Enchanter

The Good
The introduction of magic made a huge difference. It was always so exciting to find a new spell and to test its abilities on your surroundings. My favourite remains using the nitfol spell on the frogs in the pond and then following their advice to look under the lily pad where you find "a slightly damp scroll". Or the use of the zifmia spell to summon the actual Infocom programmers into the game universe. Brilliant.

The Bad
Like most Infocom games, I found this one impossible to complete without help.

One example: I was always using kulcad to dispel the rope bindings from the jewelled box which contained some spell (I forget which). Because it worked I assumed I had found the solution, but had no way of knowing that if I "ozmooed" myself and allowed me to be sacrificed in the temple, I would regenerate with a magic knife that could cut the rope bindings.

ACTUALLY, the ozmoo spell was my biggest gripe. The only way to find it is to ditch your light source and enter the gallery. Well, I wasn't stupid enough to frotz the lantern and carry it around as a lightsource - why bother? I had found a better solution and just frotzed myself. One less item to carry. Which meant, unless someone had advised me as to the ruination I was reeking on my ability to win by doing so, I would never have been able to find that spell, and never able to beat the game.

Oh, and what is the filfre spell good for? I finally beat the game but had no use for this ostensibly powerful spell.

The Bottom Line
An extremely fun but oh-so-vastly tricky text game from the masters of the genre.