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Pamphlet Shelf

 Pamphlet Shelf
type
FeatureClass
 Pamphlet Shelf
label
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf
page
PamphletShelf
 Pamphlet Shelf
comment
Going on an adventure doesn't always mean you have to hack your way through hundreds of monsters to save the world. Sometimes, you'll want to take a break from all of the killing and relax with a good book. Luckily, whenever The Hero visits his local library, there'll always be tons of books on the shelves, but he'll always find the one book on the shelf with information that's somehow relevant to the quest at hand. Of course, some ordinary people like to keep books in their homes, too. They're not always relevant to the quest, but like the stuff in the library, it's still good enough for a quick read. And we mean quick. Snap-your-fingers-and-you're-done quick.
Usually, books within a video game hardly contain enough text to fit on a full real-world page. This can easily be written off (no pun intended) as an Acceptable Break From Reality. Sure, it may sound kinda silly, but when there's a world to be saved, you wouldn't want to spend hours skimming through a book to find the information you need.
A common variation on this is to imply that the tiny portion that the player gets to read is merely an excerpt, or a summary of everything relevant you managed to glean from it. Curiously, it also seems that not only does every book contain only one page of interest, every bookshelf contains only one book of interest.
In extremely rare cases, the in-game information is in fact as realistically long as you'd expect it to be. In those cases, it's known as the In-Game Novel; even an in-game novel, however, can overlap with this trope, since they're often unrealistically short two-or-three page affairs. A Pamphlet Shelf might be Flavor Text, when the information isn't necessary to understand the plot.
 Pamphlet Shelf
fetched
2024-03-02T12:16:25Z
 Pamphlet Shelf
parsed
2024-03-02T12:16:25Z
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingComment
Dropped link to CampGay: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingComment
Dropped link to EncyclopediaExposita: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingComment
Dropped link to RareCandy: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingComment
Dropped link to ThrivingGhostTown: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingComment
Dropped link to fictionaldocument: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingComment
Dropped link to playercharacter: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Pamphlet Shelf
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_11366f17
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_11366f17
comment
Betrayal at Krondor has you come across a library, and it deals with the issue in its trademark manner - you get a long, wordy narration describing your characters trudging through shelves and shelves of dusty ledgers, obsolete textbooks and illegible scribblings to find a little tidbit of information in the margins of a half-hidden combat manual, for example.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_11366f17
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_11366f17
featureConfidence
1.0
 Betrayal at Krondor (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_11366f17
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_151b12f6
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_151b12f6
comment
Littlewood: One of the objectives is to return all twenty-four of the books that the Grand Library left in the care of various travelers. Getting a book back allows the Hero to read it upon visiting the Grand Library. The contents of the full book collection could easily fit in a small actual book.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_151b12f6
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1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_151b12f6
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1.0
 Littlewood / Videogame
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_151b12f6
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_1e5e6b01
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_1e5e6b01
comment
The SNES game Robotrek has plenty of this, since beyond plot-related reading the main character learns to produce new items from the Invention Machine by finding "Inventor's Friend" volumes. Then again, the machine just spits items out on demand, so maybe he just copies the CD in the back of the book and leaves the written info to the more hands-on inventors. There's also a hidden library that contains one of each volume in the game (a few of which are exclusive to that area), but it's still one whole tile of bookshelf for each book.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_1e5e6b01
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_1e5e6b01
featureConfidence
1.0
 Robotrek (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_1e5e6b01
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_223c2a48
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_223c2a48
comment
Of all the various in-game books in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the most notable example of this is King Rhoam's diary. He wrote in it from the day his daughter Zelda was born up to the day she turned 17, yet it only contains fairly brief accounts of a handful of notable events. Zelda herself has a set of research notes and a diary that are similarly sparse, but it's a bit more justifiable in her case, as she spent much of her time out in the field and thus would have been away from her desk more often.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_223c2a48
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_223c2a48
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1.0
 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_223c2a48
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_26674ed5
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_26674ed5
comment
Averted in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, where the extras section has a book, mentioned in the game as being an account of the events of the first game. It is an actual book at 300-some pages.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_26674ed5
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_26674ed5
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1.0
 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_26674ed5
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3209fad1
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3209fad1
comment
Played with in Mabinogi. Books are only available for purchase from NPCs, or awarded from quests. The only library doesn't have any readable books. Reading the books gets a visual book with pages that must be turned manually. Length ranges from a single (short) page, to well over a dozen or more. Some of them are guides to various in-game functions, which are useful to read; some are skill-granting artifacts or quest items, which don't need to be read, but which can contain useful info on how to use the skill, or on the quest storyline; and some are completely extraneous, containing nothing but backstory or flavour text. Most of the longest books are the extraneous ones, and the newbie guides.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3209fad1
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3209fad1
featureConfidence
1.0
 Mabinogi (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_3209fad1
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_372350a0
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_372350a0
comment
In Dubloon, you can find a short piece of info about a mysterious captain who searched for the Golden Chest many years ago. This short piece of info can be found in 3 tomes, each lying next to each other.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_372350a0
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_372350a0
featureConfidence
1.0
 Dubloon (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_372350a0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3d532d77
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3d532d77
comment
In Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ Omen, the Books of Ys are MacGuffins with not much actual text in them.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3d532d77
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_3d532d77
featureConfidence
1.0
 Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ Omen (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_3d532d77
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_49ad83ee
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_49ad83ee
comment
In World of Warcraft, information comes in two forms, items in your inventory and books lying out on tables. Items are often letters or notes specifically given to you and written in full (sometimes brief, sometimes verbose) details. Books (both in inventory and more often out) are not quite as full as a book should be, although they contain numerous pages worth of lore. Few if any books have the equivalent of one paperback novel's page of text.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_49ad83ee
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_49ad83ee
featureConfidence
1.0
 World of Warcraft (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_49ad83ee
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4ce969a9
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4ce969a9
comment
In Marathon, you get to kick back at computer terminals dotted around the eponymous colony ship and read all sorts of snippets from Martian history to philosophical articles to classified ads to chunks of hexadecimal garbage. The compactness and relevance of most terminal texts is implied to be from malignant cyborgs and sentient (not to mention completely bonkers) computers battling each other.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4ce969a9
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4ce969a9
featureConfidence
1.0
 Marathon (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_4ce969a9
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4eddc919
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4eddc919
comment
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Downplayed with the documents you sometimes are assigned to find or steal and bring back to the interested party. You can read them from the PDA, and while they're not fully self-contained, they provide multiple pamphlets' worth of e-mail messages and/or reports both military and scientific.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4eddc919
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_4eddc919
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1.0
 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_4eddc919
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_507dfb6a
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_507dfb6a
comment
EarthBound (1994) plays with this when you find a magazine containing a funny short story in a bonus area.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_507dfb6a
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_507dfb6a
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1.0
 EarthBound (1994) (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_507dfb6a
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5144055f
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5144055f
comment
Averted in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, where the library mostly contained irrelevant books, and finding the useful ones was part of the puzzle. On the other hand, the book of quotations did contain remarkably few quotes.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5144055f
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5144055f
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1.0
 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_5144055f
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_526d4c5c
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_526d4c5c
comment
Played fairly straight in Knights of the Old Republic. There aren't any shelves or books, but there are datapads, usually containing only a single paragraph or two.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_526d4c5c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_526d4c5c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Knights of the Old Republic (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_526d4c5c
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5afbc0cb
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5afbc0cb
comment
Lampshaded several times in Undertale. One of the books in the library ends with the author's remark about only needing to write a minimum number of pages. Another character's house contains a diary which talks about buying a new book to record each entry.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5afbc0cb
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5afbc0cb
featureConfidence
1.0
 Undertale (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_5afbc0cb
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5d7f0a07
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5d7f0a07
comment
Parodied in Turnabout Storm, when Twilight Sparkle gives Phoenix Wright a "'detailed' encyclopedia" on the different species of ponies. It's literally three bullet points long, and Nick finishes reading it in "ten seconds flat". Justified in that the book is meant for very young readers. This gets brought up again a little later, when Nick mistakenly calls Rainbow Dash an earth pony.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5d7f0a07
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_5d7f0a07
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1.0
 Turnabout Storm (Web Animation)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_5d7f0a07
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6981eeed
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6981eeed
comment
Justified in Zork Nemesis; with most of the many books lying around, you can only read a few pages, but often the last page will end mid-paragraph, implying that there's a full-length book the player character is too lazy to read all of.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6981eeed
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6981eeed
featureConfidence
1.0
 Zork Nemesis (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_6981eeed
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6d0fccef
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6d0fccef
comment
In Spyro: Shadow Legacy, various books have the plots of previous games, or other in-game information, boiled down to about three sentences.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6d0fccef
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_6d0fccef
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1.0
 Spyro: Shadow Legacy (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_6d0fccef
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_74f7210c
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_74f7210c
comment
The Legend of Zelda:
In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the starting town has a library where eight books are laid out for reading. One is them is a world map, but all the others barely contain a paragraph of text each. In particular, when you combine the fact that the "secrets" book only contains two lines of text with the fact that you need a magnifying glass to read it, it might as well have fit inside a fortune cookie.
Taken to its irrational conclusion in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The grandmother in the inn offers to read you one of two bedtime stories. The longer tale of the two could easily fit on one or two pages of a real book. The process of listening to the story takes twelve ingame hours and requires you to equip a magical mask if you don't want to fall asleep in the process.
Of all the various in-game books in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the most notable example of this is King Rhoam's diary. He wrote in it from the day his daughter Zelda was born up to the day she turned 17, yet it only contains fairly brief accounts of a handful of notable events. Zelda herself has a set of research notes and a diary that are similarly sparse, but it's a bit more justifiable in her case, as she spent much of her time out in the field and thus would have been away from her desk more often.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_74f7210c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_74f7210c
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Legend of Zelda (Franchise)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_74f7210c
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7988cb68
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7988cb68
comment
Similar to Mass Effect, Dragon Age had numerous notes, letters, books, and interesting bits of masonry that would dump anywhere from a single paragraph to three pages of text into your journal.
The sequel has the Player Character perusing his/her own books at home, with comments regarding those which are gifts or recommendations from friends ("101 Uses for a Phallic Tuber? Thanks, Isabela, that's one hundred too many.")
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7988cb68
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7988cb68
featureConfidence
1.0
 Mass Effect (Franchise)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_7988cb68
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7eceb06d
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7eceb06d
comment
Fable II has some actual pamphlet, but all the descriptions of the books simply tell you what they're about in a quick synopsis.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7eceb06d
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7eceb06d
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1.0
 Fable II (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_7eceb06d
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7f5bc680
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7f5bc680
comment
When larger books are read in the Fallout series, an appropriate amount of time passes while the Player Character peruses them.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7f5bc680
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7f5bc680
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1.0
 Fallout
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_7f5bc680
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7fb486bc
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7fb486bc
comment
In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the starting town has a library where eight books are laid out for reading. One is them is a world map, but all the others barely contain a paragraph of text each. In particular, when you combine the fact that the "secrets" book only contains two lines of text with the fact that you need a magnifying glass to read it, it might as well have fit inside a fortune cookie.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7fb486bc
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_7fb486bc
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_7fb486bc
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cc3
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cc3
comment
Final Fantasy II has one in the Great Big Library of Everything in Mysidia. A particularly understandable example, considering it's a NES game.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cc3
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cc3
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1.0
 Final Fantasy II (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cc3
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cd0
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cd0
comment
Final Fantasy IV has a few of these, most notably at the library in the Land of Summoned Monsters.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cd0
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cd0
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1.0
 Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_86814cd0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_91684031
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_91684031
comment
Played with in Lenora's Gym in Pokémon Black and White, as you only read a few lines from each of her books, but she's hidden vital clues to solving the Gym's puzzles inside some of them.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_91684031
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_91684031
featureConfidence
1.0
 Pokémon Black and White (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_91684031
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_98c55b59
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_98c55b59
comment
Subverted by Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura; while there are quite a few short books in the game used to move the story along or used in a sidequest, there are also entire libraries of books that have no connection to the plot and merely exist to create a feeling of depth. Some of them are quite long, at least by in-game RPG standards.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_98c55b59
featureApplicability
-0.3
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_98c55b59
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1.0
 Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_98c55b59
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9d34190a
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Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9d34190a
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The Elder Scrolls:
Averted throughout the series in which every book shown can be read, though they do cheat a bit by making the actual content of the book being in the density of a pamphlet (as a single in-game book never reach 50 pages in content) and padding the shelves with multiple copies of the same book. These documents range from full blown In-Game Novels like the 2920: The Last Year of the First Era series, The Real Barenziah, King Edward, A Dance in the Fire, and The Wolf Queen to religious texts such as For My Gods and Emperor and 36 Lessons of Vivec, to numerous historical works which help fill in the thousands of years of backstory, to simple notes handwritten by the world's inhabitants to make the world feel more alive (you can literally find the grocery lists of NPCs). Many of the histories presented within the game are contradictory and at odds with each other, leaving it up to the reader to piece together the history of Tamriel for him/herself. For tropes relating to these works, see The Elder Scrolls In-Universe Books page.
The series' Skill Books, which instantly raise one of your skills by one when read, also contain short stories related to the skill. For example, The Armorer's Challenge is about a competition between two armorers and, naturally, it raises your Armorer/Smithing skill. The Marksmanship Lesson is about an unconventional archery instructor and, naturally, raises your Marksman/Archery skill.
Some books are also simply there for fun:
One notable example is The Lusty Argonian Maid, written by the Camp Gay (though technically bisexual) Crassius Curio. It centers around a character named Crantus Colto and his...interest...in his, well, Argonian maid. A quest in Morrowind has you attempting to find actors willing to be in it. (Skyrim adds a sequel, as well as a Gender Flipped version for the ladies, The Sultry Argonian Bard.)
Another is Boethiah's Pillow Book, which is entirely represented by:
In Daggerfall, various books throughout the game hinted what days to summon Daedric Princes and what to expect from it. Later games drop the requirement of specific days and circumstances to summon the Daedric Princes, though mentions of them exist as Artifacts in certain in-game books (such as the Invocation of Azura).
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9d34190a
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-1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9d34190a
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Elder Scrolls (Franchise)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_9d34190a
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9f89a5f0
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Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9f89a5f0
comment
The Pokémon series is guilty of this. Normally, the text is purely for fun, or the character will say something like "A bunch of hard-to-read books are on this shelf," but in Diamond and Pearl a library is a major plot point, and yet it still does this.
Played with in Lenora's Gym in Pokémon Black and White, as you only read a few lines from each of her books, but she's hidden vital clues to solving the Gym's puzzles inside some of them.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9f89a5f0
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1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_9f89a5f0
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1.0
 Pokémon (Franchise)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_9f89a5f0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4515c7c
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Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4515c7c
comment
In OFF, each shelf of real library books has only two pages of text (sometimes barely legible), unless one of them has been torn off and misplaced. Many shelves are fake and have nothing to read. Going by one of the local Elsens' comments, there are more pages but the other Elsens would freak out at the noise and the Batter would rather avoid the hassle.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4515c7c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4515c7c
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1.0
 OFF (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4515c7c
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4dd5de9
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Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4dd5de9
comment
Illusionary Trauma has a few shelves of these in the library in Giga Pudding's route.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4dd5de9
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4dd5de9
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1.0
 Illusionary Trauma (Visual Novel)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_a4dd5de9
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a8a64abf
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a8a64abf
comment
Geneforge has a lot of books that are so heavily damaged only a small section of them remains legible. Later games in the series offer other explanations for the speed of reading (Shaper training allows one to learn new things very quickly) and the brevity of the books (most books are composed largely of things over your character's head).
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a8a64abf
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_a8a64abf
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1.0
 Geneforge (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_a8a64abf
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Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_af5967ff
comment
Unreal: You can read logs found on screens, books and a few corpses with the help of the Universal Translator. In all cases the contents are rarely longer than six lines and two paragraphs.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_af5967ff
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_af5967ff
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1.0
 Unreal (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_af5967ff
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Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b0666b59
comment
Neverwinter Nights also has the brief, but setting-enriching flavor text books as well.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b0666b59
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b0666b59
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1.0
 Neverwinter Nights (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_b0666b59
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b1e46e9a
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b1e46e9a
comment
Adventurers! makes fun of this trope in one strip.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b1e46e9a
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_b1e46e9a
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1.0
 Adventurers! (Webcomic)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_b1e46e9a
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_beac6ffb
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_beac6ffb
comment
Taken to its irrational conclusion in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The grandmother in the inn offers to read you one of two bedtime stories. The longer tale of the two could easily fit on one or two pages of a real book. The process of listening to the story takes twelve ingame hours and requires you to equip a magical mask if you don't want to fall asleep in the process.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_beac6ffb
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_beac6ffb
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_beac6ffb
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c19c6efa
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c19c6efa
comment
After the 1.3 update, Minecraft players can write their own books by combining a blank book with a feather and a squid's ink sac. The space per page is 14 lines and 798 characters, the usual size of a typical pamphlet, though nothing stops a determined player from writing a whole In-Game Novel, as each book can be up to 100 pages long.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c19c6efa
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c19c6efa
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1.0
 Minecraft (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_c19c6efa
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c2b8c574
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c2b8c574
comment
Body Harvest
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c2b8c574
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1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c2b8c574
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1.0
 Body Harvest (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_c2b8c574
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c433d063
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c433d063
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Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy II has one in the Great Big Library of Everything in Mysidia. A particularly understandable example, considering it's a NES game.
Final Fantasy IV has a few of these, most notably at the library in the Land of Summoned Monsters.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c433d063
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c433d063
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1.0
 Final Fantasy (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_c433d063
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c6e9c6cc
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c6e9c6cc
comment
Super Mario Galaxy has Rosalina's book, which is slowly unlocked over the course of the game. It contains Rosalina's biography.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c6e9c6cc
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c6e9c6cc
featureConfidence
1.0
 Super Mario Galaxy (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_c6e9c6cc
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c710754f
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c710754f
comment
Fantasy Life has a couple of libraries that are like this. The in-game dialogue however, more than makes up for this (it tends to be long enough to annoy the Play the Game, Skip the Story crowd).
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c710754f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c710754f
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1.0
 Fantasy Life (Video Game)
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Pamphlet Shelf / int_c710754f
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c72021c5
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c72021c5
comment
In Deus Ex, ellipses help indicate that you didn't just read everything in the book. Sometimes it's even a real book, like The Man Who Was Thursday, and you get to see only a few paragraphs from the middle.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c72021c5
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_c72021c5
featureConfidence
1.0
 Deus Ex (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_c72021c5
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ca48bb5c
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ca48bb5c
comment
One sidequest early in Fable asks you to collect books for an elementary school teacher for him to read to the youngsters. You don't get to read the entire books yourself, but when you hand each one over to the teacher, he reads them aloud to the children, and all of them actually are that short.
Fable II has some actual pamphlet, but all the descriptions of the books simply tell you what they're about in a quick synopsis.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ca48bb5c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ca48bb5c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Fable (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_ca48bb5c
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_cd81de4
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_cd81de4
comment
Quest for Glory IV has the shelf in the run-down Adventurers' Guild, which actually does contain some pamphlets. Rather than making the player hunt for each book, however, interacting with the bookshelf simply brings up a list of the readable books.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_cd81de4
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_cd81de4
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1.0
 Quest for Glory IV (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_cd81de4
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ce133407
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ce133407
comment
In the playable scene of Crystal Heroes, this is played with by having the few sentences you can read from the bookshelves be explicitly stated to be just excerpts from single pages of single books rather than the entire content of the shelves.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ce133407
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ce133407
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1.0
 Crystal Heroes (Webcomic)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_ce133407
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d09253b7
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d09253b7
comment
In Fortune Summoners each shelf in the game contains only one readable book (although, interestingly, the main character is Book Dumb and can't read most of the books, so you have to switch to another character to read them) although some of them are of a fair length.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d09253b7
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d09253b7
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1.0
 Fortune Summoners (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_d09253b7
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d3b17858
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d3b17858
comment
Final Fantasy Tactics averts the trope with the Germonik Scriptures; choosing to read them leads to Ramza summarizing the contents, after noting that it took him quite some time to get through it.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d3b17858
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d3b17858
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1.0
 Final Fantasy Tactics (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_d3b17858
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d4d00d1c
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d4d00d1c
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The Story Chalet in Carto is full of books that write themselves, but none of which seems to have more than half a dozen lines of text.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d4d00d1c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d4d00d1c
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1.0
 Carto (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_d4d00d1c
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d8811eb6
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d8811eb6
comment
Captain SNES: The Game Masta mocks it in this strip.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d8811eb6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_d8811eb6
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1.0
 Captain SNES: The Game Masta (Webcomic)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_d8811eb6
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_da02c1ef
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_da02c1ef
comment
Followed in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door; most of the time, if Professor Frankly has to read a book, he opens it right to the relevant page.
In addition, a player with coins to burn may purchase, one at a time, the Super Luigi series of books. Like in the Pamphlet trope, these books are rather short; however, they are completely irrelevant to the quest at hand.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_da02c1ef
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_da02c1ef
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1.0
 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_da02c1ef
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_df8856e6
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_df8856e6
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In Dungeon Siege and especially the expansion, there are numerous books lying around to read. However, there's always only a single page that remains legible for various reasons.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_df8856e6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_df8856e6
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1.0
 Dungeon Siege (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_df8856e6
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e04f934e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e04f934e
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In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the monstery's library contains books the player can open up to read a paragraph or two each giving some exposition about the world's history and most prominent houses.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e04f934e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e04f934e
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1.0
 Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_e04f934e
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type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e22c949c
comment
Dragon Quest has obeyed this trope from time immemorial; Dragon Quest VIII may count as Lampshade Hanging, as the hero opens every book to the middle (after flipping two pages) and never turns the page, so he's clearly only reading the page he needs to read out of the book.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e22c949c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e22c949c
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1.0
 DragonQuest
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_e22c949c
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e48493b3
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e48493b3
comment
In addition to the miscellaneous books and bookshelves in the rest of the series, there is an entire library of books in Ultima VI. A couple of the books can be traded away, but most are filler. The entire library would make an eight-page chapbook at most.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e48493b3
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e48493b3
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1.0
 Ultima (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_e48493b3
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e500f417
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e500f417
comment
Harvest Moon:
Tutorials sometimes take the form of in-game books found in the Player Character's home. While some get relatively long, they never get anything near the contents of an actual book.
The Thriving Ghost Town in which the Player Character lives will sometimes have a library that will either replace or complement any books they have in their home. When such libraries exist, the "only one interesting book per shelf" variation tends to be in effect.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e500f417
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e500f417
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1.0
 Harvest Moon (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_e500f417
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5d59ed1
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5d59ed1
comment
Averted in DayZ, which has about a hundred and fifty real books (public domain, naturally) that can be found in-game and read in their entirety. Some sort of sponsorship deal with a literary association was involved, apparently, but it's certainly a novel way to pass the time while you wait for your buddies to log in for a raid.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5d59ed1
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5d59ed1
featureConfidence
1.0
 DayZ (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5d59ed1
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5da0fa0
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5da0fa0
comment
Averted in Myst and its sequels. Although most of the books in the original game were burned and could not be read (the library being burned is core to the plot), it was a shock to be treated to several journals over 20 pages in length. There isn't nearly that volume of reading in the sequels, but Mysts 2-5 each have at least one diary to read, and most have several that can be found. Indeed, finding and reading the diaries is critical to understanding the plot in a game with maybe fifty lines of dialog.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5da0fa0
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5da0fa0
featureConfidence
1.0
 Myst (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_e5da0fa0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea05d091
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea05d091
comment
Books in EverQuest II are usually extremely detailed. If the book is written by any race who values record keeping, scientific study, or has lofty imaginations for story telling, then you can expect a book to be many paragraphs long. If the race is more primitive, like orcs, then you can expect the contents to be brief.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea05d091
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea05d091
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1.0
 EverQuest II / Videogame
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea05d091
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea73c216
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea73c216
comment
The royal library in Shining Wisdom contains around 10 bookshelves, each one contains about one sentence and most of that is the plot for the previous games in the series.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea73c216
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea73c216
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1.0
 Shining Wisdom (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea73c216
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea91a4bf
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea91a4bf
comment
In Daggerfall, various books throughout the game hinted what days to summon Daedric Princes and what to expect from it. Later games drop the requirement of specific days and circumstances to summon the Daedric Princes, though mentions of them exist as Artifacts in certain in-game books (such as the Invocation of Azura).
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea91a4bf
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea91a4bf
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_ea91a4bf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ecd2d797
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ecd2d797
comment
Baldur's Gate has completely optional books that are longer than typical examples of this trope, but still vastly shorter than any self-respecting real-world book. They provide a wealth of flavor text, and a few actually are tangibly relevant to the plot (The Dead Three and Time of Troubles)
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ecd2d797
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_ecd2d797
featureConfidence
1.0
 Baldur's Gate (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_ecd2d797
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f752bab2
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f752bab2
comment
Aidyn Chronicles does this with any books you find. There are a few libraries in the game, all of which only have a few books you can read, and almost all the books contain only the briefest of snippets that don't even fill the page.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f752bab2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f752bab2
featureConfidence
1.0
 Aidyn Chronicles (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_f752bab2
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f8bd2d94
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f8bd2d94
comment
Wild ARMs: Averted in Wild ARMs 3 with the Adventure Book quest: you have to find eleven books detailing a children's story and then read the assembled story to a certain little girl. The entire story is told with text and still frame pictures, and while not long enough to be a proper book- let alone span eleven books- it's still quite a substantial text compared to the RPG standard.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f8bd2d94
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_f8bd2d94
featureConfidence
1.0
 Wild ARMs (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_f8bd2d94
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_fa5e90fd
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_fa5e90fd
comment
During the Inventing tutorial in City of Heroes, one task you are given is to read a specific book. The entire contents of said book are sufficient to fill one dialog window, and no more.
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_fa5e90fd
featureApplicability
1.0
 Pamphlet Shelf / int_fa5e90fd
featureConfidence
1.0
 City of Heroes (Video Game)
hasFeature
Pamphlet Shelf / int_fa5e90fd

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Pamphlet Shelf
processingCategory2
Acceptable Breaks from Reality
 Pamphlet Shelf
processingCategory2
Role-Playing Game
 AboutRoleplayingGames
seeAlso
Pamphlet Shelf
 Console RPG Clichés 49 to 72 / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Seiryu
seeAlso
Pamphlet Shelf
 TheLongingRibbon
seeAlso
Pamphlet Shelf
 TraceMemory
seeAlso
Pamphlet Shelf
 Black Sigil (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Brain Lord (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Carto (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Darkest Dungeon (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Deus Ex (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Diablo II (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Exit Fate (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Fable (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Fantasy Life (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
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type
Pamphlet Shelf
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type
Pamphlet Shelf
 HOME (2013) (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Hurlements (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Jade Empire (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Lords of Doom (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 MARDEK (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 MapleStory (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Marathon (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Monster Rancher (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Neopets: The Darkest Faerie (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 OFF (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 PlaneShift (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Second Sight (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Standstill Girl (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Star Ocean: The Second Story (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Tales of Phantasia (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 The Ditty of Carmeana (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 The Nameless Mod (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Tomb Raider (2013) (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Tomb Raider: Legend (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Zombi (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Illusionary Trauma (Visual Novel) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Turnabout Storm (Web Animation) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Adventurers! (Webcomic) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Dark Sun (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf
 Deus Ex: Invisible War (Video Game) / int_4713429e
type
Pamphlet Shelf