Who Still Takes Notes While Playing RPGs?

[Jagosaurus]

Anyone else still do this? Really helps in older RPGs that don't give you descriptions of each attack, spell, & item.


Takes me back to the days of taking notes & drawing maps of dungeons, ha!


How else would I keep Moon, Sol, & Star Dew straight in Phantasy Star lol.

[Luke]

The only notes I've ever taken for any game is when a puzzle is involved, or when someone gives you a specific code to use (for example a codec in MGS, locker key number in Jurassic Park on SegaCD).

[Nemoide]

I've been doing this in Final Fantasy XI. The game has stupid quests like "kill 100 enemies with a specific sword" but there's no built-in counter. So I have a piece of paper and make tally marks. THIS GAME IS WAY TOO MODERN TO REQUIRE THAT KIND OF THING.

I normally don't take notes while playing RPGs. I'm a "talk to everyone and try to explore every corner of towns/dungeons" kind of guy, so I think it's normally unnecessary? There are exceptions of course, but not that I can think of off the top of my head; some games just require note-taking!

[brunoafh]

I take notes when I get in completionist mode with RPGs that have (overly) complex quests or requirements, and lack a sufficient in-game way to monitor your progress. I also will make a list of things I need to do sometimes if there is a ton of stuff I want to finish that is going to take several hours and multiple sessions (I would do this a lot with Demon's/Dark Souls).

I never use a pen and paper though, I usually sit down with a laptop and a notepad file.

[fvgazi]

I can't say I've done it too often. I usually take cell phone pictures of my passwords in nes, snes, and genesis.

[Violent By Design]

I just started taking notes for the reason you said. I'm playing an older RPG (Dragon Warrior), and I need to record any information I find.

I learned the hard way from playing Phantasy Star 2 and The Legend of Zelda that if you want to beat these games with in a reasonable amount of time, you need notes and a map.

[Ack]

I take notes at times to record things like passwords that I will need later. I keep a notebook for this kind of information, along with passwords to continue o to various levels of all the games I play.

[chupon]

I most recently took notes in Monster World 4. The pyramid levels with the colored hieroglyphs.

Oh and yeah. I drew up some awesome maps at the end of FF12.

[Jagosaurus]

Good to see some others do this as well lol.


I'll write down: "NPC in [Town X] said to head NW to [Fortress Y]" in case I'm not able to play for a bit.

Also in games like Phantasy Star IV, where there are 50+ techniques/spells & 50+ skills, it really helps to write down several of them you tend to forget.


And yes, Zelda was rough without the map!!!

[pierrot]

When I decided to play through the original Phantasy Star recently on the Mega Drive, I was pretty set on making maps and taking notes because of how the dungeons are laid out, but I only actually made a map for one dungeon (the one with the boss that drops the silver fangs) and stopped bothering immediately after. (More accurately, about 3/4 of the way through it.) I had a pretty good mental map of the dungeons in the first half of the game, and I used maps online by the time I got to Medusa's Tower, because that's where I fizzled out the first time I played it.

I've never really taken notes outside of mental notes, though. (That actually includes high school and college to an extent.) I do write down the special stage numbers in Dynamite Headdy every time I play it, but I also always die on the act 6-5 boss, so it never matters. (Damn Oni-bot bastard!)