Strategy Guide Reviews

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Final Fantasy III Strategy Guide review by FuturePress

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Strategy Guide Review Policy:

My goal for these strategy guide reviews is not to discuss whether one needs the guide to complete the game. Every gamer has different strengths and skills, and one may need every bit of a guide, another may need to look up information for quick assistance once, and another may laugh at the idea of ever using a guide, even the online freebies. My goal is to determine whether the guide is 1) helpful in the first place, 2) does it encompass gamers who need hand-holding as well as those who need a quick reference and 3) how much information does it really have.

Review:

I had no idea what to expect with Final Fantasy III, as my first experience with a Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy X and then I’ve somewhat backtracked from there. I was not prepared for the overwhelming issue with jobs, leveling up the jobs, swapping out jobs, finding out which jobs fit for me as a player, yadda yadda yadda. This unusual set-up (unusual for me, please understand) made the game far more challenging as well as fun. My first thoughts were that the guide would try to mold the player into using a particular subset of jobs for each area, boss, etc. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The way FuturePress’ guide handles the jobs is its best feature. It doesn’t try to shoehorn the player into using a specific set of jobs at all. In the beginning of each section/region, the guide lists all of the available jobs and offers tips on using each one. There are also separate job hints for the boss strategies, something that I found particularly useful when fighting Garuda in Saronia. Also strewn throughout the book are full page spreads of powerful job combinations. The player obviously doesn’t have to use these, but they make for interesting suggestions.

For additional job advice, the guide has detailed information on every job and provides strategic tips in the back for managing MP with job switches, how to use a job effectively to max out physical damage, and how to use a job to max out a character’s HP.

Level grinding seems to come with every FF game, and this one is no exception. However, the strategy guide lets the player know for every area what level they should be around to successfully navigate the area. I would love it if every guide provided a suggested level so I could prevent unnecessary level grinding. Sure excessive level grinding virtually ensures that one becomes so powerful that the final bosses are not that difficult, but level grinding is NEVER that enjoyable. Cutting down the amount of time I’m wandering around looking for enemies to beat up on me is always a plus.

I was only able to find a few things wrong with FuturePress’ guide, and it all lied within typos. There was an occasional typo here and there, usually consisting of adding an extra zero to a boss’ HP. These typos though did not detract from the overall quality of the guide’s walkthroughs or game information. A few of the maps had items switched around, but all of the items were in the places it pointed out so it wasn’t that big of a deal. However, for those who don’t like to hoard every item, this could be a mild annoyance.

These typos don’t take away from the fact that I would highly recommend this guide for FF fans wanting to delve or re-delve into Final Fantasy III. It definitely deserves its 5/5.

Strategy Guide Reviews did receive a review copy from FuturePress, but this in no way affected our review or scoring of the book

Initial Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII Strategy Guide

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Final Fantasy XIII Strategy Guide When I was given this guide, I was told that I would like it better than the Assassin’s Creed 2 Strategy Guide. I was skeptical, but I wanted to keep an open mind. He was 100% right.

So far, this guide has been absolutely flawless. All of the strategies proffered have worked out beautifully, especially those for bosses. It has not derailed me or confused me once, which is light years ahead of the guide for AC2.

I especially love how it doesn’t waste your time. For example, when you gain the ability to upgrade your weapons, the guide advises that you save this for later when you actually have decent components and it will be worth your while to sit and upgrade. If it hadn’t said anything at all, I would have wasted hours by now upgrading instead of killing things, and it’s way more fun to kill things.

I also greatly appreciate that it’s spoiler free. It doesn’t discuss cut scenes or give hints about the future. The closest it gets is advising you to remove accessories because a character won’t be around for a few chapters.

If I had one complaint about it, it would be the wordiness. The pages are mostly filled with blocks of text, so it’s a little tricky to quickly find what you’re looking for upon a first glance. It has some design markers to help you quickly locate where you are in the game, but you’ll still have to do a considerable amount of reading. But if that’s my only complaint, I’m being too picky.

Unless this guide completely falls apart with the final bosses, I expect it to get a 5/5.

Guest Review: Bionic Commando Strategy Guide Review

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by: Matt Green

Last year’s Bionic Commando from GRiN and Capcom isn’t really daunting enough to require a strategy guide, but that hasn’t stopped Future Press from putting together more information than you’d ever want to know about Nathan Spencer’s latest (and, possibly, final) adventure. While the game offers linear progression through a series of Point A to Point B stages, the guide recognizes that it’s largely unneeded and fills its pages with plenty of Bionic Commando backstory, character biographies & artwork, weapon profiles, enemy dossiers, amusing Capcom in-jokes, and even a guide to Bionic Commando Rearmed’s infamous challenge rooms. It’s a suitable companion to the best game that nobody else played of 2009, but on the whole it’s mostly unnecessary.

Start flipping through the guide and you’ll find that the first chunk of the book isn’t maps or gameplay tactics, but a retelling of the complete history of Bionic Commando’s backstory. A recap of the Rearmed mission leads into filling the gap between the remake of the Nintendo Entertainment System classic and this new modern adventure. Here you’ll learn about a botched mission that led Spencer to disobey orders and allow two rogue bionic soldiers to escape a terminator order and his subsequent imprisonment and sentence to death row. BioReign’s rise to prominence is also explored, as are dossiers on lead and supporting characters such as Spencer, his missing wife, “Super” Joe Gibson, Secretary Armstrong, nemesis Gottfried Groeder, antagonistic counterpart Jayne “Mag” Magdalene, the mysterious sniper, and other side characters. Knowing all of Bionic Commando’s complete story beats isn’t required to enjoy or understand the game, but they do show just how fleshed out this reworked fictional world became over the course of development.

Moving onward, the maps make up the bulk of the book as one would expect. Each area is given the 2D overhead plan view treatment which keeps the maps from being too useful. It’s difficult to indicate exactly where items are located in a 3D space on a 2D map, so when the map indicates that a new weapon is hidden at a certain point, it’s worth remembering that the outlined point could be above or below what the image on the map describes. The one thing at which the guide excels involves pointing out where to find the secret collectible items required to unlock all of the game’s concept art. Anyone looking to collect every last secret pick-up on a single playthrough of the adventure will want to have this book at his or her side while swinging through the city. Each map page also includes step by step directions on where to proceed, which enemies to target, and where not to go because of deadly radiation. It’s all useful information, but I found it much more fun to play the game “without a net”, as it were. Still, if you’re going to explore Ascension City page by page, this guide will get you where you’re going with minimal fuss. Each and every point along the journey is given detailed, easy to understand coverage. Of course, actually being able to perform the strategies outlined in the book is different from simply reading your way through the game, so be prepared to develop your skills before plowing through the action. The great thing about playing Bionic Commando unassisted is that players are forced to develop their own strategies for dealing with each variety of foe. Just doing what the book tells one to do for every challenge and situation really sucks most of the fun out of the experience. Don’t be afraid to put the book aside unless it’s really needed.

A full weapons profile follows the map section of the guide in which complete specs and data are provided for each of the game’s guns and explosives. I found it unnecessary to know a gun’s weight, manufacturer, and other useless details, but obsessive types may get a kick out of knowing these little bits of worldbuilding. Combat tactics are also outlined, although there’s little to learn here that the game will not explain or coach players to figure out for themselves. Blasting BioReign soliders and robots is key in Bionic Commando, so it’s only fair for the guide to dig deep into data and strategies related to the endless array of grunts. Factoids such as damage modifiers and optimum rates are explained in handy chart form, but it’s really too much information to handle. There’s also a full chapter devoted to the game’s online multiplayer mode which would be really useful if anyone actually played the online multiplayer mode. Those who can find an active game session will be prepared with key methods are shooting and swinging through the multiplayer environments.

Bionic Commando is loaded with fun little Capcom-related jokes and Easter eggs, and a few pages at the back of the guide list them all. Grin at in-game posters for Capcom’s Dark Void, signs featuring MegaMan Legends characters, logos from other Capcom games, and more. Other in-game secrets are divulged here for those who don’t want to translate the game’s Morse code German text ending themselves. Bringing the guide to a close are several pages detailing each of Bionic Commando Rearmed’s challenge rooms. Each room is mapped and outlined with a completion strategy, although it’s much easier to describe how to reach the goal in each room than it is to actually do it. Still, it’s interesting information and adds a little extra value to the book.

As I said earlier, it’s really not necessary to refer to a strategy guide to enjoy and complete Bionic Commando, and I actually got more of a kick out of the character and weapon profiles than I did the maps and progress directions. It’s recommended for die-hard Bionic Commando fans, but having said that, I question why Future Press went out of its way to create a book that seems to be targeted at just me. Thanks, Future Press!

Thanks so much Matt, and thank you, Future Press for providing a review copy!

We did receive a review copy courtesy of Future Press, but it in no way affected our review.

White Knight Chronicles Strategy Guide Review

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Strategy Guide Review Policy:

My goal for these strategy guide reviews is not to discuss whether one needs the guide to complete the game. Every gamer has different strengths and skills, and one may need every bit of a guide, another may need to look up information for quick assistance once, and another may laugh at the idea of ever using a guide, even the online freebies. My goal is to determine whether the guide is 1) helpful in the first place, 2) does it encompass gamers who need hand-holding as well as those who need a quick reference and 3) how much information does it really have.

Review:

The strategy guide for White Knight Chronicles is about as mixed as the game. The game is a weird hybrid of a single-player RPG campaign and a MMO, and the guide tries to fill both shoes, but ends up really slighting one over the other. Fortunately for me, someone who has no interest in multiplayer games, the guide did a better job with the campaign than the online quests.

The guide did a lot of things well, especially in terms of preparation advice. The game requires an extraordinary amount of prep—one of its biggest downfalls—and the guide really does a good job at simplifying the amount of prep work you have to do, such as making suggestions for the type of combos you should create, what magic you should teach specific characters, which pieces of armor you should save up for and buy, and which items you should purchase for your hometown in the Georama (a town you can build for your avatar online). The prep can easily take hours after each boss fight (I wish I was kidding), especially if you don’t have a specific plan for each character. It was nice to have this amount of guidance for my partymembers.

In addition, the strategies for each boss fight were very sound. I was never caught off guard, and I was able to defeat most of the bosses with relative ease. Most of the boss fights required the same tactic: turn in to the White Knight and set one other member for healing while the other hacks away. However, there are a few situations where it’s best to save the White Knight transformation for a later time, and the guide was kind enough to point these instances out. It saved me from more than one potential disaster.

One thing though that I found really odd was that for some reason, my party was always a level or two ahead of the suggested levels for boss fights, but for some reason, I NEVER had as much money as the guide seemed to think I would have for buying weapons, armor, and things for my town in the Georama. One would think that if my levels were that high, I would therefore have enough cash, but for some reason, the two never worked out. I continued to have high levels and be poor at the same time. It never made sense.

Another aspect that didn’t really make sense was the maps. The guide had maps at the beginning of each new locale as well as each online sidequest, but the maps only showed the shops and save points. I could have gotten the exact same information from the map in-game, and at least that map also pointed out where to go. The guide maps would have been far more useful if they included the locations of chests and harvest points.

In addition, the walkthroughs provided for the online sidequests really felt like an afterthought to the game. They never gave any advice for performing the sidequests alone, which I suppose should not be too surprising, but it also begs to ask the question of why use a guide for a multiplayer game? Also, the guide never says when any of these sidequests unlock. There’s a space for this information at the start of each chapter in the main quest walkthrough, but it’s oddly blank. For more oddities, most of the large screenshots used to illustrate the sidequest pages are from the main quest itself, which is quite distracting as well as confusing.

Final Word
Aside from never having as much money as it seemed I should have, the main quest portion of the White Knight Chronicles Strategy Guide is solid with well written strategies and designed in a format that makes it easy to find any necessary information. The same cannot be said for the sidequest portion, but if you’re going to be playing those online with other friends, it’s doubtful you’ll think of using a guide in the first place.

White Knight Chronicles Strategy Guide gets a 4/5.

Dragon Age and Guest Strategy Guide Reviews

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I wrote a blog post from my iPhone yesterday, dammit, and I just discovered it never published! Oooh you get a big fat F, BlogPress! What’s worse is that I can’t even remember what I wrote!

So I’ll just start anew, grumble grumble.

Well I received some bad news today about my future with Dragon Age: Origins. It turns out that neither my laptop nor my desktop are suitable for running today’s PC games. I shouldn’t be that surprised since I haven’t played a PC game since Age of Mythology released, but it was still a little disheartening nonetheless. I really want to experience DA on the PC, but not badly enough to fork over the extra cash for a new video card. If you’re wondering what happened to my PS3 version of the game, well, I kind of traded it in for Darksiders. Soooo, yes that means I will be buying the game. Again. I’ve never done that before. But this time I’ll be buying it for the Xbox to help boost my pathetic gamerscore. I know these things shouldn’t matter, but sadly, they do to me a little.

In actual STRATEGY GUIDE news, I will have my review of the White Knight Chronicles guide up this week. Also, in case anyone is interested in submitting a guest strategy guide review, you are more than welcome to send one to me for any of the games this year that I haven’t played and most likely will never play, such as BioShock 2 or God of War III. Send me an e-mail if you’re potentially interested, but I won’t be holding my breath. Hee.

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