• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Furukawa Speaks! We discuss the announcement of the Nintendo Switch Successor and our June Direct Predictions on the new episode of the Famiboards Discussion Club! Check it out here!

Retro Remember when GameFAQ's had information on it?

How do you usually pronounce GameFAQs?

  • Total voters
    113
N

Narroo

Tektite
Banned
Back when I was a kid, GameFAQs was the go-to place for all information on a game. If a piece of information wasn't on GameFAQs, it probably wasn't known, or you were playing on hell of an obscure game!

Nowadays, there's nothing there! Most games in the past 10 years are graveyards. There might be one superficial html "guide", and that's it.

I actually tried submitting content for DMCV, but I got rejected with no reason given. I think they might accept guides anymore, to be honest.

It's a shame, because it's actually much harder to find reliable information about games nowadays. It's scattered over discords, youtubes, and fan-wikis. All of which are poorly curated. If you like playing video games, this aspect of the internet has actually regressed massively since the 90's. Strange, isn't it?
 
I used to love gamefaqs when I was like, ten. That's where I learned the trick to getting all three starters in Pokémon Silver.
 
0
I remember spending a ton of time on GameFAQs back in the day, esp. the forums. Mad respect for the people that actually wrote such detailed guides and then just put them up freely without getting anything in return. It's a big example of how (old man yelling at cloud warning) the general internet of today feels so much less organic and usable; like you said, most of it is hidden away on discords, or on terrible ad-ridden Fandom wikis, or one of the 5 mega websites/social media sites that prioritize SEO and the algorithm over actually being helpful.

Also, I say Game Fax. Pronounced the same way as fax machine.
 
While I haven't played any old school rpgs in a minute, I still use guides on that site when I need them. Some of those guides, especially the JRPGs, were legendary back in the day. And they still hold up.

Also, completing the daily poll was a daily ritual for most us. A regular daily GAMEFAQS poll would get six figures worth of responses easily 15-20 years ago. It is one of those magical places from the internet of old that still exists today.
bellydrum said:
"Game fax".
Click to expand...
^
 
When I was a kid I remember taking GameFAQs walkthroughs for SNES/PS1 RPGs, shrinking them down so that I could cram like four pages onto one printed page, and printing out the entire thing so that I'd have my own guide to follow while playing. And still getting yelled at for using too much ink and paper, lol. Good times.
 
For people of my age range, gamefaqs is more of a forum / message board than a faqs guide site lol. Like even when I look up a question and click on a gamefaqs link, it's usually answered in the form of a forum thread.
 
0
I’ve only ever used it for SNES/PSOne rpgs, but then I think more recent stuff has any info spread across all manner of other places. It’s an interesting point though, and I agree entirely with the retro tag for the discussion- it’s something I hadn’t thought about before but I pretty much associate with cracking through old rpgs.
 
0
There’s significantly less of them than there used to be, but certain genres like JRPGs still regularly get guides which I appreciate when needed.
 
0
Lord Azrael said:
I feel like you missed a pretty big poll option

Game-fax
Click to expand...
Missing a pretty big poll option is perfectly in the spirit of GameFAQs.

But I personally don't care for any version but "F A Qs", it just sounds like you're slurring a word otherwise... or just a slur.

Where have all the contributors gone? Had to find jobs? Lost their cushy jobs in the financial crisis?
 
0
Modern GameFAQs HTML guides are amazing. I used one for Trails Into Reverie (a 2023 localized game :O ) to get 100%.
 
Ultimately making a full guide for a new game takes time, especially if you want to do it well and make it html. I'll gladly take less guides on GFaqs if the ones we do get are all extremely high quality. You go back to guides from games from the 2,000's and it's kinda shocking some of them were ever approved.
 
Ah, GameFAQs. It was my favorite internet forum because you could literally discuss in every single game. I used to frequent two sites and discuss: KHInsider and GameFAQs. I spent yeeears going into the GameFAQs forum for my favorite past, current and upcoming games.

I stopped frequenting when flaming was too much of a thing in every single board. Someone posted an honest thread, and then someone came and posted some insult.

That’s when I started transitioning from GameFAQs to Reddit.
 
0
Oh man, I spent so many hours reading those notepad guides, I guess GameFAQs is kinda moot nowadays with modern games (I can't remember the last time I seriously got lost in a game) but there's still a community for old RPG games (although not as big as it was)

And game discussion moved away from forums to social media - I think Neogaf/Era is the only one left that's still strong in a way and it still ain't what it used to be
 
Something in the universe shifted when the answers to my game questions stopped being in walkthroughs with ASCII art logos at the top and started being buried on page 3 of a 7 page thread otherwise populated with people arguing about stupid shit.

Marizza Pia Spiritto said:
I guess GameFAQs is kinda moot nowadays with modern games (I can't remember the last time I seriously got lost in a game) but there's still a community for old RPG games (although not as big as it was)
Click to expand...

Yeah, those sort of centralised repositories of information are really good for games where you want to look up stats or checklists for completionism or missables, so they're ideal for RPGs.
 
I remember printing out guides for Final Fantasy VII on my Dad's printer. Or one of those games.

He didn't use the printer often, so I think we'd gone back home to our Mom's house by the time he noticed he was missing a good few dozen pages of paper...or more. ASCII was surprisingly practical.

I can't imagine finding half of the hidden stuff in FFVII in today's age. It used to be I'd beat a game and then rush to gameFAQ's to find all the cool stuff I missed so I could keep playing.

It's going to be a shame when gameFAQ's dies. Remember the hidden ring sidequest in FFIX that was completely unknown and undocumented in English for decades? In a few years, it's going to be like that for a WHOLE LOT OF OLD GAMES.
 
I remember printing out a walkthrough for Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Like over 60 pages at once.

Needless to say, I was grounded from printer privelages for a minute.

I still go to Gamefaqs for their daily polls, those are fun.
 
Joy-Boy said:
I remember printing out a walkthrough for Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Like over 60 pages at once.

Needless to say, I was grounded from printer privelages for a minute.

I still go to Gamefaqs for their daily polls, those are fun.
Click to expand...
Hell yeah, I miss the character battle polls. I won the bracket contest once. Got like a $500 Amazon gift card.

I miss that site. The boards used to be great and the FAQs were super useful.
 
The death of ASCII art at the top of the guides is one that I don't think the internet has fully appreciated in its loss
 
It's sad that GameFAQs fallen off so hard, largely thanks to Youtube and Fandom wikis being the go to sources for "gaming guides", nowadays.

There's something to be said about a well-written FAQ/walkthrough that allowed you to just go CTRL-F and go immediately to the section you want, instead of having to wade your way through ads, promos, clicking through wiki links or sifting through portions of a video you don't need/want, just to get to the actual thing you wanted to read about!
 
GameFAQs is mandatory for some of those early 3D games. My brother printed out a whole bunch of guides for Digimon World so he would stop digivolving his monsters into Numemon.
 
0
TreIII said:
It's sad that GameFAQs fallen off so hard, largely thanks to Youtube and Fandom wikis being the go to sources for "gaming guides", nowadays.

There's something to be said about a well-written FAQ/walkthrough that allowed you to just go CTRL-F and go immediately to the section you want, instead of having to wade your way through ads, promos, clicking through wiki links or sifting through portions of a video you don't need/want, just to get to the actual thing you wanted to read about!
Click to expand...
Fandom wiki isn't really that reliable depending on the places you visit.

I had to use stratgey wiki to get through ace attorney and danganronpa when i was just getting into them but even that site has alot of missing guides in it.
 
Shroudednightmare said:
Fandom wiki isn't really that reliable depending on the places you visit.

I had to use stratgey wiki to get through ace attorney and danganronpa when i was just getting into them but even that site has alot of missing guides in it.
Click to expand...
Oh, definitely. Just because I claimed it was a "go-to" doesn't at all mean that I'd say it's reliable. LOL

I personally have had more success with searching through Reddit when I wanted some information on a Monster Hunter title, or the Nioh games. Fandom's shit could be incomplete, at best, or outright wrong, at worst!
 
TreIII said:
Oh, definitely. Just because I claimed it was a "go-to" doesn't at all mean that I'd say it's reliable. LOL

I personally have had more success with searching through Reddit when I wanted some information on a Monster Hunter title, or the Nioh games. Fandom's shit could be incomplete, at best, or outright wrong, at worst!
Click to expand...
Not just that, but also lot of grammar errors too in their articles and the fandom journalists themselves are just uninteresting and boring to me.
 
0
Hy6E6qd.png



Those were the days
 
Nothing beat the feeling of finding a massively in-depth guide to a game you’re hopelessly stuck on, but finding that the text file is enormous and there’s no quick navigation so you search through it for the very specific part you’re stuck on, scrolling past detailed, step-by-step instructions for all the parts of the game you struggled with, painstaking written so that even a toddler could follow them, and then finding, finally, the section relevant to the part you’re stuck on…

‘Solve the puzzle, it’s easy, and move on to the next area’
 
it’s “Gamefax” and it’s NOT identical to “Game Facts”

they’re two very, very different philosophical stances
 
0
#TeamGameFax

There's an elegant simplicity to a well-formatted FAQ on gamefaqs. Gimme that over something like a fandom wiki any day.
 
0
Recently played Klonoa 1, so I actually ended up there again.

Shame new games get neglected.
Even if they are more streamlined, for some games a good guide would still be totally worth it.

Also I'm german and weird so in my mind I read it for like GameFucks, so yeah, thats just me.
 
0
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom