Aventuras Fantásticas: Fighting Fantasy in Portugal

[IoannesKantakouzenos]

So, let's talk a bit about Fighting Fantasy in my native country. Three years after The Warlock of Firetop Mountain saw the light of day, Verbo, one of the main publishers in Portugal, acquired the rights of the series. And for eighteen years, they would release a total of 38 volumes of Fighting Fantasies, starting, of course, with TWoFM and ending with Curse of the Mummy. But let's go a little bit more in-detail.

#01: O Feiticeiro da Montanha de Fogo (trans.: The Warlock of Fire Mountain), edited 1985 - #FF01

#02: A Floresta da Morte (trans.: The Forest of Death), edited 1985 - #FF03

#03: A Cidadela do Caos (trans.: The Citadel of Chaos), edited 1985 - #FF02

#04: A Nave Perdida (transl.: The Lost Ship), edited - #FF04

I assume Verbo thought at first the main public for this collection would be more grown-up, since they refere to "you" as "você", which is Portuguese's formal way of referring to yourself and more used when referring to adults. From #5 on, however, they'd change it to "tu", the informal way and used to address young people.

#05: A Cidade dos Ladrões (transl.: The City of Thieves), edited - FF05

#06: A Masmorra Infernal (transl.: The Infernal Dungeon), edited 1987 - FF06

#07: A Ilha do Rei Lagarto (transl.: The Island of the Lizard King), edited 1988 - FF07

#08: O Pântano do Escorpião (transl.: The Scorpion's Swamp), edited 1988 - FF08

#09: A Feiticeira das Neves (transl.: The Snow Witch), edited 1988 - FF09

#10: A Mansão Diabólica (transl.: The Diabolic Mansion), edited 1989 - FF10

#11: O Talismã da Morte (transl.: The Talisman of Death), edited 1990 - FF11

#12: O Assassino do Espaço (transl.: The Space Assassin), edited 1990 - FF12

So far, Verbo had edited every book, despite, for some unknown reason, changing the order of #02 and #03. But afterwards Verbo began jumbling up the order of the original collection and skipping a few titles. Why? Well, your guess is as good as mine...

#13: O Templo do Terror (transl.: The Temple of Terror), edited 1991 - FF14

#14: O Planeta Rebelde (transl.: The Rebel Planet), edited 1991 - FF18

#15: Demónios das Profundezas (transl.: Demons of the Deep), edited 1991 - FF19

#16: A Espada do Samurai (transl.: The Sword of the Samurai), edited 1991 - FF20

#17: O Desafio dos Campeões (transl.: The Trial of Champions), edited 1991 - FF21

#18: Os Círculos de Kether (transl.: The Circles of Kether), edited 1992 - FF15

#19: Máscaras da Destruição (transl.: Masks of Destruction), edited 1992 - FF23

#20: Comando Robot (transl.: Robot Commando), edited 1992 - FF22

#21: O Castelo dos Pesadelos (transl.: The Castle of Nightmares), edited 1993 - FF25

#22: A Cripta da Feitiçaria (transl.: The Crypt of Witchcraft), edited 1993/1994 - FF26

#23: O Viajante das Estrelas (transl.: The Star Traveller), edited 1994 - FF27

#24: Abismos do Mal (transl.: Chasms of Evil), edited 1994 - FF30 - this one has a little error in the translation: in (31) you are told you can use the ring to fight any foe without loss of Stamina. So you can pretty much use it from then on to win any fight you get yourself into (pity it doesn't work for OSC...)

#25: Encontro com o M.E.D.O. (transl.: Appointment with F.E.A.R.), edited 1994 - FF17

#26: A Arma de Telak (transl.: The Weapon of Telak), edited 1995 - FF31

#27: Cavaleiro do Céu (transl.: Sky Chevalier), edited 1995 - FF33

#28: O Ladrão de Espíritos (transl.: The Stealer of Spirits), edited 1995 - FF34

#29: A Maldição do Vampiro (transl.: The Curse of the Vampire), edited 1995/1996 - FF38

#30: Torre de Devastação (transl.: Tower of Devastation), edited 1996 - FF46

#31: Maré Vermelha (transl.: Crimson Tide), edited 1996 - FF47 - the translation makes the final solution sound a bit like gibberish:

SPOILER: Click to show

When King gifts sword turn to x

#32: Escravos do Abismo (transl.: Slaves of the Abyss), edited 1997 - FF32

#33: Exércitos da Morte (transl.: Armies of Death), edited 1998 - FF36

#34: A Lenda dos Cavaleiros das Trevas (transl.: The Legend of the Knights of Darkness), edited 1999 - FF44 - this book is unwinnable due to the fact that the name of the place where the final showdown occurs has been translated but the paragraph number hasn't been adjusted, meaning you will never find Voivod

#35: Regresso à Montanha de Fogo (transl.: Return to Fire Mountain), edited 2000 - FF50

#36: O Senhor do Caos (transl.: The Lord of Chaos), edited 2001 - FF41

#37: Resgate em Arion (transl.: Rescue in Arion), edited 2002 - FF55

#38: A Maldição da Múmia (transl.: The Curse of the Mummy), edited 2003 - FF59

And, in 2003, Verbo decided to stop publishing any more Fighting Fantasy books. Some of the last books advertised that #39 would be A Vingança do Vampiro (FF58), but with the cancellation that would never happen.

[kieran]

Interesting that Portugal didn't get Black Vein Prophecy but did get its sequel.

[a moderator]

I wonder why the cover illustration for Caverns was flipped.

[dragontyrant]

Jun 8, 2022 10:37:34 GMT IoannesKantakouzenos said:

And, in 2003, Verbo decided to stop publishing any more Fighting Fantasy books. Some of the last books advertised that #39 would be A Vingança do Vampiro (FF58), but with the cancellation that would never happen.

I'm also from Portugal and in 2015 Verbo tried to relaunch the series but stoped at 3 books, a Warlock of Firetop Mountain reprint and 2 new ones, Freeway Fighter and Creature of Havoc, all with the Wizard Books covers. I have the new ones but never got the Warlock reprint.

[a moderator]

That's not the Wizard cover for Freeway Fighter. Wizard-style text, but mirrored Puffin illustration. Wizard used a different picture by the same artist.

[dragontyrant]

Jun 17, 2022 15:13:47 GMT a moderator said:

That's not the Wizard cover for Freeway Fighter. Wizard-style text, but mirrored Puffin illustration. Wizard used a different picture by the same artist.

Oh yeah you're right, my bad. Anyway I don't know why they decided to stop with only 3 books, maybe lack of sales considering the year of publishing.

[IoannesKantakouzenos]

Jun 17, 2022 14:07:54 GMT dragontyrant said:

I'm also from Portugal and in 2015 Verbo tried to relaunch the series but stoped at 3 books, a Warlock of Firetop Mountain reprint and 2 new ones, Freeway Fighter and Creature of Havoc, all with the Wizard Books covers. I have the new ones but never got the Warlock reprint.

View Attachment

Whoa, wasn't aware of that!

shame.gif

[IoannesKantakouzenos]

So, after receiving news that there was a FF reboot in Portugal, I hurriedly tried to suppress my fault and get them all, managing already to have found the Feiticeiro da Montanha de Fogo new book (Guerreiro da Autoestrada is on its way, Criatura Selvagem will be a pain to find though, it seems).

After immersing myself in the book, I regret to say that one of my main peeves with the original book is still present:

Jun 8, 2022 16:16:10 GMT IoannesKantakouzenos said:

Portuguese translators knew little of what they were translating back then, and that is why the Ghoul found in (275) and/or (148) was called a "Vampire" in the PT version and, needless to say, I never understood why the rules were different between that "vampire" and the true vampire found in (254) - while they called a Wight a "Man-Beast" and a Wererat a "Man-Mouse".

A Ghoul is still called a "vampire", a Wight continues to be a "Man-Beast", the torture-happy Goblins are still called "Demons"… The paragraph numbers are "corrected" to match the original version, the illustrations feel somewhat "scanned" from the first book… but, overall, it's a Wizard's edition book translated to Portuguese, with the rules, adventure sheet and predefined characters at the end of the book. It has a nice touch of having the list of the books' original series. Overall, it was a pretty decent reboot. Too bad it only spanned for two more books…

[IoannesKantakouzenos]

So, after around 18 months of search, I finally managed to acquire the three books that compose the Portuguese revamp of Fighting Fantasy. Now, I can finally go into detail about them (they are not actually numbered anywhere, but inside they are ordered like this). As half-expected, they go after the Wizard editions (despite the O Guerreiro da Autoestrada's cover being a mirrored version of Puffin's):

#01: O Feiticeiro da Montanha de Fogo (transl.: The Warlock of Fire Mountain), edited 2015 - #FF01

About this one, I already talked in the previous post, so no need to repeat myself.

#02: O Guerreiro da Autoestrada (transl.: The Highway Warrior), edited 2015 - #FF13

Well, it's Freeway Fighter translated. The original book was simple enough so the Portuguese translators didn't manage to screw it up - which cannot be said for the next book...

#03: A Criatura Selvagem (transl. The Wild Creature), edited 2015 - #FF24

Well, Creature of Havoc was always going to be a challenge to be translated just right; and I regret to say that the translators managed to turn a challenging but awesome book into a frustrating and unwinnable book. The coded speech was simplified in the Portuguese version of the book: the vowels are still changed into the next consonant but all spaces (and even punctuation marks) are present and are valid ("Ypvr prpgrfss hbs bffn wbtchfd, fpvl crfbtvrf pf dfstrvctjpn!", per example), turning it into something pretty understandable even before reaching the Vapour of Tongues. However, that alone isn't enough to make the book unwinnable, I agree... however,

SPOILER: Click to show

in (192) the "page 93" is removed from the text and you are specifically told to deduct 192 from the reference where you think you have found Marr's portal - and of course, nothing was adjusted in the paragraph order, meaning that you'll reach a paragraph that makes no sense in the adventure

. Also,

SPOILER: Click to show

when you find Hannicus, the hidden message is turned into a sentence spoken by him "Can you understand the human will to reach two hundred?", which may make you lose the chance of getting the Ring of Holy Blessing

.

Also, some of the first paragraphs of the adventure tell you to lose ENERGIA (ENERGY) points, which of course should be FORÇA (STAMINA)

On the plus side, it looks like there was some care with the pagination, since, comparing it with my CoH book (Puffin edition), all paragraphs are in the same pages, despite, like the Wizard's books, all instructions being at the back.

Sadly, this rebuttal stopped at the third book - or good riddance, seeing the mess Verbo/Babel made with CoH...