As a professional writer and editor, I’m a massive sucker for quality hardback books — what some may call a coffee-table book. Nothing pleases me more than opening up a fresh hardback to enjoy an assortment of pretty images and well-written text. At the top of my list when it comes to gaming content covered in hardback form, Bitmap Books is easily one of my favorite publishers.
If you’re deep in the retro gaming scene, you may have seen Bitmap Books’ Game Boy: The Box Art Collection. It was indeed a hot item with Game Boy collectors (including me), resulting in a second printing. Well, Bitmap is back to its old tricks with a hot new pre-order that’ll easily trigger the nostalgia of retro RPG fans, called The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1, and it looks absolutely incredible.
Show your love for SNES RPGs with a definitive 550-page hardback
Just look at that quality binding and cloth bookmark (source: Bitmap Books)
We live in a digital age where hardcover books are something of a remnant of years past, outpaced by the price and convenience of digital text and images (after all, we love e-readers here at Guitly Gamer), but like many old things that have come back into fashion (like the revival of JNCO jeans), many publishers of finely printed hardcover books have transitioned to the collectibles space.
One such publisher is Bitmap Books, which focuses on retro gaming, including the history of classic consoles and game franchises. Bitmap Books offers a fairly wide selection of nostalgia bait at acceptable prices (books range from $40-$50), and its latest release is one that has easily interested this aging JRPG fan who grew up cutting his teeth on SNES RPGs. This is precisely why I wanted to share the new pre-order with our readers; the book simply looks awesome.
Appropriately named The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1, the hardback book and free PDF retail for $48, offering a foil-blocked cover, a gold bookmark ribbon, with an edge-to-edge high-quality lithographic print for its pages and a sewn binding that allows the book to lay flat on a table (remember, these are coffee table books, so they are heavy). In other words, Bitmap Books doesn’t cut corners; what you get is top-tier quality.
That edge-to-edge printing is gorgeous (source: Bitmap Books)
Now, as for the book’s content, you can expect a deep dive into SNES RPGs. Specifically, Volume 1 will cover Super Nintendo RPGs with names that range from A-K, and Volume 2 (yet to be published) will cover L-Y. Both books are written by game critic and researcher Moses Norton, and you can expect to see an “exhaustive study of the artistry, ideology, and legacy of SNES RPGs using a methodology and scope that has never been attempted before in any published work.” More or less, the book offers tons of tidbits about your favorite SNES RPGs, with page after page of beautiful edge-to-edge images of these games.
Secure your copy before it’s too late
So, if you, too, are a sucker for quality coffee table books or simply a huge fan of SNES RPGs, you should check out the new pre-order listing for Bitmap Books’ The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1. Shipping has already started as of October 15th, though it looks like the Collector’s Edition is already sold out, so you may want to hurry to secure your regular edition before that too is gone. Trust me, if the new SNES RPG book is anything like Bitmap’s Game Boy book, I’m sure every buyer will come away plenty pleased.
Bitmap Books
