Level Up! Seize the Experience!

Thanks to obsessions with anime in the past, I’ve been a fan of artbooks. I was perusing one site for Crisis Core fandomania, and I came across this book which looked to me to be an artbook. The item description was all in Japanese, so I couldn’t confirm anything, but with the title “Ultimania,” it screamed artbook to me. Or a fan book of some type. I bought it off of eBay (because they had it cheaper), and the pretty thing came in today. As I sat down to flip through it, I quickly discovered that it really isn’t an artbook, it’s a strategy guide.

If anyone has bought Ultimania books in the past, they’re probably laughing at me because they knew it would be a guide. Ultimania just doesn’t say guide to me.

I was a little disappointed, mainly because I already have a guide and because I can’t read Japanese to see if it has other hints. However, after I had some time to really flip through it, I found that it has some fandom aspects, such as bios of the development staff and voice actors (not that I know what any of it says) and some original concept art for the characters, NPCs, and bosses. Apparently, it also has in-depth character analyses as well. According to Wikipedia, Ultimania confirms that Lazard is President Shinra’s illegitimate son and it goes into more detail about Angeal and Hollander’s relationship. I really wish I could Japanese to read these things for myself, but maybe one day I’ll be able to.

So while it wasn’t what I expected, at least I’m not totally disappointed in the product. I just hope the other Crisis Core book I bought on the bay isn’t another guide.

Wordiest. Guide. EVER. When I want a walkthrough, I’d like a “go here and do this” and the end. Not a “go here and do this and then this and this and this and this will happen,” including quoting actual dialogue. You don’t even need to play the game to follow the story. Just pick up the guide and read. It will tell you everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING you want to know. You won’t miss a thing.

Despite how much it tells you about the story, it forgets to mention a few things in the walkthrough, such as picking up all of the Extra Slot stickers, where/when to pick up the Tin Pin Versus sticker, and a vital tip about defeating the final boss. I’m not saying the guide never tells you where to find these stickers. The guide has very detailed appendices regarding Noise, pins, stickers, swag, food, and other items, so you can easily find out where and when to pick them up. However, since these items only open up during certain parts of the story, shouldn’t the walkthrough mention these either in the wordy paragraphs or in the objectives list in the beginning of each chapter?

Oh and that lack of advice for the final boss… GRRRR! I was so angry while playing, and then I got even madder when I couldn’t find the answers in the guide I paid for and had to look up my answers on the free internet. All I will say is if you’re fighting the final boss and you need some tips, don’t look to the guide. It fails to mention one thing that will replenish the boss’s HP bar. I think that’s a pretty important piece of advice. It’s not fun to keep trying new pins you’re unfamiliar with on a boss and trying new strategies over and over again just to watch the dragon’s health bar refill itself and you have NO idea what is causing it. My DS almost had a horrific death that night.

It’s not the worst guide I’ve ever had. It helped me with the Reaper Review (because I’m lazy) and gave good tips on finding pins. The advice on other bosses seemed pretty sound; they just dropped the ball on the final boss (which is kind of a big ball, personally).

I’ve been a fan of strategy guides for a long time. I used to need them to just walk down a corridor, but now they’re more of collector’s items for me. I use them more for artbooks than anything. I look at them now for two reasons: 1) I now get paid to review them and 2) sometimes I get stuck. One thing I have noticed about strategy guides since I started to get better at games is that I rarely use the attacks or spells they suggest using. It’s not that I purposefully set out to go against their wishes. I just play the game, and sometimes I’ll look back at what they suggest.

I often end up laughing, because more often than not, the guides will say that I HAVE TO HAVE this one thing to beat the boss, but I NEVER seem to have it. The first time I noticed this was while playing Crisis Core. The first time I had to fight Genesis, it was hard and I didn’t have a ton of spell materia in my queue, but I still beat him the first try. I looked at the guide about a couple of days later, and it said that I had to cast Graviga to get Genesis’ HP down to a manageable size. I hadn’t even obtained that materia yet, because I sloughed off my missions for the story. The guide made that one materia sound so important to defeating him, but it’s obviously possible to defeat him without it. This guide was notoriously bad for that kind of advice. If you read through the strategies set for the missions, they make it sound like you can’t do anything without the Costly Punch materia. I never got that one either, and I completed 60% of the missions, including plenty that said I had to have it.

I look down at the guide for Lost Odyssey every now and then while I’m playing so that I can take notes for the review I will write for it. When I got to the first boss, the guide said I had to have a couple of accessories. Well, I never bought them. I didn’t have enough money because I bought more healing items than anything else, so I couldn’t afford these nice accessories. The strategy the guide offered centered around these items. I’m very proud to say that I defeated the boss the first time without any of these accessories. It wasn’t a pretty win by any stretch, but a win is a win.

It’s so funny to see how I use guides less and less. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have thought about making a single step in Lost Odyssey (yes, I know the game didn’t exist two years ago, but just go with me here) without glancing at the guide’s infinite wisdom. Now I use them for maps and laughing at how difficult I’ve made things for myself.