The Video Game Critic

I think games including tutorials is an excellent feature.... if they weren't always (usually) mandatory... I hate going through a 30 minute tutorial when I could already be 30 minutes into the game. A lot of retro inspired 2D games also do this which is odd, since those games are usually pretty straight forward. If these things could be optional I think I would enjoy them more.

I like how it was done in Tomb Raider 2 (PS1), you had Lara Croft's mansion which was entirely optional and it showed you how to do everything. If you didn't want to waste your time there, go to your next mission, otherwise have at it.

The problem with tutorials is that if you're playing several games at once (as I always do) it's easy to forget what the controls were when you return from a different game. At that point a handy manual would be a nice quick reference.

I tend to play only one game at a time, so that's generally not an issue for me. But there have been times when i've gone a couple of days without playing due to having other things to do, and then I sometimes do forget the controls, but those are almost always in the options menu on the pause screen anyways, so even for that a manual seems unnecessary.

Have you ever read an instruction manual for a European game ? My god they are awful mainly because they have to include so many languages.
The MegaDrive and Master System ones were amongst the worse with four different languages per page rather than breaking it into sections.

So I envy the U.S. Manuals but personally I have little affection for them.