Reviews - Yvoire

Even worse than Assassin in Orlantes. The plot is fairly ordinary and the design of the book means the player requires a lot of luck in order to win. What really annoys me about this book is that you must fight several enemies which have high vitality, offensive & defensive scores in order to receive the necessary items to win. This is a major problem because the combat system used in these books is far too rigid and fixed, the player relying almost completely on lucky dice rolls in order to win a battle. To add insult to injury (excuse the pun), you have no way of restoring your Vitality until the end of the book.

I regret having bought it.

The fight mechanics are in my opinion badly designed in their being absolutely random. Rolling Fitness during fights only gives a puny advantage and exposes the player to a risk, especially if the stat is low. It's not a real advantage. It would have been more interesting if one could just directly buy the bonus on their next roll by spending fitness, and having it recover more slowly (for example, one point every three sections). That would have added an interesting tactics element to the game. But there is no tactics whatsoever, it's just a 'be lucky enough to find the right equipment and then stop worrying'. But until then, fights tend to be very imbalanced.
As per the story, it's not bad. It's carefully constructed for a true path gamebook, although I didn't find it very engaging or original.
The part with the cursed coins game was great, the best part of the entire story. I would have loved more like that. What disappointed me is that despite the plot being about an investigation, the reader finds himself facing rather random choices instead of following clues and piecing them together, which would have made the story much more intriguing. I hope the other titles will be better.