[sakjur]

I had a guide for Wind Waker that I’d enjoy reading and mostly appreciating the artwork from (I’m not sure I even could read English when I first bought the guide), yet I didn’t have the game and only played occasionally at friend’s places.

I remember planning to collect all the statues in that game. I never did, and likely never will, but I’ve enjoyed Wind Waker more recently and it really is a great game and I would like to play through it at some point.

[esnard]

I also had that guide!

But I feel like that this isn't really the same experience. The Pokémon guide feels closer to the game than the Zelda one, especially since the Zelda games are known for their riddles - which are very hard to properly transcribe in a guide, imo.

Some of Zelda's best riddles can be rendered useless as soon as you read the solution (thinking about a very good one in Phantom Hourglass I'll never be able to experience again) - but the Pokémon ones still feel fresh, especially since the games rely so much on exploration, grinding and battling.

[sakjur]

I hadn't thought of it like that, but I agree with you. The magic of good puzzle design lies partly in figuring it out yourself and feeling clever, and you miss out on that when reading the solution to the puzzle in a guide.

I absolutely loved what Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks did with the hardware they had available to them in terms of game design. I'd love to see a remaster of Spirit Tracks, but I'm not sure it'd be possible to capture the cleverness of their controls (admittedly not always a good thing) and puzzles on the Switch?