It’s wonderful that there remains a steady stream of support for gaming’s roots in the modern community. Thanks to online services like D20, pen and paper RPGs continue to be enjoyed and even flourish as you can now connect around the world to play Dungeon & Dragons, Vampire; The Masquerade and Shadowrun without needing to find someone’s finished basement in which to congregate. But, even back in the day, options existed for the people who wanted to game solo, either by choice or by circumstance. Gamebooks were (and still are) a great way to experience the thrill of chance and character building without the pesky need of a group of peers, and Fighting Fantasy stands proudly as a cornerstone of the genre. Now, Fighting Fantasy Classics Vol. 1 brings four of the first books of the series to the digital stage for all to enjoy.

This is far from the first incarnation of the games to exist, but it seems that Tin Man Games is seeking to make them the most comprehensive and true to the originals. Containing the most famous of the series (Warlock of Firetop Mountain), players are entreated to two further classic fantasy titles (Citadel of Chaos and Forest of Doom), as well as the interesting but also off-kilter Starship Traveler. Each of the books can be played independently of the other three, with different options for each gameplay experience. Each book gives you the option to play as a “hardcore” player (one roll per attempt), adventurer (a couple of bonus rolls if the numbers are bad) and free read (just keep rolling and get boosts). The game allows for an unlimited number of bookmarks, letting you jump back to favorite spots (or just scrub backwards when you find a bad ending).

Much like a visual novel, Fighting Fantasy books rely most on the player to engage with the content and to enjoy it to their own degree. From a purely gameplay standpoint, the titles are fairly simple. You turn the pages and then are presented with options on certain pages for where to go next. If you enjoyed Choose Your Own Adventure, it’s a lot like that, but with the chance that you’ll end up on a page where you need to roll dice to see what happens next. As you start the game by rolling up skills for your character (or characters, as in the case with Starship Traveler), you have a baseline of how strong or weak your throws need to be to survive certain encounters, like poisonous traps, sudden falls, or just general bad luck. When you’re not running into hazards, you’ll be fighting. Like, a lot.

This mechanic has transitioned very well into the digital world. Rather than needing to have dice on hand, roll them and then do fast math to check against stats and bonuses, the game is able to tabulate everyone instantly after some dice rolling animation, taking the responsibility off the players’ shoulders. All the dice necessary are rolled simultaneously, and the rerolls can happen with a quick press of a button. In fact, you have to be careful not to kneejerk reroll too quickly; more than a couple times I assumed my numbers were no good and cast the die again before I finished counting on my toes to realize it was a strong attack. Things like saving throws and additional bonuses are ready instantly, removing the pains of forgetting something entirely. Frankly, it’s a delight and works impeccably.

As someone who’s done Warlock of Firetop Mountain in multiple incarnations, the edition within Fighting Fantasy Classics Vol. 1 is probably my favorite to date, particularly on the Switch. The Goblin Scourge Edition from a few years back is too flashy for my tastes and removes a lot of the charm of the oldschool books. The Nintendo DS edition wasn’t even a proper gamebook, more like an Eye of the Beholder clone with additional reading. But these Classics versions are just that: a solid representation of the original experience with some really nice QOL updates that make it a league above having a PDF on my tablet while not totally nixing the charm of turning the pages and seeing what comes next.

The writing for the Fighting Fantasy titles is what you’d expect from fantasy novels written in the 1980s. While they’re more well rounded than the almost gaudy texts from the 60s and 70s, there’s still a lot of straightforward, almost meathead style of dealing with problems that, frankly, is enjoyable. Warlock of Firetop Mountain is the most quintessential experience, keeping to the core ideas and gameplay for which the series is renowned. Being a hero or heroine with a sword, marching forward and hoping that you can pass luck, strength and skill checks while beating the living tar out of multiple goblins, ogres, giant spiders and more is so wonderfully basic that it’s comforting. After a while, you can just snuggle down, read the campy text and cross your fingers for good dice throws.

Forest of Doom is more of the same, though I do enjoy that you get a chance to instantly achieve a game over from the very beginning by trying to attack someone infinitely stronger and also clearly not your enemy. It’s that kind of dumb logic that makes a gamebook fun and really evokes memories of other adventure books from my childhood (remember Goosebumps tried to make these a thing?) where you can simply get got within seconds of picking up the book. Only this kind of stupidity is even funnier for Fighting Fantasy titles because you just spent time carefully rolling your stats and picking out your avatar (a fair number of choices are available) and then doing the fantasy equivalent of stepping out into traffic with your eyes closed.

Citadel of Chaos is probably the book that’s most captivating in terms of planning and gameplay. Beyond the normal stat checks, you also get a finite number of magical scrolls that you can hand select from the beginning, each with a limited charge. Throughout the book, you’ll find instances where you have two choices and then, if the magic scroll is in your inventory, a third possibility. This leads to a lot of incentive for replay value, as you’ll constantly wonder what would have happened if you saved the Levitation or E.S.P. scrolls for another time (though the bookmark system does afford you plenty of jumping around). I hadn’t played this one in forever, so it was a delight to be back in a chaotic realm of magic and bad decisions.

Starship Traveler might be the weakest of the quartet, but that’s also because I’m not a huge Star Trek fan. As you fly around space and encounter new planets and alien races, you’ll be required to do combat with enemy ships and send two of your representatives to the surfaces of unknown rocks to find out what happens next. Not only does rolling up the different stats of six additional characters take a lot of time, but the consequences of space exploration take their toll on you mentally (at least compared to the other books). Fighting with spaceships is decidedly less engaging than the hand-to-hand combat of the others books, and I wasn’t a huge fan of finding out certain planets have better exploration with specific units sent down. No, I didn’t put my Science Officer in the group, so what, I just get a sweet game over? Awesome.

Essentially, these all boil down to your imagination and engagement with the material, and Fighting Fantasy helped tap back into my nerdling years of early adolescence. Tucked under my blankets and with a pair of headphones on to listen to some lute and pipes, I was a cozy campter, fighting monsters and trying to figure out traps as I got closer and closer to the big bad waiting for me after some harrowing pages. Plus, the bookmark feature is truly excellent, letting me jump between pages and moments; much easier than keeping a finger wedged inbetween the paper, peeking ahead to see if I made a terrible mistake.

Plus, I have a huge softspot for additional text, and Fighting Fantasy Classics Vol. 1 doesn’t disappoint. Along with the four gamebooks, you have two tomes of extended literature, consisting of rules and history. The rules are what you’d expect, though it was nice to have a bit more of a dedicated spot to learn the ins and outs of how the mechanics work, how bonuses are affected, and additional minutiae. The history is fascinating as it’s written in a very magazine digest way, complete with photos and a little editorializing to give it flair. It is a bit concise, but I’d like to believe that’s in hopes that additional volumes will get released in the future: with forty odd Fighting Fantasy books to incorporate, the future could be bright for the series.

My only real complaint with the game ceoms from the initial soundtrack. While there is some fun (if generic) battle music when the fights occur, most of Fighting Fantasy Classics is filled with ambient noise that comes under the title of Tavern Tales. There’s general murmuring, the sound of errant dice being rolled, a blazing hearth and just noise to give the impression of being somewhere, surrounded by other “adventurers”. I absolutely hated it, and it made me incredibly anxious hearing it. Not only was it confusing to hear dice rolling when I wasn’t doing anything, but I’ve been living in Japan for almost 20 years. Randomly hearing people speaking unintelligible English in the background with the sounds of a crackling fire set my nerves ablaze. If I hear a fire, my apartment building’s a conflagration.

If you’re like me and abhor the ASMR of it all, be sure to check out the setting and swap the music immediately.  There’s such a wide range of different, more engaging soundtracks that it is shocking Tin Man Games decided to start with something that feels distinctly polarizing. Especially since the different variations fit the books perfectly. Haunted Hallway is brilliant for Citadel, Stargazing is tailor made for Starship, Dungeon Delve is the right score for Warlock and Foreboding Forest goes exactly where you think it should. All of these musical choices, however simple, fit and feel so much better than Tavern Noises. It’s certainly interesting, but I wouldn’t lead with it: it’s like having fried grasshopper as your appetizer when you’ve got some perfectly good sliders ready to go.

Having said that, my quiet, peaceful experience with Fighting Fantasy Classics Vol. 1 was perfect for these cold winter days. I don’t want to venture outside and go do something active and frostbitten. I want to hunker down with a flagon of mead (Mellow Yellow) and get my exercise by turning pages and reading about busting heads. I don’t have to worry about losing my dice underneath the kotatsu, I can just push a button and then keep pushing it if I don’t like the numbers. I’m my own dungeon master, and this is a fantastic, tight and wonderfully replayable solo adventure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back into the book and closing the curtains: I see the sunlight peeking through the clouds and I hate it.

Graphics: 7.0 Really gorgeous setup for the books: simple, yet clean and elegant. Photos in the books can be viewed separately for maximum enjoyment. Optional retro images can be swapped, but a quick toggle would be nice for comparison. UI is functional but font is tiny even when thebook’s font is maxed.	Gameplay: 8.5 Read, roll, turn the page and repeat. Differences between the books don’t interrupt the flow. Sometimes the choices are circuitous but that’s by design. Would have liked for a faster way to startup Starship Traveler so you can get right into it.
Sound: 5.0 Once you swap out the music, the overall effect is fine, even great, and you can change the score on the fly to better match the change in the story (like a true dungeon master). But I still haven’t lowered my hackles after that first trip through Tavern Tales.	Fun Factor: 8.0 These are my bread and butter. My first venture into a story that was also a game and wanted to keep you as both an active participant and an audience member. Without Fighting Fantasy, I would have never gotten into visual novels, and they have a truly excellent place here on the Switch.
Final Verdict: 7.5

Fighting Fantasy Classics Vol. 1 is available now on PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Fighting Fantasy Classics Vol. 1 was provided by the publisher.