is that a... five star reccomendation? ;)

Nah, a five to four to five to who knows one. But thank you.

I'm actually looking over the new suggestions for adventure game tools, I didn't know how many were out there, but I even wrote my own long ago for text adventures.

I made some research as I have that kind of commercial project for next year so here's the breakdown:

*** Ren 'Py ***
Good and commercialy-proven (need to learn Python though). The only downside would be that it doesn't handle high-res stuff well memory-wise. But you might want to check the latest version or speak directly with the dev as I think there has been some improvements on this aspect.
http://renpy.org/

*** Unity***
Well, it's your Swiss knife by default... ;)
You'll have to import some asset to make it better tailored for your task.....
- Fungus : for a strict interactive story with branchings, etc. It's free & open-source and there are plenty of learning resources:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/34184
http://fungusgames.com/
- Adventure Creator : this one is more for point 'n' click but can be useful if you need to manage an inventory. I don't remember if it handles story-branching though:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/11896

*** For Protyping/Playtesting purposes****

To quickly test the "flow" of the story and dialogs (coz it's the most important aspect in this genre) and the general "feeling/mood" of the game....

* TyranoBuilder
I started toying with it recently and it's a great "drag 'n' drop" tool to quickly produce audio-visual interactive stories. The big downside is that there is no default fullscreen option (if the game is for pc) and the customization for text boxes and typefonts are VERY limited (I still have to mail the devs for that). So for a final commercial product it's a no but it can be useful for development (just make a copy of your graphic assets and downsize them). I particularly like the facts that you can directly start to preview our build at any point of the story
http://store.steampowered.com/app/345370/

* Twine
This is pure text adventure tool, it won't fit your commercial needs but it can help to better visualize the story-branchings and the structure of the game:
http://twinery.org/

nice one - cheers for breaking them down by useability! :)

Time is money so setting up the best workflow beforehand can save you some cash ;)

Not my money though. :D

Just how high res is high res? You might want to ask https://twitter.com/renpytom the guy who created Ren'py if it can support the images you will be using.

Cheers - may well do that!

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Hey now! Just because it's not your money doesn't mean that you can't be frugal and show some financial good sense. The money you save now may be the bonus that keeps your artists/developers loyal to your cause. :)
Sounds like you've been eaten by a Grue more than once.

More like it trying to finish Crypt of the Necromancer or Trial of Champions without cheating...

Did you try Crypt of the Necrodancer yet? It's actually fun stuff, got me moving in my chair... this could be a new exercise program.

BTW, I just recently installed a patch for "Hand of Fate", now it's just kicking my tush on all levels and nothing I try to kill dies. I really hope I didn't fux0r it up installing the patch.

Anyone else with any insight?

Well, most tools have been covered above. TBH though I am wondering if you actually need the tools at all. From your description, basic 2d graphics, some sound and user input, you can get this with most mainstream languages, maybe need a sound package. I find pre-built engines either to be too focused or conversely to non-specfic for my needs, so either are quite difficult to do the extra bit I want, or doesn't implement certain things in the base that I would expect.

The FF gamebooks mentioned above in quote 8 for instance were written 5 or more years back in DXStudio, which was a reasonable engine and free now: http://www.dxstudio.com/features.aspx
Had some fun with that, currently I am playing around with Godot, also free which looks ok, but its very early days for me on that. Is there ever a package of those FF books, wouldn't mind getting them but $10 a piece is way too much considering I already have the books.