To me, one of the things about this book that stands out in the series is that it manages to keep to the traditional "scavenger hunt" format (where the PC wanders around the "dungeon" looking for items to pass later obstacles) without being too punishing. One gets the sense that the author is really trying to help the player by providing him with alternatives when he misses something, despite the fact that like most gamebooks there a several conditions that the layer needs to fulfill before he can win the Boss fight.
For a start, as you can see, instead of giving us just two essential quest items to find (Stake and Crucifix), we're given two
pairs of possible quest items to fulfill that purpose. Instead having to sit on the chest and cry because we took one wrong turn and missed a key for a Warlock's chest, or having to go through the entire book all over again because we can't find one half of a magic hammer in a big forest, the player is forgiven for making the occasional wrong turn.
Missed the Shield of Faith? That's ok, the Count's healer brother gives you a substitute cross for the job! Wait, you killed that healer by accident? That's fine too, meet the Count's other brother who's now a ghost and he'll give you another one! (
Yes, Siegfried will give us a Crucifix if we came to his tomb without one).
It's similar with the Nightstar/Stake situation. Missed the Book of Swords? That's too bad, but a Stake + a normal Magic Sword can do the job if you are lucky with the dice! Wait, you missed the Magic Sword that's found early in the Adventure as well? Ok, we'll give you
another one a few steps before the Count's final hiding place!
The Stake, I believe, is impossible to miss. Even if you killed Lothar, you'll still loot his place and find it. And you can't miss Lothar, since you need his Castellan's Key to go any further in the adventure.
Missed the room containing the Magic Armour? Again, no worries, we'll tell you again when you walk past it on the way back down!
There are 3 coffins you can find and destroy, before you meet the Count, but you only need to find 2 of them to win. We missed one which was guarded by some Vampiric Mists which isn't a particularly strong guardian. We do need a Magic Sword to defeat it, but a player who missed the Magic Sword earlier can still go on to win by taking the path we took and finding the coffin in the hidden room. And the one in the Count's bedroom is, again, impossible to miss, since we have to go there to find the Crypt Key anyway.
Missing those vital item at the end (not having a Crucifix to destroy the Count in his coffin, or not finding enough coffins and allowing the Count to escape) prevents us from reaching the most successful ending, but does allow us to rescue the girl and returning to the village (provided we did beat the Count in combat).
We've had a pretty rough time trying to survive this playthrough, but in fact most of the unnecessary fights can be avoided with a decent FAITH score. We just chose to act more aggressively. Technically, the
only unavoidable fights are against the Spectre in the Count's room, the 2 Zombies guarding the secret stairway, and of course the two End Bosses. While these fights are tough on their own, we could actually still have had a chance if we had preserved our supplies early in the adventure and had some luck with the dice. For almost every other encounter besides the Spectre and the Zombies, the players are an alternative as to how to deal with them, instead of just being told, "here's another random wandering monster, stab it before it gets you". The Big Boss is suitably badass with Skill 13, but there are multiple ways to cut him down to size and make it a possible fight and there's a sense of accomplishment when one legitimately takes down an enemy like that without cheating. That's what I generally like about this author's end bosses in general. They feel like legitimate badass, but it's still possible to beat them through a combination of conditions that make the fight possible, and it feels like an accomplishment to finally take them down.
So yeah, in general I dig the gamebook's design in terms of difficulty and fairness. How hard the playthrough will be is, in many ways, within the player's control, depending on how aggressively he wants to act. On my very first playthrough I made it to the Endgame (although I failed to beat the Count) without locating the first Magic Sword simply by walking past encounters after successful FAITH tests. And while lacking the Magic Sword is a disadvantage, it is surprisingly not lethal for most of the encounters (although you do take damage as you are forced to flee), at least until you meet the Count, by which time you would have had not 1 but 3 chances to find a Magic Sword, and if you missed all of them you can only blame your own luck!
Although in general FF encounters are little more than excuses to give the player someone to fight, something to loot, or some exposition device, I think there's just enough personality to the characters in the book for them to be memorable in their own rights. All the living creatures we meet have a good reason to be there, and have their own plausible motives to help or hinder you. The Sage doesn't care about good or evil, he just wants more money for his research, so he serves as a source of information that you have to pay for. Katarina is evil but not just another blind follower of the evil lord, she has her own ambitions to get rid of the Count (and the fact that Reiner is likewise wary of her and therefore took precautions to prevent her from unlocking Nightstar is a nice touch, I find). Wilhelm is a nutcase with unpredictable tendencies, but mostly harmless. Gunthar is nice but too much of a wuss to actually do anything about his evil siblings himself, so he's allowed to live there (the fact that he chooses to adapt his ancestors' traditional hairstyle meekly (which Siegfried didn't) actually serves to emphasize his weakness and lack of personal power. Sure, he's a healer, not a warrior, but so is Nastassia, and
she has the guts to fight!)
Sure, there still flaws with the design. All those descriptions and blind choices of being in a corridor/junction with 3 random doors to choose from become rather repetitive and monotonous after a while, but they are really no worse than the blind left/right options in classic FFs like Deathtrap Dungeon. Also, one thing that's often encountered in these dungeon-type gamebooks is that often, when given an option of which way to go, going one way advances the plot and magically doesn't allow you to explore the other option. That railroad effect is definitely apparent here, but I feel Keith Martin softens this somewhat most of the time by briefly bringing up a reason why the PC chooses not to go another way (hearing something snarl in the courtyard warned him of danger, hearing something crash in the kitchen made him thing someone had been alerted and deciding not to go there, etc). Some of the reasons are pretty weak, but at least he bothers to mention them at all, unlike some other authors.
Other than the blind direction choices, I think the "good" and "bad" options in general make sense (drinking red wine in a vampire's castle? What are you thinking?!), although some may be too obvious. Although one thing I think they should have done more with is the idea that the Count knows you are here and actually sent a coach for you. Once you reach the castle very little of that is mentioned. In fact there is only one encounter (that we missed) where there was a reminder that the Count is aware of your presence (he sends a Giant Rat to attack you, and after you kill it, shows up briefly to taunt you and let you know that he doesn't consider you a threat). Also I would have loved to get the chance to finally kill off that Headless Horseman near the end (alas, he doesn't appear again after the first encounter, and attacking him then will fail as our non-magical weapon pass through him and cost us a FAITH point). We do, however, have a chance to find and kill his Steed in the courtyard:
And finally, before I end this wrap-up, here's a pic of something we actually did meet but didn't come across the picture at the time (because we chose to cast a spell instead of fighting it).
MAJOR THASSALOSS:
Once again, thank you all for playing!