5 Delightful Gimmicks Inside SNES Manuals
"Hi-di-ho, neighbor!"
The Super Nintendo had a staggering 717 games released in North America. That bests predecessor NES and more than doubles the Nintendo 64’s stable. (Its batting average for game quality, however, is more of a debate.) Its reign was also marked by stellar game manuals, blending gorgeous art of the time, deep bits of knowledge for the worlds developers had built, breakdowns for more complicated RPG fare, and distinctly ’90s humor throughout many titles—from gross-out comedy to fun puns. Below, we’ve gathered 5 of our favorite game manual gimmicks from an era marked by maximalism.
Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit
Who could forget this wonderful addition to the SNES roster? As soon as you opened the box and flipped through the 1994 game’s instructions, you get your first sign that Tim Taylor’s irreverent humor was successfully ported to console form: A big "REAL MEN DON’T NEED INSTRUCTIONS" sticker covers these pages of the booklet, thwarting our ability to read about the mechanics of the game.
EarthBound
This legendary RPG had a massive manual, reportedly due to the assumed difficulty of play for American audiences. The 134-page booklet had its own travel guide to work through the game’s various locations, including activities, character you’ll meet, enemies, and much, much more fun stuff. Our favorite touch, though, was a series of cards with scratch-and-sniff features. One of the cards had an address and form to identify its smell and send it to Nintendo. If you had guessed the scent correctly, they sent you a Mach Pizza Air Freshener. (The correct scent name was, indeed, “pizza.”)
Earthworm Jim 2
The goofy humor of the Earthworm Jim series was quintessentially ’90s, and I am slightly ashamed to share that I still enjoy details like the Table of Contents being situated beside a “Contents of Table” and “Table of Continents.” This kind of silliness can be found throughout the book, making it one of those manuals you’d slip into your backpack for thumbing throughout the day.
Breath of Fire
Capcom always had fun guides, whether it was Street Fighter II Turbo's deep-dives into character lore or Mega Man how-tos on beating each villain. Breath of Fire had its own perks: The classic RPG’s manual came with a few massive posters, including a “World Map” and a table describing the baddies’ stats. You can mark off who you’ve bested as you make your way through the game.
Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball
This game already included an exclusive baseball card, which made it also a collector’s item in that sphere. But the wildest part of the manual itself was its rich, historical look at the game of baseball, lasting for several pages, that extends to an intricate timeline of team expansions and formations. Beyond that, you’ll find a huge breakdown of the leagues and teams within the then-contemporary MLB. Oh, and it has game instructions, too.
