Difficulty/Linearity of the New Order Books

[Cerryl]

People frequently complain about the great difficulty of certain bosses in the Magnakai series, and of the Grandmaster series generally, but I have never heard much said about the difficulty of the NO books. How difficult are they compared to the earlier Lone Wolf books? Is is feasable to complete them without cheating? Also I was wondering if the NO books have a trend of being more or less linear than earlier books? Thanks for your help!

[Relenoir]

They are definitely linear; the first two are two halves of one adventure, and the third picks up right where those left off. The next two are definitely tied closely together, and so are the final two, again being two parts of one adventure. The only one that works well as a stand-alone without the other books is #26, The Fall of Blood Mountain.
As far as bosses go, there are a couple who are fairly tough, but moreso depending on the Disciplines you do and don't take. 21 had a couple decent fights, but not overly difficult. 22 has several moderately difficult combats that really wear you down over the course of the book. 23 I finished without any major combats, although I imagine certain foes are tougher if you don't find certain items. 24/25 can have a really tough fight in them, depending on your choice of Disciplines, and 26 has several moderate ones. 27/28 were average, but fairly adventuresome up until near the end o f 28. I have to say I enjoyed them, but keep in mind that I've only been through these once, so others may have very different opinions!

[Cerryl]

Thanks for your reply, Relenoir. Just to clarify, though, I'm more interested in whether the stories are linear within each individual book, rather than how the books relate to each other. For example are there multiple paths available through the book(Dungeons of Torgar) or is the storyline more novel-like(Prisoners of Time)?

[Black Cat]

Well, I think that most of the NO books are pretty much linear, except maybe for book 21 where there's 2-3 places where you are offered different roads: travel by sea, on land or in the air. But yeah, they are mostly linear.

[Oiseau]

I've only ever played 21 and 22. They can actually be said to form one long 700-paragraph adventure. And if you read fewer than 500 on one play-through, it's a miracle. ;D

Seriously, I've never played more linear gamebooks than these. They beat Prisoners of Time (LW-11) in that respect. They even beat The Darke Crusade (LW-15) and Fire on the Water (LW-2). That's not so bad usually, because the story is good. But dying sucks because you know you have to re-read all the same sections, with a few lateral "go left or right" choices which join together again when you reach the village square.

The books follow a pattern. The Grand Master visits a town, gets in trouble (because the text says so, not through any choices of his own), then you take control, fight a battle, escape, pick a random number to avoid death, and travel to the next town. Rinse and repeat. The gladiator fight in LW-21 is the worst example of this.

So, good stories, average gameplay, sucky replay value.

The Oiseau

[Relenoir]

Cerryl said:

Thanks for your reply, Relenoir. Just to clarify, though, I'm more interested in whether the stories are linear within each individual book, rather than how the books relate to each other. For example are there multiple paths available through the book(Dungeons of Torgar) or is the storyline more novel-like(Prisoners of Time)?

Oh, you meant that! Well, I guess I can't comment too much because I've only read them once. I can agree with the Oiseau about book 22, I had to do that one three times! The first I died near the end, the second I got a puzzle wrong that killed me, and finally I made it. I remember it being relatively linear, but possible because I went back the same way in a certain place because there were items I wanted. Guess I didn't explore much on purpose.