Metroid Prime Official Perfect Guide

The Metroid Prime Official Perfect Guide is a 2002 strategy guide for Metroid Prime, published by Versus Books as the 52nd volume in their series. It has 168 pages and was one of Versus's final books before the company shut down. Official Perfect Guide was written by Craig Keller and Gerald Guess.

Description
The cover features Samus Aran against a background similar to the game's Samus Data Screen. A pull-out poster is included with the guide. The "Official Perfect Guide" part of the guide's name is styled in the same font and style as the game's logo, against the Screw Attack symbol. The guide comes with a pull-out poster and divides the story into five chapters. Before this, there is a Basic Training section which goes over the controls for the game and the items, as well as certain techniques. There are also appendices detailing the locations of Missile Expansions, Energy Tanks, "secrets", Image Gallery and Maps, and a full walkthrough for the original Metroid, unlockable in Prime through the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable.

The walkthrough for the game is compact and mainly text-based, with small images of gameplay placed around the pages. Every creature has a "Creature Log" entry, which contains a brief description of the creature and the best tactic for dispatching it. Curiously, the Plated Puffer's Creature Log is featured in the Impact Crater chapter, despite no Plated Puffers being there in the game. Bosses, Maps and upgrades also have sections within the walkthrough, with descriptions of how to collect or defeat the boss or item, and maps of the environments on Tallon IV are split off into sectors when they are first accessed. The guide purports to help the user finish the game as fast as possible, using a method of completing the game that reduces backtracking and navigating rooms as if the player were a "confused Pavlovian rat".

After the walkthrough comes appendices for the game's Missile Expansions, Power Bomb Expansions and Energy Tanks. Images of the items are shown, along with their room and required items to obtain them. A Secrets section comes next, detailing the game's unlockable features - the Concept Gallery, Fusion Suit and Metroid - and how to unlock them. Erroneously, it states that Metroid was released in 1987, when in reality it was released the year before. The fifth appendix shows Maps of the areas. The final chapter of the guide features a complete walkthrough of the original Metroid.