HeroQuest

                                                       RANKINGS   

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1. In the Night Season - Score = 💀💀💀- Three Skulls

Sections: 135
Attempts to Beat: 3

Jeesh, Dave Morris sure was prolific in the 90's wasn't he? At this rate I'd be surprised to find out he had time for anything other than writing gamebooks. The HeroQuest series is a short one, at a mere 3 books, and is based upon the popular board game of the same name. Ahhh HeroQuest. The memories and non-memories I had of this board game. Memories because I vividly remember the commercial for the game in the early 90's, with its muscular barbarian (who I swore at the time was played by the WWF's Ultimate Warrior), and the creepy ending where one of the kids playing the game turns into an ugly orc who reaches towards the screen. The non-memories are because despite asking for the game from my parents for Christmas or my birthday, I never did get it. I was old enough by that point that I probably could have managed to get the money to buy it myself, but I never did that either for probably the same reason my parents never bought it for me, because both they and I knew that I had no one to play it with. As a result, I likely would have just spent my time setting it up and playing with myself in my bedroom. Wait, that came out wrong. Anyway, the point of that reminiscing was meant to convey that to this day I bitterly have never played the board game, so will not be able to say how much justice this gamebook does to the experience. 

The nostalgia is strong with this one. Which is strange because I never actually played it!

With that bit of regret out of the way, I now move on to the book itself. While the cover of the book here shows the title "The Fellowship of Four", that is actually the name of the novella that proceeds the gamebook adventure itself, as this is one of those novella/gamebook combos such as was found in the "Knightmare" series, which was also written by Dave Morris. As with the Knightmare series, I will not be reading or reviewing the novella portion, only the adventure. The adventure here is titled In the Night Season, and the intro tells us that I will be playing here as not one but four different characters, and that I will be in control of a party consisting of a Wizard, Elf, Barbarian, and Dwarf. Doesn't get much more fantasy-generic than that! The intro also suggests that if you can find others with copies of the book, you can each play as one of the characters, although I'm not sure why all of you just couldn't use the same book (I guess this was a sneaky sales pitch to sell more copies). However, as would have been the case in the late 80's and early 90's, I will be playing by myself and controlling all the characters. 

This leads to a surprising amount of initial record keeping when setting up my character sheet, as each of the 4 heroes comes with their own provided values (no randomization! yay!), in the attributes of: Body, Mind, Speed, and Combat. The Body stat is basically your Hit Points, as you can lose these points from traps or being injured in a fight, and should they fall to zero, that character is dead and the rest of the party continues on without them. The Mind stat indicates the character's mental resistance to sorcery. This stat can be tested for any of the characters at various times throughout the adventure, where you roll one die and must roll equal to or under the given value to pass the check. The Speed stat indicates the character's dexterity and movement, and can also be tested in a similar fashion to Mind. The Combat stat indicates how proficient a fighter the character is, and is used in the combat system. Before getting to that combat system though, throughout the adventure you will also need to keep track of your Battle Order, which is the order in which your party advances along while travelling. 

Ok, now the combat system. Should you encounter a group of foes, such as a swarm of bats, each member of your party "pairs off" with one of the foes depending on the order they are listed. (First in your Battle Order vs First enemy listed etc). Should there be more enemies than members in your party, then the first "excess" enemy also attacks the first member of your Battle Order, the second excess enemy joins in on the attack to your second member, and so on. Conversely, should there be more party members than enemies, then any "unmatched" hero can attack any of the enemies he wishes when it is his turn, provided there is room in the combat area to do this (ie. a tight corridor might require a member at the back of your party to sit the fight out unless one of your comrades dies), but you will be told before the fight begins whether there is room for everyone to join in. These individual battles occur in rounds, with you being provided the Combat score and Body Points of each enemy, and each of the fights going on simultaneously. Your hero then rolls one die, and if they roll equal to or under their Combat score, they do 1 Body Point of damage to the enemy. The enemy then takes its turn, and you roll against its Combat score, and if they hit they do you 1 Body Point of damage. Rinse and repeat until one of you is dead. I'm probably making it sound more complicated than it is, as it's rather quite simple, but I did feel like the fights were a right free-for-all, what with multiple individual skirmishes going on all over the place. In addition, both your Wizard and your Elf can forgo attacking with their weapon for a round and cast a one-time use spell instead, with these spells being listed and explained in the rules section. The Wizard has a whopping 9 spells he can use (the Elf only has 3), and they are all pretty cool, varying from Healing to Fire Damage spells. There is even a neat Genie spell, whereby you can call forth a genie who will then grant you one of 3 different boons. Again, these various spells can all only be used once per adventure, and you are meant to cross off each one as it is used. There are also some rules regarding Parrying here (rolling just to deflect an enemy's blow), but having played the adventure, I'm not sure why you would ever bother to do this.  

That's not all to keep track of though, as there is also an inventory system here. The Barbarian and Dwarf come with 3 inventory slots each they can use to carry any items or equipment that your party finds or buys, while the Elf and Wizard only get 2 such slots each. In reality the slots are even less than that though, because as per the character sheet, the weapons each hero is carrying (Bastard Sword for the Barbarian, Battleaxe for the Dwarf, Dagger for the Wizard, and Sword for the Elf) takes up one of their slots! Additionally, the Dwarf begins with a money pouch containing 20 silver pieces, which also takes up a slot. So as a party, you only have 5 empty inventory slots when you begin the game. If you then come across something you want to take with you and have no place to put it, you obviously need to drop something you already have. This was definitely a case of less is more, because the deceptively lower level of inventory space meant I did have to put some thought into what I bought or picked up as I played through the quest, and this can become very important during the endgame.   

The adventure itself kicks off with our party visiting an inn located inside the country of Knochlor, "an eldritch country beyond Blackfire Pass". That means almost nothing to me, and I have no idea if this area is somehow related to the novella, but nevertheless our evening drink is interrupted when a villager comes bursting into the inn and rushes over to some village elders in order to speak to them. Curiosity on your part soon reveals that a girl from the village, Perdita, has been abducted, with an evil local man known as Grim Dugald fingered as the prime suspect. Being the heroic group that you are, you volunteer to go to Dugald's "haunted manse" and rescue the girl. You get the chance to buy some equipment using the Dwarf's money before you leave, and then head off over the moonlit moors.

At this point you are given the option of 3 different routes to take in order to get to the manse, as you can choose to: (a) go through a group of ancient burial mounds (I'm sure nothing will happen there right?), (b) travel along a cart path that goes past a ruined castle, or (c) take a path that winds through some misty hollows. To be fair, something happens along all the routes, and this is probably one of the better things about the adventure, as trying all 3 of these routes adds some replayability to a rather short quest. I found all the paths to be quite interesting, with one in particular involving a pair of ghostly knights locked in eternal combat standing out as a great visual. Strangely, all 3 of the routes also allow you to just bypass their respective "mini-stories" and just go straight to the manse, which would make the adventure feel incredibly short if you ask me. 

When I arrived at the manse itself, I was greatly looking forward to exploring a haunted house, but found the area to be a bit disappointing. You are given the initial option of exploring 3 different areas, as you can go upstairs, search a room on the ground floor, or go down into the cellar. The upstairs option felt the most interesting to me, but selecting it you are just told that the stairway is rotten so you have no choice but to turn around and pick something else. What a tease! You will eventually find yourself needing to go into the cellar, and this is where the adventure turns into more of a typical dungeon crawl, as you find an exit from the cellar that leads into underground caverns. You will need to fight some enemies down here, collect some items, and locate and free Perdita before retracing your steps back upstairs where Grim Dugald is waiting to confront you for the final battle. 

Now, all throughout the adventure you will no doubt have been noticing things like coffins and undead brides, so that you will probably have long ago guessed what Dugald's big secret is. (If the option to buy items such as garlic, holy water, and a silver dagger in the starting village didn't already give it away). By the way, does any seasoned gamebook player NOT know to always take the garlic when given a chance? Anyway, the final battle with Dugald is appropriately thematic, if even 4-against-one seems a bit like overkill. The adventure tries to get around this by giving Dugald very high stats, but in a nice touch, you can lower his stats should you have destroyed his coffin earlier.

In another nice touch, there are a couple of different ways to win, and you don't even need to beat Dugald, as you are given the option of fleeing from him before the fight even begins, and to my great surprise, you can actually do this and still win the adventure as long as you rescued Perdita from the manse, you then just need to avoid Dugald's pursuing ghostly hunters as you race back to the village. You can also choose to fight and destroy him of course, should you have one of the items required to vanquish him for good (as if you defeat him in combat, he immediately starts to regenerate). I won using the destroy him path, but the fleeing from the bad guy and still winning path was something I don't recall seeing before, and I thought this was another nice touch from Morris, if even this path might be somewhat anti-climactic, and requires very little of the player. 

At 135 mostly shorter sections, this is obviously not a long adventure, but even still it felt rather on the easy side. This was even more true once I realized you could bypass quite a bit of it with no harm done, and you didn't even need to defeat the bad guy. I never would have guessed that last part going in however, and it rates as a decent mini-item hunt if you try to gather the things that will allow you to destroy Dugald once and for all. When it comes to the combat though, your party of 4 adventurers is WAYYYYYY overpowered. The Barbarian is a killing machine, almost never missing, and the Wizard with his plethora of powerful spells can make any fight a joke, and even then I think you could win rather easily without using ANY of the spells. The Elf and Dwarf are no slouches either, with a 2 out of 3 chance to hit every time they attack, not to mention the Elf also having several spells he can use. Combine this with the high Body Point totals given to your characters relative to the enemies you face (with the exception of Grim Dugald himself), and I was absolutely pwning my adversaries throughout the whole adventure. The good news is that combats are rather sparse throughout the quest, and this makes sense, as most of them are mass melee battles between multiple opponents that require you to roll dice quite a few times for each round. I did get a chuckle from a visual I had when each hero in my party "squared off" with one individual bat apiece when you encounter a bat swarm!   

I also have to say that his adventure includes one of those "choose failure" options thrown in right at the beginning. I really dislike these as it always feels to me like the author is trolling the readers, but it felt a bit worse than usual here, because the way it is worded, "minding your own business" when the villager bursts in to talk to the elders, didn't seem like that egregious a decision. Maybe I was just playing it cool and waiting for them to come to me? But instead, you will find yourself being severely reprimanded for being such a poor adventurer, and it's game over. (Morris really rips you a new one here). Harsh!

As to be expected from Dave Morris though, it is also very well written, and quite atmospheric in several places. One aspect I found jarring however is that your party is made up of 4 different characters, yet they never say anything to each other! I guess this is supposed to reflect how each of the heroes could be being controlled by a different player who would thus provide their own commentary, but when you are playing this solo, it feels something akin to "creepy". We as a group are facing all these trials and tribulations against horrible monsters and ghostly phantoms, and no one ever utters a word to one another? Just another day at the office I guess! 

Ranking: This is probably a higher score than the review might indicate, because despite some complaints, I still had a good bit of fun here, which at the end of the day is what it's all about. I felt the controlling of 4 different characters didn't work very well, the combat was just way too easy, and while I've always liked the simplicity of one-time use magic spells in gamebooks because I enjoy the discovery of learning the best place in the adventure to use each one, here they felt somewhat extraneous, if even the descriptions of several of them were quite cool. Where it gains points is in the item hunt aspect, the overall atmosphere, and several quite good "mini-sequences" to uncover. All-in-all a decent start to the series for those looking for a "quick fix" adventure, and I look forward to the next one.

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2. Beyond the World's Edge - Score = 💀💀💀💀 1/2 - Four and a Half Skulls

Sections: 148
Attempts to Beat: 10

Holy crap! I'm going to get right to the point. This adventure is great! Before I get into the main reasons why I think that is, the first thing that this entry immediately gets right is that it ditches the whole "control 4 characters at once" aspect, and sees you playing as only one of the characters, the Wizard. In the intro we learn that we are currently apprenticed to an Archmage, Theodosius, who completely vanishes from his manse one day while we are out running errands. Several months go by as we wonder what happened to him and hopefully wait for his return, when we come across a bottle floating just off the shore of the manse one day. The bottle contains a message from our Master, detailing how he went looking for the legendary "Citadel of the Seven Statues", where one can supposedly learn the secrets of eternal life. The message goes on to say that our Master was taken captive and is now being held prisoner inside the Citadel, and tasks us with rescuing him. He was able to use his magical Lucky Bottle to get the message to us, but the iron chains he is bound in prevent him from using magic to free himself. He further tells you where to find a magic carpet inside his manse that will bring you across the great Abyss to where the Citadel is located. With that, you resolve to set out and do as he asks by rescuing him.   

The adventure uses the same basic rules as the previous entry, with you being provided scores in the 4 attributes of Body, Mind, Speed, and Combat, but this time you also have 4 Item slots for your inventory. Being a Wizard of course, you also once again have one-time use Spells, and this time you get to begin with 9 Spells from a list of 12. You can't just pick any 9 though, as the Spells are allocated into four groups of 3, with each group representing one of the elements: Earth Magic, Air Magic, Fire Magic, and Water Magic, and you get to pick 3 of the 4 groups of Spells to start the quest. It doesn't end there though, as you also get to choose from among one of four different Talismans to take with you, with each Talisman granting you a +1 point bonus to one of the starting attributes of Body, Mind, Speed, or Combat. Once you have selected your Spells and Talisman, you are ready to begin. 

The adventure then kicks off with you travelling across a great chasm known as the Abyss on your Magic Carpet. When you make it to the other side, you then begin travelling through jungle, forest, swamp, and plains until finally reaching the Citadel of the Seven Statues where your master is being held. Each area you travel through sees you needing to overcome various dangers, usually to help someone in need. In the jungle you aid an injured man, whereby the two of you then spend the night in an abandoned hut while ghosts who haunt the area descend upon your campsite and you must then fend them off and try to survive the night. In the forest you aid a woman under attack from a River Elemental, who then takes you to her hut so you can spend the night (it isn't what you think, you are only there to rest!), and you can choose to aid her even further by gifting her your precious Dagger so that she may defend herself from attacks in the future. The swamp area sees you needing to cross a lake, which depending on how you choose to do so, can see you battling a dangerous Hydra, needing to escape from Mist Phantoms out on the water, or paying for passage across the lake from a ferryman who demands a high price indeed. The plains area brings on a couple of different episodes, as you first encounter a mysterious building called The Academy of Mysteries where an evil presence lurks, and then later you meet a band of nomads who are currently under the thrall of a strange harpist whose playing is making them all dance against their will. You can choose to avoid many of these sequences, but I would advise against it, as they are all top-notch in their storytelling, and can result in the obtainment of very helpful items or codewords. You then finally arrive at the Citadel of the Seven Statues, where you must outsmart the lords of the Citadel (literally seven living statues), and find a way to free your master, who is being guarded in his cell by a mechanical War-Dog made out of gold. 

Ok, so I am now going to quote myself from my previous review of the first adventure, In the Night Season, below:

"I've always liked the simplicity of one-time use magic spells in gamebooks because I enjoy the discovery of learning the best place in the adventure to use each one"

Well....I couldn't have asked for better here then, because this adventure delivers exactly this in spades! Being a Wizard, your starting Combat score is set at 3, which is rather modest. You can increase this to 4 by choosing the appropriate Talisman to start, which is what I did for my first several playthroughs. It soon dawned on me though that this adventure is not really about combat, even though you will likely find yourself in one or two fights despite your best efforts. This makes perfect sense of course considering your character, and the main thing you will need to learn through repeated playthroughs is the best place to employ each of your Spells. And boy did I need to use every last one of them! During the course of the quest you can find yourself at The Academy of Mysteries, where you can learn from a teacher there the remaining 3 Spells that you did NOT take when you began the game, giving you the full complement of 12 starting Spells. There is also an opportunity to get a 13th Spell, which is a second instance of one of the Spells, the Courage Spell which grants a +1 to your Combat score for one fight, which comes in incredibly useful for those couple of unavoidable battles. 

Which 3 Spell groups you start the quest with is important too and you should choose carefully, as I found myself needing to plan out which of the 3 Spells I could do without until I made it to The Academy of Mysteries and then acquired the remaining group. It's not just the Spells I found I needed to carefully manage though, as my precious Item slots became incredibly important as well. You have 4 of these slots, and when you begin the quest they are already all taken with your Dagger, Talisman, Lucky Bottle, and Magic Carpet. With several different items to collect as you travel along, many of them important, I was routinely going back and forth on what I should keep and what I should drop. It even got to a point where I was experimenting with dropping the Dagger (and if you lose this, you suffer a -1 Combat penalty until you find another weapon), as I felt the best route through might preclude me from leaving anything else behind. In typical Dave Morris fashion, there are several different Codewords that can be found as well, some useful and some not so much, that I also found myself experimenting with as to which ones were the best to take the trouble to obtain.  

Maybe this is just me, but I was incredibly impressed at how well Morris planned this all out, because on my winning playthrough I used every single Spell in my arsenal, with each one seemingly having an optimal usage point. To get past most enemies or obstacles you are given a choice from among anywhere between 2 and 4 specific Spells to select from, where you then turn to the indicated section to see how well it worked, if at all. Each Spell seemed to me to be useful in more than one place, which lead to a great bit of back-and-forth with myself as I debated the best possible place to use each one. One good example of this is the Swift Wind Spell, which allows you to automatically pass a Speed check dice test. Initially I had been using this to get past an encounter with a deadly spider early in the game, but when I eventually made it towards the end of the book, I realized this Spell would be put to better use in a do-or-die Speed check once I had made it inside the Citadel. I then had to re-evaluate the order in which I had done everything up to that point, and find something else to use against the spider. It was then I decided to take the Talisman that increased my Speed score at the start to hopefully help with the spider roll, as at least that roll was not do-or-die. It was this constant re-evaluation of what Spell to use and where, which Talisman to take at the start, and even which Items to take and which to leave behind as I went along, that contributed to making this gamebook such a joy to play. Low and behold on my winning playthrough, I neared the final encounter with only 2 Spells remaining, those being one of those Courage Spells, and also the Water of Healing Spell, which restores up to 4 lost Body Points. And wouldn't you know it, those were exactly the 2 I needed to get me through the final battle. It was incredibly satisfying to then look at my Character Sheet to see every single Spell crossed off, knowing that each one had been correctly employed at a key moment (to my mind anyway). Brilliantly done Mr.Morris!       

The writing here from Morris is also fantastic, and this is helped out greatly by the longer lengths of many of the sections compared to the previous adventure, which allows for a lot more description, which he takes absolute advantage of. Playing as only one specific adventurer also allows for some characterization to be added to the Wizard, and this is taken full advantage of as well, which had me feeling like my character was indeed particularly heroic by the end of the quest, especially should you have aided the people in peril that you came across along the way. It is also a nice wrinkle that your Master is made out to be a real jerk when you finally rescue him, which had me partially wanting to just leave him to his fate. Additionally, sometimes when choosing which Spell I wanted to use in a given moment, I would find myself turning to a section to read a particularly long passage of text that went into great detail on how well the Spell worked in this situation (the Genie Spell being a great example of this). I then clued in this as the likely optimal usage place for that Spell, and "locked it in" on my map to use there in future playthroughs. I thought this was a nice reward for selecting the appropriate Spell at the right moment, although it was still possible to win using the Spell in a different place. 

So did I have any negatives about this adventure? Not really. There are some nitpicks I guess so that I can say it isn't perfect if I wanted to get exacting about it. Maybe the biggest nitpick is that there is really no main villain to speak of, which most great gamebooks usually have. I guess the main big bads are the Stone Statues of the Citadel who captured our Master, but it's not really explained in great detail what their deal is, and from how much of an asshole our Master is made out to be, he likely deserved his fate anyway. The quest is also a bit "fantasy generic" in terms of story by this point in my gamebook experiences, but that seems to be the M.O. of the series as it attempts to tie in with the board game, and thankfully Morris' writing is so good that I can let this nitpick pass. There is also, I believe, a continuity error that can occur should you drop the Dagger before you reach the sequence with the River Elemental, as the adventure proceeds as if you still had it. (I guess Morris never thought anyone would willingly drop the Dagger? This was a big clue that I probably shouldn't be dropping it despite my out-of-the-box thinking). The very final line of the adventure also felt a bit out of place, as it apparently ends with what is supposed to be a humourous line when your Master teleports home without you, ("Teleportation Spells are for wimps!"). That felt rather lame. But hey, it's just one line so whatever. Finally, the adventure is no doubt rather linear, but at only 148 sections I'm not going to hold that against it either, as I saw how short the previous adventure was rendered by having a less linear design, and I also generally do not have a problem with more linear quests in most cases, even though online that description when it comes to a gamebook often seems to be given as a negative trait.  

Ranking: A wonderful adventure and a fantastic experience that I had an absolute blast playing. Figuring out all the optimal places to use the Spells is the crux of the adventure, and the whole thing works as a great puzzle to solve. Dave Morris' writing is once again excellent, and not only is this probably the best written "mini-adventure" I have yet played (and I'm not even totally sure it should be classified as "mini"), I will furthermore say that this is up there with Treasures of the Cursed Pyramid from the "Proteus" series as the best one period. This might be the entry that has me re-think my previous stance of not including these shorter adventures in my personal Hall of Fame, because this would have made it in easily. Really great stuff and highly recommended.

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3. The Treasure of Chungor Khan - Score = 💀💀 1/2 - Two and a Half Skulls

Sections: 193
Attempts to Beat: 5

Well, that sure was a step down in quality, and I'm not sure what exactly happened to have the series end on a letdown like this. Functionally speaking, at least part of it comes from the fact that instead of playing as a sole wizard like the last excellent entry, here we are playing as a sole barbarian character. Now, being a Conan the Barbarian fan, I actually enjoy the barbarian as a fantasy character in general (I mean c'mon, they are pretty badass right?), but as far as gamebooks go, they don't exactly come flush with design possibilities, at least certainly not as much as a wizard. There isn't even really an intro here to speak of, as you begin in section 1 having a drink at a tavern in the town of Runeport one evening, when you happen to overhear a conversation between two ne'er-do-wells discussing a treasure map they have just stolen. Not having anything else to do, and in dire need of some coin yourself, you decide to force yourself upon them, and at this point you can either take them on as your partners, or just steal the map from them outright and continue on yourself. Either way, you get the chance to spend your starting money (10 Silver Pieces) on supplies in the town market before heading off to the location indicated on the map, that being the fabled Tomb of Chungor Khan. 

Remember that great character creation last adventure where you get to pick your opening Spells and your special Talisman? Yeah, there is none of that here, as you are just given your starting stats, told you have 6 inventory slots, a sword, a bow, and 10 Silver Pieces. Now go to it. After that opening sequence in the tavern (which I thought was both very oddly designed and written), the adventure proceeds somewhat similarly to the first adventure in the series, as you are given 3 different routes to take in order to get to the desert where the Tomb is located. You have the options of: (a) travelling through the Swamp of Lost Souls, (b) travelling through a mountain pass between the ice capped peaks of the Range of Giants, or (c) head to the coast in an attempt to find a ship to take you to the fringes of the desert. I won't go into great detail on each of the routes, but as with that first adventure, this is probably the best thing the gamebook does, as each route contains some rather interesting encounters and items that can be found, and trying them all out was easily the highlight of an otherwise so-so experience. I found the route to the coast to be the longest of the 3 paths, but as has become typical in the series, you are sometimes given the option of just bypassing anything or anyone you come across and continuing on your way, which can make for a rather short and boring quest should you take that approach. All 3 paths eventually converge on the ancient stone fort of Tarkesh Varn, which is the last settlement you will pass through, and which lies on the edge of the desert you need to cross. 

After getting one more chance to buy supplies in Tarkesh Varn, you then set out across the desert, which is a very short trip, involving an encounter with a group of Nomads, and then requiring you to pass 3 rapid fire Item checks to survive the journey (Do you have this? Do you have that? What about this?), and that's about it. You then arrive at the Tomb, bypass a group of Lizards guarding it (why would you not have picked up the Lizard Skin that allows you to do this? It's immediately preceding the encounter and seems pretty hard to miss), and you then make your way inside. At this point, I was really expecting this to be a mini-dungeon crawl, but it's just one empty tunnel and then the final room. This final room contains the vast treasure hoard that you hoped it would, but before you can take any of it, you need to defeat one final villain, that being a green-black Serpent that contains the soul of Chungor Khan himself. 

Now, one good thing I will say about this final battle is that there are 3 different ways you can defeat the Serpent and win the game. You can: (1) try and ensnare the Serpent if you have the correct item and then pass a Speed check. (2) Should you have a Gold Mongoose figurine, you can have it fight the Serpent on your behalf, or (3) If you have none of the required Items, you can fight a Draugr yourself, and then pass a Mind check. While I appreciate having 3 different ways that you can defeat the final enemy, I can't help but think that one of the ways is completely botched (although if I've missed something here, I hope someone will point it out to me). This occurs with the second option above, as should you have bought a Gold Mongoose figurine earlier in the quest, and choose to use it against the Serpent, the Mongoose comes to life to fight the Serpent, and you are meant to roll out the battle to determine who wins, with you obviously rooting for the Mongoose. Except here are the stats given to you to use for the combatants:

SERPENT       - Combat 2  - Body 9
MONGOOSE  - Combat 6 -  Body 10

Am I missing something here? How is it possible for the Mongoose to lose this? Because the game system has you needing to roll equal to or under your Combat score on one die, the Mongoose is guaranteed to hit every time AND has more Body Points than the Serpent. I stared at this for a few minutes thinking there must be something I'm not getting (and again. if there is, I hope someone will advise me as such). Maybe the Body Point scores were switched around by accident? If you switch them, it's then at least possible for the Serpent to win, if still incredibly unlikely. Or maybe the Serpent was meant to do 2 Body Points of damage per hit, but that line was somehow omitted? As it stands, I have no idea what the point of this is. Another clue that this combat may have been rushed is that it occurs in Section 192, and if when the Mongoose wins, you are then told to turn to the final victory section at 193. Usually when a gamebook concludes with back-to-back final sections like that, it ain't a good sign. 

The other options for defeating the Serpent aren't very good either. The first one above, where you ensnare it, is rather dull, and involves a single Speed roll. The third option above where you fight the Draugr COULD have been the best one, but the problem is the Draugr comes with stats of Combat=6 and Body=8, which means he can't miss in the fight either. Now, this still could have worked, because with your own starting stats of Combat=5 and Body=8, and with you getting to strike first, part of the challenge of the whole adventure could have been trying to get here with full health, and possibly uncovering the location of the place in the adventure where you can increase your stats (which does exist). However, even if you defeat the Draugr, you still have to pass a final do-or-die Mind check roll or it's game over. Each of the 3 different ways you can beat the Serpent also comes with their own victory section. I would normally assume the one that is contained in the last section of the adventure would be the "optimal" ending, but I'm not sure that is true in this case, as they all felt pretty much the same. You gather up a bunch of loot and head out to live like a king for a while until adventure calls again. I will say that one of the endings, where you ensnare the Serpent instead of destroying it, ends with a strange line...."And with that you leave, sealing the tomb behind you and so ensuring the tyrant's soul will be trapped there for all eternity". For all eternity? Really? How the hell did a barbarian such as myself manage that? A little light on details there! 

Well, that sure was a let-down of an ending, to both this adventure and the series. Despite the fact that this adventure somehow contains the most sections of any entry in the series, this somehow still felt rather rushed to me. One of the reasons for this is that the writing quality also felt like a huge drop-off from the previous adventure. Not only that, but I really did not enjoy playing as the barbarian character presented here. Look, I know that barbarians are not exactly known as the Mensa members of the fantasy world, but did my character have to be made out to be such an idiot at times? The stage is set for this right in the opening sequence in the tavern, where I not only felt like my character was a dumbass, but a bully too. (Threatening to pour beer over the Rogues' map if they won't let you join them? What is this, third grade?). I mean, check out this passage should you decide to attack the Rogues:

"You go to reach for your sword - remembering too late that it is in the weapon rack beside the door, where all good customers are supposed to deposit their implements of war." 

So I picked a fight forgetting that I did not have my sword? That situation calls for a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" if I've ever encountered one before. And speaking of those Rogues, oh boy, they are yet more evidence of our character's idiocy. Because, should you threaten them into letting you join them rather than stealing their map, you are given a codeword to note on your Character Sheet that is meant to indicate they are accompanying you, and things can play out differently should you have this codeword at various points later. In a story beat that should surprise absolutely no one, these Rogues will eventually double-cross you, and for some reason our character acts completely stunned at this turn of events. Seriously dude? It was clear they hate your guts right from the start, only agreed to travel with you because you threatened them, and would stab you in the back the first chance they got. And this is even forgetting the problem the adventure has in that even when they are travelling with you, the story goes on for long stretches acting like you are alone. The whole thing with these Rogues felt like something of a cluster, and I think the adventure would have been better off without it. (And I in fact found myself quickly just stealing the map at the beginning so as not to have to deal with them.)   

                          How I envisioned my character when I first started playing:

                 How I envisioned my character by the time it was all said and done:

   

Finally, remember that "choose failure" option that I railed against back in the first adventure of the series? Well, in a classic case of "hold my beer", this adventure does the same thing and then some! Not once, not twice, but THREE times during the opening encounter with the Rogues in the tavern, you are given the option of just walking out of the bar and into the street to seek fortune elsewhere. Doesn't sound like such a bad idea right? Except that should you choose any of these options (and keen eyed players will note they all lead to the same section number), the game immediately ends in a game over, accompanied by a strange explanation of how you tried your hand at becoming a tax collector for a rich merchant, which is apparently against the law as the militia throw you in jail, at which point you are told that "Your adventuring days are at an end, my son". What the hell? However, this will probably be the only adventure I ever play where I suffer character death in Combat from being killed by a Pastry Chef, as yes, you can actually fight one here. (What can I say, he got in a lucky shot with a chocolate eclair I guess.) 

Ranking: It has the odd decent moment and intriguing idea, but overall this is just not very good, and I have it ranked as the worst of the series. I've sung Morris' praises quite a bit elsewhere, but let it not be said that I won't call it like I see it should I come across a gamebook that warrants something other than glowing praise. I really wish Morris had reversed the order of these last two entries, using the Barbarian character for the second adventure, then concluding with the Wizard adventure, because as it stands, this entry suffers greatly by comparison to the previous one. That might not have mattered though, because this entry felt very rushed to me, and maybe I should be grateful that this isn't the fate that befell the excellent Wizard adventure after all. At least I will always have Beyond the World's Edge, and I can be thankful that there was one great effort that came out of this short 3 book series. I wonder if Morris was already sick of HeroQuest by this last book, or if he just had too many irons in the fire at the time, because this turned out to be a rather disappointing sendoff for the series.