I still have them all in a plastic storage bin in my basement—every single video game manual I’ve managed to hold onto over the past four decades. It’s embarrassing how protective I am of that container. When my ex-wife was helping me move after the divorce, she picked it up and asked, “Can’t we just toss this?” I nearly had a coronary right there in the living room. You’d think she’d suggested we set fire to my childhood photo albums.
The other day, I was feeling nostalgic (happens more frequently now that I’m in my forties, go figure), so I dragged that bin upstairs and popped it open. The smell hit me first—that distinct paper scent mixed with a hint of mustiness. It’s practically a time machine. I grabbed a handful of manuals and just sat there on my living room floor, cross-legged like I was seven years old again, flipping through them one by one.
Remember when you’d buy a new game, and the drive home was pure torture? You couldn’t play yet, but you had that manual to tide you over. My brother Dave would always be the one to open our shared games first (again with the big brother privilege), so I’d be stuck with the instruction booklet while he hogged the controller. But you know what? I didn’t mind. Sometimes I think I got the better end of that deal.
Take the original Legend of Zelda manual—forty-something pages of pure magic. Full-color illustrations, backstory about Hyrule, descriptions of every enemy and item. I practically memorized that thing before I ever played the game. There’s a coffee stain on page 12 of my copy from when I was so engrossed in reading about the different dungeons that I knocked over my mom’s mug. She wasn’t even mad, just laughed and said, “At least you’re reading something!”
The evolution of these things was fascinating when you stop to think about it. Early Atari and NES manuals were literally “instructions”—bare-bones guides that basically just told you which button did what. They had to be, right? Nobody knew how the hell video games were supposed to work back then. My dad would squint at the Atari 2600 Combat manual like it was written in ancient hieroglyphics. “So… the tank moves with the stick, and the… what fires the cannon again?” Poor guy was trying his best.
By the SNES and Genesis era, manuals had transformed into these mini art books. I still get goosebumps looking at the Earthbound manual with its newspaper-style layout and bizarre enemy designs. The manual for Sonic 2 has these gorgeous double-page spreads showing off the zones with character art that never actually appeared in the game itself. That stuff mattered—it built the world beyond what the technology could show you.
The absolute pinnacle, though? PC game manuals from the ’90s. Holy crap. You kids today with your digital downloads and in-game tutorials have no idea what you missed. These weren’t manuals—they were tomes. Encyclopedias. Religious texts. The Ultima series came with actual cloth maps and metal coins. I remember unboxing Baldur’s Gate and finding what was essentially a small novel inside. The original Civilization manual was over 100 pages long. One hundred pages! It wasn’t just instructions; it was a crash course in human history.
StarCraft’s manual had these detailed backstories for each race that totally transformed how you perceived the game. Reading about the Protoss and their severed connection to the Khala made those little blue sprites on screen feel like they had actual cultural significance. The technical specs for every unit, complete with fictional manufacturers and model numbers—that’s the kind of nerdy detail that made my heart sing.
My friend Tom and I used to compare the manuals from different localizations. He had a Japanese cousin who would sometimes send games over, and the artwork would often be completely different. We’d spend hours analyzing which version was better. The JRPG manuals were especially gorgeous overseas—character sketches, world maps, equipment charts all laid out with this consideration American publications rarely matched. Final Fantasy’s bestiary sections were like miniature monster encyclopedias that I’d pore over during lunch breaks at school.
Different companies had such distinct approaches to their manuals, too. Nintendo’s were always colorful and accessible, with that slightly parental tone: “Remember to take a break every hour!” Sega went edgier with their Genesis manuals, lots of attitude and darker color schemes. PC companies like Blizzard and Sierra treated their manuals almost like expanded universes, packed with lore and charts and technical specs that felt like they were written for engineers rather than gamers.
When I think about how much these manuals enhanced the gaming experience, it’s kind of heartbreaking to see modern games stripped down to a single sheet with nothing but legal disclaimers and website URLs. That anticipation and world-building are just… gone. No more flipping through pages in the car ride home, imagining what the game would be like. No more referencing a physical booklet when you get stuck. (“Wait, how do I do a special move again? Let me check the manual real quick.”)
I bought my nephew a PS5 game for his birthday last month, and when he opened it, the first thing he did was look for the manual. When I told him most games don’t come with them anymore, he looked genuinely confused. “So how do you know what to do?” he asked. I pointed at the screen and said, “Tutorial levels.” Poor kid will never know the joy of a well-designed instruction booklet with that new-manual smell.
Digital distribution has obviously been the biggest nail in the manual’s coffin. Can’t exactly put a 90-page booklet in a download, right? But the decline started before that. I noticed it around the PS3/Xbox 360 era—manuals getting thinner and thinner until they were basically pamphlets. Four pages, black and white. I remember opening Gears of War and thinking, “That’s it?” It felt… I dunno, cheap somehow? Like getting served an amazing steak dinner but with no sides or garnish.
The production value of these things was insane when you think about it. Glossy paper, full-color printing, professional illustrations and graphic design—all for something many players probably never even looked at. No wonder publishers started cutting costs there first. But man, what a loss.
I’ve actually started collecting vintage manuals separately from the games themselves. Found a bunch at a flea market in Detroit a couple years ago—some guy selling NES and Genesis manuals for a buck each. Walked away with about thirty of them. My proudest find was a pristine Panzer Dragoon Saga manual at a Goodwill for fifty cents. That game goes for hundreds of dollars now, but at least I’ve got the documentation!
The manual collecting community is this weird little subset of gaming preservation folks. We’ve got forums where people trade scans and discuss different print variants. Seriously, there are manual variants! The first print run of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past had slightly different artwork than later printings. It’s the nerdiest thing ever, but I’m all in.
Sometimes I wonder if my obsession with these things borders on unhealthy. I mean, who gets misty-eyed over instruction booklets? This guy, apparently. But they were more than just how-to guides—they were extensions of these worlds we loved. I learned to draw by copying character art from the Final Fantasy 6 manual. I practiced my reading comprehension with gameplay descriptions. These things were educational tools disguised as gaming accessories.
There were practical benefits too. Try playing something like Falcon 3.0 or any flight simulator without the manual. Good luck! Those keyboard command references were essential. In the days before GameFAQs and YouTube walkthroughs, the hints and tips sections could save you hours of frustration. I remember finally beating a boss in Secret of Mana after discovering a strategy tucked away on page 23 of the manual that I’d somehow missed.
The translation differences between regions often led to completely different gaming experiences. Japanese-to-English localization in the ’90s was… let’s say “creative” at times. Character motivations and even basic gameplay instructions could get mangled. I once had both the US and European manuals for Resident Evil, and they described the storyline differently enough that they almost felt like parallel universe versions of the same game.
I started laminating some of my most treasured manuals a few years back after noticing the oldest ones were starting to yellow and deteriorate. Maybe it’s silly to preserve these mass-produced booklets like they’re historical documents, but to me, they are artifacts worth saving. They represent a gaming era that’s slipping away—when physical media wasn’t just a delivery mechanism but part of the experience itself.
My collection’s crown jewel? The original World of Warcraft manual. Two hundred and twenty pages of pure worldbuilding, with every race, class, profession and region detailed like an actual travel guide to Azeroth. I spent weeks reading that thing before I even installed the game. Now players just jump in cold, figure it out as they go. Efficient? Sure. But something magical has been lost in the transition.
Anyway, I should probably put these away before I get too carried away and start reading each one cover to cover. Again. The storage bin goes back to the basement, next to my collection of Nintendo Power magazines (that’s a whole different obsession). Sometimes I wonder what future generations will collect and obsess over from today’s gaming culture. Probably not digital manuals, that’s for sure.
Man, I’m starting to sound like the “back in my day” guy I always swore I’d never become. But you know what? Some things really were better back then. Game manuals are definitely one of them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check eBay for that Chrono Trigger manual I’m still missing. My collection has a gap that needs filling.
