Adventure Begins Here 2 - Dragon's Deep (Real Review)

Didn’t think I’d see the day, but since I did, Adventure Begins Here: The Renegade Wizard, supremely clichéd story of unlikely hero Toby the squire, evidently did well enough to go to sequel.

A little time has passed. Toby’s apprenticing under a new knight and the kingdom’s facing a new threat, this time from a massive rampaging dragon. And the only weapon in the realm capable of slaying such a ferocious beast, the legendary Dragon Spear, has been filched from the royal repository. So you find yourself on another quest, not just to retrieve the spear but to then use it to slay the dragon before it incinerates the entire kingdom.

Unlike the first book, this one begins with a part where Toby’s recounting how he got to a certain point that’s told in first person. Since it’s a flashback, you have a nominal amount of control but if you die the narration stops and says that’s not what really happened, and you get sent back to pick another course of action. Reminds me a little of the do-over feature in the old Zork books, except as far as I remember it never tried to catch me cheating.

It was a little confusing though, since as a direct sequel to the previous book you’re expecting to be able to carry over the stuff you got in the first one. And you can. But it’s only once the “tutorial” part ends and you have to start actually rolling the dice that the game brings that up. Importing your character isn’t even mentioned in the rules. So you can, you just aren’t given any reason to think so until you’ve been reading the book for ten minutes, which got the book off on kind of a weird foot.

Which brings me to how when you do import you stuff, you can also say you’ve leveled up since the last book. While filling in your character sheet with the stuff you plundered from the first book, you can spend Hero Points to buy skills or spells relevant to the one you picked before going after Maudilus in the first book. It’s an interesting dilemma that represents since a having certain skill can feasibly make the adventure easier, but at the same time if you break the bank you won’t be able to reverse a roll that could mean game over. Although those of us checking this out because of being longtime Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf readers, like myself, are used to not having Hero Points to fall back on anyway.

Oh, and you probably did, but if you picked the reading runes skill, hope you picked the wizard’s spell book as your prize. Otherwise the selection of spells for sale will be awfully limited.

Unfortunately, the writing and plot are still as pedestrian as can be. One particular thing that doesn’t make any sense is that when the story begins, Toby’s the squire to a new knight. After the flashback portion ends and he’s rescued by a group of knights who plan on venturing onward to slay the dragon, he asks to come along, but they demur because a prophecy says only a knight can do it. He says they can just knight him and he’ll be good. And they do. And that’s it. He’s a knight, just like that.

Kinda anticlimactic, don’t you think? Or worse, delayed. Something like killing an evil wizard, one who foiled every bounty hunter, assassin and army of knights of the realm sent to dispose of him, seems like it’d merit a promotion, but no. It’s not even that nobody else knows about it and doesn’t believe Toby when he claims responsibility. When Toby and his new benefactor go to the capital city, the knights there have already heard the story of how he kicked Maudilus’s renegade wizard behind and give him a hearty slap on the back for it. Why is Toby still apprenticing when the book starts?

Speaking of a prophecy, here it is: “A knight the slayer will be, but the Dragon Spear is the key.” As prophetic verse goes, that’s pretty nickel-and-dime stuff there. Try this one on.

“When the full moon shines o’er the temple deep,

A sacrifice will stir from sleep

The legions of a long forgotten lord

When a fair royal maid on the altar dies,

The dead of Maakengorge shall rise

To claim their long-awaited reward.”

The rhyme’s not the best, but it does tie into the plot (of Lone Wolf 4, The Chasm of Doom) and it’s a little unnerving if you think about what it means is at stake. The one in this book just tells you the one to kill the dragon must be a knight, which as I already said was handled poorly, and gives a nebulous clue.

There are also Greek mythology motifs in here, with talking idols of the gods offering you magical artifacts if you can prove yourself worthy. They feel out of place, but I get the feeling they were put there to make something else feel less weird. You see, one of the guardians of the dragon’s lair is no less than Medusa. It seems she was only put in there so the player could have an easy way and a hard way to kill the dragon, and the author was inspired to put the easy way in by seeing the Clash of the Titans remake.

And in the end, this book seems even more hopeful than the first of another installment. Those artifacts you get from the gods? You’re told about one thing they do, but it’s made pretty clear they probably have other powers you have yet to discover. And the spear wasn’t stolen by the dragon’s thralls to protect their master, it was stolen by a cult of elves for reasons of their own, which the author was probably hoping to build up in another story. With where the creativity starts and stops on the premises of these books, not sure I’m looking forward to that.

But I’ll probably review it anyway.

Choose Your Own Adventure - The Lost Jewels of Nabooti (Real Review, Scathing)

It's a little hard to be completely honest when critiquing this book, since it was written by series co-founder R.A. Montgomery. On the one hand, Choose Your Own Adventure was easily the most well-known and one of the most influential of the various skeins of interactive book out there back in the 80’s (and even late 70’s). Who knows what other such book series and solo RPG material we may have never seen without him and the boom for this kind of literature CYOA’s popularity helped to create.

On the other hand, we have the books he himself wrote for the series, and to be totally frank, he was easily one of the worst contributing authors the series had during its early days.

Which isn’t to say all of his output was crap. Later he managed to turn out mostly decent if not exactly memorable books, and two of my favorite books to carry the Choose Your Own Adventure brand have his name on them. There’s The Race Forever, and Prisoner of the Ant People (though the same can’t be said for its sequel [?], War with the Evil Power Master).

The problem with most of Montgomery’s books were dominated by lots of meandering nonsense and short, abrupt endings. Somehow the former missed it, and it was less noticeable/obnoxious in a story where you’re a member of an interplanetary scientific task force that shrinks to less than an inch tall and meets talking ants. Not so much when you’re trying to penetrate an international conspiracy.

The plot gets going when you receive a message from your cousins that their father’s gone missing while searching for the Jewels of Nabooti, sources of awesomely vague magical powers. Since these jewels have the power to steer the course of human civilization, and you apparently have no trouble believing in magic rocks, you immediately accept their request to pick up your uncle’s trail.

And I mean that about believing in the magic rocks, because you’re most assuredly not looking for your uncle, but the jewels. And you may or may not be an adventurer yourself like your uncle. Because while the book makes no attempt at all to say so one way or the other, yet at two different points you’re given the option of calling in help from adventuring/secret agent-types. Not that the book does much to explain who these people are and how you know them, let alone what help they can provide. Two of these worthies, Anson and Ramsey, are in fact named after the author’s sons. Maybe so he could show them how they were in a book…a book where they’re already the main character. You never actually see them anyway.

Look, I know I complained about the Zork books and how stupid it was they’d actually build the option not to go on the adventure into the book. But I also complained about how the author would just plunk you into the thick of things without adequately explaining who I’m supposed to be (why do two suburban kids turn into people who have relatives in a fantasy kingdom?) and/or why they should feel like going on the adventure’s a good idea. They’re a daring adventurer-type who’s been doing this for a while, or simply they were in the right place at the right time to inherit the quest and feel a duty to carry it out (whether that be for morality or the promise of a rich reward) are (usually) acceptable.

In this case, why the hell would the person I’m supposed to be the one to go on a chase around the world where there’s every chance terrorists will try to kill me? The only indications my experiences suit me are those times you think about calling in some friends in the biz, and I had to explore pretty thoroughly to find those. I’d say the author got better about it, but he was actually better about it in books that came out before this. I found it baffling the things a seemingly ordinary student was asked to contend with, even in pursuit of magical rocks. I wonder if maybe the author started thinking along the same lines as I did, as out of thirty-eight possible endings, seven are some form of you decide you’re in over your head, give up and say to hell with the spirit rocks.

This isn't a dead end! Ask who bought them!

Which flows into the author’s wordiness when it comes to dialogue. Characters are fond of big gobs of exposition or a bunch of unnecessarily extravagant sentences when a few concise ones might’ve freed up some space to allow for more dialogue from other characters, and given them a chance to feel less like cardboard cutouts. I mean, look at this…

Oh, if only the inanity ended there. At one point, a character asks if you find the jewels in your pocket. You’re given a yes-or-no choice of whether you do or not. No coin flipping, no what time of the day are you reading this book, nothing. You decide that you find them or not. 

In one particularly silly ending you look out over a city at night and realize the jewels are wherever you look for them. What the heck?! At least I could sort of understand the ending where it turns out the jewels are actually important people in the fight for world peace.

Yes, it's "too bad" you died two different, horrible ways.

And then there’s the one with the obscure literary reference.

We have an awkward setup, nonexistent characterization, awful writing, and  limp endings. If not the worst CYOA book ever (and there’s not as much competition as you might think), it’s easily the worst of the series’ first five years.

Zork 4 - Conquest at Quendor

Usually, it’s painfully obvious when it’s time to put a series down. This series was no exception.

During a baseball game, our heroes Bill and June find themselves snatched up by a giant “hand-cloud” and deposited in a musty dungeon in Zork. Apparently by the hand of Grawl, a warlock whose curse they undid in the previous book (but who was only actually seen if he killed them). In the process of saving them, Syovar’s seriously wounded by Grawl. And right before he was set to negotiate peace between two hostile neighbors.

  

And it seems that was the whole goal of the cat-snake thing on the cover, some kind of demon/spirit/whatever named Jeearr, who thrives on chaos and death. Not that our heroes are totally out of options: if the kids can find the legendary Helm of Zork, which can turn anyone into anyone and resist even the strongest attempts at magical unmasking, someone could go to the peace talks in Syovar’s place.

The plot isn’t that good or bad compared to the rest of the series or even fantasy gamebooks to come out of the 80’s in general, but its use of a certain plot device is. Jeearr pops in and out all the time throughout the search for the Helm, rattling off a dumb little poem that will tell Bivotar and Juranda what to do. Like the first time you see him, Bivotar gets stung by a scorpion. There’s a box of scorpion sting antidote right there, but it’s locked (and clearly marked as being fragile). Jeearr helpfully informs you “Bivotar will be dead soon, unless he finds the silver spoon.” You have two options, looking through some straw for a solution or busting the box open with a rock. Guess which one’s right.

And it goes on like this. You’re confronted by a giant dog. “You will always be a winner if you give a puppy dog his dinner.” So we should throw the handy hunk of meat to the dog, or try to sneak past the giant, angry guard dog? When the kids ask their friends about Jeearr and why he’d do this, nobody’s sure, but “Perhaps it hopes to confuse you.” Look, you know why the Riddler’s the joke of Batman’s rogues gallery? Yeah, you do. Because he sabotages his own career. And that’s the villain we’re given to finish out the series. The riddles aren’t even that…riddle-y. They’re just the answer set in rhyme.

I know a lot of people complain about the insane logic needed to solve puzzles in 80’s adventure games, but having the answers whispered right in your ear is even worse. And these books have that feature where you can track back to the decision where you died and try again already.

Looks like it's time to try again. Again.

And while I’ve never shut up about how the other books in the series had inane choices at the beginning about whether you should go on the adventure or not, this one has inane choices at the end.

When you set out to find the Helm of Zork, you’re given a magic bead that’ll teleport you back to Syovar’s castle when you break it. Okay. You’ve found the Helm. The tower you’re in’s about to collapse. You’re asked whether you want to teleport back. Knowing that if you stay you’ll die, and having found the magic item this whole quest was about. Yes, let’s stay.

Then once you get back safely, it turns out Syovar’s taken a turn for the worse while you were gone. The royal alchemists have come up with an experimental treatment that could save him, or it could kill him itself. The thing is, if he doesn’t get some kind of miracle cure--and this is the only one available--he’ll definitely die. Why’s that even a decision? The author might as well ask if you want full victory or pyrrhic victory instead.

Don't you guys look inordinately proud of yourselves.

And on top of all that, the cheater trap’s supposed to put you in an infinite loop but you actually get to continue on with the adventure.

The puzzles and the writing are about the same as they were in the books leading up to this, but dragged way the heck down by the rest of the creative decisions listed above.

Yes, it was definitely time to put this one to bed.

Fighting Fantasy - Vault of the Vampire and Revenge of the Vampire

Well, Twilight’s finally behind me, and even though I’ve made no mystery about my disinterest in vampires in general, I should probably do something to cleanse my palette, and maybe do something to kinda sorta acknowledge Halloween around here. Maybe with a vampire who has numerical proof of his badassery.

In many respects, Vault of the Vampire’s a storm of cliches. You’re a brave adventurer on a quest up to the remote, forbidding castle of the local tyrannical overlord, Reiner Heydrich. Who happens to be one of that most powerful example of the undead, and who for all the tiny development he gets might as well be Dracula. And you’d better be quick about it, before he decides to snack on the latest nubile example of the female species he’s hauled up there. It doesn’t really help that it was written by Keith Martin, who had a few interesting ideas but was never any great shakes as an author of interactive fiction.

That aside, it’s a surprisingly effective little adventure. It’d be suicide to just go waltzing into Reiner’s crypt without first loading yourself to the gills with all the magic weapons and clues you can find. Obviously. Because here’s a vampire who actually will squish your head with ease if you show up insufficiently prepared.

For one thing, it introduces a good psychological element to the search for the best weapons. That being a Faith score, which is a measure of your faith in your cause that allows you to resist fear, mind control, and in some cases even make the forces of evil think twice about starting a fight with you. It’s nice that sometimes you need fo find out if it’s something your character can stand up to, instead of just deciding that you can. Granted none of the tests are against thing as senses-shattering as you’d see in, say, the aptly-named Beneath Nightmare Castle, but it’s kind of interesting to see even somebody daring enough to face a vampire in his lair face something that can strike fear in them.

For that matter, the denizens of the castle are a pretty memorable bunch for these kinds of books, and I don’t just mean the ones who try to kill you on sight. Not that Reiner’s house doesn’t have some interesting defenders, the Thassalosses and living tigerskin rug in particular, but there are friends to be found there. Not everybody who can help you is necessarily motivated out of the goodness of their hearts, though, and with some of them you definitely have to ask yourself if what you’re hoping to get out of it is worth what they might ask. Like say Reiner’s obviously evil but upwardly mobile sister, and his hardworking but underappreciated in-house scholar.

And while I was hardly ever impressed by Keith Martin’s abilities as a writer, the interior illustrations were done by Martin McKenna, easily one of the finest artists ever to put ink to paper in the name of Fighting Fantasy. His atmospheric artwork does a lot to elevate this book, or really any book his work shows up in.

Without contributing factors like these, Vault of the Vampire could’ve easily become just another semi-mindless dungeon crawl with a simplistic goal. However, its relative simplicity is also one of the book’s strengths in light of some of the other books in the series. That is, ones with interesting settings but tons of little secrets that must be discovered. Failing to do so resulting in the player plodding along for a while, thinking they’re making progress, only to encounter an unavoidable death somewhere down the line. See, for example, Creature of Havoc, or to a lesser extent Martin’s own Night Dragon, which is far more scavenger hunt-y than this book. That simple lack of complexity can be a nice break knowing it exists elsewhere in the same series. Here your objectives are pretty clear (get all of Siegfried’s magic weapons, use them to save the girl), as opposed to your average book in the series from Games Workshop!Steve Jackson (here’s your goal. If you don’t find the one, completely arbitrary true path to victory, you’re dead. Have fun!).

Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, Steve wrote some of the best books to carry the Fighting Fantasy label.

But…let nobody dispute they had lots of unforgiving trial-and-error gameplay.

Unfortunately, also let no one dispute that the second outing with the major characters from Vault of the Vampire was not nearly as successful.

Which is a shame, because the author was obviously trying to be a lot more epic this time around. You see, Reiner wasn’t really dead. Even in the sense that he was a vampire. Apparently anticipating that some brave hero might stake him, he had his vital essences preserved so he could be brought back to life should the need arise. You’re tasked with bopping around the countryside, trying to find the secrets that enabled his resurrection, and the means to get around them and kill him again. And not waste too much time doing it.

Yeah. Apparently inspired by his own Night Dragon (where the longer you take to assemble all the magic weapons, the stronger your already pants-darkeningly powerful final enemy becomes), you have a stat called Blood. Whenever you find anything useful in re-killing the vampire, it goes up. Any time you spend any amount of time not turning up results, you lose them. The number affects how strong Reiner is during your final battle.

Certainly the author tries to be scarier this time around, and McKenna was back providing the illustrations again. The monsters are more ghoulish than before, the atmosphere’s a little more oppressive, and the author tries to evoke a little nostalgia for the previous book, like when you see a tigerskin rug and he makes a point that it doesn’t come to life and attack you.

But it’s just not that good, and seeing the same characters in the exact same contexts in a different, larger-scale setting doesn’t work. Because despite being larger and more complicated, the familiar characters had been scaled back. Siegfried is only a ghost who shows up to tell you where to get the best weapon, Katarina jumps out and attacks you after your fight with Reiner because…that’s what she did in the first book. Even though there's been nary a mention of her in this book until after you've beaten Reiner and she springs out for a sudden last battle. And that’s not even addressing the poor design, with several choices leading to the wrong paragraph, and a particularly glaring oversight where you need gold to lodge at an inn where you can find some very important items, but the only way you’d get there is by losing all your gold.

Still more coherent than the plot to Twilight…