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31. Battleblade Warrior - Score = 5.7 Tier = OK
Attempts to Beat: 14
Well....that was a let down. After quite a long layoff I come back to my favorite gamebook series, Fighting Fantasy, hoping for a return to the glory days of books such as "Creature of Havoc" and "House of Hell", and to hopefully help me forget my last experience with the series, "Chasms of Malice", which was such a complete bomb. And while "Battleblade Warrior" is indeed much better than that last book (which let's face it, isn't hard to do), I still found it to be an underwhelming experience. The story, at least initially, is set during the many years long siege of the human city of Vymorna by the "evil" Lizard Men. The siege is already six years in when the adventure begins, and your character, who is prince of Vymorna, is visited in his dreams one night by the patron god of the city, Telak, who relates to you that a magical sword exists (of course it does) hidden somewhere in the Lion Heights mountains that if obtained, should be able to swing the tide of battle in your favour and end the siege, and that you should seek out a man known as Laskar to help complete the quest for it. So, why are you only telling me all this now buddy? Seems like this information would have been incredibly useful years ago! Telak also informs you that he himself is engaged in battle in the heavens against the forces of evil, and any "Earthly victory" (shouldn't he have said "Titanly victory"?) you can secure in your realm would also weaken his opponents on his battleground. Ah now I get it. You only help when it benefits YOU. Before we leave, our mother the Queen presents us with 3 items (a bow, a light-making orb, and a healing balm) that all once belonged to our now dead father, and gives us our choice of 2 of these items. Really? She couldn't let us have all of them? Does she actually want us to get killed? So off we set towards the mountains to hopefully find this book's magical MacGuffin and save the day.
The adventure begins by first having you need to break through the siege of the city before you can begin travelling toward the mountains, and you are provided three options for doing this. You can either: 1) Head out with a group of soldiers who will hopefully draw the Lizard Men to them, allowing you to slip away. 2) Try to sneak through the Lizard Man lines on your own. 3) Sneak down to the river and steal a boat. So, the first one of those options seems incredibly selfish and wasteful to me, as the group of soldiers that would accompany you are effectively signing up for a suicide mission. If you have other options, what kind of sadist is your character to pick that one? Not to mention that your city needs all the men it can get, which is why you are travelling to the mountains on your own in the first place. The second option is probably the most interesting of the three, as you need to pick your way carefully randomly through the Lizard Man lines, dodging patrols along the way. This route eventually allows you to encounter some of the more interesting moments of the book once you are free of the Lizard Man camp, including a temporary alliance with a fellow adventurer known as Lecarte, and an Orc funeral. The third option, stealing the boat, is by far the shortest and easiest route, as you merely need to pass one single Luck test and you are free and clear of the siege. Even failing the Luck test only requires you to fight a low level guard before you are free of the camp and on your way.
Once past the siege lines, you travel along through plains, river, and jungle as you make your way towards the mountains, needing to bypass several dangerous creatures along the way before finally making it to a ruined city up in the mountains, of which the sword is located somewhere within its depths. Despite the occasional odd turn of phrase in his writing (at one point you encounter an illusion of a tiger, and are then told that "your imagination tells you that it is real". Does that make sense?), the atmosphere created by author Marc Gascoigne here is one of the few strengths of the book, and this is no small coincidence as I would like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to another one of Gascoigne's works, that being "Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World" which was released in 1986 and acts as an encyclopedia for all things Titan-related. I thought about doing a review for this book as well, but as it is not a gamebook, I held off (for now anyway). So I will take this opportunity to highly recommend it, as it provides an excellent delving into the world of Titan, where most Fighting Fantasy adventures take place. It is extremely well written and extensive, and while reading it I could picture myself sitting in some ancient dusty library, quaffing a flagon of ale as I searched through its pages looking for some valuable information to aid me on some important top secret quest. This book is a must read for anyone who loves Fighting Fantasy. Tying this back in to "Battleblade Warrior", I do feel the need to mention how this particular adventure occurs during what I thought was one of the most interesting entries found in "Titan", that being the siege of Vymorna. It is more than a bit disappointing then to have this adventure not explore the siege in more detail, or really have you participate in it to any noticeable degree. Gascoigne does a great job in the prologue setting up the growing fear and desperation of the trapped city populace, along with what they must endure day after day and night after night under attack from the Lizard Men and their fiery catapults, only to then have the whole siege angle just be abandoned in favour of the typical "travel to the mountain to obtain the magic relic" fantasy quest. What a waste.
So for someone who wrote that great "Titan" compendium book, and was also once an editor of the Fighting Fantasy series, there is a surprising lack of knowledge of gamebook design going on here. Will you choose to sleep on the marshy ground or look for a better place to make camp? It doesn't matter. Both choices lead to the exact same fight against the tough Swamp Mutant in one more section anyway. I hate that stuff. There is also the Orc funeral that can be encountered, which while interesting from a story perspective, is very poorly designed game-wise. This adventure also has an absolute boatload of Skill tests, easily more so than I can ever recall seeing in an FF book before, and you are probably screwed without a double digit Skill score, but that is nothing new at this point in the series and I won't hold that against the adventure. The book additionally contains a plethora of battles against multiple opponents, which can be tense should your Skill score be equal to or slightly above that of your enemies. But there is at least one case where you fight a group of five Panther Warriors, who all have Skill scores of 5. This just leads to an incredibly tiresome amount of dice rolling to get through it, especially if you have a double digit Skill score yourself. Fighting a large group of low Skill enemies is never something I enjoy seeing in a gamebook. There is yet another fight against several opponents at once that occurs within a room in the underground area, where you are told that because of the odd angle the room is situated at, everyone involved in the combat must deduct 2 from their Attack Strength. If everyone in the fight is deducting the same amount, what the heck is the point?
Most frustrating of all though is the Provisions system, and this book might just contain the worst grasp I have seen yet on this mechanic. The rules state that you may only eat your Provisions (restoring 4 Stamina points in the process) when given the chance, but then rarely gives you the opportunity to do so! The wording as you travel through the jungle is also very unclear, as you are told at one point that there is "no problem eating in the jungle", so you can collect Provisions. Ok, so does that mean I can eat or only collect? And how many can I collect? Sounds like something out of Greek myth......"Hungar the Emaciated, who was forced to spend all eternity gathering coconuts from an endless stretch of palm trees, but never allowed to eat." There are even moments when this becomes incredibly glaring, such as when you finally meet up with Laskar who takes you to his home, where you are provided a nice meal of rabbit stew and get a good night's rest......and recover absolutely no Stamina in the process, let alone having no chance to eat any Provisions of your own. Before you set out from his cavern, Laskar additionally provides you with a length of rope (which I never found a use for) along with a restock of your Provisions up to your maximum of 4. The thing is, from here on out (along the required route anyway), there is absolutely no place where you are given a chance to eat them! In an adventure such as this which slowly sees your Stamina being chipped away as you progress to the end, this is all incredibly frustrating.
After you meet Laskar, he informs you that the sword (known as the "Arm of Telak") is hidden underneath a collapsed and ruined city. More than that though, the sword is powered by gems (known as the "Eyes of Telak") which fit into the hilt and which give it magical strength. He does not however, know what kind of gems these are, so you must uncover this for yourself. This underground part of the adventure is then a sort of mini "Deathtrap Dungeon", because it turns out there are four different kinds of gems hidden within this area (diamond, emeralds, jets, and ruby) and you must determine which you need and where they are hidden. The way this is all worded, you can eliminate two of these four options as the likely choice, but you still need to just keep exploring and picking directions at random until you find the proper gems. As far as the sword goes though, it turns out you don't even need to find it! Didn't happen to locate it while traversing the tunnels? No biggie. Just pass a Skill check (what a shocker) and it is provided to you in the final sections anyway. Jeesh.
While I did find the writing and atmosphere enjoyable, the antagonist of this adventure is a complete dead loss and one of the worst you are likely to see. He seems to pose no threat, and the manner by which he is defeated is almost comical. The Lizard Men were actually following this idiot? Why? I don't think this adventure really needed a final villain per se, as travelling through jungles, swamps, and underground caverns to find the sword, dealing with all sorts of wild creatures and supernatural beings along the way, made sense enough. As such, the villain here feels unnecessary and tacked on, as if every adventure needs some kind of named sorcerer to fight at the end. I will also say though, that you can find your character assassinating the bad guy on some pretty flimsy evidence. You happen to spot a Lizard Man saluting him so you decide he must be a traitor? What if he was using magic, or running some kind of con or deception of his own to get out of his predicament? Ok, so it turns out he really was a traitor, but it is possible to kill him and beat the book without ever knowing that for sure.
Ranking: This is definitely not one of the better FF entries. It doesn't contain any new or additional mechanics to the basic format, and overall is standard, run of the mill stuff. So much so in fact that this feels like it should have been an adventure released during the infancy of Fighting Fantasy as opposed to 30 books in, and even then I would still say it was pretty simplistic. I put it alongside "Masks of Mayhem" near the bottom half of the OK tier, but I give "Battleblade Warrior" the tiebreak over that book thanks to not having the ridiculous required roll to win. While overall not terrible by any means, outside of its atmosphere it really doesn't have a lot of positive things going for it either.
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32. Slaves of the Abyss - Score = 9.2 Tier = Great!
Attempts to Beat: 25
That's more like it! This is what I was hoping to experience with the previous book when I returned to the series after a bit of a layoff. I guess the series was just teasing me. This adventure sees Fighting Fantasy return to its glory days, with what initially seems like a standard fantasy style quest (travel a long distance to assassinate the evil bad guy), but then injects several creative twists and turns to the formula. The story opens with you playing as a well-known adventurer currently staying in the city-state of Kallamehr, when the army of the city is required to march north in response to a growing threat along its northern border. After the army has long departed, another threat is revealed in the form of some sort of "invading horde" approaching from the east. Uh-oh! With Kallamehr thus now bereft of its soldiers and any way to defend itself, YOU, along with several other adventurers who happen to be present in the city at the time, are called upon by the leader of the city, Lady Carolina, to act in its defense.
The adventure begins by having you set off alone eastwards to scout out the advancing horde (more on this opening later), and you must travel through various villages where you can find yourself aiding several individuals as you progress. There is a great atmosphere of dread in the places you pass through, and you can at times find yourself also encountering a shadowy figure who appears to be haunting you. The playful and mysterious Riddling Reaver (from the multi-player Fighting Fantasy book written by these same authors in 1986) even shows up to bail you out and provide you a helpful item at one point. It's not really clear why he does this, so I'm guessing this was a bit of product placement on the part of the writers. I do have to admit though that the item he provides you with (the main villain's long lost sense of humour in a bottle) is quite creative and comes with a decent payoff.
There is additionally an unusual air of mystery conveyed all throughout the book, and you are constantly aware that things are not always what they seem. There is one particular excellent moment where you can discover a wax mask by the side of the road, a mask which happens to be made into your very own likeness. When I found this, suddenly several things started to fall into place, such as why the villages I had been passing through had been treating me rather coldly even though I was ostensibly there to help them, and why the priests of a temple had accused me of stealing an artifact of theirs and were loathe to release me despite orders from their superior. Wisely, I don't believe what really happened is ever spelled out by the authors, but I could only deduce that one of the villain's agents (likely the humanoid figure with the hornet head) had been posing as me in order to steal the valuable temple artifact, leaving me to take the blame and ruining my local reputation in the process. However, this agent was then robbed himself by a group of Dark Elves (who I would recover the artifact from myself), at which point the agent decided to then ditch the ruse and feast on some passing oxen pulling a cart. Allowing the reader to figure out for themselves what may have happened was a great way to approach all this, and is something that feels rare in the gamebooks I have played so far. Kudos to this style and I really hope to see more of it in the future.
You eventually learn that one of the nobles in Kallamehr is a traitor, and you must return to the city to first identify them, and then expose and defeat them. I had this sequence of mystery basically ruined for me (more on this later as well), but nevertheless it was a nice addition that allows the reader to put together any clues they may have picked up from their conversations with these various nobles, along with what they witness them doing in the privacy of their own rooms when they think they are not being watched. From here we then need to negotiate a magical shifting forest in our search for a witch that has knowledge that will aid us, overcoming several creatures in order to do so, including a comically over-the-top inept group of goblins. (At one point, one of these goblins fires a crossbow bolt at you, only to have it pass harmlessly between your legs and strike the goblin behind you in the stomach. For that to work, just how short ARE these goblins?) It is the witch who relates to us the true villain of the adventure, Bythos, an evil sorcerer who through the use of magical black hornets, traps the souls of those the hornets sting in a prison on another plane (the titular Abyss), while the bodies of these individuals become empty husks that obey Bythos' commands on our continent of Allansia, and thus form his invading army. The black hornets are a great inclusion, because as the witch herself points out, how does anyone defend themselves from enemies so small? This reinforces my belief that the smaller creatures can be some of the most terrifying. You thus need to use the witch's advice to help you bypass the hornets, and defeat Bythos.
The adventure doesn't end after the initial defeat of Bythos however, as despite having his corporeal form destroyed, Bythos yet endures on his mystical plane, and still maintains his grip over the poor souls that his hornets have stung. In order to free them, you now need to travel to the Abyss where you must defeat Bythos once and for all on his own turf. I usually do not enjoy these "other planes of existence" types of settings as they often seem to be an excuse to have random stuff happen "just because". In this case though, there did seem to be a well thought out internal logic to it all. The Abyss itself is made mostly of crystal, with even the creatures you encounter, from Crystal Warriors to Ectovults (crystal birds) being made from the substance. The means by how Bythos generates his power was also a nice touch, with him having his birds collect lost treasures from Allansia (I think if a treasure is lost in Allansia a duplicate materializes in the Abyss as opposed to the original? Otherwise there would be nothing left for adventurers to find. Not totally sure about this though), then having his Crystal Warriors grind the treasures into a powder, which is added to a broth he drinks and which thus imbues him with physical, and presumably also magical, power. Side note: when this happens to you, the text explains how your clothes split, but are you then left standing there naked? This whole trip through the Abyss and the final confrontation with Bythos (another "more on this below") was yet another atmospheric stretch, and this book does a wonderful job of providing a varied set of locations to explore. I also very much enjoyed the ending, as it provides an unexpectedly lonely conclusion to the adventure, which I found tinged with sadness (although this might depend on the player's particular thirst for power), and I appreciated the more reflective tone.
Overall, there are a few Skill 10 enemies that must be overcome here, and this adventure also includes a rule found in "Creature of Havoc" that if you roll a double six on your attack round it's an instant kill for you (as long as you still have your fangthane steel sword). And even though you cannot use this modifier against Bythos himself, it still helped me out of a couple of jams over the course of my playthroughs. Still, tough combats is not what this book is about, as victory in this adventure comes from putting all the pieces of the puzzle together in determining what items and information you need, where you can find them, and in what order you need to do everything. I love this style of puzzle solving adventure, and this one doesn't disappoint on that front. The writing itself here is also of high grade, and authors Paul Mason and Steve Williams deserve a large amount of credit for setting up such a wonderful journey. From peasant villages to magical forests, from palace intrigue to other planes of existence, the diverse set of locales on offer here is both interesting and impressive. The fact that this is their first Fighting Fantasy effort is also something of note, and I can't wait to see what else they have in store in any subsequent efforts.
As great as I thought the adventure was though, there were a few missteps:
- The opening choice. Ok, so right in the very first section you are given the choice of three different courses of action. You can either head north in an attempt to warn Kallamehr's army of the impending invasion, head east to scout the enemy, or stay in the city and prepare to defend it. Problem with this is, only one of these courses gives you any chance of beating the book. Two of the three options will even result in failure quite quickly should you persist in trying to pursue them. Of course, having a key choice that leads to failure is nothing new and is to be expected, but to have it laid out as a big strategic decision, and in the first section of the book no less, would seem to suggest that all these paths would and should be viable, which is far from the truth. This is therefore a big tease in giving the illusion of choice.
- The time mechanic. Boy, what the heck happened here? This is a great idea in theory as you begin the adventure provided with an illustration of a group of empty boxes (shaped something like an hourglass) and are instructed to tick off one of the boxes in the illustration whenever you are told to in the text. This is meant to represent time running out for the city of Kallamehr as the advancing horde approaches, (and you completely stop receiving these time box instructions once you stop the advancing horde). In all my 25 attempts at the book though, I never even once came close to ticking off all the boxes. More than that, certain boxes near the end of the provided illustration contain section numbers in them, and should you tick off enough boxes to advance far enough to reach them, you need to immediately turn to that section number. But I never even came close to reaching the first box with a section number in it either. I had to look up those sections after I had beaten the book just to see what would have happened. There is a moment near the end where how many boxes you have ticked off determines if you fight a Lovecraftian style monster or not, but other than that I'm really not sure what the point of this all was, and I have a feeling that the authors forgot to include the "Tick off a Time Box" instructions in many sections that should probably have contained them. Oops.
- Counter-intuitive decisions required to win. So, what is "counter-intuitive" may be subjective, but there were at least two moments in the adventure where I felt the necessary route was hidden behind an option that seemed to go against what might have been learned in prior playthroughs. The first one occurs after you rescue a young girl and return her to her village, and then must decide if you want to return to Kallamehr to warn them, or continue on in an attempt to find a missing enchanter who had gone in search of magical aid. Should you choose to look for the enchanter, the book sure does make it seem like this was the right course of action. And in fact, it IS the right course of action.....just not yet. I am a bit more forgiving of this moment, as you can be told earlier that once you learn about the invading horde, you should return to Kallamehr right away (although you don't know if this is from a reliable individual). However, this reminded me of something similar that happened in "The Temple of Flame" from The Golden Dragon series, in that you needed to make a somewhat strange decision if you wanted any chance at winning, and even if you didn't make this decision, the book carried on as if you were on the correct path. The second such moment here occurs when you have a chance meeting with your old sword master, Barolo. There is a certain sword-throwing maneuver called The Spitting Fly that you need to learn, but in order to get him to teach you that, you have to act in a very particular way when you meet him. The first time I encountered him, I surrendered to him, and the adventure proceeded as if that was the correct thing to do, as he takes me in for the night and gives me somewhere to rest. It took me a long time to figure out that I needed to do something different here, and I'm still not sure why he doesn't teach you The Spitting Fly in either case, as both actions lead to him sheltering you for the night. On the one hand I can appreciate having well hidden items or information required to beat an adventure, but expecting the player to explore every (or almost every) single option and decision in the book, even after giving them positive results from other choices in that same decision, might be a bit much. This is especially the case in a longer, linear book such as this.
- The final confrontation with Bythos. This is more to do with the lead up to the meeting with Bythos as opposed to the fight against him, but when you eventually make it to his crystal castle, you are provided several options about what to do about his goblet that he uses to refill his powers. You are given options such as knocking it over, spiking it with something you may have picked up along the way, or drinking it yourself. All of these seemed like viable choices to me. Problem is that any wrong move here whatsoever spells failure, which again isn't anything new for a gamebook, but the thing here is that because the path to get here is so long it can become frustrating to die at the end on a seemingly random choice (some more eagle-eyed players may have explanations as to why this choice isn't necessarily random, and that could be fair). The biggest negative for me personally about this sequence is that one of the instant failures that can be encountered right at the end of the book gives away who the traitor of Kallamehr is (as they take an opportunity to gloat at your demise). The problem for me here was that I experienced this instant death before I had even worked out that I needed to travel back to Kallamehr yet, so it was given away to me who the traitor was before I even began that whole mystery sequence back in the city.
That all being said, in my view a gamebook can contain its share of flaws and still be considered a classic by providing an excellent and in-depth puzzle to solve, along with a great story and involving atmosphere, and this adventure does that incredibly well. I would liken it to "House of Hell" in that respect, which also contains several flaws that I can acknowledge (the Fear score, the Kris Knife bonus, and being able to just guess a key password), but despite those I still consider it to be one of the classics of the series because everything else was so great.
Ranking: A Hall of Famer for sure. Authors Paul Mason and Steve Williams make a smashing debut into Fighting Fantasy with this intricate and inventive effort, There are some hiccups yes, but overall this is a big intriguing puzzle to be solved (always my favorite type of book) coupled with a wonderfully mysterious story and great writing. I have this in the upper handful of books so far in my rankings, putting it at #5 overall to this point in the series, which obviously means this is definitely not one to be missed. Great job fellas!
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33. Sky Lord - Score = 0.0 Tier = BROKEN!
Attempts before giving up the ghost: 86
WTF? I feel like that acronym was created just for this gamebook. It is quite incredible that this book managed to get a release in such a prestigious gamebook series such as Fighting Fantasy, because this is truly a mess. I don't necessarily mean that from a story standpoint (and there are even some interesting twists at the end), but in terms of how many of the gameplay elements were implemented so poorly. But first the story, and I have to admit that whatever my feelings toward the rest of the book, I thought the prologue here was great. There are actually two separate intros, one that describes the character we are playing and our backstory as Sky Lord Jang Mistral, an elite four-armed warrior who serves King Vaax of planet Ensulina, and then the wonderful prologue describing our particular mission for this adventure. We are tasked with hunting down a galactic renegade known as L'Bastin, who once served as the major-domo for our very own King Vaax. However, when the King refused to give L'Bastin a raise for his services so that he could pursue his hobby of cybernetics and genetic manipulation in an attempt to create the perfect life form, L'Bastin implemented a plan whereby he replaced all the retainers and employees of the palace with his cybernetic creations, and thus pocketed their paychecks for himself. His deception was eventually uncovered, and L'Bastin was forced to flee, but not before committing one final act of retribution upon the King, by performing some pretty heinous unattractive elective plastic surgery on the Queen (including grafting a pineapple to her head). As I read through all this, I actually found myself on L'Bastin's side up until the unnecessary surgery part. I mean, the man hadn't received a raise in 200 years despite his loyal service, and it is made pretty clear that King Vaax is a major skinflint. He lost me with his treatment of the Queen however, who was nothing more than an innocent bystander. Besides, if his cybernetic creations were really that good, I wouldn't think he would have much of a problem marketing them elsewhere and raking in the credits he needed? Regardless, we are given the quest to track down L'Bastin and give him his comeuppance, courtesy of the King. So off we set in our starship, the Starspray, and make for the rogues-hideout planet of Aarok, where L'Bastin is holed up conducting his experiments.
The adventure includes a vehicle combat system along with the usual hand-to-hand FF combat, and there is a good mix of both of these as you first make your way across the galaxy towards Aarok, then navigate the main city on the planet in search of your quarry. Additionally, the book contains several puzzles and mini-games along the way, but most of them don't really work very well. These sequences include:
- An encounter with an orange blob on a space station. In a sequence akin to "Alien", you come across a huge and almost deserted space station. As it turns out, a deadly orange blob has infested the station, killing or taking over the bodies of the majority of those on board, with the few remaining crew members seemingly having gone mad. You then flee through the station, and at various intervals are given the option of picking up two items from a long list. You repeat this a handful of times until you reach the final confrontation with the blob. It is here that it is revealed that each of the items you have collected has a certain point value attached to it, as to how much it will effect the blob when you throw said item into its gelatinous mass, and your selected items need to have a certain cumulative point total or you die. (One can just picture throwing a snooker cue or leg of mutton at the blob in desperation). The big problem here, and why this whole sequence fails to work, is that there is seemingly no rhyme or reason as to what will be effective against the blob and what won't. Therefore it is purely a case of trial and error, but to make things worse, once you have gone through this once (likely failing), then you know exactly what items you need to pick up every time after that. Furthermore, on a strange note after passing this sequence, you are told in a throwaway line that you blow up the space station as you depart. I thought this thing was massive? Did I make some kind of "Luke Skywalker taking down the Death Star" shot?
- A space battle against a large pirate spaceship. This battle is handled differently than the other vehicle combats, by requiring you to adjust the Yaw, Pitch, and Roll of your spaceship in each section, with what you decide to do providing positive or negative results until you eventually either manage to maneuver behind the enemy ship and destroy it, or you are unable to do so and it destroys you. The reason why this one fails is that there are absolutely no instructions given on how any of this works. I guessed early on that you might need to match the Yaw, Pitch, and Roll of the enemy ship to win, but oftentimes none of the options provided contained any that seemed favorable, and you just find yourself picking one of them and hoping it works out.
- The bathysphere fight against the Deik. This is another sequence much like the above space battle, but even worse. You find yourself here in an underwater one-on-one contest against a Deik, a talking and sentient clam. The options you are given in each section on what actions you wish to perform range from completely random acts such as pulling on wires or squeezing jellies (?), with absolutely no clues or indications on what any of it might do. This once again thus renders this sequence to a tedious trial and error exercise until you hit on the correct options to pick in order to win. I'm really not sure what author Martin Allen was thinking here.
- The coloured floor puzzle. There is a diagram provided on the inside cover of the book, which lays out a 5x5 grid of orange, blue, and green coloured circles and squares. You need to navigate from one side of the grid to the other without stepping on a wrong tile (which spells instant death). Fortunately for this puzzle, unlike the others, there is a clue you can pick up earlier which gives some guidance about the order you need to step on the tiles. What makes this tricky though is that every time you step on a tile, half of them change colour, so you really need to keep careful notes about which grid tiles are now which colour, and I thought this was a great idea. This is one of the few sequences in the adventure that I felt worked, although admittedly even if you do get the clue it can still be a bit confusing. So of course having said that, this puzzle isn't actually on the required route. D'oh!
- The Roundabout trial. In this sequence near the end of the adventure, you have 4 turns to defeat 3 different creatures on a set of revolving disks. It's tough to explain, but you need to rotate the disks so that you have a clear path to each of the creatures, then you need to defeat them in combat. The main problems I had with this trial, is that when it comes to rotating the disks, it almost plays itself, and this is especially true should you have a certain item that tells you exactly what to do. Also, one of the combats here (against the Glip), is quite hard, and having travelled all this way, overcoming the odds in several fights already just to get to this point, only to then lose to this guy over and over starts to wear thin and becomes incredibly frustrating.
To expand on that last point about frustration, with many gamebooks you need the dice to be in your favour in order to win, but in this adventure you are going to need to break out a bottle of wine and make love to those spotted cubes! The difficulty level here is ridiculous, and this is mostly due to how the vehicle combat is designed. Or rather, it isn't the design that is the problem, it is that the stats of several of the enemies that you must go through to beat the adventure have a significant advantage over you thanks to the numbers they are provided with. I thought I was supposed to be playing as some elite warrior/pilot? Why do most things I meet have higher ratings than me? The most difficult encounter in the whole adventure is on the second section you turn to, and I found it took me around 4-5 tries on average to just make it past this guy (the character who happens to be pictured on the cover). Even after defeating him you then immediately need to defeat an Auto Drone that has an at least decent chance of beating you, and as such I even had one stretch of 18 straight attempts where I died within the FIRST FOUR SECTIONS OF THE BOOK! That's ludicrous. One byproduct of this is that it allowed me to very quickly rack up the incredible number of attempts that I had at the adventure, as I was finding myself sometimes putting in 10-20 playthroughs in one day. However, the rest of the book is almost just as difficult, so it's not like once you make it past these early combats you have a good shot at winning. Far from it. Instant deaths abound all over the place from having to decide between completely random choices with no information to go on, and even when you finally, eventually, work out what you need to do to win, you still have a couple of more combats near the end of the book that are roughly 50/50 propositions. If you happen to be wondering why I ended with such a strange number of attempts, I was actually going to stop after attempt 80, but I wanted to give it one final push. It then took me another 6 attempts just to pass the Fahbad Redneck/Auto Drone combats again, before finally going down in defeat yet again later in the book to Mog's Cutter. That was it. Enough is enough.
A hugely unfortunate consequence of these tough early combats, is that more so than any book I can recall playing, this adventure totally put me off trying any kind of exploring or experimentation due to how tough it was just to get through these early sections. Whenever I did manage to beat these opening opponents, I was so relieved that afterwards I did not want to take a chance on doing anything I was unsure of the results on, and just stuck with exactly what I knew would get me through the following sequences. For example, when crash landing on Aarok, you are given the option of landing in a swamp or in a desert. After a couple of tries I worked out what I needed to do to pass through the desert, and because I didn't want to waste a character who had made it through those opening combats, I never once attempted landing in the swamp. The deterring of experimentation is a big strike against this book.
Any positives from this mess? Well, as mentioned earlier I thought the prologue was great. I also enjoyed some of the encounters found throughout the adventure, such as the spiders out in the desert, and some of the abandoned creations of L'Bastin you can meet near the end. The final act of the book also had a nice creepy "Island of Doctor Moreau" vibe going for it. Most of the puzzle solving aspect of the adventure was a fail as it was not properly explained, or just left you to make totally random guesses, but I did think the orange-blue-green floor puzzle was an exception, even if it was not along the winning path. There is one suggestion I would like to make that would be a minor rule change, but I feel would have a major effect upon the playability of the book. That being, you should absolutely be able to use Luck in the vehicle combats as you are in the hand-to-hand combats. I have no idea why Allen disallowed this in the rules, but it was a huge mistake in my opinion, as this would have at least given you more of a fighting chance against the handful of vehicle combats needed to beat the adventure where the odds are all stacked against you. And of course, it would have added a nice strategic element on when to use your Luck points (which are barely used anywhere else anyway).
Ranking: The vehicle combats completely ruin this book, and it's mind-boggling how poorly implemented that mechanic is. I actually enjoyed several of the comedic aspects of the adventure, but just because a gamebook is a comedy (which is how I interpreted this adventure anyway) does not mean I'm going to excuse atrocious design. And despite me also thinking a couple of the individual sequences were quite good, I have no choice but to declare this book BROKEN. I should point out that just because I feel a book is broken does not necessarily mean I believe it is impossible to complete, as much like book 3 from the "Sagas of the Demonspawn" series, or the Dracula adventure from "Horror Classics", I think if you stuck with it long enough you would eventually get the dice rolls needed to beat this one, and as such it is probably "less broken" than Crypt of the Sorcerer. However, no player should have to endure this many attempts to beat a gamebook. I can see why this adventure put the final nail in the coffin for Sci-Fi Fighting Fantasy books, and who knows, maybe that was Martin Allen's intent, and if so, then masterfully done sir.
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34. Stealer of Souls - Score = 7.4 Tier = Good
Attempts to Beat: 3
It's difficult to say how much of my enjoyment of this book came from playing it directly after the incredibly frustrating and random Sky Lord, but this is a really good return to the familiar Fighting Fantasy template we all know and love. This was something that Battleblade Warrior also attempted to do 3 books ago, but was not able to accomplish nearly as well as Stealer of Souls does. Starting off with the story though, which is I'm sorry to say, easily the weakest part of the book. Playing as a well known adventurer, we are summoned to an audience with a wizard one day who has a quest he wishes us to undertake. It seems a colleague of his, another wizard known as Alsander, has been kidnapped by yet another wizard (an evil one this time) called Mordraneth (you would have known he was evil with that name) who has spirited him away to his hideout (the Iron Crypts) on the Isle of Despair. Presumably, Alsander has been taken because he may have discovered the secret behind Mordraneth's evil powers, which begs the question as to why Mordraneth didn't just kill him, but in any case, we accept the challenge of heading to the island, rescuing the good wizard, and killing the bad one. Yes, I realize that initially it is indicated that Mordraneth is not actually on the Isle of Despair himself, but c'mon, that isn't fooling anybody who has played a few gamebooks before, and we know we will have to take him out ourselves at some point. So, travel to the evil wizard's lair, rescue someone, and kill the bad guy. Real original stuff so far.
I'm thankful to report however, that the bog standard story is won over by the really good design, along with many fun encounters along the way. The adventure can be broken up into three different areas as below:
1 - Travelling to the Isle of Despair and the overland journey to the Iron Crypts. You begin the quest with a short boat journey to the island, and you must then make your way through the interior or the Isle to get to the opening of the Crypts, which is located at the base of a mountain range. There are some interesting things to come across here, including a Sea Giant and his pet crab, a Snake-man (a friendly one for a change) that needs your help in retrieving its eggs from some Giant Stormbirds, and a friendly native village where you can cash in any gold or treasure you may have found so far for some helpful items. There is a map on the inside cover of the book which provides you with the layout of the island, but other than providing some flavour (which it does very well), it's not all that helpful, as you are basically shuttled towards the Iron Crypts no matter what you do. When I first made it to the entrance to the Crypts, I wasn't really all that enthused about the adventure, as between the standard prologue and then this overland travel section, there wasn't all that much here that stood out.
2 - The Iron Crypts. Ok, so thankfully the adventure begins to really pick up steam starting here. What initially seems like the standard underground dungeon exploration eventually reveals itself to actually be a well laid out and interesting one. The Crypts are quite large, and the feeling of this being Mordraneth's base of operations is communicated very well throughout, with Orc guards, storerooms, dining areas, and jail cells found along the way, and with interesting encounters such as the Dark Priest and the Torturer added in as well. There are also a plethora of helpful, but not essential, items scattered around which could come in very handy for a low Skilled adventurer. The Crypts are laid out in such a way so that there are several different ways to get through them, and this provides for a nice level of experimentation and discovery with each new playthrough. At the end of this area, you eventually find and rescue Alsander, who none too surprisingly informs you that Mordraneth is indeed within the bowels of the Iron Crypts, in something he refers to as The Empire of Illusion, where he practices his mysterious dark arts. An aspect of the story that I did greatly enjoy was how your character is made out to be such a complete glory hound, and therefore cannot pass up the chance to eliminate Mordraneth himself, despite having fulfilled his goal of freeing Alsander, which is all we were tasked to do.
3 - The Empire of Illusion - In a wonderful example of an adventure getting better and better as you go along, this area, along with the final battle against Mordraneth himself, is great stuff. Before moving into this area, Alsander has time to teach you some magical spells before he must teleport away to warn his kingdom of Mordraneth's treachery. So during this last act we get a Citadel of Chaos style magic system, where we get to select 3 spells from a list of 7, and cross each of them off as we use them. In a great bit of balancing by author Keith Martin (aka Carl Sargent), all of these spells I could see being useful depending upon your current circumstances, and they had me planning out carefully which ones I would take. Moving through this area itself involves travelling through different coloured passageways, and sees you encountering a nice mix of creatures that could be either illusions, or real, which might impact the use of your spells against them. Some of these creatures may even be able to strike fear into you, causing you to fight at a Skill penalty. Once you battle your way to the end, you finally get to square off against Mordraneth himself, in a really well done boss battle as both you and he first attempt to use magic against one another, before moving into hand-to-hand combat. Once Mordraneth is defeated, you have thus saved the day, and more importantly, covered yourself in glory!
Despite the good deal of fun I had, there were a few glitches. In a complete flipping of the script from the previous book in the series, my biggest complaint about this book would be in its ease. The adventure only took me 3 attempts, which ties it with The Forest of Doom and Demons of the Deep for fewest attempts required for me to win so far. And to be honest, if I had played my first attempt with a Skill 11 or 12 character, I think I may very well have beaten it that first go, which for a Fighting Fantasy book is nigh unheard of. Are there even any instant deaths in the book? After beating it, I flipped through some of the options I didn't take and couldn't find any. Also, while the final fight against Mordraneth is really well done, the character himself leaves something to be desired. His motivation seems to be just the vague and uninspiring "conquer the world" (still with this?), and I read through the explanation of how and where he draws his powers from a couple of times, and I'm still not sure I totally understand it. Near as I can tell, he "steals the souls" of individuals at the time of their death, drawing power from their greatest fears, which I suppose makes him something akin to Fighting Fantasy's version of Stephen King's "It". We learn that these could be such fears as the fear of death itself, or of the horrors that stalk the land during the night, or perhaps the fear of falling........the list is starting to drop off a bit here. Seeing as how apparently the fear of public speaking tops most "fear" lists, I'm surprised that didn't get a mention. Perhaps it just didn't sound dramatic enough to say that Mordraneth draws power from those like myself who were too nervous to get up in front of the school on speech day, so they called in sick, but I digress.
I also feel like a better job could have been done on the editing in the book, as I came across a few entries that didn't seem to make much sense, or that didn't properly explain how they were to be followed. The provision system, while FAR better than that of say, Battleblade Warrior, can still be vague in some places, and at several times I was told that I must have a light source to continue, or that I must have provisions or a healing potion to give to Alsander upon freeing him, but no indication of what happens should I not have either. I guess it's just game over? Additionally, I came across at least one continuity issue where I was told my silver medallion protected me, even though I had acquired no such item. And in yet another section I was told I came to a passage running east and west, where the western passage ran on for a bit before turning south, and was then asked if I wanted to take this, or go west instead. Huh?
Ranking: After the prologue and the overland travelling area, I was feeling very "meh" about the adventure, and was expecting it to end up a middling entry in the OK tier. The Iron Crypts area then brought it up into the high end of the OK tier, before the Empire of Illusion area brought it up even further and had it breaking into the Good tier. It's too much on the easy side for me to score it much higher, and the plot is far from anything we haven't seen done in the series umpteen times already, but nevertheless this is a very well designed book with many interesting encounters, and I had a lot of fun playing it. I slot it just below Warlock of Firetop Mountain in my rankings, as that book came 6 years before this one and thus had an edge in the "wonderment" factor. This book however has me very much looking forward to reading more Keith Martin adventures in the future to see what else he can come up with.
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35. Daggers of Darkness - Score = 7.2 Tier = Good
Attempts to Beat: 9
Hey what do you know, a Luke Sharp (aka Alkis Alkiviades) book I actually like! To say I wasn't a fan of his previous entry (Chasms of Malice) would be an understatement, so this one turned out to be a pleasant surprise indeed. This adventure actually opens with some world building, as we begin in the same area of Titan (Gorak, in the southwestern province of Khul) as Sharp's previous book did, and even has your quest being given to you in the prologue by the same helpful wizard (Astragal). We learn in said prologue, that in the neighboring realm of Kazan, the manner in which a new king is chosen upon the death of the current king is quite a unique process. Any citizen of Kazan can opt to have a newborn child of theirs undergo a series of tests to hopefully have them declared as one of the "Select", and upon turning nine years of age, these children must be set forth into the wilds to learn how to hunt and fight for themselves. Then, upon the death of the reigning king, any of these Select that still roam the lands have the opportunity to become the next king. There are 6 medallions held by the various clans of Kazan, and the Select who is able to pass the trials involved to obtain the most medallions and bring them successfully to the throne, which lies within the fortress of the capital city of Sharrabas, is to be declared the new king. We play, of course, as one of these Select, and it is Astragal who informs us that the king of Kazan has died, and it is now time for us to begin our quest of locating the medallions and bringing them to Sharrabas. To complicate matters however, there is an evil vizier, Chingiz, who wishes to stop any of the Select from arriving at the capital so that he may claim power for himself. To that end, Chingiz has sent out his assassins (the Mamliks) to hunt down any and all Select, and kill them on sight. The book opens with us having just barely survived an attack from one of these assassins, who yet still managed to wound us with a poison blade. Thus, we set off already wounded into the lands of Kazan, to locate the various clans, pass their trials, and win the medallions so that we may be crowned king! Instead of the usual "hunt down and kill the evil wizard" trope, this is a very well done and creative opening to the story, with a slight "Clash of the Princes" bent to it in having to set out into the land with little to go on, and gather tokens that will prove us worthy of becoming the next monarch.
Obtaining each of the medallions is in essence a three part process. First, you must locate the clan that holds it. Second, you must pass that clan's trial. And third, you then need to navigate a maze, of which the medallion is located at the end of. There is a map of Kazan provided on the inside cover of the book, which shows the locations of all the various clan areas throughout the land, so you would think it shouldn't be too hard to at least locate each one. This proves to be far from the case however, as several of the clans are very well hidden, and it is not as simple a matter of just heading off in the direction where you know the next clan to be. It is this opening half of the adventure that is the strength of the book, as there are a boatload of paths to experiment with in attempting to find one of the clans that you have not yet found on previous playthroughs, and it is in the locating of the clans themselves, and how each of them reacts differently to you, with their own customs and practices, where the adventure really shines. Some of the clans are much easier to find than others (I'm not sure how you wouldn't locate the Bogomil for example), and after playing through the book 9 times, there were still a couple of clans that I never did locate (I sure hope they are in there somewhere). That said, much like in Chasms of Malice, this book is infuriating to try and map conventionally, as many areas you travel don't seem to match up to where you think you should be based upon what you have plotted out previously, and this can be frustrating for an avowed Fighting Fantasy cartographer such as myself.
Once you manage to locate a clan, you then need to pass their trial, and this is unfortunately one of the weaker aspects of the book. What is it with Sharp's fascination in making you roll dice a certain amount of times, and if you get doubles a specified number of those times, you die? This is the format most of these trials seem to take, and they are not fun in the slightest. Thankfully, none of them are too unforgiving, but I saw firsthand how failing the same trial more than once due to rolling too many doubles can be very frustrating. Should you pass the trials however, there is at least one very well fleshed out maze to navigate, and this element of obtaining the medallions is back to being fun again, especially after the tediousness of the trials. I do have to say though, and I'm not totally sure about this, that the Yigenik clan medallion seems impossible to obtain. Should you pass the Yigenik trial, you are led to the beginning of their maze, only to see an orc on a gryphawk flying out of the maze having just stolen the medallion. You then get to chase after him, but seemingly no matter which options you pick, and even if you ultimately pass a 50/50 roll during the sequence, the orc escapes regardless. I found this puzzling, and I wonder what the point of that roll was if it didn't matter anyway.
Another well thought out inclusion to the book was having to keep track of the poison running through your blood. The adventure sheet includes a drawing of a body divided into 24 separate pieces, and as you make your way through the quest you are at times instructed to mark off one or more of these pieces. Should you ever get to the point where you have filled in all 24, then you immediately die from the poisoning you suffered from the assassin's attack in the prologue. These kinds of "running out of time" elements I find don't usually work very well, as in Slaves of the Abyss where you are given far more time than you need, but here I thought it was allocated about just right. I did find myself dying from the poisoning in one playthrough, and came close to doing so in a few others as well. The key here is to avoid combat or anything physically strenuous, as taxing your body in such a way speeds up the effect of the poison. Admittedly, this is probably counter-intuitive to most actions players will likely want to take, so you have to be willing to suffer the consequences if you want to do things such as teaching some greedy trolls a lesson for example. Still, I enjoyed this aspect and how I could suddenly find that I had taken much more poison damage than I had anticipated, and thus began to wonder if I would have enough constitution to make it through to the end of the adventure, which helps to keep the tension high.
Once you have gathered as many medallions as you can get your grubby hands on (which ain't gonna be many), you finally head on to the capital city of Sharrabas, where the evil Chingiz awaits, and where the medallions must be brought should you wish to see your goal of becoming the next king achieved. As good, but not great, as I felt the adventure was up to this point, here is where it all starts to tail off. I once referred to another FF author, Robin Waterfield, as "Captain Insta-Death" due to his books seemingly having a ridiculous number of such fates. Well, I think I'm going to have to start referring to Luke Sharp as "Captain Blue Balls", because once again he builds anticipation by making you believe you will need to carefully hunt down and obtain a well hidden and tough to get group of items (the medallions) in order to win through the adventure, but then you eventually learn that these aren't even required! He also did this in Chasms of Malice, by suggesting you would need to track down and kill all the Khuddam warriors in that adventure, even going so far as to list all their names on the Adventure Sheet so that you could have the satisfaction of crossing them off as you take them out. He does the same thing in Daggers of Darkness, by providing a list of all the clans who hold the medallions on your Adventure Sheet, making you think you will need to plot out how to obtain all of them. In both cases, these are great ideas. But also in both cases, it is all rendered moot during the endgame, and you can just skip them all should you desire. (And you would probably be better off in doing so if you are trying to win, even though it would rob you of many of the better sequences in the adventure).
Navigating the city of Sharrabas itself is interesting and fun enough (what Lord of the Rings fan will be able to resist investigating the Prancing Pony Inn?), but the final fortress sequence is a bit brief and anticlimactic. If you don't have enough (or even any!) medallions, you can still win, you just need to play a random guessing game where you are provided with nine different reference numbers, and you get to pick two of them to turn to. Three of these lead to instant death, while the other six confer some sort of special ability upon you. These special abilities can be very powerful, with "The Power of Fortune" and "Invulnerable to Sword Strike" standing out. And one of them in particular, "The Power of Storm Bringing", even allows you to completely bypass the most difficult final fight of the book, against the Skill 11 Stamina 14 Necromancer, should you go in the right direction. The reveal that Chingiz is actually not the evil baddie you should be concerned about is a nice touch and a twist I didn't see coming, but then this is betrayed to a degree by having the final confrontation of the book come down to a simple choice, where it is telegraphed beforehand what you are supposed to do. I was a bit let down by this ending sequence, as I felt it ultimately didn't live up to the initial promise of the adventure.
Another aspect of the book I felt wasn't the best is the writing. It is certainly serviceable and gets the point across, but this is yet another book where Sharp struggles to convey a sense of atmosphere in many places. And although I do give him credit for the handling of the various clans, it is initially stated that there are other Select out there trying to obtain the medallions, and it would have been nice to have had more interactions with some of the other contenders for the throne. It also isn't made all that clear if the new king is declared from the Select who obtains the most medallions, or the one who gets to the throne first. Seeing as how you don't need any of them, I'm guessing this was just a straight up race to the fortress then. Additionally, he also far too often has a random roll decide what happens as opposed to using some form of stat check, which can become very frustrating when you know exactly what you need to do, but keep failing a 50/50 chance roll. Most glaringly, one of the tests you undertake in the adventure (the Korkut test), involves you starting on one side of a 7x7 grid of squares, with poisonous snakes on some of the squares, and you must make your way to the other side of the grid without losing all your stamina or being bitten by the snakes (if you get bitten 3 times, you die). But then in a strange bit of design that brought back memories of the Horn of Hever hunt from Masks of Mayhem, how you proceed across the grid is determined by random roll. Brutal.
The cover of this book does though deserve special mention. I mean seriously, this has to be the most "heavy metal" cover to any gamebook I have ever seen! There is so much going on here it almost defies description (but only almost, as I'm going to describe it anyway). We have a bald barechested guy (who for the longest time I thought was Chingiz) with eye-patch and killer mustache, wearing spiked kneepads and wielding a nasty looking mace in his left hand and a deadly hawk at his right, and he happens to be.......WATER SKIING ON TWO SABRE TOOTHED TIGERS! Oh and let us not forget the not-so-subtlety large tiger cod-piece to top it all off. All this cover is missing is a nuclear explosion going off in the background. Heck, why not TWO nuclear explosions? This is such a wonderful piece of absolute over-the-top badassery, I can't help but to completely love it!
Ranking: After Luke Sharp's previous entries in the series (Star Strider and Chasms of Malice), my hopes were not high for this one, but this is a vast improvement, and overall I had an enjoyable time. My biggest criticism is that the best part of the adventure, hunting down the medallions, is rendered almost meaningless at the end. The writing also isn't the best and some of the design choices can annoy, but it also has an original story as far as FF books go, and gives you a great many areas to explore and try out new options. The ending I felt was a letdown, but there really is quite a bit of good content to go through before you get there. I have this neck-and-neck with Rebel Planet in my rankings, and while that book is much better written, I have to give the tiebreak to Daggers of Darkness for having more gameplay elements and paths to experiment with. Mr Sharp is on the way up, let us see if he ditches his fascination with rolling doubles in his next adventure!
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36. Armies of Death - Score = 5.2 Tier = OK
Attempts to Beat: 18
Fighting Fantasy co-founder Ian Livingstone returns with this effort, his series leading 11th entry, and the results are........well, not so good. The adventure starts out decently enough, as we find out that this is a direct sequel to one of Livingstone's earlier books, Trial of Champions. At the conclusion of that adventure, our character had just won Baron Sukumvit's deadly contest and walked away with the prize of 20,000 gold pieces. As Armies of Death opens, we learn that we are playing as that same character, and since winning that earlier contest, we have decided to spend our hard earned money by building a castle and hiring a small private army made up of exactly 100 Warriors, 50 Dwarfs, 50 Elves, and 20 Knights. (Elves don't really seem like the type who would be "for hire" but whatever). Our reason for assembling this force is in fact a noble and altruistic one, as we have learned of the rise of a Shadow Demon called Agglax who is amassing a force of his own off to the east, presumably to conquer Allansia (big surprise). We therefore take it upon ourselves to defend Allansia from this threat, and open the adventure by marching out of Fang with our army, heading eastwards to confront him.
You are initially given two options as to how you wish to proceed eastwards in seeking out Agglax, as you can either travel by land, or take a ship captain up on his offer to sail you up the River Kok. (Could anyone who played this when they were 12 years old not read that name without sniggering?). There were some interesting encounters along both routes, and I was enjoying trying them both out to see what they had to offer and which route might allow me to pick up more troops for my army. This is another aspect of the adventure that quickly becomes apparent, as you need to keep track of the numbers of your forces, and you can possibly find more troops to hire along the way and add them to your existing force, or conversely you may end up losing some of your army through bad luck or poor decision making. Unfortunately, you eventually learn that a key item is contained along one of the routes, and once you do, you have no choice but to abandon the other path. This seems rather careless, and it could have easily been fixed by having this item (which is not what I would call unique), available on both routes, or even at a later point in the adventure. I wouldn't say this is a huge deal, but it is something of a shame, and more importantly would serve as a harbinger of more carelessness to come.
And boy, after that initial promising opening, do the problems with this book ever come fast and furious. Let me count the ways:
- Skirmish Battles - This adventure comes with its own system for fighting mass battles between a group of your troops and a group of enemies, and it's shockingly poor. I suspect this was based on an idea that Livingstone first had in Island of the Lizard King, where you are at one point given an exact number of Dwarven soldiers that you have freed from the mines, but then never brings it up again, and he finally decided to resurrect the idea in this book. There is a grid provided here in the rules section where you roll one die, and depending on which side has more total soldiers with them between you and the enemy, you deduct the amount of soldiers indicated based on the result of the die roll, and continue doing this until either your force or the enemy force is reduced to 0 soldiers left, with that side obviously losing. This mechanic is surely one of the laziest and pointless systems I have come across. The grid is so incredibly weighted in favour of whichever side begins with more troops, that each fight is almost a foregone conclusion before you even begin. In fact, in all my playthroughs of the book, not one single time did the side that began the skirmish with more troops ever lose the battle. That could have saved a lot of time, effort, and needless death in the old days if that is how battles were fought. Just count up the soldiers on each side, and whoever has less can just go home. You also never fight with your full force in these battles, usually bringing along between 15 and 25 of your troops to confront an even smaller enemy group. Something really cool could have been done with all this, but Livingstone couldn't be bothered to come up with anything remotely smart or interesting, and this whole system feels like it was drawn up in less than 5 minutes.
- Troop Units - Related to the problem above, are all the soldiers created equal? Are Dwarfs, Elves, Knights, and Warriors all worth EXACTLY the same in battle? Apparently so. While in the city of Zengis, you can hire a group of expensive mercenaries that are supposed to be particularly lethal and "worth the money". And although their leader can come in handy later, the mercenaries themselves count for just the same as everyone else in your army. There are a couple of places where your Elven archers are specifically used, but you should always have them anyway so I'm not really sure what the point of this was. Whenever you are told that you lose troops outside of battles, you often get to pick from which unit they come from, so I would think everybody would have them come from the Warrior pool. There is even an encounter later in the book against a group of Fire Imps that seems impossible to lose. I'm not sure the troop count matters anyway, as there is a check near the end of the book where you need to have at least 100 soldiers left or it's game over, but you should easily have this amount every time. I don't think Livingstone properly crunched the numbers on all of this.
- Gold - So after buying your castle and raising your army in the prologue, you set out with 700 gold pieces still left over to spend as you go along the quest. You are probably thinking you will need to plan carefully when it comes to how you spend this, be it on more troops or on various items at the pawn shop in Zengis. But nah, you basically have a blank cheque here and you have more than enough to buy everything and everyone you come across. Even the very first time I entered the pawn shop, with a heavy purse and knowing that at least one of these random items would likely prove to be essential, I just said "screw it, I'll buy everything". I don't think Livingstone properly crunched the numbers on......oh forget it.
- Zengis - While I actually enjoyed several encounters within the city itself, its design is quite shallow. You move along a very straight path and are repeatedly asked "do you want to go in here or walk on?" Probably the strangest encounter in the whole book also occurs in Zengis, when you seek shelter for the night at an inn called "Helen's House". When you walk through the door of this inn, it feels as if you have been transported back to a country club circa 1950's Earth, because you are immediately regaled with sailing stories by some kind of retired yachtsman who is now running the inn (did he kill "Helen" or did she flee out of boredom?). He has some important information, so you need to listen to his dumb stories, but this whole sequence felt extremely out of time and place to me.
- The Starstone Caves - Ok, so this is an area that you have to visit in order to consult an oracle so that he can tell you how to defeat Agglax, and it could have been a nice addition to the adventure in having to navigate through these caves, solving some puzzles and fighting some creatures before you are able to find him. Unfortunately though this is all ruined by your guide who tells you exactly how to get through the caves unscathed and make it to the oracle's chamber. And it's not like this guide is hard to find either, and you are in fact advised to seek him out earlier in the quest (and there is a good chance you would find him yourself anyway). Waste of a totally good maze here then. The problems don't end there though, as we get to cue up a rather ridiculous sequence....the oracle himself. This guy is an ass. So you need to have gathered several items which he wants (I thought just the act of making it to him proved that you were worthy of his help?) and you also need to remember the price you paid for some of them! I had these prices written on my map already when I drew the pawn shop, but this came across as very silly. After you finish your visit with the oracle, you proceed to leave the caves. But first you must get past a Skill 9 Calacorm who is guarding the exit. The Calacorm will let you pass without a fight should you have a golden seal that you could have obtained earlier. So how do you get this golden seal and thus save yourself having to go through this fight? By having to defeat a Skill 10 Shapechanger when you were in Zengis. So, in order to get the item allowing me to bypass the mandatory Skill 9 creature, I have to go out of my way to take on the optional Skill 10 creature? Nice planning there.
- Agglax - And we have a new contender for lamest series villain. Once you gather up all the necessary items and defeat Agglax's forces with your army (and the means by which you get the enemy forces fighting among themselves was quite clever, if slightly obvious as a choice of options), he then turns tail and just bolts. I'm surprised he didn't try the old "point at something imaginary behind you" trick before making a run for it. The means by which he is ultimately defeated when you catch up to him is befitting for such a weak villain, as what you need to say in order to banish him is cringe inducing.
- The brooch - I saved what I felt was far and away the worst part of the adventure for last. It turns out that the whole fate of Allansia hinges on a completely ridiculous bar bet about what glop of jam a fly is going to land on. You have a 50/50 chance of winning this bet determined not by a stat check, but by a random roll, and should you lose this, it then becomes impossible to beat the book. This has to be one of the stupidest moments in the Fighting Fantasy series so far. I failed this roll several times in a row even after I had discovered where everything else was that I needed to get. This is fairly early in the adventure too, so what was I supposed to do then? Just stop playing because I lost this silly bet? Which glop of jam a fly lands on determines the fate of the world. That is some serious "butterfly effect" level shit.
So in spite of all of the above, why do I give this adventure a (barely) passing grade? Well, it does one thing really well that I almost always enjoy, and that is a grand old item hunt. And boy is this ever an item hunt in spades. There is a long list of things you need to collect, both in terms of items and information, and while many of them are quite silly in nature, I still enjoyed uncovering everything I would need to beat the adventure (with the exception of the incredibly ridiculous brooch). I realize some players may not like this style, but it is always a good time for me when I get near the end of an adventure and realize I don't have a required item, so then need to carefully pore over my map and try to deduce the most likely location of said item. (Even though that "most likely location" part is often seriously put to the test). I also need to give Livingstone credit for something else, and that is his ability to craft that good old fashioned Fighting Fantasy atmosphere. It isn't nearly as good here as some of his other books such as City of Thieves or Deathtrap Dungeon, but it's still an overall positive for the book. He is particularly good when it comes to creating atmosphere within cities, and even though Zengis is basically a straight line as you travel through it, he makes it come to life and puts several interesting encounters here.
Ranking: I believe I can sum up this book in one word......"half-assed". (Or is that two words?). This score might actually be a bit generous considering the adventure's problems, but I couldn't bring myself to go any lower as I did get some enjoyment out of a few areas. The Skirmish Battle system was definitely not one of them though, and I don't know why Livingstone even bothered. This is two sub-par books from him now in a row, and incredibly he seems to be the only gamebook author whose output appears to actually be getting WORSE as time goes by. It feels like he doesn't really give a crap if his adventures are any good or not, and has no interest whatsoever in "honing his craft". Should I be holding out hope for a rebound in the future? I will keep my fingers crossed as I know he has a few more books left for me to go through. Armies of Death though is easily one of his poorest efforts so far.
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37. Portal of Evil - Score = 7.6 Tier = Good
Attempts to Beat: 3
Peter Darvill-Evans steps up once again with another highly enjoyable adventure, and his knack for writing good gamebooks is already apparent after two books. This adventure begins by having us play as a well known adventurer who decides to take up a call for help sent out by a mining town (Kleinkastel) in the land of Khul that has been experiencing a rash of disappearances of its citizens. Miners in the nearby camps have been going missing, sometimes along with their whole families. Not only that, there are also reports of strange unidentifiable beasts roaming the forests. We learn not too long after arriving in the area that apparently some of the miners dug too deep in their search for gold, and uncovered some form of ancient evil which has now been unleashed upon the land (this seems to happen to miners a lot in fantasy doesn't it?) This setup reminded me very much of "Mine of Torments" from The Legends of Skyfall series, and I have to confess that the "people are going missing" angle is one of my favorite openings to a gamebook thanks to the sense of paranoia, tension, and mystery that usually goes along with it, and that is no different here.
The book opens by giving us a couple of options on how we wish to investigate what is going on. We can head toward the town of Kleinkastel to check in with the man who wishes to hire us, or we can just head east into the forest and see if we can scout out the situation ourselves first. And boy, you really have to be careful on what you do here, lest you miss out on a vast amount of the adventure. However, if you play your cards right, you will be taken on quite the journey as you: aid a group of miners hiding out in the forest; travel through dangerous terrain in seeking out a reclusive wizard; participate in a tournament to become the champion of Kleinkastel; help a crazy old man with his alchemy experiments; join with a group of Goblins who are having their home attacked by the mysterious invaders; get captured by a group of zombified forest elves; have a mental battle with the insanely evil titular Portal; aid a tribe on the other side of the Portal in rescuing their captured queen; and defeat the grotesque wielder of the Portal's power before destroying the Portal itself. And yes, this is all as incredibly fun and epic as it sounds.
There are various helpful items scattered all throughout the adventure, and as usual it is good fun determining which ones are needed to help bypass which obstacles, although most of them are not essential (unlike the previous book). The ones you will likely want to look for however, are the ones that help you in your fight against the Portal, as this is the most challenging section of the book. As far as all the different sequences in the adventure goes, taking up arms alongside the group of Goblins who are under attack was a well done set piece in its own right, and I always like to get the perspective of one of the races of creatures that we are usually fighting against. Thanks to the mysterious invaders, there is a "we all have to hang together, or we will all hang separately" atmosphere at play among the various races of Khul here, which leads to this uneasy truce between yourself and the Goblins. I will say that the encounter with the zombified forest elves was a letdown, as you are thrust through this sequence with barely a chance to have much effect on anything. The tension here is kind of ruined too, because you can at one point earlier in the adventure pick up a Potion of True Seeing, which will allow you to see the true appearance of the elves when you first encounter them. But should you not have this potion, you are told what is really going on with them a couple of sections later anyway. Oops! There is also a riddle contained within this forest elf sequence, where you are told by a magical elven spirit that should you be able to answer the following riddle, you can turn to the section number indicated by the answer and escape. The riddle in question goes: "If numbers were letters, my number would be in "Left" but not in "Little Soft Felt Elf". I stared at this for the longest time, but for the life of me could not figure this out. Fortunately you don't need to solve it, as you can easily escape from the elves by other means, but I found this riddle one heck of a head-scratcher, and I still don't know the answer.
If you have read my other reviews, you can probably predict what my biggest complaint about this book will be based upon the number of attempts this took me to beat. And yes, it's once more the difficulty level, as much like with Stealer of Souls, this leans too far to the easy end of the spectrum. The adventure is also constructed somewhat like Darvill-Evans' previous entry, Beneath Nightmare Castle, in that it is quite possible to defeat the book while at the same time missing huge chunks of some of the best stuff. Right at the start of the adventure, should you decide to head off into the forest on your own, you can find yourself bypassing not only the whole sequence that involves finding the wizard who lives on Lake Mbluz, but you can also completely skip over the whole tournament that takes place within Kleinkastel. True, you will also miss out on some helpful items if you do this, but you still have a fair chance of winning, which would be a massive shame as you would miss out on a lot of really good sequences and encounters that the book has to offer, and you could find yourself beating the adventure in record time, and then probably wouldn't think too highly of it. With the exception of this, the design is good, but nothing special, and there are no new mechanics brought into this book. Skill, Stamina, Luck, Provisions and Gold is all you get, and at a time when I am expecting some new ideas to come along with each adventure, this was slightly disappointing. It is a more than solid item hunt though, and the attacks by the Portal that you must endure can be mitigated by finding all the right goodies, which are fun to track down.
This book also stands out for its thickness on my bookshelf next to the other Fighting Fantasy titles (particularly the much smaller Armies of Death), and this added description throughout the whole adventure is put to great use by the author. There is also a map of the area of Khul you are travelling through provided at the back of the book, which is something that has been going on for several entries in the series now (although up until now they have been at the front of the book), and I wonder if this was something that the series decided to pilfer from Lone Wolf. In any case, I always like these world maps as they are fun to look over and imagine what could be going on in all the nooks and crannies of the land.
I found the story overall to be really strong, with the exception of the dinosaurs, which I don't feel fit into Fighting Fantasy very well. I also have to ask, how does my character know the names of all these dinosaurs, and how they went extinct millions of years ago, if they never existed on Titan? I also have to admit that I had a problem with a particular encounter that occurs near the end of the adventure. This happens when upon joining a tribe ("The People"), I was informed I needed to take part in a dinosaur hunt, and strike the killing blow to the chosen beast. I was then led to a Triceratops who was just minding her own business and guarding her eggs, and I then had to slaughter her. Being the hero, I was convinced the right course of action here would be to refuse to do this and challenge the customs of the tribe, but no, I am reproached if I try to do that, and am forced to kill the poor beast anyway. Thanks for making me feel like a total jerk!
It must be said though, that the writing really elevates this book. And even though I would classify this as a fantasy adventure, Darvill-Evans is proving to be one of the best "horror" authors of the series, as he completely nails those aspects of the book. There is a wonderful "body-horror" element to the adventure, in that if the Portal cannot bend your will and turn you into a slave, it will physically reshape your body in various ways, most likely turning you into some kind of dinosaur beast. The final villain that must be defeated in the book, Horfak, is a former miner who had a particularly awful mutation, as his head has become extremely large and bulbous, with his features similarly stretched out and grotesque. It is also a bit unusual that the main villain of the adventure is the Portal itself, which is not actually the final battle of the book, as you must withstand it before you get to Horfak. However, this encounter and fight with the Portal itself is fantastic. At first I wondered how a Portal could be evil. Surely what came through it could be, but wouldn't the Portal just be the means of transport? By the end of this confrontation though, Darvill-Evans had me convinced. And I love how it is never explained what exactly the Portal is, or who put it there. It is portrayed (portal-trayed?) as an incredibly ancient evil, having existed for eons, and it is much more effective to leave its origins and motivations up to the imagination of the reader.
"Yep. Here's your problem. Someone set this thing to Evil."
Ranking: Easily in the good tier, and I put in slightly ahead of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, but just a hair behind Appointment With FEAR and Caverns of the Snow Witch in my rankings. I could have done without the dinosaurs (I think having more body-horror victims like Horfak roaming the lands would have been better), and an increase to the challenge level would have been appreciated, as only playing it 3 times I am sure there was still some good stuff I never got to see, which is unfortunate. The adventure is pretty basic with its mechanics too, but overall does a nice job with everything that it does give you. This is an above average entry thanks to it being a fun exercise in exploration, along with having an interesting story and top notch writing. Just make sure you seek out the wizard on the lake and then head to Kleinkastel, or you will be cheating yourself out of a lot of what the adventure has to offer.
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38. Vault of the Vampire - Score = 9.3 Tier = Great!
Attempts to Beat: 10
After having very much enjoyed Keith Martin's debut entry, Stealer of Souls, I was looking forward to Vault of the Vampire to see if he could build on that solid foundation and perhaps provide me with a great adventure, and boy did he ever deliver! The story here begins by seeing us playing as the usual wandering adventurer, and has us travelling to the wintry and mountainous region of Mortvania due to rumours of great wealth and treasures there, which we hope to somehow get our hands on. Upon arriving in this remote region, we quickly learn that the area is under the sway of the evil Count Reiner Heydrich, who frequently kidnaps people from a nearby village and does heaven knows what with them up at his castle. In this village, we are beseeched by some of the townsfolk to rid them of the Count and also rescue the most recent kidnapping victim, a young girl named Nastassia, in exchange for a gold reward. We accept of course, and thus begins the quest.
I have to confess, after reading the prologue to this adventure I was seriously worried, as it is very silly. It begins, as stated above, by having you travel to the mountainous land of Mortvania (so Titan's version of Transylvania. They always have to end these in "ania" don't they?). I know this adventure is supposed to take place on Titan, but this might as well just have been set on Earth, and in a scene straight out of "An American Werewolf in London", you enter a tavern called "The Slaughtered Lamb" "The Hart's Blood", where when night falls the doors are barred and the windows are boarded up, presumably to keep out some sort of terrible evil that roams the area at night. This begs the question of how all the locals are going to get home later, as presumably they don't all live at the tavern, but whatever. You then ask the innkeeper about the origin of the tavern's name, and are met by shocked gasps, silence, and even someone spitting at you. Then proceeds an extremely odd exchange with an old woman about how ignorant you are, because the name is "Heart", not "Hart", and she literally spells it out for you. Ok....that might make sense if you were writing your question out, but wouldn't I be asking this question verbally? And wouldn't those words sound the same if you were speaking them? And wouldn't my character have read the name off the sign out front anyway, which according to the woman has since been changed to "Hart"? The old woman then goes on to use yet another spelling of the word by calling it " 'eart's Blood", (I was hoping that my character would call her out on this...."A-ha! You said it wrong too!") and at this point this is basically becoming a comedy routine.
But the above isn't even the silliest part. That comes when the door bursts open, (not much point in barring it was there?) as a strong wind blows through the tavern, and a headless horseman stands in the doorway, beckoning to..... you! The patrons in the tavern do not seem as bothered by this as you would expect, and I was wondering if this was a normal occurrence, and the townsfolk all just turned back to their drinks. Heck, maybe the horseman just got off a shift and was coming in for a drink himself, and he was pointing at you because you are sitting in his usual spot. Of course, drinking for him would be difficult because, he has no head as the book tells us. This is all a bit too Halloween cartoonish, and the silliness even continues into the first section, as while the horseman waits for you in his carriage, you can choose to just walk past and ignore him! Awkward! I was surprised that was even an option. What does the horseman do then, just sit there with his thumb up his butt thinking "Gee, no one has ever done that before. Now what the hell do I do?" Although, I guess he can't think that, or anything for that matter, because he has no head! And not to beat a dead horseman here, but should you choose to get in his carriage, he will actually take you right up to the front gates of Count Heydrich's castle, which is exactly where you would have ended up had you decided to take the presumably much more dangerous path through the forest. I get that apparently somehow the Count knows you are coming and it is possible to be attacked in the carriage, but should you avoid this, the horseman is actually helping out someone who is trying to kill the Count by taking them right to the front gate and dropping them off. Unless he really wants the Count to be killed, which is a possibility considering the motivations of some of the other castle inhabitants, and if that was the case I wish we had more backstory on the horseman. I am probably overthinking this far too much. ANYWAY.......
Thankfully, my fears after this opening were quickly rectified, and the rest of the adventure from here on out is an absolute corker! Once you make it to the castle's gates, by either travelling through the forest or having the horseman drop you off out front, then begins a wonderful exploration of this two-story castle. You make your way through the various rooms that you would expect to find in such a location: hall, library, lounge, dining room, laboratory, kitchen, bedrooms, etc. (By the way, why do we almost never come across bathrooms in these lairs? I can only guess that the image of the big bad villain sitting on the shitter isn't something the authors want the readers to be visualizing as it would take away some of their mystique. I know it takes away some of mine). In any case, as you explore all these rooms you learn that not all of its inhabitants are evil, as there are several people present who are essentially living under the Count's thumb (including his brother), and would like to see him disposed of themselves, and therefore are ready and willing to provide you aid. Additionally, you discover that it is not just the Count you have to worry about, as his sister Katarina is just as evil and dangerous as he is, if not more so. You also learn that there are many items scattered throughout the castle that would be incredibly beneficial when you finally take on the Count, such as holy water, crucifix, magical swords and armour, and more. There are a couple of boring zombies here and there, but other than that the encounters in the various rooms are all great and I had a really fun time mapping out the castle in my quest to obtain as many of the helpful items as I could, in anticipation of a difficult final battle against the Count. Once you progress far enough, you learn that the Count can normally be found in the crypt underneath the castle, and you must then head down there to confront him. Incidentally, I don't believe the word "vault" is used anywhere in the book, although the word "crypt" sure is, and I wonder if the author intended to call this "Crypt of the Vampire" until realizing that name was already used in the Golden Dragon series.
The adventure contains a new mechanic called Faith points, of which you start with a random amount between 4-9, and you can gain or lose these points throughout the quest should you either perform some inspiring action, or conversely, have some demoralizing event befall you. You will be called upon to test your Faith stat at various times in the adventure, with the result usually determining if you need to fight some sort of creature should you fail, or the creature not wishing to challenge you due to your high level of confidence in your righteousness should you succeed. You will also need a high enough Faith score before you can defeat the Count at the end, which makes perfect sense and is what I was hoping would happen as it rewards the seeking out of these points, which in turn encourages exploration. A minor quibble here would be that I wish you were just told at the beginning that you started out with a set number of these points (I think 5 would have been good) instead of having them be a random amount, because should you roll up an initial score of 8 or 9 here, many of the checks become too easy, which removes a lot of the tension. There is another mechanic presented here in the form of Afflictions, which are various diseases that can be picked up along the way should you be bitten by any such creature who carries said disease. Should you find yourself with one of these (Lycanthropy seems to be the main one), you are instructed to mark it down, and it could come into play again later depending upon how events play out.
In something extremely similar to what Martin did in Stealer of Souls, right at the very final stage of the adventure after you head down into the crypt, you can acquire several spells which can aid you in the end game. There are 6 possible spells, of which you get 3, but in a change of pace from that previous adventure, you do not get to select your spells and they are instead awarded at random by rolling a die and taking the corresponding spell with the indicated number until you have your 3 unique spells. Usually I prefer being able to choose such spells myself, but the more I thought about it, I think having it done randomly might actually have been the better way to go, as it helps to keep each playthrough fresh, and affects your tactics in the final battles. All the spells are viable, with some perhaps being more desirable than others (I was fortunate enough to get both the Shatter and Forcewall spells on my winning playthrough, without either of which I'm not sure I would have won), and I enjoyed the anticipation of seeing which spells I would get, and if I would have to fight that blasted Major Thassaloss again (the Shatter spell allows you an automatic victory over him), so I would call this late-game inclusion of a spell system a winner once again.
Once you have obtained your spells (and it is possible to miss them completely and still win), and have dealt with the Count's final bodyguard in the above mentioned Major Thassaloss, you are finally ready to confront the Count and his sister Katarina with the adventure on the line. And boy is this ever a fantastic final sequence! This is one of those excellently done multi-stage final boss fights, where you are given several ways to weaken and attack the Count based upon any of the various items you may have collected as you made your way through the adventure (spells, holy water, garlic, crucifix, mirror, stake, etc). Once the Count is finally defeated (and he is tough!), you still are not done though, as now you must take on his evil sister Katarina, who while not a vampire herself, still poses a significant threat. It turns out that she is the one having the people kidnapped from the village, and uses their blood to keep herself looking young. (Gruesome!). It is suggested earlier by two different friendly characters, Gunthar and Lothar, that should you be able to defeat Count Reiner, they should both be able to step in and take care of Katarina. I kept waiting for them to show up to take her down, but the double-crossing bastards never appeared! (Do they show up to take care of business in any of the other avenues of the adventure I wonder?). That's ok though, as I didn't want to be robbed of the opportunity to take down Katarina myself, which you get to do in a satisfying final section that sees her flesh melting like the guy from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and you then escort the still alive kidnapped girl back to her village. Really great stuff all around here!
While I don't feel that Martin's writing is as strong as Darvill-Evans' from the previous book, he still does a better than average job with the atmosphere within the castle. There is some nice tension as you make your way through all the rooms and meet the various denizens, both good and evil, with the encounters you have with Siegfried, Doktor Pieter Faustus, the Baobhan Sith, and Katarina standing out as highlights. And as with most horror themed gamebooks, this would be a great entry to play on a dark and stormy night.
If you want to say that the story here is unoriginal, well, you got me there. Heck, it's not even original just for a gamebook never mind taking into account how many times this plot has been used in various other forms of media. That said, there is a reason why this kind of story works so well, and Martin capitalizes on this to full effect in what I would call using a great setting to maximum advantage. The horror themed gamebooks have proven to be some of my favorites, and while hunting down and killing an evil vampire in his own castle is something I have done several times already in my playthroughs (Crypt of the Vampire, Master of Ravenloft, and Dracula's Castle), the concept is so insanely atmospheric and fun that I am not sure I would ever get tired of it (although you could in fairness say it is just a modification on the kill-the-evil-wizard-in-his-lair style of quest). For me at least though, it is the setting, atmosphere, and encounters that give it an edge over the more numerous fantasy-style entries.
Any niggles I may have about the adventure are relatively minor. While I was pretty harsh on the prologue, it makes up such a small part of the experience that it was quickly forgotten while playing. I did find it odd though that you start the adventure with no gold. What the heck were you going to pay with at the tavern? I also thought that one really important item in particular, the crucifix, is just flat out handed to you by a friendly character, and is right along the only way to the upper floor of the castle, so it would be hard to miss. Because you only need one of either the crucifix or the Shield of Faith to defeat the Count, this makes the dangerous acquisition of that latter item (where you need to defeat the Baobhan Sith) unnecessary, which is too bad because it is a great encounter. You also need to destroy two of the Count's three coffins while exploring the castle, which again seems like it would be hard not to do, as two of them are not hard to find at all. I'm not sure the Afflictions, which are a great idea in theory, work that well either, as most of them seem easily avoided, and I even found myself getting one of them (the Curse of the Bat), that never came up again. Was this used anywhere? You are also I think provided too many provisions to start the adventure, which only serves to make stamina loss between combats a minor inconvenience. I know 10 provisions seems to be the standard starting number for most FF books, which is why I assume this number was used, but more often than not this feels like too many to me, especially here when you can also pick up items such as stamina-restoring brandy and a healing potion. Ok, so maybe I had a few more niggles than I first thought, but that just goes to show how much I was enjoying the adventure, as the majority of these were not front of mind while playing, and only when looking back did I think about them.
Ranking: A no-doubt classic for me, and Keith Martin enters my Hall of Fame with this one! Granted, I am partial to the horror themed books to begin with, and the exploration of a haunted castle is probably the best possible setting I could hope for, and design wise it fits right into the FF wheelhouse as it pertains to mapping, which I love to do. I don't think all the mechanics necessarily work that well (the Afflictions and the coffins), but I was having so much fun making my way through the castle that I didn't really notice, and therefore care. I can't say it is as quite as good as another horror themed book, House of Hell, but it's closer than I would have expected, and it just edges out Slaves of the Abyss to move into my current top 5 in the series. The biggest strengths are: the Faith system, which for the most part is well implemented; the great atmosphere and pacing of the adventure, as something interesting is constantly going on wherever you go; and of course the fantastic final boss battle(s), which for me are up there with The Citadel of Chaos and another vampire themed book, Master of Ravenloft from the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" series as one of the best I have experienced. All of these final battles have something in common that makes them stand out, and that is in providing you several approaches and ways to deal with the villain, which is something I hope gamebook authors will do more of. As I understand it, there is a sequel to this adventure, Revenge of the Vampire, and I find myself looking forward with great anticipation to playing that one, if just to revisit this particular part of the FF world. Great job Mr. Martin!
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39. Fangs of Fury - Score = 7.4 Tier = Good
Attempts to Beat: 5
With his previous entry in the series, Daggers of Darkness, being one I actually liked for a change, I wondered if author Luke Sharp would be able to keep that momentum going, and was pleased to find out that indeed he does, with what I feel is his best book. This adventure begins with a well written prologue that sees us playing as a rank-and-file soldier stationed within the fortress Citadel of Zamarra, with it currently under siege from an attacking force of orcs. The orcs are commanded by their leader, Ostragoth the Grim, who in turn serves the evil wizard Jaxartes. This evil wizard has been waiting for the moment when all twelve good wizards of the "Mage Order" were finally all present in the same location to launch his attack, as he believes that their elimination will allow him to conquer the region of Khul, where the adventure takes place. Zamarra's best defense against this siege are the Dragon Sentinels, 6 large dragon statues positioned around the walls of the citadel that channel fire from a distant volcano known as the Fangs of Fury, which causes the statues to spew forth this fire against any encroaching enemies. Problem is, the statues are not currently channeling this defense mechanism, and it is surmised that Jaxartes has found a way to block the flow of fire from the volcano. Thus, the assembled wizards, which include Astragal (Luke Sharp's version of Ian Livingstone's Yaztromo), have infused an artifact (resembling a small torch) with their powers, in the hopes that if it can be cast into the volcano the fire will once again be channeled through the statues, and the besieging orc army will then be obliterated. The wizards seek a lone volunteer for the quest (why do they always want only one guy to go on these missions?), and because this person will need to sneak through the siege lines and get away towards the volcano that lies to the north, they cannot ask one of the more famous knights of the kingdom, as they are too well known and could be recognized. So, like an idiot, you volunteer for the quest, are given the magic-infused artifact, and sneak away towards the volcano to hopefully reignite the statues and save the day. Hmmm. So we are given the title of "Torchbearer", tasked with casting an artifact into the fires of a volcano in order to save the day, and are told to take extra care because "black cloaked figures" have been spotted along the roads, and the volcano is likely to be guarded by "Fell Beasts". This all sounds strangely familiar somehow...I just can't put my finger on it.
So after making the extremely brave and magnanimous gesture of volunteering for this incredibly dangerous and seemingly suicidal mission, what do these ungrateful wizards do? They fit you with a bracelet that glows every time one of the 14 walls protecting the citadel has fallen, and should all 14 walls fall, (thus presumably spelling defeat and death for all within the fortress), the bracelet will automatically kill you too! What a bunch of assholes! Therefore, as you proceed through the adventure, you will be told at various intervals that the bracelet is glowing and to mark off on your adventure sheet that one of the walls has fallen, and should this happen 14 times, it's game over. This doesn't really make a lot of sense. Wouldn't just even one of the walls falling allow the orc army to pour in? I'm just imagining this large force standing around the edges of the fortress that already has 93% of it's walls destroyed but no, they can't enter until that last section falls dammit! To be honest though, I found this to be another one of those time keeping mechanics that doesn't really lead to anything, as I never came close to marking off all the wall sections anyway.
Before you set out, you are advised that you will need to acquire Black Cubes as you travel toward the volcano, and Astragal even gives you 4 of these cubes before you leave. These cubes allow you to pass through areas of great heat by absorbing the heat themselves, leaving you unscathed, although the cube itself is destroyed in the process. Pretty handy to have inside a volcano I would say. You don't know what to expect when you arrive at the volcano so you are advised to gather as many of these Black Cubes along the way as you can. This could have been interesting, but unfortunately they are handed out like candy. You often find a handful of them at a time, and I routinely found myself with around 20 or so by the time I made it to the Fangs, which proved to be much more than enough.
However, perhaps the most original and fun aspect of the whole book comes in the form of another type of cube you might come across, those being White Cubes. You are not told anywhere before you begin the adventure that you might need these and that you should be looking for them, heck you aren't even told they exist. There is a particular section where you can be told about them, but this is easily missed and you may find yourself making it to the end game and then being asked about these White Cubes and have no idea what they are talking about. The gathering of these cubes is meant to represent your level of "enlightenment", and the more of them you have when you make it to the volcano, the easier your final trial will be. How you find these cubes is the original thing though, as they are in fact contained within the illustrations of the book. So when you come to a section with an illustration, you need to play a bit of "Where's Wally?" and see if you can find any White Cubes drawn anywhere. If you do, then you get to roll one die and take that many cubes. This is a great inclusion, and the fact that it is not explained anywhere in the rules adds to it, as you need to learn all about them on your own. My only complaint is that I wish they were a bit better hidden in the illustrations, as many of them are front and centre, but it still makes it worthwhile to try and find all the artwork in the book, which is a big plus.
But, on to the actual quest itself, the design of which is where Sharp's style has really improved with each book he writes. You begin by first having to escape through the orc siege lines, and as with most areas of the adventure, are given several viable ways to do this. You can try to bluff your way through posing as one of the human slaves of the invaders, or attempt to find a boat and row clear of the fighting as the citadel borders the sea, or perhaps even try to fight your way out. After getting clear of the siege, you begin your trek towards the volcano, and have even more ways to do this, and can find yourself travelling through villages, forests, plains, and along roads, each with their own set of dangers and secrets. There is also a coded alphabet that can be learned in one of the villages that can aid you by allowing you to decipher various messages you come across, although whether you are able to learn this alphabet or not is left up to total random chance, as it involves one of those mini- games that Sharp likes to use where you must move from one side of a grid to the other, with rolls of the dice determining all your moves.
Once you start to get closer to the volcano, more dangerous enemies start to appear, as at this point Jaxartes now knows who you are and that you are coming to reignite the fires which power the defensive statues. He begins sending Dragonmen and Fire Demons after you (where the Black Cubes will come in handy), and will try to trick you with various illusions. This is all pretty good stuff, but then......we get to an underground section just before entering the volcano, and the adventure grinds to an absolute halt. There is a maze here that you need to explore, and within it find 6 different stone blocks, each with a number inscribed on it, and you need to add all 6 numbers together to be able to get to a hidden reference and thus leave the area. So far so good. The problem is, this has to be one of the most boring and tedious mazes I can recall travelling through, at least in a long time. No compass directions are given as you pass from chamber to chamber, you are just given an option from anywhere between 1 and 6 numbered exits, and then have to pick one. So you really have no choice but to map this by section number, which always sucks. The chambers themselves are also completely devoid of anything of interest, as you find yourself circling round and round empty rooms until you have mapped out every section number and know which sections contain the blocks, and which one is the exit. Criminy.
After that nightmare though, you finally are able to proceed into the depths of the volcano itself, and into a well constructed end game where the White Cubes finally come into play. There are seven different paths that you can take to make it to the final chamber which you need to get to in order to ignite the volcano, and where Jaxartes also awaits. Which of these seven paths you take is determined by how many of the White Cubes you were able to gather from the illustrations, and the more of these cubes you have, the easier the path you are allowed to take. Although strangely, what should be the easiest path contains a drawn out combat against some decently powered foes. However, this adds a good level of replayability, as you could take it upon yourself to try to beat the adventure using all the different paths (although that is probably asking too much). You also aren't completely locked out from winning should you have no White Cubes at all, or not have any idea what they are when you get here. (Just make sure you keep your Stamina level high as there are some do-or-die Stamina tests along the toughest path). And while the final confrontation with Jaxartes isn't anything special (you don't even need to fight him), I thought the various paths towards him was a very nice payoff in regards to these White Cubes, and encourages you to go back and explore more of the adventure should you be having trouble on one of the lower level paths that lead to this final chamber.
Like several of the FF books recently, this entry also contains a map of the area in which the adventure takes place on the inside front cover of the book. At first I attempted to use this map to help me make decisions as to which way I wanted to travel when confronted with options (isn't that the point of a map?), but it didn't take long for me to realize I would need to ditch that strategy, as the map doesn't appear to jive with what is going on in the story. For example, when escaping the citadel via the underground tunnels, I was told I emerged on the east side of the fortress and found myself facing the Bay of Sharks. Except looking at the map, the Bay of Sharks is on the WEST side of the citadel. Other times I would be given the option to travel through a forest, over a plain, or along the road. But there was no real indication of where I actually was when making this decision (there appear to be several forests on the map, which one am I being asked about?), so don't expect the map to help you there either.
I also have to say that I don't think Luke Sharp is one of the better authors in the range when it comes to his prose. I thought the prologue here was well done and felt like some care was put into it, and that it was miles better than the awful intro contained in Chasms of Malice, but after that, his descriptions are very bare, and he also seems to have an odd turn of phrase at times. He has had a problem when it comes to the creation of atmosphere throughout most of his books, and this one is no exception. He has you racing from location to location in a rapid fire manner, so what could have been interesting and fleshed out locales flash past at breakneck speed, with very little time to build any atmosphere or to allow the player to soak it all in. I also had wondered in my Daggers of Darkness review if his fascination with rolling doubles would continue with his next book, and boy does it ever. Is this some kind of obsession with him? He tries to hide it here by often asking you to roll one die several times and make note of the sequence of numbers, then roll one die the same number of times again, and then check to see if any numbers in the two sequences match. This is functionally just the same as asking you to roll two dice several times and make note of the amount of doubles you get. You aren't fooling me Luke! This dude has a "Jones" on for rolling doubles. And on a final note, did anyone else happen to notice that this book was dedicated to Jake and Elwood Blues? I wonder what's going on there.
Ranking: Overall, a good bit of fun and Luke Sharp's best effort in my opinion. Yeah it has a fair amount of issues, the maze is a disaster, the bracelet mechanic doesn't really amount to anything, the cube idea is 50/50 (black = boring, white = innovative and fun), and the writing is not on par with most other FF entries (and that is probably being kind), but the sheer amount of things to try and areas to explore is quite impressive, and Sharp is very good at hiding interesting and useful items and information in places you wouldn't expect, which makes it worthwhile to try everything you can even if you think you already have a successful route to the end mapped out. Unlike a lot of FF books, there are many different ways to beat this one, and thus the replayability level is on the higher end for the series. In the rankings, I have this neck and neck with Stealer of Souls, and while that book is far better written, I give Fangs of Fury the tiebreak for now as it provided more total play time and had a bit more "meat on the bone", although there could be some recency bias at work here too. A while ago I didn't think I would ever be saying this, as after his first couple of entries I would have said he was my least favourite FF author, but in a way it's a shame that this was Sharp's final book, as he was at least trending upwards.
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40. Dead of Night - Score = 9.4 Tier = Great!
Attempts to Beat: 8
Whoa! This I wasn't expecting. I try to go into each book knowing as little as possible about it, but still, I usually hear things one way or the other regarding most of the books beforehand. Dead of Night was an exception though, and I can't recall reading anything about it at all before playing it. That usually means it will end up being a middling effort, but that was far from the case with this book, as I found this to be a truly great entry in the series. The set up alone to this adventure is fantastic and quite original for the range, as we get to play as a famous "Demon Stalker", who travels the Old World area of Titan, banishing demons wherever you find them. Because we have been so effective at this, we have incurred the wrath of the Demon Lord, Myurr. With the Demon Lord planning an invasion of the Old World by creating a portal to the Demonic Plane, and having become sick and tired of us meddling in his affairs, he decides to take the gloves off and make things personal. Myurr does this by kidnapping your parents (after first making you believe they have been murdered) and bringing them to his Old World base of operations high up in the Cragrock Peaks. Thus, the trap has been set, as he knows that you will have no choice but to come after them. The prologue here does a wonderful job of making you feel like the "John Constantine" of the Old World, the scourge of demons everywhere, and the revelation regarding your parents sets a great ominous tone for the book.
The adventure provides some additional mechanics to just the standard FF stats, and the one that easily works best is the "Talents" system. This works very similar to the "Discipline" system found in the Lone Wolf series, by giving you a list of 7 different abilities and allowing you to select 3 of them. These abilities include: Banish Undead, Dark Veil, Heal, Holy Circle, Meditation, Sense Demon, and Speak Demon. All throughout the quest, you will be asked if you have a certain Talent, and if you have the one in question, it can lead to encounters playing out in different ways, or allow you to find hidden items. I had a great time experimenting with all of these, and found all of them to come in handy at one time or another, so I believe authors Jim Bambra and Stephen Hand did a nice job of balancing these out, with the possible exception being Holy Circle, which seems a bit more powerful than the others as it can allow you to bypass some enemy encounters entirely.
The other new addition is the "Evil" points system, with the idea behind this being that every time you do something not fitting of your supposedly holy demeanor, you can be awarded one of these points. Should you also wish to take and use the Dark Veil talent, it is made clear that this ability involves giving the demons a taste of their own medicine by using their own demonic arts against them. The tradeoff to this is that being the Templar that you are, this will taint your soul, and you will be forced to add Evil points should you wish to go this route. At a couple of select moments within the adventure, you will then be asked to test this Evil stat, with failure proving disastrous. However, I don't think this mechanic necessarily works all that well, as if you choose to play as the holy character you are made out to be, you shouldn't have too much trouble avoiding the adding of these points. I also didn't find the tests of this Evil stat to be all that onerous either, so to me this was another included stat (much like the various Time stats from other books) that didn't seem to add all that much to the adventure.
I had mentioned in my review of the previous book, Fangs of Fury, how unreliable and almost useless the provided map on the inside cover of that book was. Well, that is corrected here and then some, as the provided map for this adventure is one of the more interesting, useful, and flavorful maps I can recall seeing in a gamebook. You begin in your hometown of Crowford, located on the bottom of the map, and need to make your way north through the Glaydon Forest towards the Cragrock Peaks located at the top of the map. You have several different routes you can take to get there, with each route passing through several different villages. Each of these villages are dealing with the demon invasion in various ways, and you will need to help out the townspeople residing in these villages that lie along your chosen path. The towns indicated on the map include:
Crowford - Your hometown and where you begin the adventure, arriving in the first section in search of your parents. In something that wouldn't be out of place in a movie such as "Poltergeist", you immediately find yourself confronted by either a scarecrow or a skeleton brought to life by demonic forces, and while not posing a challenge to bypass, the wonderful atmosphere that runs all throughout the book begins here and never lets up, as you find your home village beset by some kind of curse, with horrible screams emanating from the graveyard after sunset. I did find it a bit easy to dispatch the Blight Demons responsible for the state of the village, as one single passed Luck test will see you killing them both instantly without a fight (using just a shovel no less), but seeing as how this is the opening of the adventure, I can let this slide.
Weddonbridge - Should you visit this village, you will enter at night and find the townsfolk holed up in a building under attack by Moon Demons, as the villagers just attempt to survive until dawn when the evil creatures will be forced to retreat, and the villagers can then escape south. The sense of foreboding here along with the desperation of the townsfolk is wonderfully brought to life by the authors, and while not difficult to survive, is still a tense and exciting sequence (which is something that can be said about almost all of the set-pieces in the adventure).
Colton-on-the-Marsh - A predictably damp and dreary village that is currently under the thrall of a necromancer living in the swamp just outside town. This necromancer, Magrand, is an agent of Myurr, and needs to be killed in order to rescue the people of the town. I was a bit surprised at how weak Magrand's stats actually are (Skill = 6, Stamina = 6 isn't exactly the stuff of nightmares), but in all fairness you can find yourself in a Test-Your-Luck death spiral against him as well, should you find the dice not being kind. You also risk encountering him again along the road north should you not be able to stop a Moon Demon Mage from reanimating Magrand into what is supposed to be a more powerful incarnation of himself, yet he still has the same low Skill score.
Astonbury - A village beset by plague that to my knowledge cannot be reached, as when I decided to press on into the area I found myself getting the plague also. Still, there is an extremely helpful individual located on the outskirts of this town so it is worthwhile to head this way, and this is where the layout and traversal of the map allows you to do this without missing out on some of the other interesting encounters on offer in the book.
Axmoor - In what is easily and literally the most "fleshed" out location of the adventure, you arrive in this village to find it completely destroyed, with only a living organic building remaining where the village once stood. This sequence gave me "Silent Hill" flashbacks, and sees you needing to successfully navigate the building and destroy it by sabotaging its actual beating heart, and then attacking the Death-Stone that is powering it. I thought the determination of whether you are able to destroy the building to be great, as much depends upon not only the items you may have, but what actions you may have taken earlier. Really good stuff all around here.
Stanford - Another really good sequence (should you choose to participate that is) and one of the more creative ideas in the adventure. In this village you are approached by a local farmer who begs you to aid him in defense of his farmhouse, as demonic skeletons have been attacking farms in the area each night, and he believes his farm is next. Agreeing to help him, you are met by a "Night of the Living Dead" mini-game, where you are provided with a great illustration of the inside of his house, and are introduced to his family, of which he has a wife and daughter. The map of the house shows all the entry points, both windows and doors, of where the skeletons may attempt to enter, and it is up to you to decide who among the four of you will guard which entrance to the house. I took quite a bit of time strategizing about how and where to employ everyone, ultimately deciding to have the farmer and myself guard the two doors (who would have thought the wife with a rolling pin would actually turn out to be more formidable than the farmer with an axe!), and to have the daughter guard the window closest to me, as she would be the one likely to need the most assistance. It is a bit unfortunate then that where the skeletons ultimately decide to attack is determined completely at random, and which characters you choose to have next to each other doesn't factor in either, thus rendering your careful planning moot. This then doesn't make it all that much different from the random Luke Sharp mini-games seen in his books, with the large exception that Sharp usually has a dry and boring grid, while this farmhouse sequence is so fantastically laid out and flavorful that the random nature of it is all but forgotten. Still, this comes so close to being one of the best sequences in the whole series, that ever since finishing the book, I have been trying to come up with ways to have your deployment of everyone within the house have more meaning without losing the random nature of the skeleton attacks (which would need to remain to some degree, in order to keep you from putting everyone in the same spot on every playthrough).
Dunningham - The final village before heading into the mountains, this town has been all but taken over by Myurr's forces due to its close proximity to his fortress. You begin by encountering a trickster that will give you a random piece of information that includes both truth and lie, and it is up to you to determine which is which. You must then navigate the streets, avoiding orcs and the "Baleful Eye" that projects from a tower and sweeps the village looking for you like a searchlight. The gold you have been collecting throughout the adventure can be put to good use here in bribing your way past orcs, and the tower itself must be dealt with in a very specific way should you wish to proceed. Once the tower is destroyed, you travel underground, and following the advice from the trickster, you have a chance to locate a very powerful sword that you will likely need should you wish to have any hope of defeating Myurr in straight up combat. There was an odd transition here though, where I chose to step on one side of a set of scales, received a stat boost, and then found myself on a trail somewhere else. At first I thought I may have been sent to the wrong section, but apparently not, and I think this section could have been made a bit more clear as to where you were. In any case, after leaving Dunningham you finally find yourself approaching Myurr's headquarters in the Cragrock Peaks.
Cragrock Peaks - I have to admit, this isn't one of the stronger areas of the adventure, but every area of the book up until now has ranged from great to fantastic, so you can't have everything I guess. This location is chock full of random choices. There is an initial decision to be made about a sigil upon a door that unless I missed some information elsewhere, seemed like a 50/50 proposition to me, with the consequences from picking wrong seeing you lose all your items (ouch!). From there you enter a "red herring chamber", that preys upon the natural curiosity of gamebook players by providing several things to investigate that lead to death (come to think of it, this might actually have been a deviously brilliant move by the authors in that respect). You then move on to a completely pointless maze through different coloured rooms, with almost all of them having nothing happening in them, until you happen to stumble upon the exit and continue on. I have no clue why this maze is here, and it's a shame the multiple sections used for it were not put to better use elsewhere in the adventure. Moving on, you ascend a ridiculously tall tower and finally confront Myurr sitting on his throne for the final battle, which I will discuss later.
The really great thing about traversing this map is that you don't just select one of the 3 different initial routes heading north and then are stuck on that line, but that you are often allowed to travel laterally between villages as well. And while you can't backtrack down roads, this does allow you to possibly criss-cross the map and enjoy and investigate much of the fantastic stuff contained within the book. The writing of Bambra and Hand is also fantastic, and the atmosphere they create as you trudge along muddy roads in driving rain, witnessing all manner of destruction that the invading demons have caused, along with the suffering of the people, is second to none. There are even several great encounters that occur outside of the villages mentioned above, including a hidden cave that can only be found by finding a hidden section number, but then having it revealed to be a trap! This would actually go a long way towards explaining the ease by which you are able to defeat the earlier Blight Demons, as they were apparently sacrificing themselves to implement the evil plan. There is also a visit to an old friend of yours, Sharleena, a witch who lives off the road within the forest. The fate of Sharleena caught me off guard in its horrible abruptness, and I have to admit I sure wasn't expecting that. Additionally, there is an encounter with some peasants along the road who are burying a friend of theirs who had committed suicide, and you can help them by ensuring this friend doesn't rise to become a member of the undead. While I'm not totally sure why this person committing suicide would have them turning into a vampire (doesn't another vampire have to do that?), the fact that someone committing suicide at all was something I don't recall experiencing in any of the prior books (although I could be forgetting something), and is an early indication that the authors will certainly not be afraid to touch upon dark and depressing subject matter.
With one exception, any negatives I have about the adventure are minor, and didn't impact my enjoyment of it to any noticeable degree. As mentioned earlier, the Evil points system (at least in my experience) didn't factor into the quest at all, and had me questioning why it was even included. It also seemed to be unevenly applied, as for example you can choose not to aid the farmer in Stanford, and are then admonished for being selfish (as you listen to the screams of the farmer and his family being burned alive no doubt), but you are not punished with any increase to your Evil score. I mean, if you aren't going to punish me with Evil points for that decision, then I don't know why you ever would. I also wish there had been more of a personal connection to your character and that of your parents. You seem to be out to rescue them just because they are your family and that's all you need to know. I don't recall ever uncovering any personal information about them anywhere in the book, and for all I know they could have been a deadbeat dad and an abusive mom. It wouldn't have taken much either, even just a couple of flashback passages, perhaps with your character remembering a poignant conversation with your father on a fishing trip as a youngster, or a recalling of a fond memory involving the love of your mother, and it would have given me a much more intense and personal motivation for finding and rescuing them. (Although perhaps something a little more touching than the sage words of advice my own father gave me, which were...."Son, whatever you do, never get married.") As it is, they could have been a couple of strangers, and I still would have felt compelled to rescue them in the manner I did, because I am supposed to be a noble and holy warrior. Again, not a big deal, but something I would have liked to have seen fleshed out more. I also appear to have a strange copy of the book, as my book has the pages containing sections 24 through 27 inserted after the page containing section 41. Maybe I have an extremely rare and expensive edition!
There are very few difficult fights in the book, therefore the challenge comes from avoiding the instant deaths and solving the puzzle of where to go to find the items you will need to defeat Myurr, who is indeed a difficult opponent. Or at least, he should have been. The only real negative I can complain about is a certain aspect involving the final confrontation and battle with Myurr. Initially, I felt this fight was perfectly balanced and laid out. Myurr has very high stats (Skill = 14, Stamina = 25), which he should, being a Demon Lord, and he also gets two attacks per round as opposed to your one. However, you can power yourself up by finding certain items earlier in the adventure and give yourself a decent chance, as it also should be. The book unfortunately though gives you a chance at an instant "I win" option, as you are given a list of 6 items in the room where the battle is taking place, one of which is the hiding place of a gem which allows Myurr to remain in your realm. At the start of any round in the fight, you can attempt to uncover this hiding place, with an incorrect choice leading to a Stamina point loss, and a correct choice meaning that you defeat him immediately. My first and only time fighting Myurr, I found myself in a very intense battle, flinging my remaining Holy Water to wear down his Stamina and trading blows with him using my magic sword. He would eventually wear me down too though, and on the brink of defeat I decided I had nothing to lose by trying one of the 6 items, and lo and behold I chose the correct one, winning on the spot. So while the battle played out in a very exciting manner for me personally, I could just have easily picked that item on my very first action in the fight, and won in seconds. (And I wonder how many players did this). This also means that I now know how to beat him instantly every time from now on. I suppose this doesn't make it any different from books like The Citadel of Chaos, where once you know what to do you can pretty much always win, I just felt that in this case it could quite easily make this particular battle extremely anti-climactic for some.
Ranking: This is what I call nailing your debut entry, as this is the first FF book from either Bambra or Hand, and was an easy Hall of Famer for me. I would have liked to have perhaps seen a couple of more difficult encounters mixed in, the final sequence was a bit of a let down (with the Myurr battle having an unfortunate blip), but the phenomenal atmosphere of all the various situations you find yourself in and must overcome throughout the adventure cannot be overstated, and I don't think I've played a book that realizes this aspect so well since House of Hell. There are additionally interesting individuals and encounters everywhere you go, which makes exploring incredibly rewarding. In my rankings I have this book just below House of Hell, and neck and neck with Talisman of Death, which was another adventure that caught me by surprise with how great it was. For now I would give the tiebreak to Talisman due to it being a bit more challenging, but I spent so long going back and forth between the two trying to decide, that on any given day I could end up flipping them in the rankings. Either way, this is another excellent adventure in the series which has been on a roll with these last 4 books.
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Hall of Famers chronologically from books 31-40
32 Slaves of the Abyss
38 Vault of the Vampire
40 Dead of Night
Three more for my Hall of Fame! After a bit of an overall rough start, this group sure ended with a bang! In fact, in looking back on the series, I think that the stretch of books 37-40 (Portal of Evil, Vault of the Vampire, Fangs of Fury, and Dead of Night) might just be the strongest run of 4 books yet. Of further note, this run marks the end of the Fighting Fantasy books published in the 1980's, with Dead of Night the final entry from 1989, and I find myself looking forward to what new innovations the 1990's might bring. For me personally, I always associate the beginning of the 1990's as being when I left childhood, as 1990 was my first year of high school, and when I began leaving things such as comics, action figures, and gamebooks behind for what I felt at the time were more adult pursuits (like girls). I have since gotten back into all of these previously abandoned hobbies, which goes to show how little I knew back then!
I pretty much lost interest in FF after this one and never bought another with the exception of Vault Of The Vampire.
ReplyDeleteOf course since then, I have acquired and played every book in the original series.
Being cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming adventures, especially Steve Jackson's.
Well considering how great his last book was, the pressure is on Steve now!
DeleteBattleblade Warrior is probably the most "ok" book in the series. I thought Laskar was quite interesting though - it was a bit of a twist to have the wise mentor be the villain. There was some speculation on Facebook that the hero is actually a villain and Laskar has come to realise Telak is genocidal which is why he turned against him. Good food for thought.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm guessing this isn't one you come back to a lot? I think a big twist ending where it's revealed that you were actually the villain all along would be fantastic. I wonder if any of the FF authors would be allowed to go that route though even if they wanted to.
DeleteSlaves of the Abyss definitely has some of the best world-building in the series. It's quirky and unsettling yet not without a sprinkling of humour. It's also pretty fair (those 2 counter-intuitive decisions aside - I only worked those out by noticing illustrations on sections I hadn't been to yet!)
ReplyDeleteBut the linearity of this just kills it for me. To me, a gamebook should be about branching paths and nearly every decision in this book either gives you an essential clue or item or just spirits you on to the next stage without these things. If it were a dungeon adventure it would be one long corridor. I think the only substantial encounter off the main path is the compulsive liar (which is actually a pretty amusing sequence). I think you hit the nail on the head when you mention the "illusion of choice".
I think the forest section really hammers this point home. Instead of three mutually exclusive sequences to choose between, you have to do them all.
A lot of the content also seems a bit pointless. The foxglove thing is clever but it's so easy to find thst you're unlikely to have any issues with the forest. You're almost certain to have worked out you need Sige's Pomander before the book ever checks for it. Not only in the Time record pointless, it makes no sense as rushing to your destination often ticks off more time boxes than dawdling does.
I still like the book for its undeniable positives but I find it hard to see past its flaws.
I'm glad it wasn't just me that had trouble finding The Spitting Fly. I have to admit being a bit irked when I finally found it. Presumably Barolo is having a bit of fun with you when he comes up behind you, so I really don't know why he wouldn't help you out in either case.
DeleteI'm not against linearity myself as long as I am taken on a fun ride in the process. I can't really argue with anything you've said here though and you make several good points.
Did you ever find yourself making it to the time box where the hornet guy appears? Is it even possible? That whole thing was a shame as it could have been really cool to have him keep showing up to attack you at various intervals, with you driving him off then him coming back a bit stronger each time. It could have built up a nice feeling of tension if you knew another more powerful attack from him was imminent. Oh well!
I think the idea is if you disarm Barolo, he's impressed enough to consider you worthy to learn the move.
DeleteNo, I have never come close to meeting the hornet guy. I don't know if it's possible. I certainly doubt it's possible to do and still win the book. A very missed opportunity.
" and while reading it I could picture myself sitting in some ancient dusty library, quaffing a flagon of ale as I searched through its pages looking for some valuable information to aid me on some important top secret quest. "
ReplyDeleteFunny enough, Gandalf does EXACTLY that in the first
Lord Of The Rings movie !
Agreed about Slaves of The Abyss, its first rate in every way including the striking cover art. However, said cover is a tad misleading, giving the impression of another sci-fi adventure instead of fantasy. ( which it clearly is )
The title logo is very similar to the poster for The Black Hole movie. Bythos resembles a refugee from Mad Max and the floating prison reminded me of the Phantom Zone from Superman. Who spotted the Riddling Reaver lurking near the bottom ?
Yes the cover makes sense if you've read the book, but it doesn't really tell you much about what is in store for you otherwise. I have to admit that I did NOT spot The Reaver! Good eye!
DeleteRe Sky Lord's vehicle combats, did you perhaps miss that your Shields reset to their initial level after a combat? Just wondering as you mention losing to the auto-drone which isn't that tough.
ReplyDeleteHey Kieran! Yes I was aware that your Shields reset after a combat, and I actually really liked that rule. My win rate was much higher against the Auto Drone (probably around 85%) as compared to the Redneck (around 20-25%) But during that stretch of 18 attempts I lost to the Auto Drone a couple of times in there so I decided to include it.
DeleteIf the vehicle combat hadn't been so stacked against me, I still wouldn't say the book was good, but I would have likely ranked it ahead of Starship Traveller (not as unfinished and lazy as that book felt) and Chasms of Malice (not as boring as that book).
Ah OK, just thought I'd check as I know at least one person missed that rule!
DeleteYeah I think I would agree on Sky Lord - I wouldn't say it's the worst book in the series but it's not far off!
Not just the worst book in the entire series but the worst cover also !
ReplyDeleteIts no coincidence that this was the last SF entry in FF.
The yellow cover draws the eye at least!
DeleteNice to see Stealer get a bit of love, most seem to be largely indifferent to it
ReplyDeleteMaybe because it seemed too easy, did you find that also? Otherwise it feels like classic FF to a "T".
DeleteYeah it is one of the easiest books in the series. There's very little that you have to do to beat it, particularly if you start with a high Skill. Although it's unlikely, you can actually end up seeing almost everything the book has to offer in a single playthrough which isn't great for replayability I guess.
DeleteI totally agree with your assessment of Stealer - a big part of its (considerable) charm is that it harks back to the best of the first ten. (The surprisingly gory Russ Nicholson illustrations don't hurt either.) That said, it is a weirdly conservative way for Keith Martin to announce himself, given the extent to which his innovations would reshape the series. Have you looked at his first attempt at IF, in White Dwarf? That is much closer to his signature style, albeit saddled with the unnecessarily baroque Warhammer 40K game system.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I am too familiar with White Dwarf, although I would like to check them out if they contain mini-adventures. Hopefully they are not too expensive seeing as what 80's gamebooks and magazines go for these days though! I will have to try and track down the Keith Martin one at least. Thanks for the heads up!
DeleteNo problem! I think it's issue 106 or thereabouts, although they appear to have restarted the numbering at some point in the 90s or 2000s. It's worth a look if you can get hold of a copy. PS: Kudos also for playing Skylord through a mind-melting EIGHTY-SIX times. That is commitment, my friend. Or masochism.
DeleteThanks! It's probably masochism. Well, that and not having much of a life!
DeleteTalking of gamebook'style adventures in White Dwarf, there's one using the FF system serialised in issues 61-63. I found it overly railroady, but the rules for mass battles are a lot better than those in Armies of Death
DeleteThank you for that also Ed! I will add those issues to my list and see if I can pick them up somewhere.
DeleteI suspect a lot of content from Daggers was cut. There's a lot crammed into some sections and a few places where you're rail-roaded, like trying to catch the orc may have led to a chance to get the Yigenik medallion but it was cut to keep within 400 sections. It's a similar situation if you try to get to Kazalik territory - loads of options but all end with your boat being sank and you having to go on to the capital. There's also indications that both Blindfight and Trefilli may have played a bigger role in an earlier draft. And there is a power that you have zero opportunity to use.
ReplyDeleteI really like how broad the options are in Luke Sharp's books, especially in his latter 2 where he drastically reduced the amount of instant deaths to make exploration much more fun. The only really unfair moment imo is the instant deaths when choosing your powers.
This might be me misremembering, but don't you need Medallions to gain any of the powers making them a big advantage for the final dungeon?
As long as you have even just one Medallion (and you will probably have the Bogomil one) you get to go to the "select your powers" section. But even if you have none you can still win, you just need to navigate a couple of rooms first, and even then as long as you avoid the room with the high powered dragons you should be ok. I was just really disappointed you couldn't get all 6. In fact, and unless I missed a path, I believe 2 is the most you can get in one playthrough?
DeleteI sometimes wonder how strict Steve and Ian (or maybe the publishers) were with the other authors regarding the 400 section count. It would be a shame if a great adventure was carved up just to get down to that number. And Steve and Ian often didn't follow the 400 section rule themselves anyway!
Yeah 2 is the most you can get in any one playthrough and only 4 are available in total.
ReplyDeleteThat line about Helen fleeing her house out of boredom cracked me up! The Tom Hanks guy is actually supposed to look like Ian and apparently Ian is a keen sailor. This won't be the last time he crowbars that hobby into one of his books!
ReplyDeleteWow that is really supposed to be Ian? He wishes! Movie star looks is not something I usually associate with Ian, although I guess I'm not one to talk myself. I can't wait to see how he crams yachting into another adventure in FF. Perhaps that is how you travel to a local Bays Ball game!
DeletePortal is a Top 5 book for me - I love it. It has its flaws - you're probably better skipping the wizard and Horfak's mini dungeon at the end from a gameplay perspective but they're very atmospheric that it seems a shame to do so. And the tournament is more fun if you don't learn how to beat it the easy way buy the book pretty much leads you by the hand to discover the secret to doing so. But this book is just such a great read with so much to uncover that it encourages you to replay non-optimally - something you rarely find in the series.
ReplyDeleteThough I've never worked out the Little Soft Felt Elf thing either!
* but rather than buy
DeleteI also really like the Background - how it talks of gold having so little practical value yet people lust for it.
DeleteSorry, will stop gushing now!
No need to apologize! I enjoy hearing your thoughts on the books as well. Your enthusiasm actually makes me want to go play it again now and explore Horfak's dungeon. Totally agree that it is a great read. I'm surprised that FF doesn't have a book with "Gold" in the title, as it is such an evocative word.
DeleteThanks for letting me know you couldn't get the riddle either. I was starting to feel like I was having a "can't see the forest for the trees" moment and was missing something completely obvious on that one!
Explanation of the riddle: skip the rest of this comment if you want to remain unspoiled.
ReplyDelete'Little soft felt elf' contains the pairs of letters 'le', and 'ft', but not 'ef'. (It also contains 'lf', 'lt', 'el', 'fe' and 'tl', and if you ignore spaces, there's also 'tf' and 'te', but none of those combinations can be found in 'left' anyway).
Change letters to digits using the standard 'a=1, b=2...' code, and what does 'ef' become?
Thanks for the explanation Ed, much appreciated! Yeah, I wasn't going to solve this one no matter how long I stared at it I think. Looking at pairs of consecutive letters was not even on my radar. Even after seeing the explanation, I still barely get it!
DeleteHey John, not that I wish to break up this run of reviews but have you had a chance to play SECRETS OF SALAMONIS ?
ReplyDeleteFor me, it started off in the ' OK ' tier but now I have upgraded it to ' GOOD ' - it might even reach ' GREAT ' in time !
Hey Ed, I ordered them but still awaiting delivery. With the amount of adventures I have yet to play through though it might be awhile before I get to them. Glad to hear it's a keeper! Hopefully this heralds a return to a more full-time role for Steve Jackson, FF really needs him I think.
DeleteThe 'Hart's Blood' thing always bugs me too. Like if the locals are annoyed at people asking about it, why not just change the name? Your verdict on the Headless Horseman made me chuckle.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, Vault is a great gamebook, dodgy background aside. Revenge is actually set in Analand rather than Mortvania though the atmosphere is much the same.
Right? The name has painful memories, so let's change it to a word that sounds the exact same!
DeleteI'm looking forward to seeing how Heydrich gets resurrected in Revenge. Hopefully the Horseman is back for more hijinks as well.
IIRC, the Curse of the Bat can trigger a bad ending if things go badly for you when fighting the Necrotic Jelly.
ReplyDeleteRegrettably, Revenge seems to have missed out on proper playtesting and proof-ridden, and is one of the most bug-ridden books in the series. One of the most egregious errors was fixed in the second print run, but only one, alas.
Muphry's law strikes: 'proof-ridden' should be 'proof-reading'.
DeleteThanks for the heads up Ed. I will have to remember to check online for errata before I start that one, which I haven't been doing with any of the books. Probably saved me from a good deal of frustration.
DeleteAnd yes, not being able to edit your own comment on here kind of stinks.
Your comments about the opening of VAULT OF THE VAMPIRE chime almost exactly with how I felt about the early part of SECRETS OF SALAMONIS but judge for yourself when you get around to reading it !
ReplyDeleteThe latest issue of FIGHTING FANTAZINE has a fascinating article on the late Keith Martin aka Carl Sargent.
I figured the 14 walls in Fangs were meant to be 14 concentric rings so therefore it would be necessary to breach them all. That would be a very big fortress mind!
ReplyDeleteThe maze is definitely dull though it is possible to skip it entirely. It also does represent a real danger of ticking all the walls off if you visit certain sections too often.
I like this one too (I even wrote a sequel for it) but I prefer Daggers - I find it has the stronger concept and writing, more fun minigames, a stronger endgame and much better mazes. I also don't like how easy the white cube thing is to miss completely.
Oddly despite playing this book loads and even writing a sequel for it, and it having a reputation for easiness, I've never actually beaten the thing!
Ahhh they are meant to be rings circling the citadel? I have to admit that never crossed my mind for the reason you stated, as it seems like that would make the fortress crazy huge! Plus the map seems to depict something else (not that the map proved to be very reliable!). Even Minas Tirith only had what, 7 walls? And now I'm surprised Sharp didn't use 7 considering some of the other parallels in the background section (and his Prancing Pony Inn from Daggers). I guess that wouldn't have allowed near enough for the mechanic to work though.
DeleteWould love to check our your sequel at some point. I found it in your signature on the Fighting Fantazine boards. I look forward to trying it!
Hello - I don't know if your blog is still active - I can't seem to organise it by blog posts so don't know when stuff was posted...!
ReplyDelete...but if you ARE still doing stuff, then first I LOVE the blog (just discovered it), and second I have some requests / recommendations...!
1. Riders of the Black Sun. Epic and underrated gamebook. Very well written and well put together, with lots of great ideas and innovations.
2. Heart of Ice. David Morris classic. Considered by quite a few people to be the greatest gamebook ever written, with Art from the Amazing Russ Nicholson. Would be great to get your view.
3. Fighting Fantasy - Howl of the Werewolf, Night of the Necromancer, Crystal of Storms. Not sure if you are going to go completely in order but it would be cool to get your thoughts on some of the notable later entrants. Also Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants.
4. Ace Gamebooks - Jonathan Green's efforts. Bit more complex and longer than the FF ones. Again thoughts would be appreciated!
5. The Inkle! 'Sorcery!' app. Maybe the best digital implementation of a gamebook.
That's probably all for now! Ty for the blog. It's great!
Hi there! Yes still active. Sorry about no dates on any of the reviews, I guess because I am doing them as pages instead of posts.
DeleteThank you very much for the kind words and for taking the time to read any of the blog. I am a bit embarrassed about some of the earlier reviews I did (the first 20 or so FF books for example) as I was completely new to blogging, or writing much of anything for that matter, and didn't really know what I was doing, so hopefully I have at least improved somewhat (even though I still barely know what I'm doing!). I cringe at those earlier ones though and hope to go back and redo them at some point, but I think I would have to play the books again to do them any justice.
Thank you also for the recommendations and I will add any I don't yet have to my list. It certainly is a good time to be a gamebook fan with all the new ones coming out these days!
All good! Great blog as I said.
DeletePlease get more content out soon! Power through all the gamebooks ever made!
I'm sure you won't get sick of them...
Best dude
Those earlier reviews were certainly shorter.
ReplyDeleteLonger and more detailed now for sure !
Yeah I had originally only intended to write a few paragraphs on each book, but, well....lol
DeleteI'm glad you were mostly positive about the 30s books. They seem to be considered the nadir of the series by many fans but I think most are pretty solid.
ReplyDeleteWhat series will you be looking at next?
I've got another stand-alone book I want to get to, then it's time to get "Real" with the Real Life series! Have you played any of those?
DeleteOnly the first one and I don't really remember much about it! So will be interesting to hear your thoughts.
DeleteThere were definitely some high highs and low lows (Sky Lord? BLAH!) in the 30s for FF. One disappointment was "Armies of Death." I was really jazzed about being the commander of an army but it never really came off well.
ReplyDelete