Strategy Guides and My Pokémon Experience

Strategy guides are extremely helpful things for any game and any gamer, including Pokémon ones. They're called strategy guides because they help in formulating a strategy for difficult parts of games. I've used them a few times over the course of my experience playing Pokémon games, and they're helpful in some ways and less so in others. Even so, I still find them quite appreciable in their relation to Pokémon games.

When I played the original first and second generation main series games, I used strategy guides extensively to plan out my next moves. I was free to develop my own team, but whatever I did next was often dictated by the strategy guides. In starting to play the third generation games, however, I found that I could progress through the game without a strategy guide or at least without frequent use, and that is what I did; since then I've made my way through the games without referring to them much and only did so when I needed a nudge in the right direction.

This, however, doesn't make strategy guides any less useful. They may still be useful for others to a greater degree in making strategies, but just lesser in my case. And even if they're not utilized as much in making strategies, they may still serve as references and documentation for that part of the game, especially if the part is hard and/or time-and-effort-consuming to replicate; I used a strategy guide, for example, to remind myself of what happened during the "Don't Fear Failure!" portion of Pokémon Ranger, being impractical to try to replicate it. Finally, strategy guides just make a good read to discover things, especially for Pokémon games, where many fascinating things may be going on and it's too hard to take them in all at once while playing.

So strategy guides seem to be useful in different ways; they may serve as full guides or just for occasional hints. Even if they're not used as such, they can still be used to refer things or just to read through. In any case they're still helpful for many gamers, including myself. I may not utilize them as much today as I did in the past, but I still have to thank them for their existence. They've escalated my experience with Pokémon games, one way or another.