So, Warlock of Firetop Mountain
I was surprised. I found the game in a cheap bundle and didn't expect much.
In short, the game is a digitalised "choose your own adventure" book with slightly improved combat.
Now, choose your own adventure books have always had their drawbacks. They are simple and usually very branching, not allowing you to go back and fix things you did previously. Lots of times you want to do actions which are not written out and you can't do them. Sometimes these books featured meaningless deaths, just for the purpose of teaching you a lesson and those always pushed you towards a path of "cheating" the game. This game....fixes none of those problems.
There is something to be said about pushing a specific older medium into digital age and staying so true to the original and all you change is QoL changes.
And exactly that is what hooked me in. I have (mostly) fond memories of these games. They had this feeling of a boiled down DnD. You still had choices and winning the game relied way more on those choices than pure luck. The games were static and due to the branches, they could be played several times with very different paths to victory and I enjoyed exploring all the possibilities.
The ones that I had were very well written. It always felt like a good halfway between a game and a book. Don't get me wrong, lots of games have good writing, but it rarely is on the level of good books. So in a way, it felt like a very well narrated personal adventure. Alternatively a book in which you don't have to yell at the main character for doing things differently than you (And instead, you see them fail on what you thought was the "obvious" option).
This game does exactly this. It's a digital version of a personal nostalgia for me. It adds to it a very beautiful visual and audio side, changes the combat to be actually interesting (but it has its flaws. I managed to exploit a boss fight in a way that I killed the big bad dragon without taking a single damage) and on top adds some QoL changes (like discarding options that you already did, adds notes on stuff you learn earlier in the game and so on).
I probably won't play it for dozens of hours, as it likely doesn't have that much content, but two different playthroughs (from which I survived and finished one) took me close to five very enjoyable hours. There are numerous characters each with their own little personal quests in the mountain, which massively change where and how you go later on, as well as change up the combat moves a little.
It is not a perfect game. Far from it. But it does what it promised to do, which is take a faulty model and make a digital game out of it. And a good one at that.
Needless to say, I am quite happy with my bundle purchase. For the time being, the bundle is found over here (and I am not receiving anything for advertising it :D )
In short, the game is a digitalised "choose your own adventure" book with slightly improved combat.
Now, choose your own adventure books have always had their drawbacks. They are simple and usually very branching, not allowing you to go back and fix things you did previously. Lots of times you want to do actions which are not written out and you can't do them. Sometimes these books featured meaningless deaths, just for the purpose of teaching you a lesson and those always pushed you towards a path of "cheating" the game. This game....fixes none of those problems.
There is something to be said about pushing a specific older medium into digital age and staying so true to the original and all you change is QoL changes.
And exactly that is what hooked me in. I have (mostly) fond memories of these games. They had this feeling of a boiled down DnD. You still had choices and winning the game relied way more on those choices than pure luck. The games were static and due to the branches, they could be played several times with very different paths to victory and I enjoyed exploring all the possibilities.
The ones that I had were very well written. It always felt like a good halfway between a game and a book. Don't get me wrong, lots of games have good writing, but it rarely is on the level of good books. So in a way, it felt like a very well narrated personal adventure. Alternatively a book in which you don't have to yell at the main character for doing things differently than you (And instead, you see them fail on what you thought was the "obvious" option).
This game does exactly this. It's a digital version of a personal nostalgia for me. It adds to it a very beautiful visual and audio side, changes the combat to be actually interesting (but it has its flaws. I managed to exploit a boss fight in a way that I killed the big bad dragon without taking a single damage) and on top adds some QoL changes (like discarding options that you already did, adds notes on stuff you learn earlier in the game and so on).
I probably won't play it for dozens of hours, as it likely doesn't have that much content, but two different playthroughs (from which I survived and finished one) took me close to five very enjoyable hours. There are numerous characters each with their own little personal quests in the mountain, which massively change where and how you go later on, as well as change up the combat moves a little.
It is not a perfect game. Far from it. But it does what it promised to do, which is take a faulty model and make a digital game out of it. And a good one at that.
Needless to say, I am quite happy with my bundle purchase. For the time being, the bundle is found over here (and I am not receiving anything for advertising it :D )
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