The worst was games that required info from the manual to progress past a certain point, like star tropics. Rented the game and the rental place didn't include the manual? Shit out of luck. And no Internet back then to look it up, either. (Yes, I'm still bitter)

I remember some computer games would also do things like that to prevent copying the game from a friend, like requiring a certain word from a certain page before loading.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 14 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I bought Sim City for PC at a used bookstore, and it didn't come with the reference page for a code it would ask you for after playing a certain amount of time.

Without this code, the game would turn on all hazards (tornados, fires, flooding, Godzilla, etc) and make itself unplayable.

[–] IHawkMike@lemmy.world 11 points 7 hours ago

Also it was black on red to make it harder to photocopy. I remember my mom being proud that she'd used the filters on the fancy copier she had at work to copy this sheet.

[–] dan@upvote.au 4 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

There were rental places that didn't include the manual?

[–] teamevil@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

One manual... where'd they get a replacement...it was like a library book, you had to return it.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Most if them

[–] dan@upvote.au 3 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Whenever I rented an N64 game, the manual was in the box, and the store would check to ensure the manual was there when you return the game. That was in Australia though, so maybe it was different in your country?

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You can’t really generalise by country in this. Where I lived (NSW South coast) you didn’t even get the box. All the game cartridges were being the counter in a separate generic box with the name printed on it. The real boxes on the shelves were empty and you didn’t get to take them home.

[–] dan@upvote.au 1 points 2 hours ago

I didn't mean to imply that every rental store in Australia did this, just that I lived in Australia and the rental stores I used included the manual.

[–] nafzib@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, here in the U.S. at Blockbuster you would get a clear plastic case that held the game cartridge and that was it. They must have still kept some of the original boxes in their storage though, because I bought a used copy of Mega Man X for SNES from Blockbuster and it came in it's original box, but with no manual.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago

I'm willing to bet it varied by employee diligence. I think it's much less likely to be a company policy of not giving out the manuals to renters and more likely to be that they didn't quit renting the game after somebody failed to return the manual.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

Same for Hollywood Video. I don't think you ever got manuals. At least not the ones near me.