I've put a detailed review of Secrets of Salamonis in its own thread, but now I'd like to complete the review of the 40th anniversary books with Shadow of the Giants. Again, apologies for length but if you're not interested, just skip it.
As before, while I've tried to avoid revealing too much there are probably mild unmarked spoilers ahead, so beware:
Book and CoverThe cover art is nice, action-packed, and bolder than the rather dark Secrets of Salamonis cover. The giants depicted on the cover are also central to the plot, though the actual events on the cover aren't something you're likely to actually see in the gamebook (if anything, it's what would happen if you fail).
The spine comes with gold foil which seems to be very low quality - it flakes off very easily and leaves the spine looking very ugly.
As with all the Scholastic Fighting Fantasy books, the quality of the paper is poor.
Internal ArtAs with Secrets of Salamonis, the internal art features bold, black-and-white pen and ink illustrations, though in this case they are by Mike McCarthy. I'll repeat what I said about the this art style from Secrets of Salamonis: they are a massive improvement over the muddy, cartoonish greyscale art of the previous Scholastic releases and really recalls the high quality art of some of the Puffin and Wizard releases, resembling the likes of Martin McKenna and Ian McCaig.
Compared to Secrets of Salamonis the art seems a little more exaggerated and comic-booky, but it still features an overall 'realistic' style. The monsters and people featured in the illustrations all have a lot of character and the composition of the images is often very dynamic. The interstatial images are usually simple objects, but are still given a lot of detail and I particularly like the 'Crown of Chaos' interstatial image (it's rare that my eye gets drawn to these, but this one does draw attenton). Despite some stylistic differences, I enjoyed the art of both books almost equally. One can only hope that Scholastic have realized the benefits of this type of art and will continue to use it in the future.
StoryShadow of the Giants is in many ways a very 'traditional' Fighting Fantasy adventure, with a seasoned adventurer as our protagonist and something dangerous threatening the land that they must defeat. This contrasts nicely with Secrets of Salamonis: Secrets of Salamonis gave us something we've rarely seen before (except maybe in The Crimson Tide to some extent) while Shadow of the Giants gives us something familiar.
The protagonist in Shadow of the Giants has the option to be a crazy jerk from the get-go - this doesn't work out too well, but should be familiar to players of the early books where the 'hero' were not necessarily all that heroic all the time: breaking into peoples' houses, attacking shopkeepers for no reason, beating up old men in their mountain homes to take their money... that sort of thing. So this is a nice nod to that sort of 'murderhobo' archetype of the early books.
Interestingly, it is the hero themselves that inadvertantely unleashes the major threat of this book on the world, which is something we don't see that often in Fighting Fantasy books. The fact that the entire predicament is the protagonist's fault (and the possible guilt they might feel over this) is sadly not explored as much as perhaps it should be, particularly when we later find out that this mistake does indeed cause quite a lot of damage. The most we see is their determination to put a stop to it.
The story is split into four acts:
The first introductory sequence has our hero replacing their broken sword and going on a treasure hunt (in Firetop Mountain no less), which inadvertantly unleashes the titular giants on the world. Unlike most of Ian Livingstone's ham-fisted efforts, and unlike the copy/paste Warlock of Firetop Mountain dream sequence in Secrets of Salamonis (which otherwise did a great job with its references to previous books), I actually thought the re-visit to Firetop mountain was really well done. It's very short and doesn't overstay its welcome, but still feels like revisiting a place we've been to before... yet discovering something new there. It's actually rather slick and fits in well.
The second part of the story has our hero racing to find someone who can help him put a stop to the giants, eventually entering the town of Hamelin and searching for assistance (and items) there. I say racing, but this is perhaps the weakest part of the plot: our hero doesn't seem to be in all that much of a hurry, and they seem to get side-tracked quite quickly in Hamelin, exploring random places and picking up a lot of random junk (some of which may turn out to be useful, of course), with little feeling of actual urgency. That said the town is quite vibrant and features all manner of characters who are there to help, hinder or fleece our protagonist. The city does recall Port Blacksand in City of Thieves, though the atmosphere in Hamelin is a lot less oppressive and there is less sense of actual danger. There are quite a few interesting and quirky characters you meet here, and I found a lot of these incidental encounters were some of the most memorable parts of the book (no doubt helped by the great illustrations).
By the time we leave Hamelin we will have picked up a companion and hopefully all the items we need for part three: a short trek across the land and then a short dungeon crawl. The dungeon is fun to explore and again recalls previous books (in this case, Deathtrap Dungeon/Trial of Champions), though it is nowhere near as long (or unforgiving). Considering its short length however there are plently of interesting traps, puzzles and interesting encounters along the way, and having a companion along with you is actually enjoyable.
The final part of the story is when the protagonist confronts the giants. This section is rather short and feels a little underwhelming. While there are some tense moments where things go slightly wrong, it perhaps isn't quite as exciting or epic as maybe it could have been, and there aren't really any interesting choices for the hero to make at this point - it ends up being just a series of Skill tests (with some modifiers based on the equipment you have) to try and win through. What is interesting is that the very final branching point of the book can go one of two ways: we can either win but lose our newfound friend, or he can survive... something almost unheard of in a Livingstone book! The fact that the difference isn't between 'mission success' and 'mission failure' but rather between whether you manage to save your friend or not in the process of completing that mission is actually quite unusual for Fighting Fantasy and made for a feel-good moment if you succeed (or a real downer if you don't).
Unlike Secrets of Salamonis, this book doesn't have much of a thematic core that drives the story, and the story is perhaps weaker for it. What it does do well, however, is to recall the essence, tone and style of previous works without the on-the-nose namedropping that plagued many of Ian Livingstone's later efforts. The strongest influences come from City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon and with the obvious tie-in to Warlock of Firetop Moutain at the very beginning. The writing is more like Livingtone's better efforts: simple but evocative, creating a sense of an at-times slightly strange adventure and having you second-guessing every person/trap/item you come across. And thankfully, Ian Livingstone does not introduce any insane continuity errors into this book (in the way he did with Port of Peril/Assassins of Allansia).
One small missed opportunity was how the book utilized
the genie. After the big deal is made about what a pain he is, I was suprised to find he only comes up once in the book, and in a helpful capacity. It would have been more interesting if having the genie with you did actually irritate you in some way - perhaps asking you for things at inoppertune times or keeping you up at night or something - similar to the Skull of Mora Tao in Moonrunner. Instead it ends up being entirely beneficial in the advanture.
I actually enjoyed this story. It doesn't try to be as 'epic' as some of the other adventures, but that is actually to its benefit: the story feels like an earlier book in the series rather than one of the later efforts that's trying to outdo everything that came before it. For a 40th anniversary book, having a story that recalls the earliest efforts without blatantly copying them is actually a good thing. I do wish the plot did more with the fact that the entire danger was the protagonists' own fault and perhaps had a greater sense of urgency, but those absences didn't mar the tone it was going for.
Gameplay/Structure/ErrorsWhile Secrets of Salamonis tried to do a lot that was new and exciting, Shadow of the Giants instead goes back to basics... but files off a lot of rough edges in the process. It is as though Ian Livingstone learned from some of the criticisms of his books (too difficult, only allowing 'one true path', only ever giving Skill rather than Attack Strength bonuses) and actively decided to compensate for them... maybe almost a bit too much in fact.
Firstly, the big one: this book has only some minor errors. While this actually should be expected, Scholastic's previous error-riddled original efforts, this is rather out of the ordinary now. The adventure is fairly linear but doesn't follow a 'one true path' mentality entirely - more on this later.
The basic gameplay is typical, with the player rolling up their stats and starting with 10 provisions and a potion of their choice - again, much like the earliest Fighting Fantasy stories. Where things start to diverge a little is that you start the adventure with a broken sword (your very first quest is to replace it) and a rather sizeable 50 Gold Pieces.
Throughout the adventure you can potentially find different types of swords. You can only ever carry one at a time, but each one has some inherent properties: they may provide an Attack Strength bonus against one or two enemies you encounter, and the type of sword affects the difficulty of the last part of the adventure. Deciding which swords to buy/take with you presents an interesting conundrum as you try to weigh up the pros and cons of each one, but overall they don't make a massive difference so it's not something to break one's head over.
Gold plays a large role in the adventure, as there are numerous places to potentially spend it and a large number of things to buy. Ian Livingstone's books often feature one or more shops but it's pretty extreme here. What sets it apart from a lot of the other books is that you do actually have quite a lot of Gold to spend, and if you go about things the right way you'll have far more gold than you need. There were various points where, not knowing what exactly it was that I needed but being flush with gold, I just bought an entire shop's inventory "just in case".
This "just in case" is significant for another Livingstone-ism: useless red herring items. You will come across a lot of items, some of which sound like they could be very useful, but only a fraction of them ever actually get used during the adventure. Most of the challenge comes from trying to guess which ones those are. However, unlike a lot of previous Livingstone books, this one is rather forgiving: as mentioned above, if you're careful with your money you can buy up a lot of items, even useless ones, and still have money left over. In the same vein, the gamebook is also forgiving in terms of needing the player to have specific items, which sets it apart from many other Livingstone efforts. In many cases, certain items just make certain encounters or rolls a little easier or lets you avoid a stat penalty. Some challenges allow for more than one item to be used to overcome them. And making wrong decisions don't always result in instant death, usually just some penalty to Skill, Staima or/or Luck. There is an item you absolutely must get, but most are, suprisingly, optional. Combined with the fact that there aren't that many high-skill opponents in this book, it is actually on the easier side (although the end, with its large number of Skill tests, could prove challenging for a low-Skill character).
With only one exception (an instance of Skill loss if you don't replace your broken sword... which ISN'T reversed once you do!), Skill points are managed properly in this book. You lose Skill points predominantly to injury, and gain them through some sort of magical 'healing' effect (or your Potion of Skill). Bonuses (or penalties) due to equipment in combat are instead handled via Attack Strength bonuses. This has often been a problem with Ian Livingstone's books, but it's fixed here.
There are a couple of numerical puzzles in the adventure but they are very easy to solve for an adult (and optional). It's still nice that they've been included and don't have any errors.
The approach taken here is one of a cleanly-designed and surprisingly forgiving adventure, but one that still has plenty of traps and pitfalls to drain your stats and gold and keep your on your toes. In my first run-through I lost so much Luck I think it actually reached 0 before I was put out of my misery, but my second attempt went much, much better. I personally like this design much better than a bunch of inevitable dead ends if you don't make every decision JUST right - in fact, there was a bit in the final dungeon where I gave a literal sigh of relief when I discovered that an earlier 'mistake' I had made was actually fine as long as I had an alternative item (which I did, indeed, have).
OverallI actually really enjoyed this book, and oddly at the end of it probably actually felt more satisfied than I did with Secrets of Salamonis. Again, the improved illustrations made a huge difference to how good the book looked and felt. The prose isn't complex but it's evocative enough to fire the imagination. Most importantly, it felt like it successfully recreated some of the feeling of several other (admittedly, probably better) books from earlier in the series, all in one book. I do think there are some missed opportunities, plot-wise, but then a lot of the older books this one draws inspiration from didn't exactly have the most complex plots either.
I'll admit that the adventure seemed a bit easy for my 11 Skill character, but I felt that was fine in the end, and as I said, there was one moment where I breathed an actual sigh of relief that the book was kind enough not to NEED me to have a specific item and allowed for a (logical) alternative. The huge list of useless items you pick up is a bit of a pain but it wasn't awful either, and the companion you travel with in this book is actually enjoyable to travel with. The fact that their survival is what separates the 'best ending' from the 'bittersweet ending' is surprising in a Livingstone book and really nice to see.
I really liked this book as a counterpoint to Secrets of Salamonis: while that book was all about starting out as an adventurer and tried a whole bunch of new stuff mechanically, this one was all about being an established adventurer, and instead retreads old ground cleanly and with grace. While Secrets of Salamonis has grand ambitions to do something new, Shadow of the Giants wants to give us something comfortable and familiar.
Much like Secrets of Salamonis, this isn't at the top of my list, but it's still very good, much better than any other of Scholastic's original efforts, I recommend it, and I think as a nostalgic journey, it does exactly what it sets out to do.
Final NotesOne of the swords you can get is a Dragon Sword, but oddly it offers no bonus against the (only) Dragon opponent in the game. Might be because that one isn't a real Dragon, but thought it was a bit odd anyway. Still, that sword has its own advantages, and it's the one I picked to keep in the end.
I do wonder how many of the improvements we see in this Ian Livingstone book were due to him reading and acting on criticisms of some of his works? I wonder if perhaps this forum or even our own Sylas had a hand in drawing his attention to some of those criticisms? Probably not, but it would be interesting...