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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
About 200 pages too long, November 14, 2007
This review is from: Super Mario Galaxy: Prima Official Game Guide (Paperback)
It really confuses me that Prima seems to need so many pages to cover a game these days. Point in case: 336 pages for a game (Super Mario) that has exactly 120 primary objectives. I mean, geez, I have had text books that were shorter. Let's see . . . thats almost 3 pages for each star you need to collect. To be sure, this game has the same number of stars as Super Mario Sunshine (Game Cube) had shines, and the book Nintendo Power made for that game only needed a little over 100 pages to get you there. Don't get me wrong, if this were an RPG or some other game with dozens of sidequest and 40+ hours of gametime, I would expect a thick guide for it. Games like this, though, don't need that much explaining.
I think part of the excessive length is that Prima keeps chosing to put almost everything into words instead of featuring more diagrams and screenshots that actually show players what to do. When is Prima going to get it that gamers like maps and illustrations, not having to read three pages to see how to get one thing. In some cases, they do provide a diagram, and yet still persist to ramble needlessly through half a page explaining the very same situation. This was also a problem with their guide for Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS). It too is 336 pages, yet the game has no more than 8 dungeons (haven't finished this one yet, and don't like to look at the guide unless I absolutely have to). The only conclusion I can come up with is that Prima is just bulking up their books to create a reason to raise the price.
On top of being long, this book is also laid out very sloppy. There are no clean breaks between sections on different worlds. If one world ends three-quarters of the way down a page, the next one starts there, even if there is only one line and a hyphen to the next page. I'm not sure if the $30 deluxe version of the book improves on this or not, but I would hope for the hefty price tag that it does. This is not to mention the fact that this particular guide features white text on a nearly black background. Talk about retina burning. Still, the outerspace background pattern does look pretty nifty, so I'm not going to hold it against them in my score.
On a more positive note, the writer has included some pretty interesting Mario-related trivia sidebars throughout. Most of this is, of course, targeted at younger gamers who may be new to the Mario universe. Still, though, there are a few bits that even the most experienced gamers probably don't know yet either. For all that is lacking in this book, I think this element is one of the things that Prima really did right.
All in all, I am giving this guide 2 stars plus one (for exclusiveness). This is not, though, because it is that good. It's simply just the only one there is. It's really a shame that Future Publishing has decided to neglect to the player's guide segment of Nintendo Power since acquiring their licenses from the big N. Their guides were not only more detailed, but didn't require 300+ pages to explain it all.
So in summary: this guide is not terrible, but it does leave a lot to be desired in terms of overall presentation.
Quality and ease of use: 2
"Only Guide Available" default points: 1
TOTAL SCORE: 3 STARS
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Handy Guide... But Very Exhaustive, November 18, 2007
This review is from: Super Mario Galaxy: Prima Official Game Guide (Paperback)
It's become common place now to say that a Prima Guide is good, but exhaustive. The walkthroughs are usually detailed and good, but they are heavily disorganized and often require a lot of page flipping. The same thing is true of the Super Mario Galaxy guide. It's a great guide to help you through the game, and will help you find all 120 stars, but the walkthrough is so disorganized and exhaustive you'll find yourself reading whole sections before resuming play.
It really gets you going on all the basics. Showing you all the controls and showing you the basic structure of the game's hub. It also tells you about the Galaxies and how to find all the hidden ones as well. Another great aspect about the guide is that you can find most of the information in the table of contents (you'll be flipping there often) for each episode. There are also some nice trivia call outs and notes for those who just want to know more about Mario.
Again, however, while this walkthrough is very well done it just doesn't get to the point. It spends a lot of time narrating the story and saying things like this:
"As soon as Mario finds all three bunnnies, a small castle appears on the planetoid. When Mario approaches, he spots a young woman dressed in cosmic blue, a color that exists only when the sun creeps out from behind the clouds. Her name is Rosalina, a she pledges to help Mario find Princess Peach. It seems that not only has Bowser stolen the princess, but he might be the culprit behind the thievery of special stars that help power Rosalina's Comet Observatory."
That's just one paragragh from the beginning. This is fine and dandy but it gives no instruction. This tells me story but not what I'm supposed to do next. The narration goes on for paragraphs upon paragraphs upon paragraphs with only a sentence or two of actual guideance thrown in. I'm a good sport about spoilers. But it would be nice if a walkthrough were able to get to the point.
The good news is that the screen shots and maps are excellent. You'll have to flip back to the maps a lot, though. Each section for each portion of the walkthrough is quite long.
It's a helpful guide, but very exhaustive and will require a lot of page flipping. It spends a lot of time explaining what the game should be showing me. If you need help with the game, however, by all means, pick up this guide.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice detailed guide, but causes flipping, November 29, 2007
This review is from: Super Mario Galaxy: Prima Official Game Guide (Paperback)
Some reviews have complained about the massive size of this guide. This doesn't bother me that much, as I'd prefer to have more detailed guides than those that omit steps. I liked the screenshots and artwork in this guide, but it isn't perfect.
It does need better separation between galaxies as stated in a another review. Also, you'll have to flip back and forth in the guide, especially if you are trying to collect every star. Besides the need to be more linear though, I don't have any major complaints with this guide.
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