Dimensional Descent is a story about Leonel Morals and him trying to become as strong as possible as his world starts evolving to the next dimension.
Originally, I gave this novel a better score, maybe it's just because I'm burnt out, but looking back on the novel it really isn't as good as I previously stated.
Writing quality is great, there isn't many mistakes if you aren't specifically looking for them. (5/5 stars)
Story development is where I'm most conflicted. You see, I really can't call it bad when I've read to nearly a thousand chapters. However, I feel like I just walked a thousand steps only to realize theres an innumerable amount of steps more. I have read to chapter one thousand, only to realize the story has gone a little everywhere, while at the same time nowhere. The only difference from the start of the novel and now is that the main character is stronger, and has more connections. It is chapter 1000, and there is still no direction for the novel. The main character has fought so many different organizations, strong enemies, etc, but looking back on it they were all pointless as it feels like none of this helped the main character's non-existent goal. How many more chapters will it take for the story to gain direction? I'm kind of tired of reading about so many "unique" characters only for all of them to be later deemed irrelevant. Aside from all this, I've long lost track of how people "progress". The main character has already done five hundred different ways to get stronger, and they all feel super exaggerated until the main character fights someone. Listen, even if you constantly say "it's a miracle for someone like the main character to fight x." I don't buy it. The main character has such a ridiculously overpowered ability that I feel is super underplayed and overplayed at the same time. His ability does everything, just not that well compared to something else. This story is the definition of the phrase "Jack of all Trades, Master of None." (2/5 stars)
As for character design, I can't give an honest answer at this point. All the characters are logical, and do actions that make sense of their character. This might be due to the story rather than the characters, but theres nothing unpredictable about these characters. In one thousand chapters there is not a single character that has surprised me with their actions. Rather disappointing. Aside from that, the main character has such ridiculously slow character development it's stupid. The main character has had a "lot" of character development if you want to play with semantics, but absolutely nothing has changed. His character is the exact same, except he thinks a bit differently on a few things. It's annoying. These characters aren't substantial at all, they all feel hollow with the outline of logic. Also, I will never understand the relationship between Aina and Leonel, it feels like it changes every chapter. Aside from the first portion of the novel, it's basically just Leonel chasing after Aina constantly, and Aina constantly leaving to do something else whilst saying shes in love with Leonel. It's annoying. This is still happening at chapter 1000, and I feel like this whole relationship is too tedious to make sense. (2/5 stars)
World background is a mess. They have introduced so many things and none of them conflict with each other. It feels like a world with no standard, no rules. It genuinely feels like the author is just making things up as they go along. This is doubly so for the power scaling/development, theres so many ways to progress, the "best" path for the main character changes whenever the author feels like he didn't praise the main character's overwhelming might enough. Politics are a mess to be honest. I never really understood half of what the author was ranting about. This is a world of dimensions, where the higher the dimensions the stronger the people and planets are. According to the author, a 4th dimensional existence is a god to a 3rd dimensional existence. In theory. The problem with this is it's basically irrelevant the entire story as the main character fights so many people stronger than him it's ridiculous. Aside from that, world background has the same problem that lies with character design and story development. There is a LOT of world background, but nothing really substantial. It feels like they are just padding it out instead of making sure the base is solid. (2/5 stars)
Overall, this is a fairly good story superficially. Once you dig deeper you'll realize theres nothing really there, and it gets hard to read. Don't get me wrong, the characters are great, and the fights are thrilling. However I almost immediately got burnt out realizing it was chapter 1000 and realized the story basically hadn't progressed from stage 1. The author is great at writing, but the author made the story go in the wrong direction. I give this novel 3.2 stars out of 5.
Tencent Picture Award for WSA 2021 Contest