New Final Fantasy book penned by Charlie Higson

[garbed_attic]

I was always pretty strict about following the page options but is there anyone on the planet who legitimately fought every single enemy to the death? Combat got boring quickly but Christ, how I loved these books.

It's me. I am that anyone on the planet.

(that's how OCD-guilt ridden I even was as a kid... God would know if I cheated!!!)

[Shaky]

I am genuinely impressed by that! As each book went on I'd usually do a couple of rounds with a baddie then think, "I'm gonna win anyway," and move on.

[biggytitbo]

Creature of Havoc was the best one, with House of Hell and the Sorcery series close. I remain convinced to this day that Masks of Mayhem had no ending and could not be finished though.

[Pranet]

I rarely played the books properly regarding combat. However, I did roll on the random encounter tables in Out of the Pit and just fight monsters sometimes. Warlock printed a system where you could randomly generate a dungeon and I used that sometimes as well.

[Viero_Berlotti]

Any love for Joe Dever's 'Lone Wolf' series? I have many happy memories of playing through these books as a kid with my dad.

[Shaky]

Any love for Joe Dever's 'Lone Wolf' series? I have many happy memories of playing through these books as a kid with my dad.

Yeah, played a couple of these. I enjoyed them but for me they didn't hit the same spot as the FF series. Only recently heard that Dever died in 2016 as well.

EDIT: Also just read that Big Finish will be releasing several FF audio dramas this year! Might have to give those a listen then feel a tiny bit embarrassed of myself.

[magval]

The best cover



That guy's awful silly looking.

[Shaky]

Heh, I was looking at that the other day and thinking how great it was. Silly, but great.

[thecuriousorange]

[Tag] As you lean on the bar the beautiful woman smiles back. Test your luck. [/Tag]

[Hobo With A Shit Pun]

[Tag] As you lean on the bar the beautiful woman smiles back. Test your luck. [/Tag]

This isn't a second go at "YOU ARE LOUIS CK!" is it?

[madhair60]

I have all of these except Magehunter which goes for daft money. Fuck sake. I had it out of the library twice. Should have thieved it.

[thecuriousorange]

[Tag] As you lean on the bar the beautiful woman smiles back. Test your luck. [/Tag]

Did people get that this was a Delboy joke? Was it crap?

[holyzombiejesus]

No, it was brilliant.

[Shaky]

I have all of these except Magehunter which goes for daft money. Fuck sake. I had it out of the library twice. Should have thieved it.

Fucking hell, really? I actually have that! It's the aforementioned body swap one. Must see what it's going for.

[holyzombiejesus]

Fucking hell, really? I actually have that! It's the aforementioned body swap one. Must see what it's going for.

About £150 seems to be the going rate, looking at ebay's completed auctions. I bet that's one charity shops aren't aware of. Any idea why it's so collectable?

[Shaky]

About £150 seems to be the going rate, looking at ebay's completed auctions. I bet that's one charity shops aren't aware of. Any idea why it's so collectable?

Most if not all the books going for silly money on ebay are from the early - mid 90's when the original FF run was on it's last legs. I guess that would make them comparatively rare. Spookily, I've still got a fair few of those later ones (and in very good nick) while the earlier, better known works are long gone. They're on another continent, though, and tragically I'm not sure I could part with them even for silly money.

Having said that, I'm fairly skint with two kids to look after so who knows?

[Pranet]

The one I'd like which costs too much is the third Advanced Fighting Fantasy book, Allansia. I've got a PDF but that isn't the same. But I'm not paying loads for it.

The price of a lot of that old 1980s rpg stuff seems to have rocketed in last few years.

[thraxx]

I feel that I must say, even in this world where kids have apps and phones and tablets and all that, that kids still love these books.

My nieces and nephews and my mates kids can't get enough of these books, even though they cheat at combat like we all did. One day we will have evolved enough digits to be able to keep our place over more than three pages when making a risky decision.

[Shaky]

Anyone tried the phone versions? Playing House of Hell at the moment and it's a faithful adaptation which works well. Christ, they're even harder than I remember though (although bookmarks are available!).

[madhair60]

Anyone tried the phone versions? Playing House of Hell at the moment and it's a faithful adaptation which works well. Christ, they're even harder than I remember though (although bookmarks are available!).

If memory serves, House of Hell is particularly difficult. You have to do things in a very specific order or it fucks you later.

[garbed_attic]

My nieces and nephews and my mates kids can't get enough of these books, even though they cheat at combat like we all did.

Honestly! I didn't! It was the OCD curse!

[garbed_attic]

If memory serves, House of Hell is particularly difficult. You have to do things in a very specific order or it fucks you later.

Yeah - I still sometimes get that one off the shelf and I've never managed to complete it. Particularly lurid that one too!

[Shaky]

If memory serves, House of Hell is particularly difficult. You have to do things in a very specific order or it fucks you later.

It's even less forgiving than I remembered. Myriad rooms to go into where you're stuffed, basically. Vampire just got me!

[madhair60]

If anyone has a copy of Magehunter that they'd like to simply give me for free I'd be delighted to receive it; thanks.

[Norton Canes]

I quite liked Scorpion Swamp (8), for two reasons

• You could choose your alignment (good, evil or neutral) and the adventure would tailor itself to your choice
• You could move back to locations you'd visited previously - although this was true of some sections of other FF books (like the maze in WoFM), the text in SS would ask if you'd been there before and the reactions of the locations' inhabitants would change accordingly. You could therefore wander between locations forever, which appealed enormously to me _{as I had no friends}

Oh and it was written by Steve Jackson but the American Steve Jackson of Illuminati fame.

[Norton Canes]

Conversely, although Ian Livingstone's Starship Traveller (4) is fun, it bites off a bit more than it can chew with multiple crew members and spaceship-to-spaceship combat all packed into 340 sections. Nice try though.

[Norton Canes]

I liked Sorcery, which was a 4-part linked story - if you did really well in part 3 then things got a bit easier in part 4

Oh yeah, Sorcery! was the FF offshoot for connoisseurs. The spell book that accompanied the first edition of The Shamutanti Hills was brilliant. Players were forbidden from consulting it while a game was in progress, so non-cheats would have to memorise as many of the three-letter spell titles, and their relevant effects, as possible. 

SPOILER: Eat not from Throg's larder!

[magval]

I've only ever owned two of these (Deathmoor and House of Hell, both from the school library) as well as Out of the Pit. Just looked at how much Deathmoor is going for. £500 on Amazon! Wise up like.

[Pranet]

That is an algorithm generated price, surely? Drives me up the wall.

Partly as a result of this thread I now own a copy of Battleblade Warrior. Written by Marc Gascoigne who was in charge of the series for a time and also wrote Titan and Out of the Pit, and was editor of Warlock. He talked a bit out his time doing Fighting Fantasy on the Grognard Files podcast recently https://armchairadventurerblog.com/2018/02/16/episode-18-part-2-judge-dredd-rpg-with-marc-gascoigne/.

He mentioned Battleblade Warrior and it sounded interesting, I remember the setting from Titan and it has Lizardmen in it.

[Pranet]

I quite liked Scorpion Swamp (8), for two reasons

    You could choose your alignment (good, evil or neutral) and the adventure would tailor itself to your choice
    You could move back to locations you'd visited previously - although this was true of some sections of other FF books (like the maze in WoFM), the text in SS would ask if you'd been there before and the reactions of the locations' inhabitants would change accordingly. You could therefore wander between locations forever, which appealed enormously to me as I had no friends


Oh and it was written by Steve Jackson but the American Steve Jackson of Illuminati fame.

Conversely, although Ian Livingstone's Starship Traveller (4) is fun, it bites off a bit more than it can chew with multiple crew members and spaceship-to-spaceship combat all packed into 340 sections. Nice try though.

Similarly, I liked Seas of Blood for being a bit different. You had ship to ship combat and the aim was to get as much gold as possible rather than achieve a set task.