>>15347181
>Anyone else kind of miss game boxes and such?
Yes, and I still do my best to only get complete copies of games, assuming I find them in good shape and cheap (I just play what isn't via emulator or loader). Unfortunately some systems just aren't feasible to do so anymore, be it all around shitty prices due to the hipster-scalper relation (like the SNES, which I can't even justify looking for actual carts for) or because stores trash the "superfluous extras" to make more shelf space (the way Fucking Gamestop drove complete copies of DS games up). You want sad though, compare the the state of manuals over a lengthy series, going from single language, fairly thick, full color, informative beyond just controls, and in some cases have non-useful stuff that still made them fun, to grayscale manuals that only seemed thick because they were multilanguage, to a four page spread controller schematic with the diagram in for languages, to fucking nothing physical because the industry wants to cut as much production cost as they can and keep the savings. Fuck, these days some companies are so lazy that they'll just print the health warning on the back of the cover art rather than print a separate one. Seventh gen, at least PS3, was an obnoxious period to try to get complete copies of games for, considering how after a while companies just said fuck it to providing manuals. And now with the PS4 it seems to just be "anything goes", where some companies will put out a small pamphlet, while others don't give a shit and just do the controls via digital manual, if not ingame tutorial.
Recently found a cheap complete copy of Izuna 2, and was fairly surprised to find the manual was not only full color, but the back had conceptual sketches instead of a generic "notes" section, and aside from the intro, was written from the viewpoint of the title character herself. For some reason the cover art itself had reverse art (admittedly not reversible cover style) despite the DS not working with an "inlay" style, and it even came with a rice paper mini-poster behind it as well.
>>15347569
>>15347284
>2004 was 14 years ago.
>If the DS was a person, it would be in eighth grade by now, while its little brother the Wii would be in sixth.