The Greatest Game I've Ever Read
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- When I was a kid, my parents weren’t the most adamant about giving me new games to play. They were expensive, they were always an argument waiting to happen between my brother and I, and they were annoying to listen to in the living room. So no new releases for me. No old ones either as long as they were still above an arbitrary price point my parents would move the goalposts on in order to feel whimsy. But I was a smart kid, and I found a loophole. A weird loophole. A loophole which forever changed the course of my relationship with games. See, over at Cousin Vazquez’s house, little ol’ GC could play all the games he wanted! Hyperzone, Super Mario 64, The Ocarina of Time. My cousin’s world was my oyster! Until I had to go home, or until my cousin got sick of having me in their room. It was a seven year difference, so I get it. They probably had things to do. Weird, teenager things we don’t talk about. Because it’s weird and scary and teenagers are gremlins. Borrowing Cousin Vazquez’s games wasn’t unheard of…but it was rare and I had a pretty bad track record of losing them. But Cousin Vazquez also had…strategy guides. Strategy guides for all sorts of games. Official ones. Unofficial ones. An entire shelf on a bookcase’s worth of ones. Aha! Little GC might not be able to use the Super Nintendo or the Nintendo 64 while his cousins are using it, but he can read strategy guides. He can borrow strategy guides! And suddenly one day, scanning over a really funky Super Mario 64 strategy guide with the price tag still on the front, it hit me: Strategy Guides are cheaper than video games. And they’re books! And boy howdy do I love reading.
And this is how I grew attached to a lot of games as a kid! Before I learned to speedrun Super Mario 64, I read about how to grab all the stars in a strategy guide. Before I laughed my way through Donkey Kong 64, I was shouting “WHAT” at King K. Rool’s Island-mounted death cannon through the pages of a strategy guide! Before I chickened out of playing Siren, I was looking over my shoulder to check for ghosts reading, through, a strategy guide. And I knew those games front-to-back by the time I played them. I was a walking encyclopedia of games I never played! And I loved them.
Now I told you this story to tell you another one. Of all the strategy guides I read, there’s one game I never found the closure for. One I never found the time to play despite it being one of the most compelling, satisfying reads I’ve had. Until now. And it’s the Greatest Game I’ve Ever Read.
#strategyguide #majorasmask #legendofzelda #majora #zelda
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
► / gc__vazquez
► / gcvazquez
► / gcvazquez
► www.youtube.com...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questrospective, GCVazquez, GC Vazquez, gc positive, The Greatest Game I Ever Read, The Greatest Game I Ever Played, Majora's Mask strategy guide review, Majora's Mask strategy guide, strategy guide majoras mask, donkey kong 64 guide, majoras mask guide, reading video games, video game strategy guides, super mario 64 guide, reading strategy guides, using strategy guides, You Don't Need To Finish Games, nintendo power strategy guides, The Greatest Game I've Ever Read
Big fan of commenting on GC videos
gracias! :D
Amazing video! I remember having similar experiences with ocarina of time, reading guides for dungeons in a magazine and it's one of my dearest young gaming memories, because at that time I didn't understand how limited games were compared to my imagination
That's awesome!
This hit me right in the childhood. My dad had a huge stack of prima strategy guides when I was younger, and every few years I would ask to get a few more of them to read, and would devour everything I could about all of the rpgs he had guides for. Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger, and weirdly enough the standout NOT rpgs of 007: The World is Not Enough and Nightfire. By far though, the world I got the most lost in was The Legend of Dragoon. I fell in love with that world and those characters over a decade before I would ever get to play it, and starting it up the first time felt like crawling into a cozy blanket, re-experiencing this world I knew, but in a more intimate way. This video was amazing and really makes me miss experiencing these games in an entirely unique way. Phenomenal video C:
Thank you so much!
A few years ago I read an article about ergodic literature, and it talked among other things about how some people read table top RPG books like books, not like manuals. This is a habit I developed after this because the article introduced me to the game Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is the perfect game for me, so I started buying its adventures. But people is not interested in playing games other than official but tame/safe/lame D&D Fifth Edition, so I only read amazing adventures like Death Frost Doom, Better Than Any Man, Death Love Doom, The Monolith Beyond Space and Time, The God That Crawls and others, without actually being able to GM them for players (with only a few exceptions, when in my group we shared the refereeing tasks).
Had fond memories of playing Pokemon Blue, Silver and GTA San Andreas alongside the Prima official strategy guides.
I grew up the younger of two brothers, saddled with a rather uncharitable brother who only ever wanted to do exactly what he wants and never, ever share. Furthermore, there was no one my age in the neighborhood and his friends were over often. So as you can imagine, I spent most of my time watching games instead of playing them. I still remember Super Metroid fondly even though I've never gotten much further than a boss or two in myself. My time actually playing games was always very short, it would be insisted upon I stand aside to let the others play if they were present unless it was a multiplayer game.
So I guess streaming and let's plays wound up being a pretty natural evolution of that to me. I've gotten to experience many more games than I ever would have on my own, and being able to watch someone else play a game I'm interested in seeing also serves as a kind of nostalgic tranquility. I am not transported back in time to being a kid or anything, I'm just engaging with games in a manner I spent a lot of time doing growing up. I never considered just reading the strategy guides to work your way through the game before, but I do have a few strategy guides on hand, maybe I should see how Goldeneye reads...
Let me know if it's a page turner!
I love strategy guides. Whenever I go to a Half-Price Books, I'm either looking for games or guides for games I do have for more in-depth knowledge of said game. Shame that most guides are now obsolete now that we have Wikis and online game guides to replace them.
You know what though? Some online game guides got that same strategy guide energy to em! Harder to find though. Harder to find.
Very cool and interesting video. Reminds me a bit of how much of an event reading the instruction manual of a recently purchased game was on the car ride home from picking one up, and even re-reading it before bed when I was little and my game time for the day/night was up because my parents arbitrarily decided it was so lol. Even imagining further details about a game based on a magazine article with a limited number of screenshots was fun - I remember stumbling upon a copy of GameInformer where the cover story was about Phantasy Star Universe and having it absolutely awaken my child brain for months on end. The actual game was wildly disappointing by comparison when I finally had the opportunity to experience it years later, but I still hold weirdly fond and nostalgic memories of my perception of what it could have been all these years later, because it was my imagination's obsession for a summer back then.
I also grew up in a 1 console per generation household, and despite being desperately intrigued by Kingdom Hearts (as a lifelong fan of both Disney and videogames), I only owned a Gamecube for that console generation, so I wouldn't get to experience the original KH directly until many years later when I managed to acquire a secondhand PS2. Before that however, I was able to enjoy a version of the Kingdom Hearts 1 experience by way of a strategy guide at my local Barnes&Noble which appeared to be the only one in stock and yet somehow never actually got sold, allowing me to slowly work my way through it like a library book over the course of a few weeks. I haven't thought about any of this in years, but looking back now they're oddly fond memories.
Glad you liked it! Thanks for sharing.
m8 this is legit games writing, great piece
THANK YOU VERY MUCH! This is high praise.
“Text-based Let’s Plays”! That…oh that is brilliant!
I was big into Sierra On-Line Adventure Games back in the day, and while most of the “strategy guides” I utilized were the nascent online billboards and forums, completely unvetted and unverified, I had come across three guides for their most popular series: The King’s Quest Companion, the Space Quest Companion, and the Police Quest Casefile. In addition to having the usual game-solving resources, each entry also contains a proper novel adaptation, one which sometimes deviates from canonical events (the ending to Police Quest 3 was VERY different from the game). In a lot of ways, these adaptations made the narratives better, as story-telling in computer games weren’t fully fleshed out yet.
Damn, this one takes me back to spending my time as a kid reading through GameFAQs walkthroughs for games that I couldn’t crack at that age. That was actually how I first ended up loving the style of the famous RGG guidemaker CyricZ
Great video!
As a kid, I used to make instruction manuals for video games that I wanted to see produced or make (especially RPGs). When I would make weapon lists, I would draw the icon of the weapon type, similar to the Final Fantasy games of the NES and SNES eras.
Later on, with the discovery and engagement in tabletop RPGs, I would adapt the narratives of my favorite games either into adventures that I'd run for my group or for solo play, randomly determining how my version of the narrative would change from the way things played out in the original video game. It definitely requires more effort to do so, since I'm using my brain in a much more creative manner, but I often find myself quite intrigued (if not amazed) at how dramatic the tabletop versions of these video game narratives play out. In these TTRPG activities, experiencing an emerging story takes priority over emulating video game mechanics into a pen-and-paper format for me.
I've had similar wonderful experiences like this, first with The Game Boy Player's Guide of all things, then with EarthBound. I've since picked up a few players guides just for the joy of studying the maps. Then there's loading up a .pdf of anything that can be scrounged from across internet archives and fan sites. For me it was never about beating a game, but tapping into these dream worlds and imagining even more possibilities for play. I don't look to the guides for answers but for questions. Magnificent!
A month or two ago, I watched your video about Latine characters in video games, and as a Jewish guy, it got me thinking - what about us? How many Jewish characters are there in video games? Not many, as it turns out. But one of those few is Otacon, of all people, and the only place it's ever mentioned is in MGS1's official strategy guide.
I also have quite a few strategy guides. I just realized they're like the past versions of let's plays, and then you said the same thing afterwards. If you want to get details of a plot wrong, just ask ChatGPT to summarize it for you. I wouldn't consider reading a strategy guide as a playthrough though. Same as watching a let's play. While those are similar, they're not the same thing.
Beautiful video, I had a similar experience with reading some Gamefaqs guides of games I didn't had as a kid imagining what can they be like long before longplays and let's plays were a thing on youtube.
Even before getting the DQVIII strategy guide, I would print the guide from Gamefaqs and it helped me beating the game : D A game I did get the strategy guide to help me get through the game was Final Fantasy XII and I spent most of the time looking at the pictures and imagine what reasons you're going to fight certain bosses that come later on in the game.
Yeah, I was poor as fuck and would read strategy guides from the library or in chapters whenever we'd go to walmart lmao
Feel you on that GC
Very cool. I'm having almost the reverse experience. When I was younger I only really ever saw strategy guides in passing at a store, they seemed like an unnecessary expense.
Now with less and less time to sit down and play games, I find myself drawn to flipping through the pages of guides I do have to remember the feeling, the world of the game, in a short amount of time.
I mean it's disco Elysium
Another great video. Well done
Thank you! Cheers!
I watched this and felt "that's extremely valid, but I personally like to get the hands on game experience as often as possible." And then this video and my thoughts simmered few hours in my head until I suddenly remembered how my relationship with Resident Evil games is. Hate horror, survival horror and getting spooked, but also I'm fascinated by lore and stories of lots of horror media, Resident Evil included. So I've stayed away from the games, but read plot descriptions and even done some deeper lore dives. That has allowed for me to experience the parts that interest me without the parts that make me shit my pants.
Best thumbnail 10/10
It's so cool seeing how this experience is shared by lots of people in the comments! Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time was one of my examples of reading the game first and I did it everytime my mom took me and my sister to Wal-Mart. I also spent a ton of time looking up games I was interested in but couldn't access online and printing information sheets and stuff of them from my local library, it's cool to think back on those times.
Thanks for sharing!
I was a bit too young to be entrenched in the strategy guide era of games. But on the other hand, I had/have a list of my favorite games that I've never played purely from watching let's plays of them. In the days before I had the money or access to games I didnt own or from entirely different consoles.
Let's plays 100% absolutely count!
I had the Majora's Mask guide by Brady Games, and I remember reading it until it literally fell apart! Strategy guides were wonderful, like bringing the game out of the game and into the real world. I hope they don't disappear completely...
Strategy guides survive to this day, albeit selectively. Although online strategy guides sometimes have the magic!
aw man I loved strategy guides as a kid as well. lately there's been a graphic novel that captured the feel quite nicely : Fever Knights by Adam Ellis. it's a story told through the format of a strategy guide
That sounds cool!
I'll never forget how I read the Animal Crossing GC guide so much the covers fell off, so this video hit close to home
I want that strategy guide!
This is how I describe disco Elysium to my friends
That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing
Glad you enjoyed it!
The art, the prose, the sheer talent that went into these old print guides.
I don't mind telling you that the Nintendo Power strategy guides in the SNES era were a massive inspiration to my work.
It's always neat seeing video games translated to other mediums like movies, books, and TV shows. I love more people being able to experience the same things I enjoy even if it's in a medium different from the original intended experience. It's really cool to hear you were able to experience games by reading the player guides! Awesome video!
Great video. I've always felt insecure about calling Forbidden Siren one of my all-time favorite horror games, since, like you, I ended up chickening out of it partway through and felt like the respect I had for the game's mechanics, aesthetic, and story weren't valid because I was too scared to finish it, now I think I can call it one of my favorite horror games without feeling bad, so thanks.
Also, on an unrelated note, your description of how you always thought of the transformation masks as alter egos that had their own separate thoughts from Link and would tag in for him when necessary makes me think you might really love Planet Laika, this super cool (recently fantranslated) PS1 RPG by the same studio that made Kowloon's Gate.
I feel the same way for Hi-Fi Rush. I’ve lost count of how many playthroughs I’ve watched. How I yearn for the chance to be able to play it myself.
I just assumed t his was gonna be about Disco Elysium, but this is an even better video concept
I totally did this with games. I guess it's almost like watching a long play these days. lol
Brings back some memories from when i also consumed gaming content through magazines. I vividly remember reading a Resident Evil Gaiden walthrough and being fascinated by it. It was such an innocent time, and the feeling of finally being able to play such game was cathartic. It's weird how it can even feel nostalgic, to experience something you had only knew existed by reading about it.
That's what I'm saying!
Always loved reading strategy guides as a kid but I never considered this.
As usual, very well thought out and great choice but then again I've played Majora's Mask more times than I can count over the past 20+ years.
Yes, being 32 means I'm old AND YOU CAN ALL STAY OFF MAH LAWN.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I miss the maps from those guides the most!
Did not expect this at all when I read that title
Amazing content, deserves waayyy more views. Also, what is that game at 10:35?
That's Inkbound!
Damn dude your works are absolutely incredible and I love watching all your videos
Thank you!
A lovely story leading to a lovely sentiment. I loved strategy guides when I was younger. At some point they became less interesting or maybe I just found online guides worked better. I definitely vibe with the idea of learning your own taste and not needing to spend a lot of time knowing if you’ll like something. Although it is great to be pleasantly surprised every now and then. 😄
Glad you enjoyed it!
Genuinely under appreciated channel. I wish I came across this gem of a content creator sooner.
Wow thanks!
Love your script here, as always! Really fun video!
Thank you! 😊
this is one of the best videos i ever watched, you are so underrated, amazing stuff!
Thank you!
👊 P r o m o s m
BOooook....
BOOK
Silvercase?
Hype...
Hehe B O O K
yesssss