Reviews by End Master

This one goes all over the place.

The book can be divided into several parts making it feel more like multiple mini-adventures rather than one big one. Some of the reason for that is the fact that part of this adventure was published in a gaming magazine and so for this book they added a lot more to extend it quite a bit. The digital version doesn’t change anything other adding colorized/new pictures and achievements to unlock.

Despite the title, the story doesn’t even start you off seeking out the snow witch, you’re actually hunting a yeti for a guy named Big Jim Sun since he wants his caravans protected. He’s offered 50 gold for killing the beast so you set out to do just that.

The hunt for the Yeti doesn’t take too long. Eventually you’ll encounter a trapper in the process of being killing by the yeti. The yeti is a very tough battle, but since Ian wrote this one, you knew what you were getting into from the start.

If you kill the yeti, the dying trapper tells you of how he found the entrance to the snow witch’s lair in a mountain says she’s enslaving a bunch of people and planning to bring about an ice age across the world. He was going to try to stop her, but he obviously wasn’t even good enough to take out a yeti and got wrecked like a scrub.

You don’t even get the option for a premature ending and go return to Big Jim with the yeti’s hide to get your 50 gold, you just excitedly go pants on head foolhardy to explore the snow witch’s lair now that you know the entrance he told you about.

The snow witch has a lot of her folks wearing obedience collars so they have to serve her whether they like it or not. In fact you can have a conversation with one speaking very frankly about how he hates it. Still she’s got plenty of more willing servants as well.

The encounters on your way to the snow witch are generally challenging fights for the most part. Ice demons, crystal statues, even a dragon. A few you even need specific weapons for or you’ll lose automatically. When you finally get to the snow witch herself, you’ll definitely need some specific items to defeat her.

Yeah, it’s pretty brutal and Ian does that A LOT in this one.

Okay so you managed to survive all that and kill her. And that’s it?

Well no, not quite. While you filling your pockets with loot, a dwarf and elf pop in thanking you profusely for freeing them from the snow witch’s enslavement. They decide to join you in escaping from the snow witch’s mountain, which apparently is now the third part of the adventure.

The journey out of the mountain isn’t much easier. There’s also going to be certain items you’ll need to find along the way if you want your escape to be successful.

If you manage to escape, that’s still not the end! Without giving too much more away, you’ll be traveling with your new buddies for awhile and from there you’ll go on a fourth, fifth and even SIXTH part of an adventure! You might not even make it to the fifth leg of the adventure if you didn’t get a certain item.

Freaking Ian and his unknown item hunts.

Also hope you rolled high stats because you are certainly going to need them for the last steps of the journey, but then again if you didn’t roll high stats, I doubt if you would have even made it past the Yeti.

This game probably has the most direct calls backs to other FF books than the rest. Deathtrap Dungeon, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and Forest of Doom. In fact this one almost acts a prequel to Forest of Doom since it mentions the dwarf hammer being gone.

So that’s it for this book. It’s interesting I suppose since it doesn’t just stick to one thing, but this one really wears out its welcome. The fact that this book was originally a much shorter adventure at one time and they just shoved more stuff in to it to pad it out really shows.

Why this one gets more attention than some others in the series I don’t know. It’s still good enough for a play through, but it’s one of the more mediocre entries I think.

While Tinman Games hasn’t gotten around to transferring books 5 (City of Thieves) and 6 (Deathtrap Dungeon) yet, those two books along with this one could be linked together as the same adventurer because the intro of 6 and 7 always starts you off in the previous city. 6 mentions that you’ve travelled from Port Blacksand to Fang and this one mentions you’re travelling from Fang to visit your old adventuring buddy Mungo in Oyster Bay. Probably the beginning of interconnecting the greater FF world later called Titan.

When you meet your buddy Mungo he tells you that the people here are getting regularly raided. The place itself is normally safe such things because it’s poor, but someone has just been straight up taking the people. The one behind these raids are lizard folk from the nearby island called Fire Island.

The island itself has an interesting history since it was used as a dumping ground for prisoners at one point and the native lizard folk were paid as guards. They stopped getting paid though when the ruler just abandoned the idea because most of the people he was ruling over were a bunch of jerks and it would have been easier to just send his law-abiding folk to the island instead.

Naturally the lizard folk were sort of ticked about this and they took out the anger on the prisoners left to rot there. Since they liked doing this so much they then decided to go capture more people and continue doing it. At some point one of the lizards got the bright idea to get really organized and now he’s building an army and using slave labor to work the mines on the island.

Yep, it’s back to the kill the overlord because the classics never die.

So you and Mungo take his sailboat to Fire Island to stop this stuff. Mungo is generally a cool dude and is telling you about how tough guy his dad was and even drops a call back to Deathtrap Dungeon saying his dad died while attempting to compete in it years ago.

When you get to the island, you get a couple of options to start your journey. Either way, I hope you didn’t get too attached to Mungo, because he’s dying either way. Go left and he gets killed by a giant crab that crushes him. Go right and he gets killed by a group of pirates that were burying some treasure.

Both battles aren’t easy and the adventure has just begun! (Yep, it’s another Ian creation) After hacking up whatever felled poor Mungo, he tells you some dying words of getting the lizard king for him. Well now you HAVE to complete the adventure what with it being the dying wish of your friend and all.

So now you’re generally wandering about on Fire Island, which unsurprisingly is a tropical environment for the most part. You encounter a lot hostile beasts in your travels and eventually you’ll learn that the lizard folk and the occasional escaped prisoner aren’t the only intelligent inhabitants on the island since there are groups like pygmies and headhunters living there too.

Why the lizard folk haven’t completely enslaved these other inhabitants too is a bit of a mystery since you’d think they’d start with them first, but maybe its easier to capture unsuspecting fishermen rather than other hardened natives (with a little vooddo magic too) on the island.

One other thing is that is a bit different in this game is there are a few times where something bad can actually help you. The big one is an item which messes up your stats a bit, but has a hidden benefit for a couple situations. It makes for a nice change of something not being totally useful or totally cursed.

So despite just wandering about, you first half of the adventure involves trying to get to the slave mines so you can at least free everyone. When you finally get there you’re having more encounters with the lizard folk and apparently they’ve got some goblinoids like hobgoblins and orcs helping them as second-class underlings. Humans, dwarves and elves of course are all slave workers. It is after freeing the slaves that you learn more about the lizard king.

Not content on just enslaving non-lizard folk and doing experiments on his own people to make them into tougher mutants, he’s also got an overgrown parasite attached to his brain. No really, there is this thing called a Gonchong attached to his head which is sort of why he’s a little more organized and intelligent than the average lizard man. The parasite is giving him the extra power boost and it’s also granting him semi-immortality since normal weapons won’t hurt him now.

So it won’t be a simple matter of just storming the prison, which he’s turned into his “palace” with your slave army. You need to find a shaman who might know how to kill the lizard king, so you now have a separate journey and tell your slave army to wait for you and you’ll see them in a few days.

Finding the shaman isn’t hard since you’re told where he lives, but when you get to him, you’ll have to convince him to help and pass some tests. You can still win without his help, but you just don’t get the direct info you need to beat the lizard king.

You’ll then travel a bit more to meet with your slave army and finally commence with the first part of the final battle and then eventually the show down with the lizard king. Hope you’ve got the right stuff with you to fight him.

Once again the digital version doesn’t change much other than adding colorized pictures and an auto map which honestly you don’t really need for this one

And that’s it for this book. Lot of difficult combat in this one as to be expected from Ian, though less item hunting. Hell, you only need one of the two major items to win the game. The rest of the items in the book are very useful, but you can win without them.

This one probably doesn’t get mentioned as much as some of the others, but I always found it to be an all right book in the series and worth playing.

This was the first attempt as a scifi FF book. If you ever read most reviews about these, you’ll generally get a lot of mentions of disappointment and how the scifi setting never seems to really “work” for the gamebooks.

There does seem to be something to that theory since personally I’ve also found most of the scifi related books to be lacking a bit compared to the fantasy counterparts. Not sure why exactly. Maybe the combat system doesn’t tend to work as well, but that can’t be the case because they often tend to overhaul the simple system for such settings as I’ll go into later. (Though perhaps that's the problem, don't fix what isn't broken.)

Starship Traveller puts you in the role of a space ship captain and you get sucked into a black hole into an unknown part of the galaxy and you have to try to find another black hole to get back home. Yeah, it’s basically “Star Trek Voyager the CYOA” except you aren’t subjected to the awful characters.

You also don’t just roll stats for yourself either. You also roll stats for your top crew which includes your science (Spock), medical (McCoy/Crusher), engineer (Scotty/LaForge) and security (Worf) officers. You also get two security guards (Red shirts) All the crew save for the security dudes have to subtract 3 from their combat rolls since they aren’t fighters. The digital version goes a step further and allows you to name your ship and such to make it even more personalized.

Whenever you beam to a planet you usually get the option to take two other members with you. These members CAN die in combat (or in other ways). If that happens you get one replacement, but you have to subtract 3 from their stat rolls because they’re a second rate replacement (Ezra Dax). Lose the replacement and you don’t get another one.

This being a scifi setting with starships and stuff, there are more ways to kill people than just beating them to death with piece of shaped metal in your hand. You also have ship combat (Yeah you have to roll stats for your ship in the form of SHIELDS and FIREPOWER) Losing all your shields in ship combat and obviously you and everyone under your command explodes spectacularly.

There are also the rarer phaser combat encounters. You can get the option to Stun or Kill, but that’s one of those situational things. Typically any aliens you encounter ALWAYS have theirs set to kill. Generally these are resolved with skill roll tests and if you succeed then you hit, if not then you fail and the attackers get their chance. Since any hit means instant death (or instant stun) phaser combat is over pretty quickly.

With all that out of the way, we can get on with the actual adventure.

Well, there’s not much to it. As I said, you’re basically trying to locate coordinates to another black hole that can possibly take you back to your own galaxy. This means exploring planets and such. Along the way you’ll encounter different aliens and have to deal with them.

Honestly though, despite the open space travel and planet hopping, none of the encounters are all that memorable. It’s all sort of a little dull despite all the extra stuff going on in this one. The only thing I can think of that stands out is eventually when the book starts nearing the end and it mentions how a lot of the crew are getting “antsy” and stressed about the situation and how there have already been reports of a few suicides. Keep in mind you haven’t even been traveling unknown space a year (probably not even close to it) and already you got folks killing themselves. Apparently you’ve got a lot of fragile folks aboard your ship.

So it is at this point if you’ve collected any info on black hole coordinates, you’re supposed to add up some numbers and turn to that page where most of the time it’ll tell you that you approach one of these black holes at a particular speed and everyone blacks out and you turn to another page.

Since this is another Steve Jackson gamebook, there’s only one correct number combo. If you didn’t get it right, then you get a failed ending of how nobody on the ship wakes up because you all died. The same thing happens if you didn’t find anything on your journey, you just get a report of a black hole and you try to go through it anyway. (And die)

If you got the right coordinates though, then you win of course.

Yeah, that’s basically it. This was probably the first FF book that I never bothered to keep playing until I won.

Besides the customization that the digital version adds, it also adds auto mapping and new artwork. The rest is similar to the original.

There were a lot of cool ideas with this one, but just never grabbed me. The book sort of feels shorter as well since it just sort of arbitrarily ends despite the fact that you’ve got literally an entire galaxy you could explore. I get limitations, but they could have come up with something better.

They could have at least tried to have the situation that your fuel or something was running low and if you didn’t risk a black hole soon, you’d be adrift and have hostile aliens destroy the helpless ship rather than your suicidal snowflake crew members forcing you to risk a black hole.

Still as with most FF books it’s worth at least a play through.

Now this was the first FF book I ever read. Other reviews I’ve seen have said it’s one of the weaker or even duller FF books, but again since it was the first one I ever played, I probably enjoy it a bit more than most did I guess.

This one is another where you’re a wandering adventurer and you sort of “stumble” into the quest thanks to a dying dwarf. He basically tells you that he traveled all the way from his village of Stonebridge on the other side of the Darkwood Forest to get the hammer of his people which was stolen by a death hawk which it dropped and then broken in two pieces by a pair of goblins. (Not sure HOW they know that bit though)

They need this hammer so that they can rally and go fight the trolls because apparently there morale is so crap that’s what they need in their life. Obviously surface life has made these dwarves a bunch of sissies if they can’t fight a bunch of trolls without a rallying symbol, let alone getting it stolen in the first place.

In any case you were in the neighborhood anyway, so you decide to take up the dwarf’s dying request. You also take his thirty gold pieces.

So the first stop isn’t Darkwood Forest, but instead it’s the wizard Yaztromo who lives right on the outskirts of it. The dwarf was supposed to get his help anyway, but when you arrive, the most help he’s going to give you is sell you some magic items to help you on quest. There goes your 30 gold and you can’t buy all of it either so choose wisely.

The magic items themselves usually pop up as an option to use in various later parts of the adventure. Typically they allow you to bypass combat or avoid damage.

After dealing with him, you’re on your way. One funny bit is you actually get the option to attack him and if you do so, he’ll actually warn you first not to try it. If you proceed anyway, he turns you into a toad and throws you outside. The end!

Darkwood Forest is sort of just dungeon crawl outside for the most part. I can see why its considered a bit dull since you’re just sort of wandering the forest with the occasional battle to break things up. Granted you’re supposed to be looking for two pieces of the hammer, but since you don’t even know where these are in a giant fucking forest, it’s a lot of wandering and hoping for the best. This one was written by Ian, so of course he liked more combat and item collecting.

Still there are a few bits of interest that stick out, namely there’s whole section where you might go explore some underground caves which is almost like a mini-side quest you can discover. It can also lead to a non-traditional ending if you’re not careful, though it’s a fun one.

The ending of this game is probably a little lack luster too when compared to the final battles in other FF books. The last battle before getting out of Darkwood forest? It’s a group of bandits. You have to fight five of them and it’s more of a tedious battle than a difficult one since they aren’t particularly very powerful, you just have to roll the dice more since you’re defending against multiple attacks.

Interestingly though, you do get the option to by pass them if you have at least five gold or items to give them. Though I never seemed to have enough after going through the damn forest and never like giving into bandits so I always lopped their heads off.

After the bandit encounter you reach Stonebridge where you either have both pieces of the hammer or you don’t. If you do, then you win and get the appropriate accolades, but what happens if you don’t have the complete hammer? Do you get a fail ending?

Why no you don’t, strangely enough.

You get a message saying you have failed in your quest, but you can make your way around Darkwood forest and start all over again at Yaztromo’s tower! There is a potential instant death encounter as you’re attacked by wild hillmen raining arrows at you during your trek back, but survive that and you get to do the adventure all over again.

One problem with that though which is the “loop” problem that was similar in Warlock of Firetop Mountain, except in this case it’s the whole damn adventure. Every encounter is basically reset which makes little sense obviously. Again, nice idea, but they still hadn’t figured out a good way to make it so you could revisit old locations without it being the same thing.

The digital version doesn’t change much except you get an auto-mapping feature which is useful. There’s also colorized artwork and achievements if you care about that sort of thing.

And that’s it for this book. It isn’t as deep or complex as some of the other FFs, but it’s still worth going through.

The one that started it all wasn’t actually the first one I played, but I still got it fairly early during the collection of these. I’ll get into some of the digital version differences towards the end, but I'll start with some background on the original and Fighting Fantasy books in general.

The basic premise is you’re an adventurer type, you’re in a village that exists near this warlock that lives in a mountain and you decide to go kill him. While it sort of implies that you might be doing this for the greater good of ridding the world of an evil overlord, there’s nothing really saying that you aren’t just doing it for the glory and giggles of it.

So the original book was written by Ian and Steve who worked on different parts of the book. The two authors have different styles and it shows in the book.

Ian was the author that usually liked throwing a boatload of battles at you and make you collect a bunch of stuff in order to win. This typically meant you needed to take everything that wasn’t bolted down and explore everything you could. It also meant you better have rolled fairly high stats because he loved throwing monsters with skill levels of 12 at you as well.

Steve on the other hand tended more towards puzzle stuff like figuring out passwords or something similar. He relied less on throwing difficult combat at you and actually provided better ways to face a situation without the need for tough fight.

What this all means is you got a bunch of tough battles mixed in with a good amount of necessary item collecting along with trying to figure out a damn MAZE. It’s the first book, and they’re already playing mindgames with me. As I said though, wasn’t the first one I played though so fortunately I was already hooked on the series to not get frustrated.

Really, it’s not too bad though. The maze however is towards the end of the journey so it’s sort of frustrating or at least it was for me at the time and I still hate mazes to this day. (I’ve probably mentioned that in my reviews before and will continue to do so)

The vital item collection bit is mainly in the form of keys with numbers on them. You sort of don’t get any indication of what all these keys are for though except in a couple places. The setting itself is a classic dungeon crawl. You go around encountering the various denizens of Firetop mountain who are all presumably employed or under control by Zagor the Warlock.

Some of the encounters of note that stand out where you get several options on how to deal with them include stuff like encountering an orc chieftain whipping his subordinate, another group of orcs torturing a dwarf or a group of skeletons building ships. (Convincing them you’re the new overseer and they should get back to work is hilarious)

Dealing with crossing the river is sort of the turning point in the book which also sort of marks the change in the writing style of the book. I think that’s probably where Steve took over. There are also a couple passages that go into minor nightmare mode which is always fun when things get a little creepy.

As for the warlock himself there are a couple ways to deal with him and one is an instant kill with a specific item. Which might seem anti-climatic, but hey whatever gets the job done. Fighting him directly is a lot more difficult as you might expect.

However, killing Zagor is just the second to last step. You still have to get into his treasure chest of goodies. Hope you’ve been collecting keys, because this is where they’re going to come in handy and as an added bonus you have to figure out the combination of numbers via trial and error. Wrong combos can result in severe injury and even death, so yep you can still die after beating the main guy. You can also get a non-standard ending if you exhaust all your combos saying you weep at your failure.

So changes in the digital version, well there’s quite a bit of expansion as far as new encounters and rooms. This is pretty welcome for people that have played the original a lot. You also get different adventurers to take into the mountain which will change things up a bit too.

I feel like the combat changes were a little TOO different, but at least they were turn based.

Still, it keeps with the spirit of the original while injecting new life into a venerable series. I liked it well enough.

With the fourth game in the Sorcery! series, the digital version continues to be very different than the original book. Though the changes are mixed and in typical fashion are a bit convoluted.

This game can be basically divided into two parts. Before you get into Mampang Fortress and after you enter the fortress. The game plays more or less like the original book before the fortress in that it’s a straight march forward with no backtracking. Still some big changes like encountering Flanker before reaching the fortress if he’s still alive.

I really don’t think a potential “romance” inclusion with him was necessary. It’s optional of course, but it just seems pretty pointless to throw in anyway as there really isn’t even much build from the past encounters. For some reason today’s IFs seem to need them shoehorned in no matter how much sense it makes because an overwhelming amount of people need to have their waifus (or husbandos).

In any case, when you eventually reach the fortress, the gameplay changes a bit in that you’ll get a bit more non-linear freedom to move about the fortress, but the most major one is you will not be able to use the rewind function while in the fortress. This means if you die in the fortress, you can’t just rewind back to a previous part in there. You have to rewind ALL the way back to before you entered the fortress, making this last leg of the adventure a bit tougher. This sort of emulates how in the original book how you couldn’t call upon Libra to help you after you entered the fortress.

There is one exception in the fortress where you can rewind back to, but you have to find it, and it only works to how far along you’ve gotten up to that point.

When you’re in the fortress there’s going to be a wide variety of characters you’ll have to deal with. Most of the same ones from the original show up (Hope you remembered to prepare for the Sleepless Ram!), though a couple have been gender swapped for some reason. Not sure what the point of that was either given that one was male to female and another was female to male, so it wasn’t even like doing it to have more female characters. Jann shows up again just as she did before though it can end up a bit different than it does in the original.

The archmage himself is different and I believe the change in this case was for the better. I never really understood having the way they did it in the original book other than having a twist which I didn’t care for anyway. Getting to him is a bit more complicated and you’ll still be using the infamous ZED spell. Just like in the original, it would be best to know how to control it lest you potentially suffer a non-standard ending.

Finally, there are a few different winning endings available, so that was a nice change from the original books too.

My final verdict on this one is similar to my final verdict of the original book. I liked it and I was glad to play through it, but for whatever reason I just didn’t enjoy it was much as the rest of the series. It’s funny, I probably enjoy parts 1 and 2 over 3 and especially 4. Had the same issue with the originals though.

Still, if you’ve made it this far in the series, you might as well finish it and it’s still worth playing through.

And now with the third part of the series is where the changes not only become larger, but almost to the point where it’s a completely different game with only the basic plot in play. Just like the original, you have to make your way across the Baklands and along the way try to take down the seven serpents which are the Archmage’s spies.

This part of the journey probably has the most freedom of all of the games. You can travel back to places you already visited, in fact you’ll probably have to several times. This is different from the original which as is typical of most 80s gamebooks, you always went forward and if you missed something important well you were just out of luck.

Another part that is severely different than the original is the time travel element. Again, this isn’t the usual gameplay thing where you can reverse to a previous point, this is actual time travel woven into the story. You’ll likely be traveling many times into the Bakland’s past when it wasn’t as barren and more inhabited. As a result of this, you’ll be interacting with a more characters than you did in the original which was a little more spartan on that front.

Given that you can travel back and forth pretty much everywhere and there isn’t really a time limit, there really isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t be able to seek out and kill all seven serpents. It’s much easier to do so in this version, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the game isn’t without its problems.

It may be just me, but I wasn’t all enamored with most of the time travel stuff that was incorporated into the game (or the series in general). I found it tedious to be constantly messing about with the “time beacons” in the game. Now of course I found out later that there is a way to complete it without using the beacons at all, but naturally I wasn’t aware or trying for some optimal run-through on my first try. However, apparently completing the game this way, does change some of the story a bit, which is nice that Inkle incorporated that difference.

Of course the original potential story change is still here too, which is whether or not you defeat all seven serpents. Doing so still makes the last bit of the journey a little easier since the Archmage doesn’t know you’re coming so his guards won’t immediately recognize you. Changes dialog as well.

Oh and Flanker shows up again if you still haven’t killed him by now.

Despite me disliking the increase in time travel business, there was more for me to like than dislike about this part of the adventure.

The second part of this series is where the changes of the digital and book versions really start becoming larger. First off, there is a mini-game introduced called Swindle stones. It’s basically a gambling dice game that you can play with various characters in certain locations. It’s an opportunity to win more gold and even information so it’s worth playing it from time to time.

The goal of this step of the journey is to get through the city port to get to the Baklands. This isn’t easy, not only because Khare has a higher crime rate than Detroit, but because you have to learn four spell lines which are each held by a different noble in the city. Of course you’ll have to figure out who these nobles are and where to find them in this big city.

This is made a little easier than it was in the original books since there’s a bit more backtrack allowance around the city. One particular large area you have a lot of freedom to move around at is the festival area of the city. Still, even if you somehow miss spell lines during your march towards the north gates of the city, you’ll get another chance, but more on that later.

Besides the nobles you’re supposed to seek out, there’s a wide variety of characters to interact with as is fitting of an urban setting. The most notable one you’ll hear about or even meet is Vik. You might have even heard of him in during the Shamutanti Hills chapter. In the original book, he doesn’t play as much of a role, but name dropping him can help in a lot of situations as everyone seems to like him. In this version however he’s a bit more of a sinister figure. You can certainly still gain him as an ally, but it’s a little tougher.

Flanker also pops up again if you spared him (As he does in the original book). Flanker’s a bit more directly helpful in this book as well.

Most of the locations you can go to are the same, with a few extras. One major location in the original which was nothing but a time wasting stamina drain were the sewers if you should be unfortunate enough to fall or get thrown into them. This maze area of the game was really tedious though it could be avoided. Same thing here though the mapping system at least allows for you to see more readily where you’re going. Still something you probably want to avoid though. You can also lose your spirit animal here and it be replaced by one of the gods or even an angry spirit.

So as you get closer to the north gate, you’ll discover one major thing which wasn’t in the original book. One of two things is going to happen and it all depends on if you have the four spell lines. If you don’t then you get the option of going back in time to find the lines you didn’t learn. This isn’t like the traditional “rewind” that you can automatically do within the game. This is built into the story itself. Whether you have to go back in time or you got it right the first time around, having all four lines allows you to go through the gates and get the more traditional ending.

Of course you could just ignore all that and exit the city without the four spell lines. Doing this however changes the ending. Quite a bit to the point where it follows you into the next part of the journey.

Regardless of what you do, the situation with the north gate is a lot more forgiving than the original book which gave you a non-standard ending if you didn’t have the lines. (And a death ending if you said them in the wrong order)

Overall, the changes to this one in comparison to the original weren’t bad and for the most part welcome. While some of these changes made the game easier, there might have been a couple parts where the changes actually made the game harder than the original, but then again it isn’t considered one of the most dangerous cities for nothing.

I played the Sorcery! series when it only existed in book form. Not the reissued books either, I mean the original version that actually came with a separate spell book the game encouraged you to memorize and never look at ever again once you started your journey. Well it was the old days and they had to come up with ideas on how to be immersive.

Anyway when I heard they were remaking the series I thought this one was going to just be a straight digitized remake like they did with the Fighting Fantasy series. I was pleasantly surprised to see however they did something a little different with it. Not so much because I dislike the old unforgiving style of the books, but more because the update added some twists and new things on the original books which I played so much I pretty much still remember all the encounters.

The combat changes are interesting I suppose. I still would have rather had virtual dice rather than the slider thing. Being able to go back to a previous point is probably the best way they could have catered to the whole anti-frustration crowd complaining about death around every corner while still not completely alienating the fans of such things. The major change the game implemented was Libra not being your patron deity, instead you get a personal spirit animal, but it works fairly the same way in that you get options to call upon its help in certain situations. There’s also times when your spirit animal can get replaced by another “presence.” This usually isn’t a good thing though. There’s even a couple spells that aren’t in the magic book that you can discover in the game.

I liked that they used most of the old artwork in the game. Always enjoyed the “uglier” look these books had in comparison to the other Fighting Fantasy books since it technically took place in the same world (Titan) as their fantasy setting did. The new artwork that was added was fine even if it doesn’t quite have the same exact look.

But enough about some of the basic game changes, let’s get on with the game itself. The story is pretty simple, you’re on a quest for the king to get a magic crown from the Archmage of Mampang Fortress so that the kingdom doesn’t fall into chaos. However, you’ve got a long journey ahead of you and the first step of that journey is the Shamutani Hills. You can play as a wizard or warrior, but it’s pretty dull playing as a warrior since it feels like you’re missing half the fun of the series in the first place. The combat penalty is negligible compared to being able to cast spells.

The first part of this adventure is pretty traditional in that you are more or less always moving forward. There is no backtracking unless you’re using the rewind function. This one sticks the closest to the original book as well so if you’re familiar with it, you’ll have an advantage of what’s coming for the most part (Like I did). Some changes in characters you meet in this version, it was nice for example to not have to fight Alianna’s wooden golem after helping her out.

Two notable NPCs show up again. Jann the anti-magic minimite and Flanker the Assassin. Jann is pretty much the same as she was in the book. Hangs around preventing you from casting spells and generally being annoying. You’ll want to get rid of her as soon as possible. Flanker, just as in the first game you can spare his life and he’ll pop up again in the second book. In fact in this version he’ll pop up in all of them so it’s worth sparing him just for some extra storyline stuff and help.

There’s another bit added where you can discover a goblin invasion plan of Khare. You can even hamper their efforts a bit, but it doesn’t really do much and there’s more on that invasion plot line in the second book.

This adventure ends the same way the original book did, with a dangerous cave crawl and tough fight against a manticore to save a chieftain’s daughter before moving on to Khare, the cityport of traps.

I enjoyed this updated version of the series and found no major fault with any of it.

This is a classic case of controversy bringing more attention to a story than it otherwise would have received. Only heard about this one thanks to all the fuss made about it, and a couple of upstanding CYStians reviewing it. Figured I might as well throw my opinion of it into the mix.

So it’s porn. Well, that’s nothing new in the IF world. It also doesn’t have much of a plot, which also isn’t anything new in the IF world (Unfortunately).

As for the content, well whether this did anything for you in the lower regions area I guess that’s between you and whatever higher powers you believe in (or don't believe in). If you were offended well you probably shouldn’t have been reading it in the first place based on the title alone and if the title didn’t deter you, the graphic intro most certainly would.

The whole premise of the story is pretty absurd since it pretty much hit the ground running right from the start. No build up, no foreplay, just right to the sex. Well I guess if you’ve got a vision, no reason to mess about right?

That being said, this type of story really isn’t my thing. I laughed a few times at how dumb the concept is and the intro, but that’s about it. I don’t care about any of the characters or the “plot”. Hell, the sex act law that this game seems to be built around isn’t even really addressed much which is arguably one of the more interesting concepts of the piece. This is basically a severely condensed “Handmaid’s Tale” CYOA but with willing participants, minus the religion and ramping up the focus on the sex.

It’s a little hard to tell if this game was written in a way to be serious or if it was written to be over the top. If it was supposed to be serious, then it failed because the game is so over the top with its scenarios that it really crosses the line from offensive to humorous. Well not like those two things are mutually exclusive I suppose. Which is the only reason why it’s getting two stars rather than one since it at least wasn’t boring for me to slog through.

Does it accomplish what it set out to do as far as the sex content? Well yeah I imagine it did for people into this sort of stuff. It gets right to whatever humiliation fetish (and other types) the reader might be into in an efficient manner. It’s not long so I imagine that also helps with people…um “using” the game. Nothing is bogged down by virtually anything that might normally be considered important in the writing world.

I imagine this review is going to get rated down by its fans, but before they do, keep in mind I’m not attacking anyone. The fans and the author can enjoy their weird water sports and pseudo-bestality fetishes all they like. Not judging the content, but rather the lack of ambition.