Book and Video Game Pairings!

This one may be obvious because I think the author even credited Mass Effect as inspiration in the acknowledgements haha. Velocity Weapon follows a brother and sister trying to navigate war, an enemy AI, a planet killing weapon, and more.

Mass Effect is a popular space opera game where you play as Commander Shepard, and you are trying to save the galaxy from ancient deadly machines. It’s a third person shooter game, with a great story and lots of combat.

How to describe The Starless Sea? Well, we follow a grad student named Zachary who discovers a mysterious and magical book that leads him to an ancient library. It is full of magic and stories and lost cities and oceans and so much more. Zachary ends up going on a quest through this world (worlds) to discover his purpose. I know that sounds vague but, I mean the story is kinda vague haha.

GRIS is a stunningly gorgeous 2D puzzle platformer. You play as a girl named Gris who travels through to world collecting light in order to restore her own power, and restore color to the world. The story is symbolic of a journey through different stages of grief. It’s absolutely one of my top favorite games.

Sabriel is one of my all time favorite books, and I’ve definitely talked about it a lot on here. The titular main character is a young woman who travels to the Old Kingdom, her birthplace, to find her father. It’s a place full of monsters, necromancy, talking cat creatures, ancient evil, and much more. For some reason I only realized this as an adult but it’s kinda dark haha.

Child of Light is one of my favorite games! Two favorites paired together, we love to see it. You play as Aurora, trying to restore a once great kingdom by fighting monsters and restoring the sun, moon, and stars. The Black Queen has stolen the latter three. It’s an RPG and kind of a side-scroller, with timed battles. The art style is beautiful, it’s inspired by fairytales, and the soundtrack!! So good.

A Psalm for the Wild Built is a novella about a tea monk and a robot traveling the land. It’s soft sci-fi, full of hope and comfort and happiness.

Hob is a game that I stumbled on while browsing the Nintendo eShop. I fell in love with the art style, and it sounded so cute. You play as a being who is helped along by a robot (sound familiar?) trying to save a world that is in disarray. This is mostly an environmental puzzle game, with very light combat elements.

The Maleficent Seven is a rad standalone dark fantasy about a group of fearsome warriors – villains really, who must band together to fight a new enemy. I’ve actually reviewed it on the blog, which you can find here. There was tons of action, cool magic, and weird monsters. And I loved following a set of characters who are really not heroes haha.

I couldn’t possibly do a video game post without mentioning a Souls-type game, because they’re some of my boyfriend’s all time favorite games. Demon’s Souls is the first game in the Souls series, but had a recent re-release for PlayStation 5. You craft a character who goes through the world slaying monsters and exploring. It is heavy on combat, and notoriously difficult. The creatures are honestly super hideous sometimes hahah. It’s dark and full of lore that is kind of hidden, discoverable through item descriptions and some dialogue with non-player characters.

Lore is a Greek mythology retelling set in modern day New York City, and I looooved it. It was fast paced and fun, and it was super interesting to read the author’s take on the gods, and how they affect society. It’s brutal and amazing, and I definitely want more like this.

I’ve talked about Hades on the blog before, and how it reignited my Greek mythology phase (you can read about that here). As I said in that post, “you play as Zagreus, the son of Hades, who is trying to escape the underworld. Along the way you are aided by various gods and goddesses. You also meet other figures from the myths, such as the Furies, Achilles, Orpheus, etc.” It is a rogue-like dungeon crawler type game. Every time you die you start over, but you get gradually stronger and stronger so the game becomes easier. I really cannot express how incredible this game is. From the gameplay to the art design to the music, it’s just a masterpiece.

We all know that Tamora Pierce is my queen. This particular series by her follows the life of a young wild mage, Daine, as she discovers and develops her powers. She can speak to animals, heal them, and turn into them. The series is filled with amazing animal characters, both standard mortal animals and immortal magical animals.

Animal Crossing is a longstanding series, with New Horizons being the newest addition to the series. It came out at the beginning of the pandemic and brought a lot of people together with the ability to visit the islands of other players. Anyway, the premise is that you build up and design an island by decorating it with flowers and furniture and etc. You also invite different villagers to live on your island. The villagers are all different kinds of animals! It’s SOOOOO cute.

Mossflower is a classic older fantasy novel that is part of the larger Redwall series. It follows a mouse named Martin as he tries to free the land of the reign of a greedy wildcat. The characters are wonderful, and oh my god the FOOD DESCRIPTIONS. They make me so hungry.

This is a super cute game that I watched my boyfriend play, but one that I now want to play myself haha. You play as, well, a cat, and roam the land defeating enemies and exploring dungeons. The graphics are really cute, and it seems like a fun simple game.