". Annoying. Waste of money.

Anyway, I haven't gotten a guide in years. If I need help on something, or otherwise just want to use a guide for whatever reason, I'll just go to gamefaqs.com. However, I can see how some people would still like to buy guides as collector items or soemthing.
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[shuxion]

Not sure if it has been said but if you can find one for a game that will soon become in low supply/high demand I would buy it to sell after a few years on e bay. I sold my FF7 (Didn't really like thge game) one for 40 dollars. I put it up for 10 bucks since you can still buy it at gamestop but the bidding just kept going up.
Maybe someday I can sell my Suikoden 1 guide for a couple hundred.
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[jjrrs]

Yeah the limited supply after they are discontinued raises the prices of some guides and makes them into just as worthy collector's items as even the more expensive rare games, which is why I have started collecting guides for fun as well.

As I mentioned many of times, I really enjoy buying worthy video game items for a good price, so far I find the market for video game guides are a bit more shallow than that of rare games due to a lack of ways to get them after the game stores no longer carries them, but people are less aware of their value and there are certainly plenty of satisfying deals to be found.

Over the last few months I have found some pretty nice stuff by just checking around my area book stores and game stores for guides of value. Some are good buys at game stores such as gamestop like double jump guides for disgaea 2 for $8, SMT devil summoner for $5, prima shadow hearts FTNW guide for $16(that's more than the cost of the game but for some reason that guide sells for $30 or so on ebay even though game stores still carries it).

It's also fun to find some steals at used book stores like half price books, books there are likely to be more beaten up but the price starts at 50% of retail or less so it's not all bad. In 2 or 3 visits each to about 3 stores I got a FFVII brady guide for $5, xenosaga Episode I guide for $7.50(it's kind of beat up but it's a $20-30+ item), Suikoden IV, shinning tears & force neo guides for only $4 each, zelda link to the past and wind waker guides, plus many others that's surely worth more than the half price I was asked to pay like dark cloud 2, radiata stories, golden sun 1 & 2, VP:Lenneth, baten kaitos...

Just like with rare games, there's almost no chance for someone to pick up a $50-100 PSone suikoden or valkyrie profile guide for the retail price printed on the back of the book somewhere nowdays; but like buying rare games, if one like to own guides there's fun to be had collecting them as well.
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