YMMV / Sorcery!

• Anticlimax Boss:
  • The Sun Serpent, who has been turned into a Sealed Evil in a Can offscreen.
  • In The Crown of Kings, the concluding book, you reach the Archmage of Mampang, the character hyped as the Big Bad since the introduction to book 1... who decides to turn into a netherworld demon (and the book is so unclear some readers thought the Archmage had died for no apparent reason). Said Demon can be killed instantly if you're playing as a wizard, and even if you're a warrior it only has a SKILL of 7 and a STAMINA of 7 — being only partly-formed. Still, if you fail to beat it within five attack rounds you're dead. Given you only do two points damage a round most times that leaves little margin for error. It is still quite an anticlimax.
    
    It crosses into Fridge Brilliance if you realize that the Archmage has fallen victim to his own Bond Villain Stupidity. He intends to trick you into entering his prison tower, but if you confront him as Farren Whyde he doesn't have his badass wizard body to fight you with so he has to assume his demonic form. Basically, you've caught him at a distinct disadvantage and assuming his true demonic form is the only way he can fight back. Too bad that form is extremely vulnerable before it can fully transform...
  • This trope was further reinforced on the Inkle Adaptation of the Archmage. He was revealed to be reduced to a weak man largely relying on the Crown of Kings to protect himself and is completely defenseless otherwise, and eventually sells half of his soul for a Hopeless Boss Fight if the player fails to stop him on the initial attempt.
• Ass Pull:
  • In order to make the game winnable when playing as a warrior (and if you don't have a silver whistle), it was necessary for special holy water to have the ability to revive the dead with minimal explanation (usually it only works when used in conjunction with a spell). It is supposed to be special rejuvenating holy water given by healer Javinne, but having the power of resurrection? A bit far-fetched.
  • The possibility of developing a romance between the Analander and Flanker in the Inkle Adaptation of Sorcery! 4: The Crown of Kings. While Flanker is arguably the most encountered among other non-playable characters with the Analander (albeit a maximum of 4 times before the final game rolls out), most were brief with little development in their relationship and the Analander always end up alone by himself/herself for the vast majority of his/her journey. Other than the typical shipping fandom logic of quick relationship development, it doesn't make much sense that the pair would suddenly get romantically involved based on the interactions they had.
    
    However, the progressions of all relationships are accelerated in a game with such a short timespan. Aliizi tells the Analander she thinks of them as an aunt/uncle after talking to them literally two other times, Jann affectionately calls himself, Flanker and the Analander a trio even though they've been together once before, and Vik coddles the Analander as his old friend having met them once or never. Having a romantic relationship after a handful of increasingly fond encounters isn't so strange.
  • Inkle Adaptation again: The requirement of Flanker's presence in order to overcome the Crown of Kings wielded by the Archmage. Flanker was clearly proven to be vulnerable to the magic of the Crown of Kings, is there any exception on the second time where the Archmage can simply just work his magic on both him (again) and the Analander?.
• Broken Base: Fans of the gamebook series tend to be divisive on certain points:
  • John Blanche's illustrations. Are they appropriately creepy and discomforting, suiting the dark atmosphere of the dangerous universe? Or are they just grotesque and messy? Blanche tends to be a divisive artist in the community.
  • The final boss battle in Crown of Kings. Disappointingly simple, after such a complex adventure and a hyped villain? Appropriate in its context? Or a necessary evil for newcomers who would only have picked the last book to play?
  • The new covers. A welcome update or a disservice to the beautiful classic covers by John Blanche?
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The wizard's SKILL penalty doesn't mean much anymore once you get Ragnar's Armband of Sword Mastery from Alianna, that increases your fighting power by 2 points, making the penalty null in combat.
• Complete Monster (Video Game adaptation only):
  • The Archmage of Mampang sets the plot in motion by sending his wicked birdmen to steal the Crown of Kings from Analand to use its mind-bending powers to begin his conquest. Cruel even in his youth, the Archmage imprisoned his still-conscious master in a magical tome and executed his apprentice and lover when she foretold a prophecy of his theft and downfall at the hands of the Analander. Waiting a thousand years for the chance to steal the crown, the Archmage made himself immortal by devouring the life forces of the neighboring nation, by using magical beacons to trap them in time. As the tyrannical overlord of Kakhabad, the Archmage often uses his own people in experiments to create his half-beast hybrids and allows his soldiers and nobles free reign to do with the commoners as they wish. His spiteful hatred of the Analander leads him to torture and torment allies they meet in their journey and force them to see visions of his terrible future. The Archmage intends to use the Crown of Kings to enslave and dominate the entire world while leading his armies to slaughter the people of Analand simply for being the home of his prophesied killer.
  • Khare, Cityport of Traps (second game): First Noble Sansas is the leader of the Council of Nobles that rules over the wretched and trap infested city of Khare. Corrupt to the core, Sansas is much at fault for the city's current hellish conditions and seeks to murder the rest of the council after a false fortune predicts his downfall. Sansas sends assassins to kill several of them, yet he ensures more horrible fates for some by sending gargoyles to gouge out one councilor's eyes and endlessly torment him and curses another into a torturous undead existence. Falling victim to a portal trap, Sansas accidentally makes contact with goblins and plots with them to raze Khare. Believing that if he can't rule no one can, Sansas unlocks the North Gate to allows them in to slaughter countless innocents, only to be murdered by them in turn when they no longer needed him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Inkle adaptation-wise, Flanker. He even gets a social media event dedicated to him for the purpose of marketing Sorcery! 4.
• Fanfic Fuel: A lot of Kakhabad on the map is unexplored. This includes Lake Lumle, the Croaking Caves and the Avanti Woods. Just imagine what could be there to explore...
• Fridge Logic: The Inkle Adaptation of Sorcery! had extensively expanded on the plot in the 3rd and 4th book, which introduces a number of inconsistencies:
  • If the Archmage killed Bria upon learning of the Analander and subsequently made the beacons as a trap for the Analander, how was it possible that a younger Bria (named Aliizi at that point in time) even knew about the beacons, or was even affected by the power of the beacons? Logically, the beacons should only exist in a time where Bria is no longer alive.
  • If the Archmage knows about the Analander 1000 years ago, why wait that long to steal the crown? That's an inhumanly long time of insecurity which he could have avoided by, you know, not chosen longevity and not stealing the crown in the very first place.
  • If the Archmage without the crown is so weak as described by Valiquesh, it sounds rather implausible that he can survive 1000 years of rule without the power of the crown.
• Game-Breaker: Spells that use a non-perishable magic item. Spells like TEL and GOD are far more practical than your combat spells that consume your Stamina and these types of spells can be used in many situations. Once you get enough magic items, you'll be an unstoppable wizard throwing out an endless flow of magic.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the spells is called "SUS." Anyone who's played Among Us probably won't even need to read the description to know what it does.
• Magnificent Bastard (Video Game adaptation only):
  • Khare, Cityport of Traps:
    • Vik is a merchant and slaver from Khare who sought to take advantage of the power vacuum left behind by the disappearance of the Council of Nobles to name himself First Noble and rule the city. Vik proves to be a charismatic figure who is able to turn the downtrodden masses to his side by promising to improve everyday life under the slogan "Vik for First Noble". Secretly, however, he creates an army of loyal werewolves by kidnapping the same downtrodden, infecting them with lycanthropy, and equipping them with armor to control them. Provided the goblins don't destroy the city, Vik's immoral methods prove worthwhile when he is able to take the city bloodlessly, abolish the council, and fully open Khare to the outside world.
    • Lorag is a renowned scholar and Noble who used the powerful ZED spell to travel back in time when he watches Khare fall to the goblin hordes. Seeking to utilize the destructive power of the hateful Red Eyes native to Khare, Lorag creates the North Gate spell in imitation and manipulates events throughout Khare's history to turn it into a wretched hellhole to provide hate to power it. Meeting the Analander in modern times, Lorag uses their need to leave the city to gather the spell lines and activate the North Gate's destructive power to wipe out the goblins and save the city. Should the Analander refuse to save Khare, Lorag will forcibly become their new spirit guide to make them suffer for the remainder of their journey.
  • The Crown of Kings: Commander Cartoum is the acting leader of the Mampang guard that serves as the military might of the malevolent Archmage. Upon realizing the suffering the Archmage's rule is bringing to his people, Cartoum wills himself to break free of the mind-bending powers of the Crown of Kings and plot to overthrow his master. Allowing his guards and the wealthy to abuse the people to maintain his cover, Cartoum begins converting soldiers to his side while seeking to steal and destroy the Crown. Contacting the Analander during their infiltration, Cartoum helps to sneak them into the fortress to kill the Archmage. He then successfully uses the distraction to stage a coup and rally the army to his side to ultimately become a wise leader beloved by his people.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The pitch-black chamber with swords poking out of the floor, the monster with heat vision that burns your arm off if you do the wrong thing, the super-fast ram made out of solid marble that charges at you endlessly whilst you are in a locked room with it, the god-headed hydra...
  • What if the Archmage actually put up a real fight in the final confrontation?
  • If you killed all Seven Serpents there is a reference modifier you can use whenever you are identified in The Crown of Kings (as no word of your mission has been relayed back by the Serpents and nobody know you are coming). Eventually you suddenly find out — whilst in the very heart of the fortress — that your identity has been discovered without your knowledge.
• Nintendo Hard: Certainly not a pushover. This series was meant for an older audience than the regular Fighting Fantasy readers.^note and hence was published by Penguin Books' main imprint rather than their Puffin imprint for children, which the main FF series was published by. The fourth book pushes this trope up to eleven. As a group LP demonstrates, even a cautious player will likely rack up more deaths in that alone than in the rest of the series combined.
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • Yes, it is possible over the four books to use every one of the spells in your spellbook at least once in a situation where they are actually useful. No, it is not easy.
  • Going through the books without ever winning a proper fight. Even the Inkle adaptation limited that challenge to the first game only.
• That One Boss:
  • The Manticore in the first book. It has top stats and is a challenge even for a warrior. If you play as a wizard and still have Jann the Minimite with you, it becomes almost impossible.
  • Not to mention the Serpents... The Time Serpent is invincible unless you have the spell on the Goblin scroll.
• That One Level:
  • The maze in the end of the first book. Let's hope you didn't call for your goddess yet, considering some traps are escapable only through her intervention. And heaven help you if you brought along that damn Minimite.
  • Also, the sewers in the second book. Another maze with difficult monsters, except that it's completely pointless. Luckily, it's also avoidable.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: This series gets very dark (particularly in the Goya-inspired artwork), with the final volume, in particular, having some nasty deaths far beyond anything seen in Fighting Fantasy (noted under Nightmare Fuel), and the text is written at a higher reading level than the main Fighting Fantasy series. When originally released in the early eighties, the series was aimed at an older audience (with promotional material explicitly saying it was "for adults") and the covers had nothing beyond Steve Jackson's name to connect them to Fighting Fantasy (and was actually released under a different imprint). As seen here, over time the books were reprinted to include the FF logo and similar markings of the main series, although elements of the new covers and the fact that they were still published by Penguin and not Puffin (their children's imprint) made the distinction. When Wizard Books relaunched Fighting Fantasy in the early noughties, they made no distinction at all and just republished the original books as part of the main range.
• The Woobie: Captain Cartoum risks his own life to help you if you give him the locket with a picture of his Lost Lenore in it, and you then leave him "pining for his lost sweetheart".
• Woolseyism: While the Hebrew translations of most Fighting Fantasy books were bad to the point of sometimes rendering them unplayable, the Sorcery! series made the transition incredibly well (perhaps not incidentally, the Hebrew title of the entire series is "Sorcery!", with the other FF books being presented as sequels of the "first" four). Of particular note is the Grimoire of Analand: in English, the three-letter codewords which stand for each spell often sound goofy or awkward. Hebrew, however, has its entire grammar based around three-letter root words which can be read in a number of ways, many of them with connotations to the bible and Kabbalah mysticism. The Hebrew version of the spellbook, therefore, is an absolute treat: ZAP, for example, became ברק ("Barak" – "Lightning"), FOF became מגן ("Magen" – "Shield"), RAZ became חוד ("Hod" – "Edge") and the ominous, godlike ZED spell became סוד ("Sod" – "Divine Mystery"). As a bonus, whereas the English language doesn't have the right letters to accurately transcribe the names of several of the creatures, persons and locations of the exotic Kakhabad (inspired by Nepalese and Tibetan), Hebrew just so happens to do!

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