What Japanese guides did the handheld Zeldas get?

The big console pile ups, four guides for one game, get the attention, but the handheld Zeldas are where Japan's licensed guide tradition ran longest. From the Game Boy Color to the 3DS, nearly every portable Zelda in Japan arrived with licensed paper beside it.

The pattern starts with the Oracle games in 2001, each with a Shogakukan official guidebook. The DS pair split the work: Phantom Hourglass received a Shogakukan guide and a Dengeki Complete volume, while Spirit Tracks pairs Shogakukan with a Kadokawa Perfect guide. The Game Boy Advance remake of A Link to the Past, bundled with Four Swords, drew three publishers at once, Shogakukan, Enterbrain and Nintendo DREAM.

By the 3DS years the field had thinned to two familiar names. A Link Between Worlds was covered by Shogakukan and Nintendo DREAM, and Tri Force Heroes by Nintendo DREAM alone, the last of the handheld line before the Switch merged Nintendo's home and portable worlds.

Counted together, the handheld shelf shows the shape of the whole Japanese guide market in miniature: competitive at the start of the century, consolidated by the end of it.