Lone Wolf - Books 6-12

RANKINGS

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6. The Kingdoms of Terror - Score = 7.5    Tier = Good

Attempts to beat: 5

Magnakai....do or die! I figured I have taken enough of a break after finishing the Kai series of Lone Wolf books, and now it's time to begin the next phase of the quest, the Magnakai series! As the opening book of this phase of the Lone Wolf saga, I have to say I was quite pleased with this. The story opens up several years after the conclusion of the previous book, Shadow On the Sand, and finds Lone Wolf living at his Kai monastery (alone I presume?) where he makes an interesting decision. After the defeat of the evil Lord Haakon in that previous adventure, the Darklords find themselves plunged into their own civil war, which thus has provided the rest of Magnamund some respite from the incursions into their lands. Knowing that the Darklords will eventually get their act together to threaten his country once again, Lone Wolf decides to take advantage of the current situation in order to reforge the power that his order of the Kai once held, and thus be better prepared when the time comes to face them again. I love how this adventure opens in this manner. There is no request from a king or wizard to defeat some evil baddie, or obtain some important relic. This quest is of Lone Wolf's own impetus and desire and I hope we get to slowly reform the Kai into the powerful organization it once was by the time the series is over. Drawing upon the Book of Magnakai that Lone Wolf found in the previous adventure, he now decides to begin this massive undertaking by first seeking out the fabled Lorestone of Varetta, which is said to hold the knowledge and wisdom of Sun Eagle, one of the most legendary of the Kai and a former Grandmaster. So he very logically sets out to find the Lorestone by travelling to Varetta itself. 

Just because the Darklords are not currently giving humankind any trouble while they battle amongst themselves does not mean that the lands Lone Wolf will be traversing are peaceful however. Far from it. I wonder if there was a bit of intended commentary here as the humans of Magnamund prove to be just as warlike as the supposed villains of the series. Lone Wolf finds himself travelling across a veritable warzone of battling city-states and mercenary groups. The atmosphere here had a lot in common with the first book of the Kai series, Flight from the Dark, as Lone Wolf has to make his way through ongoing battles and fleeing refugees and I thought this aspect of the book was very well done and immersive. 

This book has the great strategy element that Flight From the Dark had as well, as we start again picking 3 options from a new set of supposedly more powerful Magnakai Disciplines. I assume the ones we already know from the Kai series are then forgotten? This isn't really explained too well unfortunately. I was more than fine starting over with this Discipline selection however because it adds a level of strategy as you try to work out what the best Disciplines to take for the current adventure will be and which you can leave to possibly select in a later book. For the record I decided to begin with Curing (a no-brainer really), Pathsmanship and Divination as these seemed to be the 3 that would be the most useful, especially since I still have the Sommerswerd and its +8 combat modifier. The book doesn't stop there though, as we quickly learn about added bonuses that can be gained through something known as Lore Circles. There are four different Lore Circles with each encompassing a certain set of Disciplines. If you eventually manage to acquire all of the Disciplines in one of the sets, you receive a bonus to your Combat or Endurance (or both). Anything that makes you have to strategize even more carefully about what to choose is a great addition I think and this accomplishes that. Although one Lore Circle in particular, once completed, adds another +3 to your Combat score and I wonder what this will do to gameplay with an already overpowered character.   

The book also adds a weapon you can choose in the form of the bow and arrows. If selected, you begin with a quiver of 6 arrows which you cross off as you use, although you can obtain more arrows during the quest. Thematically this is a fantastic addition as it makes Lone Wolf even more of a badass, able to disarm enemies or cause grievous injury in a matter of seconds if successful. From a gameplay standpoint though, it does seem to make combats even easier than they already were which I wouldn't have thought possible. The book also seems to try and steer you towards selecting the bow too, as in the early going you are continually asked if you have it and would like to use it. This only makes you wonder what you are missing out on if you didn't initially select it. 

While I admit it can be a fine line, the difficulty level of the Kai series books was a bit of an issue for me, as all the books in that run seemed a bit too much on the easy side. This was especially true if you are equipped with the Sommerswerd. The difficulty in this adventure seemed slightly higher although I believe that is due to there being seemingly more instant deaths here as opposed to any increased difficulty in the combats themselves. The enemy stats seemed a bit higher for sure, but still not high enough to give you too much trouble thanks to your magic sword and the addition of the aforementioned bow. Combined with the possibility of increasing your Combat score even further via the Lore Circles, I wonder how Mr Dever is going to balance these books between those who have been playing all the way through the series and those who pick up the books halfway in and may not have some of the more powerful weapons or Combat modifiers.  

The adventure does a really good job of giving you different options to try in the various cities and inns that you visit which helps to keep each attempt fresh. The book does suffer a bit however from not having all that many interesting encounters. Along this vein, one of the weaker aspects of the adventure is definitely the endgame, if you can call it that. This takes place in a sewer that you infiltrate in an attempt to find an entrance to the crypt where the Lorestone is supposed to be hidden. The sewer itself is basically just a straight corridor with instant-deaths at every wrong turning. There is a Dakomyd (some kind of giant lizard?) in these sewers which serves as the end boss to the quest but he didn't really seem all that much different from any other encounter in the book. I would have preferred more of a cat and mouse game within the sewers as opposed to "go the wrong way and you die".  In one of the inns, there is also a character you meet called Roark who is essentially some kind of ruler of a city in the area, but he comes across as a bit too comically over the top evil and incompetent. And yes, the Lorestone itself is pretty much the textbook definition of a MacGuffin, but that's not really anything unusual in gamebooks I suppose.  

Joe Dever's writing seems to have improved a fair bit from the first book to now. Little descriptive touches such as the distant rumble of thunder in the hills or rain running down a windowpane at an inn really adds to the atmosphere of the adventure. I can see his skill as a writer increasing with each effort.

Ranking: Another one solidly in the Good tier. The ending was a bit uninspired but up until that point the atmosphere and writing was strong and there always seemed to be new things to investigate or try out on each attempt (without necessarily incurring instant failure) and this for me is a mark of a good gamebook. It's also helped out by allowing for some experimentation with your beginning Disciplines. It might not do anything that "wows" you, but I still had a really good time with this. _________________________________________________________

7. Castle Death - Score = 5.6    Tier = OK

Attempts to beat: 4

Well, that was a bit of a letdown I must say. The previous two Lone Wolf books, "Shadow On the Sand" and "The Kingdoms of Terror" were the best two for me so far, and with expectations thus raised I am now given this book which comes across as mostly "Generic Fantasy Dungeon Crawl Adventure" by comparison. It starts out well enough as we learn that when we absorbed the Lorestone of Varetta at the end of the previous book, the existence of six more Lorestones was revealed to us. The next one on our list is the Lorestone of Herdos, so it's off to the land of Dessi in which the city of Herdos is located we go. So I take it we will be searching out one lorestone per book? This is a good premise for the series as Lone Wolf now needs to track down all the stones to fully reform the power of the Kai and become a Grand Master. (Thanos questing for the Infinity Stones sprung to mind). I kind of wish there was some sort of illustration at the end of each book showing Lone Wolf adding the latest lorestone to his collection as it would give a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment to watch them slowly being assembled. 

Some of the highlights of the previous books are getting to travel Magnamund, experiencing the countryside and getting to interact with various interesting characters. Well, there is almost none of that going on here. We begin the story immediately in Herdos, where we learn that the Lorestone of Herdos is rumored to be located within an evil castle known as Kazan-Oud. The castle is located on an island in a lake and contains such powerful evil that a magical force-field has been set up to prevent anything inside it from escaping. We are granted access through the force-field and we meet Lord Paido, who escorts us to the castle and gives us some background information on the land of Dessi. He isn't a particularly interesting character but he does mention that his brother disappeared in the castle. (I wonder if that will come up again later?). After that, we are dropped off at the doorstep of the castle and meet only its monstrous denizens (save for the expected encounter with Paido's brother) until the end of the book. We are provided with this absolutely beautiful map on the front inside cover of the book showing all the areas and cities of the land of Dessi, but then don't get to travel any of it. What a tease! 

On the more positive side, the adventure begins by giving you two different routes to approach the castle, either by the jetty or the beach, and both of them are viable and come with their own dangers. Some of the monsters you encounter are also at least interesting thankfully. Most notably the Rahkos, the Flameman (a bit of a lame name here, is he a Mega Man robot?), and the Whipmaster. The Rahkos in particular (a sentient severed hand) is quite horrific, although once it started flying around I think it lost a bit of its creepiness. A severed hand that scuttles and jumps across the floor as opposed to outright flying seems more terrifying but maybe that's just me. I'm also not one to hold the artwork of a book against it, but the illustration of the Zagothal (some kind of giant toad?) looked a bit ridiculous to me. It didn't really inspire the fear or dread that Lone Wolf is described as feeling in any way whatsoever. 

The book also seems to de-emphasize the bow and arrow which was quite a powerful and useful weapon in the previous adventure. Here though, it is practically useless. I actually think this was a good choice as thematically it makes sense that within a more confined location such as a castle, a bow and arrow would not prove as effective as it would in an outdoor setting. This means we need to think carefully when selecting our weapons at the start of each book based upon the type of quest we are undertaking. At least, I hope this is how it plays out going forward, even if the Sommerswerd can make this all a bit moot if you happen to have it.    

At about the halfway point of the adventure, you find yourself being knocked out at one of several locations and as far as I can tell, there is no way to avoid this. You then awaken and find yourself before the "kangaroo court" of Lord Zahda, the evil ruler of the castle, where you are then sentenced to enter the Maze of Zahda. I understand the necessities of having chokepoints in gamebooks, but when you go in on subsequent attempts knowing you ARE going to be knocked out and captured, it becomes a bit frustrating, especially if you are roleplaying as a badass Kai warrior. I might as well just get gassed as fast as possible and get on with it. 

Before you enter the Maze of Zahda however, you interestingly have all your weapons taken away, including the Sommerswerd (but not your helpful items? Seems odd.) This makes the next few encounters a bit more tense and I wonder if author Joe Dever maybe should have just taken the sword away for good so that all players would now be on an equal footing going forward. As for the Maze itself though, boy is this ever one heck of a sad excuse for a gamebook "maze". It's basically just a square. At the first room you either go left or right, then that's it. Either route just leads around two turns to the room with the bronze statue. Solve the statue's riddle, go through the next door and you are out. The riddle the statue gives you to solve was quite good though I will give it that. I guess from a story standpoint, the way you escape the Maze points to it being larger and more complex, but from a game design standpoint we dont get to experience any of that and it's a bit disappointing. Don't tell me about this great intricate Maze, let me go through it! What a tease! 

One of the weaker aspects of the adventure is Lord Zahda himself as he is given almost no characterization at all. Who is he? What did he do and how did he end up being confined within the castle? There could be a great backstory here but unfortunately we never learn any of it (or I didn't at least). The final battle against Zahda himself is also a bit lackluster. He is still too easy to defeat if you possess all the Combat enhancing weapons and armour available to this point, although I could see him being a decent challenge for someone who didn't have the Sommerswerd in particular. It's almost as if before every combat, Dever needs to ask if you have the Sommerswerd or not, and if you do you then go to fight the enemy who is given higher stats as opposed to lower stats if you do not have it. In general I have noticed the enemies seeming to have higher endurance point totals as the books have gone on, which seems to be an attempt to make it more difficult for Sommerswerd users via way of attrition. This is just likely to make the adventure more frustrating for those who do not possess the magic sword however.   

Finally I get to the worst part of the book which I have been saving for last. There is an absolutely infuriating moment right at the end of the adventure, as you are escaping the island, where you lose your backpack and all the items you had been carrying in it. In my view this was a horrible move by Dever and is a real slap in the face if you have been carrying certain items through several books to hopefully use at a later date. What a tease! REALLY not cool bro! 

Ranking: Easily the weakest Lone Wolf book for me so far and a clear step back from the adventures up to this point. Don't get me wrong, it's a passable enough dungeon crawl, but I was frankly expecting something better than this. It contains a couple of maddening design choices and doesn't have the same epic feel as the previous books. Hopefully we get back on track with the next one.  _________________________________________________________

8. The Jungle of Horrors - Score = 7.7    Tier = Good

Attempts to beat: 3

To quote Guns n Roses, "Welcome to the Jungle baby! You're all gonna die!!" Actually, this book breaks from Lone Wolf tradition by having your travel companion NOT die. (Although his fate may end up being even worse than death....he is still technically alive at the conclusion of the story). I'm getting ahead of myself though. The adventure begins with the Elder Magi in Dessi revealing the believed location of the next lorestone on your list, the Lorestone of Ohrido. This time you will need to travel to the swamplands of the Danarg, which contain the location of a former temple of the Elder Magi where the Lorestone was kept and is believed to lie there still. You have quite a trek ahead of you but are not sent on the quest alone as Lord Paido from the previous book is sent along to accompany you. Paido himself is still not the most interesting of characters, but it can be nice to have someone to banter and experience the dangers with as you travel along (even if it does kind of contradict the definition of your name). 

The adventure begins by first requiring you to travel northwards to the city of Tharro, which is on your route to the swamp. You are given two different paths you can choose from to get there (via either horseback on the road, or by barge on the river) and this provides for a great level of experimentation. Both routes are quite interesting to explore, with many different things to try, encounters to experience, and various items to discover. The river route in particular was excellently handled as I felt it was incredibly immersive and contained one of the best encounters of the book in the form of Kezoor the Necromancer. The road route was no slouch either though and provided some interesting encounters and paths of its own that you can experiment with. Once reached, the city of Tharro itself also provides for some great exploration as there are several streets and various buildings to investigate. In this sense, I felt this book was very similar in construction to book #6, "The Kingdoms of Terror", as any attempt that ended in failure was looked upon almost favorably as I could then go explore something else on the next try. 

It is made clear early on that the Darklords have finally gotten their act together, ending their civil war, and now have the Darklord Gnaag in place as their new supreme ruler. The Darklords have apparently wasted no time in continuing with their plans of conquering Magnamund either as they have already begun sending out their agents to infiltrate the various countries they intend on invading. You uncover several of these agents along the way and it is this sense of paranoia and sometimes despair at their return among the people you encounter that contributes to the fantastic atmosphere of the adventure. A brief encounter with Gnaag himself should you experience it (envisioned through a portal), manages to establish him as a dangerous and powerful threat to be reckoned with.     

This opening half of the book I found to be stellar and I thought this adventure might be on its way to greatness. Unfortunately, the second half was a bit disappointing as it turns into a pretty standard trek through a swamp, with not many interesting encounters or goings on. The section inside the Temple of Ohrido itself is also pretty spartan and seems terribly rushed, with gameplay-wise nothing of note happening. You just enter, absorb the Lorestone, then immediately leave. That's a bit of a shame as this is a temple within a gamebook for crying out loud. I think there could have been a whole great mini-adventure within the temple itself. Surely the Lorestone would have been guarded with interesting traps and puzzles to overcome a la Indiana Jones? I would have liked to have seen the swamp area ditched for a better fleshed out temple exploration. This seems even more of a missed opportunity considering the book's strange preoccupation with riddles as I believe there are at least 4 available in the first half of the book you can solve. These are quite good but I actually felt a bit bad for the Count Conundrum character on the barge as it seems you basically take his money and prized possession and then leave him to slink out the door in humiliation. Some of this puzzle solving could have been put to better use within the temple section I think. On a minor story note, should Lone Wolf not have been taught before leaving Dessi how to open the door to the Temple of Ohrido as Paido was? If Paido had been lost or killed before this, you would have been screwed! 

The second half of the book also begins with one of the most "out of the blue" instant deaths I have come across. There is an abandoned mine you can investigate (and really, what gamebook player isn't going to want to check this out?) on your way to the swamp, and merely speaking to the dwarf working inside it results in him turning around and one-shot killing both you and Paido with no chance to defend yourself! Is he the dwarf equivalent of Bruce Lee? This act alone pretty much makes this guy the most dangerous character in the Lone Wolf universe. And to top it off, he blows your head off with a musket? I guess those are things in Magnamund. Still, at least this death gave me a chance to go back and try some other things on the barge and within Tharro so I somewhat strangely appreciated it.    

Thankfully, the final battle aboard the airship picks the excitement level back up and allowed the adventure to go out on a fairly strong note after the letdown of the swamp. I was hoping that if you had a bow, you would be given the option of killing Paido as he is carried off by the Kraan (knowing the torture and horrible death that likely awaits him) during this final airship battle. This could have provided a pretty intriguing dilemma and it would be interesting to see how many players could bring themselves to kill him out of some sense of mercy. Still, I really enjoyed the "Empire Strikes Back" style ending, with your companion Paido captured and the Darklords on the march having smashed through several defenses and leaving various places in ruins. I think it betrayed this feeling a little bit by for some reason giving Lone Wolf a vision of being reunited with Paido in the future. Kind of gave away a bit of the mystery there. Still, the bleak ending made me want to start the next book right away to see how I can have Lone Wolf help the people of Magnamund and Im looking forward to confronting Gnaag. Dirty fly-faced bastard!  

Dever's writing is once again very strong and immersive, although I do have to wonder a bit about the title of the book, because there is no jungle to be found anywhere in this adventure. I realize the swamp you are traversing used to be a jungle, but that was centuries ago so really has no bearing on this particular quest. Maybe that's just me splitting hairs or maybe "The Swamp of Horrors" didn't have the same ring to it? Actually, I kind of think that title sounds better. Maybe Dever felt that the word jungle better conveyed a sense of adventure as opposed to swamp. Can't really blame him too much there as the swamp setting has proven to be a tricky one based upon the gamebooks I've played in that kind of setting so far and sure enough the swamp itself in this adventure was the weakest part. 

Ranking: Jeez, these Lone Wolf books are tough to rank because the majority of them so far are very close in terms of quality. Books #2,3,5,6 and now #8 are all a stone's throw from each other enjoyment wise. Book #1 isn't too far behind either. Only #4 and #7 trail the field a bit for me. The first half of The Jungle of Horrors is great, unfortunately it ran out of steam a bit in the back half and couldn't quite sustain this. On the whole it's still very good though and is my favorite of the Magnakai series so far and it's neck and neck with Shadow On the Sand for me overall up to this point.

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9. The Cauldron of Fear - Score = 6.0    Tier = OK

Attempts to beat: 7

I hate to say it, but this book feels a little bit like a rush job. Looking at the Lone Wolf release schedule, I see that author Joe Dever published 4 of these books in 1987 alone and I wonder if he was struggling to meet some kind of time constraint for some of these, which wouldn't be surprising. There are stretches in this book where no decisions or die rolling occur at all and you get that "just along for the ride" feeling which can be a bit disappointing. The story that opens this adventure though, as usual with the series so far, is quite good. The next Lorestone on your list is the Lorestone of Tahou, not surprisingly located in the city of Tahou. Well, technically it's located underneath the city. To keep it out of enemy hands it was long ago cast down into a more ancient city, Zaaryx, that Tahou was built on top of. So it's off to gain entry to this underground city we go. This is easier said than done however as the city of Tahou is about to be attacked by the forces loyal to Darklord Gnaag. This provides a bit of a race against time feel to the adventure and provides for quite a good "Helms Deep" type of atmosphere within the city itself. Once again we are not sent off alone though, as our old friend Banedon accompanies us on our quest this time. Unlike with Paido in the previous adventure however, you are separated from your companion at about the halfway point of the quest and don't join up with him again until the end, so Banedon's impact on the adventure is unfortunately somewhat minimal. 

There are a few different things to try on the road to Tahou, but unlike books such as The Kingdom of Terror and The Jungle of Horrors, the different options here really don't seem to make much difference. There didn't seem to be any items of particular note anywhere should you explore either. (Although you can obtain a "special item" in the form of a receipt for your horse from the South Gate of Tahou. What the heck is the point of this?). Not only that, Magnakai Disciplines such as Pathmanship and Divination will pretty much tell you where to go at each fork in the road and it doesn't take long to discover that if you just follow all the advice you are given you can find yourself deep inside Tahou and halfway through the book without lifting a finger. In fact, as long as you pick up the invitation from the lady in the first encounter, and unless I'm forgetting a roll someplace, I believe you can make it all the way to the meeting with President Toltuda and the Senate without having to make a roll even once. And even that first one is just a random roll to determine if the President votes to help you or not. To be fair, I kind of liked this random decision in the Senate as it determined whether you would approach Zaaryx by the funnel route or by the secret chamber in the Thieves guild route. Not knowing which route you would be forced to take when you begin the adventure makes it a bit more exciting. 

One of the reasons I feel this book was rushed is that there are a few examples of your Disciplines not making much sense in how they are employed. There is a moment when you are being lowered into the Cauldron where you are asked if you have Divination. If you do, you have a vision of one of the Senators about to cut the rope that is lowering you. But you can't do anything about it and you plummet down into the lake, which is exactly what would have happened if you didn't have this Discipline. So what was the point? I guess now you know who double crossed you, but that doesn't matter either as the Senator in question ends up dead by the time you escape the underground city anyway. This was a huge wasted opportunity, as enacting revenge on this guy became one of my main motivators for returning topside, only to have this moment of revenge snatched away from me. More to do with this Senator's treachery is that you can actually be warned about him from a shaman you can encounter earlier in the adventure. But once again, it doesn't matter because at no point does the book let you do anything about it. Gah!

Also on the subject of broken Disciplines, I give you section 141 of the book which surely must be some kind of horrific error. In this section you find yourself plummeting into an icy lake and are asked to make a random roll. An 8 or higher on this roll results in instant death. However, if you have the Discipline of Nexus, you are told to ADD 4 to the roll. This means that having this ability, which is supposed to protect you from cold, actually makes it very likely that you will die right here. Just more proof that I don't feel this book was properly playtested. 

Still on the subject of things not making much sense, if the President ends up voting against helping Lone Wolf, you find yourself having to enter the underground city using a passage located within the Thieves Guild. If you haven't yet encountered Sogh, the man whose help you need to enter the Guild, he will do so for the amount of gold you have in your purse. Once you know this encounter could possibly be coming however, you can set it up so that by the time you get to him, you have 0 gold (by leaving any excess gold at your Kai Monastery before the adventure begins). Therefore he helps you for free I suppose? That doesn't sound right. Unless you just hand over your empty purse and he never bothers to look inside it. More to the subject of storing items at your Kai Monastery before setting out on your quest (which is absolutely key in this adventure), is that it is mentioned in the book that you have not been to your Monastery in 3 years. So are you sending your special items and equipment via courier? This seems extremely risky to send items such as the Sommerswerd and the Dagger of Vashna in this manner! It seems likely with how important these items are that Lone Wolf would never let them out of his sight. 

I also mentioned in my review of the previous adventure that you can encounter a dwarf with a musket, that seemed a bit out of place as a weapon in a fantasy adventure. Well, this is taken a step further in this book as the Crocaryx (basically lizardmen) that you meet in the underground city of Zaaryx seem to be equipped with some form of rocket launcher! I can't wait to see what weapons will appear in the next book. 

Ok, now for the final fight of the book, the Zakhan Kimah battle. Surprisingly, I actually made it all the way to this fight on my very first attempt at the adventure. Using the Sommerswerd and having several key Magnakai Disciplines made this seem quite easy. Being asked before the fight if I had the Sommerswerd, and answering yes, set me up for a rude awakening. The stats Kimah is given for this fight should you be using the magical sword are ludicrous! Is it even possible to win this? Trying to make things more difficult for Sommerswerd users is one thing, but why would Dever seek to punish his most loyal followers, the ones who have been playing his books from the beginning, by giving them an impossible fight? This really makes no sense to me. I'm all for making the books more of a challenge and have been hoping for such, but leaving everything you have been doing the same and then throwing in a single ridiculously high stat enemy right at the end wasn't what I was getting at. Still, after being predictably stomped in this first attempt against Kimah, I now learned NOT to take the Sommerswerd on the quest from the beginning. Thanks to some unlucky rolls and having to use a regular weapon, it took me a few more tries to get to the final fight again but all in all, still not too much trouble. Having the Magnakai Discipline of Curing kind of breaks the gameplay in this sense (and has all along really), as there is generally enough time between fights to get almost powered all the way up again. So, on to the fight against Kimah with a regular weapon I find that the odds for the fight have seemingly gone from impossible to just incredibly unlikely. His stats have come down as opposed to fighting him with the Sommerswerd yes, but not really enough to give anyone who didn't start with an initial high Combat Skill much of a chance. Ok, well I still had one final option left to defeat him as it didn't go without notice that at one point the book asks if I have the Dagger of Vashna. So back to the beginning taking the Dagger this time. I make it back to him in a few more attempts and using the Dagger am greeted with a much more favorable chance to defeat him by throwing the item at him. I have a 50/50 chance (which could have been better had I known this fight was coming at the start of the series and planned out my Disciplines for it) but thankfully I hit him in the heart on my first attempt. I have to wonder, how many attempts would this book take for any player who didn't play book 4 where the Dagger is obtained (or even those who did obtain it but then lost it before this battle). Or what if this was your very first book in the series? Yikes! As a result, this has to be the most unbalanced encounter in all the Lone Wolf books so far and it feels like you need to "game" the series up until this point just for this fight alone. 

The saving grace of this adventure though is the story and atmosphere, particularly inside the city of Tahou itself. A city under siege from dark forces is a great setting for a gamebook and Dever's writing once again is strong and immersive and has proven to be a real highlight of the series. I'm convinced that there are few gamebook authors who can set up the atmosphere inside an inn as well as he does. 

Ranking: Definitely not one of the stronger books. I give it a slight edge over Castle Death thanks to the incredible atmosphere within the city, along with once again having some different things to try. And even though most of these options can be completely bypassed with apparently no penalty whatsoever, you don't know this at the start of the adventure so it can be fun seeing where each path will lead. The Kimah fight is a total cluster though and along with other parts of the book, seems rushed and not properly playtested. 

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10. The Dungeons of Torgar - Score = 6.4    Tier = OK

Attempts to beat: 3

So, what do you do after a book in which you just introduced a ridiculously high powered enemy as the final boss? You provide no final boss at all of course! Before getting to that however, this adventure sees Lone Wolf attempting to make it to the Darklord fortress city of Torgar where the final 3 Lorestones are all being kept. So instead of a quest for just one Lorestone this time, we are going for the remaining 3 in one fell swoop. Darklord Gnaag has his magicians at work in Torgar attempting to discover a way to destroy the stones, which would obviously then prevent you from using their strength and knowledge against him. So the race is on to make it to Torgar before his wizards are successful in their task. A plan is formed whereby your friend Banedon will disguise himself as you and travel back to Sommerlund, hopefully drawing the eyes of any Darklord spies to himself and allowing you to head for Torgar unnoticed by the enemy and I felt this plan was quite clever even though it likely puts Banedon at great risk. 

The book opens in a strong manner by providing you two very different options in how you want to make your way to Torgar. First, you can opt to travel with Prince Graygor and his army as they march to reclaim the Darklord held town of Cetza. If successful in retaking this town and eradicating the enemy army in the area, a path would then be cleared for Lone Wolf to make it to Torgar. Alternatively, you can choose to take a more stealthy approach by setting out on your own and taking a more circuitous route that would take you through the wilds of the Hellswamp (thus avoiding any enemy armies), searching for a legendary rebel in the area along the way known as Sebb Jarel who can help guide you to Torgar. At first glance, the second option that sees you set off on your own seemed to me like it would be more interesting but after trying both options, I actually found the opposite to be true. Discussing the two different paths below:

1) Travelling with Prince Graygor to Cetza- Initially to me, this seemed like while it might be the more honorable option (it didn't really feel right to have all these soldiers fighting the battles for you while you sneak away) but also that it likely wouldn't be as interesting as striking off on your own. As it turned out though, I felt this route had much more going on in the way of experimentation and overall action. Author Joe Dever's descriptions of the battles taking place, both from what you observe and what you personally experience of them, are top notch. At one point he even provides a map of the battlefield along with the positions of all the participants and this helps even further with the great immersion. I believe this is the more difficult of the two routes as yes, there are some very high Combat Skill enemies along this path, but fortunately they can be avoided or mitigated if you play your cards right. For me, helping the Prince win this battle for Cetza was probably the highlight of the adventure. 

 2) Travelling into the wilds to find Sebb Jarel- I felt like this route should have been a lot more interesting than it was. It seemed very straightforward and Jarel himself isn't difficult to find (at least I thought so anyways). With him now accompanying you as you travel to Torgar, you then have a couple of uninteresting fights against local wildlife along the way before Jarel predictably goes tits up in the swamp. I felt that the way Jarel dies was incredibly disappointing as he is dragged underwater by some mermen-type creatures and never comes up again. Incidentally, these creatures initially try to crawl onboard your raft but are repelled, whereby they then puncture and sink it from below. Why didn't they lead with that maneuver? As it was, Jarel himself was made out through most of the book to be this legendary figure, the only person to survive the cursed Isle of Ghosts and the charismatic leader of the local populace in its ongoing guerrilla warfare battle against the occupying Drakkirim. For all that, he seems to go out in a pretty nondescript manner. Boy, the track record for Lone Wolf's travelling companions sure isn't improving. Tell him what he's won Johnny! 

 

"Sebb Jarel, for choosing to accompany Lone Wolf on his travels, you've won yourself......A WATERY GRAVE!" 

Once Jarel buys the farm, the book then goes on to gloss over how you travel for many more days alone through the swamp before finally emerging. Huh? It feels like there should have been a lot more adventure happening here. Not only that, but the book doesn't require that you eat any meals over this extended time period nor do you recover any Endurance points (except for the usual section based recovery you would get by having Curing of course). This whole route also contains what seemed to me a long string of "turn to" sections without providing any choices at all. Overall, I found this path to Torgar quite disappointing. 

Regardless of which of the above two options you choose to travel by, the two paths eventually converge outside of Torgar itself where the friendly forces of Lord Adamas, an acquaintance from book #8, have the fortress city under siege. A plan is hatched to breach the iron gate of the city using a bomb constructed by the Elder Magi of Dessi. Unfortunately, someone needs to basically run through a hail of arrows and falling boulders to plant it at the base of the gate. A coin toss is made to see if you or Adamas will make the run and this seemed a bit flippant. Kind of a big decision to leave to a coin toss! No option to volunteer or tell Adamas to get stuffed? Can't even try the old "heads I win, tails you lose" gambit? Heck you can't even use Divination to help you as apparently Adamas has had the coin magically shielded. Untrusting git!.   

Once this is successfully accomplished and the gate is blown open, you make your way through the streets of Torgar before arriving at the tower which leads to the dungeons where you believe the remaining Lorestones are being kept. With the exception of the very final section, the dungeons themselves are probably the weakest aspect of the adventure. This book is called "The Dungeons of Torgar" after all but it seems like you barely spend a few minutes in here. The dungeons are basically a short, straight line from beginning to end although you do manage to stumble across a cell containing Lord Paido, your travelling companion who was savagely captured and carried off at the end of book #8, who you then set free and he accompanies you to the end of the adventure. ("Lord Paido....the gum on the bottom of your shoe since 1986"). Seeing as how you weren't even looking for him at the time, when Lone Wolf bursts into Paido's cell I can just picture the exchange between them going something like this:

    Paido: Lone Wolf! I knew I could count on you! You've come to rescue me!

    Lone Wolf: Um...yeah....THAT'S what I did.  

As mentioned earlier, there is no climactic battle in the adventure which by itself isnt necessarily a bad thing. That being the case though, I do feel there should be some kind of intricate puzzle to at least solve in the final room which contains the Lorestones. As it is, just using common sense here will probably see you succeeding no problem. As disappointing as the dungeon overall itself was, I do have to give credit to the final section of the book as it's a highlight and something I didn't see coming. One thing the Magnakai series has been doing very well is make me want to start the next adventure right away because I really want to "get" this Gnaag guy! 

Ranking: It's solidly OK. Its got a couple of highlights, namely the battle of Cetza and the cliffhanger ending, but overall it didn't come across as particularly memorable. I think it's probably hurt most by the very short dungeon area and the several stretches of sections throughout the book where no decisions are made at all, even though the story is quite well told.

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11. The Prisoners of Time - Score = 5.4    Tier = OK

Attempts to beat: 15

So yeah, the good news is this book has probably the most original story of the series to date. The bad news though, is that this book is quite a bit of a mess. Starting with that story however, we pick up immediately where the previous adventure left off as Lone Wolf finds himself falling through an inter-dimensional portal of some kind. When he finally lands (taking a completely pointless bit of Endurance damage in the process if you happen to have Curing I might add) on another plane of existence known as the Daziarn Plane, he realizes that finding the 2 remaining Lorestones and returning to Magnamund will be no easy feat. Particularly since no one has ever returned from passing through one of these Shadow Gates before. The world Lone Wolf sets off to explore in his search for the stones is unlike anything we have seen so far, and allows for even more unique creatures and weird sets of circumstances than we have come to expect from the series. This allows author Joe Dever to craft even more interesting backstories and mythologies of which he clearly excels at doing. From the magnificent city of Yanis and its somewhat ambiguously motivated overlord "The Beholder", to a Planet of the Apes style civilization, and on to a group of majestic warriors who are battling the God of Chaos itself, the world is really populated with interesting characters and situations. But despite all this interesting stuff, there are a couple of problems with this adventure, and unfortunately they are quite major. These problems include: 

1) The first half of the book is barely a gamebook at all. I had a minor complaint with the previous adventure that there seemed to be a few stretches where you were just told to "turn to" the next section instead of actually making any choices. Wow, I hadn't seen nothin yet! My minor complaint has transformed to a major one here as there are even longer stretches occurring over the first half of the book where you just go from section to section, reading large blocks of backstory exposition given by two characters of the story (first from the Beholder, then from Serocca). Even at the few points where an option is given, it's usually just an illusion of choice as you are asked if you have a particular Discipline or not. Having 8 of the Disciplines by this point, the answers to these checks was almost always in the affirmative for me. So we have these interesting situations being presented here, but unfortunately we hardly get to interact with any of it. Excuse me, Id like to play your game sir, would you please let me actually PLAY?

2) The Chaos Master fight. Ok, surely Joe Dever did NOT playtest this. Zakhan Kimah from book #9 has nothing on this guy! If you are carrying the Sommerswerd here, as I was, don't even bother. The stats given to the Chaos Master in this situation (at least in the original edition) are ludicrous. I need to give a big shout out to Kieran from the comments for making me aware of these stats being updated to be a little less egregious in a later edition of the book. I gave it many solid attempts using the original stats but not once did I even come anywhere close to winning this fight. Normally, I would feel I have no choice but to keep on going, banging my head against the wall until the madness set in at which point I would conclude that the book was broken. However, in a case where an officially released edition has updated stats, I have no problem deeming that fair game. Obviously if they felt the need to change something like this, it seems like a bit of an acknowledgement that the original version was flawed and is an admission of a mistake. Id much rather have more gamebook authors do this as opposed to being stubbornly unwilling to admit they goofed, or even engage with their fans on the matter (ahem, Ian). Still, if you are writing a gamebook, how can you not run through some of the combats yourself to see if they are at least reasonably doable? I've been commenting that there have been parts of the last several books that have felt rushed and that feeling was never more apparent then while playing this adventure. Heck, at one point you are on section 211 and are told to turn directly to section 212! Dever just isnt even trying to hide it anymore at this point.  

Thankfully, the book gets back on track somewhat once you hit the back half of the adventure (Chaos Master fight notwithstanding of course), beginning with the ambush at the damaged bridge. Although everything is relative of course so a lot of this feeling might be tied to the fact that it's just nice to actually have something to DO for a change. From here you move on to the graveyard sequence at Tolakos, which contains some interesting set pieces and also a couple of puzzles to solve in the form of door locks. I have to admit though, when it came to the second door lock puzzle, I just had to guess at the answer as for the life me I couldn't figure out which was the correct option. The updated Chaos Master stats in this area are probably still a bit too high but at least he is now beatable and I was able to do so on my 5th attempt at fighting him with his lowered attributes. I actually found the sequence of fights after this point to be quite well balanced, although that is as a player who has been playing from the beginning and acquiring Combat enhancing equipment and Lore Circles as he goes. A new player is probably totally pooched in this adventure. The final battles right at the end of the book, against the Villains of Sommerlund and then Vonotar the Traitor were quite exciting. Having Vonotar appear in the book was a really great idea, it's just a shame there wasn't more to it other than "Here I am! ....And here I go!". I also had one of those triumphant moments you can only have when you beat a gamebook with a mere 1 point of Endurance remaining! Phew! I really didn't want to go through that Chaos Master fight again, corrected stats or not. 

A few final notes on the adventure. This book took me 15 attempts to complete, which obviously means I had 14 unsuccessful attempts. The amazing thing is, all of my 14 failures occurred at the exact same spot, that being the Chaos Master fight. Every. Single. One. Granted, I survived to the end with 1 Endurance point remaining the very first time I managed to beat the Chaos Master (one hit killing both a Lizard and a Snake before they could do hardly any damage to me helped in this regard) so this could have easily not have happened, but still, this is really not a good sign for your gamebook from an overall difficulty balancing standpoint. Also, you have a couple more of your traveling companions that are pushing up daisies by the end of this one. First, your ape-man escort T'uk T'ron, then later your guide Odel both buy it. This has to be a running joke on Dever's part by now right?  

Ranking: Overall this book isnt what I would call terrible, but it's kind of a mess. Very little player agency through the first half of the adventure and then a brick wall opponent in the Chaos Master were both poor choices and derailed what could have been a great original adventure. Easily the new weakest Lone Wolf book for me so far. Only one book left in the Magnakai series and Im hoping it goes out on a better note than this. 

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12. The Masters of Darkness - Score = 7.8    Tier = Good

Attempts to beat: 1

That's better! My hope that the Magnakai series would go out on a much better note than the previous book was answered. The story here sees us returning to Magnamund via the Shadow Gate from the last adventure, only to discover that 8 years have passed on our home world! During this time, thinking Lone Wolf dead, the Darklords under the rule of Gnaag have marched across Magnamund, taking territories and subjugating or killing its inhabitants. With only a few countries still holding out (including Lone Wolf's home of Sommerlund), defeat for the free peoples of the world is now all but inevitable. I felt having Lone Wolf return to discover so much time has passed was a great twist and really dialed up the intensity meter. One last desperation plan is conceived, whereby Lone Wolf will travel alone to the Darklord capital of Helgedad in order to assassinate their leader, Darklord Gnaag, and therefore throw the Darklords once again into disorganization and chaos. 

The clandestine mission Lone Wolf finds himself on here is very well realized and author Joe Dever's writing is suitably tense and atmospheric. The opening travel sequence across icy seas on his way to the Darklands had a couple of great set pieces, first in a battle against a sea monster and then in another longer battle against two ironclad enemy ships. From there we travel overland to an enemy naval port, where we have a really well done encounter with Darklord Kraagenskul who for me, ended up being the best encounter in the book. After this we travel by air to the Darklord city of Aarnak and a meeting with our spy contact before setting out undercover inside a massive tank like vehicle (think the Sandcrawler from Star Wars) where a game of cat and mouse begins between the various factions of the Darklords. Finally arriving in the capital city of Helgedad itself, we then need to negotiate the streets to locate Gnaag's tower and ascend for the final battle(s). This was a really fun and thrilling journey although I have to admit that the end tower sequence was a little weak (there is only one guy on guard here?). Before confronting Gnaag you need to get past Darklord Taktaal first, which you would think would be quite a challenge, but if you happen to have a bow and have picked up a certain arrow (and it's not all that hard to find), this is basically an insta-win encounter. Which only leaves the final battle against Gnaag himself, with the future of Magnamund at stake...

And this leads to probably the biggest disappointment of an otherwise really good adventure. The final battle against Gnaag was quite a let down. If you have the Sommerswerd, all you need to do is take it out of the scabbard and you automatically win. That sound you hear is air being let out of your balloon.  The more I thought about it afterwards though, because this fight has been built up over the course of the whole series, there was a good chance this was going to be disappointing almost no matter what author Joe Dever did. As much as I have enjoyed his books, boss battles are not his forte. I don't mind not having an actual fight at the end of an adventure, but if that's going to be the case, I do think you should need to find some carefully hidden items along the way that make this possible. 

On the surface, Dever comes up with a pretty good way to balance the effects of the Sommerswerd in this book, telling you right at the start in a bit of exposition that if you have it, you better not use it until you get to Darklord Gnaag otherwise everyone and his uncle in the Darklands will know who and where you are and it's game over. This doesn't always make sense though because you are not always asked if you want to use the Sommerswerd before all fights. So what is the penalty if you do use it in these cases? Nothing I guess. For myself, I took this as something that the reader needed to referee for themselves (ie. NEVER using the Sommerswerd until the final confrontation with Gnaag or it's instant failure). 

There is also a bit of a subplot going on here where you not only need to eliminate Gnaag, but also destroy something known as a Transfusor, a device that allows the various Darklords to operate at full strength even when they are outside the Darklands (without the Transfusor, leaving the Darklands greatly weakens them). Unfortunately, there is absolutely no payoff to this. You don't need to locate the Transfusor nor solve any kind of problem in order to destroy it. You are given an explosive device that will destroy it before the adventure even begins, and you blow it up on your way out the door in a narrative description given in the final section of the adventure. This makes me wonder what the point of all this even was. 

Still, there is nothing quite like a simple assassination mission that needs to be carried out deep inside enemy territory. I have to say, I really enjoyed the descriptions of the Darklords themselves and of Kraagenskul in particular. The snake parasite that had buried itself in the side of his face was suitably shivering inducing. Overall this was a thrilling, if imperfect, conclusion to the Magnakai series. Some great action sequences, lots of fights, travel by air, land and sea, undercover tension and hideously realized Darklords all add up to a winner. 

Ranking: Much like Shadow On the Sand, the biggest weakness of the book is that it's just a bit too easy. As with that adventure, this one also took me only one attempt to win. Therefore, I can't really say that it's great, but it's definitely a really good and fun epic adventure. In fact, I give this one a very slight edge over Shadow On the Sand and will say that this is my new current favorite of the overall series and therefore obviously my favorite Magnakai book as well. Strange that the two Lone Wolf books that took me only one attempt to beat also happen to be my two favorites so far. That just goes to show how much I enjoyed my single playthroughs of them, and if they had only been a bit more challenging they likely could have scored much higher.  

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Some overall thoughts on the Magnakai Series (and the whole Lone Wolf saga) to date:

Ok, the elephant in the room here is the balancing issues with having to juggle so many disparate possible character skill levels. Also, the combat system really doesn't work all that well. The Combat Table is severely loaded in the players favor (there were many times I insta-killed an enemy even though it still had a boatload of Endurance points remaining, sometimes even triple my own) and the idea of having the reader close their eyes and randomly point at a number on the table I find quite silly if Im being honest. As for using a range of 0-9 for "rolls", the Fighting Fantasy books have enough of a problem in making their adventures balanced for players with Skill scores ranging anywhere from 7-12. This problem becomes far worse for the Lone Wolf series as the range of initial possible Combat scores can now range from 10-19. This isn't just aimed at Lone Wolf because other series do the same, but for the life of me I can't fathom why gamebook authors think initial random stat generation for the character is a good idea. Either allow the player to allocate points themselves, or just assign starting values for the characters. This issue is compounded even more in Lone Wolf when various Combat enhancing items and Lore Circles are introduced and can be carried over from book to book. Heck, for the final book a player could have a Combat score ranging from anywhere between 10 and the mid 40's! That's a massive problem and makes the balancing of these books for all players nigh on impossible. I really feel like some solutions were available to this though. For example, for all the Combat enhancing gear found in earlier books (including the Sommerswerd), why not make these available as choose-able starting items for new players? It would make perfect sense narratively that Lone Wolf would have access to all this stuff. In regard to the Discipline system, in the beginning these are great fun as you experiment with which ones to take and where they are the most useful. However, these may actually end up detracting from the books as you progress. Once you begin to pile these Disciplines up, there are many obstacles that just become automatic wins. This could very well be robbing the player of some interesting puzzle solving or combats.  

Relating to the above, perhaps the biggest mistake the series makes is in saying that readers can start with any book in the series. There maybe should have been some warning at the front of each book saying NOT to play it until the previous adventures had been completed first. The reason why they didnt do this is obvious of course....lost sales. The publishers clearly viewed these as games. Still, in addition to being games, these are also an ongoing narrative book series as well. You wouldn't expect anyone to read The Lord of The Rings by starting with The Two Towers after all. This is clearly a huge advantage that an anthology style gamebook series (such as Fighting Fantasy) would have over one such as Lone Wolf. 

With that all being said, and turning to the more positive side now, more so than any series I've played yet, Id have to say that the Lone Wolf series is one where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. While I didn't find any of the individual books ever hit the great level, the series as a whole is really quite impressive with the fantastic world building and mythology that Dever has created along with an interesting and fun inventory system. Dever's atmospheric writing also really grew as the series progressed and I found it went from slightly above average in the Kai series to excellent in the Magnakai series. Despite its design issues, I very much look forward to the next group of Lone Wolf books, and knowing that there are almost 20 more adventures for me to enjoy (and hopefully more if Dever's son Ben can keep it going) fills me with great joy. 

On a final note, the series ended without answering the most important question of all.....what the heck happened to Paido??? When Lone Wolf arrives back through the Shadow Gate after 8 years, he doesnt even ask about him! He did help you obtain several of the Lorestones after all. That's cold Lone Wolf.