I’ve actually briefly written about this guide before on the site, but in 1996 a book was released in Japan called Super Mario 64 Complete Clear Guide Book, which wasn’t just a strategy guide but also a collection of developer commentary and photos of custom-made 3D dioramas, crafted just for the guide.
Sonic Prime's Lead Voice Actor On Bringing Swagger To The Iconic Role
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While it’s hardly a lost relic—you can find copies all over eBay for $200-300 if you’re serious about reading it in the flesh—most people reading this will have never seen the book, or if you have, will have only seen a select few pages of it. That simply will not do, so it’s great to see that someone (CFC’s Dave Shevlin) has taken the time to scan and upload the entire book at a very useful 600dpi.
I cannot stress how amazing the dioramas are, and what a genius idea they were for representing a 3D space—still a novelty back then!—on a 2D page. Just look at this:
And this:
And this!
Wonderful. And they just keep going on like that. The book is entirely in Japanese, but translations have been made of certain parts; like this interview with Miyamoto where he talks about his kid getting a chance to play the game during development:
