These days, many companies — Nintendo, included — have been moving away from game booklets. That’s making some nostalgic for the days of printed instructions.
Newly released The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D does not come with a printed instruction booklet in Japan, something Twitter user Cocoa was quick to point out was a buzzkill.
Picture: p_cocoa_f
There’s simply a notice telling folks that the manual is now digital and gives instructions on how to access it.
This lack of physical instructions shouldn’t be a surprise! Lately, Nintendo has been releasing digital ones.
But Cocoa provided a reminder that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D did include printed instructions — even if that was a fold out instead of an actual booklet.
Picture: p_cocoa_f
But that was 2011, you say! You’re right. It was.
I can see why Nintendo wouldn’t include a printed instruction booklet and instead offer a digital one. It saves on printing costs and reflects the world we live in. But people who are purchasing a physical copy of the game probably want a nice little booklet.
Comments
21 responses to “Let Zelda Remakes Show You How Instruction Booklets Are Vanishing”
Yeah i miss the booklets. Metroid fusion did it right, it had instructions and nice art surrounding it.
Old games had the best manuals, with back stories and trivia and stuff
The Fallout manual even had recipes in it!
I still have a big box of Ultima IX (yeah I know I know) and that has like 3 books, a bestiary a spell book and a manual I think. I used to love flicking through manuals. I noticed recent games I’ve bought for my kid never game with manuals – Skylanders and Minecraft didn’t anyway.. Metal gear ground zeroes as well I think just referred you online…
Newer games do a lot of hand holding intros I suppose. Just recently I was playing Mario Kart for Gamecube with my kid and felt I was missing something, whipped out the manual and learnt a few little tricks I had forgotten or didn’t know about. My kid (6) enjoys flicking through the booklets as well, I found a pile of manuals in his room recently on his bookshelf lol. Awww I thought.. then my OCD made me put them back in their cases lol.
When I open a case and find no manual, I start to assume that the story is pretty basic and that the controls are just the same CoD layout. Which did cause some confusion when I started playing Thief recently and was trying to aim down the sights of my crossbow with the left trigger.
The digital ones nintendo does are alright, but they’re still designed in the style of paper booklets.
I’d really like for them to be laid out more intuitively, have a bit more lore, and include concept art. Really make it worth looking up.
War of the monsters had a great manual, it had useful info and a nice design. God that game deserved a sequel!
Would have loved one for Monster Hunter 4 U for the simple fact that me and my flat mate spent AGES trying to figure out how to activate Local Play.
At least if there was a book they could have said “Do the 2 Tutorial Missions First”!
So much this! Not Monster Hunter but I remember the consternation in our house with Lego Marvel – it seemed like we were never going to unlock free roam mode
Balders Gate’s manual was a beast, and I read every page of it.
A redditor scanned the N64 booklet for Majora’s Mask the other day. PDF version here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzGcpfdFICcSaHRPSVA0dHJVeHc/view?pli=1
Yeah, can’t believe they’re not even doing the little slip of paper any more. I want my god damn manuals back.
Evolve has an instruction booklet… I marveled at it like some long time lost relic
2k games seems to be the only ones still doing them at this point
I actually had the attendant check the game drawer for the manual as I was sure they missed it.
I know I’m growing old but this is the stuff that makes me hate modern gaming.
Me too, makes me worried that in another year or 2 I’ll go to buy a physical copy of a game (assuming they still exist) and they’ll just drop a disc on the counter – boxes are clearly too expensive.
It’s the other way around actually; there are games being distributed now which are boxes without discs! At least some of EA’s and Ubi’s games over the past few years have had a box as just a means to transport a piece of paper with a code printed on it… then of course you need to download the whole thing!
Their digital manuals are getting quite good. Pulling the MK8 controls up on the big screen is great for giving everyone a quick rundown of the basic controls for all the different controllers in use.
I loved the Super Mario Bros. 3 Manual for the NES. It was quite chunky, if i remember correctly (I woudl have been 4 or 5 years old), and i’d carry it around everywhere with me.
Cutting costs, yet still charging the customer top dollar…
It’s understanable from a financial perspective why they aren’t commonplace for new games, but man, poring over the artwork and details of a PHYSICAL booklet was a big part of the excitement of a new game as a kid. A feeling that many new gamers will sadly not experience.