What is your most loved game manual moment?

2026-04-03 17:18 UTC

Since somebody shared this nice comic about manuals in games in another community, I was thinking about them myself. My most cherished game manual was the Diablo 2 one. The way they created a little story for each single ability was such an atmospheric wonder and probably started my fascination with lore instead of story. They were also probably the main reason why I took the necromancer and started to feel bored, when necromancer are automatically evil in a setting. Get creative! My father had Falcon 4.0 and that was “just” a technical manual in itself. 5+ cm thick and full of schematics of the cockpit. I was in awe as a child about the complexity of that thing.

Replies (14)

@MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org 2026-04-03 18:46

You guys should check out [Tunic!](https://store.steampowered.com/app/553420/TUNIC/) It's a cute zeldaish adventure where a manual a a core part of the Gameplay loop. Basicly you find pages of the manual ingame as you progress and learn about it this way. And the manual looks freaking georgous. A pure love letter to exactly that time. But be beware that Tunic is a knowledge based game. So any information might spoil something for you. Please inform yourself with caution. If you enjoyed the game you can even order the manual as a physical prop as official march.

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@SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-03 17:29

I read game manuals and strategy guides like my dad read the newspaper while eating breakfast on summer mornings. They had so much little bits of world building in the writing and design. Reading manuals on the ride home from the store set the tone before you even fired up the game for the first time Games like Metal Gear Solid had mini comic book sections with loads of awesome artwork for their manuals Manuals and guides are responsible for making me a gun nerd! Looking at the history and use cases for each one in the game carried over to the real deal. I remember guides for Rainbow Six, Medal of Honor: Frontline and Syphon Filter 2 being full of stuff like that

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@48954246@lemmy.world 2026-04-04 01:02

I still have the manual for the original StarCraft. It has a full history for all the races and their different clans

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@njm1314@lemmy.world 2026-04-03 18:11

That original Dragon Quest manual was a great read. But if I had to pick I'd say it was the Warcraft and Warcraft II manuals. Those were great. So much kick ass lore.

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@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-03 20:00

I think my favorite single moment, a personal anecdote, relating to video game manuals is from Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego for Windows 95. Which came with a full copy of the 1995 World Almanac. I was about 8 or 9 at the time. One of the clues was "I heard he was leaving Lesotho by car." I went, "Wait, is that the little nation in the middle of South Africa?" I looked it up in the book, it was, and I won that round of the game based on that clue. I think my overall favorite video game manual has to be the one from A Link to the Past. A lot of manuals had maybe a prologue or backstory in the manual, A Link to the Past has like three, including the creation myth of the in-game religion. Go read ALttP's manual and tell me it hasn't been the design document of the entire series since. One more: For some reason, Illusion of Gaia for the SNES includes a full walkthrough right in the manual. They just outright spoil the entire game in the manual. Not sure why they did that.

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@ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 2026-04-04 02:22

Pretty much all of the Uniracers manual. [I even made a post about it.](https://lemmy.world/post/9416422)

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@Kernal64@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-04 00:36

For me, Sim Earth has the coolest manual. The thing was huge, maybe 200 pages and the size of a trade paperback. It was basically a primer on planetary science and was absolutely fascinating for 12 year old me to read. Honorable mentions to to the manuals for the Warcraft RTS games and StarCraft. Those had some great backstory and lore.

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@pasdechance@jlai.lu 2026-04-04 14:26

I used to take my [Metroid II manual](https://archive.org/details/metroid-2-return-of-shamus-game-boy-manual) with me everywhere. I loved the drawings. I had the cover plastified at school too.

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@DaMonsterKnees@lemmy.world 2026-04-03 18:22

Simcity for SNES is the greatest manual ever put together. One Lemmings opinion.

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@mister_newbie@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-06 02:15

Freddy Pharkas, frontier pharmacist The manual is basically copy protection, but it's funny. That said, breast manual by far: it's SNES' Earthbound. Scratch 'n Sniff ftw.

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@P00ptart@lemmy.world 2026-04-03 21:12

I'd say vigilante 8. Reading all the bios and controls on the way home made me feel like I was already familiar with it by the time I got home.

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@Rhaedas@fedia.io 2026-04-03 22:29

Not a manual that came with the game, but back when SimCity 2000 first came out, there was a companion book in bookstores for it. Lots of hints and backstories on development, if I remember. Lots of humor too. It was a great read.

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@isles@lemmy.world 2026-04-04 18:12

I bought Asheron's Call (after a friend raved about it when I was in 7th grade) the day before we left on a family roadtrip. I brought the manual with me and fondly remember the discussions of different monster races, human networks and towns, weapons, and magic. Really set up for a great time that I might have missed if I had just installed the game and played. Those older games were pretty notorious for only showing those details in offline materials.

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@zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 2026-04-03 20:14

As barely a teen back then, Breath of Fire 2's stuck with me because of the scantily clad shamans on [page 32.](https://tiredoldhack.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/breath-of-fire-ii-manual.pdf)

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