Every Super Nintendo Game Manual Has Been Uploaded Online For Free

Retro gamers are in for a visual treat. Years and years of Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) user manuals have been uploaded online onto the free archival website, Internet Archive.

The mission to collect and preserve these gems all started with gaming Twitch streamer Kerry Hays, more popularly known as Peebs, who has been determined to defeat and finish playing every SNES game in existence. The game console has amassed over 700 games in its time, and Hays was intent on hunting every last manual down. However, the more obscure and difficult ones had him turning to user manuals for consultation.

Newer video games have a tutorial usually incorporated into the first hour of gameplay, eliminating the need for hardcopy manuals to get gamers up on their feet. SNES used to run a manual with each game detailing the mechanics and characters within it. It’s a tradition that has been lost to the digital age, but the guides are still held close in the hearts of gamers everywhere.  

Hays began his journey with 650 scanned copies, before taking to the internet to try and capture the elusive last manuals. The project spread like wildfire after a Kotaku article by Luke Plunkett caught people’s attention, and those who had their own copies started sending them over.

After some help from his friends, buying a scanner, and receiving manuals from the kind donations of 100 people, the archive was ready for the public. The nonprofit movement was a passion project on Hays’ end as he just wanted to give gamers access to these long-lost treasures.   

Thanks to the herculean effort by the community, there are now over 850 manuals on the free archive. And it’s not over yet. Hays is determined to expand the project to all other systems as well.   

[via NPR and Boing Boing, cover image via Kirkland’s Manual Labor]