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Raney Simmon

Book Review: If I Stay

If I Stay Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Warning: This book review contains spoilers of some of the events that unfold in this book. Viewer discretion is advised for those interested in reading If I Stay.

Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.

I open my eyes wide now.
I sit up as much as I can.
And I listen.

Stay, he says.

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it’s the only one that matters.

If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.

If I Stay was a wonderful read that kept me going until I finished. It was a read that took me only one day to complete because I wanted to know what happened next.

There are many reasons why I enjoyed reading If I Stay. One of the reasons I enjoyed this book is because I loved the portrayal of Mia and Adam’s relationship. Throughout the book, the reader sees Mia’s relationship with her family is perfect. She gets along well with her parents, who seem like the kind and understanding parents every teenager wishes for during their youth. And her younger brother Teddy idolizes her. She lives a charmed life where she goes to school and is extremely talented at playing the cello. She has only a few friends, but yet is extremely loved by those closest to her. Her relationship with everyone around her is perfect and this is one of the many flaws this book had to me.

However, her relationship with her boyfriend Adam is different from the rest of her perfect life. In If I Stay, Adam and Mia’s relationship is far from perfect. The reader can see that both Adam and Mia love each other. But they aren’t perfect for each other. In If I Stay, the reader sees the problems with their relationship through the rocky start their relationship took and the fights Mia and Adam got in during the time they’ve been together. But despite these two aspects of their relationship, the reader can see that Mia and Adam love each other. So while they might not be perfect together, the love they have for each other is enough for them to get through their troubles.

If I Stay is also an enjoyable read because of the background information about Mia the reader is given. Throughout the book, Mia gives the reader intricate details about her life and reminisces on her memories as she tries to decide whether to live or die. These memories are each a piece of the puzzle that allow the reader to get a better understanding of Mia as a character and allow the reader to get a glimpse of what her family is like before the accident.

Mia’s character development throughout If I Stay also contributes this book to being a worthwhile read for me. In the beginning of the book, Forman hints to the reader that Mia has already made her choice. However, as Mia reflects on her life and what she has to gain and lose, she chooses a completely different path than what the reader expects from her. She chooses the hard path, knowing that she will face uncertainty and loss by continuing to live her life. She will experience pain that she has never before faced in her perfectly charmed life. She knows that both her parents and brother are dead, but still chooses to live, knowing she will have to come to terms with losing them and living the rest of her life without them. But she chooses that path anyway because there are people still alive that love her and want her to live.

Another aspect of If I Stay I really enjoyed was all of the music references. Forman really did her research on music and I love seeing books that find some way of incorporating music into the story. I also loved the music references because music was a big part of Mia’s life and it’s one of the things that bring Mia and Adam together.

What I didn’t enjoy while reading If I Stay was how perfect Mia’s life was before the accident. Mia had two supportive parents who both loved her and supported every decision she made and a younger brother who deeply worshipped the ground she walked on. Her relationships with peers at school were perfect and she was an extremely talented musician. To me, her life was just too perfect. There was never one moment before the accident where Mia’s life took a drastic turn and that bothered me. If I Stay is a young adult novel, but the young adult in the novel never seems like an angsty teenager to me. Everyone goes through things in life, but Mia’s life doesn’t at all describe any of the struggles most teenagers go through during this phase in their life. And this bothers me because nobody has that perfect of a life.

Another aspect of If I Stay I didn’t enjoy was the ending. Throughout the book, Mia had already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to stay and that she was going to die like her parents and brother. But I feel as if Forman doesn’t really allow Mia to make her choice. While Mia is watching these events unfold in the hospital, she tries to avoid seeing Adam because she’s scared she’s going to change her mind about leaving. But whenever Adam comes to see her in the hospital, she’s in the room watching as he tells her to stay. And in that moment, she goes from watching him talk to her to being back in her body. I don’t feel like she gets a choice in the matter because I feel as if Adam made her choice for her. It is when she watches him agonize over the thought of losing her that she says she can’t take any of this anymore and goes back into her body, knowing that living is going to be harder than it was before. I feel like she makes this choice because she saw Adam there and was able to picture her future if she decided to stay. And that frustrates me not because I didn’t want her to live but because I felt as if her choice was taken away from her because of how quickly she changed her mind.

However, I really enjoyed reading If I Stay. As a young adult reader, it was the type of book I was itching to read and can’t wait to read more of Forman’s novels and the next book in this series Where She Went.

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First Impressions: Bioshock

Bioshock 1

Bioshock is a first person shooter, adventure game. Developed by 2K Boston, Bioshock takes place in the 1960’s and centers on the main character Jack. After surviving a plane crash, Jack makes his way into an underwater city named Rapture. Created by the business magnate Andrew Ryan, Rapture was intended to be an isolated utopia. However, the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material that gives people superhuman powers resulted in the cities rapid decline.

Jack’s first glimpse into the city Rapture.

In Bioshock, Jack is trying to escape from Rapture, fighting hordes of enemies obsessed with ADAM and creatures like Big Daddies while interacting with the few humans who remain to learn more about Rapture’s past. Playing as Jack, the player gets to use not only weapons to shoot enemies down but also different superhuman powers, such as Incinerate and Telekinesis. These different abilities give the player a vast array of opportunities to kill their enemies, giving the player a unique gaming experience.

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Bioshock is truly an amazing gaming experience. As a rookie computer and first person shooter video game player, I was immediately hooked into playing this game. Bioshock had just all of the right elements to get me immersed into the world of Rapture and wanting to learn more about what happened to this beautiful city.

Bioshock is a video game that interested me from the start because of how interactive the game can get the player. This interaction can be seen through fighting enemies and listening to the diary entries of the different people who once lived in Rapture. Fighting enemies gives the player a sense of interaction because you get to kill enemies from a first person perspective. You play as Jack and get to control his movements as he kills his enemies using all of the different abilities in his arsenal. The diary entries also provide an interactive experience in Bioshock because they give the player more detail to the story. These journal entries help explain pieces of the puzzle that aren’t already unlocked for Jack and tell the player more about the people who lived in Rapture and what happened to them.

My first Splicer kill in Bioshock.
My first Splicer kill in Bioshock.

Another aspect of Bioshock that gets the player immersed into the game is the music. The music in this game is truly creepy and made me feel as if I were playing a horror game. Having this music to the game while fighting enemies gave me chills. This music contributed so much to my feelings of horror that when enemies appeared out of nowhere, I found myself jumping in my seat.

The one aspect to Bioshock that I’m still getting used to is the player controls. Since I don’t have a whole lot of experience playing first person shooter and computer games, I’m not yet used to how controls in these types of games work. Because of my lack of experience, whenever I find myself facing Splicers and other enemies, I often end up feeling turned around and confused trying to get the controls down so that I can kill them. The player controls also have me frustrated too because I find myself getting stuck at parts in the game because of them.

However, Bioshock is a truly marvelously beautiful game. My experience with it has so far been a wonderful one and I can’t wait to see where this game takes me.

 

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Book Review: The Girl in the Spider’s Web

The-Girl-in-the-Spiders-Web

Rating: 4 stars

This fall, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return in the highly anticipated follow-up to Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

In this adrenaline-charged thriller, genius-hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist face a dangerous new threat and must again join forces.

Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a trusted source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female super hacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering.

Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Lisbeth for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. In The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the duo who thrilled 80 million readers in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest meet again in an extraordinary and uniquely of-the-moment thriller.

When I first saw that there was going to be another book in the Millennium Series, I jumped for joy. Having read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, I was very excited to see what was going to happen next for Lisbeth and Blomkvist.  However, I was also very surprised. I didn’t expect there to be another book in the series because the author of the original three books Stieg Larsson died in 2004. So when I found out about The Girl in the Spider’s Web, I was very excited to see how David Lagercrantz would continue Larsson’s story.

And what a story it was. Lagercrantz did an excellent job in writing this book with the same style and feel as the rest of the series.

What I love about the series the most is Lisbeth and Blomkvist’s relationship throughout the series and The Girl in the Spider’s Web doesn’t disappoint in continuing to grow that relationship. What I love about their relationship is how both characters come from different walks of life. But yet, they are able to form a connection with each other out of the oddest of circumstances and still able to live their own separate lives.

I also love Lisbeth as a character. I love her character because she just doesn’t give a shit. She has her own personal views and she sticks by them until the end. Lisbeth has a way of handling things and disregards what others tell her to do and I love that about her character.

Another aspect of The Girl in the Spider’s Web I enjoyed was all of the action that took place in the story. Like the rest of the series, this book has a lot of action that keeps the reader on their toes and makes them want to continue reading to find out what happens next. It is a thrilling read that any crime loving book nerd would be interested in checking out.

I also love how The Girl in the Spider’s Web switches perspective. Not only do we get Lisbeth and Blomkvist’s perspective but we also get to see the story from the villain’s point of view as well. I love reading books like this where you have those changing perspectives because it gives the reader access to what the main antagonist is thinking. Having these different perspectives allows the reader to get a better understanding of the antagonist’s actions and see them as more human capable of making bad decisions.

The one thing with The Girl in the Spider’s Web that I didn’t enjoy was the ending. I didn’t like the ending because I want to know what’s going to happen next. Yes, they caught most of the bad guys, but I still have questions about what’s going to happen. I also didn’t like it because it sounded final as if this book is going to be the last book in the series. While there is the possibility of there being another book after this one, Lagercrantz leaves us hanging with no details or hint of there being another book after The Girl in the Spider’s Web.

However, I overall enjoyed reading this book just as much as the rest of the books in the series. Seeing Blomkvist and Lisbeth’s characters once again was really nice and I really enjoyed reading a book in this series again. David Lagercrantz did a wonderful job with this book and I can’t wait to see what else he’s written. I highly recommend reading The Girl in the Spider’s Web to anyone interested in reading a book with a set of diverse characters and an action packed story that will keep you wanting more.

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Failed Impressions: Yume Nikki

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In what I hope to be my first and only post, Failed Impressions are going to be video game posts about games I attempted to play only to quit. I’ll have quit playing a game due to lack of interest, holes in storyline, and even rage quit.

So for my first Failed Impressions post, I give you Yume Nikki. Yume Nikki is a surrealistic adventure game that was developed by Kikiyama in 2004. The game centers around a young girl named Madotsuki as she enters this dream world where she collects Effects, objects that provide Madotsuki with special abilities. The object of Yume Nikki is to collect all twenty-four effects.

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There are many reasons why I couldn’t get into playing Yume Nikki. When I first started playing, I was interested in giving this game a shot. I had seen so many things on the Internet about this game and thought it would appeal to me.

However, that’s not what happened. I immediately found myself frustrated with the game when I was in Madotsuki’s room. In her room, there is an opportunity for the player to play a mini game called NASU. In NASU, the objective is to catch a falling eggplant in the character’s mouth. I found the mini game itself to be interesting and intriguing, but quickly became frustrated when I discovered that I couldn’t exit out of it.

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I tried furiously pressing every key on my laptop known to mankind to exit out of this mini game, but it refused to let me go. Even the ESC button didn’t work.  So I’d have to reload Yume Nikki every time I tried to play NASU. And that frustrated me because it showed that the controls didn’t always work.

Another reason Yume Nikki didn’t appeal to me as a gamer is because of the lack of a storyline. When I play video games, I play for the purpose of being introduced to a whole new world where I can explore the mechanics of the game along with seeing an intriguing and interesting storyline and character development as I progress. In this game, the player is introduced to Madotsuki, a young girl who lives alone in her apartment.

But there’s no real story here. There’s Madotsuki and her dreams and that’s it. And while that can be interesting to some players, I want to know more about what’s going on and what I’m supposed to be doing in these dreams. Because while the environment Madotsuki was in was intriguing and interesting to explore, I was frustrated that there was no real story that I could sink my teeth into.

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I also didn’t enjoy Yume Nikki because of getting lost in this game. While I don’t mind playing games where you can explore the environment around you, I found that the dreams going to other dreams to be more of a nuisance. None of the dreams connected together in a way that made sense to me as a player. And while I don’t mind getting lost in video games, not being able to find my way out without having to wake Madotsuki up really frustrated me. It meant that I would have to go back into the same dreams again just to make sure that I collected all of the effects before moving on to the next door.

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I really tried getting into Yume Nikki. I really did. But because of the amount of problems I had while playing, such as being unable to play the game at all, I had to call it quits after only playing the game for an hour and collecting three effects. I really wish this game had turned out differently for me.

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Book Review: Sweetwater Blues

Sweetwater Blues Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Rodney Earwood and Palmer Cray had been best friends for as long as either could remember. They were brothers in all but the genetic sense, each born late in the lives of good women who had given up on the dream of motherhood by the time their respective miracles occurred.

They wandered the hills of North Georgia, hunted the pine woods, fished the cool, green streams, and camped under the stars. They shared each other’s clothing, each other’s families, and each other’s homes. They grew into tall young men, and on a hot May afternoon right after they turned eighteen, they both graduated from Sweetwater High School, numbers seven and eight in the crooked, sweaty line that held a class of thirty of Sweetwater’s finest. Shortly thereafter, Rodney and Palmer flew a Camaro into a tree, Palmer flew into a haystack, Rodney flew into the great beyond, and nothing in Sweetwater was ever the same again.

I really enjoyed this book. The story was interesting, wanting me to continue reading to find out what happened next to Palmer Cray. It was written at just the right pace to where I could continue reading the book from where I stopped.

I really liked the characters because they kept the story going. I really liked reading about Palmer’s relationship with his cousin Cheddar as he continued to live out his life in jail. Especially because Palmer didn’t expect to room with him and it really surprised me as a reader.

I also enjoyed reading Sweetwater Blues because there was a lot of character development for Palmer and Cheddar. Before the accident, Palmer was a carefree high school student who did what he wanted with his best friend Rodney. However, after what happened and spending time in jail, Palmer grew as a person. Even though he was guilty of the crime he committed, Palmer didn’t let the system get to him and became a better person as he continued his sentence. Cheddar also underwent character development throughout Sweetwater Blues. The reader can see this through his relationship with Palmer and through the way he acts as the story continues. The reader can see that Cheddar is a changed man and that he wants to do better for himself once he’s released. I love seeing these developments in Sweetwater Blues because the reader is able to better understand these characters and their predicament.

The only aspect of Sweetwater Blues that bothered me was the portrayal of jail life Atkins gives to the reader. I felt at times as if it wasn’t realistic and wished he included more detail about jail and how inmates have to cope so they can get out. I know part of that is because Palmer had good connections so he was very fortunate, but I wanted to see more of jail life for Palmer and see how he copes with being messed around by other inmates. While the reader does see some of that in Sweetwater Blues, I don’t think Atkins included enough to where I could get a good sense of what jail is really like for those placed in it.

Overall though, Sweetwater Blues was a wonderful read for me. I enjoyed every moment I spent reading this book and recommend it to anyone interested.

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First Impressions: Alice Mare

Alice Mare Title

Alice Mare is an adventure, horror and puzzle game created by Miwashiba in Wolf RPG Editor.

Alice Mare centers around a boy named Allen. After losing his memory, Allen is placed in a home where four other children live. While at this facility, Allen discovers there to be a World of Dreams. He also learns more about the other children he lives with through storybook telling.

Through exploration, the player will find out what’s going on but can also unlock a total of seven different endings.

Alice Mare is a game that I’m still struggling to figure out how I feel about it. When I first started playing, I was confused and trying to figure out what’s going on. This occurred because the game has the player jump right into the game without any detail. I like that the game did this because it made playing Alice Mare that much more interesting for me. However, I also felt confused when I was playing because I didn’t begin to realize what was going on until later.

Alice Mare 5

What I do like about Alice Mare is the music. I feel that a lot of the music you hear while you play is really beautiful and makes the gameplay enjoyable for the player. Some of the songs that I really enjoyed from Alice Mare include Miracle of the Stars, Playing with Dolls, Murdered, and El Paradiso. It really helped set the tone of the game and gave the player an idea of how things were going.

Another aspect of Alice Mare I enjoy is the character’s stories. I love that Miwashiba gave each of the characters fairytale stories. I really love fairytales and it was easy to see how each of these fairytales was uniquely incorporated into the game. It also made the game enjoyable to me because while I was playing, I was trying to figure out which fairytale each of the children were a part of. I also found that I loved all of these different characters because the player could connect and feel sympathy for them.

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Another aspect of Alice Mare I really enjoyed was the horror that was incorporated into the game. It wasn’t a whole lot, but enough to make the player see that there is horror in the game. The player could see a lot of these aspects not only through the music, but through the graphics as well. While the music in the game set the tone for each scene, the graphics themselves helped the player figure out what was going to happen to the characters next. This intrigued me while playing because I didn’t know what to expect from scene to scene.

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What I didn’t enjoy while playing Alice Mare was the lack of plot explanation. The player knows that Allen is a young boy, new to the facility he has been placed in. However, the player doesn’t get a vivid explanation of these dream worlds and doesn’t know a whole lot about the characters other than what’s relayed in the game. The player never finds out who Alice is (though the game implies it’s you, though you don’t know for sure).

Alice Mare 8

I also didn’t enjoy any of the puzzles and riddles you had to do to progress in the game. I found them to be confusing and the answers for a lot of them didn’t make a lot of sense to me. The only way I progressed at all was from looking at the Alice Mare Wiki to get the answers to the puzzles and riddles.

So while I did enjoy playing Alice Mare, I’m still conflicted on how I feel about it.

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Book Review: Hades

Hades Candice Fox Book Cover

Rating: 3 stars

Twenty years ago, two children were kidnapped and left for dead.
Raised by a master criminal, they grew up to become cops. Very unusual cops . . .

Homicide detective Frank Bennett has an intriguing new partner. Dark, beautiful, coldly efficient, Eden Archer is one of the most enigmatic colleagues Frank has ever worked with—that includes her brother Eric, who’s also on the Sydney Metro police force. All of them are tested to the core when a local man discovers a graveyard of large steel toolboxes lying at the bottom of the harbor. Each box contains a grisly trove of human body parts.

For Frank, the madman’s clues are a tantalizing puzzle. For Eden and Eric, the case holds chilling links to a scarred childhood—and a murderous mentor named Hades. But the true evil goes beyond the bloody handiwork of a serial killer…

Hades was a page-turner of a read. I was immediately hooked into the story about Frank’s new mysterious partner Eden. As a fan of crime novels, this book really intrigued me. I really liked reading Hades for a number of reasons. For one, I enjoyed seeing the novel switch back and forth from Frank’s perspective to learning more about Eden and Eric’s upbringing. I loved finding out more about why Eden and Eric acted the way they did so as to better understand their characters.

While I felt as if Frank and Eden should’ve had more of a connection throughout the novel, I was able to easily understand why that wasn’t the case. Eden is a very elusive woman and doesn’t want anyone knowing what she and Eric have been through. However, I felt as if Frank should’ve at least been clued into what was going on so as to better understand her character and her actions throughout. Another reason this book was an okay read for me was because I felt as if all of the characters in this book were extremely flat. I felt no reason to connect with any of the characters and that bothered me. While Hades is a crime novel that focuses more on the crime and catching the bad guy, I felt as if there should’ve been some characters aspects mentioned. We get that Eden and Eric are both cold blooded people because this book drives that point home enough. But I felt as if the rest of the characters didn’t have any real character flaws mentioned and if they did, they weren’t really explained.

I also was bothered that the novel didn’t delve deeply into Frank’s own past. The reader knows that Frank’s past isn’t perfect, but the reader never finds out more about Frank other than a couple of details in his life. He’s never fully explained and the novel focuses more on Eden and Eric than on him, even though the whole story is told from his perspective. Throughout Hades, he takes the role of being the backseat driver in the story, yet is seen as a main character since the novel is from his perspective. That bothered me because his own life and the choices he made are never explained quite as in depth as Eden and Eric’s life growing up with Hades.

So while Hades was a page-turner read for me, I found some details in the novel lacking that would’ve made the story more enjoyable to me. What made Hades worth the read was learning more about Eden and Eric’s past and the crime that took place that connected with their lives. I can’t wait to see what Eden has in store for me.

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Book Review: Landline

Rainbow Rowell Landline Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts…

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

I really enjoyed reading Landline. It is the second book by Rainbow Rowell that I’ve read and has become my favorite so far. What I loved about this story was how Rowell carried it out. In the beginning of the book, the reader quickly realizes that Georgie’s marriage to her husband Neal isn’t perfect. While Georgie is at work, her husband Neal spends his day at home, taking care of the kids and everything around the house. But the reader is able to easily see that Neal isn’t happy with this arrangement. The reason I love these details being portrayed in Landline is because marriages aren’t perfect. And the reader gets to see this through Neal and Georgie’s marriage to each other and what happens over the next couple days.

I also love these details because Rowell shows her readers that relationships aren’t perfect. The reader can see this throughout Landline when Neal leaves for Omaha with the kids. While he’s away, Georgie feels guilty that she didn’t go with him to his mother’s house. She also begins to reflect a lot on their relationship and wonders if they were even meant to be together. Or if they would’ve been better off not getting married in the first place. I love that Rowell makes Georgie reflect on their relationship because while they aren’t perfect for each other, the reader learns from this book that if you love someone enough, being perfect with each other doesn’t matter. As long as you are willing to be by your love’s side, you will be able to conquer all of the problems your relationship brings to the surface.

I also enjoyed reading Landline because of Georgie’s relationship with her best friend Seth. While they make Seth out to be the guy Georgie was meant to be with, I’m really glad they didn’t end up together. Yes, the reader can easily see how good of a couple they could’ve been, but I feel that her relationship with Neal was much stronger than her friendship with Seth. I know that she and Seth have been friends longer then she’s been with Neal, but I felt a stronger connection between her and Neal despite their imperfect relationship. I also found Seth to be highly entertaining and funny and just couldn’t picture the two of them being together as a couple.

Landline was also an enjoyable read for me because of the different dynamics of relationships Rowell brought into the book. Not only do you have an imperfect relationship between Neal and Georgie, but the book also has Georgie’s younger sister Heather who turns out to be gay and Georgie’s mother is married to a man closer to Georgie’s age than her own. There’s also Seth, who they make seem to be Georgie’s soul mate but really isn’t. I really like that these relationships between characters are completely dynamic because it made reading Landline for me that much more enjoyable. The book not only had dynamic characters but dynamic relationships, which made the book not turn out the way the reader would expect. While I don’t mind reading books where best friends of the opposite gender end up together, it’s also very nice to see that they can also be friends without becoming a couple too.

The only issue I had when reading Landline was the ending. Without spoiling any of you, I felt as if the ending of the book was pretty flat. Yes, it did catch me by surprise because it wasn’t what I was expecting, but I also felt as if the book just suddenly ended and everything was okay in Georgie’s universe. The reader never gets to find out what happens after that Christmas and whether Georgie and Neal’s marriage does continue on and that really bothered me when I finished reading.

However, the ending of Landline didn’t make me enjoy reading this book any less. I overall really enjoyed reading this book more than I did Fangirl and can’t wait to read some more of Rainbow Rowell’s other novels.

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Reliving Memories: Dark Cloud 2

Dark Cloud 2 Cover

Known as Dark Chronicle in Japan and Europe, Dark Cloud 2 is an adventure RPG dungeon crawling game made by Level 5. Published in 2003, Dark Cloud 2 centers around two characters: Maximillian and Monica Raybrandt.

An inventor and son of the wealthiest man in Palm Brinks, Maximillian works at Cedric’s shop, helping him repair parts. His adventure begins after a chance encounter with Flotsam’s Circus Troupe where he not only finds out about the outside world, but discovers that he has the Red Atlamillia, which allows him to go into the past. Monica Raybrandt is the daughter of King Raybrandt. She is the owner of the Blue Atlamillia and is sent into the past to help Maximillian stop Emperor Griffin from destroying the future after she witnesses him kill her father. Together, Maximillian and Monica work to repair the past in order to bring a brighter future to their world.

I remember as a child playing this game a lot. I had first heard about Dark Cloud 2 from a friend of mine at daycare in elementary school. Back then, I was the tomboy in my group of friends. I was the only girl at the daycare I went to who hung out with all the guys because most of the girls at my daycare I couldn’t relate to. I found out about Dark Cloud 2 from one of my friends there, started playing it, and haven’t stopped since.

I have so many fond memories of this game because it became one of my favorite games to play as a child. Now that I’m older, I’ve been playing Dark Cloud 2 with my boyfriend Zach so that I can relive all those moments of playing this game when I was little. Even though when I was younger I never got further than the second dungeon, there are a lot of things about this game that I liked even then.

For one, there are a lot of unique features this game has that I haven’t seen yet in other video games. For example, in order to recover the future, the player has to build Georamas. Georamas are a way of rebuilding the past in order to restore the future. In order to put a Georama together, the player needs the Carpenterion and Geostones. The Carpenterion is a machine that allows you to create the items you need to make the Georama. However, in order to make the Georama parts, the player needs Geostones, which holds the data the Carpenterion needs to create these parts. What I like about this feature in Dark Cloud 2 is that it is a very unique way of building items and that each Georama has its own sets of challenges that the player has to overcome if they want to progress further in the game.

Dark Cloud 2 Georama

I also enjoy playing Dark Cloud 2 because of the dungeons. Each floor in all of the dungeons in this game have unique monsters to fight and unique gate keys that the player has to obtain. In order to get to the next dungeon floor, the player has to fight monsters to obtain the gate key and I like that each dungeon has its own corresponding gate key that is different from all the others. I also like that each of the dungeon floors are randomly generated, which allows the player to have a unique gaming experience on each dungeon level. Another component to the dungeons I enjoy is the music. I enjoy that each dungeon has its own music that is unique to the area the player is exploring. I just find that the music in Dark Cloud 2 is beautiful and that it makes me enjoy fighting monsters all the more as I continue to play this game.

Dark Cloud 2 Rainbow Butterfly Wood Dungeon
Monica in Rainbow Butterfly Wood, the second dungeon in Dark Cloud 2.

Another aspect of Dark Cloud 2 I love is building up Max and Monica’s weapons. Both Max and Monica have unique weapons the player needs to build up to make stronger weapons the player can use to fight monsters. The building up process involves synthesizing items, such as crystals to strengthen Max and Monica’s stats. Once you have certain numbers for your stats, you are able to build your weapon up to a stronger wrench, gun, sword or armband. What I love about their weapons is that they are unique. For example, Max’s main weapon is a wrench, which is something I’ve never seen in any other game I’ve played. I also like that when you build your weapon up that the player has more than one option. This allows the player the ability to have two or three of the same weapon and increase different stats for each one to make the weapon something else. I like that you have multiple options when making your weapon because it gives the player the chance to create different weapons to handle different types of monsters.

Dark Cloud 2 Synthesizing Weapons

However, there are also components to Dark Cloud 2 that I don’t enjoy. These features are going fishing and playing Spheda. As a person who doesn’t enjoy fishing as a hobby, I find playing fishing in this game to be boring because it doesn’t excite me in any way. While at times it can be peaceful after finishing a tough dungeon or battle with a monster, it’s more of a hassle to do. Especially when you first start playing Dark Cloud 2 before you have Fabio join your party. Spheda is a video game version of golf. The goal of Spheda is to hit your ball, which will either be blue or red, into the red or blue hole of the opposite color. If the ball and the hole are the same color, the ball will just bounce off the hole. However, the player only has a certain amount of hits they can do before the time distortion disappears. While Spheda can sometimes be fun to play, I find that I don’t enjoy it as much because it’s more of a pain to do. One of the reasons Spheda is a pain to play is because the player has to clear the dungeon floor of monsters before they can even play. Another reason I don’t like Spheda is because there are so many rooms for error that sometimes trying to clear the time distortion isn’t even worth it.

Dark Cloud 2 Spheda

While playing Dark Cloud 2 with Zach, I’ve been able to discover my love of this game over again. I remember why I played this game a lot as a child, even though I never progressed as far as I have now that I’m playing with another person. Playing Dark Cloud 2 again is such a wonderful experience. I am glad that I am creating such wonderful memories with this game again that I’ll be able to look back on with fondness and a happy heart.

 

 

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