Am I the only that has this as a major pet peeve? I have games I have literally given up because the tutorials were too long and monotonous and I didn’t have the heart to finish it (Fire Emblem for the Gameboy Advance). Either make the tutorial optional or don’t have it at all! I remember the old days when tutorials were almost non-existant but game manuals were generally well done. I always prefered that because I could go through the manual at my own pace instead of being forced into slow motion going through a tutorial.
I’d say an optional tutorial is the best option. Let’s be honest. Lots of people buy used games, and often they include the game-media only. Requiring the instructions booklet to understand basic gameplay is bad (wasn’t at least 1 SNES RPG (Curse of the Azure Bonds) cancelled because they figured the instruction book would be too instrumental to play)?
Though not to say I think they should ban instuction books. They certainly make good refernce in case you forget something.
I think FE had a good tutorial (though I agree it should be optional). It gives you a good lesson on how to play, over time, so that you’re not overwhelmed with too much info to remember, and you can graudally pick up on all the elements of basic gameplay.
I’m a fan of the in-game tutorial, especially when it’s optional. I think FF8 did a good job of that, from what I recall… wouldn’t Quistis ask Squall if he remembered ____ from class, and answering yes would avoid the tutorial?
Not always, but when she didn’t, the tutorial was skippable by pressing cancel.
Requiring the instructions booklet to understand basic gameplay is bad
SaGa Frontier 2. It’s a good game, but damn incomprehensible without the manual.
In-game tutorials that are skippable (FFVIII) are the best you can get. In-game tutorials you can choose to see are only slightly worse for the lazy players that don’t look around (But I still say that FFT’s tutorial was the best I’ve ever seen). In-game tutorials that force you to spend half an hour revising stuff you know by heart (Megaman Battle Network) are a pain in the ass and nonexistent tutorials that force you to search the manual in games that nothing short of a trip to Gamefaqs can help you understand (I’m looking at you Vagrant Story!) are the absolute worse.
I think the (optional) tutorials are better than game manuals. Like the game manual for FF3/6: alot of the spell descriptions are way off target.
Back on topic, tutorials are okay if they are implimented into the game like FFX, or they have an entire help menu like FF8. I liked FF9 because you could press the select button and it would give you a brief description of the object in question, instead of lengthy lists of information you never use.
To add some variety, I’ll cover some turn-based PC Strategy games. I hate tutorials that are completely written in the manual, with not even a remote hint of programming done for its sake. Of course, a forced tutorial is worse, but this is almost as bad.
What I love is an in-game encyclopedia to access, ala the civilopedia from the civ games (civ3’s was the best!), and can access it at will.
I agree the civilopedia was an excellent source of information. I remember the manual for civilzation 2 being like 190 pages and I read most of it.
I don’t remember the tutorial for FF8 so it must not have been bad. I remember the Seed guides, but I never liked reading all that information so I cheated guilty cough.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had another really lengthy tutorial or at least it was really slow moving to start out. Either way I never played it for more than a half hour.
FF8 had some ‘on the fly’ tutorials where Quistis, the instructor person with the whip, would ask you if you remembered/were listening in class/whatever about something, and said tutorials were skippable. The ‘unskippable’ ones could be skipped with the press of the cancel button, as stated earlier. And there was a kind of ‘FFopedia’ in the game too, accessible from the menu, though it wasn’t accessible at all times, nor from anywhere, but it was damn informative IMO. I always thought FF8 gets too much flak for its weak points when it has its own strong points as well. God, I love helpful in-game information.
The main problem with FF8 for me and probably thousands of others is that you couldn’t skip the GF animation. They looked gorgeous the first 2-3 times you did them, but after that it just became a 30 second time sink where I wanted to fall asleep. I don’t know if that was purposely put in to keep people from abusing GFs, but even if that’s the case it was a really bad design flaw. I still think FF8 had the best side game in that card game. I loved that thing.
Most of the GF’s have a Boost funtion (10 AP) that if you pressed select and then tapped square madly when the hand did not have a red X on it. That way you got 250% of the power.
If you are playing with the PC ver F is de fault for select and A square.
There were several “tutorial” maps in Phantom Brave, but they were really short, so they were no big deal. They taught you the basics of the game, and gave you the opportunity to steal a rare weapon you couldn’t get anywhere else.
However, the tutorial in Suikoden IV was horrible. It took forever and you had to do it. It does teach you the basics of ship battles, but you can do it anytime you want by speaking to Elenor. It just takes too long, and it bothers me you have to do it everytime you want to start a game, even if it is a New Game+. Then again who would want to play such a mediocre game again is beyond me.
and I read most of it.