PS0 Strategy Guide!

I bought the strategy guide today! Actually went in the day after it was supossed to be available in stores but they (GameStop) hadn't gotten them in yet. Well, they got them in yesterday and the manager at the store I go to hadn't put them out yet, so I got one fresh out of the shipping box!

Yeah I know, ouch, the price ($17.99), but I caved. Honestly, how often does a new PS game come out? Won't kill me to make a splurge like this once every year or so. Fixing to start reading it. Will post an update later on.

The strategy guide looks pretty, but that's about all sadly. Am I jugding it unfairly since I don't yet have the game, perhaps.

The strategy guide is notably lacking something crucial to any RPG guide book, maps. There is not a single map in this entire 144 page guide book! Not one!

Also lacking, but certainly not a necessity, is a pull-out poster. Wishful thinking to get such an extra from Brady Games. But, considering the guide is overpriced at $17.99 it certainly would have helped me feel better about paying so much money for it!

There's also a ton of empty, literally bare white areas, on many of the pages throught the book. Didn't even bother to throw some extra artwork or nifty background patterns in there.

Honestly, if your going to make a strategy guide and jack it up with a rather expensive price tag they should have at least tried to immitate the quality of a Versus Book strategy guide. Or am I just expecting to much from a strategy guide with a shelf price $3 higher than what a Versus Books guide use to cost?

Really though, the Phantasy Star Universe guide book, also by Brady Games, was nearly twice as thick at 224 pages, has a pull-out poster, and <GASP!> features maps!!! And it only cost two bucks more ($19.99). If I weren't a collector and extremely happy that I got a minty fresh copy of this book straight from the shipping carton I'd be really ticked off at this. I'm still ticked off enough that I'm planning to write an e-mail to Brady Games about my disatisfaction with the guide.

Well, that's just a plain old rip-off there, Tweeg, I'm sorry about that. What kind of game guide, especially RPG guides, doesn't have maps of the areas? Geez, the fans that put together the Mother 3 handbook did a better job than Brady did here.

Maybe there is some element of randomness to the game's dungeons? That could explain the lack of map. IIRC, some PS Online guides left out maps because of the random factor to dungeon layouts.

I agree that the white space and lack of a poster or some bonus is ridiculous at that price, though. I used to buy guides largely for the art or stuff like that. I loved the old Link to the Past guide because it had little side articles about the culture of the world. It really added to the game. The PS0 guide sounds like one I'll be skipping, though.

Maps are randomized! Haven't played it enough to know if there's a limited number of preset map variables or if ii's just a complete randomization yet. At the least I now understand why no maps are shown in the strategy guide, though it still ought to have been discussed in there!

Ah, that explains that. I thought it might be the case since the game is supposed to be so similar to PS Online. They could have at least mentioned it somewhere in the book, though.

So, now that I've actually been playing the game I can see that I did rather harshly judge the strategy guide. The gameplay mechanics are not quite what I'd expected beforehand, so the bulk of the data in the book actually seems to be accurate.

One gripe so far, aside from price and lack of a poster, is that the Affection Q&A's are not accurate. Rather the wording is so horriblly off from what is actually said in the game that it makes recognition of which one it is in the guide a bit of a chore. Not supre difficult, just not the on-the-fly reference source it should have been.