The AFGNCAAP begins in the Barrow from Zork I armed only with the trusty brass lantern and sword of elvish antiquity. The purpose of the game is not initially clear. The Wizard of Frobozz is soon introduced. The wizard was once a respected enchanter, but when his powers began to fade he was exiled by Dimwit Flathead. Now bordering on senility, the wizard is still a force to be reckoned with. Your goal, as you venture into the wizard's realm, is to avoid his capricious tricks and learn to control his magic. Like its predecessor, Zork II is essentially a treasure hunt. Unlike the previous game, the ten treasures are tied together by a crude plot. Finding the treasures does not end the game, nor are all the treasures needed to finish the game. Instead, the adventurer must figure out a way to use the treasures in order to reach the game's finale.
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It's clear that by the time they got to the Zork 2 content, they'd gotten their impulses to remake Colossal Cave Adventure out of their system and were now trying out newer, grander ideas. As a result, Zork 2 is a lot more memorable to someone who played Colossal Cave first, though even significantly moreso than in Zork 1, I am perfectly happy to have used a walkthrough. Zork 2 is a lot more finnicky and particular because it's also more ambitious, and that is the finger trap in which the entire text adventure genre found itself, almost instantaneously. It is the curse which dooms the entirely text-driven video game forevermore. Realizing something truly ambitious and intuitive and flexible and modern in the genre would require so many manhours that it would defeat the point of such a format. It is NOT work that could be outsourced to any AI, even one more much more sophisticated than what currently exists, because that would remove the author's touch, and the author's touch is the whole point.
Anyway, on to Zork 3.
This review contains spoilers
And yes, I'm talking about ALL of the puzzles. Just kidding, bank vault was clever as hell. The Dragon room was also interesting. And some treasures were weirdly hidden: that brick-made-out-of-clay-but-not-made-of-clay with a string in a hole on a wall in a room within a volcano. Yes. It happens underground.
No one will remember you, fucking "Oddly-Angled Room". I homerun'd you without a guide. Still not eaten by a grue!