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Tera Level 1-65 Impressions
There’s my character fighting one of the BAMs or Big Ass Monsters in Tera. I love my archer as she can stand fairly far back from the action and still do a ton of damage. These dungens and boss battles are some of my favorite parts of this game. But how was my overall experience going from level 1 to level 65 in Tera, a Free to Play MMO?
Story
The story in Tera didn’t really interest me. I tried to pay attention for the beginning, but once I hit level 29 or 30, I stopped paying attention entirely. At that point I had spent around 1-2 hours running across the world to do different quests for NPCs. I decided against doing different side quests to try to finish the main storyline, but eventually I turned away even from doing that. The questing felt slow, and as soon as the dungeons opened up, I could get far better gear simply from doing those. By waiting around to do the story quests, I was struggling just to kill the enemies for my leveling quests. Without gear from dungeon I wasn’t having any fun. I remembered struggling when I had tried to play in 2016, now I know I would have loved the game had I done more dungeons.
I am now level 65, but I had to go back to level 30-40 areas to continue the story after I was done doing dungeons. Eventually I’m going to go back and finish the story, but it was definitely easier to do the Dungeons first. The dungeons gave you amazing gear that would allow you to one-shot enemies in your level’s area with ease!
Not really related to the story but still related to the section is the enemies in the different areas. I found myself not fighting them much at all besides killing a few for the quest I was in. Certain areas just seemed a bit bland with a few enemies plopped down in groups here and there, so I would skip as many as I could to finish the story faster. Other areas were fully themed castles which were pretty awesome.
Dungeons
The dungeons are sooo much fun. They are the absolute best way to level, I used to get around 5+ levels per dungeon that I did! I could have honestly leveled to level 60 in around 1 night if I had solely done dungeons. They are all so much fun with different mini-bosses and giant BAMS throughout each one.
Dungeons are usually fun the first time you run them. After that, they become a bit dry because the gear you get from the dungeon allows you to blast through every single enemy. The game doesn’t let you queue for dungeons that are more than 5 levels below your current level, but the gear you get in dungeons is so OP that doing it again will make it go much faster.
Only un-fun part about dungeons is that sometimes people will run through them to get them done as soon as possible, which can be fun if you have good gear but isn’t fun if you don’t have that dungeon’s gear yet and start to get smacked around by the smaller mobs.
Graphics
The graphics of this game are definitely quite dated. Even on the highest settings the game had its occasional lag spikes, and the textures on the enemies/environment looked quite muddy at times. The environments were so unique though, I wish that they would remaster this game like they did with Black Desert Online. All of the bosses looked amazing though, even if some of them were pretty darn creepy.
Overall I think that the lower quality graphics can be overlooked because the gameplay is pretty fun. If you have an older PC this might be the game for you as it came out in 2011.
Community
This game is a bit dead. Sometimes I would have to wait 5-10 minutes to get in a dungeon. Other times I would get in a dungeon within seconds. I really felt the dead section when I hit around level 40, I actually went back to the story to level until I could unlock another dungeon since I couldn’t find a party for the dungeon at my level. The community that is active seemed to be all old players who just played for the nostalgia. I didn’t get any guild invites, and when I got in a party barely anyone spoke. The majority of chat messages I got in the party chat were just “Thank you for playing” at the end of the dungeon.
The community isn’t toxic at all, but it does feel cliquey. I feel like the only way I might make friends would be to hang out in Twitch streams all day, which usually features endgame players, and try to play with/befriend them. So if you are looking for an MMO with a thriving community full of people to play with, this would not be the game for you.
Overall
I feel like this game has a lot of potential, especially for those with older PCs or who want to play something that has epic boss battles. I haven’t gotten to the endgame yet, and I’m not sure if I ever will. I feel like the majority of the appeal that this game has is just the dungeons, and to do that I never have to finish the story. I can now play some of the ultra-hard dungeons as I am at level 65, but I don’t know if I will put in the time to do so. The 21 hours I have spent in Tera so far seem well spent, but I am not sure if I will continue to spend time on this game.
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars for great dungeons, yet lackluster graphics, community, and questing.
My New Friend Is A Cat Webtoon Review
I love reading different Webtoons, so when a fan reached out to me about My New Friend is a Cat, I knew I had to read it. And I definitely was not disappointed!
Ken meets a boy named France when he shows up in his class one day. France is a loner who doesn’t talk to anyone, and the strangest thing about him is that he always wears a cat mask. Ken is known for making mixtapes for his classmates, and he just knows that a mixtape will help France to acclimate to his new environment. But how will he make a mixtape for someone who he knows nothing about and who barely talks? In order to make this mixtape, Ken must get to know France. Along the way, these two become friends, and the story begins.
Ken and France have one of the healthiest friendships I have seen in fiction recently. Both of them have their own secret struggles, but they manage to work through them by coming together. As they grapple with things difficult for anyone at any age, they use each other to start to rebuild themselves. Along the way they still have to deal with the struggles of growing up, and they help each other through that as well. I am excited to see how these two will grow and adapt as they get older in the comic. Right now they are both still in middle school, but the author says that the two will get older as the story goes on.
This story tackles many difficult issues, and most of those issues I can’t discuss as they will be spoilers. Just know that the author handles these issues within the story with such grace that it keeps me excited to read the next chapter. I never feel like the characters are in some sort of overexaggerated drama, but instead I feel like they are real kids working out their problems in a real yet peaceful way.
Another character I loved from this story was Gendy, Ken’s brother. He is the older brother who has taken care of Ken for years, and I can’t wait to learn more about what he has gone through in future episodes of the comic. He holds many of the secrets in this story, and not too many have been revealed yet. He always seems to know what Ken needs, even though he is only a very young adult himself.
I binged this entire webcomic in one night, and I know that anyone who reads it will enjoy it. It is so addictive, and it has been updated pretty consistently since 2017. I hope that you all give it a chance, as this story is a perfect feel-good read during quarantine.
I would recommend this webcomic to anyone looking for a story about friendship, change, and hope.
Read the color version of this webcomic here. (I personally love the color version!)
Read the black and white version of this webcomic here.
Overall Rating: 6 out of 6 paintbrushes.
Masters’ Mistress Review (Angel Eyes #1)
Master’s Mistress is a return to the world where women won the war against men. In Jake’s Redemption, the prequel to this series, we are introduced to Jake and Monica. Jake was a man whose spirit had been broken by a horrific woman named Darla, who had owned him before Monica. Then, he was bought by Monica, and he learned how to love through her. Now, Jake wants to return the favor by saving his friend Bret.
Bret and Jake’s friendship was heartbreaking to read about. They had been friends for a long time, but had been separated years ago by an ambush. Neither knew that the other was still alive. I was rooting for the two to be able to go back to their normal friendship as soon as possible, but their time apart has seemed to drive a wedge between them. Not to mention the fact that Jake has started to trust women again while Bret still believes most women to be evil after being so deeply betrayed by one. I hope that they get closer in future books, but I was happy that they were able to at least discuss their past with each other and heal together.
Bret was a far more stubborn character than Jake was in the previous novel. It was almost tiring at first to see how determined he was to push Jake and Angel away at the start of the novel. His stubbornness made him annoying. Then, I saw how he could be just as stubborn to help Angel as he was to refuse her help. It took him a long time to start opening up, but once he started, he became a truly lovable character.
All of the books in this series stick to a beautiful path of slow-burn romance where the characters truly get to know one another before falling in love. Angel and Bret aren’t in love with each other at the start, and they don’t immediately fall in love 2 chapters later. I felt that Bret did push back against his natural feelings for quite some time in this book before allowing himself to look at Angel, a woman, as a potential love interest. But when the sparks began to fly, a fire was set and the characters could not deny their love for one another.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an adult dystopian romance novel. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series!
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 books
Harrow Lake Blog Tour Plus Review
Welcome to Harrow Lake. Someone’s expecting you . . .
Lola Nox is the daughter of a celebrated horror filmmaker – she thinks nothing can scare her.
But when her father is brutally attacked in their New York apartment, she’s swiftly packed off to live with a grandmother she’s never met in Harrow Lake, the eerie town where her father’s most iconic horror movie was shot.
The locals are weirdly obsessed with the film that put their town on the map – and there are strange disappearances, which the police seem determined to explain away.
And there’s someone – or something – stalking her every move.
The more Lola discovers about the town, the more terrifying it becomes. Because Lola’s got secrets of her own. And if she can’t find a way out of Harrow Lake, they might just be the death of her.
If you know me, you know that I don’t read many horror novels. I am typically too much of a scaredycat to get to the good parts of the story, and some books/games have been able to really shake me to my core. But when quarantine came around and I found myself still in a book slump, I knew I needed to read something different to shake things up. So I turned off the lights and started this book at around 11 PM. By the time I was 30% of the way through the book, I had to turn the lamp back on, and I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep until I had finished this novel.
Lola was an…interesting character. She is introduced as this antisocial character who steals for the sake of “seeing if she could do it”, but when her father is stabbed, she has to go to Harrow Lake to live with her grandmother. Harrow Lake just happens to be where her father found her mother to star in his hit horror film, so she knows that many secrets lie within this town. As the book goes on her character fleshes out a lot more. She goes from being a character that no one could connect to being a character who has been kept trapped into being told how to feel by everyone around her for years.
Mr. Jitters has to be one of the scariest psychological horror characters that I have seen in a long time. Is it just a childhood scary tale that everyone still somewhat believes in like the Boogeyman? Or is there genuine evil within the city limits of Harrow Lake? The other townspeople of Harrow Lake are also rather eerie. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was really wrong with the town, and I still couldn’t figure it out once the book was over, but something definitely went wrong in this town after the mining accident in 1928.
The atmosphere that the story has is amazing. I could feel the tension build in certain scenes when Lola couldn’t even trust her own eyes to tell her the truth. I felt at some points like I was watching a horror film rather than simply reading a book, the imagery was so descriptive. In a few scenes, I could even feel my skin crawling as I was reading the pages. There were a few sentences that missed the mark though, such as “Her hands wring together in front of her, two pale moths feeling their way blindly.” I don’t know, I just couldn’t compare hands to being like moths in my mind. But most of the description was perfect for each setting.
The thing that brought my rating down to 3 and a half books for this title was the fact that the ending felt so rushed. There was so much amazing buildup and I was looking forward to how it all tied together. Then, when the climax was reached, Kindle told me that I only had around 11 minutes left in the book. A lot of my questions were left unanswered and disappointed me a lot. I was looking forward to seeing what would happen with a lot of these different stories, but then I felt like the threads connecting the book together were just snipped at the end. I didn’t feel a sense of satisfaction like I thought I would at the end of the story.
Overall, I would still recommend this book to anyone looking for a new psychological horror story to read. The rest of the book is simply too good to let the end deter you from enjoying the journey.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 books
Betrayed: Ruby’s Story Review (Destined #4)
The Destined series takes a turn from Ella’s family and friends and tells the story of Ruby, a local news reporter. She was determined to figure out who was dealing the drugs that were killing the people in her city one by one. Someone was choosing to prey on the poor and those who had lost everything in the plague by giving them a drug that would “take their problems away.” Ruby wanted to save those in her city, and to do so, she would have to travel outside of the city and do an interview with a member of the Wolf Clan, and finally figure out who has been bringing the drugs into the city.
This story started a bit slowly than the other books in this series, but it sped up around halfway through. Ruby spends the first part of the story lost in the woods as she tries to find her way to the Wolf Clan, and she meets a mysterious figure there who gives her help along her journey. This Wolf refuses to trust her, but he also won’t leave her outside the city limits to die on her own. Once Ruby reaches the city, she learned more and more about the Clan, the drug dealing, and the truth behind her city.
This was the only story in this series where I didn’t quite agree with the pairing. I did not think that the Wolf and Ruby were a good match for one another, even though it was painfully clear from the beginning of the story that they were supposed to be. I wanted Ruby to be with someone as passionate about their craft as she was passionate about her journalism, and although Wolf was passionate about his Clan, it did not seem equal. I just didn’t connect with Wolf much, but it could be just me!
Overall, this was unfortunately probably my least favorite book so far in the series, but that doesn’t mean much because I have given every other book a perfect rating! I still quite enjoyed this one, even if I didn’t love it as much as the others. I can’t wait to see how Ruby, this unique and ambitious character, will be included in the future books of this series.
I would recommend this book series to anyone looking for a unique fairy-tale retelling series full of action, adventure, and romance.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 books.
Venator’s Ultimate Tour + Review
Six years ago, Grey Malteer was attacked by creatures he thought couldn’t possibly exist. They repeated a word, calling him a name he’d never heard before…Venator. Since then, his life has been a hellhole of secrecy—hiding old pain alongside strange new abilities.
Rune Jenkins has an itch, as she calls it, but it’s more than that. It’s an anger that builds up like the inside of a boiler whenever she’s around anything remotely supernatural. The pressure is growing steadily worse and she can’t understand why. All she knows is—her control is slipping.
By order of an unknown council Grey and Rune are pulled through a portal in the St. Louis arch, landing them in an alternate dimension where creatures of myth and legend exist. A realm that calls them, Venators.
Made up of centuries old fae, vampires, werewolves, elves and succubi the council’s corrupt nature becomes obvious as they seek to wield the newly returned Venators as weapons. Wedged in an impossible position, Grey and Rune must decide their fate—do they go against the council’s wishes and help the innocents of this unforgiving land, or face the possibility of execution by the council.
Rune and Ryker are twins that go to the same college. Although Ryker is the oldest twin, he is definitely the least responsible. Rune is left trying to clean up after his messes, and is constantly dragging her brother back to his dorm after he passes out drinking at parties. Her life is miserable as she is basically a babysitter for her brother, and she never gets to enjoy her own college experience. But her parents won’t understand and continue to expect her to watch over her brother. She also has started to have strange reactions to seeing certain things, such as an unexplicable desire to kill someone who looked slightly like a vampire in a picture.
Grey is Ryker’s roommate, and his college experience is awful because Ryker seems to hate him for no particular reason. Ryker recently posted a video that is making Grey’s life a living hell, but he has to keep pushing through to get through school. Grey’s only escape is when he runs, but he knows that he runs faster than regular people. He is also feeling the same rage that Rune is feeling, but he doesn’t know if he can talk to her about it without her brother getting in the way. When the two are swept away through a portal, now they can finally deal with these strange happenings.
This book throws you into the lives of these characters full-force. I immediately connected with all the characters trying to make their way through college, but these characters had a bit more on their plates. I feel like I wasn’t sure exactly where the story was going at the start because the characters were reacting to all supernatural creatures, but then I understood that this was a mixed world.
Once the pair went through the portal, the story slowed down a bit and I felt disconnected from the characters somewhat. Then, a short while later, I got into the characters that lived in the new world, and everything came together again. If people are struggling with the very middle of the book, I would suggest that they keep pushing through as they will fall in love with the characters and their new teammates in the new world quickly!
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a new YA/NA fantasy book.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 books
Webtoon Wednesdays: BOO! It’s Sex Review
This comic was a collaboration between Monica Gallagher and Danielle Corsetto to create a proper sex ed comic for girls. I didn’t know what to expect when I started it, I just came across it while scrolling through the Webtoon app at midnight. By the time I forced myself to stop reading, I was 40 episodes in and had learned sooo much that I would have never found out any other way.
In this story, 4 girls move into a house near their college for their freshman year. It is an abandoned old sorority house, and they find some remnants of the girls who used to live there when they move in. One was an old tequila bottle that they open, and a ghost named Tara pops out! She was a sorority girl when she died, was happily sexually active, and is determined to help these four girls live their best SAFE lives in college.
I didn’t even know that this comic was supposed to be a sort of Sex Ed until I actually got into the series. I just thought that it had a unique title and wanted to see what it was about. Then, I started learning things that I had never known before, stuff that I wanted to send to my other friends who are in college. This comic should honestly be required reading for high schools and colleges, it teaches so much important information. Sex should not be a taboo topic as teens are likely to have sex with or without proper education, so it is more important that they are given the tools to make educated decisions. That is what this comic/proper sex education does, helps you make educated decisions about your body and your life.
This comic also has a unique and compelling story about the love lives of the individual girls. The girls all have different sexual orientations and levels of sexual activity, so Tara has to tailor her lessons to each of them individually. Their stories grow as the comic goes on, and Tara just keeps popping in as the helpful and friendly ghost.
I would definitely recommend this comic to anyone looking for good sex ed materials, or to anyone looking for a good story with amazing art. I hope that these authors get together to create another comic, whether educational or purely for entertainment.
Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 paintbrushes.
Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Recent Additions To My Bookshelf
I have added quite a few books to my temporary/permanent bookshelf lately, temporary being Kindle Unlimited Shelf. Here are my Top Ten Books that have been added to my bookshelf and that I plan to read or have read recently!
1 Nissa: A Contemporary Fairy Tale
I have finished this book already, and I absolutely loved it. My full review is coming soon, I was just lucky enough to get it when I saw that it was free from someone on Instagram I think. Great book!
2: Pathways (Kingdom Chronicles Book 1)
![Pathways (The Kingdom Chronicles Book 1) by [Peters, Camille]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51fGCMnqc9L.jpg)
I don’t know anything about this book besides the fact that it is a Princess and the Pea retelling and it was free on Kindle Unlimited. I can’t wait to check it out!
3: Beauty and the Beast (Timeless Fairy Tales Book 1)
![Beauty and the Beast (Timeless Fairy Tales Book 1) by [Shea, K. M.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51AE6H19t2L.jpg)
Another book that I don’t know much about besides the fact that it is a Beauty and the Beast retelling and that it is free on Kindle Unlimited. Can’t wait to get started!
4: A Dance of Silver and Shadow: A Retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Beyond The Four Kingdoms Book 1)
![A Dance of Silver and Shadow: A Retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Beyond the Four Kingdoms Book 1) by [Cellier, Melanie]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61bfzty1zBL.jpg)
And yet another classic fairy tale retelling on Kindle Unlimited! I wanted to give all these new authors a chance, and I cannot wait to dig into these stories. I can already tell that they are going to be good.
5: Hunted: Alba’s Story (Destined #5)
![Hunted: Alba's Story (Destined Book 5) by [Lee, Kaylin]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mrlPBtLWL.jpg)
I’ve already finished and loved this book, so I can’t wait to write my review for you all. This was the last book currently published in the Destined serries, so I am looking forward to the sixth book which is probably coming out fairly soon.
6: Odriel’s Heirs
An author recently emailed this book to me, so I am interested in checking out this YA fantasy novel!
7: Death Warden
Another YA fantasy novel sent to me by an author that I absolutely NEED to get around to reading. It sounds amazing!
8: The Fight for Magicallus
I don’t read children’s/middle grade fantasy books much, but this was another book sent to me by an author that I have been enjoying so far. Can’t wait to write my full review of it.
9: Awakening the Vampire
I received this book a while back and never got the chance to actually read it, so I am looking forward to finally finishing this book in the Shadow-Walkers series. Hopefully I will have thi sreview finished for you all before the end of next month.
10: Once Tales, Myths, and Legends of Faerie
Another book sent to me by an author. I’m determined to stay on top of these rquests in 2020, so I can’t wait to get to this book either.
I hope you all enjoiyed my list, and thanks for reading!
Twisted: Belle’s Story Review (Destined #3)
Belle was in Ella’s story as one of the privileged students at the Royal Academy. She was also hurt in the attacks, but her family had the money to actually fully heal her. At least, that is the story told in Fated, Ella’s story.
The truth is that Belle was only pretending to act like a stuck-up privileged student to try to bring down her abusive father. She hates her father and was looking into his finances at the bank to see why her family stayed rich during the plague when all the other families took a financial hit. She thinks that she is onto something when the attack happens, and, and the brain damage she gets from the blast causes her to lose part of her memory. Her father refuses to let a healer heal her fully, and chooses to threaten her into submission. Without complete memory of what she was trying to achieve and who she was close to, Belle also has to deal with the prince trying to hit on her. He seems rather close to her, but she can’t even remember why.
I didn’t like Belle in Fated very much, but she only showed up for a brief moment. I wasn’t sure what to expect in a book that would be completely about her, but I knew that I wanted to finish the series. This book was a pleasant surprise.
Belle wasn’t as stuck up as I originally thought she was. She was only acting rude to Ella in order to make her father believe that she was on his side. Everything she did was an act to keep her father on her side, even though she was working against him. I was so sad when she lost her memories, she had been doing so well and was so close to her goal and then everything disappeared before her eyes because of the memory loss. She was one of the strongest “rich girl” characters that I have ever read in a story before, so I hope to see more of her in the books to come.
The only small complaint I had about this story was how much time Belle spent confused. It was kind of annoying after a while as a reader from Belle’s POV to know what she was supposed to be doing, and still see her wandering around, confused and in pain from her unhealed injury. I was only frustrated for a small amount of the book, but it was worth mentioning.
Another thing worth mentioning was that I couldn’t see much of the chemistry between the prince and Belle. They were an okay couple, but I didn’t love them as much as the couples in the previous two books. Overall, I think that this book would rank at the bottom of the books in this series, but because the series is so good, I think it is still a 4 star read.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a new Beauty and the Beast retelling.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 books
Bri's Book Nook 