RANKINGS
1. Bloodfeud of Altheus - Score = 7.8 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 5
I begin the Cretan Chronicles series with the rather poorly named "Bloodfeud of Altheus" (who the heck is Altheus?) and I have to say that bad title aside, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It certainly has its faults which I will get to later but as far as series openers go this is one of the better ones I have read.
The story here is set in mythological Greece and really, you couldn't ask for a much better setting for a gamebook. It did seem a bit curious that instead of playing a great hero such as Hercules or Theseus we instead play as Theseus' somewhat milquetoast younger brother Altheus. Also curious was that in spite of having a hero for an older brother, and the King of Athens (Aegeus) as your father, you for some reason live poor in a hovel with your mother out in the countryside until called upon by the god Hermes to avenge your brother who has been killed by the infamous Minotaur of Crete (not the way I remembered the myth happening but maybe there is a twist coming that I haven't gotten to yet). Heck, you can't even equip yourself properly when called upon as you depart for Athens with only a club as a weapon and no armor. It's as if you are the shame of the family. Im hoping that this is the point of the series with you having to prove yourself as worthy to be mentioned alongside your famous father and brother.
Where the book succeeds though is in its design. First off, your stats include Might (attack stat) and Protection (defense stat) but also Honor and Shame stats. This really makes sense as Honor was apparently very important in ancient Greek times. If your Shame ever exceeds your Honor you automatically commit suicide due to this dishonor which is a nice touch but the Honor points particularly are very interesting as you can spend them to help you with various dice rolls in combat. This makes for a wonderful bit of strategy as you need to plot out where you can acquire Honor points to use (usually you gain them by aiding someone in peril) and also where you can best employ them. You actually don't have to roll for your starting stats either which I particularly liked very much. As much as I love Fighting Fantasy (at the risk of being unoriginal, it's probably my favorite gamebook series of all time) one area I think it made a mistake in was the random rolling of initial stats. Too many times you are doomed immediately by a poor starting Skill score. Here though, your starting numbers are provided to you and the Might and Protection stats can be increased by finding various weapon and armor modifiers.This makes you feel far more in control of your own success or failure.
To make things even more interesting, you get to choose a patron god at the start of your adventure from a pretty varied list. Depending on which god you pick, you will be rewarded with some sort of boon specific to them and it's great fun experimenting with the various patrons and seeing what each of their rewards are and where in the adventure they can help you out. Even more, for all the gods you didn't pick, you can either be in their favor or disfavour depending upon actions you take during play. This adds to it as well as you attempt to map out which gods you can get in good favor with and ultimately how and where they can aid you. I have to ask though, why the heck does Athena sound like Elmer Fudd?
The book also has various viable paths through to victory which greatly increases replayability. It took me 5 attempts to defeat and each one was long and involved and completely different from my previous attempt. I'm sure there are still some great encounters to be had that I never did get to see. I feel the adventure slips up a little bit by providing you with special armor on the island of Thera that makes the final fight against the giant Talos a little on the easy side. Dont get me wrong, finding an item that makes a boss fight much easier is perfectly legit and is a staple of many great gamebooks. The problem here though is that if you have been paying attention (and maybe even if you haven't) the armor is made a little too easy to find. You don't even need to defeat Talos, you merely need to survive 5 rounds against him and you've won the book. I feel the adventure would have been made better if the special armor idea had been scrapped and you needed to make sure you had accrued a large number of Honor points to give you a chance in the final battle. Thus, you would have to plot out all the Honor point pickups in the book and decide in various other combats if you could chance using them or if you needed to save them all for the final fight, and then finally employ strategy against Talos as to how to use the ones you've saved. Still, this is more of a personal opinion on how I would have liked to have seen the final battle play out but the actual version used is perfectly acceptable.
So far so good but now I need to talk about the book's faults and it has two pretty glaring ones:
1) The "hint" system. Ok, this is horribly misnamed. Every time you come across a section with its number in italics you can choose if you like to add 20 to that section and take a "hint". Many times though you will do this only to be told in one way or another "sorry, can't help you" and you have to lose Honor or add Shame. Um, how is that a hint exactly? It's not so much you asking for a hint as it is "do you want to gamble on a coin toss?" This wouldn't be so bad if this whole mechanic could just be ignored but no, many times if you choose not to take the hint you are met with some extreme punishment. So basically on my first few playthroughs I was looking 20 sections ahead on every single italicized section just so I could find out which ones I needed to take advantage of and which were pitfalls. You arent even penalized if you have Apollo (and to a lesser degree Athena) as your patron god which diminishes this whole system even further. Total garbage.
2) The writing. Good grief! This book contains some of the most groan inducing prose Ive come across yet. Check out this example....
"The fresh sea-breeze of the coast road blows your hair, which waves as do the golden ears of corn under the summer sun, before the farmers come to harvest them with their sickles of shining metal, laughing and warming to the task."
And that is just to describe the wind blowing your hair! Not every section is like this (thank Zeus!) but there are more than enough that it really stands out. I'm not sure if the authors were trying to show off their flowery word skills or what but it's laughably bad at times. And what is with the "amicable Altheus" bit? You are continually referred to as this throughout the book. I have no clue if this is making reference to something in mythology but it's not exactly the nickname you'd want as an adventurer I would suspect. Maybe you can form a guild with "tranquil Ted" and "agreeable Adam". The good news for me anyway is that I personally value a book's game design far more than its writing so I wont punish it too much for all this but jeez, I really hope this situation improves in the next adventure because this can really get on your nerves.
Thankfully the two main faults listed above aren't game breaking and overall I found the experience of playing this book somewhat similar to playing The Shamutanti Hills (less the cool magic system of course). It's not quite as good as that adventure but like that book you can take several routes across the countryside, moving from village to village, staying at inns all along the way and helping out (or not) the various denizens you come across. Also, much like the favor from Libra in the Sorcery series, here too you are also given one "get out of jail free card" and can be revived by Zeus once if you die. I think because the book is also similar in physical size to the Sorcery books helped this comparison come to my mind as well. As I was holding it in my hands it definitely seems as though that series was an inspiration for Cretan Chronicles. If you are going to try to imitate a series though, that's a pretty good one to pick I would say!
Ranking: Easily in the good tier overall. The setting and design are strong points while the characters are a bit weak and the writing can be laughably bad at times. The hint system is a disaster and if it had been ditched and all those extra sections used for it put to better use the score could have been higher. As is, it's still a really good series opener and I look forward to seeing if it improves upon the issues I had with it moving forward. If it does I could be in for a treat.
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I begin the Cretan Chronicles series with the rather poorly named "Bloodfeud of Altheus" (who the heck is Altheus?) and I have to say that bad title aside, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It certainly has its faults which I will get to later but as far as series openers go this is one of the better ones I have read.
The story here is set in mythological Greece and really, you couldn't ask for a much better setting for a gamebook. It did seem a bit curious that instead of playing a great hero such as Hercules or Theseus we instead play as Theseus' somewhat milquetoast younger brother Altheus. Also curious was that in spite of having a hero for an older brother, and the King of Athens (Aegeus) as your father, you for some reason live poor in a hovel with your mother out in the countryside until called upon by the god Hermes to avenge your brother who has been killed by the infamous Minotaur of Crete (not the way I remembered the myth happening but maybe there is a twist coming that I haven't gotten to yet). Heck, you can't even equip yourself properly when called upon as you depart for Athens with only a club as a weapon and no armor. It's as if you are the shame of the family. Im hoping that this is the point of the series with you having to prove yourself as worthy to be mentioned alongside your famous father and brother.
Where the book succeeds though is in its design. First off, your stats include Might (attack stat) and Protection (defense stat) but also Honor and Shame stats. This really makes sense as Honor was apparently very important in ancient Greek times. If your Shame ever exceeds your Honor you automatically commit suicide due to this dishonor which is a nice touch but the Honor points particularly are very interesting as you can spend them to help you with various dice rolls in combat. This makes for a wonderful bit of strategy as you need to plot out where you can acquire Honor points to use (usually you gain them by aiding someone in peril) and also where you can best employ them. You actually don't have to roll for your starting stats either which I particularly liked very much. As much as I love Fighting Fantasy (at the risk of being unoriginal, it's probably my favorite gamebook series of all time) one area I think it made a mistake in was the random rolling of initial stats. Too many times you are doomed immediately by a poor starting Skill score. Here though, your starting numbers are provided to you and the Might and Protection stats can be increased by finding various weapon and armor modifiers.This makes you feel far more in control of your own success or failure.
To make things even more interesting, you get to choose a patron god at the start of your adventure from a pretty varied list. Depending on which god you pick, you will be rewarded with some sort of boon specific to them and it's great fun experimenting with the various patrons and seeing what each of their rewards are and where in the adventure they can help you out. Even more, for all the gods you didn't pick, you can either be in their favor or disfavour depending upon actions you take during play. This adds to it as well as you attempt to map out which gods you can get in good favor with and ultimately how and where they can aid you. I have to ask though, why the heck does Athena sound like Elmer Fudd?
The book also has various viable paths through to victory which greatly increases replayability. It took me 5 attempts to defeat and each one was long and involved and completely different from my previous attempt. I'm sure there are still some great encounters to be had that I never did get to see. I feel the adventure slips up a little bit by providing you with special armor on the island of Thera that makes the final fight against the giant Talos a little on the easy side. Dont get me wrong, finding an item that makes a boss fight much easier is perfectly legit and is a staple of many great gamebooks. The problem here though is that if you have been paying attention (and maybe even if you haven't) the armor is made a little too easy to find. You don't even need to defeat Talos, you merely need to survive 5 rounds against him and you've won the book. I feel the adventure would have been made better if the special armor idea had been scrapped and you needed to make sure you had accrued a large number of Honor points to give you a chance in the final battle. Thus, you would have to plot out all the Honor point pickups in the book and decide in various other combats if you could chance using them or if you needed to save them all for the final fight, and then finally employ strategy against Talos as to how to use the ones you've saved. Still, this is more of a personal opinion on how I would have liked to have seen the final battle play out but the actual version used is perfectly acceptable.
So far so good but now I need to talk about the book's faults and it has two pretty glaring ones:
1) The "hint" system. Ok, this is horribly misnamed. Every time you come across a section with its number in italics you can choose if you like to add 20 to that section and take a "hint". Many times though you will do this only to be told in one way or another "sorry, can't help you" and you have to lose Honor or add Shame. Um, how is that a hint exactly? It's not so much you asking for a hint as it is "do you want to gamble on a coin toss?" This wouldn't be so bad if this whole mechanic could just be ignored but no, many times if you choose not to take the hint you are met with some extreme punishment. So basically on my first few playthroughs I was looking 20 sections ahead on every single italicized section just so I could find out which ones I needed to take advantage of and which were pitfalls. You arent even penalized if you have Apollo (and to a lesser degree Athena) as your patron god which diminishes this whole system even further. Total garbage.
2) The writing. Good grief! This book contains some of the most groan inducing prose Ive come across yet. Check out this example....
"The fresh sea-breeze of the coast road blows your hair, which waves as do the golden ears of corn under the summer sun, before the farmers come to harvest them with their sickles of shining metal, laughing and warming to the task."
And that is just to describe the wind blowing your hair! Not every section is like this (thank Zeus!) but there are more than enough that it really stands out. I'm not sure if the authors were trying to show off their flowery word skills or what but it's laughably bad at times. And what is with the "amicable Altheus" bit? You are continually referred to as this throughout the book. I have no clue if this is making reference to something in mythology but it's not exactly the nickname you'd want as an adventurer I would suspect. Maybe you can form a guild with "tranquil Ted" and "agreeable Adam". The good news for me anyway is that I personally value a book's game design far more than its writing so I wont punish it too much for all this but jeez, I really hope this situation improves in the next adventure because this can really get on your nerves.
Thankfully the two main faults listed above aren't game breaking and overall I found the experience of playing this book somewhat similar to playing The Shamutanti Hills (less the cool magic system of course). It's not quite as good as that adventure but like that book you can take several routes across the countryside, moving from village to village, staying at inns all along the way and helping out (or not) the various denizens you come across. Also, much like the favor from Libra in the Sorcery series, here too you are also given one "get out of jail free card" and can be revived by Zeus once if you die. I think because the book is also similar in physical size to the Sorcery books helped this comparison come to my mind as well. As I was holding it in my hands it definitely seems as though that series was an inspiration for Cretan Chronicles. If you are going to try to imitate a series though, that's a pretty good one to pick I would say!
Ranking: Easily in the good tier overall. The setting and design are strong points while the characters are a bit weak and the writing can be laughably bad at times. The hint system is a disaster and if it had been ditched and all those extra sections used for it put to better use the score could have been higher. As is, it's still a really good series opener and I look forward to seeing if it improves upon the issues I had with it moving forward. If it does I could be in for a treat.
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2. At the Court of King Minos - Score = 7.3 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 11
Friggin Minotaur! And I mean that in a good way!
So picking up right where the first book left off, this adventure sees us arriving on Crete and attempting to negotiate with King Minos an end to the sacrificial tribute Athens sends each year in the form of 14 of their youths. The adventure is quite clearly divided into two portions. The first part being more of an intelligence gathering "court intrigue" type quest and the second part our trip through the famous Labyrinth where we need to confront and defeat the Minotaur who killed our brother Theseus. Dividing these up for review:
1) The Cretan Court - Here we attempt to learn as much as we can about the individuals at the Cretan court (as we were asked to do in the first book). This is highlighted through the introduction of Intelligence points we can earn whenever we learn something that could be helpful, although whether or not you are rewarded these points seems to be rather unevenly applied. There are MANY things to try and paths to take in this area and it is quite well done providing several interesting characters and situations to interact with. I spent more than a few attempts trying everything I could with the handmaiden Thasia, from trips to her mother's house to sailing expeditions with her and her friends only to ultimately determine that these were all really red herrings. And boy do red herrings abound in this part of the book!
In addition to the adventures with Thasia, there is a really drawn out dance festival you can attend (which was described in a little too much detail for my liking) only to finally figure out it's probably better to skip the dance entirely. There was also a well hidden but very puzzling to me "bull leaping" training that you could be provided with by speaking to the right person and obtaining the right clue to be somewhere at a particular time. This seemed so important (I figured this must be necessary to later defeat the Minotaur) that I spent quite a bit of time locating this training...only to never have it come into play later at all!
Still, this section was good fun for the most part as many of the characters you interact with are given distinct personalities and it's fun to learn of their motives and machinations even if you are sometimes gypped out of Intelligence points for doing so (on my winning playthrough I was only awarded any of these points a whopping one time). The Cretan Court is definitely full of drama queens!
Unfortunately though this area ends with what for me was the most tedious part of the book. That being the boxing match with King Minos' son, Kremton. The way this is laid out, you choose what area of him to aim for (head, groin or body) and based on the roll of one die determine if he is defending that area. If he isn't then you hit and you get to keep going until he finally manages to defend your blow and then it's his turn and you decide which area to defend and roll to see where he attacks etc. The problem here is that even a cursory look at the odds table told me that it was best to always attack his body and always defend my body. Id be interested to know if anyone tried something different, but using this strategy I never lost to him. In fact I never even came close. To make things worse though, Kremton starts the match with 50 Endurance points (a new stat seemingly introduced just for this fight) and because the body shot only does 1 point of damage it will take MANY dice rolls to get him down to below zero. When you know you are almost certainly going to win this is extremely tiresome. You can avoid this fight by getting thrown in jail and later dumped straight into the labyrinth but if this happens you are probably screwed as you will have no torch and no weapons.
Once Kremton is finally defeated you are immediately sent to.....
2) The Labyrinth - Ok, so upon killing his son, King Minos dumps you directly into the labyrinth and even though you were just in a grueling boxing match (of which Kremton fought in his loincloth) you somehow managed to have a weapon and piece of armor hidden on you! You are also provided with a torch and here is where a puzzling picture display contained in the rules of the book is finally explained. For each section you turn to, you are to mark off one section of this display and when you have marked all 40 boxes your torch will go out and you must fight at a severe penalty. That's great in theory but I explored the labyrinth with this torch several times and never came close to using all 40 boxes. This made this torch mechanic a little pointless.
Regardless, the exploring and mapping out of the labyrinth is generally fun even if it does turn out to be a little on the empty side. You spend most of the time looking at murals that have the exploits of heroes such as Herakles and Perseus depicted on them. You may have received a clue earlier in the book to "follow in the footsteps of ________". It's not hard to figure out this is Herakles as his murals are depicting his 12 labours and are even numbering them for you. This is another really great idea that unfortunately seems a bit wasted. If there had been some way to reward you for following his labours exactly 1 through 12 by giving you some sort of boon for the combat with the Minotaur this could have made for some great exploring and trial and error, especially if the labour murals had been even more spread out in the labyrinth. Even better, if they hadn't numbered the labours for you and it was up to you on your own to research what order Herakles performed them in this would have been a fantastic bit of problem solving.
Fortunately the battle with the Minotaur really elevates this section and I thought was one of the highlights of the book. He is incredibly well described in a horrific and awe-inspiring manner. Because his stats are so high, I really had to sit and think about my strategy against him. Should I go for Theseus powerful sword and take the automatic hit from the Minotaur for doing so (meaning he only had to hit me once more and it was effectively game over) or ignore the sword and take my chances against him straight up where I would have to use up every last one of my Honor points and still need a little bit of luck. The deployment of my Honor points in this section in particular was incredibly thought provoking as so much was riding on every single roll. I have to say though, it did feel kind of cheap when you get that second hit on him in and are then effectively told "He ignores your blow. You still must hit him twice more". Grrrrrrr!
It was a great feeling of satisfaction to finally defeat the beast that killed your brother, however once this was accomplished I felt like the adventure was over in just a few more sections without resolution to several earlier plot developments. I used a ball of wool I had obtained earlier in the story to make my way back out without any difficulty, met up with Ariadne, and together we ran to the harbour and sailed off. Game over. Wait...how did the 14 Athenian slaves escape to end up coming with us? What happened to King Minos? I was hoping to have a final confrontation with him seeing as how he screwed me over. Maybe there was some way to do that but the first (and only) time I managed to defeat the Minotaur I escaped with no issues and no further explanations. Pity that.
As far as my two biggest issues with the first book goes, the dreadful "hint system" is not only still present, I think it's even worse than it was in book 1! Once again, they aren't "hints" you are receiving, and this time it seems like a full 90% of them have negative consequences for taking them unlike book 1 which felt more like 50/50.
The writing was noticeably better though and it's clear this series is intended for a more adult audience. There is quite the explanation given as to how the Minotaur came into being with descriptions of King Minos "issuing" only snakes and scorpions (ouch) and having a false woman built for him to use. Not to mention the themes that the queen falling in love and "being" with a bull implies. My second hand copy of the book has the stamp of a elementary school library on it. I wonder what kind of questions that teacher had to answer?
I fully enjoyed the book, but it also seems filled with missed opportunities. The bull leaping training, the intelligence gathering, the labyrinth torch, and following in the footsteps of Herakles were all really good ideas that I feel should have been fleshed out more or integrated better.
Ranking: Overall it's good, but not as good as Bloodfeud of Altheus. I think it's hurt most by the lack of experimentation with the various gods that the first book provided. The story and characters are fairly strong though and the design of the book is quite intriguing, particularly in the first half (except for the Kremton fight).
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Friggin Minotaur! And I mean that in a good way!
So picking up right where the first book left off, this adventure sees us arriving on Crete and attempting to negotiate with King Minos an end to the sacrificial tribute Athens sends each year in the form of 14 of their youths. The adventure is quite clearly divided into two portions. The first part being more of an intelligence gathering "court intrigue" type quest and the second part our trip through the famous Labyrinth where we need to confront and defeat the Minotaur who killed our brother Theseus. Dividing these up for review:
1) The Cretan Court - Here we attempt to learn as much as we can about the individuals at the Cretan court (as we were asked to do in the first book). This is highlighted through the introduction of Intelligence points we can earn whenever we learn something that could be helpful, although whether or not you are rewarded these points seems to be rather unevenly applied. There are MANY things to try and paths to take in this area and it is quite well done providing several interesting characters and situations to interact with. I spent more than a few attempts trying everything I could with the handmaiden Thasia, from trips to her mother's house to sailing expeditions with her and her friends only to ultimately determine that these were all really red herrings. And boy do red herrings abound in this part of the book!
In addition to the adventures with Thasia, there is a really drawn out dance festival you can attend (which was described in a little too much detail for my liking) only to finally figure out it's probably better to skip the dance entirely. There was also a well hidden but very puzzling to me "bull leaping" training that you could be provided with by speaking to the right person and obtaining the right clue to be somewhere at a particular time. This seemed so important (I figured this must be necessary to later defeat the Minotaur) that I spent quite a bit of time locating this training...only to never have it come into play later at all!
Still, this section was good fun for the most part as many of the characters you interact with are given distinct personalities and it's fun to learn of their motives and machinations even if you are sometimes gypped out of Intelligence points for doing so (on my winning playthrough I was only awarded any of these points a whopping one time). The Cretan Court is definitely full of drama queens!
Unfortunately though this area ends with what for me was the most tedious part of the book. That being the boxing match with King Minos' son, Kremton. The way this is laid out, you choose what area of him to aim for (head, groin or body) and based on the roll of one die determine if he is defending that area. If he isn't then you hit and you get to keep going until he finally manages to defend your blow and then it's his turn and you decide which area to defend and roll to see where he attacks etc. The problem here is that even a cursory look at the odds table told me that it was best to always attack his body and always defend my body. Id be interested to know if anyone tried something different, but using this strategy I never lost to him. In fact I never even came close. To make things worse though, Kremton starts the match with 50 Endurance points (a new stat seemingly introduced just for this fight) and because the body shot only does 1 point of damage it will take MANY dice rolls to get him down to below zero. When you know you are almost certainly going to win this is extremely tiresome. You can avoid this fight by getting thrown in jail and later dumped straight into the labyrinth but if this happens you are probably screwed as you will have no torch and no weapons.
Once Kremton is finally defeated you are immediately sent to.....
2) The Labyrinth - Ok, so upon killing his son, King Minos dumps you directly into the labyrinth and even though you were just in a grueling boxing match (of which Kremton fought in his loincloth) you somehow managed to have a weapon and piece of armor hidden on you! You are also provided with a torch and here is where a puzzling picture display contained in the rules of the book is finally explained. For each section you turn to, you are to mark off one section of this display and when you have marked all 40 boxes your torch will go out and you must fight at a severe penalty. That's great in theory but I explored the labyrinth with this torch several times and never came close to using all 40 boxes. This made this torch mechanic a little pointless.
Regardless, the exploring and mapping out of the labyrinth is generally fun even if it does turn out to be a little on the empty side. You spend most of the time looking at murals that have the exploits of heroes such as Herakles and Perseus depicted on them. You may have received a clue earlier in the book to "follow in the footsteps of ________". It's not hard to figure out this is Herakles as his murals are depicting his 12 labours and are even numbering them for you. This is another really great idea that unfortunately seems a bit wasted. If there had been some way to reward you for following his labours exactly 1 through 12 by giving you some sort of boon for the combat with the Minotaur this could have made for some great exploring and trial and error, especially if the labour murals had been even more spread out in the labyrinth. Even better, if they hadn't numbered the labours for you and it was up to you on your own to research what order Herakles performed them in this would have been a fantastic bit of problem solving.
Fortunately the battle with the Minotaur really elevates this section and I thought was one of the highlights of the book. He is incredibly well described in a horrific and awe-inspiring manner. Because his stats are so high, I really had to sit and think about my strategy against him. Should I go for Theseus powerful sword and take the automatic hit from the Minotaur for doing so (meaning he only had to hit me once more and it was effectively game over) or ignore the sword and take my chances against him straight up where I would have to use up every last one of my Honor points and still need a little bit of luck. The deployment of my Honor points in this section in particular was incredibly thought provoking as so much was riding on every single roll. I have to say though, it did feel kind of cheap when you get that second hit on him in and are then effectively told "He ignores your blow. You still must hit him twice more". Grrrrrrr!
It was a great feeling of satisfaction to finally defeat the beast that killed your brother, however once this was accomplished I felt like the adventure was over in just a few more sections without resolution to several earlier plot developments. I used a ball of wool I had obtained earlier in the story to make my way back out without any difficulty, met up with Ariadne, and together we ran to the harbour and sailed off. Game over. Wait...how did the 14 Athenian slaves escape to end up coming with us? What happened to King Minos? I was hoping to have a final confrontation with him seeing as how he screwed me over. Maybe there was some way to do that but the first (and only) time I managed to defeat the Minotaur I escaped with no issues and no further explanations. Pity that.
As far as my two biggest issues with the first book goes, the dreadful "hint system" is not only still present, I think it's even worse than it was in book 1! Once again, they aren't "hints" you are receiving, and this time it seems like a full 90% of them have negative consequences for taking them unlike book 1 which felt more like 50/50.
The writing was noticeably better though and it's clear this series is intended for a more adult audience. There is quite the explanation given as to how the Minotaur came into being with descriptions of King Minos "issuing" only snakes and scorpions (ouch) and having a false woman built for him to use. Not to mention the themes that the queen falling in love and "being" with a bull implies. My second hand copy of the book has the stamp of a elementary school library on it. I wonder what kind of questions that teacher had to answer?
I fully enjoyed the book, but it also seems filled with missed opportunities. The bull leaping training, the intelligence gathering, the labyrinth torch, and following in the footsteps of Herakles were all really good ideas that I feel should have been fleshed out more or integrated better.
Ranking: Overall it's good, but not as good as Bloodfeud of Altheus. I think it's hurt most by the lack of experimentation with the various gods that the first book provided. The story and characters are fairly strong though and the design of the book is quite intriguing, particularly in the first half (except for the Kremton fight).
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3. Return of the Wanderer - Score = 4.0 Tier = Bad
Attempts to beat: 9
If I had to sum this book up in two words they would be...."incoherent mess". Unfortunately, I'm going to need more than two words for this review. The story here sees Altheus, having been successful in killing the Minotaur and rescuing the 14 Athenian youths, traveling back to Athens to reunite with his father and mother. It's not that simple for him of course and we are dragged along kicking and screaming while the authors attempt to shove every possible Greek myth or story in existence down our throats. I mean seriously, did they make a list of all the Greek myths they hadn't used yet and made sure EVERY single one would be included here? This should really be called Greek Mythology Tour: The Book. "Hey, you remember Sisyphus? You know, the guy sentenced to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity? There he is over there! And look, there is Ixion, forever tied to an ever-spinning wheel!" This just goes on and on and on with rarely any of these meetings having anything at all to do with your adventure. It gets so bad that at one point we are shown Elysium and the heroes that haven't even done anything yet such as Achilles and Agamemnon as they wait to ascend to perform their heroic deeds while Theseus seems to know exactly what they will do (I don't think that's how Elyisium works?). But hey, they had to get all these characters in here somehow right? The authors apparently didn't even want you to suspect that they didn't know who Achilles was. At another point you are told all you have left on your boat is some rope and some beeswax. Gee that's convenient. Anyone familiar with Odysseus (the patron of my blog if you will) will surely know what is about to happen next. All these encounters are just self indulgent tripe.
I also need to ask, why do all the gods in these books (and this one in particular) speak in a contemporary style? Ares and Eris for instance even sound like modern day pouty teenagers. Was this supposed to be humorous or was it some sort of in-joke? Personally I found it very immersion breaking and often quite eye-rolling. But I guess to quote Apollo from this book, "immortality and practicality dont mix".
Maybe the worst part is that this has to be one of the most unfair gamebooks I've played. Not because it's exceptionally difficult (it isn't), but because most of your deaths in the book come from choosing from a list of seemingly worthwhile or innocuous choices where only one of them is the one you are allowed to take without dying. The areas with the Nubians and later the Birdmen are particularly guilty of this. I was at one point brought before the Nubian chieftain and decided to win my freedom by joining his warriors. This seemed the honorable thing to do, especially in an adventure so big on honor. So after distinguishing myself in battle, I eventually became one of them, even taking a Nubian wife. And then? The authors had me unavoidably eaten by a lion. Are you kidding me? I hope you don't expect to be rewarded for thinking through any choices before you make them because the random deaths on offer in this book can be head scratching and worse, quite infuriating.
I also don't know how they did it, but the hint system once again is EVEN WORSE than the book previous! That's really quite an "achievement". Now in this adventure, many times if you don't take the "hint", you are flat out dead. The most egregious example of this is at the very first section of the book where if you don't take the hint before marrying Ariadne, the game is over already. This is an incredibly stupid design decision because now the reader has no choice but to flip the 20 sections ahead every single time they are given the option lest they suffer again from this unfair ridiculousness. Whoever came up with this mechanic should never be allowed near a gamebook again. There is also a boat race in this book which in more skilled hands could have been a cool little addition. As is though, it's just incredibly frustrating as you have very little control of how your ship fares and can often find yourself just stuck in the wind. I wonder, did any gamebook players out there actually win this race? I found myself trying to hit the rocks on purpose just so it would end.
Whether you can pass the necessary ritual at the end of the adventure to purge yourself of your blood-guilt seems to come down to whether you still have your prayer to Zeus available. I'm not sure why you wouldn't though as unlike the other books you are routinely told that Zeus can't bail you out from any of the incredibly cheap deaths! Hey Zeus....pound sand!
So, after all that it wasn't given a zero score so there were some positives. The scope of the adventure itself is suitably lengthy with your journey taking many years and the large number of sections in the book make this possible. This really does make you feel like you have traveled all over the Mediterranean and if you finish this book in one sitting you will probably be feeling as weary as Altheus by the end. It also speaks volumes that with all the Greek gods and myths crammed in this book, easily the best character you come across is Markos the Phoenician merchant. He is very much a conniving douchebag and is given quite a bit of characterization. You might even find yourself growing attached to him as at several points he actually helps you out, if even in unintended ways. I found myself looking forward to his encounters to see how he was going to try and screw me over this time. Some of the death sections are on the entertaining side as well so it's a bit unfortunate that I was usually too angry at how I felt I unfairly arrived at them to really enjoy them. The victory section (if you can call it that) was also really quite poignant and I definitely wasn't expecting it. Kudos to whichever of the authors wrote that section or decided to end the adventure on that note.
If you want to experience all the Greek myths and stories in an incredibly immersive manner I would highly recommend the incredible video game Assassins Creed: Odyssey. Almost unbelievably, the video game also has an unscrupulous merchant by the name of Markos who rarely misses a chance to screw people over. I wonder if the game designers had played this book?
Ranking: The worst in the series by a mile. Did the authors just not care anymore by this point? It sure feels that way. There a couple of positives to be found here and there but overall the book actually had me angry several times. Considering the first two books in the series were quite good and well above average adventures, the quality of this book is shockingly bad.
If I had to sum this book up in two words they would be...."incoherent mess". Unfortunately, I'm going to need more than two words for this review. The story here sees Altheus, having been successful in killing the Minotaur and rescuing the 14 Athenian youths, traveling back to Athens to reunite with his father and mother. It's not that simple for him of course and we are dragged along kicking and screaming while the authors attempt to shove every possible Greek myth or story in existence down our throats. I mean seriously, did they make a list of all the Greek myths they hadn't used yet and made sure EVERY single one would be included here? This should really be called Greek Mythology Tour: The Book. "Hey, you remember Sisyphus? You know, the guy sentenced to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity? There he is over there! And look, there is Ixion, forever tied to an ever-spinning wheel!" This just goes on and on and on with rarely any of these meetings having anything at all to do with your adventure. It gets so bad that at one point we are shown Elysium and the heroes that haven't even done anything yet such as Achilles and Agamemnon as they wait to ascend to perform their heroic deeds while Theseus seems to know exactly what they will do (I don't think that's how Elyisium works?). But hey, they had to get all these characters in here somehow right? The authors apparently didn't even want you to suspect that they didn't know who Achilles was. At another point you are told all you have left on your boat is some rope and some beeswax. Gee that's convenient. Anyone familiar with Odysseus (the patron of my blog if you will) will surely know what is about to happen next. All these encounters are just self indulgent tripe.
I also need to ask, why do all the gods in these books (and this one in particular) speak in a contemporary style? Ares and Eris for instance even sound like modern day pouty teenagers. Was this supposed to be humorous or was it some sort of in-joke? Personally I found it very immersion breaking and often quite eye-rolling. But I guess to quote Apollo from this book, "immortality and practicality dont mix".
Maybe the worst part is that this has to be one of the most unfair gamebooks I've played. Not because it's exceptionally difficult (it isn't), but because most of your deaths in the book come from choosing from a list of seemingly worthwhile or innocuous choices where only one of them is the one you are allowed to take without dying. The areas with the Nubians and later the Birdmen are particularly guilty of this. I was at one point brought before the Nubian chieftain and decided to win my freedom by joining his warriors. This seemed the honorable thing to do, especially in an adventure so big on honor. So after distinguishing myself in battle, I eventually became one of them, even taking a Nubian wife. And then? The authors had me unavoidably eaten by a lion. Are you kidding me? I hope you don't expect to be rewarded for thinking through any choices before you make them because the random deaths on offer in this book can be head scratching and worse, quite infuriating.
I also don't know how they did it, but the hint system once again is EVEN WORSE than the book previous! That's really quite an "achievement". Now in this adventure, many times if you don't take the "hint", you are flat out dead. The most egregious example of this is at the very first section of the book where if you don't take the hint before marrying Ariadne, the game is over already. This is an incredibly stupid design decision because now the reader has no choice but to flip the 20 sections ahead every single time they are given the option lest they suffer again from this unfair ridiculousness. Whoever came up with this mechanic should never be allowed near a gamebook again. There is also a boat race in this book which in more skilled hands could have been a cool little addition. As is though, it's just incredibly frustrating as you have very little control of how your ship fares and can often find yourself just stuck in the wind. I wonder, did any gamebook players out there actually win this race? I found myself trying to hit the rocks on purpose just so it would end.
Whether you can pass the necessary ritual at the end of the adventure to purge yourself of your blood-guilt seems to come down to whether you still have your prayer to Zeus available. I'm not sure why you wouldn't though as unlike the other books you are routinely told that Zeus can't bail you out from any of the incredibly cheap deaths! Hey Zeus....pound sand!
So, after all that it wasn't given a zero score so there were some positives. The scope of the adventure itself is suitably lengthy with your journey taking many years and the large number of sections in the book make this possible. This really does make you feel like you have traveled all over the Mediterranean and if you finish this book in one sitting you will probably be feeling as weary as Altheus by the end. It also speaks volumes that with all the Greek gods and myths crammed in this book, easily the best character you come across is Markos the Phoenician merchant. He is very much a conniving douchebag and is given quite a bit of characterization. You might even find yourself growing attached to him as at several points he actually helps you out, if even in unintended ways. I found myself looking forward to his encounters to see how he was going to try and screw me over this time. Some of the death sections are on the entertaining side as well so it's a bit unfortunate that I was usually too angry at how I felt I unfairly arrived at them to really enjoy them. The victory section (if you can call it that) was also really quite poignant and I definitely wasn't expecting it. Kudos to whichever of the authors wrote that section or decided to end the adventure on that note.
If you want to experience all the Greek myths and stories in an incredibly immersive manner I would highly recommend the incredible video game Assassins Creed: Odyssey. Almost unbelievably, the video game also has an unscrupulous merchant by the name of Markos who rarely misses a chance to screw people over. I wonder if the game designers had played this book?
Yep, that's how I pictured him in this book
Ranking: The worst in the series by a mile. Did the authors just not care anymore by this point? It sure feels that way. There a couple of positives to be found here and there but overall the book actually had me angry several times. Considering the first two books in the series were quite good and well above average adventures, the quality of this book is shockingly bad.
I really dislike the pretentious writing in this book. Thankfully its less extreme in Book 2 and pretty much gone by Book 3. Unfortunately, taking a hint is there to stay for the whole series and if anything becomes more annoying - awful mechanic.
ReplyDeleteThe combat is also pretty unforgiving. Often one unlucky roll can mean disaster. It's worthwhile taking Ares as your patron for the combat boost.
Still, there's lots to like about this book, as there's a lot to see and do. The next two books are more focused.
There's probably no gamebook series I have as much mixed feeling towards as this one!
I can totally understand the mixed feelings as after my first couple of plays I didnt really think all that much of it, but the design started to really grow on me after that.
DeleteAnd thank you, pretentious is the perfect word for the writing! I wish I had used it in my review. lol. Not sure what they were thinking with all that nonsense.
I havent started Book 2 yet but now Im wondering if you can change your patron? I beat the book with Athena but hope I can change so I can experiment again with the various gods which was one of the best parts about Book 1.
Been a while since I played the series but pretty sure you're stuck with your patron after Book 1.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the writing, I think the authors were trying to imitate Homer. There is a certain similarity:
"Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not quite close to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is overrun with wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are never disturbed by foot of man; for sportsmen- who as a rule will suffer so much hardship in forest or among mountain precipices- do not go there, nor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a wilderness untilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living thing upon it but only goats."
However, it just doesn't flow as well as Homer does. The authors also tend to crowbar in references to various myths that have little to do with the task at hand - perhaps to add some colour but I suspect the authors wanted to show off their knowledge.
I think I read before that the authors were very young, possibly still in school. A bit of pretension is forgivable at that age I guess! And as I say, they do rein it in a bit in the following books - possibly a different member of the trio penned each book - they all have very distinctive designs.
You are correct. Stuck with same patron moving forward! I mean I guess you could pretend you didnt play Book 1 but that seems to go against the spirit of a continuing series like this in my view.
DeleteI just hope I dont encounter some ridiculous combat that all but compels me to replay Book 1 with Ares as patron just to give me a realistic shot!
You should be fine. I've beaten the series with Aphrodite as my patron.
DeleteHaha so not a fan of Book 3 then?
ReplyDeleteThe downbeat atmosphere is fairly unique in gamebooks. Even before that ending it's bloody depressing. As a child this was the only book of the series I had and I could never decide if I liked it. I always felt absolutely miserable whenever I played it but something about it drew me back (even after dying eleventy billion times with the Nubians).
I'm glad you also liked Markos, I find him really intriguing - I was convinced he would turn out to be more than a simple merchant. Maybe he is but the book wisely never fills you in.
Oh and as much as I hate taking a hint, this book has the only worthwhile use of it in the whole system - remembering to change your sails from black to white. This is such a central part of the original myth and it's the only time the reader might actually work out that's what taking the hint will entail in this instance. In fact for those reasons I suspect this scenario was the reason the authors came up with the system. It of course doesn't absolve it being an awful mechanic in every other instance.
I find myself unable to hate this book. There is just something about it for me yet objectively I can't disagree with anything in your review.
What's next after this series?
Because I found the first two books quite good I think made this one seem even worse by comparison. I agree about the atmosphere. The fate of Ariadne in Hades (assuming you find her there) I found to be really quite sad.
DeleteDid you ever manage to win the boat race? For the life of me I could never even come close.
I have my first stand alone gamebook to play up next then its back to FF. Ive been training on my dice rolling skills for the next 10 books. Rolling dice continually in my spare time with the Rocky theme playing in the background. lol
I can't remember if I ever won the boat race. If I did I probably cheated ;)
Delete