Late last year, motivated by the blog post I had made referencing it, I bought this:
It wasn’t too expensive (~$30) but took about 3 months to arrive from Japan. It’s the third of three Fighting Fantasy reprints from a decade ago, and since I had the other two I naturally had to own this one as well. This is now my fifth different imprint of House Of Hell!
As with the others the player character is now a young girl and the art (and text?) showcases this. House of Hell is a notably grim gamebook – inspired by the darker elements of 1970s gothic horror – and our poor protagonist gets herself into some tight spots in this book. I bet in the Japanese it’s a good read.
The adverts in the back suggest that Hobby Japan also printed Dungeons & Dragons manuals with an ‘anime girl’ makeover. I’ll keep my eyes open for one of them in the future…
The above is an ‘Esper Gamebook’ published by the same publishers of FF books in Japan. It’s very similar in design and style, but seems to be more of a choose-your-own-adventure than a system-based RPG book.
I can find very little about this online (it’s not on Demians for instance) and there’s no adverts or listings of any other titles at the back so maybe it was a one-off? Based strictly on the art I’m guessing the story is Akira inspired, although it contains androids and aliens as well. I bet it’s crazy!
The above is a real treasure, and I paid about $40 for it. It’s called The Four Kings and is the fourth of four ‘original gamebooks’ published by the Japanese licensor. It uses the standard Fighting Fantasy system and character sheet, and probably plays the same as well. Aside from the fact it’s not one of the original series titles, it’s essentially an FF book.
Much like the other Japanese releases from that time (this book was published in 1990, just after Sky Lord came out in Japan) it uses the Japanese numbering and writing (vertical text) system throughout and even google translate has trouble with it. I doubt therefore I’ll ever be reading it. But as a curio it’s as good as they get, and I’d love one day to find the earlier three.
It’s also loaded with advertisements for other books at the end, including all preceding 32 FF titles, all the Advanced FF books, various related titles (such as Maelstrom) and something quite unusual:
Look at the ad on the left. Google translate tells me the book is called ‘Cube of Tantalon‘ and is a JP-exclusive Advanced FF module! Here’s the translated synopsis:
“Shimomura House Keiko & Group SNE’s first fantasy RPG scenario! The Kingdom of Galantria has been repeatedly attacked by militant neighbors, and now the flag color of the front line has become worse and depressed. According to the court magistrate, if you get the “cube of equilibrium”, a mysterious item that is described in the book left by the former King Tantalon, you might save the kingdom of Galantria.”
King Tantalon, famous for his tasks perhaps?!? Sounds fascinating! This book is probably impossible to find these days, especially since it’s also seemingly nonexistent online, but it’ll go on my ‘list’ just in case I stumble upon it on a future trip to Japan 🙂
