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Great book very informative and very helpful on my adventure through the game.
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There actually is a unique use to this guide, if you're willing to put a few things together yourself. I agree with a lot of what the previous reviewer said, but let's be honest with ourselves here. This is a guide. Not some hand-holding thing to make sure everything gets done exactly the way it has to be done.
Opening with the game basics, the guide doesn't really present itself to be something special. The character profiles aren't so bad, but I've learned that character profiles aren't really all that special in a guide unless their telling us something that isn't specified in the game.
You'll get all you need when it comes to skills and everything that each character learns, but seriously, is it that important? Final Fantasy IV is, after all, a game where you learn spells by leveling up as opposed to equipping certain equipment or something like that. Once again, something in the guide that's there, but not really needed.
The walkthrough is, for the most part, helpful. A short explanation is all you need. Since Final Fantasy IV is mainly a dungeon crawler I found I only needed the maps. It certainly beat the hell out of trying to use the Final Fantasy Chronicles guide by BradyGAMES (which wasn't that great of a guide). It also helps if you're not expecting the guide to hold your hand. A guide is only supposed to help you. Provide tips. And every answer I needed was pretty much given to me in an easy two or three sentences, instead of a paragraph explaining why I'm here first. For the love of God if I'm playing the game I KNOW why I'm here! Therefore, I'm glad the guide doesn't waste so much time to digress. Put simply, it gets to the point.
I didn't find much use for the fold out world maps. They are nice to have, and they're easy to read, but for the most part, you probably won't need it that badly. It is, from time to time a pain to refer to the legend, but if you played the original SNES version (without the map that came with the package) I'm sure your intuition still works pretty well.
The bonus dungeons are covered. Much like in the Dawn of Souls guide, they pretty much just explain what you have to do, and how to unlock it. Other than that, you're on your own and you shouldn't have any trouble navigating it on your own. However, I'd have appreciated it if the guide had gotten me better prepared.
The bestiary isn't so bad. It gives you the basic information for an enemy. HP, MP, Weakness and all that stuff. Basically everything you're looking for about the enemy is fine. Much like all Nintendo Power guides however, there could've been more detail to it. However, if you are just looking for HP and Weakness... you've certainly found the right guide.
Basically, this a good guide. You'll get some great help from it. Honestly, is Final Fantasy IV a game where you need pages and pages of info on a certain area? I don't think so. Most dungeons are pretty straight forward, with few puzzles. The boss strategies do need work, however. They're downright terrible. You'd be crazy to think the final boss is as easy as they make it seem.
The guide gets to the point and doesn't waste time filling us in on what happened, which I like. If you're one of those overly picky people about plot spoilers, I'll let you know that it doesn't have any plot spoilers, and it doesn't hold your hand. It does exactly what a guide should and that's guide you, but still letting you have the fun of the game.
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This book is what you get when a guide decides to fulfil its minimum responsibilities of being an official guide. Walkthrough? Checked. Characters profile? Checked. Bestiary list? Checked. Maps? Checked. So, what's not good about it? Well, there's plenty.
Let's first talk about the walkthrough. Is it really that difficult for strategy guides to provide a decent walkthrough these days? On first looks, this guide follows a sequence of explanation that I prefer. That is, to label important points on the various location maps, and then explain what events to look out for at these points in words. Unfortunately, the explanation is usually too brief, and doesn't provide much details. You can do yourself a favor and go find a better walkthrough on GameFAQs.com, for example.
Next, the characters and enemies profile. The characters profile is ok, and has the initiative to list down the various skills and possible commands for each character. That's good. But the bestiary list is really a big mess. Why, I mean, why, did Nintendo Power chose to present the list in alphabetical order? Imagine yourself in a player's shoes. You find yourself completing the game, only to miss, say, ten enemies undefeated. You decide buy a guide to help you find the remaining enemies, and then find that the list is so jumbled up, it takes you five minutes to find just one of them. You see, in the game, each enemy is numbered, and they're usually numbered in accordance to when they appear. So, an enemy with a name beginning with the letter "A" may be Enemy# 250 in the game, for instance, and yet, will appear first on this book's bestiary list. I think you can imagine how difficult it's going to be if you're missing Enemy# 51, and have no idea what his or her name is.
The only things that are remotely good about this book are the maps. I appreciate that there's a triple-folded attachment that has an Overworld, Underworld and Lunar map on it. But even so, the usefulness of the maps is somewhat limited, because instead of typing the names of the respective locations on the map, they somehow decided to use labels to mark them. You're then required to refer to a legend to find out what these labels are. Perhaps it's just to show uniformity, but while the label method works for a walkthrough, it certainly doesn't work for a map. I mean, we're talking about over 20 locations on the Overworld map itself. If I've to urgently look for a location, I'd have no idea what the labels are when I look at the map. I'd then have to actually look at the legend to find the place I want, and then go back to the map to find where it's located. It's a little silly - the maps are definitely large enough for words to fit in, so it baffles me as to why labels are used.
Last but not least, where's the walkthrough for Lunar Ruins? Ok, granted that this additional dungeon has randomized levels. But surely, a description of each of the character's trials in it, which are fixed, won't take more than a few pages? Instead, only one miserable page was dedicated to "briefly explain" this unlockable dungeon. Hey, I've already bought a guide. I'm prepared to be spoiled. There's no need to avoid spoilers.
So, where do these leave this book? A faraway distance from a good guide, that's where. I collect strategy guides, especially for games that I enjoy playing. I access its helpfulness after I beat the game - I'm already at Level 94 when I bought this, and have completed all trials in Lunar Ruins, by the way - and I found this book not helpful in many areas. If this is what they think an official guide is all about, then they should really think again.
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