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Post by petch on Jul 12, 2023 18:09:16 GMT
This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, and having only just recently finally finished Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants, this seems as good a time to do it as any. A few years ago, The Count created a thread where he counted down all of the FF books, from worst to best as he saw them. This is my attempt to do the same. A bit of history: I first came across this forum shortly after finding my old FF collection in my parents' attic, some 25 years after last reading one as a teenager. Flicking through them again, my love for the series was rekindled, and over a relatively short period of time I consumed them all voraciously, reading the lot in sequential order. Having finished, I did some idle googling for 'Best Fighting Fantasy' books, to see how the internet's thoughts on the subject compared with my own. As luck would have it, it was at exactly this time that Wilf was running his rankings thread, and coming across it, it seemed the ideal time to engage with some other fans of the series, and get their views on how the books stacked up against one another as well as having an opportunity to share my own. And I've been very happy in my new home here ever since. In order to work out my scores for the rankings, I spent some time putting all of the books into my own ranking order. What I'm about to post is more or less that same list - I've given it some minor tweaks over time as my views have changed, but I wanted to keep it pretty much the same as these were my initial independent thoughts on them, uninfluenced by the opinions I've come about on here since. In fact I have posted my list before some time ago, but I did just list the books, and what I wanted to do here was include a little potted summary of my thoughts on each one to justify its position in my rankings. I'll most likely keep my thoughts relatively brief, as I'll try and do at least a post a day, and don't think I'll have the time or energy to even attempt a full review for all of them! A couple of notes before I start:- - The books I'm including are the same ones that Wilf polled in his rankings thread, namely all of the main-series FF books from Puffin, Wizard and Scholastic (but including Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants which had not been released at the time of that thread), the Sorcery! series and the two non-AFF role playing books Fighting Fantasy and The Riddling Reaver. No Clash of the Princes, though - haven't read them. - This should really go without saying, especially as everyone on here seems very reasonable and lovely, but having seen the guff storms that erupt in other places where people post their 'Best of' lists, I think it prudent to point out that this is in no way intended to be claiming that this is a definitive list, only my own inexpert opinions on the subject (I'm not that arrogant, despite having put my own username in the thread title like some kind of dickhead). Indeed, it's been some time since I've read some of these books and my memories aren't as fresh as they were, and I'm very conscious that there are many users of this forum who are much more knowledgeable about the series than I (not to mention more articulate and generally less stupid), so please feel free to point out errors, disagree with my placements, pick holes in my reasoning...that's one of the main reasons I'm doing this, as I think lists like these are great for encouraging debate. I'll start with the five books I rank at the bottom. I've recently shared my opinion on these in my bottom 5 FF thread, so this is largely a copy and paste job from what I said on there, partly because I'm lazy, partly because these fairly neatly summarise my thoughts on them already and partly because I want this to be a celebration of a series I love rather than me picking holes in the books that I don't, and apart from these five I hold an affection for basically all of the others. 77 - Starship TravellerIs Starship Traveller the worst FF gamebook? Probably not, to be honest. But it is my least favourite because of what it represents - a huge missed opportunity. It could - should - have been the sci-fi equivalent of what Jackson did with Appointment with F.E.A.R or even Sorcery!, with its grand Star Trek inspirations leading to epic adventures across different planets, your hardy crew in tow, with the limitless possibilities of the genre being explored. But its slim length, the flaws in its design that mean you can beat it without picking up a pair of dice, the lack of imagination, all point to Jackson giving up on the project, rush releasing it and moving on to other things. I know I'm being harsh here - Jackson doubtless had a lot of plates to spin, and the series was very much in its infancy at the time, but since he demonstrably didn't care very much about it, I don't either. 76 - Eye of the DragonThis really didn't do it for me. There's nothing wrong with a good old fashioned dungeon crawl, but at least put some effort into it. Bare, descriptionless corridors and rooms with a series of 'do you go left or right' or 'do you open the door or don't you' decisions leading to half-formed ideas presumably left over from previous works or 'I'll just chuck a goblin or an evil wizard in there, that'll do' type encounters. Add to that an absurd premise and an illogical setting...nah, sorry. So that's the two series co-founders in the bottom two positions, then. Pleased to say they're both also responsible for other entries that I've ranked a lot higher! 75 - Star Strider
Sometimes, Luke Sharp's ideas and book design were good enough to allow me to overlook some of the shortcomings in his writing. Not so here. If you're going to try to create an original setting - sci-fi or otherwise - then it needs to be vivid enough for the reader to be able to immerse themselves in it. Sadly, the writing is so wanting here that at times I even forgot I was supposed to be on a futuristic version of Earth, with only the London Underground bit at the end leaving any kind of lasting impression. I normally appreciate the use of humour in the books too - the series does have a tendency to be a bit po-faced at times - but the attempts at it here just fell flat for me, the 'Houlgans' description in the intro being particularly groanworthy. 74 - Chasms of MaliceThere's actually quite a lot I like about Chasms. The underground lore of the place is pretty interesting. Giving you a feline companion is a nice touch, although Tabasha doesn't get nearly enough screen time and she ceases to be useful just at the point when you need her the most. And Sharp's unique take on book design with its labyrinthine, overlapping pathways gives decent replay value to the opening section at least. Then, just past the midway point, there's that strange moment in reference 203 where Sharp breaks the fourth wall and more or less tells you that the adventure is about to become rock hard. And that's where it starts to all go wrong. Straight after this is the notorious 'one-strike combat' section, surely the most poorly thought out supplementary rule in all of FF. I kind of get what Sharp was going for, to show the lethality of his underground setting, but it's just so poorly designed. True, Chasms isn't even the most mathematically difficult FF to complete, but at least Spellbreaker and Crypt of the Sorcerer had the decency to conceal their unfairness better than 'toss this coin several times and if it ever comes up heads, you die.' And then, even if you negotiate this part, towards the end the book descends into a series of decisions where if you don't pick the right compass direction, it's instadeath. It even gives you some clues for the first few if you managed to learn the Cyphers, but then it abandons that completely for several decisions in a row with arbitrary death by wrong direction to the point where it becomes almost parodic. Bleurgh. 73 - DeathmoorRobin Waterfield is a very good writer. Phantoms of Fear has my favourite opening of any book in the series, and moves skilfully and evocatively from pastoral imagery at the beginning to the darker descriptions of the disease and corruption that infects the forest as you move closer to Ishtra's influence. It conjures vivid and memorable dreamscapes too. Although Masks of Mayhem is far from being one of my favourites, it demonstrates well that writing doesn't have to be verbose to be elegant. I mention this because that quality is almost entirely absent from Deathmoor. It opens well enough, with some grim body horror in the Background and the town you start in has a bit of character (that said, that weird cameo from Mario & Luigi feels very out of place, and just made me wish Waterfield spent less time playing Super Mario and more time on his book!). But when you venture into the moor, it becomes almost description-free - I found I couldn't visualise the setting at all due to the lack of description and you might as well have been wandering around some graph paper populated by wandering monsters. It culminates in the most underwhelming climactic encounter in the whole series because we know nothing about Arachnos at all. Is he human? Is he, as his name might suggest, some kind of spider-guy? We don't know, because Waterfield couldn't be arsed to tell us.
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Post by a moderator on Jul 12, 2023 23:26:24 GMT
76?
59 books in the Puffin range + 4 Sorcery! + 2 FFRPG books + 6 first published by Wizard + 6 Scholastic-only titles = 77, so which book are you not counting?
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 13, 2023 6:49:30 GMT
76? 59 books in the Puffin range + 4 Sorcery! + 2 FFRPG books + 6 first published by Wizard + 6 Scholastic-only titles = 77, so which book are you not counting? This is a total guess but perhaps it was Blood Of The Zombies, which is relatively new and awful and on-the-fringe-of-what-is-FF? It is noticeably absent from these other 'awful' gamebooks, and I'm guessing this might be because petch has not played it before, or if not why isn't it up above Deathmoor? What I like about this ranking is it prioritizes the reading experience above gameplay, which I myself perhaps understably place primarily. So no cheap shot at Gates Of Death (which has some originality and length and is no worse than many other gamebooks) or Port Of Peril (which in my opinion is an average, even fun, adventure that is spoiled by some gameplay rule ambiguities). The old Star Strider v. Sky Lord which is worse debate - I agree with petch's views above but for me the artwork and difficulty of Star Strider lift it above Sky Lord.
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Post by petch on Jul 13, 2023 10:42:21 GMT
76? 59 books in the Puffin range + 4 Sorcery! + 2 FFRPG books + 6 first published by Wizard + 6 Scholastic-only titles = 77, so which book are you not counting? Glad someone is more on the ball than me - thanks greenspine! I hadn't missed out a book, I'd just miscounted. Original post now edited.
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Post by petch on Jul 13, 2023 11:34:55 GMT
72 - Space Assassin
There are some neat ideas on offer here. Andrew Chapman does know how to design a good set piece, with the Assault Vehicle combat being a particular highlight. Credit too has to be given for some of the supplementary rules, especially the Armour system and use of different weapons - given that the series was still in its youth at the time, it was good to see authors innovating and experimenting with different concepts.
The problem is, Chapman didn't seem to know how to present all of these different ideas, and as a result his scattergun approach to firing all of this disparate stuff into the same gamebook means that it lacks any kind of cohesion. The no-frills writing style he employs doesn't help; with a bit more embellishment he could have tied things together a bit more but the stark prose here only adds to the feeling of disjointedness. It's a few tasty morsels rather than a banquet.
71 - Return to Firetop Mountain
I can remember being really excited when I first saw this in the bookshop as a littlun. A giant 50! A follow-up to the book that started it all! This had to be an epic, right? But then, when I eagerly began to read it, I found myself...disappointed.
I think the single biggest issue with this book was that, while the series had moved on, Livingstone's approach to writing hadn't. By this point, multiple other contributors had joined the party with their fresh ideas and we'd seen expansive adventures of increasing complexity, ambitious works that tried to push the boundaries, authors who trusted the intelligence of their target audience enough to employ more advanced vocabulary and prose. In comparison, this just seemed, well, functional. And functional doesn't exactly get the blood pumping.
That's not to say there isn't some good stuff here. Revisiting some of the locations from Warlock definitely tickled the nostalgia bone. There are a couple of fun puzzles. Most of all, the confrontation with Zagor was a marked step up from the first book; while in gameplay terms it boiled down to an item hunt for the dragon's teeth, the Elemental duels gave it a sense of gravity the original lacked.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 13, 2023 15:13:00 GMT
Being a pedant here but perhaps this thread should be called (Petch's) Fighting Fantasy rankings rather than (Petch's) Final Fantasy rankings. Although I think it more than a bit unlikely people will come to this site and this thread half-expecting for Petch's rankings of the well-known Japanese video game hit series Final Fantasy - then again though..
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Post by a moderator on Jul 13, 2023 19:24:33 GMT
I can edit the title if Petch does want it corrected.
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Post by pip on Jul 13, 2023 19:37:08 GMT
While I agree with you that Starship Traveller is a subpar FF book, I actually do like the idea that if you pick the optimal path, you won't ever have to roll dice. Was that done on purpose, or by accident? We'll likely never know. Did Steve Jackson really bother to write all those fancy combat rules, knowing that you may never use them if you always pick the correct choice? Knowing him and his desire to push FF boundaries, I'm tempted to say "yes", though that is a personal guess.
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Post by vastariner on Jul 14, 2023 7:23:34 GMT
72 - Space Assassin
The problem is, Chapman didn't seem to know how to present all of these different ideas, and as a result his scattergun approach to firing all of this disparate stuff into the same gamebook means that it lacks any kind of cohesion. The no-frills writing style he employs doesn't help; with a bit more embellishment he could have tied things together a bit more but the stark prose here only adds to the feeling of disjointedness. It's a few tasty morsels rather than a banquet. In defence of Chapman's writing, he was given WoFTM as the style to follow, which is fairly sparse. Especially with regard to the much-maligned para 400.
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Post by petch on Jul 14, 2023 9:45:32 GMT
I can edit the title if Petch does want it corrected. Ha, what a numpty, yes please. So apart from not being able to count, and getting the name of the entire series wrong, I'd say I'm off to a good start here.
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Post by petch on Jul 14, 2023 10:31:19 GMT
70 - Temple of Terror
I have a feeling these next two may be the most controversial placings in my whole list, ranking a pair of fondly remembered early classics so low. But bear with me on this.
As I mentioned in my opening post, when I got back into the series as an adult, I read through all of the books sequentially. Temple of Terror was the first time I found myself thinking 'I might not get through this.' Up until this point, all of the books had a feeling of being fresh, new, exploring new ideas, concepts and designs, even if they weren't always successful. I couldn't help feeling that this was the point where the first sense of the formulaic started creeping in. Sure, there were a few new and interesting things here - a desert setting being explored for the first time, an attempt at a new system of magic, some new creatures being added to FF's growing menagerie of nasties (the Messenger of Death being especially memorable, and the book's highlight for me). But despite this, there was an unavoidable sense of seen-it-all-before-done-better to the whole thing. Perhaps it's because it was when I started to notice a bit of laziness in Livingstone's writing; take the Night Horror encounter for example. It's weak to a brass handbell that you happened to find half-buried in the desert. Okay...but why? There's no attempt to provide any kind of justification in the text as to why it would be. It's a little thing, perhaps, but it's just a small indication that some of the love that had gone into Ian's previous entries wasn't quite there any more.
69 - The Forest of Doom
While Jackson smashed it out of the park with his first solo attempt at a gamebook after Warlock, Livingstone's first go at going it alone wasn't quite as successful. There's nothing inherently awful about Forest - it's just that it feels a bit rudimentary. A succession of fairly basic encounters linked up by a straightforward dungeon design (albeit a mainly alfresco one). It commands some interest as an example of the series' most prolific author honing his craft, but its lack of ambition means that I don't really want to rank it any higher than this.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 14, 2023 11:01:52 GMT
Hmm no Gates of Death yet... Is this the moment Petch reveals he's been Charlie Higson all along?
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 14, 2023 12:41:44 GMT
I liked Temple Of Terror for its simplicity and that and the hidden\useless items were comparable to those in other fantastic series of the time such as Knightmare and Golden Dragon; it also made me feel like I was playing a D&D game or reading Tolkein. Livingstone has a divisive & polarizing style but the fact he doesn't seem to develop it after his mid-era FF (in contrast with say Jackson or Dever) greatly grates. I think I'm pretty sure at this time FF still had that nuts declaration on the cover that "once you have found the true path, you can succeed most\all of the time no matter what your starting stats" where Temple Of Terror very much has gameplay issues, which petch has not been very heavy about. Forest Of Doom was clearly aimed at kids and as an unambitious kids' book it is aright (Shadow Of Giants is the same attempt done miles better).
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trialmaster
Wanderer
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Posts: 62
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Post by trialmaster on Jul 14, 2023 13:19:00 GMT
People do sometimes forget that the target market for FF books was for young readers which is why books like Forest of Doom were so popular back in the day. That was certainly the case for me anyway. This is why it is a bit grating to hear them being criticised for being too simplistic 40 years later. Books like FOD were simply being written for their target market.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 14, 2023 14:01:24 GMT
People do sometimes forget that the target market for FF books was for young readers which is why books like Forest of Doom were so popular back in the day. That was certainly the case for me anyway. This is why it is a bit grating to hear them being criticised for being too simplistic 40 years later. Books like FOD were simply being written for their target market. Yeah that is a fair point. Back in the day, I loved books like Forest of Doom or Scorpion Swamp. More sophisticated stuff like Black Vein Prophecy didn't do it for me.
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Post by petch on Jul 14, 2023 15:46:56 GMT
People do sometimes forget that the target market for FF books was for young readers which is why books like Forest of Doom were so popular back in the day. That was certainly the case for me anyway. This is why it is a bit grating to hear them being criticised for being too simplistic 40 years later. Books like FOD were simply being written for their target market. Yeah that is a fair point. Back in the day, I loved books like Forest of Doom or Scorpion Swamp. More sophisticated stuff like Black Vein Prophecy didn't do it for me. I think it's a fair point too, and don't get me wrong, I do like The Forest of Doom - I'm just having to come up with justifications as to why I like it less than others! Equally though, I always saw FF as being pitched towards the older end of the children's books market, and I wouldn't underestimate how discerning that target audience can be. More compelling narratives or richer atmospheres do resonate with them - which is exactly what Livingstone incorporated into his next few books.
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Post by petch on Jul 14, 2023 19:41:55 GMT
68 - Armies of Death
Somewhere in here, there's a great gamebook waiting to come out, but its potential is a bit wasted. The book's USP - the army combat - should have been the main focus of the book, but instead it just feels tacked on. For long sections of the book, you either trot off with little contingents of your army, leaving the bulk of your forces behind, or you're alone (such as in the much-derided part where you meet the world's most absurdly esoteric information seeking Oracle). When the climax comes and we at last get to see a proper clash of armies, it's great - Livingstone effectively captures the chaos of battle across a number of sections, and there's tactical decision-making, sacrifice, heroism and lots of failure check points and dice rolling. It's thrilling. It's just a shame you have to trawl through lots of not-so-good stuff to get there.
A personal bugbear with this one: of all of the nefarious big bads that Livingstone pits against you across his books, Agglax is surely the least impressive inductee into Sir Ian's Hall of Villainy, given that when you finally get to confront him, he promptly runs away across the battlefield on his bony little legs and gets his minions to do his fighting for him. The big wuss.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 14, 2023 22:00:45 GMT
A bit like Starship Traveller, the true path for Armies Of Death means you will not have to run any risk at all of losing too many soldiers, which for me is a bigger issue than the oft (and understandably) criticised 50-50 life-or-death roll that is mandatory (you're a kid hero playing an 'escapist work' and your odds for this one point are exactly 50%, leaving aside all the other gameplay challenge - what was Sir Ian thinking?). And no, even off the true path you do not see Agglax's statistics, although this being a very Ian Livingstone gamebook the true path is pretty much the only path (I like Island Of The Lizard King and Forest Of Doom for their adventurous feel).
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Post by paperexplorer on Jul 15, 2023 3:22:29 GMT
Not necessarily agreeing with the rankings but enjoying reading nonetheless. Keep it coming petch.
Temple of Terror is interesting in that it's the only traditional hero fantasy in a long run of books (10-18) that weren't. Maybe in the long view it doesn't stand up well (still need to revisit myself, it's been many years) but it was needed from a series perspective to balance the sci-fi/pirate/horror/superhero books around it
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Post by King Gillibran on Jul 15, 2023 8:23:36 GMT
I have been tempted to do this for quite some time but haven't had the time motivation or read enough of the books in depth to do it. Maybe I will now finally get the motivation. Very much enjoying, though also don't agree with many as I am shocked that there is at least one person who doesn't put Gates of Death at the bottom. I am a Livingstone hardcore fan with only Blood of the Zombies being not so good in my opinion. I love Allansia romps and many times have I done in depth maps of allansia where I lay out where all of the hundreds of different encounters take place according to livingstone. Even though I am a Livingstone fan most of his books are average with just a few standing higher in my opinion "cough" Deathtrap Dungeon "cough". Many other authors get consistantly higher such as Jonathan Green and Keith Martin. Finally UK Steve Jackson is probably my most contreversial Author with almost all of his books being at the very top or very bottom. It is what comes of experimenting many are amazing sucesses and some are failiures. "cough" Starship Traveller "cough". Thank you Petch and keep it up.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 15, 2023 9:02:26 GMT
I have been tempted to do this for quite some time but haven't had the time motivation or read enough of the books in depth to do it. Maybe I will now finally get the motivation. Very much enjoying, though also don't agree with many as I am shocked that there is at least one person who doesn't put Gates of Death at the bottom. I am a Livingstone hardcore fan with only Blood of the Zombies being not so good in my opinion. I love Allansia romps and many times have I done in depth maps of allansia where I lay out where all of the hundreds of different encounters take place according to livingstone. Even though I am a Livingstone fan most of his books are average with just a few standing higher in my opinion "cough" Deathtrap Dungeon "cough". Many other authors get consistantly higher such as Jonathan Green and Keith Martin. Finally UK Steve Jackson is probably my most contreversial Author with almost all of his books being at the very top or very bottom. It is what comes of experimenting many are amazing sucesses and some are failiures. "cough" Starship Traveller "cough". Thank you Petch and keep it up.
Me too, but I haven't read about five FF books (such as Robot Commando, which most reckon a top half FF), and I don't think my FF ranking would bring much new to the table, being based mostly on gameplay rather than personal preference. People here have already had a go at me for not liking Crystal Of Storms, but it's massive game-rule inconsistencies are what dooms it for me, before I consider things such as the writing and internal artwork (which I think are very good although maybe not phenomenal). If those things weren't dealt with, it would be Revenge of the Vampire all over again.
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Post by outspaced on Jul 15, 2023 9:05:14 GMT
People do sometimes forget that the target market for FF books was for young readers which is why books like Forest of Doom were so popular back in the day. That was certainly the case for me anyway. This is why it is a bit grating to hear them being criticised for being too simplistic 40 years later. Books like FOD were simply being written for their target market. And yet Ian's Adventures of Goldhawk series for "younger readers" state on the back cover that they are aimed at 7 to 11-year-olds. So what age group did Puffin think the main series was geared up for?
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Post by petch on Jul 15, 2023 11:33:29 GMT
Thanks for the kind words guys, I'm enjoying doing this (but I am worried it will only be a matter of time before I run out of interesting things to say and start repeating myself!). I'm very happy for people to disagree with my rankings, it's all about personal preference after all and the world (not to mention this forum) would be a pretty boring place if we were all in agreement. I do feel bad about having so many of Sir Ian's books so low as he's given so much to the series over the years, not just by contributing gamebooks but by his ongoing work to keep the brand alive. But as I've said before, I've a massive affection for the series and there are things I like about even these books towards the bottom of the table, and fortunately Livingstone is prolific enough that we'll be seeing plenty of his stuff closer to the top end too.
But on that note...
67 - Blood of the Zombies
As maligned as it has sometimes been around these here parts, there are aspects of Blood of the Zombies that I honestly think are terrific. One of Livingstone's biggest strengths in his other gamebooks is the varied and imaginative menagerie of different nasties that he throws at the player, but here he restricts himself to basically one enemy type (zombies, obvs). What manages to keep it fresh, though, is the means you have at your disposal of despatching them. Blast them with a shotgun! Eviscerate them with a chainsaw! Blow them to smithereens with grenades! Mow them down with mounted artillery! Or, if you're feeling old school, there's even the option to hack and slash to your heart's content with a sword. In Gingrich Yurr, Livingstone introduces a memorably OTT villain who recurs several times throughout the adventure, at one point forcing you to leap off of a parapet as he targets you with a rocket launcher, at another making you dive for cover as he drives his car at you full speed, so his threat never seems far away. It's probably best not to try to read too much into his motivations - which don't amount to much more than he wants to visit a zombie apocalypse on the world BECAUSE HE CAN - but in the tradition of some of the best pulpy movie villains, he's a big evil bastard who needs to be stopped, and that's really all you need to know. The whole thing zips along at a cracking pace, and Livingstone really nails the schlocky horror / 80s action movie vibe that he was going for. In summary: as a read, it's blinding.
But of course, I haven't mentioned the elephant in the room as yet. The zombie elephant. The zombephant. That being, the gameplay. One issue I have is that in order to win through, you need to eliminate and keep track of every shambling undead git in the book. Given that there are scores of the buggers, to a book in which Livingstone introduced a purposefully streamlined combat system to give an easier pick-up-and-play value, adding such an excessive amount of record keeping being required just strikes me as a bizarre design decision. And the other issue - and this is the biggie - is that Blood of the Zombies is impossible to win with its existing rules. Even the most notoriously difficult of the standard-rule applying FFs had a mathematical chance of the player being able to win, infinitesimal as it may be. But here, nope, no chance. I think an even bigger crime is that Wizard released a reprint with updated rules (increased player Stamina) but it was still impossible. So they identified that there was an issue, but then lacked the common sense to put in the basic amount of playtesting that would have been needed to properly rectify it. That's unforgivable.
Such a shame. If even a little bit of the effort that went into writing this went into making it more playable, I would have ranked this much higher.
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Post by petch on Jul 16, 2023 8:51:24 GMT
66 - Fighting Fantasy: The Introductory Role-Playing Game
My run of five consecutive Ian Livingstone titles is brought to an end by this contribution from his series co-founder, which is in part a rules supplement establishing how the basic Fighting Fantasy rules can be adapted into a group role-playing campaign, along with a couple of dungeon adventures to use them in. It's aimed squarely at audiences new to RPGs and to support this Jackson purposefully keeps it simple, so it's probably unfair to criticise this for being too basic as it does exactly what it sets out to do, but given the nature of the task that I've set myself here I'm going to pick holes anyway!
Jackson was always at his best when he was experimenting and pushing boundaries, and while there is a smattering of creative ideas on offer here, 'Jackson Does Generic' doesn't exactly excite. The other problem here is that the FF rules weren't originally designed for group play, so they don't lend themselves especially well to simple combat-focused dungeon exploration; the game should be all about collaboration, and canny parties here simply need to use the tactic of sending their player with the highest Skill in first for all of the fights. It would take something a little more special to get the most out of a campaign using the FF system - fortunately, another pair of authors would subsequently do exactly that.
65 - Masks of Mayhem
My feelings towards this one have softened over the years (not enough for me to rank it any higher than this, mind); when I first read it, I thought the blunt, almost staccato prose was just lazy writing. Having read the more considered opinions of others on this forum, I now think it was a conscious choice from Waterfield to present it this way. He takes a paring knife to his prose, and when it works, the stripped-back economy of language can be quite effective: it gives an immediacy to some of the action, such as in the rather good bush-fire segment, and adds an almost poetic quality to some of the descriptive work, especially in the opening parts of the journey around the shores of Lake Nekros. When it doesn't work though, its brevity can be infuriatingly abrupt. That ending, for example. It's not like I expect the book to shake my hand and give me a fiver for winning, but I would like a little more reward for my efforts - it's not an easy book, after all - than the equivalent of 'You win. The end.'
I should probably mention the orb thing as well. It's been discussed on here a lot, so I won't dwell on it, but locking a mandatory quest item behind a random 1 in 6 dice roll is silly, Robin.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 16, 2023 9:03:55 GMT
Thank you petch . I keep mentioning I prioritise gameplay in any ranking, which is heavily understandable - so on that basis I'd probably rank Spellbreaker lower than Masks along with Crypt and Sky Lord. The writing might be terse but at the same time it's good like Waterfield's other work, but it's definitely not his best. I haven't group-played the games in Fighting Fantasy but they did seem pretty well-written. Perhaps "pretty well-written" isn't everyone's cup of tea.
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Post by petch on Jul 16, 2023 11:30:37 GMT
64 - The Gates of Death
Ah, the phenomenon of the celebrity author. Writing ability is not a necessity (indeed, in the case of a few Love Island contestants who have entered the fold, I don't doubt their writing ability so much as their ability to write), as long as the name being slapped on the cover is recognisable enough to shift a few units. Oh what a glorious age of literary enlightenment in which we do live.
If anyone from Scholastic is reading this, a few ideas for future FF celeb collabs:
- A tell-all memoir from Katie Price about what really happened that night she had a lock-in with a dozen dockhands at the Black Lobster - Richard Littlejohn's To Blacksand in a Handcart, in which he bemoans the influx of Caarth lizardmen and other subhuman effluent flooding mainland Allansia, taking the jobs, and eating the children of, good, decent, honest, hardworking Libra-worshippers - Russell Brand's My Fighting Fantasy Wantasy where he spends 399 of 400 references talking about himself
Actually my god these are all terrible ideas. I'm very sorry, Mr Publisher man. Sorry for wasting your time.
Fast Show alumni Charlie Higson does in fact bring some proper writing pedigree in children's literature to the table (although his inexperience with gamebooks does become clear with a number of mechanical errors), and while I understand his lighthearted, non-reverential tone may be grating to some, I found it pleasantly refreshing and nicely engaging. Puerile as the humour is, it made me grin on more than one occasion, and he breaks up the silliness with some demonic horror that can be quite dark. Yes, dark. Very dark, actually. Almost...almost black.
Black! O black, like a chasm of clams! Black, like the procession of night that leads us into the valley of despair. I'm blind! The gulls have plucked out my eyes...no, no I'm not doing that. I've already spent most of this summary wittering on about some painfully snobbish observations on the culture of celebrity authors and to spend the rest of it regurgitating some of Higson's old Fast Show catchphrases would just be childish and self indulgent. Back to it then. So, Higson bases the majority of his book in some familiar locations in Allansia, and...aaaah. I'm sorry I've just come. Um, he, uh, bases it in Allansia and...no sorry I'm going to have to stop there, I've just come again.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 16, 2023 16:47:22 GMT
I wonder if I would be better disposed to Gates of Death if I had ever seen a single episode of The Fast Show
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 16, 2023 17:09:00 GMT
I wonder if I would be better disposed to Gates of Death if I had ever seen a single episode of The Fast Show My university student mates thought highly of The Fast Show and watched it loads as well as quoting from it loads - I've no idea what they saw in it as it seemed deeply average to me with jokes that were cheap, repetitive and unsophisticated and no plot (I believe there were one or two Fast Show specials based around Fast Show characters, but they were even more low-brow and unfunny than the Fast Show). I found Gates Of Death funny compared to The Fast Show (not remembering Charlie Higson had worked on that show almost a generation ago), but more because of my low opinion of The Fast Show than the hit-and-miss style humour present in Gates Of Death. Except for the bum-faced monster - that didn't work at all, unlike the South Park version or even the Mitchell And Webb Look BS rip-off.
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Post by vastariner on Jul 16, 2023 20:14:16 GMT
I wonder if I would be better disposed to Gates of Death if I had ever seen a single episode of The Fast Show Given that I bloody love The Fast Show and was not enchanted by Gates of Death, then almost surely not.
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Post by outspaced on Jul 17, 2023 7:15:21 GMT
I wonder if I would be better disposed to Gates of Death if I had ever seen a single episode of The Fast Show Given that I bloody love The Fast Show and was not enchanted by Gates of Death, then almost surely not. Do you . . . like . . . gamebooks, Ted? I wouldn't know about that, Sir.
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