Pattie's Time Dungeon is about a girl named Pattie who gets caught up in a storm and is somehow transformed into a Pokemon. With no memories of her past, she decides to join up with her new friends Blazie and Elyon and form an exploration team. This book follows their adventures as Pattie tries to find out about her past and her mysterious visions, Blazie searches for clues about a mysterious relic fragment, and everyone worries about the rumors that someone is stealing the very important time gears.
This book is based on the video game Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time. Although I have only personally played this game's predecessor (Red Rescue Team), the parallels were obvious. The supporting characters, many large elements of the plot, and the overall concept seemed to be taken directly from it.
Some of the parts of the story that I liked best were the prologue, in which we see Pattie as a human caught up in the storm, which was interesting and left the reader with a good amount of suspense, and the mysterious dreams that Pattie has, many of which have to do with the all-important time gears and a mysterious figure. These parts added a bit of excitement, and they also represent some of the biggest points of the overall plot.
Moments like these built up interest and tension and did not relieve it right away, as happens in some of the other moments during the course of the story. I was sometimes disappointed that, just when things were beginning to heat up or get interesting, like when one of the main characters began showing signs of an internal conflict, the other characters jumped in to solve everything within the space of a page. It can be really difficult to let bad things happen to your characters, esepecially when you really like them and want them to be happy, but sometimes it is necessary in order to build a plot with plenty of tension and excitement.
It can also be very important for character development. The more challenges the characters must face and the harder they are to overcome, the larger the triumph in the end. Characters who face great odds become heroes, and those that struggle to grow and develop are both relateable and ultimately admirable.
I think that plot and character development are two of the areas that this book could have improved upon, and, to me, it felt like a part of that might have been easier to achieve with the inclusion of more originality. Some of the smaller details that I enjoyed were the ones that I didn't remember seeing anything like in the video games, and, along with the added interest these bring to fans of the games, striking out into new territory can force an author to break out of the mold of video game structure.
I really enjoy playing the Pokemon video games, including the mystery dungeon ones. They're really great, but they were designed as video games, which necessarily limits what they can do with plot and character development. With a written novel, you can achieve so much more. You can skip over all the parts that are boring or repetitive, add visual and tactial and auditory details that a handheld game system could never hope to reproduce, add long dialogues and emotion and character growth that are too complex and individualized to be programmed, and so much more.
Sticking to your source material is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can make it far too easy to fall into some of its limitations. I believe that by crafting your own unique and complex characters, mixing in new scenes and details and plot twists, and truly finding a way to make the story your own forces an author to challenge themselves in a way that can make their story really shine.
When this story did that, it was good. It needs more moments like that, more focus on the characters, more plot development, more scenes like that prologue or the mysterious dreams or the heart-felt mini plot with the Azurill and his brother. The story has a solid base, not a great amount of typos and errors, and plenty of ground that it can cover. I think that it could definitely be improved if the author put her mind to it, and, as she has expressed an interest in doing so, I really hope that she does.
** Published in June 2014 **
YOU ARE READING
d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews
Random[Closed] For all those looking for the best quality books that Wattpad has to offer: this is the review book for you. With a bachelor's degree in Writing and over six years of experience on this website, I'll bring you recommendations for the best b...
