0) Ninja!

[vastariner]

A prequel.  Not had many of those.  Have now had it through the post.  1-7 seem to be out as well, but not seen them in bookshops.  Wonder when 8 will come out...

Anyone had a squiz at Ninja! yet?

[sylas]

yes. it's very good. story is solid though not as good as the originals, but then those are classics now. gameplay is really good. a lot of balance has been implemented and there's plenty of replay value. get them all hardback if you can. the softcover reviews are pretty damning.

[paltogue]

Oct 19, 2014 23:05:36 GMT sylas said:

get them all hardback if you can. the softcover reviews are pretty damning.

What's the main problem people are having with the paperbacks?

I have the originals, but they are all prone to cracking at the spine and having chunks of pages come loose, so I've been thinking about getting the new paperbacks.

[sylas]

it's not that they are paperbacks, it's the paper quality that some have complained about. apparently the illustrations don't translate well to black n white and after some time the paper gives off an unpleasant smell.

[paltogue]

Oct 20, 2014 22:27:59 GMT sylas said:

it's not that they are paperbacks, it's the paper quality that some have complained about. apparently the illustrations don't translate well to black n white and after some time the paper gives off an unpleasant smell.

Hmm, curious. They're from the Fabled Lands publisher, aren't they? I've been perfectly happy with the new Critical IF and Bloodsword editions, at least in terms of the illustrations and smell (though the covers do have a tendancy to curl somewhat, which is a bit annoying). And which illustrations do you mean in any case? The black and white ones from the original books, or the colour maps?

[sylas]

Oct 21, 2014 10:37:04 GMT paltogue said:

Oct 20, 2014 22:27:59 GMT sylas said:

it's not that they are paperbacks, it's the paper quality that some have complained about. apparently the illustrations don't translate well to black n white and after some time the paper gives off an unpleasant smell.

Hmm, curious. They're from the Fabled Lands publisher, aren't they? I've been perfectly happy with the new Critical IF and Bloodsword editions, at least in terms of the illustrations and smell (though the covers do have a tendancy to curl somewhat, which is a bit annoying). And which illustrations do you mean in any case? The black and white ones from the original books, or the colour maps?

this is just from a few reviews i've seen before, so maybe later stocks improved. all the illustrations are now in colour which when translated to b/w do often get a bit 'confused'. note that i'm not speaking from personal experience. i only have the colour hardbacks which are just short of an A+ quality.

[hynreck]

I've received books 2 and 4 of the Way of the Tiger from Megara so far. Quality is top except for the pages which are too thin, unfortunately. They tend to curl. They'll be safe with me but I would be afraid of letting them in my children's hands. They won't see the colour of those for a while...
Also I find that the text is often too close to the edge of the page, it's slightly less pleasing aesthetically speaking and again, any damage to a page could result in loosing bits of text, which would be pretty bad. Of course, again, I've no intention of letting anything bad happen to my books but accidents do happen.
I understand there was some budgetary issues, and I tried to help for as much as I could, but that's what it is, in the end it's better than nothing.
Can't wait to receive the rest of the books, obviously, but Ninja! in particular: what's a series without a beginning?

[paltogue]

Oct 21, 2014 22:42:06 GMT sylas said:

this is just from a few reviews i've seen before, so maybe later stocks improved. all the illustrations are now in colour which when translated to b/w do often get a bit 'confused'. note that i'm not speaking from personal experience. i only have the colour hardbacks which are just short of an A+ quality.

Now I'm curious. Do the hardbacks have entirely new colour illustrations, and the paperbacks black and white versions of those? Bob Harvey's original WotT illos are kind of part of the package for me.

[sylas]

yes, the Megara issued WOTT series has completely new colour illustrations by various artists. the old Bob Harvey are gone. i also loved those and will still be keeping the original 6 books. the new artwork doesn't detract though so don't let that scare you off. on the contrary they often bring a lot of life to the books. the hardbacks are really worth it. shipping is free as well.

some art can be seen here:

[paltogue]

Oct 22, 2014 18:53:38 GMT sylas said:

yes, the Megara issued WOTT series has completely new colour illustrations by various artists. the old Bob Harvey are gone. i also loved those and will still be keeping the original 6 books. the new artwork doesn't detract though so don't let that scare you off. on the contrary they often bring a lot of life to the books. the hardbacks are really worth it. shipping is free as well.

some art can be seen here:

Interesting, thanks! Hmm, I do wonder how that would work in B&W...

[Pete Byrdie]

I've never played Way of the Tiger before, but because I loved the style of Talisman of Death, I've just ordered the collectors' editions of book 0 and 1. I'll let you all know what I think when they arrive and I've had a play. Hopefully, I'll enjoy them enough to get the lot.

[hynreck]

Hope you like them. I got hooked, myself, currently reading Usurper!
It has been a while since I've read gamebooks that fast, to be honest.

I've even had a dream or two about them... which isn't usual for me, at all.

[hynreck]

There's no changelog for Ninja!, for obvious reasons, so Richard S. Hetley did, back in the day (on the kickstarter page) some sort of review, including a list of death of his while playing the book. I thought it might be interesting for old and new fans alike to re-post it here, and for posterity! Of course. Ah yes, some small editing involved.

When thinking about prequels, you have to ask: what could be of interest before "the main events"? Sometimes there's nothing in the lore or backstory to make a new tale. Here, book 1's backstory said "you have honed your skills helping the downtrodden on the Island of Plenty," and we know from later play that the Island of Plenty is rich for adventure. Well great, there's inspiration enough, as you could have guessed when we revealed our back cover blurb.

Next question, then. How can a new beginning connect to a series where we KNOW where "page 1" begins? You may have read in interview how David's challenge was to avoid stealing the thunder of the later books. Likewise he couldn't expect the later books to make his job easier: he couldn't go "Watch out! This fella is Aiguchi the Weaponmaster!" on the amateur idea that "residual awesomeness" from Aiguchi would make any scene with him "awesome." That's backwards to new readers who've never heard of Aiguchi, and offensive to old readers who expect better than "fanfiction."

So either he had to do full-scale elaboration on the world of Orb (with approval from the original authors (both of which happened)), or do things that were . . . unassuming but clever. This is a cool part:

Major characters and world events were already established in the 80's, so it was possible to share tidbits in book 0 that tied in later. I'd describe it like writing stories in reverse: the main books say all the "punchlines," while David in book 0 wrote little pieces of "setup." A single person in a single sentence mentions "the Dagger": the name fits into the plot of book 0 just fine and betrays nothing about later books. But then the name appears in a later book and the material becomes connected. Many, many congratulations to David for this delicate balancing act.

So the last question would be: how does the game feel? Anything like The Way of the Tiger? I'd say yes, and to demonstrate let me share with you a classic gamebook experience: dying. While playtesting and editing, I died several times. Here's how:

Slain by an animated Komainu in the Mountains of Unlimited Devotion.

Cut to pieces by the personal samurai of Daimyo Arai of Suma.

Crushed in an avalanche.

Killed by the forces of darkness as they overran the whole of Orb.

Overpowered by mysterious figures in the Forest of Kami.

Reduced to indelible stains in the quarters of Mutari the Pretender.

Immolated.

Sacrificed to Death, Lord of Sorrows. TWICE IN A ROW.

Lost somewhere in the midst of arrows, a long fall, and Thematic Elements I Ought Not Reveal.

Defeated ingloriously by a Ronin Guard.

. . . Sound like good times to you? I'm glad.

[Pete Byrdie]

I've had six plays of this book so far. Regrettably, I seem to have made a lot of correct decisions in the first attempt, and I've spent subsequent attempts mostly exploring new regions to little benefit, and haven't yet progressed as far as initially. This is frustrating, because it means all my new discoveries will come later in the book after drudging through events with which I'm tediously familiar, time and again.

This is the first Way of the Tiger book I've played, and there are things I like and don't like about the mechanics. I like not having to roll a character. Nobody on Titan should go out their front door with a SKILL of 7, and, on Orb, I appreciate not having to make that decision of whether to scrap a low stat character or just press on to somewhere I haven't explored much in the hope of gathering fresh intelligence before the baddies bring me down.

Battles are initially fun and interesting, and the battle system seems to be a conscious attempt to make the fights more involved. But, once a reader is accustomed to the system, in fact they're no more exciting nor especially immersive for all their descriptions and page turning, and replaying the same battles to progress to new areas becomes even more of a grind than it is in a Fighting Fantasy adventure, especially as, in my opinion, the system is too imbalanced towards randomness allowing what should be a simple opponent to sometimes virtually cripple the player. In addition, while the options of Blocking and using Inner Force should have tactical value, Blocking leaves the player at such a disadvantage in the subsequent round and Inner Force points are so precious that (as with using LUCK in battles in FF) if you're so desperate as to have to resort to such ploys to eke out extra moments of life you're probably wasting your time.

The book itself is very nice. The illustrations aren't great, and are frequently over the page from the reference to which they pertain meaning it's easy to miss them while reading through, but in every other respect Ninja! is a nice book to possess. The story gives a greater sense of being part of a novel than is usual in Fighting Fantasy, and the style of the fantasy Japanese land is fun to explore, especially with constant reminders of the rich world of Orb beyond.

I don't really have much with which to compare Ninja!, as the only other gamebooks I've played have been Fighting Fantasy, and one which a friend lent me many years ago after I'd broken my ankle, and which I now know to have been The Battlepits of Krarth, since I've been following the game being played elsewhere on this forum. (Honestly, I'd never have remembered what it was otherwise.) But I'm looking forward to getting the time to complete this book, and especially to begin what I suppose is the series proper, those books by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson.

[champskees]

Recently read the original 6 books of the series, really impressed with the adventures thus far (up until Book 6). Just got Book 0 & Book 7 for a buck each off ebay, so should be reading them soon. Overall I find the mix up of Japanese history/mythology and DnD/Tolkien works, the setting is just so colorful and the character being a ninja works so well for a solo adventure. Over the course of the series they change the mechanics quite regularly - love the idea behind Book 4 (i think) where you are the ruler of the city - missed opportunities some would say, sure - but where else can you get this breadth of creativity? Encountering the old gang from Talisman of Death was another highlight.

IMO the key problem with the older books was the errors - particularly in book 6. From Hynreck's change log reports (they are valuable btw), it seems the new editions are much improved. They really stuffed up Foxglove's paragraphs in Book 6, so it almost makes sense for me to buy them. 

A lot of insta deaths, but most of the time it is pretty fair. You make stupid decisions, you get punished. A lot of the time you are warned, or asked again if you make a potentially fatal choice, which other gamebooks should consider doing.

On Pete Byrdie's assessment of the series' combat system, I haven't played Book 0 yet, but I actually think the system is superior to FF in a number of ways. Compared to FF, every fight is winnable, every playthrough has a chance of success, critical thinking is rewarded in the fights themselves and the random damage makes it exciting to play. If you are Sk 12 vs Sk 5 goblins in FF there is no way you are going to lose and your victory does not come from your superior play/decision making, it came from a single die rolled before you even read the opening paragraph. Inner Force should only be used as a last resort, but IMO the block mechanic is brilliant. It isn't an 'auto use' skill because as pointed out, it attaches a penalty to your next attack roll, but it can be an absolute lifesaver in the other books. If an opponent needs an 8 or 9 to hit you, you are very safe with blocking. Tactical use of this skill really can make a huge difference depending on the situation. The worst thing about the combat system to me is probably the amount of modifiers you need to keep track of each round, it can become quite cumbersome and it can be easy to forget things. 

In short, I am getting excited.

[hynreck]

I'm happy to see you seem to be enjoying these champskees, I had a blast going through them. And I played them fair and square too, with minimum cheating, usually of the save point kind, cause there's not enough time in life (my life anyway) to replay an entire book or worst, the entire series, because of a fatal wound or choosing the wrong side of a channel to cross with my boat (near the end of 4, felt random to me, I might have missed a clue).

You are right about the drop in quality in book 6, but that's well documented. It might have been improved in the new edition (no doubt improved) but I can't verify this and I lost Foxglove pretty early on and I hear she makes quite the difference. Well, that will be for another playthrough.
But what's for sure is that book 7 mostly rectifies whatever wrongs book 6 did (and from what I gather it's mostly being too short and ending in an unresolved climax). Book 7, especially the first half, is awesome all around, and you'll even get more love toward Talisman of Death, making it sweeter.

I'll stop ranting now cause when I do my mind wanders and I might start sprouting incoherent stuff, but as a closer, which fight did you found was the hardest in the books (that you've read)? I'd say Astaroth with no contest in book 3, plain brutal and appropriate (at least I hope the name's Astaroth).
And how awesome is it to be able to punch out Elder Gods or Old Ones?
Avenger truly lives the trope Did you just punch out Cthulhu?!

[scramblehead]

Oct 27, 2015 13:53:15 GMT hynreck said:

There's no changelog for Ninja!, for obvious reasons...

I'm just about to start reading this series for the first time. I'd read the first book as a child, and dipped into the fourth when I found it in a library once, but other than that my only real familiarity with Orb comes from Talisman of Death, imo easily one of the best FFs. One of the main reasons I want to read Way of the Tiger is because Orb isn't just scenery in ToD - even as a child I could tell there was real meat behind that world, that someone had put genuine thought into it. It didn't surprise me at all to discover years later that it was a fully-fleshed out campaign setting the authors had built up in a D&D game. I'm very eager to immerse myself more thoroughly in that world, always found it wonderfully appealing.

Hynreck, am I to understand you're responsible for the edits and mechanic fixes on the new reprints?

[hynreck]

Sorry I'm absolutely late to this party, but I'm getting back in touch now, as I've been lost to the world after loosing my job like so many of us during this awful Covid-related... trailing off.
But to keep it short, no, I'm not in charge of anything. I believe I was just paste/copying text from the author on a probably gone blog somewhere, so that it would survive the apocalypse. Hmm.
I'll have lots of catching up to do, which I will, eventually.