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[Lightning Count]

Sadly game manuals have all but died out but let's talk about our favourites.

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, this manual is awesome, it has great detaiks like research materials, passport stamps and letters written to Indy. It inspired Uncharted's notebook mechanics I'm sure.

Grandia - chock full of everything you need to know, detailed explanation of battle tactics, the overworld, how to level up your battle skills and magic. Bios of main characters, really you only need to skim through it once as the game's learning curve is not too hard.

 

[Endgegner]

Original Zelda Manual, just because of Nostalgia. It evoked that feeling of embarking on an incredible adventure.

 

[DryvBy]

Age of Empires II has a great, thick manual that also has some basic flash history about units or races you may use in the game.

Some side manuals I like: Quake II just for the paper used. And some DCS helicopter game has a thick manual that reads like instructions to really fly the helicopter I'm piloting. I spent an entire night just trying to take off with a friend reading the manual as I pressed the correct buttons on.

 

[Vindicator]

Starcraft was a good read.

 

[Übermatik]

Super Mario World is pretty fucking good. Also ALttP and other Zelda Games.

 

[Renekton]

The Ultima games had great manuals!

 

[RhyDin]

The Adventures of Willy Beamish for PC. It's a notebook with spiral binding, fake coffee stains on front cover, mock sketches and doodles by Willy inside. Just so cool, I still keep it in my bedroom.

 

[Kiko]

Loved that little BG2: Shadows of Amn book. Sad that everything is now digital. Where is the reading on the toilet after a successful purchase ;(

Edit: And that SMELL of those booklets ahhhhh

 

[Shin Kojima]

Original Zelda Manual, just because of Nostalgia. It evoked that feeling of embarking on an incredible adventure.

This one is amazing, probably my favorite as well.
Also really love the Super Mario World one.

 

[Renekton]

Where is the reading on the toilet after a successful purchase ;(

Read the PDF on your tablet

 

[fantastico]

Pokemon Blue Trainer's Guide.

I really miss 'New manual smell' as well.

 

[Toad.T]

The majority of the Wario series manuals are great. A lot of charm comes from having the game's protagonist explain the game to you, while boasting about himself in the process.

 

[Kiko]

Read the PDF on your tablet

It doesn't feel the same

 

[Cdammen]

I read the Baldur's Gate manual religously, learned a lot about the logic of the custom AD&D 2nd edition ruleset they used for the game. It's fat and chock-full of text about the different areas and towns. There's a lot of neat back story.

Couple that with the map and it's a valuable tool.

 

[RoadHazard]

(Wizard's Companion from Ni no Kuni Wizard's Edition).

Ok, not really a manual, but it sort of is. I loved flipping through this thing while playing the game, so much better than the digital in-game version (although that did have some neat zoom-into-stuff functionality). Best collector's edition item I own, I think. A book full of actual interesting facts about the game's world and its inhabitants, little stories, etc.

 

[tba]

I really enjoyed Wizard's Companion from Ni No Kuni's Collector's Edition

 

[Castef]

Ultima IV.

 

[Novocaine]

I loved the Warcraft 3 manual. It was chunky.

 

[roytheone]

GTA: San Andreas on the PC:

 

[strafer]

The original World of Warcraft was a thing of beauty.

 

[Cindres]

Electroplankton (DS)
Not sure about other regions, I imported the US version because it was taking too long and it has this gorgeous hand drawn manual printed on this real nice paper that makes it feel like that one was drawn just for you.

 

[Kuraudo]

Discworld PC manual. Purely nostalgia. Got the game around the time I began reading the books and the manual was a cool little companion piece.

MGS manual has lots of story and some great fold-out Shinkawa art. Loved it when I was a kid.

 

[colinp]

Diablo manual was awesome. As was the original Warcraft manual. Fell in love with Metzen's art! Can't remember the War 2 manual for some reason but that must've been good, no?

 

[Kid Marin]

Phantasy Star II hint Book.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Pokemon Blue Trainer's Guide.

I really miss 'New manual smell' as well.

Same. Especially so since I didn't own a GB (but owned Pokemon Blue) and was a fan of the show.

 

[vongruetz]

I have two. The first is the Starflight manual for the Genesis. That thing is a beast and is really more an encyclopedia on the Starflight world than it is manual for how to play the game.

The other is the manual that came with Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. Again, it was more a historical book about the air war in Europe than it is a game manual, but some of the information I've found in that manual is amazing. It also gives the basics on flying and dog fighting maneuvers. I have long since gotten rid of the game, but that manual will forever have a place on my book shelf.

 

[Bessy67]

Baldur's Gate 2. I think it was something like 300 pages and went into a great amount of detail about all the classes, abilities, spells, weapon types, locations, etc.

 

[Malawhur]

Loved that little BG2: Shadows of Amn book.

This.
It was a must have for playing the game with lots of details.

 

[Storm Kyleis]

I miss Nintendo manuals so much.

I wish I kept my boxes from the SNES era when I was a kid.

 

[ffejeromdiks]

Twisted Metal Black had a cool one I believe, it was styled up like a grimey police dossier with cigarette butts and coffee stains all over and it contained detailed rap sheets for all the characters.

 

[jb1234]

Baldur's Gate 2. I think it was something like 300 pages and went into a great amount of detail about all the classes, abilities, spells, weapon types, locations, etc.

My pick. An amazing manual.

 

[Disorientator]

Falcon 3.0 manual

(random google pic)

Sitting at 250-something pages, it was my bible back then.

 

[GasProblem]

Yup, Baldurs Gate 2. Wasn't a manual, was a tome.

 

[Heavy's Sandvich]

Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

We didn't have many games growing up, would spend ages trying to replicate the images.

 

[toythatkills]

Steambot Chronicles was a rubbish game but like most Atlus stuff of that era, had a lot of care put into the whole package. I can't really remember much about it now but I remember it had a bunch of genuine laughs in it, I actually enjoyed the manual more than the game.

 

[BGBW]

More manuals need Cranky Kong.

 

[Junahu]

Can't go wrong with a manual written in first-person, by someone who absolutey loathes the game in question. Thank you Cranky Kong.

Edit: beaten like a bongo controller


Close second goes to Warioware inc Mega Party Game$, for being written in first person by Wario, who seriously doesn't give a crap about actually explaining anything, and constantly fobs the burden off onto his ancillery characters. It also has a couple of ship-teases between Mona and Wario, which is both creepy and hilarious.

 

[King_Moc]

IUnirally / Uniracers for the SNES is a good one from what I remember.

Someone's very kindly typed it up:

http://www.world-of-video-games.com/snes/manuals/uniracers.shtml

(4) Getting Started

Getting started with your Super NES couldn't be easier. In fact if it
was any easier you could get started while actually asleep and how
could you enjoy the game then?

 

[_SAKY_]

Metroid 2: Return of Samus. It provides the game's back story and had some nice artwork.

Also Top Gun for the NES because nobody had one at it told you exactly how to land the plane on the carrier.

 

[Peagles]

Earthbound, it reads like a goofy tour guide of the world.

 

[shinjimimura]

Original X-Wing (floppy disc version) on PC. It had a proper game manual (which also had the passcode for entering the game in the lower corner of each page) and a much bigger book describing the story (since cutscenes weren't as prominent as they are now, although already present). It was awesome.

 

[2+2=5]

Might & Magic 6, Heroes of Might & Magic 3, starcraft, scrapland(IIRC) manuals were very good(among others), because really complete, some of them were colored, some had summaries and strategy guides and so on.

What i really hate of digital manuals is not their digital nature, but their futility! Especially rpg manuals, when you want to know about some stat or icon you find nothing! That's really irritating. Since digital manuals have no print cost you expect them to be uber complete but no! They are even less complete!

 

[Kiko]

Then I remember a super tactical tank game, think it was Combat Mission, which had a gigantic manual with all the tank stats etc. Even with that, the game was just to pro for me :E

 

[Inumbris]

I second Baldur's Gate II. I read that thing to death when I was younger and now it's in tatters around the ring binders, but I still adore it.

Another couple that I remember being fond of is the Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask manuals. The full colour character illustrations in those were truly outstanding.

 

[Sakujou]

Where is metal gear solid?
1-3 were more like comics when it came to the controls. The description what you are actually doing in the game was done in such a good way.

 

[FannyCabbage]

The instruction manuals for Pikmin 1 and 2. All of the models made out of plasticine were pretty adorable.

 

[razorblade79]

Pick any popular Origin game from the 90s. That's probably one of them.

 

[lazygecko]

As I recall, the manual for MDK and other Shiny games were pretty wacked out.

Fallout 2 had a recipe for pancakes at the end.

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Arcanum has a great manual

 

[Travo]

I miss the old Nintendo manuals from the SNES days. I get so excited when Nintendo has one these days...only to be disappointed to discover only a third of the manual is for instructions. The rest of the book is just repeated in different languages.