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Prima Guides

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Mario Kart Wii - Prima Official Game Guide (2008) [Wii]

By dablais

Mario Kart Wii - Prima Official Game Guide (2008)
Platform: Nintendo Wii

166 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted March 18
Burnout Revenge - Prima Official Game Guide (2005) [PS2, XBOX]

By dablais

Burnout Revenge - Prima Official Game Guide (2005)
Platforms: Playstation 2 and XBOX

97 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Updated February 25
Yu-Gi-Oh! - Forbidden Memories and Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Storie - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

By dablais

Yu-Gi-Oh! - Forbidden Memories and Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Storie - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)
Platform: Playstation & Game Boy Color

107 downloads

0 comments

Submitted February 19
Super Mario Kart 64 - Prima's Unauthorized Game Secrets (1997)

By Argus

Super Mario Kart 64 - Prima's Unauthorized Game Secrets (1997)

134 downloads

0 comments

Submitted February 18
Super NES Games Secrets

By Areala

Hey all you 'Secrets of the Games' collectors out there! Welcome to volume 1 of Prima's Super NES Games Secrets, where GamePro's Andy Eddy compiled strategies shared by Zach Meston, Rusel DeMaria, and Donn Nauert into a book covering most of the original releases for the console. Expect to see Super Mario World, Pilotwings, U.N. Squadron, F-Zero, Super R-Type, Gradius III, and (admit it, the real reason you bought this book) True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club!
Otherwise, why are you reading this? There were something like two dozen books in this format put out by Prima. You know what they look like. You know what you're getting. You already downloaded it. Click 'Thanks' to pay your tribute, and await the release of Volume 2 as soon as I get it finished. ❤️

242 downloads

8 comments

Updated February 15
Rayman 2 - The Great Escape - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2000)

By Argus

Rayman 2 - The Great Escape - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2000)

179 downloads

0 comments

Submitted February 10
Diddy Kong Racing - Prima's Unauthorized Guide (1997)

By Argus

Diddy Kong Racing - Prima's Unauthorized Guide (1997)

126 downloads

0 comments

Submitted February 6
Spyro - Year of the Dragon - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2000)

By dablais

Spyro - Year of the Dragon - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2000)

149 downloads
- prima
1 comment

Submitted February 3
DOOM II Official Strategy Guide

By Areala

A reasonably decent guide to DOOM II, written by Ed Dille in the voice of an annoyed drill instructor trying to whip a new recruit (that's you, the reader) into fighting shape. It includes a number of strategies for co-operative play, which game guides often lacked back in the day, especially for First-Person Shooter titles. No Deathmatch strategies beyond "always be running, don't stand in one place, and fire the biggest guns you've got", but the amount of time spent discussing fire team formations and other co-op strategies is really cool to see. Also includes a short interview with John Romero which is worth reading by itself, although much of the information in it you'll already know if you've read Masters of DOOM.
This should have been a black-and-white guide, but Prima for some reason chose to go with a spot colour printing approach, infusing red ink into virtually every page, and even into the black-and-white screenshots. It's an interesting look, but it also jacked the price of this guide up to $20 US when it really should have been $15 or thereabouts. Prima must have realized this price might turn some people off, because they released a stripped-down, 96-page budget hint book called The DOOM II Survival Guide which contains the basic item, enemy, weapon, and map info from this book, but none of the level strategies, multiplayer info, interview, or cheat codes.
But here's the big, bad mama in all its glory. Enjoy! ❤️

641 downloads

8 comments

Updated December 20, 2023
Sega Genesis Games Secrets Greatest Tips, 2nd Edition

By Areala

Straight from Prima, the official book publishers of GamePro (according to the small print on the back cover), here's ONE THOUSAND freaking hints, tips, secrets, passwords, cart swap tricks, and other assorted nonsense from the Pros. If you've been struggling with Sonic the Hedgehog, bogged down in Beast Wrestler, stuck in Splatterhouse 2, caught up in Castle of Illusion, wrapped up in Wings of Wor, traumatized by Trampoline Terror, paused in Predator 2, grounded in Gaiares, broken by Burning Force, tripped up by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, agonized by After Burner II, demented by Dark Castle, pounded by Pit Fighter, thrashed by Technocop, menaced by Might and Magic, abused by Arnold Palmer Golf, outgunned in Onslaught, mystified by Mortal Kombat, dizzied by DecapAttack, harassed by Heavy Nova, crushed by Chakan the Forever Man, undone by Universal Soldier, zonked by Zombies Ate My Neighbors, shamed by Stormlord, kicked by Klax, lambasted by The Last Battle, rattled by Rolling Thunder 2, embarrassed by El Viento, or mauled in Mutant League Hockey, then maybe, just maybe, the stuff you need to win can be found in this handy-dandy booky-wook.
Download it, slap that 'Like' button, and leave a comment so I can afford a new thesaurus.
Enjoy! ❤️

198 downloads

4 comments

Submitted February 4
Dragonball Z - Budokai - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

By dablais

Dragonball Z - Budokai - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

124 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted February 4
Spyro - Ripto's Rage! - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (1999)

By dablais

Spyro - Ripto's Rage! - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (1999)

157 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted January 30
Yu-Gi-Oh! - Capsule Monster Coliseum - Prima Official Game Guide (1996)

By dablais

Yu-Gi-Oh! - Capsule Monster Coliseum - Prima Official Game Guide (1996)

98 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted January 29
Nintendo Game Boy Secrets

By Areala

You know what this is. I know what this is. You know you're going to download it. I know you're going to download it.
Volume 1 of Prima's Nintendo Game Boy Secrets is Rusel DeMaria and Zach Meston doing the thing they did for Nintendo NES games, Super NES games, and Sega Genesis games, only for (wait for it) the Nintendo Game Boy!
See? I didn't even have to write that. You didn't have to read it. But I did. And you did. Now, download the file, pay your tribute to your Retromags Goddess by smacking that 'Thanks' button like you're trying to smack the batteries out of your portable system, and prepare for the next release in the "Secrets of the Game" series, coming soon from my bookshelves.

202 downloads

1 comment

Submitted January 26
Super Mario World Game Secrets: The Unauthorized Edition

By Areala

This was one of the best-selling video game guidebooks of the 90's. It's a bit odd, in that there were two different versions of this book published (one with this name, the other with the slightly different title of Super Mario World Secrets), and I'm unsure of the reason behind the name change. I have both books, but aside from some minor changes on the Library of Congress page and some slight differences in cover design, I can't tell a difference. This one is copyright 1991, while Super Mario World Secrets is copyright 1992. But they otherwise have exactly the same information, the same page count, the same screenshots and information. They even use the same ISBN. I haven't done a page-by-page, line-by-line comparison on my copies, but if there are any differences, I've been unable to find them.
This is entirely different from the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past book from the 'Secrets of the Game' series, where one version contained tips for Link's Awakening on the Game Boy, while the other had strategies for Legend of Zelda and Zelda II on the NES. So while I did scan both versions of that book, I don't see any reason to do so for Super Mario World Secrets unless someone can point out some major differences or discrepancies in the text.
In any case, this is a perfectly awesome walkthrough for the game, even if it's only black and white. It won't help you break a speedrun record or anything like that, but it does actually feature a small section on getting through the game as quickly as possible, using only 13 of the game's stages (or 11 if you're willing to skip the Yellow Switch Palace), which I absolutely used back in the day.
In any case, enjoy! ❤️

185 downloads

2 comments

Submitted January 25
Gaunlet Dark Legacy Prima Official Strategy Guide (2001)

By E-Day

Gaunlet Dark Legacy Prima Official Strategy Guide (2001)

305 downloads

2 comments

Submitted February 27, 2023
Yu-Gi-Oh - Worldwide Edition - Stairway to the Destined Duel (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

By bogusfrank

Yu-Gi-Oh - Worldwide Edition - Stairway to the Destined Duel (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

225 downloads

2 comments

Submitted June 6, 2023
Complete Final Fantasy III Forbidden Game Secrets

By Areala

Holy cow, you guys, this book.
This is one of the most ridiculous guides I've ever owned.
Back in 1994, Final Fantasy III was released in the US, and like many people, I went absolutely ga-ga over the game. It's my favorite entry in the series, and I've beaten it multiple times and on multiple platforms, including the Game Boy Advance version with the extra content. In my obsessive quest to learn everything I could about the game though, I bought every magazine and book I could find about it, including Nintendo's own official guide and Peter Olafson's full-colour guide. And then...there's this one...
Part strategy guide, part fanfic, Complete Final Fantasy III Forbidden Game Secrets is a nearly 500-page tribute to absurdity and lies.
The author's name, "Hayaku Kaku", is written as '早く書く' in Japanese. This isn't actually a name, it's a fragment meaning "fast write", and it's a clue to why this guide is so bizarre. See, Final Fantasy III (or Final Fantasy VI as it's now known) is a massive game, and as noted in the introduction, not one you can finish over the course of a three-day rental. Writing a guide to a game that large requires an exceptional lead time if you're planning to match the game's release date, and from the contents of the book, it's easy to ascertain that the author (in this case, Bill Kunkel, aka "The Game Doctor" himself, with assistance from another writer named Ken Vance) was working off pre-release materials.
One of the necessities for squeezing all of the story into the cart, as related by translator Ted Woolsey in an interview, was re-naming the bulk of the enemies, items, spells, and Espers in the game, in order to fit into the character limits imposed by the game. What's odd about this book is that it gets almost all of the character names and spell/Esper names correct, even when it comes to the bizarre spellings imposed by Woolsey to comply with the aforementioned character limits ('Fenix' instead of 'Phoenix', etc...). But the items? Almost all the item names in this guide are completely incorrect--it's likely the item list was among the last things Woolsey worked on, since the majority of his effort was likely focused on the game's massive story. If that's the case, it's almost certain Kunkel and Vance were working off incomplete information and a near-zero knowledge of the Japanese language. More credence is given to this theory since one of the screenshots includes the original Japanese "Bar" sign, which was censored by Nintendo, and read "Cafe" in the US edition of the game.
'Spears' are translated as 'spheres' for some reason. Item names, as noted, often bear no resemblance to their final forms. What's more, the explanations of item abilities and magic spells often read as though someone gave them a very basic, machine-like translation from the original which were never edited for clarity. (Edit: see the update below, but this is exactly what happened).
The maps, maps, and more maps hyped on the back cover are likewise odd. These are not maps, exactly...more like someone took pictures of the screen, printed those pictures out, then placed a sheet of tracing paper over them and drew over every building, tree, hill, stream, and other feature, but never bothered to fill in any of the information. Thus, what you get are a bevy of hand-drawn maps that show the entire area...but are almost completely worthless for all the work put into them, since they don't point out any useful features.
Even as a walkthrough or secrets guide, the book is deficient. It will point out what items can be found in each area (well, most of them at any rate...Kunkel and Vance didn't find a lot of the off-the-beaten-path goodies), but it does not explain where any of them actually are in relation to the map, or what steps might be necessary to uncover them. In addition, a lot of the walkthrough is just plain incorrect in literally dozens of places. It's impossible for anyone well-versed in the game to go more than 2-3 pages without finding another mistake, whether it's a simple mistranslation or flat-out misinformation like: claiming you can earn experience in the "Beastfield" (the Veldt), when in fact, battles there don't earn you any XP; claiming it's possible to get Shadow back into the party via betting items at the Coliseum if you didn't wait for him on the Floating Continent; claiming Locke gains the ability to pick locks as the story continues; saying Celes can use her 'Runic' ability to learn spells faster; a screenshot of a character suffering the 'Imp' status effect incorrectly labeled as 'zombified' by the caption; claiming the 'Quartr' spell reduces the target's HP by 1/4th, when it actually results in a 75% reduction...the list goes on and on.
Speaking of lists, while the book impressively details the Items, Magic, and Espers available in your quest, it also omits an awful lot of other useful lists which other guides did not. These include a list of Gau's available Rages (and the enemies he needs to fight in order to acquire them), a list of items bet & won at the Coliseum, and a list of enemies from whom Strago can learn his different Blue Magic spells.
Also omitted are seemingly obvious things you'd want to point out in a strategy guide: while it explain that calling the Merton esper in combat causes a raging inferno to scream across the battlefield, it neglects to mention this afflicts both the enemies and your party. Now, sure, you're going to learn this as soon as you use it the first time, but knowing an attack could nuke my team BEFORE I use it is kind of the point of a strategy guide, right? Likewise, there's no indication that the Cursed Shield (or the "Bloody Shield" as this book refers to it) can be un-cursed, or that you can equip a Ribbon in order to remove nearly all the negative effects your character will suffer while trying to do so. The book assumes Cid will die, when it is in fact possible (and rather easy) to keep him alive.
I seriously could go on for pages about everything wrong with this guide. There are a lot of books over the years which I have no problem labeled shameless cash grabs, but the level of hyperbole this book builds on its back cover compared to the results it delivers between the pages is a disconnect of truly epic proportions. Download this and read it to understand the nightmare which was the world of video game strategy guides in a pre- (or at least very young) Internet age, marvel at its inconsistencies, and boggle at the fact they were willing to charge $14.95 US (or 2.89 gold flemkes in "East Domo").
In an old forum post at the J2Games website, which is no longer accessible since they removed their forum, Bill Kunkel spilled the beans about writing this book, and how much of a nightmare the project was. I almost feel sorry for him, and got the impression from reading it years ago that this project very quickly spiraled out of control in terms of the time they assumed it would take to write, and the results here speak for themselves. The good Game Doctor is no longer with us, but it's a shame his spirit is forever associated with this absurdity.
Enjoy! ❤️
Update: I discovered, to my delight, that Kunkel's recollections about working on this game guide in that old forum post on J2Games were collected in one of the chapters in his autobiography, Confessions of the Game Doctor. I've corrected some things in the above writing which I got wrong due to my own faulty memory (chief among them: his co-author was not Rusel DeMaria, but Ken Vance), but I'm reproducing this part of the book so you can see exactly what went into the creation of this guide.
It was actually worse than I remembered!
So, there you have it. A strategy guide written by two guys who cribbed all the relevant information about the game by having a local Japanese professor translate bits and pieces of Japanese guide books which Prima imported instead of actually playing through the game (something they apparently didn't even have access to).
You really can't make this up.

581 downloads

8 comments

Updated December 20, 2023
Sega Sports NFL 2K1 Prima Guide

By MigJmz

Sega Sports NFL 2K1 Prima Guide

88 downloads

0 comments

Submitted December 21, 2023
007: Nightfire - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

By dablais

007 - Nightfire - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

135 downloads
- prima
2 comments

Submitted December 16, 2023
Return To Castle Wolfenstein - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2001)

By dablais

Return To Castle Wolfenstein - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2001)

151 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted December 4, 2023
Command & Conquer - Red Alert 2 - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2000)

By dablais

Command & Conquer - Red Alert 2 - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2000)

153 downloads
- prima
2 comments

Submitted November 26, 2023
Command & Conquer - Renegade - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

By dablais

Command & Conquer - Renegade - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2002)

119 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted November 26, 2023
Spyro The Dragon - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (1998)

By dablais

Spyro The Dragon - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (1998)

262 downloads
- prima
0 comments

Submitted November 26, 2023
Alias - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2004)

By dablais

Alias - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (2004)

98 downloads
- prima
1 comment

Submitted November 23, 2023