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Post by CharlesX on Nov 12, 2022 12:48:56 GMT
Where would Secrets Of Salamonis and Shadow of The Giants rank? Maybe when there are some more Fighting Fantasy there can be a new ranking. Not before, because two isn't enough.I'd guess they'd both rank in the middle - Secrets Of Salamonis is ambitious but not brilliant, Shadow Of The Giants is well-written but too much of a dungeon crawl, too short and arguably too easy.
What? They are both brilliant books. Secrets of Salamonis's multi quest is amazing and shadow of the Giants is very exciting. Plus the artwork and covers of both are 10 X better than previous scolastic.
I suspect I would enjoy both a lot more if I were part of target audience - they're both aimed even more at younger people than previous FF entries, and I've only become older and more cynical with time. I've given my thoughts in Secrets Of Salamonis thread why I think Secrets Of Salamonis is overrated. While I think the artwork is really good in Shadow Of The Giants (although the paper quality and spine isn't), if anything I think my words above are generous, I don't think Shadow Of Giants is one of the best because there's too much shopping and not enough slaying. There's probably a very, very long discussion to be had about whether Jackson & Livingstone are always the best writers for their own series, aside from subjectivity, which I don't want to have and won't go anywhere, and so I'm putting down the mike (not dropping it) here and now.
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Post by misomiso on Nov 13, 2022 9:48:18 GMT
I really liked SoS - I honestly thought it was great evolution and innovation in gamebook design, and had a huge amount of creativity to it.
But each to their own!
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Post by Wizard Slayer on Nov 15, 2022 16:06:25 GMT
Judging by reviews and so on, probably Space Assassin. Second book I bought, loved it as a kid and I still really like it now. Yet almost everyone else seems to despise it!
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Post by CharlesX on Nov 15, 2022 19:22:25 GMT
Judging by reviews and so on, probably Space Assassin. Second book I bought, loved it as a kid and I still really like it now. Yet almost everyone else seems to despise it! I really like it, as well, but it isn't Andrew Chapman's best gamebook (it wouldn't be, being his first). It seems to have a lot of clever ideas which somehow don't 100% work - if anything that's because the gamebook is too short. It has an exploration vibe about it which feels like a very good Basic D&D game or Choose Your Own Adventure. The other big thing it has going for it imo is the difficulty - many FF gamebook authors don't bother making a gamebook that isn't heavily hard (or in a handful of cases, real easy), and there's definitely something to be said for a gamebook which doesn't have a 1 in 3 chance of success on maximum stats (or lower, such as the recently discussed Temple Of Flame Golden Dragon 2) and doesn't require you to have memorised a 'true path' that is heavily linear, deeply illogical and requires a shopping list you can barely count on your fingers and toes. Just a shame Andrew Chapman didn't learn that in Seas Of Blood, which is really good but on the hard side.
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Post by pip on Nov 15, 2022 20:56:26 GMT
Where would Secrets Of Salamonis and Shadow of The Giants rank? Maybe when there are some more Fighting Fantasy there can be a new ranking. Not before, because two isn't enough.I'd guess they'd both rank in the middle - Secrets Of Salamonis is ambitious but not brilliant, Shadow Of The Giants is well-written but too much of a dungeon crawl, too short and arguably too easy.
What? They are both brilliant books. Secrets of Salamonis's multi quest is amazing and shadow of the Giants is very exciting. Plus the artwork and covers of both are 10 X better than previous scolastic.
I agree with Charles. Both books are enjoyable, I had fun playing them, but I'd also rank them somewhere in the middle (which was satisfying enough for me, after waiting so long for new books to be released). AFAIC they're totally worth playing, but definitely not the new Deathtrap Dungeon or Creature of Havoc.
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Post by pessimeister on Jan 26, 2023 8:39:15 GMT
It's been quite eye opening to realise how derided and widely scorned Sky Lord is. As a kid, I found it compellingly odd and bizarre yet somehow I kept coming back to it to try and solve it. In fact for a long time I liked it the most out of the small selection of sci fi books that I'd read. In truth, this may have been because it was early on in my fighting fantasy time - I'd absolutely devour any title I could get my hands on back then. Perhaps my perspective would shift if I picked it up again but for now I'm happy with my memories of its quirky strangeness.
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Post by Wizard Slayer on Jan 26, 2023 13:34:25 GMT
It's been quite eye opening to realise how derided and widely scorned Sky Lord is. As a kid, I found it compellingly odd and bizarre yet somehow I kept coming back to it to try and solve it. In fact for a long time I liked it the most out of the small selection of sci fi books that I'd read. In truth, this may have been because it was early on in my fighting fantasy time - I'd absolutely devour any title I could get my hands on back then. Perhaps my perspective would shift if I picked it up again but for now I'm happy with my memories of its quirky strangeness. I know where you're coming from, having had similar memories of this book back then. Having played through it recently for the first time in years as part of a playing-all-my-books-in-order quest, it definitely had a few shortcomings! Ship-to-ship combat: This is pretty much broken, made worse by having to unavoidably face one of two such combats very early on. 'Fixing' this by coming up with my own rules eventually made it far better. Weird challenges: The most obvious one being running through a blob-infested space station picking up very random objects. After exiting the space station you get a points total depending on the objects you have. If it's high enough you win (in a poorly written way), if it's not you die. The trouble is there's no real logic to the points, plus because you can see the points for all objects it's easy to note which are the highest-scoring items to take next time. It's not a section you get any satisfaction from 'solving' at all. Illogical actions: It's never the best when actions are forced on your character although when there are only 400 paragraphs it's understandable. Sky Lord was pretty bad with it though. One example (again from the space station), you're busy trying to escape killer blobs, pass through a sports hall and become "momentarily distracted" and for some reason decide to stop and play either snooker or space ball. As another example, you're getting near to the target planet when you get a message from your King telling you 'Yeah I know if you fail your mission it could cost billions of lives but there's some space pirate nearby in a massive space battleship, and I'm ordering you to go and stop him singlehanded.' All that said, Sky Lord does have quite a few nice sections in it, especially once you're out of your spaceship. Yes it's silly in places, but it's clearly not trying to take itself seriously!
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 26, 2023 17:13:30 GMT
It's been quite eye opening to realise how derided and widely scorned Sky Lord is. As a kid, I found it compellingly odd and bizarre yet somehow I kept coming back to it to try and solve it. In fact for a long time I liked it the most out of the small selection of sci fi books that I'd read. In truth, this may have been because it was early on in my fighting fantasy time - I'd absolutely devour any title I could get my hands on back then. Perhaps my perspective would shift if I picked it up again but for now I'm happy with my memories of its quirky strangeness. Sky Lord was published when gamebooks were in their heyday, and I assume things like its originality, some humour, a more than token amount of effort and a level of challenge were all elements in it getting published. Just compare it with Starship Traveller, where you had many fewer references, and had to roll an entire crew up, and there were multiple errors in the gamebook, and you could complete it without testing a die roll throughout. Sky Lord had more personality and was less bland, albeit an ugly and unlikable personality in my book. More to the point though, Sky Lord compares well with much of the dross of CYOA which could be heavily dull, random, and I would say childish. I'm still not a fan of Sky Lord and say it is one of the worst FFs, and maybe shouldn't have been published, but as Wizard Slayer says one especial problem about it is simply the ship-to-ship combat is ball-breakingly difficult, fix that and it moves up some points.
Sky Lord's cover was another example - garish, generic, uninspired and just very below-average in my opinion. The internal art was better if not brilliant (it did what it could with the material).
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Post by paperexplorer on Jan 27, 2023 0:52:34 GMT
I'd rank sky lord above some of the other sf titles in the series like starship traveller and star strider. I might have to give it a re-read again soon, it didn't jump out as a title that should get that much derision.
Also, I am a little surprised Seas of Blood isn't as popular as I thought it would be. Fun book.
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Post by Peter on Jan 27, 2023 4:24:38 GMT
The blob chase is Sky Lord would have been better if there was some logic to the points. The first few times, I tried to figure it out - maybe metal objects, maybe certain chemicals - but there is nothing.
I always liked Seas of Blood. It it just a bit unbalanced gamewise. And the slave-taking could have been replaced by crew recruitment or something (taking-on of able-bodied sea-faring locals seeking adventure and fortune on the high seas), although it fits the story as it is.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 27, 2023 11:46:00 GMT
I'd rank sky lord above some of the other sf titles in the series like starship traveller and star strider. I might have to give it a re-read again soon, it didn't jump out as a title that should get that much derision. Also, I am a little surprised Seas of Blood isn't as popular as I thought it would be. Fun book. IIRC civil war almost broke out when it looked like Sky Lord would pass Star Strider in King Gillibran's Best of the Worst poll, with one voter switching votes on principle\tactically in the hope of blocking Sky Lord (*checks results*) and Sky Lord still managed to poll ahead of Star Strider, albeit by a single vote. I would say both sf could have been better but are let down by technical points about execution, with Star Strider I can see why 'roll two dice 4 times and don't get doubles' could be a deal-breaker. I personally think the artwork in Star Strider is definitely better, especially the cover, and I say things like the writing and sense of humour are as well, but it takes all sorts. Just the cover of Sky Lord put me off getting\reading it.
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Post by paperexplorer on Jan 28, 2023 0:03:02 GMT
One thing I never bought into (which affects my view of Star Strider) is the impact illusions have on your character and freaking you out. One particular scene I remember was the grom head expanding and biting your own and I just thought what grounded hero, knowing about grom illusions, would ever believe that was actually happening and be impacted by it.
I think sky lord gets a pass on silly things from me because it sets a tone early that I can accept that.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Jan 28, 2023 10:08:47 GMT
I don't remember massively enjoying Star Strider, but I remember getting very excited by the world building. I'd watch a movie based on it. We're all very familiar with Titan but it's basically a standard fantasy world, with a bit of regurgitated Tolkienism and the fantasy gaming world conceit that any creature or situation you can think up can be plugged in to maintain variety. I think Star Strider and Rebel Planet gave us compelling, reasonably well defined worlds to explore.
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Post by Wizard Slayer on Jan 30, 2023 13:18:43 GMT
One thing I never bought into (which affects my view of Star Strider) is the impact illusions have on your character and freaking you out. One particular scene I remember was the grom head expanding and biting your own and I just thought what grounded hero, knowing about grom illusions, would ever believe that was actually happening and be impacted by it. Then again, think about jumpscares in video games. Even when you know something isn't real, even if it doesn't look all that real, sometimes even if you know it's coming, you still get scared. The illustration gave the impression it was more of a sudden fast BANGINYOURFACEMASSIVETEETHABOUTTOBITEOFFYOURHEAD than the leisurely change that could be read into the text.
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