RANKINGS
1. Prisoners of Pax Tharkas - Score = 5.0 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 7
"Bern! Bern Vallenshield!" Get used to hearing that if you play this book because youre going to be hearing it a lot. Bern Vallenshield is your character's name of course, and for some reason most people you meet like to address you by your full name at all times. It's a small thing I suppose but it does start to stand out after awhile. Anyway....
Ok, so here I am starting another new series, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (originally called Super Endless Quest) and I have to say, overall this one does not get started on very good footing. The first thing you notice is that this is one of those adventures that you play as a named character other than as "you". I have no problem with this in general and the character card for Bern given at the front of the book is actually pretty cool. I also liked the part of the game system where you get to allocate your skill points as you see fit. You are given 9 points and can allocate them to Fighting, Observation, and Physical Prowess as you like (although you must put at least 1 point into each). This should allow for some great experimentation as you work your way through the book and decide which of the skills you will need to put more points into than others. This is far more preferable to me than rolling for initial stats where so much is dependent upon just random luck. Your initial Experience and Hit Points are determined by random dice roll but you are given one chance to re-roll these which is another great idea. You are also allowed to use your finite number of Experience points to help you with the dice rolls during the adventure if needed. Again, this should allow for some great experimentation on where to use these.
Now, I say this skill point allocation SHOULD have allowed for some great experimentation. The reason it doesn't is because these skills hardly matter in the slightest in this adventure anyway. There are only a handful of skill checks I came across and they were all pretty easy. If you decide to use your experience points (you might as well because there aren't that many places in which to use them) then the checks become almost foregone conclusions. There aren't that many combats in the book either and I have to say, as much as I liked the skill point allocation system, I greatly disliked the combat system. You are only required to hit your opponent ONCE and you win. If he hits you, you take the associated damage and can either try again or surrender. You start out with a fair amount of Hit Points and seeing as how you only need to hit the enemy once while he will need to hit you numerous times to win it's unlikely you will lose to much in this book.
The story itself is ok if a bit on the generic side. You return to your village one day to find it razed to the ground and your people (including your younger brother) carried off to the fortress of Pax Tharkas. The adventure then is a rescue mission as you need to find your brother and escape the fortress. The strange part to all this is that you can actually free your brother early on, before even reaching the fortress and the adventure ends there. I guess this is a successful ending, it's just not the "optimal" one, which I'm assuming is the one contained in the very last section of the book. There are actually several of these successful-yet-not-optimal type endings which reward you with some Experience points for the next time you try the adventure (making it even easier the next time). Unfortunately, some of the choices that are required to be made to reach this optimal ending seem counter-intuitive, such as not escaping when provided the chance or surrendering instead of fighting when you are fairly certain you would be victorious etc. In fact, on my eventual optimal path I didn't even have one single combat (that I needed to roll dice for anyway). There were a few skill checks here and there so it wasn't at the Starship Traveler level of inactivity but still, I'm hoping for more gameplay than this. Just what about this gamebook is "Advanced" exactly?
You will probably get more mileage out of the story if you read some of the Dragonlance books from the 80's because that is the world in which this gamebook is set. The writing itself I found to be of just average quality with some cringe inducing dialogue here and there. On the positive side, the fortress itself is laid out in an interesting way and the characterization is pretty good as it's nice to have some travelling companions in your party that will banter and bicker back and forth and who actually make it to the end without dying (kind of rare among the gamebooks I have read so far!). Author Morris Simon sure does love to tell you how attractive and shapely the elf sorceress is though. Methinks he has a crush?
Ranking: It's barely passable and just makes it into the OK tier. At no point did I find myself thinking "this is bad", but there just isn't much game to be found here and the story is mediocre at best. At times it seemed more like I was reading a Dragonlance novel as opposed to playing a gamebook and I'm hoping the series will take far better advantage of its Skill point allocation system going forward.
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Hmm. Where to begin with this one. I'll start with the good about the book first, the best of which is probably the initial setup and character creation. I had a big smile on my face just looking at the character card for this one! In this outing we are responsible for not just one character, but three different ones and get to determine how we wish to allocate their skill points among Fighting, Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom. Two of the characters don't have any Wisdom and the other one doesn't have any Strength, so you really need to think carefully about the best way to allocate out the points. Now, the first time you play you wont know what to expect so your choices are basically random, however once you start mapping out the adventure and plot out all the various skill checks/encounters and what is required to pass them you really have to sit and think awhile before you begin a new attempt as to what the best possible allocation of the points could be among your characters. I thought this was great and because the rules even introduce some constraints such as your thief character Flip must have the highest Dexterity and lowest Strength and your cleric character Sulex must have the highest Wisdom (although he is the only one who has Wisdom at all so not sure what the point of this qualifier is) and the lowest Dexterity. It felt like I was attempting to solve an interesting calculus problem...and yes I mean that in a good way! It gets even better though as Sulex also has a list of spells to be used then crossed off once expended a la Citadel of Chaos. I always love the experimentation this kind of magic use provides!
Another high point of the book is the characterization. You play as the Fighter, Carsten Soldar, and while your character is a bit of a blank slate which is to be expected in a gamebook, your companions Flip and Sulex are given a great deal of personality particularly with their interactions with each other. Flip especially I found to be a well written and interesting character and this gives you a good incentive to manage their hit points as judiciously as you manage your own because you want to see everyone make it out alive (but more on that later).
Unfortunately though, this book suffers from some pretty large continuity issues. This is most evident with the design of the two outer towers (labelled East and West towers) you need to explore in order to obtain the two parts of the key necessary to enter the Ghost Tower itself with one half of the key located in each tower. Incredibly, both towers are exactly the same! Now, I don't mean their layout is the same, I mean they both use the EXACT same sections for their respective half of the key. This means everything you did to get the first part of the key you do all over again to get the second, complete with identical choices and most jarringly, identical dialogue between the characters. This is some really weak sauce. It causes confusion too as you wonder if you turned to the wrong section number by mistake. Why not just have one key you need to find? But oh it gets worse. The key(s) are located inside a sarcophagus, which if you fail to open you move on to the magical door to the Ghost Tower. If this is the second time you have visited this door, you are told you have both halves of the key whether you do or not. Sometimes you might not even have one half of it! This is very immersion breaking and makes the book seem like it wasn't playtested (which it probably wasn't). Also, how is healing supposed to occur in this book? Sulex has a couple of healing spells and you are also given some healing wafers at the beginning of your quest, but I never came across any options or explanations as to how to actually use any of these.They were basically completely forgotten about.
As far as the story goes, it starts out pretty good as you are shanghaied by an unscrupulous Count in order to steal a Soul Gem from the Ghost Tower in question. It is the Count who also provides you with your companions who also appear to be in the same situation as you. To add an interesting bit of drama to the proceedings, you are told by a stable-hand that one of your companions, either Flip or Sulex, will attempt to kill you once you have obtained the Soul Gem. This provides for a great bit of mystery throughout the adventure and I thought it was a great inclusion. The unfortunate part is how it ultimately plays out. First off, I believed a stable-hand probably isn't the most reliable source for this kind of information and even if he is, there is a very good chance that whichever of them is supposed to murder you is also under some form of heavy coercion and therefore shouldn't just be outright killed by you in turn. As far as I can tell though, there is no way for all 3 of you to make it out alive in any case which is incredibly unfortunate. In fact, you may be the only one who makes it out alive in which case there is no resolution to this interesting angle at all. Ouch.
It's also a bit unfortunate that when you finally make it to the room that contains the Soul Gem you are met with what appears to be a totally random game whereby the defenses of the room fire at you and either you or your companions can be obliterated purely by chance. What made this especially infuriating is the way this is set up because you can't even use your Experience Points to help you! So what was the point of the hint in the rules telling you to make sure you save some Experience Points for the Soul Gem? As far as I could tell they were useless here. After this random game, if both you and your companions survive there is a somewhat interesting part whereby you take turns trying to hack out the Soul Gem and seeing who takes the damage for doing so. Although I did find it a bit jarring that your character basically says to themselves that they are no longer protecting Flip or Sulex from taking damage. That's cold bro!
Ranking: The Ghost Tower has some really great highs, but also some really bad lows and can be pretty messy. It's better than the first book in the series because there are actually gameplay elements at work here and some pretty good ones at that. The issues it has really drag it down though and this is one of the more frustrating books I have read because this should have been MUCH better. A shame really.
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2. The Ghost Tower - Score = 5.6 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 6
Another high point of the book is the characterization. You play as the Fighter, Carsten Soldar, and while your character is a bit of a blank slate which is to be expected in a gamebook, your companions Flip and Sulex are given a great deal of personality particularly with their interactions with each other. Flip especially I found to be a well written and interesting character and this gives you a good incentive to manage their hit points as judiciously as you manage your own because you want to see everyone make it out alive (but more on that later).
Unfortunately though, this book suffers from some pretty large continuity issues. This is most evident with the design of the two outer towers (labelled East and West towers) you need to explore in order to obtain the two parts of the key necessary to enter the Ghost Tower itself with one half of the key located in each tower. Incredibly, both towers are exactly the same! Now, I don't mean their layout is the same, I mean they both use the EXACT same sections for their respective half of the key. This means everything you did to get the first part of the key you do all over again to get the second, complete with identical choices and most jarringly, identical dialogue between the characters. This is some really weak sauce. It causes confusion too as you wonder if you turned to the wrong section number by mistake. Why not just have one key you need to find? But oh it gets worse. The key(s) are located inside a sarcophagus, which if you fail to open you move on to the magical door to the Ghost Tower. If this is the second time you have visited this door, you are told you have both halves of the key whether you do or not. Sometimes you might not even have one half of it! This is very immersion breaking and makes the book seem like it wasn't playtested (which it probably wasn't). Also, how is healing supposed to occur in this book? Sulex has a couple of healing spells and you are also given some healing wafers at the beginning of your quest, but I never came across any options or explanations as to how to actually use any of these.They were basically completely forgotten about.
As far as the story goes, it starts out pretty good as you are shanghaied by an unscrupulous Count in order to steal a Soul Gem from the Ghost Tower in question. It is the Count who also provides you with your companions who also appear to be in the same situation as you. To add an interesting bit of drama to the proceedings, you are told by a stable-hand that one of your companions, either Flip or Sulex, will attempt to kill you once you have obtained the Soul Gem. This provides for a great bit of mystery throughout the adventure and I thought it was a great inclusion. The unfortunate part is how it ultimately plays out. First off, I believed a stable-hand probably isn't the most reliable source for this kind of information and even if he is, there is a very good chance that whichever of them is supposed to murder you is also under some form of heavy coercion and therefore shouldn't just be outright killed by you in turn. As far as I can tell though, there is no way for all 3 of you to make it out alive in any case which is incredibly unfortunate. In fact, you may be the only one who makes it out alive in which case there is no resolution to this interesting angle at all. Ouch.
It's also a bit unfortunate that when you finally make it to the room that contains the Soul Gem you are met with what appears to be a totally random game whereby the defenses of the room fire at you and either you or your companions can be obliterated purely by chance. What made this especially infuriating is the way this is set up because you can't even use your Experience Points to help you! So what was the point of the hint in the rules telling you to make sure you save some Experience Points for the Soul Gem? As far as I could tell they were useless here. After this random game, if both you and your companions survive there is a somewhat interesting part whereby you take turns trying to hack out the Soul Gem and seeing who takes the damage for doing so. Although I did find it a bit jarring that your character basically says to themselves that they are no longer protecting Flip or Sulex from taking damage. That's cold bro!
Ranking: The Ghost Tower has some really great highs, but also some really bad lows and can be pretty messy. It's better than the first book in the series because there are actually gameplay elements at work here and some pretty good ones at that. The issues it has really drag it down though and this is one of the more frustrating books I have read because this should have been MUCH better. A shame really.
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3. Escape From Castle Quarras - Score = 7.2 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 4
Leaving aside for a moment that this book appears to be misnamed as you are actually sneaking into the castle and not escaping from it (unless you count your final victory section), this adventure is quite good! Author Douglas Niles succeeds where the previous two books lagged by providing an equally good combination of writing and game system.
We are back to overseeing just one character here (thief Derek Shadowalker) and I have to say that I loved playing as this guy! His backstory as a retired legendary Robin Hood style rogue is incredibly well set up in the opening section and he really comes off as something of a badass. A lot of the illustrations showcase him as well which is unusual as the character you are playing as is usually left out of these, but I'm glad he is prominently featured as he looks quite dashing in the artwork.
The story here definitely has a Saruman/King Theoden vibe about it as we learn from an old man that our formerly beloved King is now under the hypnotic sway of the evil wizard Kharseron by means of a magical gem. So for the second book in a row we are tasked with stealing a gem from a tower. Couldnt they have varied this up a little more? Fortunately though the star of the show here is Castle Quarras itself which contains quite a few really good action packed encounters which include gargoyles, zombies, assassins and of course Kharseron himself. I also found the scaling of the Gem Tower sequence to be quite tense and involving.
There is some really good strategy put to work here as not only do you have to think about the allocation of your skill points as usual but you additionally have a list of equipment items to choose from when you begin and only have room to carry so many. This really makes you think about what you may need based on the route you plan to take and Mr Niles does a great job of balancing these options out. I felt the combats were very well handled here also as many of them occur over several sections which gives them sort of a grander feel. One thing I dont like about the system though is how you use your Experience points. Because you need to declare how many you intend to use BEFORE you make your skill check and you lose them no matter what the result, this often just results in you wasting them. To be fair this has been present in all 3 books so far but this is just the adventure I found it more noticeable. You might as well save them all for one single roll because using one or two here and there only rarely helps. I would have preferred the option to use them AFTER you roll as you likely only have a handful in any case. This might be different if you could add experience points at various places in the adventure but I don't believe I found a single extra one in this book. None of the books have been that difficult as of yet anyway so it's not a big deal so far, it's just more of a frustrating quibble with the system to date.
There are several different paths through to victory here and all of them are quite entertaining. You can choose to infiltrate the castle via the sewers or by grappling up the wall and the sewers option opens up even further by giving you several different tunnels to explore. Unfortunately though this probably also contributes to the book's biggest weakness, which for me is just how short each of the routes can be. I suppose when you have a 200 section gamebook and provide several different paths through to victory this is to be expected but it can still really stick out. The grappling over the wall route in particular can see you winning in an incredibly short amount of time and you may start to think "Is that it?". The ending that sees you battle the ice creature in the gem room leaves something to be desired too as you can win the game without ever meeting Kharseron and I dont believe you ever get to meet the King no matter what you do.
I've said elsewhere that once I've beaten a book, and although I may come back to it much later, I have no desire to play it again right away to see what I missed. That being said, if there is any book I have read to date that may make me rethink that it would be this one as all the paths through to victory in the adventure are really quite interesting (as short as they are). I also need to mention the writing here which I found to be "Niles" ahead (see what I did there?) of that contained within the first two books. It's really not surprising that Mr Niles is an accomplished fantasy novelist as that really shines through here.
Ranking: Not much thought required here, this is easily the best of the series so far. A so-so story but really good strategic game design and great writing. The shortness of the adventure is what holds it back a bit for me but if you enjoy going back and exploring all the ways to achieve victory that a book has to offer even after beating it then you can probably add as much as a full point to this score. Good stuff in any case though and I look forward to reading more from this author.
Leaving aside for a moment that this book appears to be misnamed as you are actually sneaking into the castle and not escaping from it (unless you count your final victory section), this adventure is quite good! Author Douglas Niles succeeds where the previous two books lagged by providing an equally good combination of writing and game system.
We are back to overseeing just one character here (thief Derek Shadowalker) and I have to say that I loved playing as this guy! His backstory as a retired legendary Robin Hood style rogue is incredibly well set up in the opening section and he really comes off as something of a badass. A lot of the illustrations showcase him as well which is unusual as the character you are playing as is usually left out of these, but I'm glad he is prominently featured as he looks quite dashing in the artwork.
The story here definitely has a Saruman/King Theoden vibe about it as we learn from an old man that our formerly beloved King is now under the hypnotic sway of the evil wizard Kharseron by means of a magical gem. So for the second book in a row we are tasked with stealing a gem from a tower. Couldnt they have varied this up a little more? Fortunately though the star of the show here is Castle Quarras itself which contains quite a few really good action packed encounters which include gargoyles, zombies, assassins and of course Kharseron himself. I also found the scaling of the Gem Tower sequence to be quite tense and involving.
There is some really good strategy put to work here as not only do you have to think about the allocation of your skill points as usual but you additionally have a list of equipment items to choose from when you begin and only have room to carry so many. This really makes you think about what you may need based on the route you plan to take and Mr Niles does a great job of balancing these options out. I felt the combats were very well handled here also as many of them occur over several sections which gives them sort of a grander feel. One thing I dont like about the system though is how you use your Experience points. Because you need to declare how many you intend to use BEFORE you make your skill check and you lose them no matter what the result, this often just results in you wasting them. To be fair this has been present in all 3 books so far but this is just the adventure I found it more noticeable. You might as well save them all for one single roll because using one or two here and there only rarely helps. I would have preferred the option to use them AFTER you roll as you likely only have a handful in any case. This might be different if you could add experience points at various places in the adventure but I don't believe I found a single extra one in this book. None of the books have been that difficult as of yet anyway so it's not a big deal so far, it's just more of a frustrating quibble with the system to date.
There are several different paths through to victory here and all of them are quite entertaining. You can choose to infiltrate the castle via the sewers or by grappling up the wall and the sewers option opens up even further by giving you several different tunnels to explore. Unfortunately though this probably also contributes to the book's biggest weakness, which for me is just how short each of the routes can be. I suppose when you have a 200 section gamebook and provide several different paths through to victory this is to be expected but it can still really stick out. The grappling over the wall route in particular can see you winning in an incredibly short amount of time and you may start to think "Is that it?". The ending that sees you battle the ice creature in the gem room leaves something to be desired too as you can win the game without ever meeting Kharseron and I dont believe you ever get to meet the King no matter what you do.
I've said elsewhere that once I've beaten a book, and although I may come back to it much later, I have no desire to play it again right away to see what I missed. That being said, if there is any book I have read to date that may make me rethink that it would be this one as all the paths through to victory in the adventure are really quite interesting (as short as they are). I also need to mention the writing here which I found to be "Niles" ahead (see what I did there?) of that contained within the first two books. It's really not surprising that Mr Niles is an accomplished fantasy novelist as that really shines through here.
Ranking: Not much thought required here, this is easily the best of the series so far. A so-so story but really good strategic game design and great writing. The shortness of the adventure is what holds it back a bit for me but if you enjoy going back and exploring all the ways to achieve victory that a book has to offer even after beating it then you can probably add as much as a full point to this score. Good stuff in any case though and I look forward to reading more from this author.
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4. The Soulforge - Score = 7.7 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 14
For the second book in a row we have a fantastically written adventure! Author Terry Phillips does a marvelous job here overall and in particular with the internal monologuing of your character, the magician Raistlin of Solace. His descriptions of the locations and creatures you come across is first rate and I get the feeling this is another author who is a novelist that decided to try his hand at gamebooks. On a personal note, was it just me or did his description of the ogre-dog you encounter when first entering the forest seem to match exactly the Gatekeeper and Keymaster demon dogs from Ghostbusters?
As great as the writing is though, and as someone who read several of the Dragonlance novels back in the 80's, I have to say that my biggest problem with the series back then was that none of the characters seemed particularly likable (at least from the books I read) and unfortunately I feel that is still the case. In this adventure we are playing as probably the most well known character of the entire series in Raistlin but I always found him to be an arrogant jerk and this adventure hasn't changed my opinion of him. It's not a good thing when you really don't like your own character very much. He is also accompanied here by his warrior brother Caramon who is basically a lumbering (if good hearted) dummy.
The magic system here at first seems very cool in that it might provide dozens of possibilities as you have the option of using ANY of your myriad of spells at various "spell usage sections" of which there are 8 total in the book. Once you start to study the provided spell chart on section 10 though you realize this isn't as well done as it could have been. This chart tells you what section to turn to based on the spell you choose. However, many of the spells all have the same section reference number for their outcomes (likely meaning it's not the correct one to pick) so you soon learn to pick the spell that has a unique section number which makes it more of a mathematical exercise than anything. One of the 8 spell usage sections even has the same reference number result for ALL the spells so I'm not sure what the point of even giving you an option for that one was. Still, this system does provide for at least a fair amount of experimentation and in fact works much better later in the book when you have to pick 4 spell ingredients from an available list while cross referencing them to the spells associated with each ingredient as you try to plan out which spells you think you may need. This latter part makes for a really nice bit of puzzle solving and is quite well done.
The overarching story here is really quite good. Playing as a magician, even an unlikable one, that is traveling to a magic tower to partake in a lethally dangerous test of his skills is definitely unique and interesting. The test is broken up into four stages. The first stage of the test is a two-parter and is really quite involving. We have to both confront a group of bullies from our past and also face a cleric imposter who has brainwashed an entire village. I found these two tasks the most difficult of the whole test as both parts contain a skill check where failure will scupper you instantly.
The second and third parts of Raistlin's test were where I found the adventure to start to get very strange in its encounters involving ogre-mages, gully dwarves and lizard men. These parts had the aforementioned spell ingredient decision making though and while strange, were still very fun. The fourth and final part of the test is a final showdown with a powerful dark elf known as a drow. This is an interesting encounter as well as there are a couple of ways of defeating him based upon which items and spells you may have.
You get to meet a couple of other mages in the adventure. The typically helpful gamebook wizard Par-Salian, and the much more morally ambiguous Fistandantalus (great name!). This latter character is exceptionally well realized as you attempt to guess his motives throughout the book and determine whether he is actually trying to help you or not (although there isnt too much you can do about it).
Easily the biggest problem with the book though is that there are just far too many skill checks where failure equals an instant end to your adventure. This is especially true of the first half of the book. I think it took me 5 attempts just to get inside the dang forest because I would either chicken out, have Caramon forcibly stop me, or have the ogre-dog wound me so badly that I couldn't continue. Jeesh! This situation seemed to improve somewhat in the second half of the book and I didn't find quite so many of these once you get to the final stages of Raistlin's test (although maybe I was just more lucky in the second half of the adventure). In the previous review I pointed out that having to declare your use of experience points before you roll was a frustrating quibble. Well, here it becomes a full on exercise in hair pulling at times. I think not being able to use your experience points after you have rolled is now a BIG miss on the part of the design of the game. Still, you can mitigate the frustration somewhat you just need to use trial and error to determine which skill checks are do-or-die affairs and which can be failed without causing instant ruin.
Ranking: It moves to the top spot in the series for now. The writing is as great, and maybe even better, than Escape From Castle Quarras and this adventure is longer with a more interesting story. The numerous fail-one-roll-and-it's-curtains moments along with the unlikable (at least for me) player character detract from the score a bit but it's still very good.
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For the second book in a row we have a fantastically written adventure! Author Terry Phillips does a marvelous job here overall and in particular with the internal monologuing of your character, the magician Raistlin of Solace. His descriptions of the locations and creatures you come across is first rate and I get the feeling this is another author who is a novelist that decided to try his hand at gamebooks. On a personal note, was it just me or did his description of the ogre-dog you encounter when first entering the forest seem to match exactly the Gatekeeper and Keymaster demon dogs from Ghostbusters?
As great as the writing is though, and as someone who read several of the Dragonlance novels back in the 80's, I have to say that my biggest problem with the series back then was that none of the characters seemed particularly likable (at least from the books I read) and unfortunately I feel that is still the case. In this adventure we are playing as probably the most well known character of the entire series in Raistlin but I always found him to be an arrogant jerk and this adventure hasn't changed my opinion of him. It's not a good thing when you really don't like your own character very much. He is also accompanied here by his warrior brother Caramon who is basically a lumbering (if good hearted) dummy.
The magic system here at first seems very cool in that it might provide dozens of possibilities as you have the option of using ANY of your myriad of spells at various "spell usage sections" of which there are 8 total in the book. Once you start to study the provided spell chart on section 10 though you realize this isn't as well done as it could have been. This chart tells you what section to turn to based on the spell you choose. However, many of the spells all have the same section reference number for their outcomes (likely meaning it's not the correct one to pick) so you soon learn to pick the spell that has a unique section number which makes it more of a mathematical exercise than anything. One of the 8 spell usage sections even has the same reference number result for ALL the spells so I'm not sure what the point of even giving you an option for that one was. Still, this system does provide for at least a fair amount of experimentation and in fact works much better later in the book when you have to pick 4 spell ingredients from an available list while cross referencing them to the spells associated with each ingredient as you try to plan out which spells you think you may need. This latter part makes for a really nice bit of puzzle solving and is quite well done.
The overarching story here is really quite good. Playing as a magician, even an unlikable one, that is traveling to a magic tower to partake in a lethally dangerous test of his skills is definitely unique and interesting. The test is broken up into four stages. The first stage of the test is a two-parter and is really quite involving. We have to both confront a group of bullies from our past and also face a cleric imposter who has brainwashed an entire village. I found these two tasks the most difficult of the whole test as both parts contain a skill check where failure will scupper you instantly.
The second and third parts of Raistlin's test were where I found the adventure to start to get very strange in its encounters involving ogre-mages, gully dwarves and lizard men. These parts had the aforementioned spell ingredient decision making though and while strange, were still very fun. The fourth and final part of the test is a final showdown with a powerful dark elf known as a drow. This is an interesting encounter as well as there are a couple of ways of defeating him based upon which items and spells you may have.
You get to meet a couple of other mages in the adventure. The typically helpful gamebook wizard Par-Salian, and the much more morally ambiguous Fistandantalus (great name!). This latter character is exceptionally well realized as you attempt to guess his motives throughout the book and determine whether he is actually trying to help you or not (although there isnt too much you can do about it).
Easily the biggest problem with the book though is that there are just far too many skill checks where failure equals an instant end to your adventure. This is especially true of the first half of the book. I think it took me 5 attempts just to get inside the dang forest because I would either chicken out, have Caramon forcibly stop me, or have the ogre-dog wound me so badly that I couldn't continue. Jeesh! This situation seemed to improve somewhat in the second half of the book and I didn't find quite so many of these once you get to the final stages of Raistlin's test (although maybe I was just more lucky in the second half of the adventure). In the previous review I pointed out that having to declare your use of experience points before you roll was a frustrating quibble. Well, here it becomes a full on exercise in hair pulling at times. I think not being able to use your experience points after you have rolled is now a BIG miss on the part of the design of the game. Still, you can mitigate the frustration somewhat you just need to use trial and error to determine which skill checks are do-or-die affairs and which can be failed without causing instant ruin.
Ranking: It moves to the top spot in the series for now. The writing is as great, and maybe even better, than Escape From Castle Quarras and this adventure is longer with a more interesting story. The numerous fail-one-roll-and-it's-curtains moments along with the unlikable (at least for me) player character detract from the score a bit but it's still very good.
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5. Test of the Ninja - Score = 6.4 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 1
Wait...I thought I was playing a Dungeons and Dragons gamebook series? What does this book have to do with that? Well, nothing really but that's ok as the book is thankfully still pretty solid. This adventure is set in feudal Japan and does not contain any fantasy elements whatsoever (that I came across anyway). However, it does contain plenty of ninjas and samurai so that's a plus!
The story starts out with your character ready to graduate from his dojo to become a full fledged samurai. This is a pretty interesting angle as we get to immerse ourselves in the schooling needed to become a warrior complete with classes, training, instructors, a school bully, and our interactions with our best friend who with which we share sort of a dorm. I wonder how much research author Curtis Smith put into this or if he was just making stuff up as he goes. It all sounds very official and accurate in any case so good on him either way I suppose. The book then turns into a sort of mystery adventure where we try to uncover the reasons for some strange goings on at the school. It's all very immersive and quite well done although I felt I was more along for the ride as if I was in a movie as opposed to my decisions really influencing anything all that much. To this point, as interesting as much of the story was, the game itself was unfortunately just way too easy. One attempt to beat a gamebook is really not a good thing for me. Most of the decisions seemed to be common sense and if you put most of your points into the swordsmanship skill (Kenjutsu) as I did, then there wasn't too much difficulty in the combats either. I didn't have a map as much as I had a decision tree which isn't really as fun or interesting. That said, the fights were fairly entertaining as you often got to choose your maneuver, see what happens, then follow up with something else, etc. until it played out to its conclusion.
The final question of the adventure where you are asked if you wish to become a ninja or remain a samurai is incredibly thought provoking. I spent a fair amount of time thinking over my decision. It seemed like the more honorable thing to do would be to choose samurai but I ultimately went with ninja because......well cmon, ninjas!!! If the samurai were the "army" of the day then the ninja would be the "special ops" which seems infinitely cooler. I do feel though that the title of the book kind of gives away which one you are supposed to choose to get the "optimal ending" which seemed a little unfair to the samurai side of things. I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact this book was published in 1985 (the greatest year in human history!) when the ninja-craze was in full swing. I can remember visiting the local video rental store and seeing rows of ninja movies such as "American Ninja", "Pray For Death", "Enter the Ninja" and all its sequels etc. This was also the year where GI Joe was at its height of popularity, and who were far and away the two most popular characters? Snake-eyes and Storm Shadow....the two ninjas of course!
When I reviewed Escape From Castle Quarras I mentioned that book's relative ease but also how it had very high replayability due to the various paths you could take to achieve victory. Test of the Ninja is even easier (albeit much longer) but I also conversely dont see this having very much replayability due to it being largely a mystery adventure. Once you know the mystery behind everything that is going on, it seems like it would rob it of most of the fun and intrigue on subsequent playthroughs. The writing itself is pretty good but it's still a step back from the previous two books, although with how well those were written this was probably inevitable.
Ranking: It's an interesting tale for sure and quite enjoyable. I was hoping this would score higher due to its unique and creative theme. Unfortunately, it's far too easy and the gameplay really doesn't do very much that is notable. I put it in the middle of the pack so far. Better than The Ghost Tower for sure but not as good as Escape From Castle Quarras so in between those two it goes.
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Wait...I thought I was playing a Dungeons and Dragons gamebook series? What does this book have to do with that? Well, nothing really but that's ok as the book is thankfully still pretty solid. This adventure is set in feudal Japan and does not contain any fantasy elements whatsoever (that I came across anyway). However, it does contain plenty of ninjas and samurai so that's a plus!
The story starts out with your character ready to graduate from his dojo to become a full fledged samurai. This is a pretty interesting angle as we get to immerse ourselves in the schooling needed to become a warrior complete with classes, training, instructors, a school bully, and our interactions with our best friend who with which we share sort of a dorm. I wonder how much research author Curtis Smith put into this or if he was just making stuff up as he goes. It all sounds very official and accurate in any case so good on him either way I suppose. The book then turns into a sort of mystery adventure where we try to uncover the reasons for some strange goings on at the school. It's all very immersive and quite well done although I felt I was more along for the ride as if I was in a movie as opposed to my decisions really influencing anything all that much. To this point, as interesting as much of the story was, the game itself was unfortunately just way too easy. One attempt to beat a gamebook is really not a good thing for me. Most of the decisions seemed to be common sense and if you put most of your points into the swordsmanship skill (Kenjutsu) as I did, then there wasn't too much difficulty in the combats either. I didn't have a map as much as I had a decision tree which isn't really as fun or interesting. That said, the fights were fairly entertaining as you often got to choose your maneuver, see what happens, then follow up with something else, etc. until it played out to its conclusion.
The final question of the adventure where you are asked if you wish to become a ninja or remain a samurai is incredibly thought provoking. I spent a fair amount of time thinking over my decision. It seemed like the more honorable thing to do would be to choose samurai but I ultimately went with ninja because......well cmon, ninjas!!! If the samurai were the "army" of the day then the ninja would be the "special ops" which seems infinitely cooler. I do feel though that the title of the book kind of gives away which one you are supposed to choose to get the "optimal ending" which seemed a little unfair to the samurai side of things. I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact this book was published in 1985 (the greatest year in human history!) when the ninja-craze was in full swing. I can remember visiting the local video rental store and seeing rows of ninja movies such as "American Ninja", "Pray For Death", "Enter the Ninja" and all its sequels etc. This was also the year where GI Joe was at its height of popularity, and who were far and away the two most popular characters? Snake-eyes and Storm Shadow....the two ninjas of course!
When I reviewed Escape From Castle Quarras I mentioned that book's relative ease but also how it had very high replayability due to the various paths you could take to achieve victory. Test of the Ninja is even easier (albeit much longer) but I also conversely dont see this having very much replayability due to it being largely a mystery adventure. Once you know the mystery behind everything that is going on, it seems like it would rob it of most of the fun and intrigue on subsequent playthroughs. The writing itself is pretty good but it's still a step back from the previous two books, although with how well those were written this was probably inevitable.
Ranking: It's an interesting tale for sure and quite enjoyable. I was hoping this would score higher due to its unique and creative theme. Unfortunately, it's far too easy and the gameplay really doesn't do very much that is notable. I put it in the middle of the pack so far. Better than The Ghost Tower for sure but not as good as Escape From Castle Quarras so in between those two it goes.
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6. Master of Ravenloft - Score = 8.7 Tier = Great!
Attempts to beat: 3
Wow! Now this is what I call improving on your first effort. This book is great! Author Jean Blashfield fixes many of the issues I had with her first book in the series, The Ghost Tower, and gives us a ripping horror adventure in Master of Ravenloft. There is so much cool stuff going on here it's hard to know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the story which is fantastic. You play as paladin Jeren Sureblade and you have been sent by his gods to investigate a small mountain village. There you discover that an evil count named Strahd von Zarovich has extended his icy grip over the land surrounding his castle, turning the desirable women of the village into his brides and killing any of the men who oppose him. So naturally, you must stop him. And to make things even more interesting, we discover in short order that the count is also a vampire! (As if we didn't already know that from the cover). Call me crazy, but breaking into a vampire's castle in order to hunt him down and destroy him is about as cool as it gets. We are also provided with a travelling companion here in the beautiful village local Ireena, who helps us by filling us in on the backstory and who can also surprisingly aid us in combat occasionally if required (although this is hardly necessary). It was great watching Jeren and Ireena become closer and you really strive to protect her. Because Ireena has been bitten by the Count (literally, not figuratively), the only way to save her is by destroying him and this quickly becomes your main motivation for doing so.
There is a lot going on with this game system too and the problem I had with the previous book in the series not having enough game elements is certainly improved upon here and then some. You are given a list of spells at the start of the adventure that you can use which you cross off as you do and I always enjoy this style as it allows for experimentation. More interesting is that you also have a magic weapon named "Chosen" which can allow you to use certain spells more than once. Each time you do so, a charge of the weapon is used up. You start the adventure not knowing how many charges the weapon contains so you need to decide if you want to use them while searching for the artifacts that you need or if you want to save them for your showdown with the Count.
The exploring of Strahd's castle is the real meat of the book. You attempt to find the artifacts left behind by previous adventurers as it is strongly advised you will need them to defeat him (although if the previous adventurers were killed then I question how good their artifacts really were!). The castle has many very interesting rooms and is laid out something akin to a game of Clue, with the Hall, the Dining Room, the Throne Room, the Study, the Chapel, the Treasure Room, the Belfry, and the Crypt standing in for that game's rooms. (Hey some are even the same!). Much like Clue, what the rooms contain can vary from playthrough to playthrough and this is where the pre-game A,B, and C rolls come in. Before you start the adventure you make three separate rolls of one die each and record the numbers as A, B and C. When entering a room you are asked if you rolled a particular number for a particular letter and the result can mean anything from finding an artifact to meeting up with the Count in that room or neither. This is really quite clever and I also believe it means you can't acquire all of the artifacts in one single playthrough.
Another great thing about the exploration of Strahd's castle is the free movement system as you can travel back and forth between rooms as you choose and could keep circling the castle if you wish. This is handled so much better than the system found in The Legends of Skyfall series as it is not tedious or frustrating in the least even though it does tend to lead to the occasional continuity issue (I was once told I had the Sunsword when I had never acquired it). Any issues for me were very minor however (a great improvement from the continuity issues found in The Ghost Tower) and Im beginning to think these kind of problems might be inevitable in a book that employs a free movement system.
This adventure reminded me of the great Citadel of Chaos in many ways. Not in theme perhaps, but in having to invade a castle to destroy its malevolent overlord, the searching of many interesting rooms for the items you will need (or are led to believe are needed), the employment of spells that are crossed off as you use them, and of course a really well done final battle. Which of course brings me to my next point about how fantastic the final fight against Strahd is laid out. You have MANY different options you can use against him, including all your spells that you have left and any charges that remain from your magic weapon. You can also opt to employ any of the magical or holy items you have acquired in the adventure so far or you can just decide to use the blunt force approach and attack him with your sword. Strahd will get his chance to wound you too and if he does he can lower your Paladin level, thus decreasing your fighting skill stat. This is really great stuff! My only quibble with it all is that the fight is probably made a little too easy and therefore doesn't fully take advantage of the design laid out for it which is a bit of a shame. I think Strahd's stats should have been pumped up a bit!
Special mention needs to be made of Count Strahd himself. This is one of the better gamebook villains I have come across yet. Granted, being a vampire lord will always give you a leg up in that regard, but it's more than that. The way he is fleshed out in section 1 by revealing his internal monologue really gives a sense of his power and arrogance as an agent of evil. He is also revealed to have a sexist edge to him as well as he points out that the lovely Ireena should be putting her "charms" to a more appropriate use. I've said elsewhere that because we are supposed to be role playing as our character, I'm not a fan of sections that describe things our character couldn't possibly be privy to. This still bothered me a little bit here (we could have discovered the info contained in section 1 in say, a journal entry or have the Count relate it to us in person in one of our meetings) but because this was so well written and set up the Count so well I was willing to give it a bit more leeway. You could also encounter the Count (say that 10 times fast) in various rooms in the castle depending on your initial A,B and C rolls. These encounters really conveyed well the sense that, while you came here to destroy him, it may be YOU in fact that is the one being hunted!
There are also several nice touches in the book involving Strahd, such as the wedding reception room that includes a rotted out cake with just a bride figure on top. I chuckled to myself as I pictured Strahd using the exact same cake for each of his "wedding ceremonies" to his various undead brides over the years. It's not like they would be eating the cake anyway! The organ music when you first enter the castle is also spot on and I immediately had Bach's "Toccata in D Minor" playing in my head. If you dont recognize the name of the piece I'm sure you still know the tune. It's the creepy organ music played in countess old time horror movies.
The book isn't perfect however. As interesting as the spell system is, there seemed to be only a couple of spots in the adventure where you could use each one so I don't feel like it was employed nearly as well as it could have been. A similar issue arises with the magic weapon as the combats aren't very difficult therefore you will rarely find the need to use a precious charge. I also wish the combats had been more on the difficult side as there isn't too much that really taxes you. Taking off 3-5 skill points from your starting values I think would have made for a much more tense affair. The book also seems to have a hard time remembering that your name is Jeren as you are referred to as "Deren" in several spots. The aforementioned pre-game rolls for your A,B, and C values also appears to be completely omitted from the rules which fortunately isn't a big problem as using the stats card along with using common sense the first time you are asked for your number make it not too hard to figure out. These last couple of points are more a bit of sloppiness than anything and fortunately don't detract from this great adventure.
I also should point out that even though the book took me "only" 3 attempts, I felt I got more than my money's worth as each attempt was very long and involving as I tried to uncover all the locations of the artifacts figuring that I would need as many as possible to defeat the Count. Some of the artifacts are far more useful than others with one of them in particular being a bit on the overpowered side and it can end the final confrontation quite quickly. Of course, you don't know this when you begin the book and the fun comes in figuring out the secrets of the various rooms and ultimately what works best against the Count. Once you know what to do you can beat this book quite easily, however this can be said of many gamebooks and the previously compared classic Citadel of Chaos in particular. Once you know the correct route and what to do, you should win pretty much every time. But like that book, it's a lot of fun to figure out.
Ranking: The new #1 in the series with a bullet. A fantastic villain, good story, atmospheric writing by Blashfield, several interesting game elements with a really good free movement system and a very intricately designed final battle. If the encounters in the various rooms had been a bit more difficult (including the final battle with Strahd) and the spell system put to better use this could have been absolutely phenomenal. Even with those detractions though, it's still pretty great!
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Wow! Now this is what I call improving on your first effort. This book is great! Author Jean Blashfield fixes many of the issues I had with her first book in the series, The Ghost Tower, and gives us a ripping horror adventure in Master of Ravenloft. There is so much cool stuff going on here it's hard to know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the story which is fantastic. You play as paladin Jeren Sureblade and you have been sent by his gods to investigate a small mountain village. There you discover that an evil count named Strahd von Zarovich has extended his icy grip over the land surrounding his castle, turning the desirable women of the village into his brides and killing any of the men who oppose him. So naturally, you must stop him. And to make things even more interesting, we discover in short order that the count is also a vampire! (As if we didn't already know that from the cover). Call me crazy, but breaking into a vampire's castle in order to hunt him down and destroy him is about as cool as it gets. We are also provided with a travelling companion here in the beautiful village local Ireena, who helps us by filling us in on the backstory and who can also surprisingly aid us in combat occasionally if required (although this is hardly necessary). It was great watching Jeren and Ireena become closer and you really strive to protect her. Because Ireena has been bitten by the Count (literally, not figuratively), the only way to save her is by destroying him and this quickly becomes your main motivation for doing so.
There is a lot going on with this game system too and the problem I had with the previous book in the series not having enough game elements is certainly improved upon here and then some. You are given a list of spells at the start of the adventure that you can use which you cross off as you do and I always enjoy this style as it allows for experimentation. More interesting is that you also have a magic weapon named "Chosen" which can allow you to use certain spells more than once. Each time you do so, a charge of the weapon is used up. You start the adventure not knowing how many charges the weapon contains so you need to decide if you want to use them while searching for the artifacts that you need or if you want to save them for your showdown with the Count.
The exploring of Strahd's castle is the real meat of the book. You attempt to find the artifacts left behind by previous adventurers as it is strongly advised you will need them to defeat him (although if the previous adventurers were killed then I question how good their artifacts really were!). The castle has many very interesting rooms and is laid out something akin to a game of Clue, with the Hall, the Dining Room, the Throne Room, the Study, the Chapel, the Treasure Room, the Belfry, and the Crypt standing in for that game's rooms. (Hey some are even the same!). Much like Clue, what the rooms contain can vary from playthrough to playthrough and this is where the pre-game A,B, and C rolls come in. Before you start the adventure you make three separate rolls of one die each and record the numbers as A, B and C. When entering a room you are asked if you rolled a particular number for a particular letter and the result can mean anything from finding an artifact to meeting up with the Count in that room or neither. This is really quite clever and I also believe it means you can't acquire all of the artifacts in one single playthrough.
Another great thing about the exploration of Strahd's castle is the free movement system as you can travel back and forth between rooms as you choose and could keep circling the castle if you wish. This is handled so much better than the system found in The Legends of Skyfall series as it is not tedious or frustrating in the least even though it does tend to lead to the occasional continuity issue (I was once told I had the Sunsword when I had never acquired it). Any issues for me were very minor however (a great improvement from the continuity issues found in The Ghost Tower) and Im beginning to think these kind of problems might be inevitable in a book that employs a free movement system.
This adventure reminded me of the great Citadel of Chaos in many ways. Not in theme perhaps, but in having to invade a castle to destroy its malevolent overlord, the searching of many interesting rooms for the items you will need (or are led to believe are needed), the employment of spells that are crossed off as you use them, and of course a really well done final battle. Which of course brings me to my next point about how fantastic the final fight against Strahd is laid out. You have MANY different options you can use against him, including all your spells that you have left and any charges that remain from your magic weapon. You can also opt to employ any of the magical or holy items you have acquired in the adventure so far or you can just decide to use the blunt force approach and attack him with your sword. Strahd will get his chance to wound you too and if he does he can lower your Paladin level, thus decreasing your fighting skill stat. This is really great stuff! My only quibble with it all is that the fight is probably made a little too easy and therefore doesn't fully take advantage of the design laid out for it which is a bit of a shame. I think Strahd's stats should have been pumped up a bit!
Special mention needs to be made of Count Strahd himself. This is one of the better gamebook villains I have come across yet. Granted, being a vampire lord will always give you a leg up in that regard, but it's more than that. The way he is fleshed out in section 1 by revealing his internal monologue really gives a sense of his power and arrogance as an agent of evil. He is also revealed to have a sexist edge to him as well as he points out that the lovely Ireena should be putting her "charms" to a more appropriate use. I've said elsewhere that because we are supposed to be role playing as our character, I'm not a fan of sections that describe things our character couldn't possibly be privy to. This still bothered me a little bit here (we could have discovered the info contained in section 1 in say, a journal entry or have the Count relate it to us in person in one of our meetings) but because this was so well written and set up the Count so well I was willing to give it a bit more leeway. You could also encounter the Count (say that 10 times fast) in various rooms in the castle depending on your initial A,B and C rolls. These encounters really conveyed well the sense that, while you came here to destroy him, it may be YOU in fact that is the one being hunted!
There are also several nice touches in the book involving Strahd, such as the wedding reception room that includes a rotted out cake with just a bride figure on top. I chuckled to myself as I pictured Strahd using the exact same cake for each of his "wedding ceremonies" to his various undead brides over the years. It's not like they would be eating the cake anyway! The organ music when you first enter the castle is also spot on and I immediately had Bach's "Toccata in D Minor" playing in my head. If you dont recognize the name of the piece I'm sure you still know the tune. It's the creepy organ music played in countess old time horror movies.
The book isn't perfect however. As interesting as the spell system is, there seemed to be only a couple of spots in the adventure where you could use each one so I don't feel like it was employed nearly as well as it could have been. A similar issue arises with the magic weapon as the combats aren't very difficult therefore you will rarely find the need to use a precious charge. I also wish the combats had been more on the difficult side as there isn't too much that really taxes you. Taking off 3-5 skill points from your starting values I think would have made for a much more tense affair. The book also seems to have a hard time remembering that your name is Jeren as you are referred to as "Deren" in several spots. The aforementioned pre-game rolls for your A,B, and C values also appears to be completely omitted from the rules which fortunately isn't a big problem as using the stats card along with using common sense the first time you are asked for your number make it not too hard to figure out. These last couple of points are more a bit of sloppiness than anything and fortunately don't detract from this great adventure.
I also should point out that even though the book took me "only" 3 attempts, I felt I got more than my money's worth as each attempt was very long and involving as I tried to uncover all the locations of the artifacts figuring that I would need as many as possible to defeat the Count. Some of the artifacts are far more useful than others with one of them in particular being a bit on the overpowered side and it can end the final confrontation quite quickly. Of course, you don't know this when you begin the book and the fun comes in figuring out the secrets of the various rooms and ultimately what works best against the Count. Once you know what to do you can beat this book quite easily, however this can be said of many gamebooks and the previously compared classic Citadel of Chaos in particular. Once you know the correct route and what to do, you should win pretty much every time. But like that book, it's a lot of fun to figure out.
Ranking: The new #1 in the series with a bullet. A fantastic villain, good story, atmospheric writing by Blashfield, several interesting game elements with a really good free movement system and a very intricately designed final battle. If the encounters in the various rooms had been a bit more difficult (including the final battle with Strahd) and the spell system put to better use this could have been absolutely phenomenal. Even with those detractions though, it's still pretty great!
7. Sceptre of Power - Score = 6.1 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 3
This adventure sees us playing as Carr Delling, a young man who lives with his mother on the outskirts of a cold northern village from which they have been banished. The quest opens with the death of his mother, and in his failed attempt to save her, he learns more about the disappearance of his father, a once powerful mage who is believed dead. So, Carr sets out to find out who killed his father and reclaim his spell-books and perhaps learn the location of a powerful artefact known as the Sceptre of Power that his father had once found but had vanished along with him. A mystery along with some revenge thrown in is a good way to start an adventure and got this one off on the right foot. The character stats card at the front of the book describes Carr as a Magic User which is a bit misleading to start as he has absolutely no magical knowledge whatsoever to begin the adventure, he must learn it as he goes. He soon finds himself travelling to the College Arcane established long ago by his father where he hopes to both learn magic and hopefully also solve his disappearance.
The highlight of the adventure is easily the time spent at the College. It reminded me of an earlier book in the series, Test of the Ninja, in giving you a chance to gameplay your way through college life if even in totally different settings. As with Test of the Ninja, there is also a school bully of sorts that you have to contend with and this whole aspect was quite enjoyable. Having to go to classes to learn the various spells you can use is really good stuff. There are 6 spells you can attempt to try and learn, needing to pass various attribute checks to be successful at which point you can then add them to your spell-book for future use. You can only attempt to learn each spell once and are only allowed to learn a maximum of 3 spells before you must stop (I guess the semester is over). Where a big mistake is made though is that what spells you attempt to learn is determined totally at random by rolling a die and going to the corresponding class. Ugh. Why not let the reader decide which of the spells they would like to attempt to add to their arsenal? This could have provided for some nice experimentation. As it stands, because of the randomness it makes it seem like which spells you learn will end up being irrelevant and this sadly actually does turn out to be the case for the most part as I don't think you would have the slightest problem completing the adventure even if you learned no spells. Still, this whole sequence had me wondering what a much longer gamebook set entirely in a college environment would look like.
Another one of the stronger aspects of the adventure is the various characters you meet along with their differing motivations. Almost no one is what they initially appear to be and the line between who is good and who is evil is not clear cut in the slightest (at least until the final moments of the story in one case). Just about everyone you come across seemingly has an ulterior motive and is out to use you for their own ends, and it becomes difficult to know who, if anyone, that you can trust. I also felt that your dragon-familiar, Rufyl, was quite well done and an interesting creature to interact with even if his abilities make him come across as overpowered. (He can turn invisible? That should come in quite handy basically ALL the time.)
Unfortunately, one of the aspects that stood out the most to me, and not in a good way, was the final act which seemed horribly rushed, and from a game design standpoint....totally pointless. Once you finally manage to gain entry to your father's study, the game goes on auto-pilot and despite the high degree of danger it is made out that you are in, I'm not even sure that it's possible to fail from this point onward. For example, once teleported to the tombs beneath the College, you find yourself in pitch blackness and are asked if you have learned the Light spell. Are you in trouble if you haven't? Nope. Someone else just provides a source of light for you instead and you find yourself going to the same section you would have if you had the Light spell. So what was the point? Even worse, in the final confrontation you are asked if you want to attack your enemy with one of your spells or use the newly found Sceptre. Seems like a pretty key moment and a big decision right? Nope. The same thing happens no matter what you pick (it's an automatic win). Heck, if you choose the spell option you don't even need to pick which spell to try and use. This is therefore a long narrative stretch that rather weakly tries to give you the illusion that you are impacting events when you in fact are not.
Thanks in part to this on-rails ending sequence, the book isn't much of a challenge. The attribute checks did not come across as particularly difficult and your starting skill scores seemed to be set a bit higher than they should have been seeing as how green your character is supposed to be. You also have 5 additional skill points you can allocate to your stats of Intelligence, Dexterity, and Charisma as you see fit and I always enjoy permitting the player to do this as it allows for some degree of strategy. It doesn't take long to learn though that the Intelligence skill is by far the most important of the the 3 skills as it's the one you need to learn the various spells, so pumping this score up with your additional points, while smart, probably contributes to making the book even easier. Whats more, there are several additional sections throughout the adventure that allow you to add even more points to your various attributes. Any difficulty the book does have seemed to come from totally unfair instant failures. Both of my failed attempts at the adventure occurred when I tried to do something either conscientious or prudent and was rewarded for doing so by instant death or by being called a coward and having the adventure immediately end. So, trying to think your way through situations isn't really rewarded and you are better off acting as a selfish impulsive hothead. Nice.
The book additionally does have a bit of sloppiness to it as after only a few attempts I came across some continuity issues. At one point I was told I was using Ulrik's cutlass as a weapon even though this was news to me that I even had it. At another point I was told I was using the Spider Climb spell to climb the wall of a tower even though that wasn't one of the spells I had learned.
In my review of author Morris Simon's first book in the series, The Prisoners of Pax Tharkas, I mentioned how he seemed to enjoy describing the shapely elf sorceress. There is a similar character here in the form of Dalris, a young Druid girl who also wants to locate the Sceptre. Your character seemed to be awfully trusting of Dalris when she breaks into the College in the dead of night, believing her every word. You know how I immediately knew she was a character that I could confide in? Because she is hot of course!
"Funny. She doesn't look Druish."
Rankings: It has its moments, but overall not one of the stronger adventures in the series. The Spell system is too random and vastly underutilized, and the final act is a joke from a game standpoint with one of the weakest final confrontations you will ever see. The well realized college life aspect and the various colorful characters you meet are positives though and it's a clear step up from Simon's first book in the series.
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8. Nightmare Realm of Baba Yaga - Score = 5.7 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 2
Thanks to the recent popular movies, it's difficult for me to hear the name Baba Yaga without thinking of John Wick, who is referenced as such in those films. (Which in turn got me thinking of how much fun it could be to play a John Wick gamebook but that's a subject for a later date). This gamebook adventure obviously has nothing to do with that of course and is based upon the well known European folklore involving the witch, Baba Yaga, and her proclivity to eat various people that she comes across. In this adventure, we play as seasoned warrior Jerrak Kimbal, who decides to search the swamps for the hut of the infamous witch in order to reclaim a magical gem that she once stole from his family (after eating them all of course). The gem in question, known as the Sage Beryl, contains the soul of a powerful sorcerer who has found himself eternally trapped within it. This sorcerer, Nicodamus (tell me you also didn't keep thinking of City of Thieves' Nicodemus whenever you read his name), is a longtime friend and ally of Jerrak, so helping to free your friend is more the goal here than the acquirement of power or riches. The same cannot be said of your dwarf companion, Mjolnir, who agrees to accompany you on the quest, purely hoping that he can find some treasure along the way.
I love the fact that author Roger E. Moore (I guess the E is there so we don't confuse him with the James Bond actor?) decided to build a gamebook around this folklore. I knew of the myth somewhat, but not too many details about it. So it's adventures such as these that have me reading up on the source material once I've finished to see how close the author got to the mythology and how much of it they were able to incorporate. From what I can tell, the whole Sage Beryl and Nicodamus aspect is an invention of Moore and not part of the folklore, but it is quite a good idea. It's a bit unfortunate then that this idea doesn't really factor into the adventure itself to any great degree. Despite him supposedly being powerful and capable of helping and conversing with you from within the gem, even once you've found him you have surprisingly little interaction with Nicodamus which feels like a missed opportunity. From what I saw, only in the final section did Nicodamus actually even say anything. Similarly, your dwarf companion Mjolnir wasnt particularly memorable either. Moore makes him out to be the archetypal dwarven party member as he is axe-wielding, short-tempered, somewhat clumsy, interested in gems and gold etc. This in itself is not a problem, but the interactions your character had with him seemed pretty bland. I didn't really get the sense that Jerrak and he were longtime buddies such as we are meant to believe.
The setting and atmosphere though are actually quite good. The swamp where the Baba Yaga's hut is located was suitably spooky and the hut itself is pulled straight from the mythology as it can pull itself up on chicken legs (as depicted on the cover), although exactly why it does this I'm still not totally sure. The interior of the hut was also quite creepy and provided several moments of interest. I also enjoyed how the quest involved grabbing the Sage Beryl and then just getting the hell out alive again. Defeating the Baba Yaga herself was never an option that was on the table due to her immense power and immortality, and this was a refreshing change from the "invade the baddie's lair and kill them" type of quest.
The adventure also introduces something called Judgement points, of which you start out with 6 points and try not to lose any as you make your way through the various rooms of Baba Yaga's hut. How many of these you still have by the time you reach her in the ending sequence determines her disposition towards you (the more you have left the better) and how likely she is to "allow" you to succeed in taking the Sage Beryl. This is a good idea in theory, but the actions that cause you to lose these Judgement points seemed pretty obvious. Just act with some honesty and you shouldn't have much of a problem keeping most, if not all, of these points. This then makes the final sequence something of a cakewalk. Another thing the adventure tries to incorporate is how your sword has the ability to absorb magic used against you (the sword has its own Anti-Magic stat) in something akin to the Sommerswerd from the Lone Wolf series. This didn't seem to be implemented all that well though as the sword rarely seemed to do much in this respect, although admittedly I may have bypassed some areas where this aspect was more prominent.
Which brings me to my final point. Despite the unique setting and generally strong atmosphere, probably the thing I will remember most about this adventure is that it is extremely short and to say it's not very high on challenge would be a bit of an understatement. I died quite early on my very first attempt, failing a couple of attribute checks back to back with some unlucky rolls. Then on my second attempt I made it all the way through to victory in what felt like under 20 minutes. To be fair, there seemed to be a few different routes you can take as you negotiate the rooms inside Baba Yaga's hut to make it to the final challenge so there is some decent replay value here I suppose for those inclined to keep playing even once they have beaten the book, but that's not typically what I myself do. As such, in structure I felt this book was somewhat similar to Escape From Castle Quarras in that there are several viable routes that you can take to win the adventure, with the downside being that any single one of these routes then comes across as quite short. Unfortunately however, the writing in this adventure is not even close to the same level as Douglas Niles' was in that earlier offering nor did I find the Baba Yaga hut anywhere near as exciting overall as Castle Quarras.
Ranking: It certainly has a uniqueness about it that I enjoyed, and being thrust into an actual folklore tale is a good idea, but the problems arise from some rather weak design elements along with the adventure itself being far too short to be anything more than just OK. Overall I liked it a bit better than The Ghost Tower, so it slots in just ahead of that one, but it's still at the lower end of the spectrum for the series so far.
________________________________________________________________9. The Sorcerer's Crown - Score = 8.0 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 11
I didn't see this coming! After his first two books in the series which I found to be decent but somewhat middling efforts at best, author Morris Simon totally surprised me with this entry. The Sorcerer's Crown is a sequel to Simon's book 7 in the series, Sceptre of Power, and picks up 5 years after the conclusion of that adventure. We once again are playing as magic-user Carr Delling, and this time his description actually makes sense as when the story opens we find that Carr has become quite adept in the use of magic, albeit to the detriment of his physical attributes and abilities. We also learn in the opening of the adventure that our old nemesis from the earlier book, the dark occult wizard Arno, has somehow co-opted the arch-cleric in the major city of Saven into doing his bidding. Arno has in turn begun using the formerly honorable paladins who served under the arch-cleric as his own evil force and has already begun to take over the countryside. We must therefore determine exactly how Arno has managed to turn these once good and holy knights to his cause, surmising that he must have discovered some kind of magical artifact that is allowing him to accomplish this.
We are not setting out alone however as we have two companions that accompany us in this quest. Both of these companions, Dalris the druid bard and Rufyl our tiny pseudodragon familiar, are carryovers from the first adventure, and boy are they are a strong point of this book. In The Sceptre of Power, we didn't really make their acquaintance until later in the story (and only right at the very end in Rufyl's case) so there wasn't all that much time to flesh them out. In this adventure however, they are with us from the beginning and the interactions Carr has with both of them is really excellently done. Rufyl in particular has just entered into the running for me as best gamebook companion I've had yet. To say he is frickin adorable is understating it. There was one sequence in the book that might see you having to cause him great pain in order to escape (by using your Polymorph spell to turn him into a Roc) that I actually found quite distressing and tough to read. There is also a new character that joins us in this adventure in the form of Garn, a paladin who decided to remain true to his holy deity and not join Arno. And while Garn isn't quite as interesting a character as your original two companions, he is given just enough personality and distinction (along with a great mustache) to make him feel like a worthwhile addition to your crew.
The design of the adventure is such that you have MANY options as to what you would like to try in order to find out how Arno has successfully taken power in Saven. You can begin by either exploring Seagate Island or by heading directly for Saven itself, and both of these options provide several more options as to how you would like to go about doing each. You also need to decide if you want to take the powerful Sceptre of Bhukod (obtained in the first adventure) along with you and whether you choose to do so or not definitely impacts what happens. This opens up a lot of room for experimentation in the different routes you can take in order to plot out who has what information and where they are located. And you will certainly need to experiment a lot in this adventure! As opposed to collecting a list of needed items or making it to the end of a dungeon or maze where the final bad guy awaits, this adventure is all about the order in which you do things. There is an exact sequence of events that need to occur, and in an exact order, for you to be able to progress to the end and complete the book. The difficulty level was just right too as I have found that many of the books in this series have proven to be a bit on the easy side, but by its nature this adventure (barring some really great luck on the reader's part) means you will have to attempt it quite a few times in order to piece out what sequence of events is needed. Granted, this can contribute to making the final solution seem arbitrary and some readers may not like this approach, but overall I enjoyed this (although some of the deaths could seem frustratingly unfair) and saw it as a puzzle that needed to be slowly solved through exploration and trial and error. The Skill checks throughout the book were well done too and quite well balanced. Most, if not all, of these Skill checks in the adventure are in your favor from a dice rolling standpoint, with the trade-off being that if you failed them, the consequences were often disastrous, if not game ending. This added a good amount of tension to these rolls. Also, you can once again allocate Skill points at the beginning of the adventure to your various attributes as you see fit, and this allows you to plan ahead for these rolls once you have keyed on which ones are crucial to pass.
I have to make note of the writing in this book as well as I felt the prose in Simon's first two adventures, along with the overall books themselves, was somewhat mediocre. Here though it seems he has taken a big leap forward and it's hard to believe this is the same author. This book was very well written and yes, once again Simon loves to let us know how attractive and sexy Dalris is. I guess he knows his audience!
So that about covers all the good stuff in the book, which is quite a lot. So were there any "misses"? Well yes, there are a few, although thankfully nothing major. First off, the magic system. I must say, the character stats card at the front of the book might be the most impressive one I've seen yet. With a whopping 22 spells listed on it available for Carr to use and cross off as he does so. Before I even began playing though, I knew right away this was going to be something of a tease. Knowing these books are roughly 200-250 sections in length (220 sections in this adventure), this just wasn't going to provide near enough options to have the majority of these spells usable in a fleshed out magic system. As it turns out, you are often times just told what spell Carr is using and to cross it off your list as opposed to deciding on it. Still, there were at least a few times where you got to choose one so it wasn't a total "miss" as it provided for an occasional moment of making you feel like a mage. It's just a bit unfortunate that it hinted at a much larger magic system that it never really had the space to deliver on. In fact, on my ultimate winning playthrough, I believe I only cast a whopping one spell, and that one occurred right at the beginning where I had no option but to use it.
There is also, as mentioned earlier, the continuing issue of unfair deaths that seem to crop up in Simon's adventures. Seemingly wise and well reasoned courses of action can result in instant failure should you not be on the correct route, although I suppose this may be inevitable considering how tight the path to victory here is. I wonder if Simon would have been better served by providing an additional sequence that would allow for completing the adventure (at least as far as I know, there is only the one way), but then that might have ended up making the adventure too easy so I have mixed feelings about it. Another Morris Simon foible that pops up here is that there are some continuity issues at play once again. The book makes it out like Carr and Thayne (an elf sorcerer from The Sceptre of Power), are fast friends and that it was Thayne who instructed Carr in his learning of magic. This was not the case in my playthrough of that book as I only had a brief meeting with Thayne in an alley before moving on to the College where I learned my spells. I can only assume then, that despite completing that adventure successfully, my experiences with that book are not therefore "canon". Thanks a lot! This also makes me wonder what other story aspects I missed out on and exactly what happened between Carr and Thayne in that book. Oh, and what the heck is a Knock spell? I ended up using this spell at one point (not being given any option but to do so) even though this spell is listed nowhere on the stats card.
Lastly, I think the adventure is hurt somewhat but not having any sort of final confrontation. I realize this is the middle book of a trilogy so you couldn't be fighting Arno just yet, but I still think some kind of battle, especially incorporating the magic system with all your unused spells available to choose from, could have made for a great conclusion. As it is, the final section is certainly interesting enough, but the adventure as a game goes out on something of an anti-climactic note.
Ranking: One of the best books of the series so far, second only to Master of Ravenloft. The story and characters are very strong and the options for experimenting are quite varied. More player agency in regards to the magic system could have put this score up even higher. Still really good stuff though!
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10. Lords of Doom - Score = 5.8 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 2
My experience with this book, the second in the series from author Douglas Niles, is almost the mirror opposite from the experience I just had with The Sorcerer's Crown. I felt the author of that adventure, Morris Simon, showed marked improvement over his previous efforts. Here however, I feel Niles has gone backwards from his previous effort in the series, that being the quite good Escape From Castle Quarras.
This is another one of those adventures that is set within the Dragonlance universe, and not being familiar with the characters encountered in this adventure (including the one I was playing as), perhaps put me behind the eight-ball right from the start. I get the impression I was already supposed to have some sort of knowledge or appreciation of these individuals in order to get the most out of the adventure, but because I didn't have this, they all came across as quite bland. The senile wizard character (Fizban) in particular felt like there was some kind of in-joke going on that I wasn't privy to (unless he is just supposed to be annoying and that's that). Although, many of the characters from the few Dragonlance books I read back in the 80's seemed pretty bland to me as well if memory serves so maybe this is just as good as they are going to get.
Similarly, I found the story itself here to be.....a tad boring. We play as an elf-warrior character, Gilthanas, who is visited by a past love of his, Silvara, a silver dragon disguised as an elf-maiden. (Silvara? Silver Dragon? Ahhhh, I get it!). Silvara asks for Gilthanas' help in rescuing a batch of "good" dragon eggs that the evil dragonlords are holding hostage in order to blackmail the good dragons into staying out of the war currently raging across the world of Krynn between the forces of good and evil. This is not a very interesting premise if Im being quite honest.
I had some minor complaints in the previous book about the magic system there and how it seemed underutilized. Well, this adventure manages to make its magic system even more so. You are described as a magic-user in addition to being a warrior, but instead of a list of spells, you are given a number of times you can cast a spell at the start of the adventure and are asked before a battle if you wish to fight with your sword or cast a spell. If you choose to fight with your sword then you must pass a skill check against your Fighting stat, but if you choose to use a spell then the battle is pretty much an automatic win. You only have so many of these "spell-casts" you can use, so you might think you need to decide carefully when to spend them, but I found you could easily get enough of these to see you all the way through to the end of the book casting spells whenever you are asked. This is especially true when you are allowed to exchange 3 Experience points (a stat generated at random at the start of the adventure which can also be increased for winning battles) for an additional spell. So the magic system, if you can call it that, didnt provide a level of strategy to the adventure as much as it just contributed to making an already fairly easy book even easier. And this brings me to the difficulty level of the adventure which is indeed quite low. I didn't encounter any instant deaths and it seems the only way you can lose here is by getting caught in a fight loop where you keep rolling poor numbers. I came across a couple of these loops, whereby you find yourself being asked over and over to test your Fighting skill stat. If you pass the skill check then you move on to the next section. However if you fail the skill check, then you take some damage to your Hit points and keep repeating the section, taking more damage every time you fail, until you either eventually pass it or die from accumulated Hit point loss.
Thankfully, Niles is a good writer, although I did find his prose in this book to be a bit of a step back from his earlier effort but that just might be because I found the subject matter here far less interesting. One aspect of the writing I do have to call out though is the romance angle between Gilthanas and Silvara which contains some positively cringe-inducing dialogue. Also somewhat unfortunately, this adventure is one of those gamebooks that contains long stretches of sections where no choices are required and I wonder if Niles was wishing he was writing a novel instead. These "turn to" stretches always stand out to me but especially in a book like this which is only a modest 218 sections long to begin with. And in that vein....
A small thing perhaps, but this adventure opens with one of those "pointless choices" that annoy me so much. In your very first decision, you are asked if you want to meet with Silvara or not. My first playthrough I thought it wise to meet with her (because I figured I needed to do so in order to advance the game). On my second attempt I was curious as to what would happen if I decided to not meet with her, and half expecting the adventure to just end right then and there, I instead found myself......meeting with her anyway. Yep. Both decisions see you going to the exact same section in one page turn no matter what you pick with no rewards or consequences either way. You know, when I criticize long stretches of sections with no choices, this wasn't what I had in mind as a solution. I wonder if Niles knew these stretches were a problem also and that is why he threw a meaningless decision like this in here? I also wonder if there are any other pointless choices like this in the adventure that I just didn't uncover.
Despite all the above, what helps to save the book at least to some degree is all the paths you can take and experiment with, all of them seemingly viable routes that allow you to successfully complete the adventure. This is very similar to Niles' previous book in the series, and non-linearity seems to be something he strives for and in fact succeeds in delivering. The paths you can take feel very different from one another which is also a strong point of the book. The opening can see you either set out overland on foot, or by hiring a ship to take you by sea. Both of these options are varied in their tones and encounters and no doubt provide at least some replay value. The final encounter deep underground when you locate the dragon eggs also has a couple of different approaches you can take that can see you to victory that adds to the replay value even if likely contributing to the book's ease.
Ranking: It's not bad, but certainly not anywhere close to good either. It came across as somewhat generic to me and the romance angle was a total flop. In fairness, as in Escape From Castle Quarras, there does appear to be some good replay value here with various paths you can take that can lead you to the end. Unfortunately, the story and writing aren't nearly as interesting as was found in that previous adventure.
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11. Clash of the Sorcerers - Score = 7.0 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 14
I come to the conclusion of the "Kingdom of Sorcery" trilogy (books #7, 9, and 11 in the series) from author Morris Simon, and while not quite as strong as the middle adventure, I found this book to be overall a good entry. Another 5 years have passed between adventures and this book opens with our Carr Delling character holed up at the College Arcane on Seagate Island, now overseeing a long-running bitter war against our evil arch-rival mage Arno's forces on the mainland. Using a scrying crystal we deduce that Arno (who we believe is being used as a puppet by the demon Pazuzu who he summoned in the previous book) may be intending to release a Tarrasque (a legendary, nearly unstoppable dragon-like creature pictured on the cover) which was sealed away within The Temple of Power decades ago by powerful mages to prevent it destroying the world and which is believed to be trapped there still. If successful, this would likely bring about the end of the world as we know it, which is Pazuzu's ultimate goal, leaving Arno to rule over whatever is left on the surface. This is a great opening as we have not one, not two, but three powerful adversaries to contend with and it builds tension wondering how you are going to overcome these overwhelming odds. All is not lost however as we have the Sceptre of Bhukod and Crown of Aerdrie obtained from the previous two adventures, and a third artefact is available for us to claim here in the form of the Robe of the Archmagi, a robe imbued with the magic of several long dead powerful mages. So with these 3 incredible artefacts, and some help from our loyal companions Dalris the bard, Thayne the elf, Garn the paladin, and of course Rufyl our pseudodragon familiar, we might just have a chance......
The adventure has some similarities to the previous book, The Sorcerer's Crown, in that you are provided many options from the get go and must determine the correct sequence of events in which to do things. It's all not quite as interesting as the previous quest (the opening sections within the College here can get a bit tedious for example) but there is still a fair amount of experimentation on offer here and several different paths you can explore. Many of these paths turn out to be red herrings and you can probably just peg it directly for the Temple, but they are entertaining to explore and can involve quite a bit of spell-casting. Also continuing over from his previous entry is Simon's strong writing, particularly when it comes to the death sections which are quite gruesome, creative, and highly detailed. One in particular goes on for several pages! I don't recall seeing an author improve as much with his entries on this front as much as Simon has over his 4 efforts in the series. Good stuff!
The characterization here is also still quite good with the possible exception of Dalris, who for some reason comes across as a spoiled brat. Despite the fact that your character is sacrificing his health, well-being, and possibly his life in order to defeat the evil forces arrayed against all of you, she doesn't seem to have a problem insulting you or storming off in an indignant huff at any perceived slight. Having your character possess an unrequited love for Dalris was a nice angle, but did Simon need to make her so unlikable in this book? You dodged a bullet with this one Carr Delling, plenty of other fish in the sea!
The magic system once again initially promises a bit more then it can ultimately deliver. You don't even have a Fighting stat this time, it's full on magic-user now and you are once again provided with a laundry list of spells available to you. This makes it seem like you will have lots of room for strategy, and in a new twist you need to "activate" certain spells you wish to use with each one costing you an Intelligence point off of your stats. This really makes you think long and hard before deciding to spend one, especially once you learn how important these Intelligence points are should you end up fighting Arno in the final battle. There were also several different moments where you are asked to choose between a few of your spells and this contributes to making you feel like a mage to at least some degree, even if choosing the incorrect spell often results in arbitrary instant death. You eventually discover that almost none of these spells are required to win the adventure, but you don't know this at the start of course so I don't hold this against the book too much.
One of the better design aspects of the adventure is that the book provides you with a couple of different ways to achieve victory in the end-game. You can either: 1) Temporarily join forces with Arno (who I can only assume realized too late that he was being tricked by the demon Pazuzu) to defeat the Tarrasque, at which point you then need to defeat Arno himself in the final battle, or 2) Let the Tarrasque kill Arno at which point you will need to defeat the Tarrasque in the final battle. Providing you the choice of which enemy you wish to face in the final battle is a fantastic idea, but it's one that's let down a little bit by each of the options having their own issues. Should you decide on option 1, the rolls required to beat Arno necessitate you having a high Intelligence stat, which means you will need to spend the majority of your adventure NOT activating your spells that cost you Intelligence points to do so. This seems to contradict the draw of the book in playing as a magic-user. Option 2 has worse problems and I believe it was botched. If you let the Tarrasque kill Arno (which totally contradicts advice you can be given earlier in the adventure I might add), you then power yourself up by equipping all your magical goodies such as the Sceptre of Bhukod, the Crown of Aerdrie, and the newly acquired Robe of the Archmagi before heading in to take on the Tarrasque in the final epic battle! Only to then find yourself.......sent straight to the final victory section describing how peace and prosperity had returned to the land of Tikandia with not even a description of how you managed to defeat the creature let alone a final battle. What? This is so jarring that this surely must be a mistake, and unfortunately it's a bad one as you don't want to end your adventure on a note like this.
Even in defeating either Arno or the Tarrasque (however we managed to do it!), what of Pazuzu, the demon mastermind behind the whole nefarious plot? Your guess is as good as mine. Other than one death section you can reach in the middle of the adventure (which is actually very well written and quite entertaining), he never shows up. At least in my playthroughs he didn't. So I guess once Arno and the Tarrasque are defeated he just chalks it up to "easy come, easy go" and retires to his quarters. It would have been nice to at least get some explanation and closure on this front. Oh and speaking of closure, at one point you can learn that your father Landor still "lives" on an astral plane. Despite that jaw dropping revelation, you don't get to meet or talk with him (that I found anyway) even though you are given the means to travel to this astral plane. Boy, there sure seem to be a few unresolved threads in this adventure. Even the final victory section seems quite brief seeing as how this is the conclusion of a trilogy spanning over a decade of in-world time. This sticks out even more when you consider the length and detail of a good many of the death sections in the book. I suppose for gamebook authors, death is more interesting to write than is victory. On that note, I was fully expecting Carr to have to sacrifice himself at the end of the adventure in order to defeat Arno, Pazuzu, and/or the Tarrasque and really felt like that's how the trilogy should have ended. I guess the author didn't agree though and we get the typical "happily ever after" ending. A missed opportunity here I believe.
Ranking: The story and characterization, while not as good as that found in The Sorcerer's Crown, was still quite strong, and along with once again needing to pick from various interesting options in order to find the correct path, gets the book just barely into the Good tier despite some issues with the magic system and the end game being a bit botched. Overall it was quite enjoyable, just prepare yourself for some puzzlement and disappointment in the final sequence.
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12. Curse of the Werewolf - Score = 6.2 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 1
Another gamebook with a fantastic premise, but despite the great cover illustration, only middling execution. I mentioned in another review that werewolves are my favorite fantasy creatures, so giving me a gamebook where I actually get to play as one? I'm sold! The adventure here has us playing as a warrior known as Feral (no foreshadowing with that name!) who returns to his home village after 3 years away fighting in a war which claimed the life of his father. Upon his return he finds that his village, and indeed all the surrounding countryside, is now under the grip of a despotic sorcerer named Vlachos. Riding off to immediately confront Vlachos, Feral finds himself cursed by the sorcerer into becoming a werewolf. So the quest here is fairly straightforward, to kill or defeat Vlachos and end his reign of terror over the region which will also hopefully end your curse and turn you back to normal.
You begin the quest with help from your ally Kuda, a warrior friend who accompanied you home after the war, and also pick up some more companions during the adventure in the form of a girl, Keela, that you rescue in the wilderness and then later her two brothers. You immediately find out that this girl and her brothers are also all werewolves and this seems like a misstep story-wise. It doesn't do much to make your character feel unique when you very quickly stumble across even more creatures such as yourself (you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a werewolf here apparently), although Keela and her brothers seem to be of the "natural" kind as opposed to you who has been cursed. Unfortunately, the majority of the characters in the book seem very two-dimensional with Keela in particular coming across as quite flat (although she sure isn't drawn that way!). The dialogue between the characters themselves is also often quite weak. Vlachos, the villain of the story, was also nothing to write home about, although his shape-changing lieutenant Sondor was quite well realized and one of the better characters of the book. And while overall I only found author Chris Martindale's writing to be average at best, he did do a good job with the internal monologuing of Feral and with the descriptions of the werewolf transformations.
As far as the design goes, it's a bit hit or miss. On the plus side, there are a couple of different paths you can take through the book which lead to the final confrontation with Vlachos and there are several different things you can try along each one. There are also a few different ways to defeat Vlachos and what appears to be at least three different "successful" endings. Each of these three endings can see you completing the quest and destroying Vlachos but left in a different state at the end of each one. This whole situation may either add replay value to the book or contribute to making it too easy to win depending on your point of view. There are a fair amount of skill checks to be found throughout the adventure, but if failed few of them seem to result in instant death which also contributes to the ease of the book. I also have to note, that if you select a certain path through the book, and then pass or fail certain rolls, you can find yourself at the end of this adventure very quickly. (For example, if you choose to follow Vlachos instead of Sondar at the beginning of the quest, then fail the first skill check you have, you skip seemingly half the book and find yourself shunted almost to the very end). I believe all the various paths that can see you through to the end of the adventure could have used a bit more tweaking.
The initial promise and excitement of having different abilities depending on what state of wolf transformation you are in is great. That is, until you start to play the book and realize how little effect it actually seems to have. There are 3 different states your character can be in: Man, Man-Wolf, and Wolf. Ok, first of all, why is one of them Man-Wolf and not Werewolf? Werewolf is a MUCH better (and way cooler) descriptor of the monster state. It's even in the title of the book for crying out loud. Additionally, the Man state is almost a complete waste as you are transformed into the Man-Wolf Werewolf right near the beginning of the adventure and as far as I can tell you never go back to that state again (except in the very last section of one of the endings). So you spend most of the adventure going back and forth between the Werewolf and Wolf states. You are usually in the Werewolf state, but are sometimes asked if you wish to transform into the more powerful Wolf before engaging in some sort of confrontation. This allows you to fight with higher stats, but you will also need to spend an Experience point in order to change back into the Werewolf again. If you run out of Experience points (of which you have anywhere between 5-10 at the start of the adventure depending on the dice) then you are stuck as the Wolf for good and presumably lose the game. This is a good idea on the surface, but it seems like you have more than enough Experience points to transform back and forth whenever you are asked without running out. Also, the increase in stats you get for transforming is negligible. You are often not even given the option as to if you want to transform or not, you are just told that you do. I guess it makes sense that Feral would not have full control over his transforming, but it also robs you of the strategy of deciding when to do so. Even when you do turn into the Wolf, you only get 1 point added to each of your stats which is a bit of a letdown. When you initially go from Man to Werewolf, you get 1 point added to each of your stats (Fighting, Physical, and Sensory), and then when you go from Werewolf to Wolf you get an additional 1 point to each of your stats. Hang on a sec.... transforming from a Man to a Werewolf only adds 1 point to your attributes? Thats a bit weak. Am I going from Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Conan the Barbarian" to Michael J Fox in "Teen Wolf" here? You also seem to do quite a few un-Werewolf like things along the way, such as using a sword (!) and riding a horse. There is a Monty Python sketch to be found in here somewhere I am sure. A part of me wishes Martindale had gone all the way and included a van carriage rooftop surfing scene.
"These waves.......are mine!"
Ranking: I can't be too hard on a gamebook that allows you to play as a werewolf and this fact alone gives it a bit of a score boost. And while this book provides a couple of ways through to the final confrontation along with a few different ways to win which is always nice, the game system is really under-cooked and the adventure is just far too easy (and possibly incredibly short depending on which route you take). While it's true that I much prefer a challenging gamebook to an easy one, I've found with the easier gamebooks that they can in fact make it into the Good tier IF they provide me with an epic feeling quest. Unfortunately, this gamebook did not have that. Easily still in the OK tier though thanks to the brilliant premise and at least decent story.
This is a great series, very underrated in the gamebook world. I like the way they have substantial characters and plots yet most of them are not linear and often have multiple viable paths and good endings. I also like the game system - using judgement as to when you should use Experience points adds some tactics to the dice rolling.
ReplyDeleteHaving said all that, the first book is far from the best in the series. I like it but the whole "Bern Vallenshield" thing is a bit cringe and some of the endings are very abrupt.
Hey Kieran! The fact there are 18 books in the series got me excited from the get go and Im somewhat surprised Ive hardly heard mention of the series on some other sites considering how many books there are.
DeleteI too like having to use strategy in regard to the Experience points, I just dont think Book 1 took advantage of that at all. Im looking forward to seeing what some of the other books come up with though! The character card in Book 2 already looks far more intriguing.
If my friends and I had read this book in elementary school I have no doubt we would be shouting "Bern Vallenshield!" to each other in the hallways as an in-joke.
I very luckily managed to get the whole set off eBay for peanuts a couple of years ago. There are advantages to a good series flying under the radar.
DeleteThe Marvel Super Hero gamebook series is very similar to these. The game system is pretty much identical, and they're similar in terms of writing (they even share a few authors).
Nice find! I picked them all up one at a time and it took quite awhile. The final few especially were tough to find although that seems to be the case with just about every series.
DeleteIve managed to acquire all the Marvel books too except for the last one (the Daredevil one) which seems to be pretty pricey. Im assuming because it was released in the US only. Still, here we go again with that "last book in a series costing a fortune" thing again. lol
Glad you liked Book 3. Douglas Niles is both a great writer and designer. His Tarzan and the Well of Slaves is a strong contender for the best book of the original (non-super) Endless Quest series and is well worth checking out.
ReplyDeleteIts a shame that he only appears to have written one other full system gamebook that I can find evidence of (Lords of Doom). I have half a dozen Endless Quest books but his isnt among them. I will see if I can pick it up somewhere online. Thank you for the heads up on that one!
DeleteMaster of Ravenloft is brilliant, a great example of how to do a non-linear design. Regarding the final battle, I don't think it's too easy as an unlucky dice roll can turn the tide fast, especially as some of Strahd's moves are insta-failures if they work.
ReplyDeleteHey Kieran! Yes I didnt mean to say it was too easy per se, just that I would have liked it to have been even more difficult for the final confrontation it was. Although its always possible I only feel that way because I got a bit fortunate with my dice rolls! Still incredibly designed though. Im glad I decided to get this book in before taking a break from the series to move on to Creten Chronicles.
DeleteJust printing off some of these reviews to read later over a cuppa.
ReplyDeleteWill post my comments soon.
I actually have that Daredevil gamebook you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteFound it in a second hand bookshop years ago.
It even has an ad at the back for this Advanced D&D series which you are currently reviewing.
Nice find! The others werent too bad but I had a hard time locating the Daredevil one. Eventually got one just recently though!
DeleteIts a real shame but I just dont see ANY gamebooks in second hand shops anymore.
Glad to hear you have completed your collection.
ReplyDeleteI used to pick up FF books at charity sales also but not anymore.
Most likely since the owners now sell them on ebay.
What strikes me about this series is not just the change in cover style but also that some of the books were directly tied in to the Dragonlance novels while others were stand alone adventures.
ReplyDeleteIts also interesting how they alternated the release of a three part saga with other titles.
Yes I found it a bit odd that the Kingdom of Sorcery trilogy was spread out within the main series. Maybe the author just needed more time to write them, but Id like to think its supposed to symbolize the in-game years that are passing between the adventures.
DeleteIt's a pity the series can be a bit sloppy. I don't think any other series embraced the gamebook concept so well.
ReplyDeleteThe atmosphere and immersion with these are great and I like how each book tries something different with the game system. I agree with something you said earlier about the series being underrated as well. I wonder if that's because they are US releases and gamebooks didnt seem to catch on as much in the US as they did in many other countries, maybe making these harder to get when they were released.
DeleteSome of these books were my favorites and provided many happy memories in gamebooking while growing up:
ReplyDelete2) Ghost Tower has been criticised, but I actually quite enjoyed it, although the ending IS a bit of a letdown,
3) Escape from Castle Quarras really gives you a feeling of being Derek Shadowalker, although a "retired thief" kind of sounds contrived in retrospect,
4) Loved playing Raistlin! Hard book, though,
6) Agreed that this is the strongest book. Strahd is convincing and you really feel like a paladin trying to set things straight,
7/9/11) I enjoyed the Kingdom of Sorcery books, but the premise for #9 was a little far-fetched.
Those are just my highlights. Every one of these gave me at least a little bit of joy, one of my favourite series.