User blog:The Jacked Maverick/Nightbound: A Creative Dead End. (Review)

Before we begin, I want to point out that there will be NO SPOILERS in this review. Also, I will be referring to the MC as “Alex” as that is his/her default name.

I hesitated to make this review. Nightbound is over. Done for. It’s right there buried in the ground next to The Haunting of Braidwood Manor, Passport to Romance, and others. But after pondering for a while, I had some feelings I couldn’t shake off. I had too many strong opinions about this book, and at the same time… I don’t have any reason to. You’ll see what I mean later.

If you haven’t already, check out my blog and profile. I’ve done other reviews on The Freshman franchise, Veil of Secrets, and Home for the Holidays. I plan to do more in the future! Across the Void and Platinum are on the top of my list at #1 and #2 respectably. I’ll probably do Across the Void first as I want to wait until Platinum is done before reviewing it. “Across the Void Was Always Doomed From the Start” and “Platinum: How a Generic Premise Beat the Odds and is Actually Spectacular” are working titles. Now, back to the review…

I was a fan of Bloodbound, Book 1. May not as much as others that they were rioting over a book 2, but I was invested in the story. The characters were great, the lore and suspense were what made this work. And yeah, I was a little disappointed that Book 2 was taking a long time to be released. I was afraid they were going to pull off another Hero 2 and Most Wanted 2. So when Pixelberry announced a spin-off to Bloodbound a couple months later, I immediately assumed the reason why Bloodbound was on a hiatus was because Pixelberry wanted to ride the popularity of Bloodbound with a spin-off. They thought “Hey, on the height of all of the praise, we can do so much more with this universe we created!” And so, they gave Nightbound a title that related to Bloodbound.

Bear with me that this will be different than my other reviews. I can say with certainty why I don’t like other books (Veil of Secrets, LoveHacks, etc). But Nightbound is truly remarkable. I don’t know why I don’t like it, or how to articulate how I feel about it (This is what I meant from the first paragraph). I will just say what I have observed while playing this book, and my thoughts on them.

And I know it’s unfair to compare this to something else, so I will look at Nightbound as its own thing, ignoring the precedence and the promise built up to this.

One more thing, I want to clarify that Nightbound is not a bad book. It’s just a “forgettable” book. Whenever I finished a chapter, I immediately forgot what happened. Other good books (that shall remain nameless) are like the MCU and Grand Theft Auto. They are content you can always come back to. Nightbound is like Avatar (2009) or the Batman VR game. You play that for an hour and go “Wow! I’m Batman!” and never pick it up again.

Empty Promises
When they first announced the Bloodbound spin-off, they said that werewolves were going to be a part of it. Of course, everyone jumped the gun and assumed that we were going to be playing as a werewolf or that they were going to be a major part of it. The end result was not what most imagined.

To be fair to Pixelberry, they never said we were going to play as a werewolf. Or that werewolves were in fact going to be a major role in the story. But that cover didn’t do anything to clear up some misconceptions people had. Really? Two attractive people in formal garment in front of a giant wolf’s face? Please forgive us for thinking that werewolves would be in this book for more than four chapters (I counted)!

Speaking of empty promises, they said that we would (may) see Bloodbound characters in New Orleans. While again, they weren’t ‘’technically’’ lying as we only saw one Bloodbound character in a non-speaking role. (If you didn’t cough up diamonds to “play” with her)

While we are on the subject of crossovers, I want to point out that it was cool to see that character appear in Bloodbound, Book 2. Even though it really has no effect in the long term. But hey, at least it was better than just a random one-off character.

Everything was just misleading. We were promised an ice cream sundae, and we got a melted cone.

What about the story?
Empty promises would not be an issue if the actual content was pretty good on it’s own. And for the most part… it kind of is. Nightbound has a fun premise. It is surprisingly easy to ruin such a great premise.

I may not know how to explain why I don’t like this book, but if I had to use one word to describe this as a whole, it would be “haste”. Things were moving too fast in the span of 16 chapters. It all felt overwhelming, really. Too much scenarios and events were happening all at once, I just kind of tuned out.

Nik is a monster hunter who has been tasked to protect us after someone mysterious told him to. We then get taken under his wing and go on wild adventures in the meantime.

This does sound fun, the only problem is that there isn’t a lot of breathing room. We never get a chance to stop and breathe, and recover from whatever wild event we just encountered. This would be justified if the world was being relentless and was just throwing stuff at us, but the group just went ahead and proceeded on. Everything was exposition with some characterization thrown into it.

I didn’t notice these issues until much later on. I remember just waking up while reading a Monster Tear (Lord Elric’s) and just thinking “What is this? What am I doing?” And then decided that this book was not worth sticking around for. And it especially wasn’t worth the fortune of diamonds I was spending on the Tears.

The MC


Alex seemed out of place in this world. For the longest time, there was nothing special about him/her. Alex seemed like the most boring character in our group. Which… isn’t really saying much, I will admit. But even so, Alex had to get pushed off to the sidelines whenever a fight was happening. This is nothing new of course, as the Bloodbound MC and The Royal Romance MCs also didn’t have a lot to contribute. But you know what? At least they TRIED. They at least tried to contribute to the carnage. Alex? Oh no, s/he was just a helpless damsel. Unless we paid to pick up a weapon or whatever.

You could say that you were indeed “His to protect.” I thought about giving the “His… to Protect” thing it’s own category, but I feel like it is best used in the MC portion. We couldn’t go anywhere without our posse. And also, I am not “Nik’s”. I am not his property or even want his affection.

If Pixelberry was that desperate for new readers, that cover was not the right way to do it. If I was new to this app and saw that cover, I would have thought this book was not for me and was female only. Them changing the cover is another reason why I think it underperformed. (That and that they said it themselves in a blogpost) They were so desperate for new readers that they resulted in pandering to the lowest common denominator instead of actually improving the story.

Creative Dead End
Even with that said… I was still surprised it became a one-shot. People on social media seemed to like it. There was an outcry when there wouldn’t be a sequel. I’m not trying to make excuses for Pixelberry, but I understand why they canned this and not Ride or Die. While I’m not denying that Nightbound technically did better than Ride or Die, it just didn’t reach Pixelberry’s expected revenue to rake in a profit.

But of course, this logic got thrown out the window the very next day when they axed The Elementalists, Book 2. Speaking of which, I actually did think this was going to get a sequel. There was no behind the scene drama (that we know of) and there was no hiatus! A clear sign that a book will get cancelled is if there is a mid-season break. (Looking at Platinum Please continue, please continue, please continue)

It is no doubt that Pixelberry intended for this to be their next big thing. Hell, I even thought it would be. Why wouldn’t it be? Gender of choice lead, a spin-off to Bloodbound, and the cover looked mesmerizingly translucent! But I was also a bit skeptical. This was right after Across the Void and High School Story was ruined with Class Act. And I was disappointed that what I feared was… almost right.

Like I said, Nightbound is not necessarily a bad book. It is just a forgettable one. I still like it better than most, but I wasn’t sad in the slightest when it was revealed to be a standalone.

You can learn about a book just from its failures. Nightbound was just trying to do too much while it forgot just how to be fun. That gala at the end where we learn about our origins was not well deserved and felt out of place. Pixelberry was so focused on showing us all the cool stuff in this world, that nothing mattered anymore. The places we did visit didn’t really have a lasting impression. That’s all this book was. An interesting dead end that had promise. Pacing was just too fast.

The best comparison I can give is like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). They were teasing so much, that nothing went anywhere.

Things I Liked

 * Katherine.
 * The pet whose species is escaping me.
 * The lore.

Things I Did Not Like But Don’t Deserve A Category

 * Vera’s cheekbones.

Conclusion
I’m sorry I don’t have a satisfying conclusion like I had for my other reviews. You may disagree with me on this (it wouldn’t be the first time someone disagreed with someone over the Internet), but Pixelberry did the right thing by cutting this into one book. There was nothing really to do in a sequel. If it were up to me, I would for sure have given it another chance. But that's what this book is: a creative dead end.

I know I didn't cover everything, and I didn't go too in depth on everything, but like I said, I don't really have that many strong feelings about this.

What did you think about this Bloodbound spin-off? Do you think this was supposed to launch Pixelberry's "Bound" universe? Let me know in the comments below!