Update []:
Pre-orders for Bitmap Books' The Definitive Book Of SNES RPGs Vol. 1 are now open.
The book is available to pre-order now from Bitmap Books' website and comes in two separate editions. This includes a standard hardback edition featuring a foil-blocked cover, a gold bookmark ribbon, and edge-to-edge high quality lithographic print, costing £34.99; and a collector's edition priced at £44.99, which comes with "a heavy duty foil-blocked soft-touch slipcase" and is limited to 1000 copies. Both of these also come with a free PDF allowing you to read the book on the go.
Here's a small snippet of what you can expect:
"The Super Nintendo hosted an impressive spread of best-in-class role-playing games, making it a favourite machine of many genre aficionados. Those games also left a profound legacy of influence that went far beyond the RPG genre alone. The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1 serves as an essential, highly visual guide to an era of game history that every gaming fan should know.
Written by the highly respected game critic and researcher Moses Norton, The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1 brings you over 550 pages packed with detailed writing, developer quotes, and genre history – and is filled to the brim with restored art and lost knowledge, printed to the highest standards. As the first volume in the series, The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1 is alphabetically focused, concentrating on games titled A-to-K, including The 7th Saga, Eye of the Beholder, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger,EarthBound, EVO, Final Fantasy II, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Knights of the Round, and many more.
The book is not a trivial ranking of favourites, a bartering of factoids, or a stroll down memory lane. It is an uncompromising and 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.
Norton set out on a mission to understand not just what the games contain – but also what they mean. Built around a collection of essays, The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs Vol. 1 asks why these RPGs continue to endure, why they still top ‘best of’ lists 30 years later, why fans still clamor for their remakes and remasters, and what philosophies animated their pixels and prose."
Original Story: Over the last decade or so, Bitmap Books has established itself as one of the leading publishers of video game books.
In the past, the UK-based publisher has released books on a range of retro topics, covering everything from Japanese role-playing games to in-depth histories of iconic studios, and fascinating deep dives into unreleased and unrealized video games. And truth be told, that's only really scratching the surface of its impressive output over the years, with the publisher also being behind countless other books documenting the history of first-person shooters, football games, and a large number of other specialised subjects.
With all of that in mind, you might be excited, then, to hear that, earlier today, it revealed the first official look at its next big project, announcing that it is currently working on a brand new 556 page book called The Definitive Book Of SNES RPGs Vol. 1, scheduled to go on pre-order on October 1st.
The Definitive Book Of SNES RPGs Vol. 1 was announced earlier today on the publisher's Twitter/X account and, as the name suggests, will focus on chronicling some of the biggest and most important role-playing games developed for Nintendo's 16-bit console, including anecdotes and stories about titles such as ActRaiser, Eye of the Beholder, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, Final Fantasy III, and Illusion of Gaia.
Throughout its pages, it aims to dive deep into the "philosophies" that guided the design and creation of these games, and explore why they still matter today, through a series of essays.
The main author of the book is the Hawaiian writer Moses Norton (otherwise known as the Well-Red Mage online), who is video game critic, researcher, and essayist, while the writer and editor Alex Donaldson (who is the creator of RPG Site) is providing its foreword, and the professional artist Stephen Sitton, aka Stumpyfongo, is also on board to offer his artwork.
No price has been revealed just yet, but if all of this sounds good to you and you want to be alerted when the book goes live, Bitmap Books is currently encouraging people to sign up to its mailing list over on its website.