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I remember playing something like this in the 80s by Joe Dever of Lone Wolf fame... Scarlet Sorcerer and Emerald Emperor I think?

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There were a lot of two player "picture book" (as opposed to the usual solo text-based) gamebooks published in the 1980s, ultimately inspired by Ace of Aces (which from 1980 was the first as far as I know). There were the "Lost Worlds" swordfighting ones, there were dragon-rider ones based on the "Dragonriders of Pern" series, ones where you were Old West gunfighters, etc.

It made me think of Queen's Blade, better known because of the anime adaptations, but originally a series of "visual combat books".

The Lost Worlds series was continued in Japan as Queen's Blade as late as the previous decade. Cheesecake art, but the game mechanics are the same and the books are compatible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Blade

He did two pairs of books, White Warlord/Black Baron and Scarlet Sorcerer/Emerald Enchanter. All were printed 1986.

They were interesting because they contained both a single-player game (one in each book) and two-player game (which required both books).

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