In the middle of one of my “procrastination” moments, while working on my WIPs (finally!). Anyway, I was just re-reading parts of Fighting Fantasy’s Seas of Blood this afternoon… for those of you old to remember them (or who knows, maybe even to have got hold of some of the reprints or apps), which one do you think was the best Fighting Fantasy book ever? (only 20 options allowed in the poll, so I have deleted a few…)
Howl of the Werewolf isn’t on your list, but it is a personal favorite of mine. Of the ones you listed, probably Deathtrap Dungeon, Firetop Mountain, and City of Thieves are the best IMO.
Sorry, somehow I was only allowed 20 options… so I had to delete a few… to be honest i never played howl of the wereworlf, though I agree with the others!
I’m voting for Creature of Havoc as it has a special place in my heart. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, so I’ll settle with saying that my first playthrough felt really special and, halfway through, pleasantly surprising.
I disagree on Creature of Havoc. It was a good concept but executed poorly imo. The fact that our choices were forced to random chance early on did not sit well with me and seemed against the purpose of CYOA books. But if you liked it, you have the right to your opinion.
Appointment with FEAR for me. I do kinda wish FF had done more superhero based books, though I respect the Fantasy and Sci Fi stuff was the most popular…
Seas of Blood to my knowledge is the only one that lets you play as an outright villain protagonist, so I’d probably pick that one.
Scorpion Swamp would probably be my next one due to the neat way it was created to be more “open world” and you can work for an evil wizard in it even if it gets a bit “moralistic” about it a couple times.
Strangely seas of blood always stayed in my mind after all these years. I think this idea of just having to loot gold was nice… We used to compete to see who could make the most! I was even thinking today of trying to do something similar in choicescript…
Usually the scifi stuff was criticized a lot for never being as good as the fantasy stuff and never quite translating all that well to the FF system.
I’d have to agree for the most part. Though I dunno if was the system so much as it was the writing for most of them. One of the worst books I thought was Rings of Kether. (Most say Space Assassin, but I didn’t really mind that one as much)
In general whenever the FF series stepped outside the fantasy realm there was always more risk. I thought House of Hell/Hades and Freeway Fighter were okay though.
I suppose once they’d paid tribute to Star Trek with Starship Traveler it was hard to think of good sci-fi stories, though Robot Commando is definitely a favourite of mine. But they probably should have formatted an alternative system to suit the genre better as they did with Cretan Chronicles and Sorcery!
My Top Three (in no particular order) would have been Moonrunner (very Gothic, Hammer Horror feel), Tower of Destruction (an epic story that ups the stakes as it goes culminating in a tough fight against a truly formidable foe) and Legend of the Shadow Warriors (easily one of the best written books of the original Puffin run, the golden ending is great)
These sound outright amazing! If anyone has played Howl of the Werewolf, mind giving a brief rundown of the possible choices without spoiling too much? Remember to blur everything!
Howl of the Werewolf Plot summary- Basically you travel to a dark gypsy kingdom and shortly after arrival are bit and infected by a werewolf. You must then journey through the kingdom to find and kill the pack alpha before you succumb to the curse. Along the way you may meet all sorts of horror staple characters- headless horseman, vampire, werewolves and other werebeasts, giant insects, etc. It’s also almost open world with many side quests and both good and bad endings along with many various fates that end the adventure early. I chaired an LP of it on SA last year and had lots of fun.
As has been mentioned, I would definitely say Howl of the Werewolf for my favourite, along with the other Jonathan Green books like Spellbreaker, Curse of the Mummy, Night of the Necromancer and so on - each one seems to have a unifying theme that gives it a distinct atmosphere, and the plots seem to be really well thought-out with less of the (sometimes literal…) pitfalls of other Fighting Fantasy books. I’d also say the Sorcery series, just for the setting and interesting plot/gameplay elements, even if there are a few more frustrating “doom routes”.
I don’t know, I thought it was cool to let you pick your power set between super strength, telepathy, gadgets and energy blasts, basically letting you be either Superman, Batman, Jean Grey or Cyclops/Havok.
Classics never loses their charm for me.