vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809 
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Jul 24, 2022 10:26:36 GMT
For godsake please tell me which One is better, Gates of Death or Crystal of Storms?
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Post by Wilf on Jul 24, 2022 11:36:16 GMT
For godsake please tell me which One is better, Gates of Death or Crystal of Storms? They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. Personally, I loved reading both, but hated playing them. Crystal Of Storms (61st in my 2020 poll) seems to get less vitriol than Gates Of Death (76th) does. The Bum-faced monster seems to attract most of the hate. |
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Post by a moderator on Jul 24, 2022 12:17:28 GMT
Posts moved from thread where they didn't belong.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 24, 2022 12:21:16 GMT
For godsake please tell me which One is better, Gates of Death or Crystal of Storms? They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. Personally, I loved reading both, but hated playing them. Crystal Of Storms (61st in my 2020 poll) seems to get less vitriol than Gates Of Death (76th) does. The Bum-faced monster seems to attract most of the hate. A prosaic point, but I thought most of the hate about Gates Of Death was not The Bum-faced Monster, but the whole book being far too easy, having lots of gameplay and continuity errors, having s**tty pictures, and being very underwhelming and poor in comparison to most FF. In which ways is Crystal Of Storms "almost unplayably broken"? Incidentally, I don't recall Terrysalt reckoning it was broken when he did his playthrough. |
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Post by slloyd14 on Jul 24, 2022 13:28:07 GMT
They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. Personally, I loved reading both, but hated playing them. Crystal Of Storms (61st in my 2020 poll) seems to get less vitriol than Gates Of Death (76th) does. The Bum-faced monster seems to attract most of the hate. A prosaic point, but I thought most of the hate about Gates Of Death was not The Bum-faced Monster, but the whole book being far too easy, having lots of gameplay and continuity errors, having s**tty pictures, and being very underwhelming and poor in comparison to most FF. In which ways is Crystal Of Storms "almost unplayably broken"? Incidentally, I don't recall Terrysalt reckoning it was broken when he did his playthrough. The worst part with Crystal of Storms gameplay was how potions couldn't increase attack strength when you pilot the submarine and there are some tough opponents there. Also, you have a -1 penalty in the submarine. This means that you need a high initial skill to win (like almost every other FF book) Also, you can go to islands multiple times and play them again like Forest of Doom. Something people find frustrating because it resets each island and brings dead people back to life, but nowhere near unplayable. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 24, 2022 14:24:19 GMT
Also, you can go to islands multiple times and play them again like Forest of Doom. Something people find frustrating because it resets each island and brings dead people back to life, but nowhere near unplayable. Yeah I think all Crystal really needs is a "if you have explored all three islands and lack the necessary means to go on to a fourth you lose" section. There's definitely enough redundant sections to accommodate that within the 400. The submarine section is tough but it's nowhere near one of the more broken FFs when it comes to difficulty. |
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Post by philsadler on Jul 24, 2022 14:48:10 GMT
Any way to make GOD less easy (apart from playing blindfold or something)?
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 24, 2022 14:57:16 GMT
Ways to make GOD more playable..
Not having a ridiculous 10 smoke oil vials might be one way to start. Charlie Higson basically hands them out like bananas.
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Post by philsadler on Jul 24, 2022 15:19:56 GMT
You mean, have a few less or none at all? I haven't played this book yet but when I do, I don't want it to be pathetically easy.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 24, 2022 15:32:21 GMT
You mean, have a few less or none at all? I haven't played this book yet but when I do, I don't want it to be pathetically easy. As it is GOD is pathetically easy, because you just take out 8 or 9 different enemies with your smoke oil vials. I would suggest trying GOD with half (5), meaning you may have to fight some Demons with Skill 8-10, Stamina 8-10. There are interesting, powerful weapons which you just never use (or have to run the risk to get) because you do away with combats one way or another. I wish someone would do a Revised Edition of Gates Of Death - it might move from being a no-star gamebook into a one or two star gamebook. Edited: Looking at the solution I think you can walk it even with 5 smoke oil vials. But I nostalgically prefer to stick to the original FFs as far as humanly possible. |
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Post by Wilf on Jul 24, 2022 16:39:07 GMT
They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. Personally, I loved reading both, but hated playing them. Crystal Of Storms (61st in my 2020 poll) seems to get less vitriol than Gates Of Death (76th) does. The Bum-faced monster seems to attract most of the hate. A prosaic point, but I thought most of the hate about Gates Of Death was not The Bum-faced Monster, but the whole book being far too easy, having lots of gameplay and continuity errors, having s**tty pictures, and being very underwhelming and poor in comparison to most FF. In which ways is Crystal Of Storms "almost unplayably broken"? Incidentally, I don't recall Terrysalt reckoning it was broken when he did his playthrough. I don't know Terrysalt. I do know that on my first playthrough (elsewhere on this forum) I was railroaded into a loop where I had to perform all my actions for a second time as if they'd never happened, because it was impossible to proceed from one of the three original islands, meaning if you visit that island third, the game invariably breaks. And the artwork is every bit as shitty as that in Gates IMO. |
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Post by terrysalt on Jul 25, 2022 2:13:43 GMT
A prosaic point, but I thought most of the hate about Gates Of Death was not The Bum-faced Monster, but the whole book being far too easy, having lots of gameplay and continuity errors, having s**tty pictures, and being very underwhelming and poor in comparison to most FF. In which ways is Crystal Of Storms "almost unplayably broken"? Incidentally, I don't recall Terrysalt reckoning it was broken when he did his playthrough. I don't know Terrysalt. I do know that on my first playthrough (elsewhere on this forum) I was railroaded into a loop where I had to perform all my actions for a second time as if they'd never happened, because it was impossible to proceed from one of the three original islands, meaning if you visit that island third, the game invariably breaks. And the artwork is every bit as shitty as that in Gates IMO. Terrysalt is me! Pleased to meet you.  Charles is referring to my progressive stats playthroughs and while I struggled with the bathysphere section, I didn't find it unplayable or anything close to it. That said, I was using a guide as the aim was to find the lowest possible stats it was possible to win with. Had I gone in blind, I very well could have gotten caught in the loop you describe. |
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Post by Wilf on Jul 25, 2022 6:27:00 GMT
Ah - severed-foot-man! Apologies, I do remember you, by avatar if not by name!!! Agree the bathysphere section is unfairly tough, but it's the initial unavoidable loop if you pick the wrong island that makes the adventure unplayable for me (and which gave me an extremely negative first impression of the book, which subsequent examinations of it have not removed). And yet it could have been so easily fixed...
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vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Jul 25, 2022 7:54:26 GMT
For godsake please tell me which One is better, Gates of Death or Crystal of Storms? They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. For godsake, for what youre saying even the HATED eye of the dragon is way better than those two. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 25, 2022 9:22:25 GMT
They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. For godsake, for what youre saying even the HATED eye of the dragon is way better than those two. Why not give them a go and see how you find them? Both books have their fans. |
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 25, 2022 9:29:48 GMT
They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. For godsake, for what youre saying even the HATED eye of the dragon is way better than those two. In the case of Gates Of Death, yeah, because GOD is so broken and Livingstone can be a good storyteller, even on a bad day when he's maxing out his cliches. Blood Of The Zombies (worse ranking than the three) is more hated for its heavily broken gameplay than its linearity and other things. As for Crystal Of Storms, I personally think having a couple of gameplay issues, even quite big ones, doesn't destroy what's actually quite well-written (imo better writing than GOD), and a gamebook you can play, one that isn't a cliche-ridden '80s dungeon-crawl, and has its own difficulty curve that is imperfect but not outrageous or boring. I might be biased because I like Terry Pratchett (yeah, they're related) while I've never heard of Charlie Higson before. |
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Post by Wilf on Jul 25, 2022 11:51:33 GMT
They're both well-written but almost unplayably broken. And both seem to be aimed at a younger audience than the other books. Given your fascination for unredeemable evil-doers, I wouldn't recommend either to you. For godsake, for what youre saying even the HATED eye of the dragon is way better than those two. Do not misquote me, please. I have not mentioned Eye Of The Dragon at all. Eye Of The Dragon came 74th in the poll I ran in 2020. |
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Post by Wilf on Jul 25, 2022 11:53:27 GMT
For godsake, for what youre saying even the HATED eye of the dragon is way better than those two. Why not give them a go and see how you find them? Both books have their fans. An excellent idea. |
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Post by paperexplorer on Jul 29, 2022 21:42:32 GMT
Are the poll results still posted somewhere to view? I'd be interested to see them after being fashionably late here.
I'm undecided whether I want to get either of these two new books. I'd probably get them if I was a completist, but having missed the wizard titles I think that possibility is gone
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Post by a moderator on Jul 29, 2022 21:49:26 GMT
Are the poll results still posted somewhere to view? I'd be interested to see them after being fashionably late here. is the thread you want. |
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Post by soulreaver on Aug 5, 2022 1:27:54 GMT
Funny, I'm actually reading Crystal of Storms right now. I've previously read Gates of Death.
Some spoilers below, in case you care:
Gates of Death is pretty awful. In terms of narrative, prose, and artwork, it's clearly aimed at 'children' (and by children I mean some big corporate executive's idea of what children are like, so not at all the sort of children that loved the illustrations in City of Thieves).
The storyline does benefit from having a fairly large scope, with a lot of travel involved, but it feels really strangely removed from the world of Titan, despite desperately namedropping locations etc for continuity. It lacks the grittiness and atmosphere that most Titan-based Fighting Fantasy books have, and feels more cartoonish. It's like it's written by someone that doesn't take the setting seriously, for lack of a better word.
The art is just bad, and again seems to be put in there by someone who thinks they know 'what kids would like'. Maybe it's true but I was a kind once and I know I would have vastly preferred the old-style art.
Gameplay wise the book is an unfixable mess, which is a shame because there's a couple of good ideas in there. The best thing about it is that there are effectively two different paths through the game - one is the 'proper' path where you use the Smoke Oil to resolve most fights peacefully. The other involves a much nastier route where you only have a single bottle of Smoke Oil... but also get the best weapon in the game right from the get-go to help you through fights. It's actually quite a neat idea, marred only by the fact that you'll have very few fights on the 'true' route (which means the lack of a good weapon isn't really a disadvantage), while the other path is just harder overall, means you don't really benefit from any weapons you do find, and feels a bit redundant as you get the equivalent weapon conveniently handed to you at the end of the game on either path anyway.
What really breaks the game though are two things: a complete disregard for internal continuity (so yes, you can loop through sections re-meeting people/creatures you killed earlier and re-taking their treasures... you can even 'recognize' someone who you've never met before) and more egregiously: an error at the very end of the game that absolutely requires you to have an item that you simply cannot have at that point (as getting to that point requires you to lose all your items just a little bit earlier). This is especially bad as the 'you lose all your items' thing is a very clear point in the plot and the story (it's why you need to eat a bunch of magic seeds and gain their powers BEFORE you meet the final boss... rather than taking the seeds with you and eating them when you need them). So unless you cheat/tie yourself into knots to justify why you suddenly do have this item, you cannot ever win this book.
Overall I still came away thinking that it was better than I expected, but I expected the absolute worst and this was still close to it. I give it some points for ambition and some novel ideas, but overall it really shouldn't have the Fighting Fantasy name on it.
I'm only about half-way through Crystal of Storms so far, and so far haven't run into anything game-breaking (perhaps I was just lucky with my choice of starting island or my general decision-making?). The overall impression I get is a lot more positive than Gates of Death.
The prose and style is still more aimed toward children, but at least it doesn't feel insulting. It also feels like someone has shoehorned their ideas (tinker goblins, floating islands, submersibles etc etc) into the Titan setting despite not belonging there - though they do at least make some attempt to justify it by making the location completely cut off from the rest of the world. It feels very 'disconnected', though at least it does so without sullying Titan as a whole. The story is actually very enjoyable so far though - it's about uncovering a mystery and searching for answers, and has some surprises along the way. You actually feel more like you're playing as a police officer/detective than the standard Fighting Fantasy murderhobo and so far this part of it works very well.
The art is still bad, but more from a style perspective. The feel of the art very much detracts from the feel of some of the darker parts of the story, and that's a shame. It would fit nicely into a more cutesy fantasy-themed picture book but it doesn't sit right with me as a Fighting Fantasy book. The cover wins my prize for 'worst Fighting Fantasy cover ever made', and would win that prize even if the dog-thing on it (a Candidor or something) didn't look awful, purely on the abysmal nature of the emoji cloud floating in the corner. There are actually living clouds in the book (Cloudkin), so it's not completely inaccurate, but I do not think they were supposed to have cartoon eyes and mouths. That cover is just incredibly terrible.
Gameplay wise, I think I can see how the book could potentially get you caught in loops or the like but I haven't run into any of that yet. So far the design has been fine for me and it's not been anywhere near as obvious/bad as Gates of Death, though I can see it's probably not held together as well as some of the older books. There's a section where you're told to fight two harpies at the same time, but I checked and the rules don't actually ever tell you how you're supposed to do that (they just say "the instructions on the page will tell you how to handle the battle") so that's a fairly bad oversight for completely new players.
Personally I really like that the book uses codewords to track some past actions and gives you more options if you've done certain things in the past/have learned some things during your investigation. I also like that you get a choice of which island you start on (and get some advantages on that island based on your choice), though by the sounds of it it might be possible to make a wrong choice that will screw you over later.
I'll just have to keep playing to see how it pans out and if I can get to the end. It doesn't seem like a particularly difficult book so far that hands out weapons, healing items and other such stuff fairly freely, but then I do have Skill of 12 (though a Luck of just 7) on this playthrough. I think a recent failed Test for Luck just cost me an important clue... and I'm keen to see if that will have repercussions later, which should show that I'm actually still interested in what's going on.
I rate this one as decent at this stage, though again: if it was completely removed from the Titan setting I don't think it would matter in the slightest.
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Post by paperexplorer on Aug 5, 2022 4:50:03 GMT
I'll disclaimer this by saying I've read none of the new to series scholastic releases, but judging from the look and the comments around content/writing, I feel like this vision of the series is very different to how Steve and Ian envisioned it in 1982.
Despite appealing young, I always thought the original series was designed to have a broad appeal, not just kids. In that context, it explains the difficulty level on a lot of books, plus it is why books like House of Hell were part of it. Serious older gamers were meant to get into these as well.
Is this a betrayal of the original vision to make the books childish? Maybe.. but scholastic just want to make money and they can only go so far on us oldies who might get them for nostalgia.
I'm honestly not surprised that the new books are regarded so low by older fans of the series. I'm still at odds of whether to get them, and I have kids. Mostly that comes from the art, which I don't really know who that is supposed to appeal to. I watch my son flick through FF and check out all the cool monster pictures. Thise new books just don't have that appeal.
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