I would first like to write that for some reason some words in this review keep getting censored for no reason even though most of them are not even bad words... Regardless, try your best to fill the gaps when necessary.
This novel isn't bad so far and for fans of this kind of genre i would recommend it but i cannot see where the 5/5 stars are coming from, especially since many of the reviews i have seen hadn't even reached over chapter 100 before reviewing. I will go over some of the key reasons for my overall score of about 3.5, which i think is very fair for this novel at the moment.
Translation quality. The translation is littered with small mistakes and grammatical errors, which although alone do not make any significant difference, pile up overtime to make it into a bit of a problem. The reason it’s a problem is that small misunderstandings can cause bigger problems in a mystery style story, which this one seems to have turned into after the first beginner dungeon. Each dungeon (a bit of a stretch to call them dungeons) at this point are 'solve a mystery in a certain time' missions and therefore to follow along with the mystery an excellent translation is essential so that you get all the details. Another problem is that i think some of the words aren't translated exactly to their correct meaning or at least some of the meaning from the original Chinese is missing. Now, i am unable to read Chinese and cannot confirm this so i may be wrong and it could just be bad writing, but either way it would lower my score. An example of this happening would be during chapter 71: Venture In, where the MC enters his first team dungeon. He reads the background which says "Alcatraz Prison has been experiencing some mysterious incidents lately. Your special expert team has been hired to solve the mysteries". And from this he says, "Terms like "mysteries" and "special expert" made Kieran think of paranormal activity or something along that line" and then goes onto state how it must be ghosts that cannot be killed by regular means before even getting to the island. How does this make sense? Since when has special expert or mysteries instantly meant that it must be ghosts or paranormal? Of course, he ends up being correct (because the writer obviously already knows what he will make happen) but him ****** random claims like that is either bad writing, the MC is retarded, or some meaning has been lost. At least in English mystery certainly does not mean it must be a ghost, which means that the translation is missing some information somewhere or the writer is just bad. Which could be either as i will explain.
Story development. The story develops in a way that might trick you into thinking that it and the MC are smart, but neither actually are. Why? Because for it to be smart stuff actually has to make sense with clues given to the reader, things that can actually be picked up on if you're careful. If **** pops up out of nowhere, that isn't a twist or an amazing reveal in a mystery... it’s just bad writing and feels cheap as ****. And this happens in all 3 of the 'solve this mystery dungeons' (the animal one isn't as bad). Example of this poor writing. During the MC's second dungeon where the MAIN MISSION is to find a girl, he only finds her by coincidence at the end whilst completing a side mission. Now, maybe i just missed some masterfully hidden secrets and we should have known she would be with the gangster dude hiding in a coffin underground, but to me it just seems like a bull**** way to wrap up the mission because he felt like it was about time to end that arc. Just randomly bringing in characters out of nowhere isn't a twist, it's cheap. Another thing in the same mission is that the Duke dude is introduced literally right at the end... Who thought that's a clever idea? Introduce a brand-new character out of nowhere at the end. Again, not an enjoying mystery to read if it is literally impossible to try and figure out who the bad guy is. If **** just pops out of nowhere then what’s the point of following along? I thought the writer would trick us by ****** it a character that has already been established and has been trying to trick the MC, like Carl. Such as he was manipulating from behind the scenes, acting the fool but in reality, was in control. A kind of the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind sort of twist. After-all, i thought to myself, he won't just add a new character in out of nowhere at the end of the mission, will he? But then this Duke dude shows up with some of his goons and a captured police chief. Sure you sort of knew there was an army dude but him just showing up isn’t interesting at all. The story after the first dungeon turns into a solve this mystery game written by a guy who can't write a very good and compelling mystery story. You can put that down to lack of experience, poor translation or limited time due to it being set in a ‘dungeon’ but whatever the reason the mystery aspect doesn’t feel very fleshed out which is important for it to be enjoyable.
Now about the MC not actually being smart. Perhaps that is unfair because he can say some reasonable stuff, especially near the beginning imo. But, some other stuff just doesn’t make sense and is similar to how he jumped to conclusions about ghosts and such mentioned previously (assuming that the meaning was translated correctly). He goes to Nobian’s place after killing him and sees a blackboard with 5 names on it with 4 of them crossed out, his name is also on the list but hasn’t been crossed out. Lawless comes and says that he knows the guy called Gibbon, saying he was strong. All that they know is that Nobian must have worked together with someone because even in ambush he couldn’t have taken Gibbon alone. They also say, for some reason, that “He seemed to be quite familiar with my information, something a man alone could not have achieved.” Which doesn’t make much sense. Why could a man alone not find out his information? It doesn’t seem difficult to ask around, purchase the information or simply watch the MC himself. But that’s fine because we have already established that he has accomplices anyway. So what information do we have. We know he has accomplices and killed four other players… Then the MC jumps to the conclusion “There must be a killer organization founded by a couple of players, an organization unknown to the public”. How does he conclude that with the information he was just given? It even states that Nobian might have been a psychopath, so he might have just been doing it for the sake of it. Or he and some people he knows might just PK together for extra loot, after all it was known that the MC was loaded, and so must Gibbon have been if he was a veteran. It doesn’t seem to make much logical sense to instantly say with so much certainty that it just must be some sort of secret underground killer organisation. Perhaps the translation has something to do with it, but I think it’s more likely that the writer doesn’t really know how to make a character solve mysteries and seem smart, so he just basically gives them the ability to see into the future instead. It would have made much more sense if the MC said that It MIGHT be an underground organisation instead of instantly being certain of it as if he already knew the answer when he couldn’t have. There are other examples of this too where the MC, with very little or no evidence, will say **** that doesn’t make much logical sense with the information given, but still ends up being correct because the writer obviously wants him to be.
Another problem is the dumping of weapon stats when the MC doesn’t even use the weapon. It feels like a waste of time and seems to be there for no reason. It adds nothing to the story at all. I think it would be much better to only give detailed item breakdowns for stuff the MC will use or important items and enemies.
Also, I don’t know if this is an issue with character design or story development, I think a bit of both, but the MC’s motivation and pressure of curing his illness is solved a bit too quickly imo. After his second dungeon you can already see how much money he can potentially make so any and all pressure about trying to save cash to cure himself is down the drain. It removes a certain amount of pressure for me because at this point he is ****** so much from a single ‘dungeon’ that he can pretty much cure himself easily. The beginning dungeon in this regard was my favourite because he was still weak, had to strategize more and the pressure of his illness was still looming over him.
Another problem I have is that by ****** the ‘dungeon’ areas into these mysteries it handicaps character development in a sense. This is because mysteries are made good by interesting characters, thought provoking goings on and clues that you can follow along with the character. But by ****** dungeon missions into mysteries instead of what traditional dungeons are like it means that new characters must be made each time, ****** it hard to become interested in these characters, because you know they will be gone by the end of the story. This in turn makes me even less engaged in the mystery mission and is also part of way I liked the starting dungeon a bit more than the other dungeons. Trying to write an intriguing mystery is very difficult in the kind of style and format the writer is using. This is also why the fights are much more intriguing to read and is why I wish we would put some more focus on those instead.
I also would have liked some more variety in the main missions given. More solve this mystery started to get tedious.
I could go on and on about more issues I have but by then I will probably end up with 3-4 thousand words, so I will stop here with the criticism.
Now you might be thinking that I must fucking hate this novel… but I don’t hate it, as can be seen from by score. I think a 3/5 is more than fair because despite all of the issues I could name if I wanted to the premise is still somewhat interesting and this story does appeal to a certain niche of reader. It isn’t terrible but is by no means revolutionary. I would say give it a read because if you can ignore some of the holes in the translation and story it can be enjoyable at parts.
