In the early ‘80s, a book series called Fighting Fantasy came along that was part D&D adventure and part novel. These books became wildly popular among adolescents, allowing readers to create personalized characters and ultimately choose their own path through the story. Its popularity in the U.K. makes us wonder why the U.S. got stuck with the seemingly inferior Choose Your Own Adventure series. Developer Big Blue Bubble must have wondered the same thing, because it’s bringing the first book in the series to our shores in RPG form for the Nintendo DS.
Based off the book The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (also famous for co-founding the miniatures company Games Workshop), the game follows adventurers as they navigate a giant maze and battle an evil dragon to find the secret treasure hidden by a dark warlock. The game follows the book’s rough outline, but takes certain liberties to lengthen the narrative and insert side quests.
Fighting Fantasy plays like a simplified, portable Elder Scrolls. Players use a compass to travel around the hub town of Anvil accepting quests from locals, fighting monsters in first person real-time battles, and finding keys that unlock the warlock’s hidden chests. Like the book, choices players make throughout the game will have consequences down the road. Monty Python fans should note that the game is also filled with plenty of tongue-in-cheek European humor. For example, the first dwarf we ran into was named Offar Goodnessake.
Hopefully Fighting Fantasy’s few twists to the RPG formula are enough to make the game worth playing, because we’d love to see such an exciting franchise finally find a foothold here in the States.
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