Magehunter (Puffin Adventure Gamebooks) [Paperback]

This is a strange little gamebook which certainly can't be faulted for originality. Like all the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, it is written in the second person with the reader/player as main protagonist, and combines narrative elements containing choices of direction with a statistical combat and incident resolution system. Where it is unusual is that the player-character switches between different bodies in the course of the quest, in some cases playing alongside a companion. He has also come to the Fighting Fantasy world from the outside, through a magic portal, and is in an alien environment (along with some technologies unknown to Titan, such as pistols).

The book contains an unusually wide array of variables - whether the character has switched bodies, whether he is aware of having done so, whether he is with a companion, which bodies he and his companion are in, whether the companion has died or been lost - which are tracked within the story through an intricate system of items and codewords associated with different variables. The book must have been amazingly complicated to write in order to avoid discontinuities.

As a story, the book is genuinely multilinear, although tending to reproduce certain paths. The bulk of the story is set in the area of Titan around Kallamehr, firmly within the regular Fighting Fantasy universe. However, the player-character is a magehunter from a world other than the main setting, where different situations exist (all mages are evil, are identified by certain traits, can only be harmed in specific ways, etc). This character has captured an evil mage, Mencius, but the mage escapes and abducts Reinhardt, the heir to the throne, through a magic portal which leads to Titan. The player character either tags along or follows behind, and is left trying to track Mencius and/or Reinhardt through an unfamiliar world. The area of Titan is predominantly desert, with walled cities and a distinctly Arabic feel (Rocs, genies, flying carpets, storytellers, bandits and traders are among the encounters; characters have names such as Al-Bakbuk and Al-Haddar). While somewhat stereotypical, the portrayal is not overly hostile, and includes helpful and sympathetic Arab characters as well as a few hostile ones; mostly the book plays on the positive stereotypes of hospitality and generosity. The player character, hunting either Mencius or Reinhardt and possibly accompanied by the latter, may encounter and have to deal with a local mage, or visit a local town to make purchases or obtain information, before finally arriving in Kallamehr for the book's culmination.

As a game or puzzle, the book is original and challenging. The ideas of the book are clever, standing out from the general Fighting Fantasy series as unusual and original. The book relies on memory and observation, putting to use the player's knowledge and application of the magehunting rules set out at the beginning. One weakness is that large quantities of the 400 sections (a long passage with dark elves for instance, and another with a manticore and giant crab) lie along paths which the player is unlikely ever to meet, relying on sets of variables which the player is unlikely to find or repeat. This means that the main body of the text is actually quite short. Most players will quickly discover the core mystery of who is in which body fairly quickly (usually on the first try), making them unlikely to make the expected mistakes on other subsequent courses where it is not revealed. However, the actual writing expresses clearly what the player-character would feel on each course - urgency if he is seeking Mencius, much less if he is seeking Reinhardt, for example.

The adventure is also complicated and depends on some slightly irrational choices, meaning that the player may have to go through a series of short, frustrating adventures with little separating the initial sections from an unsuccessful final fight. The optimal ending (there are also various other more-or-less "good" outcomes) is difficult to find; there are few clues to finding it, it is unlikely to occur to the player and is structurally disconnected from most of the other endings, so it is easy to become frustrated trying to find it.

Paul Mason's previous Fighting Fantasy books are undoubtedly some of the most difficult of adventure gamebooks, and `Magehunter' is no exception. However, it differs from his others in that where they finally revealed an intricate and complex plot that made them a pleasure to complete `Magehunter' contains virtually no plot and appears to just be difficult for the sake of being difficult. It is unnecessarily convoluted rather than being challenging. There doesn't seem to be any reason behind events and a logical approach won't really get you anywhere. I completed this by trial and error and even after finishing it I couldn't really say how I did. There was a certain level of satisfaction at reaching the end of Paul Mason's other FF works that is totally missing here.

The setting of the whole adventure is incredibly vague. I was left unsure whether or not it is supposed to be on Titan or if the beginning of the adventure was even in the same world as the rest of it. Whereas `Black Vein Prophecy' and `The Crimson tide' were both set in an oriental fantasy environment this adventure is in an Arabian one. This adventure doesn't seem to gel as well with its environment. Your character comes across as rather anachronistic in `Magehunter' whereas you felt very much part of the world in the author's other adventures. That was partly why they worked so well. More could certainly be done with the Arabian setting. It feels ill utilised, which is a shame.
One of the greatest strengths of Mason's other FF adventures was the development of the character of the reader. They were journeys of self-discovery for your character and some moral lesson was learnt or emotional dilemma overcome. There is absolutely no character development whatsoever for the reader's character in this adventure. There is little character development throughout the whole book, the only minor exception being Reinhardt. The adventure might have been more interesting if the reader actually played the role of Reinhardt and was forced by circumstances (ie body swapping) into learning the trade of magehunting.

There are a lot of inventive elements to this adventure and plenty ideas floating around. None of them seem to be very well realised though. Instead of being intriguing they are more often than not confusing. The whole body swapping system could have been better integrated. It all seems a little pointless and appears to serve no other purpose than confuse. A similar idea used in `Night of the Necromancer' with much more reason. Although a novel idea, the peculiar scenario where the adventurer drifts into some type of Arabian Nights hallucination left me a bit bemused. The wizard rules listed at the beginning are completely preposterous and have never been in Fighting Fantasy before. I wonder if Zagor ever left occasional cat footprints behind him or if Balthus Dire had a phobia of human hair. If they were integrated better into events of the book perhaps they wouldn't seem quite so silly. As it is they are of minor use and better forgotten.

Some of the best scenarios and encounters in the adventure are unfortunately superfluous and the reader never actually needs to come across them to complete the book. The successful path is actually relatively short. The ambitious structure of this adventure is too original for its own good.

If anything, I think this would put off a first time reader of Fighting Fantasy. This is for completest collectors, especially considering its rarity and subsequent cost. Paul Mason is responsible for some great adventure gamebooks but this isn't one of them. If you want something original and challenging from this author try `Black Vein Prophecy'.