Back in October 2020, I worked on a feature on a project that’s trying to find every Super Nintendo manual, scan them, and upload them to the internet. I’m pleased to announce that, as of July 2022, the project has now completed a major milestone – and for many of you reading this, this is a major milestone.
When I publish that featurethe team (including Arachness, BuffaloJoe, Timber, SNES Central and Grant Kirkhart) are working on the project—led by streamer and archivist Peebs—Uploaded about 600 scans and only about 100 manuals left until they scanned the manuals for every game ever released in the West during the console’s lifetime.
That’s good progress, but the deeper they dig into the SNES’s library, the harder it is to find booklets for the strangest and rarest games in the collection. Then last week:
That means the project’s archive now has English manuals for every Super Nintendo game ever officially released in the language. Sometimes it’s the North American version, sometimes the PAL version (Europe/Australia), sometimes both if there’s a difference other than the cover photo, spelling and mailing address on the back (like how 3 . Contrast called Super Proboctor in the PAL regions).
It’s not quite the game ever released in Westas some games may receive different unique releases depending on the language market, but since this is an english site I think this is an important milestone for our readers I know!
And it’s still very near the. The team is just a single game that fears the achievement of “every Western guidebook” with a single release: the original scan of the only German version of the game. Daze Before Christmas (although they do have a translated version of the rare Mega Drive version in English in case anyone needs info).
However, after that, it seems their job was never done. Even when every guidebook was scanned and uploaded, some games – including many RPGs – had important information recorded elsewhere, like on separate maps/posters, because so they’re also looking at uploading and scanning them wherever they can. They also have part of the Super Famicom manual for repair.
If you want to peruse the entire library or bookmark it for a future time needed, it is available herethough you can too search for a specific game on the Internet Archive and it will appear there as well. And for something more action, besides collecting their manuals Peebs is also working his way through the SNES library and trying to beat every game on Twitch (in the end he only had 47 to go!)