Reviews by Sharpe
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A Means to an End, November 30, 2013Riveting. Inspiring. Chilling. Provoking.
If only all fiction, from video games to novels, could end so profoundly, so powerfully.
What is End Boss? It's not just a story about a hero and the final confrontation of his or her quest. It's a story about the player. Not the character—the reader, the real person at the keyboard making the choices.
Though short—it took me about five minutes to play—End Boss is rich with a voluminous background story that could fill the pages of an expansive series of novels, but it's almost entirely unexplored. We get only the most fleeting glimpse of a high-fantasy masterwork rivaling the likes of Lord of the Rings. What we see through the eyes of the main character—let us not call him or her a hero, though this story is a far cry from morally ambiguous—is a long, hard path of bloodshed and turmoil, of political conflict and inner struggle, of nations at war and personal battles, of love and loss, all played out in a series of questions posed by the "end boss."
However, the story's unspoken question echoes loudest. End Boss begs the reader to question their own heart.
How far would you go to defeat your enemy? Do the ends really justify the means?
Though he may never gain literary fame, Nick Keirle will go down as one of my all-time favorite authors.
Bravo, sir. Bravo.
And, thank you.
—Richard Sharpe
Thanks for the Memories! , November 30, 2013Thanks, Anna, for transcribing this! I remember it fondly.
My first ever choose your own adventure game—"The Quest of Madness," four sheets of paper with numbered boxes of handwritten text and line drawings made when I was in the seventh grade—was inspired solely by this. (It was also the same year I discovered the awesome Lone Wolf series of game books, but I saw this first.) Now, more than 20 years later, I'm still playing and writing interactive fiction. Pretty big influence on me.
Unless it's for nostalgic reasons, or if you're not a child of the 80's and early 90's, there's really no reason to play this. I gave the game five stars out of love, but it's really a two-star game at best. Perhaps only one to be brutally honest.
When this was released, the video game market wasn't well understood. The fires of the North American video game crash of 1983 were still smoldering if not raging in some aspects. Thankfully, Nintendo came along and picked up the pieces of the apocalypse Atari wrought upon the land. Atari giveth, and Atari taketh away; Nintendo gave it back. Nintendo thought Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) would do well in the American market. After all, it was very popular in Japan. They were taken aback when it met a lukewarm (at best) reception here. They had to give the game away for free with subscription to "Nintendo Power," its house organ magazine. That's how I got my copy. They weren't the only ones who were wrong; as a child, I thought other kids would like the game as much as I did and couldn't understand when most my friends hated it.
Perhaps Nintendo thought Dragon Warrior was unpopular because American children (and their inferior intellect, those stupid cowboys) couldn't understand the game. So, they made things like this, "The Dragon Warrior Text Adventure." They broke it down to its most basic, simple form. Of course, the reason why American children didn't like Dragon Warrior was because it was just plain boring as hell to all but a small niche group. Tastes differ. Some people like action games. Others like RPG's. Only the very most extreme hardcore RPG lover would dig Dragon Warrior. There just weren't enough in that target group to warrant it being marketed here. Besides, WE had Dungeons & Dragons, the real thing! Why would we want a D&D simulator—pale in contrast and vastly inferior to the genuine table-top experience?
This was a fantastic trip down memory lane. Thanks again, Anna, for giving me the opportunity to re-live my childhood love for this little adventure.
—Richard Sharpe
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