Guide of the Year Awards 2018 - Nominations Thread

[Mesopithecus]

Exceptional Walkthrough Guide - Claire - Full Trophy Walkthrough

This guide makes it easy to navigate through what would otherwise be a confusing game, and the guide author has taken the time to customize the guide for both PS4 and Vita users where elements of the game can differ significantly in terms of collectibles.  The level of detail and the clear instructions made the game experience much easier.

 

Exceptional DLC Guide - Final Fantasy XV - Episode Ignis DLC Trophy Guide

The guide provides clear instructions on how to tackle the DLC whilst giving both text based and video examples of some of the harder content.  The guide author is very conscientious with updates and graciously accepts feedback

 

Exceptional Niche Game Guide - Reverie

Reverie is a relatively easy game anyway, but the guide does an incredible job of clearly explaining how to obtain the trophies if you are having any issues, in particular the way they explain the boss battles made it easier to understand what I was meant to be doing in the game.

 

Exceptional Quality Upkeep - Ark Survival Evolved

Making a guide for this game is no easy feat, considering how the game has been in a constant state of flux with new updates changing the way some of the trophies work.  The guide author has done an incredible job of keeping on top of all the updates, making sure the requirements haven't changed for trophies.  They are great at responding to questions and take feedback/ideas for the guide very graciously.

 

Guide of the Year - Stardew Valley

This guide is exceptional, the level of detail, the layout of the guide and even the humor included (regarding Journey of the Prairie King) really made this guide stand out.  It must have taken the guide authors a lot of time and attention to detail to pull all this information together and present it in the way that it is.  The roadmap is very descriptive and the overall formatting is wonderful.

[Burgins]

4 hours ago, BlindMango said:

 

These two aren't gameplay or walkthrough guides, they're just regular trophy guides - you can use "Gameplay & Walkthrough Guides" list in the OP for help with finding some though!

 

 

Ah I thought it could just be any for those. Well, I'll go back through and write something more full

[Kittet3]

Opps, I was silly and thought I had to nominate 3 guides total, not 1 overall and 3 cats. So, in addition to the 3 in my first post, I want to nominate the Tearaway Unfolded Walkthrough for the original content award. 

 

So many times I see collectible guides rely on videos or have each type of collectible in its own section and it's always a pain to have to combine them in order to plan a syched playthrough. This guide not only combined the collectibles, but they also added pictures and progress notes that helped me figure out the locations without having to watch a video. I also found the description to be complete enough that I didn't have to follow the guide fully if I needed only one collectible. 

[Burgins]

Exceptional Walkthrough Guide - Unepic Trophy Walkthrough

 

Painstakingly thorough. Extreme length but separated into nice little sections with wonderfully-done images. Very clear, very excellent.

 

Exceptional Gameplay Guide - FINAL FANTASY IX - MISSABLE TROPHIES/COLLECTIBLES GUIDE

 

A collectible and missable trophy guide laid out in chronological order, separated wonderfully and arranged in tables that are very easy to parse. Everything a collectible guide should strive to be, and it's got the missable trophies on top of it all.

 

Exceptional DLC Guide - DJMax Respect Tecknika 2 DLC guide

 

When writing my picks on mobile I misremembered the guide I wanted to select for DLC as Clazziquai. It was this one that I read and was very impressed by. It lays out everything you need to do in an exceedingly difficult DLC pack, and tries to lessen the burden of difficulty through an abundance of knowledge. It's a simple, somewhat short guide, but it's an excellent one and reading it got me back into rhythm games. 

 

Exceptional Niche Game Guide - Infernium Guide

 

Every excruciatingly small detail about the game that the author could dig up. A step by step layout of the entire game with an ASCII map and clear, concise explanation. A very, very excellent guide at a base level and it has some video resources peppered throughout as well. This sort of guide is pretty much the gold standard for games like Infernium.

 

Guide of the Year - Alien Isolation Trophy Walkthrough 

 

Insanity in written form. The thoroughness of the guide-writing here is ridiculous. Every single mechanic delved into, every single section dismantled and explained. Everything about this guide is what we should all be working to do in our own guides. Absolute monster, has to be my pick for Guide of the Year.

[Jelloycat]

• Exceptional Walk-through Guide: Claire - While I certainly can't say I enjoyed Claire all that much, this walk-through was really great. It lets you know exactly where you need to go and what you need to do. (Which is especially nice for this game because it's so easy to get lost if you aren't using a guide.) Has some great images to help supplement information as well. 
• Exceptional Gameplay Guide: Little Dragons Cafe - Ingredients Location Guide - I haven't gotten around to playing this game yet, but I'll definitely be using this guide when I do. I like how everything is nicely organized and there are screenshots that you can click on for any of the materials. 
• Exceptional Niche Game Guide: Night in the Woods - Very informative and to the point. I like that it also has a day-by-day guide to make sure you don't miss any of the sketches. (Which are quite easy to do if you aren't following a guide.) 
• Exceptional Use of Formatting: 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡III - This guide looks amazing. There's so much information and so many charts, plus the author must of put a lot of time into all of the translation work as well. 
• Guide of the Year: Ni No Kuni II Revenant Kingdom Trophy Guide - You can tell a lot of work and time was put into this one - and it shows. Everything is so informative, organized, and there's so many images to help out as well. 

[KotuAlls]

• Exceptional Gameplay Guide - Red Dead Redemption 2 Gold Medals, Challenges, and 100% Completion Guide. This is one of those guides that just has so much useful and convenient information for all kinds of things, from various and obscure challenges, to very calculated and methodical stuff. Just a pretty solid one all around, nothing extraordinary for 100% completion lists, though, but I wouldn't consider that a bad thing by any means.

 

• Exceptional Use of Formatting - Shadow of the Tomb Raider Trophy Walkthrough. Pretty great guide for a pretty great game, I personally just really enjoy everything it has to offer in terms of visuals and information and whatnot. It's not very stand out as a whole guide, but that's mostly because the information needed to present it is rather average.

 

• Exceptional Walkthrough Guide - Claire Full Trophy Walkthrough. Really small game with a super good guide. If I'm being honest, I wasn't too thrilled by the game itself, but I cannot use that as an excuse to knock the guide for the game. I mean, it has everything you need, even if it's not very much, but it still does a great job at doing exactly what it should, and that should be appreciated a little more on this site. 

 

• Guide of the Year - Monster Hunter: World Trophy Guide. This guide is freakin' incredible! I'm a hardcore Monster Hunter player that played the hell out of Monster Hunter World with a friend who had never even touched the series before. She used this guide and followed it religiously in order to learn the game, how it played, and all the information. Now she's practically on my level! The extremely, extremely detailed information on each and every monster, the items, weapons, quests, rewards, special events, and even incredible nuanced details is just great.  Plenty of original information and content made by the guide writers themselves, too. The sheer scale of the guide is monumental and it is hands down the best guide to come out of this year. 

[Happy]

I should probably admit to not having used all too many guides over the course of the last year, especially not too many recent ones. This has less to do with the average quality of the guides this year than simply my choice in games.

I still find it worth pointing out as i don’t really subscribe to the idea of nominating a guide to a game i know nothing about just because there’s a lot of text in it. With that being said, here’s my nominations:

 

Exceptional Walkthrough Guide

Like others before me i’ll have to go with the Claire Full Trophy Walkthrough. Here’s the thing. I remember close to nothing about this game whatsoever, mostly because i at no point in my playthrough ever had to really think about what i’m doing. I’d say any person with basic reading comprehension could platinum this game with the use of this guide which is a mark of success on the writers part in my book.

 

Exceptional Gameplay Guide

This one has got to go to the Fist of the North Star - Lost Paradise Substory Guide. Pretty straightforward guide all around but if it works it works. Every RGG Studio game needs a substory guide and this one just ticks all my boxes. Detailed descriptions, ordered by chapter and thoroughly numbered. Very classy stuff.

 

Exceptional Niche Game Guide

After some thinking this one has got to go to the Slime Rancher Trophy Guide. Just a solid guide man. Comprehensively covers the entire game with great formatting and uses original content whenever possible. 

 

Guide of the Year

Hands down the Stardew Valley Trophy Guide. I was debating whether i should swap this guide and Slime Rancher around for a bit until i asked myself this question: “Which one of these guides has a better shot at actually winning?” The extent of information included here is borderline excessive. No filler content or walls of text to pad out the guide at all though, everything in here is extremely helpful to the player. I’m really glad that somebody took the time to make this and even more so that it wasn’t me.

[optimusmart]

Thanks for all who have voted for me, there are a lot of great guides out there to choose between, Im sure there are many better than mine, sure decisions have been difficult, thanks

 

In fact, its a very tough choice for everyone, just taking the time to vote is a achievement in itself and id like to say thanks to everyone just for voting!

 

From my perspective on what to nominate, I dont think I have really used any guides this year, except for the occasional glance perhaps. I do remember a few catching my eye, don't remember games though.

 

Am I alright to vote even though id just be randomly looking at guides and making decisions..??? I want to treat all guides fairly by giving as many as I can a look in, but at the same time, due to the sheer number, this is perhaps impossible, for me anyway

 

Am I ok to vote still even though I will just be looking at random guides and.selecting from whatever I look at??

 

 

[BlindMango]

10 minutes ago, optimusmart said:

Am I ok to vote still even though I will just be looking at random guides and.selecting from whatever I look at??

 

That's okay! If there are some that really stand out, feel free to nominate them  

[Soufwar]

10 hours ago, Dragon-Archon said:

That guide can't be nominated, because it's written solely by Guide Team members.

 

You're required to give solid reasons for the nominations.

I am going to reply to my own post and provide reasons why. 

11 hours ago, Soufwar said:

My trophy guide vote goes to Battlefield 3.

DLC guide vote to Battlefield: End Game DLC.

Gameplay and Walkthrough vote goes to Claire.

Original Content goes to Dungeon Punks. 

Here are the reasons: 

Battlefield 3 for best guide is simply because overall the guide was well structured and put together, it helped me with getting the specific single player trophies done and the multiplayer trophies explained more than just the their simple description. 

Battlefield 3: End Game DLC guide was solid, it was the best DLC guide that I used this year that was written this year, I have used many different DLC guides but they were written in past years and BF3: End Game DLC guide stands higher than the others. 

Claire For best walkthrough simply said, is well put together. I have played through the game on a blank account and have the 100% but I am not ready to sync that account yet because I still have several indies I need to finish on it, Claire is a great walkthrough.

Finally, Dungeon Punks. Without this I wouldn’t have known how to fix a problem with a glitched trophy, having this there ready to save the day is the reason why I unlocked this platinum. 

 

All in all, great guides this yea but these are the ones that I actually used. 

[Phlegeth]

Guide of the Year

• https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7973-final-fantasy-ix-missable-trophiescollectibles-guide

Final Fantasy IX has so much stuff in it.  This guide shows where everything is and is a fantastic checklist.  The fact that it's in order goes a long way too.  

• Exceptional Walkthrough Guide: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7127-secret-of-mana-trophy-guide  

I have this open while I'm playing.  Always double checking the monster list to make sure I get them all before I move on.  And every boss section talks about how to go from the last trophy to the current one and if you have to stop and farm an item for another trophy.

• Exceptional Gameplay Guide: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7082-hot-shots-golf-world-invitational-trophy-guide

This game has some really hard shots and trophies for it.  This guide points out the best hole, character, club, and ball to use.  And how to use the special technique.

• Exceptional DLC Guide: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7815-final-fantasy-xv-royal-dlc-trophy-guide

The videos are a nice touch.  Showing all the locations of the new datalogs and two ways to kill the superboss Omega.

[Erkawest]

Definitely Guide of the year - monster hunter world

 

Can't say that I had much use of it since I was close to finishing the platinum myself when the guide came out, but when I checked the guide afterwards everything was spot-on correct and well written.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Erkawest

[Kristycism]

Here are my nominations:

 

Guide of the Year: Monster Hunter: World Trophy Guide. This guide just has an exceptional level of detail that I aspire to achieve when writing guides. Any question I had on the game, whether it's on gameplay, techniques, or trophies themselves, has all been answered in that one amazing bible guide. It's set out well, so it's really easy to navigate and find the information you want, and it's updated any time new information is raised in comments, and has a tonne of additional supplemental information that makes navigating the game much easier, both for veterans of the series and newbies. For example, any time I wanted a new mantle to handle a different monster, I'd go straight to the guide to find out how to achieve it. I never needed to go anywhere else to search for additional information, and any questions I thought of were already answered in the guide. So yeah, brilliant guide, definitely my guide of the year, rest aren't even close.

 

Other categories:

• Exceptional Gameplay Guide: Tearaway: Unfolded - Completist Trophy Guide. Between the text and the screenshots, this guide is super helpful at locating every collectible in the game, and is laid out in a really easy-to-follow manner. Anything that requires multiple steps has information and screenshots on each step, and things that are harder to locate have multiple screenshots to help get an exact picture of the location. Great collectible guide.
• Exceptional DLC Guide: Crash Bandicoot: Warped - Crash Bandicoot: Future Tense DLC Trophy Guide. Even though the DLC only had two trophies, this guide does an amazing job of explaining everything you need to know step-by-step, in text form for those of us that prefer that, and in video form for those who prefer a visual guide. There is a huge amount of detail in this guide and the author clearly put a lot of work in to answering any question anyone might have on this DLC.
• Exceptional Niche Game Guide:  Birthdays the Beginning Trophy Guide. I haven't played this game on my main account (because of the hours required), but I did play it on an alt and this guide has been incredibly helpful. Honestly, the tutorial in the game was kinda garbage, and I found this guide way more useful for finding out what I was actually doing and working out a plan on how to play. Then when I decided to go for majority of the trophies (because I can't help myself, even on an alt), this guide was my go-to any time I was unsure of anything, and it was always perfectly clear on what to do.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Kristycism

[knoef_NL]

4 minutes ago, Kristycism said:

 

Also can I be a total pain in the butt, and ask that my guides be removed from the voting list?

 You agreed to this when signing up: 
11.2 You grant to us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, store, adapt, publish, translate and distribute your content in any existing or future media.

Anyhow, perhaps they will remove it.

[eigen-space]

49 minutes ago, knoef_NL said:

 You agreed to this when signing up: 
11.2 You grant to us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, store, adapt, publish, translate and distribute your content in any existing or future media.

Anyhow, perhaps they will remove it.

 

She's only asking to be removed from the voting pool, not for the guides to be taken down.

[Karnacharya]

Guide of the Year: Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Trophy Guide. This is easily one of the best trophy guides I've ever seen. It's a chock full of maps, information, and helpful images. Ni no Kuni II has a ton of stuff going on in its world, and this guide does an AMAZING job of helping new players make sense of it all. 

Exceptional Walkthrough Guide: Final Fantasy IX Missable Trophies & Collectibles Guide. Final Fantasy IX is a large game, and its trophy list filled with missable trophies and obscure collectibles. This guide does an amazing job of guiding players through this mammoth game, and does so while remaining clear and concise throughout. I just wish it it had been around when I was making my way through the game. 

Exceptional Use of Formatting: Final Fantasy IX Trophy Guide. Much like the Ni no Kuni II guide, this guide does just about everything right, and would have been my Guide of the Year nominee if the NNKII guide had not come along. The guide is beautifully organized, and easy to use - heading, bold/italic fonts, images and videos are arranged and utilized in a way that allows users to take in its massive amount of content efficiently. 

Exceptional Use of Original Content: Monster Hunter World Trophy Guide. The amount of well-placed images and maps in this guide is admirable and astounding. The supplemental material here not only helps break up the large amounts of text necessary to guide players through the game, but it's all useful, and just as importantly, looks good.  

[Dragon-Archon]

7 hours ago, Ilzaki said:

• Exceptional Walkthrough Guide: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7127-secret-of-mana-trophy-guide  

I have this open while I'm playing.  Always double checking the monster list to make sure I get them all before I move on.  And every boss section talks about how to go from the last trophy to the current one and if you have to stop and farm an item for another trophy.

• Exceptional Gameplay Guide: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7082-hot-shots-golf-world-invitational-trophy-guide

This game has some really hard shots and trophies for it.  This guide points out the best hole, character, club, and ball to use.  And how to use the special technique.

These 2 count as trophy guides, there's a list of guides in the first post that's sorted per type of guide.

 

7 hours ago, Soufwar said:

I am going to reply to my own post and provide reasons why. 

Here are the reasons: 

Thank you.

[Kristycism]

EDIT: Removed because I don't want to derail the thread

Edited December 3, 2018 by Kristycism

[Kittet3]

2 minutes ago, Kristycism said:

 

Like @eigen-space said, I just don't want entered into any kind of giveaway, and the Guide of the Year awards come with prizes, which I don't want. I know fine well I probably wouldn't win anything, which is why it's not a big deal if they don't want to remove me from the list, but I'd still rather not be entered into any kind of competition for prizes if it's not too much trouble to remove me.

 

I don't want the guides themselves removed at all, I put a lot of work into them and if they benefit even a single person, I'd be delighted with that, it's the whole reason I wrote them in the first place.

 

Hope that makes sense?

You could always refuse/donate the prize. I would be really sad if people removed their guides from the pool because that means a really amazing guide might not get the recognition it deserves because the owner decided to exclude themselves. This isn't a competition, but rather a celebration to take the time out to recognize some of the guide writers on this site. 

[knoef_NL]

2 minutes ago, Kristycism said:

 

Like @eigen-space said, I just don't want entered into any kind of giveaway, and the Guide of the Year awards come with prizes, which I don't want. I know fine well I probably wouldn't win anything, which is why it's not a big deal if they don't want to remove me from the list, but I'd still rather not be entered into any kind of competition for prizes if it's not too much trouble to remove me.

 

I don't want the guides themselves removed at all, I put a lot of work into them and if they benefit even a single person, I'd be delighted with that, it's the whole reason I wrote them in the first place.

 

Hope that makes sense?

I knew what you meant. Never said anything about removing the whole guide.
I think it's just weird to ask to be removed. But that is my own personal opinion. 

You created a guide, be proud of the fact that it can participate in an award show, perhaps you won't win anything. Perhaps you will get a few votes, wouldn't that be nice? Some recognition for all the trouble you have been through.

[Razzee-P]

Guide of the Year & Exceptional Quality Upkeep: GIRLS und PANZER: Dream Tank Match Trophy Guide

The sort of road-map I find useful (gets to the point without missing anything essential) and a encyclopedia guide that approaches every pixel of the game. Its writer probably knows more about the game than the developers themselves. When an issue caused by a patch was brought to light, he was very talkative about it as well as the one to find out which patch broke the game. hasegawa2010 only writes his guides once he has achieved 100% of the trophies. One example I know of is that he refuses to publish his Bullet Girls Phantasia trophy guide because he does not know the location/rate of drop for every item in the game. With 91% of trophies and on his 7th playthrough, he has not given up yet. I won't mention which guide it is, but a popular game launched this year received a guide even though its authors did not progress beyond 50% of the trophies.

 

Exceptional Walkthrough Guide: 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡III - Overall Walkthrough

It's rather overwhelming the amount of missable trophies these games have, but the walkthrough covers about everything followed by a great amount of images.

 

Exceptional Niche Game Guide: 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡III Trophy Guide

A guide worthy of this category can only be written by someone who masters both Japanese and English languages while delivering a text anyone can understand.

 

Exceptional Use of Formatting: Valkyria Chronicles 4 Trophy Guide

Unfortunately the author left some sections incomplete, but he made the entire guide using only tools the site offers (without resorting to videos I hate so much).

 

Exceptional Use of Original Content: Mary Skelter: Nightmares Trophy Guide

For the maps with everything explored. This guide was very useful to me.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Since I was not here back then to vote, my Guide of the Year 2014 would have been this one. Why? It's impossible to get the platinum without this guide (or importing the official one).

 

You know it's true when two trophies have the same percentage...

 

 

The conversation #50, specifically. No one could have could have guessed that.

 

 

 

Spoiler

If a "Exceptional Quality Downkeep" category existed... I'd vote for someone who deletes comments on his guides and has not logged in since August 19.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Neyaru
Elaborated more the reasons

[aZombieDictator]

2064: Read Only Memories - Trophy Walkthrough

 

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophy Guide (Undead_Wolf_N7's one)

 

Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Awakening DLC Trophy Guide

 

I didn't have much time to vote or write anything, but I just wanted to at least get some votes in.

 

I'll come back if necessary and if I get the time.

 

 

Edit: Decided I'm not gonna vote, I don't even know of 6 guides I could vote for that I used this year and I don't feel like writing 6 essays just to vote. But good luck to all the nominees and what not.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by aZombieDictator

[Dragon-Archon]

5 hours ago, Kristycism said:

Also can I be a total pain in the butt, and ask that my guides be removed from the voting list?  Guides are two Trophy Guides (All-Star Fruit Racing Trophy Guide and Battleborn Trophy Guide) and one DLC (Battleborn - New Recruits! DLC Trophy Guide) - I'm the sole author on all three, so it won't impact anyone else. It's not a big deal, just a personal preference, and I'd be super grateful to be removed if it's not too much trouble.

 

EDIT: To clarify, because I know I'm weird, I 100% support these Awards, they're a brilliant thing to do to recognise the work of those who have put time and effort into helping others who read the guides. And if there's a way I can help with them, I would love to contribute. I just don't want entered into anything that has a prize pool, for personal reasons. If anyone wants to discuss this, feel free PM me, I don't want to derail the thread.

well, this is a first. But ok, we'll respect your wish and remove those guides from the list.

 

1 minute ago, aZombieDictator said:

2064: Read Only Memories - Trophy Walkthrough

 

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophy Guide (Undead_Wolf_N7's one)

 

Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Awakening DLC Trophy Guide

You are required to give solid reasons for your choices and also to nominate a guide for the overall top 3 and a minimum of 3 categories.

[aZombieDictator]

5 minutes ago, Dragon-Archon said:

well, this is a first. But ok, we'll respect your wish and remove those guides from the list.

 

You are required to give solid reasons for your choices and also to nominate a guide for the overall top 3 and a minimum of 3 categories.

Ahh ok. I'll try and come back to it once I get off work.

[Phlegeth]

Alrighty, I don't know if I have to link the other two I nominated, but I'll do it to be safe and to keep them together.

 

Guide of the Year 

• https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7973-final-fantasy-ix-missable-trophiescollectibles-guide

Final Fantasy IX has so much stuff in it.  This guide shows where everything is and is a fantastic checklist.  The fact that it's in order goes a long way too.  

 

• Exceptional DLC Guide: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7815-final-fantasy-xv-royal-dlc-trophy-guide

The videos are a nice touch.  Showing all the locations of the new datalogs and two ways to kill the superboss Omega.

 

Exceptional Use of Original Content:  https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7499-digimon-story-cyber-sleuth-hackers-memory-trophy-guide

 

There use of pictures showing what the special Digivolutions came from is very useful.  And having the parameters right there is helpful so you can start working on the stats before you get there.  And the medal guide they linked was extremely helpful in tracking down those last few medals I needed.

 

Exceptional Niche Game Guide:  https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7127-secret-of-mana-trophy-guide

 

I have this open while I'm playing.  Always double checking the monster list to make sure I get them all before I move on.  And every boss section talks about how to go from the last trophy to the current one and if you have to stop and farm an item for another trophy.  And I'm not sure if they counts because Square is a AAA company so just to be safe:

 

https://psnprofiles.com/guide/6120-tales-of-innocence-r-faq

 

This guide makes me feel like I can play this game with no problem and I don't read a lick of Japanese.  Having the translations of all the major functions is great.