- Big: that's the way to describe the third chapter. Also,
a lot of freedom.
Sorcery! 3 is basically an "open world gamebook": you can go everywhere you want, you can do (pretty much) everything you want (you can also marry yourself, if you are a woman!).
It's set in the Baklands, a cursed and huge place (with plains, mountains, lakes, deserts, and small villages - yes, it's not completely abandoned), once a beautiful and rich land. It's said that the Archmage is the responsible for the curse, even if... Well, spoilers
Your goal is to reach Lower Xamen, the place which stands in front of the Fortress of Mampang. The problem is that the Archmage sent seven magical serpents to gain informations about a mysterious man who is trying to reach Mampang (of course, you!). The serpents are really efficient, since they have discovered your presence, and they are trying to return to Mampang to warn the Archmage. "Trying", since you can actually intercept and kill them. Each one, as you soon discover, has a secret weakness (for example, the Moon Serpent can't stand the fire). You are completely free to kill or not to kill them, if you want.
The serpents aren't your only enemies, though. Inkle added in fact a day-counter: if you take too time to reach Mampang, even if you killed all the serpents, a message at the end of the game will pop up, saying "Maybe, since you spent so much time in this land, the Archmage has heard about you via other sources of informations...". Actually, since I still didn't play
Sorcery! 4, maybe there won't be dramatic consequences in the sequel, or maybe it will be a huge handicap. Who knows?
Apart from the open world nature of the game, the other big addition is the beacon system. There are in fact some beacons in the map: by activating the light on their top, you will be able to enlighten some sections of the map. But this light is magic: it will bring back the section to its old aspect, when the Baklands were a beautiful and enjoyable place (the so-called "Ancient World"). This opens a lot of possibilities: not only the map of the game is huge, but there's basically
another map, completely different. Well, this aspect of the game was
completely created by inkle: there's nothing like this in the source material.
The final addition is the magic counter system, which hasn't basically a function in this chapter, but it'll be massively used in the final episode. You will know, during the game, that some spells ("normal" spells, which you use in other situations) are able to block other ones. The system works in a non-intuitive manner (there's nothing like "water spell blocks fire spell"), so you are forced to appraise counter-spells talking with NPCs (there are a lot of wizard NPCs in this chapter), or in other ways. As I said, there are few occasions, in this episode, in which you will be able to use counter-spells.
That's all. There are a shitton of encounters, an huge amount of items and reagents to collect. The dice game is still present, but there are only 3 (!) NPCs in the game who will play with you (and one of them is the one who teaches - re-teaches, if you played the second chapter - the rules, and she won't play for money - so there are actually
two player NPCs).