Item - Blade of the Young Samurai

After a weak start, this book turns out to be a fairly satisfying fantasy quest containing some interesting locations and characters. The book's setting is a bit mysterious, though; it has little to do with the traditional Dungeons & Dragons game and was written before the Oriental Adventures expansion came out for AD&D. Also mysterious is how page 133 was accidentally left blank after the eleventh line of text. This problem was corrected in many copies of the book by the inclusion of a glossy sticker containing the missing text, though the error can't have been caught before the book was released, since I've managed to find an uncorrected copy showing no signs of a sticker.

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Simon, now writing under his male name, turns in this exciting offering. A second book set in the east after Duel of the Masters, you play Yori, son of a famous missing samurai champion, armed with your father's magical katana. It's easy to notice the trend of these books leaning toward more martial protagonists. In this book, you single-handedly battle powerful foes.

Quite a challenging book with a large riddle/puzzle. The book introduced me to a number of new monsters: fog giant, mist dragon, ogre mage, cockatrice, etc. The stakes feel high. All things "oriental" were the rage as D&D expanded with "Oriental Adventures." We even get our first ninja.

A sturdy entry.

More reviews by Kveto