Item - Quest for the Cities of Gold

This book finally deals in depth with a topic that has been briefly visited in several previous volumes: the exploration of the New World. For some reason, this isn't a subject which I've ever found terribly exciting (I just can't tell any of those explorers apart!), and perhaps this is why the book failed to grab my attention for the first half or so. Eventually, though, I did enjoy the story and find this to be a fairly satisfying read. Strangely enough, though, I have the same gameplay complaint about this book that I did about its predecessor -- unless you pick the right item before the story begins, you are doomed to be stuck in an infinite loop! I can't help feeling that the series would have been better if it had contained a few rules on picking up items during the course of the story; this way, players could have searched for necessary equipment rather than simply being out of luck.... After all, that's what a real time traveler would most likely end up doing.

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[Rating: 0/10]
[Recommended? NO]

While the promising potential of the premise in the Time Machine adventure "Quest for the Cities of Gold" is at least partially well-handled, there were particularly few redeeming components to save the quest from its prominent, pitiful weaknesses. It's unfortunate how the dangers are kept at arm's length even though the era's appealing visual-oriented choice-based design system fares well as far as reader immersiveness goes. The writing drifts from uninspired and clunky to very much aware of the narrative's potential, but - as with the majority of the books in the series - I think the adventure would've been more enjoyable had it avoided limiting itself to a single correct path; the inventory selection at the start is a bit arbitrary, I might add, and less seamlessly woven into the story compared to the databank, use of setting and handling of "characters". While the year it take place in may be 1513 AD, you won't find too many pointers suggesting a whole lot of imagination was put into the writing of this quest apart from what had commonly been covered in existing documents/research books or documentaries at the time this was written; though the research isn't exactly dated, per se, retrospectively there are parts scattered about here and there which feel VERY incomplete.

These books, which in all truth are merely self-indulgent and hard-to-find excursions into a different point in time, appear hyper-focused on their short-lived novelty value - a real shame, since the design and the execution of the linear quest itself isn't all that great to begin with. With the exception of collectors of the series or the most ardent of pseudo-history buffs, I'm afraid I can't recommend this title or any of its time-traveling trepidations. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

More reviews by Shadeheart