Do Guides and Walkthrough take the Purity out of the game???

[Filipe]

As someone said above games are meant to be enjoyed and if people enjoy playing them using a guide who are we to say anything about it? Anyways a few times I have used guides not to play the game but rather to read ahead of time some of the many things I will experience within the game to motivate myself to buy it sooner. It usually works for me and the next time I saw that game at the store I usually bought it if I had the money to do so. Most of the time I am right in my personal opinion of the game from what I read on the faqs and usually have forgotten what I read by the time I play it anyway.
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[Elc]

In some respects, I agree with the point that guides can sometimes enhance the gaming experience or even aid in your decision to buy the game. When flipping through a guide, let's use Soulcalibur II as an example here, you get an overall feel for the look and presentation of the game. Guides for such games also describe the control scheme so, if you have an intense dislike for a certain control scheme, you could find out ahead of time that this game, while visually appealing just isn't the game for you.

Additionally, with Soulcalibur II, each console it is on has an exclusive chaacter so, unless you've read on an online review which character is exclusive to which console (Link being exclusive to the Gamecube is a no-brainer, really) the guide can inform you of which exclusive character is found on which console, and you can make your purchase decision from that.

Some games (such as Final Fantasy IV) have some enemies which drop some items by pure chance, and can only be found in one particular location in the entire game. I believe it was the Pink Puff which dropped the Pink Tail (or something like that) but you had a 1 in 64 chance of encountering the enemy, and when you do encounter it, you've got a 1 in 64 chance that it will drop the item you're after. A guide would be able to tell you (or show you directly on a map) where the enemy is located. But that's about all it can do with events such as that, as it can't give you any tricks to make the enemy appear or drop the item.

Guides may also contain some tricks which can be exploited in the game (similar to Suikoden II's Matilda trick) but whether or not that is considered cheating is up to the individual gamer. I sometimes like getting guides just to enhance the overall package.
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"You make me smash the clock and feel, I'd rather die behind the wheel.
Time was never on my side, So on I wait my whole lifetime."

[Alucard]

A walktrought is decined for finding out stuff (secrets) you missed out playing it the first 2 times (yes the actual meaning is play out 2 times then take that fat guiding book)

No it does not take the fun outof a game but makes it fun to experiens every posible turn or bend in the game and have a master memory block :)

personal I use a guide for suikoden II for all 108 stars (FAQ),
I hate it when there are pictures on a guide, thats a spoiler :p
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Only the dead will see the end of war...



Proud Blade of the Nameless Lands, Alucard, Blade of Shadows

[Njord]

I partially agree with the people who say that "Guides and Walkthroughs" takes a bit of fun from the game but actually, I won't say that all "Guides and Walkthroughs" are bad or good because it really depends on what they contain in the first place.

They are some that just focuses on giving step on step guide without telling the storylines of the game and there are others that really spoils the whole game with telling what exactly will happen to every and each thing in the games.

We must also remember that we are the ones who really go to check them out.

Therefore, no one can really blame these things for taking the fun out of the game and we also must know that they are only for our help.
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[Cedric]

Seeing as I play RPG's I've gotten a large collection of Players' guides ever since I started with Earthbound. I have to say that they don't ruin the purity of the game at all. Nowadays, guides are no longer filled with as many spoilers as their predecessors. Guides are useful, because there's nothing more annoying than missing out on that hidden item that makes you very powerful. In some cases like the original Zelda games, they were almost necessary.

However, what I don't like about some games is the fact that you NEED a guide to pass the game. Some games out there are just for selling Players' guides. That, to me, is wrong. That's my peeve about most guides. Also, as I said before, older guides spoil information. I can remember so many times looking for the Bestiary and accidentally seeing the face of the final boss.

Yet people are going to have to agree that as they get older, they have less time for themselves to play games. We don't have time to completely explore the games, so we need guides to give us some slight shortcuts. They don't ruin the purity of the game, so to speak. It just makes them faster to finish.

IMHO, I don't think you need to buy a guide for fighting games. Just browse through it in EB. heh
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[Blaze Silven]

no, i disagree. first off is it wrong to ask a teacher for help when you don't know what to do? all i'm saying is that there are times when, in a game, you don't know what to do and you need help. but there is an exception. if you use it just because you don't want to have to figure it out, then you've crossed the line.

[Marshmallow]

I'll generally buy a guide, if only to look at the extra artwork included, and find various ways to maximize the stats of my party. I don't believe they remove a game's "purity" because they're used as a helpful tool, one that gamers can use in order to find secrets and missible extras without having to walk around for hours, or backtrack. They can also be incredibly helpful, like in Star Ocan 3, in which item creation would be damn near impossible without a guide that shows which characters can invent which item.

[Snowe Vingerhut]

I almost always play through a game once or even twice before I consult a walkthrough or guide.
I don't want to know what happens beforehand, because I find that it is not as emotionally impacting when you already know what is going to happen.

But I do use a walkthrough eventually, because I find some stuff too obscure to find on my own.
Little stuff like the Shumi Village quest in FF8, because I would have never guessed that the Grease Monkey in Fishermen's Village would have that stupid Moomba Doll. :?
Or that hidden cinema in FF7, in which Zak and Cloud are riding in the back of that yellow truck...I would have never gone to basement in the Shinra Mansion again for the rest of the game without consulting a guide.

I just find a guide good for finding every last little item or feature in the game.

[Celes Tilly]

I tend to do what Green does and just play through the game first, possibly twice, and then pick up a guide for extra stuff I missed.

The only other time I'll use a guide is when I get stuck and can't figure something out (and have spent awhile trying to figure it out). >_>

As for purity, who can really judge? Some people need/want a guide, but that doesn't mean the purity of the game is damaged. A lot of guides (onces that I've seen) actually cut out major plot devices and just inform the reader where to go and how to handle enemies.

I guess it's really up to the gamer to decide if the purity of a game is compromised by a guide, since the word 'purity' might mean something different to each individual. As long as players enjoy a game, I don't think it really matters how they play it. After all, it's just for entertainment. >_>
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"Oh my god--"
"God? God is love. I don't love you."

[Inko]

I totally agree with with everything because it is not cool to go through a game with a walkthrough booklet thingy it just makes the game boring every time the game gets just a little bit hard you go "oh maybe i should just look at the walkthrough." it takes all the fun out of it...

[Esra]

Bottom line.... I could care less for them. The best part of playing a game in my opinion is finding all the secrets and beating all of the biggest challenges on my own.
The only time I've ever used a walk through is after I've beaten the game two or three times and I'm looking to go for a perfect game if I haven't gotten it yet like for Suikoden II with all the runes and recipes...Actually, that's the only time I can think of that I've really used one! Other games I just ask some one or waiste countless hours searching for things, which is a good thing because it feels like I get my money's worth from the games.

Other than that, I can't think of any real reason for someone to go and spend twenty dollars on something that they should try to find on their own.