YMMV / Fighting Fantasy

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Zagor, Evil Warlock seeking to rule all of Allansia and plunder its treasures to add to his collection on Firetop Mountain? Or a Designated Villain that only wants to be left alone? Were the heroes that killed him each time he was revived doing so for the greater good of the world, or solely seeking treasure for themselves? The tie-in series of Novels depicts Zagor as a reasonable if reclusive character, and certainly not a villain. However, by the time Return to Firetop Mountain was published, he was rewritten as a pretty standard Evil Sorcerer.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • In Daggers of Darkness, the main character is slowly dying from a scratch by a Death Spell Dagger. To break the curse, he must put the dagger in the hands of the man who ordered the hit, the evil vizier Chingiz. You eventually do so and Chingiz then keels over, having been stabbed in the back by his own villainous daughter. You don't fight her either, as the magical throne she's on disintegrates her and her pet ogres for attempting to spill blood in its presence. And you too, if you're stupid enough to draw a weapon in its presence.
  • Sharcle from Eye of the Dragon is the Big Bad responsible for your predicament. By the time you face him outside the Dungeon, his laughably low SKILL score and the fact that you have to hit him only twice to defeat him will look like an utter joke after all the other dangerous enemies you've seen before, especially the mandatory battles against the Gigantus and the Doppelganger.
  • The final boss of House of Hell the true demon form of the butler, has a shocking 14 Skill. But to even fight him in the first place requires you to have found the Kris Knife, which gives a PLUS SIX SKILL against him, rendering him almost the easiest fight in the entire book, and the easiest actual final boss fight in the entire series, with the only easier final bosses being ones that you can avoid fighting entirely with correct items.
• Broken Base:
  • Any gamebook made by the author Jonathan Green falls under this trope. This is due to his books containing a forced linear path, multiple instant death scenarios and unforgiving Nintendo Hard battle encounters.
  • Despite being one of the "big two" of Fighting Fantasy (with Steve Jackson (UK)), Ian Livingstone also has a big broken base. Many fans also accuse his books of having a cheap forced linear path, shallow gameplay that centers on gathering as many items as possible and random deaths.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Ending Fatigue: Caverns of the Snow Witch has you fight the Snow Witch halfway through. Then you spend the rest of the book gallivanting around the world to cure yourself of her curse. This is because Caverns of the Snow Witch was originally a half-size adventure written for a magazine. When it was released in book form, the "Part Two" portion of the book was added in order to bring it up to full size. Interestingly, this has the odd effect of giving you both styles of Fighting Fantasy: Dungeon Crawler, as seen in Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Temple of Death, and Deathtrap Dungeon; and Open World, as enjoyed in Star Strider, Creature of Havoc, and Sword of the Samurai — the first half of Caverns is the lead up to, and traversing of, a dungeon, while the second half is the slightly more linear/roleplay-focused open-world segment.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: A surprising amount of fans seem to be obsessed with Mungo from the first few paragraphs of 'Island of the Lizard King.'
• Fan Nickname: Steve Jackson UK and Steve Jackson US to tell the two authors apart.
• Genre Turning Point: In the 1980s and 1990s, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks refined and polished the format of how gamebooks were even designed. Maybe a bit too much, as from modern perspective they easily blend together. But it is impossible to deny both their influence and the status of Genre Popularizer.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Fighting Fantasy was out of print in the UK between 1995 and 2002 after the original British publishers cancelled the series. The books were so popular in France that they still remained in print for all of that hiatus. It still maintains an active online community of French fans to this day, along with many other gamebook series.
  • The books were, according to Ian Livingstone, very popular in Japan, and a direct influence on the Dark Souls game series.
• Magnificent Bastard: While it is quite hard to make good, fleshed-out villains in one introduction and 400 entries, especially with the Card Carrying Villains format, some of them pass the test with flying colours, displaying enough charisma, presence and smarts to leave their mark on the players.
  • Karam Gruul from Moonrunner is with little doubt the best Evil Genius of the series, and earns his credentials despite being one of its most evil villains. An Expy of Fu Manchu in person, he can see eye-to-eye with his inspiration. Perfectly cordial, Wicked Cultured, and charismatic, he is running circles around the authorities of the Four Kingdom as a whole, and has you dancing to his tune to the bitter end. He created his own brand of The Dark Arts which made him one heck of an Evil Sorcerer, all sorts of creatures including what he made of you, and a Weapon of Mass Destruction. You must catch him as in a Film Noir, unravelling many covers and false tracks shielding the huge conspiracy he built from scratch. He is Hidden in Plain Sight behind a smokescreen, covered by another smokescreen, and he has a body double impersonating him to top it off, while keeping his lieutenants as seemingly unrelated. He has his countless spies and mind-contolled Manchurian Agents killing your allies and framing you for it. He approaches you under decoys, sends you poisoned gifts or false messages, and devises lots of Death Traps that could impress Professor Ratigan himself.
  • The Dark Elf Sorcerer of Siege of Sardath: Poised, imperturbable and one of the most genuinely Affably Evil villains of the series, he regards you as an enjoyable Worthy Opponent and chats with you as if you were his guest. He is a world-class example of The Chessmaster and The Strategist, who wrecks Sardath's defences and escape routes with Shock and Awe powers syphoned from the Big Good he holds captive, and attacks it with airborne squadrons harder to repel. Worse, he sends shape-shifted agents Kill and Replace council-members of the local cities to lead them into traps and sabotage opposition in the bud. Being Genre Savvy like nobody's business, he sends agents take the MacGuffin that can defeat him, never underestimates foes and refrains from Evil Gloating. He uses Awesomeness by Analysis to correctly deduce your assets and intentions from few details, only being defeated in one heck of a Battle of Wits.
  • The Demon Prince Myurr from Dead of Night is notable for his intense, frightening presence and his fleshed out feud with The Hero. Feared for his diabolical intelligence, he spends the entire story playing everyone like a fiddle while slouching on his throne and sipping blood from a chalice, as if the entire country was his game board. He loves taking an innocuous human aspect to spread chaos and corruption undetected, using it to cause the sinking of Atlantis in the backstory. He abducts your parents to lure you out, and covers it by sending shape-shifted demons fake their death and curse your hometown, leaving you Mis-blamed instead of pitied. His Legions of Hell are two steps ahead wherever you go, putting you through ordeals, false clues and Batman Gambits, and he even tricked the Guardians of Neutrality themselves to side with him. Much worse, all this was but incentives to lure you where he could use your life-force to unleash Hell on Earth.
  • Count Reiner Heydrich from Vault of the Vampire and Revenge of the Vampire manages to be this while being one of the most evil villains in the franchise. As an Expy of Dracula himself, Heydrich exudes style, finery, charisma and menace. He is Wicked Cultured and a Silent Snarker extraordinaire, who can Troll you even slumbering in his coffin, and exerts a strong magnetism on allies and enemies alike. He is Crazy-Prepared enough to hide the Villain-Beating Artifact away from both heroes and scheming sisters and to prepare secret hiding places. The second book shows him as a crafty Evil Genius and the best aversion to Orcus on His Throne of the franchise, always taking matters in hand. He devises a complex plot, buying a Haunted Castle whose awful reputation provides a cover and eliminating everyone knowing about him, always one step ahead of you. Finally, he hides his secret goal from servants and foes alike to induce the latter in mistake should they get close to the truth.
  • Heydrich's little sister Katarina proves that the trope runs in the family. A Wicked Cultured Lady of Black Magic and The Baroness, she might be content playing Orcus on His Throne, but she does it with style, poise, confidence, perfect yet threatening manners, and dangerous seduction. Living in the lap of luxury she hardly needs complicated schemes, but she is a Consummate Liar expert in Batman Gambits, skillfully using Xanatos Speed Chess and Unwitting Pawns even of foes to get what she wants, without needing to move from her chair. The sequel reveals that she is also very good at fabricating a story on the spot, pretending to be a captive to take you by surprise when you meet her.
  • Finally, Jaxartes from Fangs of Fury might look at first glance as just generic Evil Sorcerer number 578432, but he proves that a book should not be judged by its cover, with nigh unshakable (and justified) confidence and a threatening but courteous smile. The entire game is a Race Against the Clock whose pace he sets at his leisure, and he equips his students with Laser Blades worthy of Star Wars. Contrary to most Evil Overlords he knows that overwhelming military forces can still be defeated and does not rests on his laurels. He breaks the magic that can save the land and sends his Mooks in pre-emptive strikes, when you're tasked to restore it. He has all your allies slaughtered before they can help you, sets many ambushes, and puts a bounty on your head while he is at it. Even worse, he has planted The Mole in the very city he targets, sowing suspicion, undermining its defences, and leading you to a trap.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The series was subjected to a moral panic due to the books' covers and illustrations. The Evangelical Alliance accused the series of devil-worshiping. Steve Jackson's response was that he's grateful for the free publicity.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: There were a few text adventures based on books from the series, and a PS1 version of Deathtrap Dungeon, all of which were pretty execrable.
• That One Boss: Razaak, the Big Bad and final enemy of Crypt of the Sorcerer, if he hits you twice in a row, he wins as you are enslaved by his power. And given his skill score (12) and stamina score (20) it's nigh-impossible to win normally. Someone actually did the maths and concluded that, provided you have Skill 12 and Stamina 20+, your chances of winning are exactly 5.5%. A good number of readers either ignored the "lose if hit twice in a row" rule, or added that you could still negate the instant loss with a Luck check, either of which rendered him a still VERY tough, but beatable boss.
• That One Sidequest: Collecting all of the silver daggers in Howl of the Werewolf is tough, but also skippable. However, having them all does make the endgame significantly easier.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: This was many fans' reaction to the new artwork in the Scholastic reprints.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Night of the Necromancer, where the main plot is that the player has been suddenly murdered, then returns as a ghost and has until dawn to find out why they were attacked and take revenge. At several points, particularly the parts of the book set at the gateway to the afterlife, it is strongly implied that once the character has reached this objective, they will pass on. Two paragraphs before the end, the character is Hand Waved back to life, and the typical "good" ending ensues, as opposed to the more interesting idea of the "good" ending being the character passing on.

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