TBH frame data is not needed at all! Fighting games are as simple as "this moves beats that move" or "this move starts up quicker than that move finishes" as a type of paper, scissor, rock mechanic. If you doubt it, look how long street fighter has been around or tekken with no in game reference for frame data You and I have probably been playing these games since the 90s or 80s and this stuff comes natural just by playing the genre. Like how you learn neutral or footsies by playing without ever even needing to hear these words let alone understanding the concepts! I personally play by feeling. Similar that there is no need to "lab" you just learn by trial and error, win and loss. it is a computer game after all, it is meant to be fun entertainment not PHD levels of memory retention of frame data.
@@doglopmaz It really is not. Do you really need to know the frame data of a feirce hadoken to pull it off and then see the spacing and timing you need to be able to use it on block and be safe from the opponents attacks. If you do....git gud It would only take 1 or 2 mistakes for someone with average intelligence to learn how to use the move effectively. And that is just a microcosm of a scenario that parallels in all fighting games.
Dude some game guides are straight up a part of my childhood. The biggest one for me was for the donkey kong country 2's guide. It was made by Nintendo too, so the quality was therr
Back when MK Armageddon came out, I got the guide for it and immediately started noticing inaccuracies with the Konquest Kollectibles. I wrote Midway a letter addressed to Ed Boon himself telling him about the misinformation in it. Imagine my surprise when I actually got a hand signed letter from Boon thanking me for my support as a fan and for letting him know about the guide's incorrect info. Sadly the letter has been lost over the years :(
I still own that guide... I remember being SO confused by the UMK3 section, when the guide straight up says it is in the game, without mentioning it's only in the deluxe 2 disc version. I became convinced you had to 100% Konquest to unlock it... imagine my disappointment when I still didn't have UMK3 lol. I also distinctly remember some kharacters having no pictures in their little writeup, Goro being one. In place of an image, there's text that just says "goro.jpg"
@@donkeydarko77 Translation: "I'm jealous, so in order to soothe my fragile ego, I've decided to publicly announce that I don't believe you in the pettiest language possible, thus revealing my insecurities to the world."
Fun Fact: A lot of the movelist was either given to the wrong character or just straight up wrong. Prima actually had to send out info cards to people that purchased the guide with the correct movelist free of charge.
@@Rad-Dude63andathird originally for discussion, than it quickly became a way to ban characters at a friend’s house because “look this guy is super cheap and it’s not because i suck so don’t play him”
"Due to the shifting nature of game development, we couldn't possibly provide frame data which could change. Now please enjoy our MU and game meta tips taken from day 0 of a fighting game!"
Many arguments between me and my friends were started cause of this guide! In the first few weeks my sister was a Sonya main and if I remember right the guide had a fairly negative opinion of her despite being decidedly top teir in the community. She would stomp all my friends that thought Shang Tsung was the ez win character.
It blows my mind that they didn't just include a disclaimer saying that the frame data and damage were on X version of the game and are subject to change based on future balancing patches
@@DiamondDust132 if you think about it, it was probably a mixture of laziness, misplaced confidence and not taking the game very seriously. they they talked about matchups and the reasoning for it sounds like they thought they knew what they were talking about but upone further inspection they weren't even in the right ballpark
The original Smash Bros. guide by Bradygames just has legitimately incorrect basic info about characters. Reading it now... Page 90 "Never press Down B with Jigglypuff. Just don't. Jigglypuff will fall asleep. What this move has to do with fighting, we'll never know. Don't say we didn't warn you." In addition to that, they never detail the differences between Mario and Luigi, actually saying he's just a pallet swap with a bigger hurtbox. Apart from that, the book offers spartan details to say the least. Nothing even coming close to matchups, or even listing the damage moves do. I could have sworn there was an erroneous screenshot for a character on top of everything else, but can't find it again after 3 readthroughs.
Yikes. The Primo guide for Brawl and Melee respectively are definitely two big examples that immediately come to mind for me when talking about bad strategy guides.
The "Strategy" Guide that actually made you a WORSE player if you followed it, LOL! Other players on the tournament scene see you carrying that around, thinking: "OH GOD, I hope I get matched up with THAT guy"!
On the night of Mk 9's release I got this strategy guide, Scorpion and Sub-Zero figures, a free t-shirt and the Mortal Kombat movie on DVD. Best night of my life. 💗
Have to say, despite this book's flaws, its a treasure of mine. Its a handsome hardback, and looks great in any Mortal Kombat collection. The art and extras are enough to makeup for the useless info.
The most frustrating part of this game. Is that the guide implies that it's writers *had* the frame data information available to them and they didn't use it.
It's kind of ironic that they avoided frame data and damage to "avoid being outdated by NRS patches", then they add a pre release tier list in the same book 🙃
iirc it also had wrong inputs for some fatalities. But I do remember that you could email the company that you bought the guide and they actually sent you these big cards that had movelists on them. Still have mine!
Were they bits you could tear off from the book, like a poster? I think I have those bits in my guide, and I bought it at an Electronics store. Interesting! Otherwise it could have been a later version of MK9s guide, idk.
My copy of the cartridge was from a friend, so I never got to see the inputs. You can't imagine how long it took me to learn every move and fatality lol
As I mentioned in a community post, I have this guide and picked it up on launch. Despite the flaws Ketchup points out, the guide did have some useful tips (especially for some of the challenge tower floors). The character sections were not entirely useless, as it gave me some basic framework before I ever came to understand frame data.
This guide had tons of misprints as well. I think it was Liu Kang's section was just a copy of Kano's, and several of the character reference cards that came with the Collector's Edition guide were incorrect. They provided a .pdf of corrected reference cards and even those weren't 100% fixed. Ridiculous.
Over time, the bigwig fatcats were like, "What if newer games are just as bad as the MK9 strategy guide?" "We can hype a game up, rush it out the door, and drag our feet when it comes to proper updates! Our customers will purchase it anyway!"
I remember the MKvDC guide being not great, too. Pictures were attached the wrong things (i.e. a Scorpion fatality was replaced by a duplicate of a Joker fatality), a couple inputs were flat-out wrong, and they gave no idea of how exactly to do the super moves. For those that don't remember, the special moves could be modified with an extra input at specific times during the move, allowing a stronger move to come out. That timing was different for every move, though, and the guide simply told you what the input was, not when to do it.
I remembered when this came out and saw the gameplay on TH-cam. The sexy outfits and the goriness of the Fatalities blew my 10 year old mind. And that’s how I got into Mortal Kombat.
I still remember having a soul calibur 2 guide back in the day and being blown away by all the details to moves in the character section so seeing this is a shame for mk fans
Yeah, the frame data and damage bit weren’t reasonable excuses. And that’s because players would learn all there is from day one and then they’d be able adjust to the new patches and settings came out. So I don’t see why they’d leave it out. They severely underestimate how many pro-players and others want that information from day one.
This reminds me of the Super Smash Bros. 64 strategy guide which spent Jigglypuff's section talking about how 'worthless' she is, about how she was probably put into the game as a 'joke' and how you shouldn't pick her if you expect to win...because NONE of the people involved in the guide figured out how to use her Rest move. They literally say all it does is make you fall asleep and leave you open to attack and it's used as an example for how much of a 'joke character' she is.
I have that one,the FF9 one,this MK9 one,a few of the Batman Arkham ones,The Lego Marvel Superheroes one and sooooo many others lol but yeah that FF7 one was the first ever strategy guide that I bought for a game because that game was game-changing (pun intended) lol
Never forget the third strike guide that said bottom 2 twelve was a counter matchup to undisputed best character who could punish your projectile if it *hit* her, chun li.
I was very happy with it as a casual fan, getting it for the same reasons one would’ve gotten 90s pre-competitive guides. Thank god I wasn’t a competitor, and I’m guessing this competitive frustration is what led NRS to including in-game frame/damage data.
I mean also, the fact that patches do change those things means that guides were now able to become out of date. Also people would just post them online anyway and it's far more helpful in game
@@just_2swift whoa, what? Thick just by adding his own notes of combos and stuff? I'll add the occasional paper in my strategy guides, but Harry Potter thick is impressive!
I used that guide and memorized the "expert" combos for my characters and I thought I was god like because I could pull them off consistently. They weren't even optimal damage. I also thought Shang Tsung was the undisputed champ of the game because of that guide lol. It was nice to be able and go online with some decent damage combos though. Other than that the guide was useless. Maybe if the game had frame data I would have learned about frame data three years earlier. I didn't even know what frame data was until right before MKX came out lol.
I had the soft back version and if i'm not mistaken they copied and pasted all of the text for Liu Kang's moves and combos onto Kano's page. It was not well edited.
I remember that guide. At the gameshop I used to go to, that thing cost about 40 dollars. Or... under 29 quid. I feel bad for anyone who spent THAT much money on such a worthless guide.
I never really understood "Strategy Guides", I mean they seemed to cost AT LEAST 1/3rd the price of the actual game, and as far as I could tell, pretty much everything was either covered in the game manual/in game data or was in gaming magazines of the time, along with similar stuff for OTHER GAMES in the same gaming magazine.
@@lmcgregoruk The stuff in the gaming magazines tended to be scattered across multiple issues, and if you were stuck with an issue that had barely anything -- or worse, _nothing_ -- on the game you're interested in, your monthly subscription was money in the toilet. The only exception were 'special issues' that hyperfocused on one game, but finding those was a matter of either having already blown a bunch of cash on a subscription that is only relevant some of the time, or religiously scanning the magazine racks in the stores. Strategy guides, on the other hand, are guaranteed to focus solely on the game they're for, and regularly have extra tidbits relevant to the game you're playing, or go into far more detail. I never would've completed Majora's Mask 100% if I was running off of the occasional Nintendo Power blurb about it, the guide I had for it went through each area step-by-step, with relevant example screenshots for more convoluted steps and cross-referenced maps throughout each area's walkthrough. TL;DR Magazines for breadth, Guides for depth.
@@CoralCopperHead Well to be honest, I never really had a subscription to any gaming magazine, I generally just used to buy them for the demo "cassettes"/"CDs" First for the ZX Spectrum when you got occasional free games on them, then with PC-Based magazines when they shoved a ton of MS-DOS demo's on CD-ROM, since they could fit a lot more on, than they could on the previous floppy disk coverdisks. I did have a bunch of friends that had magazine subscriptions though. I mean if the guide is in-depth then sure, but I've seen "guides" in shops that look really thin.
5:32 It kills me that at the time, Japan had been getting Gamest Mooks full of technical data and strategies while fighting game guides in the West pulled stuff like this. These days however, getting any form of official frame data is rare, unless you're Tekken and buy the DLC...
I remember having like 5 guides each for Mk2, 3, and U3. And each one had different fatality inputs and were wrong about so much. That MK9 guide looks so good on the outside and I loved the history information but, like you pointed out, those screenshots are so huge and distracting that I barely used the guide. It makes me wish I could go back 10 years with a decent guide and have more fun. I never liked Prima guides though. I found BradyGames to be the most useful.
They dropped the ball hard with not making a community-centered board that can provide updating news on the patch changes and having the community itself contribute for tier lists. They can still make the strategy guide, just leave-in the frame data, hitboxes/hurtboxes, etc. (they usually don't change that much after launch anyway), and leave a url for the website. Or better yet, try to get the manual to reference the website, save money on printing paper, and leave all the information online.
He speaks the truth, it was atrocious on every level. The Japanese mook books, UMVC3 Official Guide and Versus Books SFA2 Perfect Guide to this day still stand as the best fighting game guides ever made, imo
I have the Last Blade Gamest mook, and it's incredible. Every single move is brought up, the frame data, what can and can't cancel, BnBs, and even matchup details. I can't read Japanese but you can at least understand what it's implying.
The only book guides I ever had were for Kingdom Hearts 2 and New Vegas, and those were really good, solid advice from beginning to end for both games . The MK9 one really sounds abysmal tho
@Nobody comments are not funny you troglodyte the game developers gave them early access to game and information. The game developers are responsible for an official guide to some extend. Note that there is no "official rule" that a game needs "an official guide" on like day one - or ever. If a studio can not find a guide writer that is competent: Just do not print one. You need the extra cash? Call it an art book. The art book has move list but no frame data? No problem.
the real problem is that nrs released this knowing full well it would be worthless/obsolete because the very much knew there would be dlc characters on the way just so they could make extra money from their fan base while basically slapping them in the face.
The only strategy guides for fighting games that were godlike were the Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Soul Calibur V guides. They contained damage values, frame data, and useful information. The games eventually got updated so some of the information became outdated like you mentioned in the video, but most of the information was still useful.
Looking back, I’ve only found Final Fantasy strategy guides helpful for the older games before 13 lol. TH-cam has made strategy guides a waste of money these days, but they’re good collectors items.
I don't have it but I discovered everything by playing tutorial, training and story mode. Some things were even discovered incidentally, such as the fact that Shang Tsung gets a damage boost while doing the soul steal move, or that even though you may not morph into bosses with said move, you do get some benefit if you do it: you regain some health if the move connects, much as it happens with a throw.
I and my friends were so confused when one of us bought it back in 2014, we were all eleven, so most of us didn't have access to the internet, and seeing that book with the screenshots made us all wonder what are we going to do with that.
1:55 speaking of that, the original Rainbow six siege guide is pretty much useless today because most solders, items and maps have been reworked and drastically changed.
About intentionally leaving out frame data, when i first read that after purchasing this guide I figured it was because of Nerfs/Buffs that could be applied down the line. It did feel like a waste of money since what exactly am i paying for? Combos? Safe Strings? Mixups? General strategies? Like you know, all those things that I have developed for years harnessing just having fun labbing in training mode and experimenting in every fighting game i have ever owned. It was something about reading that line in this guidebook that made me realize that guidebooks for fighting games are near useless besides frame data (which isnt that valuable since many times you can "feel" when a move is plus and by how much with practice. Discovering how to punish or creating safe jumps or setup situations on your own is a lot more fun in my opinion. Not to mention sometimes the info in these types of guides is just straight up wrong.
I remember being younger and before internet was around commonly (mid 90s), I'd go to the store with my mom and bring paper/pencil so I could write down codes and tips from guides.
i actually truly dont like playing by frame data, obviously it’s “optimal” to know the ‘frame 5 punish’ for the move that ends -6, but that really sucks the fun out of a game for me to memorize 10,000 numbers
On the flip side, I remember the Street FIghter x Tekken guide was written based off the beta build of the game. as such when they included frame data and damage values, it was all out of date by the release day because the beta build was REALLY old. The guide for SFxT was outdated on day 1. Both of these are so sad because I feel like this era of bad guides killed fighting game strategy guides as actual guides
Why didn't NRS just PUT the frame data in the game it's self?? It clear that exclusion of the frame data from the guide was deliberate... moreso, NRS explicitly keeping the info from the writers (thus the consumers) making the guide. Edit: *fearing > Mike Fahey* 4/25/11 12:48pm _I remember one of the previousl 3D Mortal Kombat game guides was from Brady and it didn't even include any of the secret characters much less moves lists for them or anything. I brought it up later that year at the Brady session at our manager's conference for GameStop when they wanted some constructive criticism. They said that was completely on the Mortal Kombat developers. They weren't proud of that guide because there was a lot of things the MK developers did not allow to be put in the game. Perhaps that's why Prima's doing their guide now? Wonder if that has anything (clearly not everything from some of those mistakes) to do with the suckiness of this guide as well?_
So basically, the intro was written by passionate dedicated fans with a strong love of the franchise and it's history... And the actual guide part was written by 10 year-olds who can't figure out counterplay/flowchart Ken-s
Plot twist: The guide was actually far ahead of it's time and all the current top players have no idea what they are talking about and Nightwolf is actually top tier.
I think most western fighting game guides of the time were like that MK Gold one: move lists, maybe some combos, but that was about it. Some of the Japanese guides were much better. A special shoutout to the Bradygames MKT guide which had some errors and was missing characters and secrets. I can only assume that it was based on a beta version quite a way out from release. You could find the missing stuff on their website, but what's the point of buying a guide if you still have to look online to find what you need?
Yo there was this kid in high school who would quote this whenever I tried to say, anything about the game. Holy christ this makes me feel better for even existing
I’m beginning to think this guide may have contributed to the downfall of printed strategy guides. Yes, online guides are far more convenient these days because of technology. But bad print guides like this one likely didn’t help the print guides any.
The only bad thing to ever come out of MK9
and Sheeva's 'outfit'
TBH frame data is not needed at all!
Fighting games are as simple as "this moves beats that move" or "this move starts up quicker than that move finishes" as a type of paper, scissor, rock mechanic.
If you doubt it, look how long street fighter has been around or tekken with no in game reference for frame data
You and I have probably been playing these games since the 90s or 80s and this stuff comes natural just by playing the genre. Like how you learn neutral or footsies by playing without ever even needing to hear these words let alone understanding the concepts!
I personally play by feeling.
Similar that there is no need to "lab" you just learn by trial and error, win and loss.
it is a computer game after all, it is meant to be fun entertainment not PHD levels of memory retention of frame data.
@@Stinkyremy pffff this is trol, rigth?
@@Stinkyremy footsies and so are important but frame data is as important
@@doglopmaz It really is not. Do you really need to know the frame data of a feirce hadoken to pull it off and then see the spacing and timing you need to be able to use it on block and be safe from the opponents attacks.
If you do....git gud
It would only take 1 or 2 mistakes for someone with average intelligence to learn how to use the move effectively.
And that is just a microcosm of a scenario that parallels in all fighting games.
I used to buy guides for games I didn't even own, because I just enjoyed reading them at school. Some of them had cool art in the back too.
i would buy them for games i’d rent often
Same. I used to love using the art to practice my own drawing.
Same for game magazines
I still try to buy guides. They were a huge part of my gaming experience. Next to cheat codes aha
Dude some game guides are straight up a part of my childhood. The biggest one for me was for the donkey kong country 2's guide. It was made by Nintendo too, so the quality was therr
Back when MK Armageddon came out, I got the guide for it and immediately started noticing inaccuracies with the Konquest Kollectibles. I wrote Midway a letter addressed to Ed Boon himself telling him about the misinformation in it. Imagine my surprise when I actually got a hand signed letter from Boon thanking me for my support as a fan and for letting him know about the guide's incorrect info. Sadly the letter has been lost over the years :(
But the memory remains, and that’s all the matters. Thanks for sharing!
I still own that guide... I remember being SO confused by the UMK3 section, when the guide straight up says it is in the game, without mentioning it's only in the deluxe 2 disc version. I became convinced you had to 100% Konquest to unlock it... imagine my disappointment when I still didn't have UMK3 lol. I also distinctly remember some kharacters having no pictures in their little writeup, Goro being one. In place of an image, there's text that just says "goro.jpg"
Out of curiosity, how old were you at the time?
This didn't happen.
@@donkeydarko77 Translation: "I'm jealous, so in order to soothe my fragile ego, I've decided to publicly announce that I don't believe you in the pettiest language possible, thus revealing my insecurities to the world."
Fun Fact: A lot of the movelist was either given to the wrong character or just straight up wrong. Prima actually had to send out info cards to people that purchased the guide with the correct movelist free of charge.
Great pfp.
Pfp sauce
Yo wtf? I never got a card! Fucking kanos moves are listed as liu kangs!
@@majinbjebus4918 I second this.
@@thehoodybadger3402 y'all furries
Prima guide: Balance patches mean we can't give you frame data as it could be outdated quickly
Also Prima guide: HERE'S A FUCKING DAY ZERO TIER LIST
Why would there be a day zero tier list? Everyone who wants to play it competitively would be practicing not be at a tournament day of release.
@@mysticspark2694 nowadays? For internet clout
@@esn_64 yeah but what about in 2011?
@@Rad-Dude63andathird originally for discussion, than it quickly became a way to ban characters at a friend’s house because “look this guy is super cheap and it’s not because i suck so don’t play him”
We wouldn't want them to have to finish testing and balancing their game before they sell it to us
Seeing ketchup's glasses be wonky because they got caught in the headphones is the most relatable piece of content I've seen on this platform
without fail
So they were wonky I thought my eyes were playing tricks
His glasses always look like that though
That's sad. Lol
"Due to the shifting nature of game development, we couldn't possibly provide frame data which could change. Now please enjoy our MU and game meta tips taken from day 0 of a fighting game!"
Many arguments between me and my friends were started cause of this guide! In the first few weeks my sister was a Sonya main and if I remember right the guide had a fairly negative opinion of her despite being decidedly top teir in the community. She would stomp all my friends that thought Shang Tsung was the ez win character.
Kabal is barely covered too which is ironic as Kabal was one of the most slept on characters in the game until it was too late
@@PNDKM, in my opinion, Kabal was, is and will always be one of the top tier character.
@@Fedor_Shtykov it's pretty unanimous that he's #1. he literally has 0 losing matchups
@@trancandy1 Sheeva is top 1 smh. Noobs
@@Fedor_Shtykov he’s like that in MK3 too, and he’s also just good in a lot of games
It blows my mind that they didn't just include a disclaimer saying that the frame data and damage were on X version of the game and are subject to change based on future balancing patches
Probably because your idea actually makes sense, and that obviously wasn't the goal.
@@DiamondDust132 if you think about it, it was probably a mixture of laziness, misplaced confidence and not taking the game very seriously. they they talked about matchups and the reasoning for it sounds like they thought they knew what they were talking about but upone further inspection they weren't even in the right ballpark
They were lazy, simply as that
they probably didn't have the info. this was clearly written by hacks.
I like how book creators have said, that “damage and frame data would become outdated”, but day 1 tier list and MU chart apparently not)
Lmao. Reminds me of the old Smash Bros Brawl Prima Strategy Guide that said that Meta Knight was a weak 6/10 character.
Little did they know he was an unholy monster in the competitive scene
The original Smash Bros. guide by Bradygames just has legitimately incorrect basic info about characters. Reading it now... Page 90 "Never press Down B with Jigglypuff. Just don't. Jigglypuff will fall asleep. What this move has to do with fighting, we'll never know. Don't say we didn't warn you." In addition to that, they never detail the differences between Mario and Luigi, actually saying he's just a pallet swap with a bigger hurtbox. Apart from that, the book offers spartan details to say the least. Nothing even coming close to matchups, or even listing the damage moves do. I could have sworn there was an erroneous screenshot for a character on top of everything else, but can't find it again after 3 readthroughs.
Holy shoot I remember that!
Yikes. The Primo guide for Brawl and Melee respectively are definitely two big examples that immediately come to mind for me when talking about bad strategy guides.
*Bruh*
The "Strategy" Guide that actually made you a WORSE player if you followed it, LOL!
Other players on the tournament scene see you carrying that around, thinking:
"OH GOD, I hope I get matched up with THAT guy"!
On the night of Mk 9's release I got this strategy guide, Scorpion and Sub-Zero figures, a free t-shirt and the Mortal Kombat movie on DVD. Best night of my life. 💗
Same!!! You know that the Scorpion and Sub-Zero figures double as a bookstand right?
@@brookswilliams5239 Totally! I used them to prop up my game collection at the time.
God, I think I owned that? Is that why my one cheap friend kept trying to make Nightwolf work? Because he was 'meta'?
Quite possible, plus his reflector did manage to invalidate some of the zoning options available.
Eh to be fair everyone was busted so you can't really blame him for trying to make nightwolf good,guide or no guide.
Have to say, despite this book's flaws, its a treasure of mine. Its a handsome hardback, and looks great in any Mortal Kombat collection. The art and extras are enough to makeup for the useless info.
That is a very interesting perspective
@@TheRealRaditz9001 I applaud your restraint.
Agreed, it’s a premium item.
One man's trash is another man's treasure
I'm surprised they didn't say "Raiden is the best, because he's literally a God."
The most frustrating part of this game. Is that the guide implies that it's writers *had* the frame data information available to them and they didn't use it.
It's kind of ironic that they avoided frame data and damage to "avoid being outdated by NRS patches", then they add a pre release tier list in the same book 🙃
Yeah you’re like the 300th person to mention that
iirc it also had wrong inputs for some fatalities. But I do remember that you could email the company that you bought the guide and they actually sent you these big cards that had movelists on them. Still have mine!
Were they bits you could tear off from the book, like a poster? I think I have those bits in my guide, and I bought it at an Electronics store. Interesting!
Otherwise it could have been a later version of MK9s guide, idk.
I bought mine a little after release and it came with those cards so they must've started including them lol.
Fun fact the special move inputs and fatalitys were inside of the instruction manual for MK1
Well dam
@@celestialdragonlord5004 i know this cause i still have my copy with the manual with it
Never seen the instruction manual I think I just had the raw cartridge but i had a cheat magazine that gave me them all
My copy of the cartridge was from a friend, so I never got to see the inputs. You can't imagine how long it took me to learn every move and fatality lol
@@Stinkyremy cartridge? Wasn' t this on disc?
The F-bomb at 7:17 from Ketchup was more than enough to tell me how abysmal this guide was. O_O
MY MK9 strategy guide JUST came in the mail like 20 minutes ago from eBay and THIS video comes out. WTF
*cue the dead meme x files theme*
TH-cam tells creators what to make based on algorithms
@@makidiaz3894 excuse me
you buy a game now?
The entire goal for strategy guides quickly became filling up pages to make them look as informative as possible.
As I mentioned in a community post, I have this guide and picked it up on launch. Despite the flaws Ketchup points out, the guide did have some useful tips (especially for some of the challenge tower floors). The character sections were not entirely useless, as it gave me some basic framework before I ever came to understand frame data.
This guide had tons of misprints as well. I think it was Liu Kang's section was just a copy of Kano's, and several of the character reference cards that came with the Collector's Edition guide were incorrect. They provided a .pdf of corrected reference cards and even those weren't 100% fixed. Ridiculous.
Over time, the bigwig fatcats were like, "What if newer games are just as bad as the MK9 strategy guide?" "We can hype a game up, rush it out the door, and drag our feet when it comes to proper updates! Our customers will purchase it anyway!"
I remember the MKvDC guide being not great, too. Pictures were attached the wrong things (i.e. a Scorpion fatality was replaced by a duplicate of a Joker fatality), a couple inputs were flat-out wrong, and they gave no idea of how exactly to do the super moves. For those that don't remember, the special moves could be modified with an extra input at specific times during the move, allowing a stronger move to come out. That timing was different for every move, though, and the guide simply told you what the input was, not when to do it.
Final Fantasy 9 Official guide literally tells you to go online to figure out stuff. The actual book tells you to just go online
Best strategy a physical book could ever give you about a modern video game.
I just realized that mk9 is 10 years old... I feel so oldd
I remembered when this came out and saw the gameplay on TH-cam. The sexy outfits and the goriness of the Fatalities blew my 10 year old mind. And that’s how I got into Mortal Kombat.
@@victoracosta4796Damn
10 year old playing +18 game
@@soulpuzzle8544 I wish. I've never gotten to play an MK game because I've been broke most of my life.
I still remember having a soul calibur 2 guide back in the day and being blown away by all the details to moves in the character section so seeing this is a shame for mk fans
I still have that SCII guide! It's invaluable! 😎
Yeah, the frame data and damage bit weren’t reasonable excuses. And that’s because players would learn all there is from day one and then they’d be able adjust to the new patches and settings came out. So I don’t see why they’d leave it out. They severely underestimate how many pro-players and others want that information from day one.
I had the Shaolin Monks guide back in the day!
I own that strategy guide ☹ never used it, but I still have it, it's kind of pretty. I also have the Scorpion harpooning Sub Zero mini statue.
You also still have you're virginity?
@@stevenramrodd1226 bruh
This reminds me of the Super Smash Bros. 64 strategy guide which spent Jigglypuff's section talking about how 'worthless' she is, about how she was probably put into the game as a 'joke' and how you shouldn't pick her if you expect to win...because NONE of the people involved in the guide figured out how to use her Rest move.
They literally say all it does is make you fall asleep and leave you open to attack and it's used as an example for how much of a 'joke character' she is.
I mean, they're not wrong.
@@davisbowe8668 Rest is one of the best high risk high reward moves in the game. Stop the nonsense
@@davisbowe8668 tell that to Hbox
Some of these companies are paying unqualified morons to write guides.
They'll leave out frame data because much of it will inevitably change, but add in a tier list?
The very first guide I ever owned was that classic Brady Games FF7 one with Cloud looking up at the first reactor.
I have that one,the FF9 one,this MK9 one,a few of the Batman Arkham ones,The Lego Marvel Superheroes one and sooooo many others lol but yeah that FF7 one was the first ever strategy guide that I bought for a game because that game was game-changing (pun intended) lol
@@brookswilliams5239 I remember picking up FF9 and the guide together at a midnight release.
Never forget the third strike guide that said bottom 2 twelve was a counter matchup to undisputed best character who could punish your projectile if it *hit* her, chun li.
I was very happy with it as a casual fan, getting it for the same reasons one would’ve gotten 90s pre-competitive guides. Thank god I wasn’t a competitor, and I’m guessing this competitive frustration is what led NRS to including in-game frame/damage data.
I mean also, the fact that patches do change those things means that guides were now able to become out of date.
Also people would just post them online anyway and it's far more helpful in game
The biggest red flag was calling them Warriors and not Kombatants.
Low key I miss the old days. I remember my older brother made an a mk trilogy guide harry potter novel THICC.
Did he ever try to sell it? I'd love to read an mk guide as thicc as goblet of fire
@@blyat8832 idk Id have to ask him where is it. It was huge
@@just_2swift whoa, what? Thick just by adding his own notes of combos and stuff? I'll add the occasional paper in my strategy guides, but Harry Potter thick is impressive!
@@ronweaslee7065 he had one for killer instinct gold as well just not as THICC
@@just_2swift Upload a video of it pls!!
I used that guide and memorized the "expert" combos for my characters and I thought I was god like because I could pull them off consistently. They weren't even optimal damage. I also thought Shang Tsung was the undisputed champ of the game because of that guide lol.
It was nice to be able and go online with some decent damage combos though. Other than that the guide was useless. Maybe if the game had frame data I would have learned about frame data three years earlier. I didn't even know what frame data was until right before MKX came out lol.
I had the soft back version and if i'm not mistaken they copied and pasted all of the text for Liu Kang's moves and combos onto Kano's page. It was not well edited.
If I remember correctly the MvC3 guide had the same issue.
I remember that guide. At the gameshop I used to go to, that thing cost about 40 dollars. Or... under 29 quid.
I feel bad for anyone who spent THAT much money on such a worthless guide.
I never really understood "Strategy Guides", I mean they seemed to cost AT LEAST 1/3rd the price of the actual game, and as far as I could tell, pretty much everything was either covered in the game manual/in game data or was in gaming magazines of the time, along with similar stuff for OTHER GAMES in the same gaming magazine.
@@lmcgregoruk The stuff in the gaming magazines tended to be scattered across multiple issues, and if you were stuck with an issue that had barely anything -- or worse, _nothing_ -- on the game you're interested in, your monthly subscription was money in the toilet. The only exception were 'special issues' that hyperfocused on one game, but finding those was a matter of either having already blown a bunch of cash on a subscription that is only relevant some of the time, or religiously scanning the magazine racks in the stores.
Strategy guides, on the other hand, are guaranteed to focus solely on the game they're for, and regularly have extra tidbits relevant to the game you're playing, or go into far more detail. I never would've completed Majora's Mask 100% if I was running off of the occasional Nintendo Power blurb about it, the guide I had for it went through each area step-by-step, with relevant example screenshots for more convoluted steps and cross-referenced maps throughout each area's walkthrough.
TL;DR Magazines for breadth, Guides for depth.
@@CoralCopperHead Well to be honest, I never really had a subscription to any gaming magazine, I generally just used to buy them for the demo "cassettes"/"CDs" First for the ZX Spectrum when you got occasional free games on them, then with PC-Based magazines when they shoved a ton of MS-DOS demo's on CD-ROM, since they could fit a lot more on, than they could on the previous floppy disk coverdisks. I did have a bunch of friends that had magazine subscriptions though. I mean if the guide is in-depth then sure, but I've seen "guides" in shops that look really thin.
5:32 It kills me that at the time, Japan had been getting Gamest Mooks full of technical data and strategies while fighting game guides in the West pulled stuff like this. These days however, getting any form of official frame data is rare, unless you're Tekken and buy the DLC...
Or play NRS games that have it in the game.
Or look it up...............
I remember having like 5 guides each for Mk2, 3, and U3. And each one had different fatality inputs and were wrong about so much. That MK9 guide looks so good on the outside and I loved the history information but, like you pointed out, those screenshots are so huge and distracting that I barely used the guide. It makes me wish I could go back 10 years with a decent guide and have more fun.
I never liked Prima guides though. I found BradyGames to be the most useful.
Was playing Doom while starting this vid, so the music had me confused
StarCraft Strategy Guide said the counter to Dragoons is Dragoons. Last one I bought was for Diablo 3. I regret nothing!
I can imagine a much younger Ryan and Jake reading the guide for the first time and being absolutely livid.
They dropped the ball hard with not making a community-centered board that can provide updating news on the patch changes and having the community itself contribute for tier lists.
They can still make the strategy guide, just leave-in the frame data, hitboxes/hurtboxes, etc. (they usually don't change that much after launch anyway), and leave a url for the website. Or better yet, try to get the manual to reference the website, save money on printing paper, and leave all the information online.
He speaks the truth, it was atrocious on every level. The Japanese mook books, UMVC3 Official Guide and Versus Books SFA2 Perfect Guide to this day still stand as the best fighting game guides ever made, imo
I have the Last Blade Gamest mook, and it's incredible. Every single move is brought up, the frame data, what can and can't cancel, BnBs, and even matchup details. I can't read Japanese but you can at least understand what it's implying.
The only book guides I ever had were for Kingdom Hearts 2 and New Vegas, and those were really good, solid advice from beginning to end for both games . The MK9 one really sounds abysmal tho
Miraculous that they thought framedata would be less future proof than a tier list.
I can already tell that this is going to be an interesting video. Good video idea Ketchup
“We have purposely left out character damage and frame data information...”
How did you sell this on the market and not feel morally bankrupt NETHER?!
@Nobody comments are not funny you troglodyte the game developers gave them early access to game and information. The game developers are responsible for an official guide to some extend. Note that there is no "official rule" that a game needs "an official guide" on like day one - or ever. If a studio can not find a guide writer that is competent: Just do not print one. You need the extra cash? Call it an art book. The art book has move list but no frame data? No problem.
the real problem is that nrs released this knowing full well it would be worthless/obsolete because the very much knew there would be dlc characters on the way just so they could make extra money from their fan base while basically slapping them in the face.
We used to call 'em "tragedy guides" back in the day, as most of them, regardless of title or genre, were sucker traps.
Facts... 💯. And for me and others back then, I actually opposed getting them since it would diminish my joy / money in getting and enjoying the game
@@curtisjackson4090 Exactly! Spending more money to get less time with a game always seemed nuts to me.
The only strategy guides for fighting games that were godlike were the Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Soul Calibur V guides. They contained damage values, frame data, and useful information. The games eventually got updated so some of the information became outdated like you mentioned in the video, but most of the information was still useful.
love that classic doom music in the background
I've never seen him THIS angry. That's how you know it was bad.
I still have the Official MK3 Guide, and the Official Killer Instinct Guide and loved it
I'm not even close to being a competitive player and I remember being super disappointed by this guide.
"Scorpion knows about the flames"
Nice E1M2 background music.
Looking back, I’ve only found Final Fantasy strategy guides helpful for the older games before 13 lol. TH-cam has made strategy guides a waste of money these days, but they’re good collectors items.
I don't have it but I discovered everything by playing tutorial, training and story mode. Some things were even discovered incidentally, such as the fact that Shang Tsung gets a damage boost while doing the soul steal move, or that even though you may not morph into bosses with said move, you do get some benefit if you do it: you regain some health if the move connects, much as it happens with a throw.
Wild that Tom Brady took time off from being the best quarterback of time to become a competitive MK player
I have that collectors edition guide i bought it off of Facebook marketplace a year ago mint condition
I and my friends were so confused when one of us bought it back in 2014, we were all eleven, so most of us didn't have access to the internet, and seeing that book with the screenshots made us all wonder what are we going to do with that.
1:55 speaking of that, the original Rainbow six siege guide is pretty much useless today because most solders, items and maps have been reworked and drastically changed.
I'm a simple man. I hear E1M2 music, I hit the like button
I’ll never forget when I bought the Deception guide and they didn’t have the second Fatalities for some characters!!
Reminds me of the UMK3 pocket guide that's missing a lot of codes and all brutalities for the consoles.
Wow! I hadn't thought about that book in ages ☺️
Felt like it took an eternity to get to the actual strategy guide
Approx. 1:30 minutes
About intentionally leaving out frame data, when i first read that after purchasing this guide I figured it was because of Nerfs/Buffs that could be applied down the line. It did feel like a waste of money since what exactly am i paying for? Combos? Safe Strings? Mixups? General strategies? Like you know, all those things that I have developed for years harnessing just having fun labbing in training mode and experimenting in every fighting game i have ever owned. It was something about reading that line in this guidebook that made me realize that guidebooks for fighting games are near useless besides frame data (which isnt that valuable since many times you can "feel" when a move is plus and by how much with practice. Discovering how to punish or creating safe jumps or setup situations on your own is a lot more fun in my opinion. Not to mention sometimes the info in these types of guides is just straight up wrong.
Thats crazy, never woulda thought that when initially having it
I like how you got the doom soundtrack playing in the background
I remember being younger and before internet was around commonly (mid 90s), I'd go to the store with my mom and bring paper/pencil so I could write down codes and tips from guides.
i actually truly dont like playing by frame data, obviously it’s “optimal” to know the ‘frame 5 punish’ for the move that ends -6, but that really sucks the fun out of a game for me to memorize 10,000 numbers
On the flip side, I remember the Street FIghter x Tekken guide was written based off the beta build of the game. as such when they included frame data and damage values, it was all out of date by the release day because the beta build was REALLY old. The guide for SFxT was outdated on day 1. Both of these are so sad because I feel like this era of bad guides killed fighting game strategy guides as actual guides
Ermac finds Prima's lack of faith disturbing.
Also prima guides have been nutrious for being bad for alot games
I was just playing mk9 using smoke. Best game imo.
Smoke is so fun in MK9
Smoke FTW!!! Mk9 is still the best game in the franchise imo
@@grannywalter it is the best. Gameplay wise.
Why didn't NRS just PUT the frame data in the game it's self??
It clear that exclusion of the frame data from the guide was deliberate... moreso, NRS explicitly keeping the info from the writers (thus the consumers) making the guide.
Edit:
*fearing > Mike Fahey*
4/25/11 12:48pm
_I remember one of the previousl 3D Mortal Kombat game guides was from Brady and it didn't even include any of the secret characters much less moves lists for them or anything. I brought it up later that year at the Brady session at our manager's conference for GameStop when they wanted some constructive criticism. They said that was completely on the Mortal Kombat developers. They weren't proud of that guide because there was a lot of things the MK developers did not allow to be put in the game. Perhaps that's why Prima's doing their guide now? Wonder if that has anything (clearly not everything from some of those mistakes) to do with the suckiness of this guide as well?_
7:30 Somebody else who bought this: "Cool, I'm gonna look at these in school during the boring subjects!"
The artwork was cool.
This is my first time hearing about this, and I'm over here complaining about how sfv doesn't show all the frame data optimally xD
Due to Nether Realms Studios possibly releasing Mortal Kombat 10 at some point, we have purposefully left this guide blank. Thank you.
So basically, the intro was written by passionate dedicated fans with a strong love of the franchise and it's history...
And the actual guide part was written by 10 year-olds who can't figure out counterplay/flowchart Ken-s
For whatever reason I was waiting to hear Sheeva was top tier during that tier list segment
Plot twist: The guide was actually far ahead of it's time and all the current top players have no idea what they are talking about and Nightwolf is actually top tier.
I still get the same dumb smile on my face whenever you upload as I did back when I was 14 lol. This was a great video
I think most western fighting game guides of the time were like that MK Gold one: move lists, maybe some combos, but that was about it. Some of the Japanese guides were much better. A special shoutout to the Bradygames MKT guide which had some errors and was missing characters and secrets. I can only assume that it was based on a beta version quite a way out from release. You could find the missing stuff on their website, but what's the point of buying a guide if you still have to look online to find what you need?
How about the massive print error on the easy fatality cards?
Now I wanna see that day zero tier list and how different it is to today
I thought the bad mic quality was the worst part, then I noticed that god awful piercing
Yo there was this kid in high school who would quote this whenever I tried to say, anything about the game. Holy christ this makes me feel better for even existing
i love vintage strategy guides. seeing ketchup pick this one apart in detail was pretty awesome
Fun Fact: The best selling book in Japan by the end of 1985 was the strategy guide for Super Mario Bros.
I remember having the Kingdom Hearts 2 guide for years. I read that thing so much that the pages were falling out.
I’m beginning to think this guide may have contributed to the downfall of printed strategy guides. Yes, online guides are far more convenient these days because of technology. But bad print guides like this one likely didn’t help the print guides any.