Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Published on: 30th December, 2009
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Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is an action role-playing game modeled after the Fighting Fantasy adventure-novel franchise. Yet the game ignores the the most interesting aspect of the franchise–choosing between branching story paths. The disappointingly linear adventure unfolds in a dark 3D world full of hidden paths to explore, and the first-person perspective gives you an in-your-face view of your various monstruous enemies. Unfortunately, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain squanders what little potential it has, and the vexing control scheme, shallow combat, and tendency to freeze up randomly make this a crummy and frustrating dungeon schlep.
In Fighting Fantasy, you’re cast as a wandering adventurer who arrives at a small town to pilfer its nearest dungeon. That dungeon is known as Firetop Mountain and is the home of a treasure-hoarding wizard you’re there to rob. The story is predictable and unappealing, as well as disappointingly scant. One of the game’s most baffling elements is that it completely overlooks the key feature of the adventure-novel series it’s based upon: the ability for you to choose your destiny by making story decisions. What little story or character interaction there is can barely be called a plot. The most significant choices you get to make are during character creation. You answer a few questions to determine your class as a wizard, a warrior, or a rogue. The classes are clearly unoriginal, but you do have a decent amount of control over your character’s growth. You can manipulate base stats, such as stamina, to increase your health pool while investing skill points acquired by leveling into abilities and spells, like lightning magic or axe proficiency.
You’re limited to exploring a single dungeon with the aid of a predominantly useless compass that rarely displays your active objective. Many of the rooms share the same basic design and name, which makes it difficult to discern which “orc den” or “temple” you’re headed to, resulting in tedious backtracking. Conveniently, you’re able to mark your map, but the lack of a minimap overlay means you’re constantly stopping to do so, which quickly gets annoying.
Combat is simplified to such an extent that any fun that could be had striking down mythical beasts has been wrenched painfully from this disappointing adventure.. You simply mash the attack buttons or spam spells to bring down a target that’s stumbling your way. Alternatively, you can capitalize on the game’s poor AI and position yourself behind a pillar, safely tossing fireballs from a distance while you watch your enemy continuously run itself into a wall. Bosses are pushover idiots that you can usually implement the same tactic for. Although taking advantage of the asinine AI is one way in which to easily dispatch bosses, a handy bug occasionally crops up that makes the combat even easier, though still painfully boring. You fall clean through the ground and can mash attack from underneath the boss, who typical stands there to take the beating.
via: gamespot
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