Guide of the Year Awards 2019 - Results!

[BlindMango]

- THE RESULTS -

 

Hello PSNProfiles! It's that time of the year again, the 6th year in a row that we've posted results for the Guide of the Year Awards. We decided to go with the format we started last year which awards the top 3, then gives 21 more guides some love as well. Last year this worked fantastically, and this year is no different! 

 

Guide of the Year Winners

 

To start off as we have from the beginning, the first awards we'll give are for the top three guides this year from all of your nominations for this category. There were some really incredible guides this year, and these are three that we felt mastered many different aspects of guide writing in impressive ways. Here are the winners!

 

      

 

 1st Place

Crypt of the NecroDancer Trophy Guide

By Floriiss

 

 2nd Place

Persona 5 Complete 100% Walkthrough

By Optinooby

 

 3rd Place

Tokyo Xanadu Trophy Guide

By Jelloycat

 

So where to start here, this year was tough with deciding the top three, but wow these are amazing. First place was a favorite with community nominations, the Crypt of the NecroDancer Trophy Guide. This guide has the tough task of guiding the reader through a really difficult game, and does it with incredible details with a nicely laid out and thoughtful format. It just works so well, and not to mention it comes paired with an unbelievably detailed Ultimate Boss Guide too. Second place goes to the Persona 5 Complete 100% Walkthrough, and you can just tell the unbelievable amount of effort that went into this guide by opening it up and allow your browser chug away at loading the massive amount of text, images, and videos within this guide. Third place is for Tokyo Xanadu, and this is a guide that cleanly goes through all of the important details and nuances of this game with helpful tables, videos, and images. There was really though competition this year, but these are the three that found themselves to the top. Congratulations!

 

The Exceptional Guide Winners

 

Last year we started the format of awarding 21 guides with the exceptional awards and it worked quite nicely! This year we've decided to do that again, but this time we dropped the "Quality Upkeep" category in favor of the Exceptional Imported Game Guides category to show off those that not only write an exceptional guide, but translate aspects of the game for readers. All of the winners will get an Exceptionally High Quality badge on their guide recognizing their efforts, along with sweet cash prizes of $50 for 1st place, $40 for 2nd place, and $30 for third place in each category! Well done to the winners, these guides are incredible.

 

 

Exceptional Walkthrough Guides

Three impressive picks from a category that's been absolutely blowing us away this past year quality-wise.

1.  Hollow Knight Trophy Walkthrough - By Optinooby
2.  Woven Collectible / Platinum Walkthrough - By Blood Velvet & Rezzua
3.  Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout Walkthrough - By AlchemistWer and Honor_Hand

 

Exceptional Gameplay Guides

These are guides we've felt really shine with their organization, details, and ability to guide you through.

1.  Crypt of the NecroDancer - Ultimate Boss Guide - By Floriiss
2.  Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Definitive Collectible Guide - By Optinooby
3.  Final Fantasy IX S Treasure Hunter Guide - By Z-Yux

 

Exceptional DLC Guides

There three are some of the most detailed and intricate DLC guides from the past year, this category had a ton of competition.

1.  Resident Evil 2 - The Ghost Survivors DLC Trophy Guide - By angelbless45
2.  Borderlands 2 - Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary DLC Trophy Guide - By Phoenixgaming1, HappyGuySmiley, and wltrsjcwvita
3.  Dead by Daylight - Stranger Things DLC Trophy Guide - By MinatoIsDeadLol

 

Exceptional Niche/Indie Game Guides

Some of our favorite picks for guides for indie games, imported games (JP, KR, etc), and non-AAA games.

1.  Onimusha: Warlords Trophy Guide - By NoxYokai
2.  Ikaruga Trophy Guide - By lilpain97
3.  Rain World Trophy Guide - By HappyKastanie

 

Exceptional Use of Formatting

Fantastic examples of writers that noticeably master the art of guide resources like tables, headings, colours, spacing, & images.

1.  Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Trophy Guide - By BlackTorito
2.  Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition Trophy Guide - By mr2k_pdh
3.  Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings Trophy Guide - By eigen-space, AlchemistWer and MakotoKaCun

 

Exceptional Imported Game Guides

Writing a guide for a game that you typically have to translate as well is by no means a simple task, here's some fantastic guides from this past year.

1.  Bullet Girls Phantasia Trophy Guide - By hasegawa2010
2.  Phantasy Star Nova Trophy Guide - By Mikel93
3.  Dead or School Trophy Guide - By UmbraCthulhu

 

Exceptional Guides With Original Content

Incredible picks of writers that went the extra mile and make their own videos, images, and combination of these within their guide.

1.  Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Trophy Guide - By davyjones4812
2.  Resident Evil 2 Trophy Guide - By angelbless45
3.  Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Trophy Guide - By Z-Yux and ThaKingTropy

 

Honestly, while we went through to choose the winners we nearly forgot just how many incredible guides were written this year. The amount of details in some of these guides, or the amount of video content created by the writers themselves, or the amount of quality and care is staggering. There are thousands of people that have used your guides and have undoubtedly found them massively helpful and an incredible resource.

 

Each year we run through some interesting stats covering how the guide system is growing, here they are for this year:

• So last year we hit the milestone of 9 guides hitting the 100,000 view mark, but this year we now have a total of 22 guides with over 100,000 views. Twenty two stadiums full of people have viewed guides! If that wasn't enough, 8 more guides are less than 5,000 views away from hitting the 100,000 mark!
• Last year a total of 531 guides reached the 10,000 view mark, now it's 840 guides with over 10,000 views. That a third of total published guides with over 10,000 views!
• Last year there were 233 guides with over 20,000 views and 124 guides with over 30,000 views. This year that's 444 guides with over 20,000 views and 260 guides with over 30,000!
• This time last year there were 49 guides with over 50,000 views and 15 guides with over 75,000 views. Now the guides with 50,000 views or more has more than doubled to 111 guides and guides over 75,000 views has more than tripled to reach 51 guides!
• A grand total of 2,516 guides have now been written on the site, I wonder how many words that is - probably in the millions?

 

So that is all for now! We hope all the winners enjoy their rewards, and we'll see you all again next year!

 

We  our guide writers

Edited March 5, 2020 by BlindMango

[Wuthg21]

Congrats to the winners , good to see that there are trophy guides for lesser known games that won

[ZoutjeNL]

Congrats on the winners! Very nice that @Optinooby got the recognition he deserves. Some top notch guides! 

[Malachen]

3 minutes ago, ZoutjeNL said:

Congrats on the winners! Very nice that @Optinooby got the recognition he deserves. Some top notch guides! 

Seconded! Always happy when @Optinooby or @optimusmart is on a guide. Easy to follow and usually far quicker than most other trophy guides for the same game. A phenomenal amount of effort and playthroughs must go in to getting it down to beginner level so well.

[Z-Yux]

Congrats to all the winners! There were a ton of great guides this past year.

 

Also, a huge Thank You to the folks who nominated guides that I was a part of. I was very stunned to see that a couple of the ones that I wrote/co-wrote made it in the top three of a couple of the categories.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Z-Yux
Added the "Thank You" message.

[TurtlePM]

Am I wrong or people could only vote for two weeks? I only saw a dozen of comments in that topic and I noticed votes were up because someone mentioned my guide - and it was already closed for more comments.

It used to be open all December, now all these winners were based on 3/4 votes and Likes? That's greatly accurate

[NCSFan001]

Congrats everyone!

[Platisfaction]

11 minutes ago, TurtlePM said:

Am I wrong or people could only vote for two weeks? I only saw a dozen of comments in that topic and I noticed votes were up because someone mentioned my guide - and it was already closed for more comments.

It used to be open all December, now all these winners were based on 3/4 votes and Likes? That's greatly accurate

 

Nah, the nomination thread has always been closed after two weeks. Usually, nominations are down to a trickle after the first week, so it doesn't really make sense to keep it open much longer.

[Helyx]

I expect to see many more people with Crypt of the Necrodancer completed this year.

[Vergil]

Congratz @Floriiss

 

Well deserved for making such amazing guide for Crypt. 

[TurtlePM]

2 hours ago, Platisfaction said:

 

Nah, the nomination thread has always been closed after two weeks. Usually, nominations are down to a trickle after the first week, so it doesn't really make sense to keep it open much longer.

 

If it's true about being open for 2 weeks, It would make more sense to open a full month and promote the nomations thread. There are thousands of guides every year, most players check on those that are currently playing at that moment (for instance, a guide from January won't be remarkable as one released on October), a game few people played is not notorious as a blockbuster game. At least give writers a chance to show their work, cause it seems to me that all my effort writing a guide to explain and help other people was simply useless.

I see a particular game in this Winners that doesn't have much detail, the person who wrote the guide doesn't even have the platinum and gave a high difficulty for an average game. It's like someone that watched a video on YouTube explain a mechanic and simply pasted it all here. And voila, here's your Winner badge based on 2 or 3 votes. I'm sorry being honest about this, but after my last guide, I don't see the point of "wasting" time writing a detailed guide.

Edited February 8, 2020 by TurtlePM

[DaivRules]

17 minutes ago, TurtlePM said:

promote the nomations thread.

The nominations thread was promoted on top of all the forums for the same two weeks it is every year.

 

19 minutes ago, TurtlePM said:

see a particular game in this Winners that doesn't have much detail, the person who wrote the guide doesn't even have the platinum and gave a high difficulty for an average game. It's like someone that watched a video on YouTube explain a mechanic and simply pasted it all here. And voila, here's your Winner badge based on 2 or 3 votes

That’s not at all how I voted on guides but that’s interesting that’s how you think voting goes. 
 

20 minutes ago, TurtlePM said:

after my last guide, I don't see the point of "wasting" time writing a detailed guide.

Did you write the guide to write a guide or to win a contest?

[TurtlePM]

2 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

The nominations thread was promoted on top of all the forums for the same two weeks it is every year.

 

That’s not at all how I voted on guides but that’s interesting that’s how you think voting goes. 
 

Did you write the guide to write a guide or to win a contest?

 

My conversation here is about the event, it's not about Your particular parameters to vote. I didn't have a chance to vote on guides I found interesting and I bet you didn't open half of the list of the games to compare guides and make your decision. And I understand, nobody is interested or have time to read, at least, a quarter of each guide, but two weeks doesn't make things easier either. Games pop on their head and they leave a comment.

 

It's not about winning a "competition" - I like this Event to check other people's work. And, as you might expect, I don't think it's correct a Guide with a single trophy, with the lowest effort of pasting a video play through of a level from Another YouTuber, being one of the Winners in that category, when you have hundreds other guides with more detail and time invested not even being noticed. It's the best someone opens a thread in the game forum like Bad Driver and publish his video.

 

And that's my discussion here: guidewritters need to be more noticed. @BlindMangoopens a thread about miserable ribbons, something new to the site, everyone shares their opinion, he reopens the thread for more attention, nothing has been done, its OK to people lose their minds. Annually there's a Guide thread for noticible writers and guides and 2 pages of comments is enough to close the thread and publish the winners? I already knew the winners from the first page, I didn't need to wait 2 months for the results.

 

I suggest you to "invest" your time writing a guide for weeks like most of us do

[Wavergray]

First of all congrats to all the winners.

 

Secondly @TurtlePM it has been known since the time of gamefaqs that guidewriting is a thankless job. The only reason anyone should make a guide is because they want to help people. Making them for any other reason is dumb. 

 

Said by a retired guide writer.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Wavergray

[Phoenixgaming1]

Wow, this is a surprise. Congratulations to all winners and guide writers this year.  

Edited February 8, 2020 by Phoenixgaming1

[Undead Wolf]

45 minutes ago, TurtlePM said:

I see a particular game in this Winners that doesn't have much detail, the person who wrote the guide doesn't even have the platinum and gave a high difficulty for an average game. It's like someone that watched a video on YouTube explain a mechanic and simply pasted it all here. And voila, here's your Winner badge based on 2 or 3 votes.

 

I won't call anybody out by name, but I remember a guide from last year's nominations that got awarded a "Exceptionally High Quality" badge when it was anything but. It's lack of info had me stuck for like a week on how I was supposed to progress before I was finally able to find a solution from somebody else posting about it in a thread I made. It also wasn't using the official translations, so that made it pretty difficult to understand a lot of the time. There were other problems too like the bad formatting, but the point is that due to how these Guide of the Year Awards work, a guide like that gets recognition from the site all because somebody who probably doesn't even understand what makes a good guide decided to nominate it, even when there are so many others guides that were clearly better, but because they weren't lucky enough to get nominated, they get nothing.

 

I understand that the guide team are probably overworked as it is and certainly don't have the time to go through all the guides themselves to pick the best ones for each category, but the way it's handled definitely needs a rethink. A lot of great guides aren't acknowledged as it is now. This is just an idea, but I think it would be cool to have a new badge called "Staff Favourite" or something that the guide team could give to guides they believe are of a very high quality. It doesn't have to be tied to some sort of cash prize like the Guide of the Year Awards are, meaning the staff could give out as many of these as they see fit.

 

Hopefully nobody takes offence to what I've said here. Big congrats to the winners of course. There are some great guides here. 

[Phoenixgaming1]

Just now, Undead Wolf said:

 

I won't call anybody out by name, but I remember a guide from last year's nominations that got awarded a "Exceptionally High Quality" badge when it was anything but. It's lack of info had me stuck for like a week on how I was supposed to progress before I was finally able to find a solution from somebody else posting about it in a thread I made. It also wasn't using the official translations, so that made it pretty difficult to understand a lot of the time. There were other problems too like the bad formatting, but the point is that due to how these Guide of the Year Awards work, a guide like that gets recognition from the site all because somebody who probably doesn't even understand what makes a good guide decided to nominate it, even when there are so many others guides that were clearly better, but because they weren't lucky enough to get nominated, they get nothing.

 

I understand that the guide team are probably overworked as it is and certainly don't have the time to go through all the guides themselves to pick the best ones for each category, but the way it's handled definitely needs a rethink. A lot of great guides aren't acknowledged as it is now. This is just an idea, but I think it would be cool to have a new badge called "Staff Favourite" or something that the guide team could give to guides they believe are of a very high quality. It doesn't have to be tied to some sort of cash prize like the Guide of the Year Awards are, meaning the staff could give out as many of these as they see fit.

 

Hopefully nobody takes offence to what I've said here. Big congrats to the winners of course. There are some great guides here. 

 

Yha, The guide team can't research every bit of information in a trophy guide to make sure it's accurate or correct. Which is unfortunate. But, it would take too long to do and then guides wouldn't be able to come out at the rate they do.

[Platisfaction]

Picking the winners in all the different categories was by no means an easy task, and I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone involved when I say we didn't just flip a coin or pull some straws, we really gave our decisions some serious thought. That's why it has taken so long yet again... lol. While I'm not sure which guide @TurtlePM is talking about specifically, I understand that not everyone will agree with the final results. I still think that a mixture of community and staff vote is the way to go for an event like this, but that doesn't mean that the current system is the answer to everything. We are going to take all your objections into account and discuss possible changes for next year's event. For now, let's not spoil this year's for the winners! ? Congratz to all winners!

[realm722]

Yo Floriiss - I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish - but @Optinooby had one of the best guides of ALL-TIME, one of the best guides of ALL-TIME!

[BlackTorito]

Congrats to everyone!

 

I also had a personally dispar opinion on this years awards which I PM’d to be included as a suggestion.

 

But on a side note, I do think @TurtlePM has a good point on the lots of potential guides that can be lost due to being more favored and easily remembered the ones that get released near December. I also thought that myself last year. As a suggestion, I think it might be a good idea to implement some kind of monthly voting post, take note of the top 3 guides voted and those guides earn the opportunity to be remembered in a symbolic list on December’s nomination thread.

 

Getting top 3-5 guides each month directly to the judging phase would be ideal, but I do understand the judging volume might end being too much for the staff.

[Beyondthegrave07]

@TurtlePM I agree that a lot of guides don't get the recognition they deserve, but I can tell you that we don't just randomly pick guides based on popularity of the game or anything like that. I spent several hours reading through guides, reading comments, etc., and I can tell you; it's a ton of work. Too much work most people would be willing to put in.

 

I do agree though that the current system needs some rework. Maybe have nominations from guide writers count towards the total and let everyone nominate guides. However, someone will always be left out. You can't avoid it. Great guides will be overlooked. Though, this is why I think self-nominations should be allowed.

 

@BlackTorito, Not a bad idea in theory. Monthly nominations would probably be a bit easier to track and we'd have less guides forgotten. It'd be a ton of work though.

 

Anyways, congrats to the winners. This was not an easy decision at all for me. Spent a lot of time looking through guides.

 

 

[AlchemistWer]

Oh dude, my first two guides won a prize each one, I'm soo happy and I feel fortunate to have worked with my partners and friends @eigen-space@MakotoKaCun and of course @Honor_Hand 

[Mikel]

Congrats to all the winners, and I'm really stunned, but very happy to see one of my guides get picked for an exceptional award in the end!

Edited February 8, 2020 by Mikel

[Happy]

I think a lot of people already had a feeling who would win guide of the year, absolutely deserved though. Thanks for picking my guide as #3 in the niche game category and congratulations to all the other winners as well.

[Floriiss]

First off let me start by saying congratulations to all of the guide winners! In the past year I’ve seen great guides that were very in-depth and overall very well written. It satisfies me greatly whenever I see such guides, as its evident that a lot of work went into it. Nothing but respect for people that go the extra mile.

 

Next to that I’m quite in shock that my guide(s) have won! That came as a huge surprise. I’ve been putting a lot of effort in my own guides and creating them was far from easy, but then again I felt Crypt of the NecroDancer is such a niche game so it wouldn’t get as much attention as the other guides. Not to mention that a lot of great guides had been written throughout the year so I wasn’t expecting much out of it. I’m quite literally flabbergasted. Super excited though.

 

Looking back at the nominations thread it warms my heart seeing the nominations I received. It’s always nice when your work is being appreciated. Therefore a big thank you to everyone who nominated me and commented on my guide(s)!