Item - Golden Sword of Dragonwalk

This book has some interesting design elements, the most notable of which involves choosing your companion. Depending on which you choose, different things happen at several points in the story. Despite this little innovation, the book isn't all that entertaining. It relies on too much random number picking and in many ways shows itself as an obvious predecessor to the weaker Give Yourself Goosebumps books.

More reviews by Demian

Stine seems to have borrowed a lot of gameplay elements from his Wizards, Warriors & You books when he wrote Golden Sword of Dragonwalk with the choosing of random numbers and such to decide the outcome of battles. The companion feature I liked, although it boils down to picking a difficulty setting for the adventure like on a videogame. One companion is amazing at saving you from trouble, one is good but not infallible, and one is simply rubbish. I'd recommend Golden Sword of Dragonwalk mostly to fans of Wizards, Warriors & You, although it isn't a bad read if you're not expecting the next Life's Lottery.

More reviews by Fireguard

This book is a predecessor to the Wizards, Warriors, and You series, in that it contains several gameplay elements that would later be recycled therein (such as choosing a companion character from a pool of three, or resolving encounters through random number picking, coin-flipping, and determining the date it is when you're reading the book, etc.). It feels a lot like a Dungeons and Dragons wilderness adventure, though it takes itself less seriously than most Endless Quest books. The book is certainly no masterpiece - almost none of the choices are interesting and the outcomes of choices are quite random - but it is fun to read and provides several different positive endings. Choosing your companion (from among the wealthy man, the warrior, and the wizard) also serves to add some variety and strategy to the proceedings. Overall, while this is no classic, it provides an hour or so of fun adventuring. I wouldn't go out of my way to find it, but picking it up certainly won't hurt.

More reviews by Guillermo