Item - The Phantom Submarine

This was a weird book, but it follows the script of many of the earlier books in this series. For starters, many of the first choices are either correct, or end abruptly. There are only two real storylines in the book, and while both have several choices, they don't really correlate. In fact, they are two different storylines that don't intersect. Overall, not a bad read but nothing great about it.

More reviews by Countersound

This is a rather weak gamebook; the writing is rather poor and the gameplay is even worse. The book is badly paced and there are several annoying "quit and don't get involved" choices which, obviously, lead to uninteresting endings and really serve only as filler.

More reviews by Demian

This has to be one of the very bottom books of the CYOA series. First, the choices in the book are all extremely obvious ('give up or keep going' kinds of things) or are completely random; there's no attempt at making an interesting challenge. On top of that there are a lot fewer choices than usual, with the book often saying 'go on to page _' instead of offering a choice, leading you all around the book but still just following one path. This makes the bad choices all the more frustrating since there are few to begin with.

The story itself is pretty scattered as well. It starts you off having a unique brain power, which leads you to working on a submarine, which leads you on a muddled quest that most often doesn't get resolved. The brain power part is the most frustrating: a couple times it's dropped out completely and other times it's made extremely important. All in all, this book doesn't seem like much care was put into it compared to some of the other more cohesive titles.

More reviews by hintoffilm

I agree with Demian that this a very weak book. I had to check the cover several times to verify that Richard Brightfield actually wrote it and not R. A. Montgomery. Richard Brightfield mostly writes martial arts gamebooks, so maybe this is why this book isn't so good. He's better when he sticks to what he knows.

My first readthrough of the book ended rather abruptly, only four pages in. "You'll never know what they really wanted with you." Those kinds of endings are pure R.A.M.! I think maybe Brightfield was trying out the genre with this book by copying R.A.M.'s style.

More reviews by yunakitty