Tikky
: Sooo... yeah. I read this. Until Chapter 52. And I can say with certainty that it was surely time ... spent. Undeniably, time was consumed. Because I am not such a cheap person to give up my valuable time for nothing, I will have to make your eyes bleed as much as mine did by telling you exactly what went wrong here with a story that seemed to have a solid premise and a promise to pick up on it.
1. Basic Context MC was originally a noble, whose initially prestigious family had fallen apart when first his father, the Patriarch of Sermin, and then his two promising older brothers went missing - together with a bunch of magicians and knights that had followed them on the search and rescue mission. In general, this tactic of taking someone and then taking those that come to rescue the missing person when they walk in by themselves is something that happens not once, but twice in this story. This tactic should not happen even once. It is a complete brainrot tactic that only works if the people in question are dumb as bricks. Like, if you realize that more people go missing when you go and search, why don't you try to find out more about the case before charging in first? WHY do they keep rushing into the trap? Do they not have this nifty ability called "pattern recognition" available in this universe? Okay, if one got missing and the search party too, fair enough, but why send ALL your people into it? And if they didn't send ALL of them at once, how did they all go missing? How strong, capable, and promising could they have been? No, wait, I digress. Context. We were giving context. Anyway, MC got kidnapped at the age of twelve, when at least some of his family's standing was still there, even as a mere husk, so they sent ALL of their forces once more to search and rescue the last heir, but they never found him, and thus, he died three years after the family managed to completely combust. He then dies, is transmigrated to a weird world where a god uses human souls as "players" with stat windows and all, because his golden ass gets bored sometimes. MC overcomes a god-given curse he was born with, which caused him to be the only one in his family showing no promise whatsoever, learns how to fight, and becomes the most skilled player of this other world. He dies as the champion and receives a wish from that other god who played with him for, like, a century, and doesn't want to wish for anything, but the god takes his original dying wish, from when he was tortured to death by another noble's child, which is going back in time to change the future. That's where the actual story starts, as he's twelve years old again.
2. What the Fuck, Man? First off, I don't know if anyone gathered it, but I started this story thinking he was a swordsman. I'm not saying he couldn't be using magic or something else, because duh, of course he would need more than that to be the best of the best, but we never see him wield a sword properly even once. He just haphazardly swings it with no refinement. He later on uses some short swords or daggers of sorts, but he barely ever really fights. Fair enough, apparently he was an assassin and necromancer; a magician of sorts first. Kay? But we never see him use proper magic, so that's not it. Abilities of an assassin? He doesn't really have them. He shows off his brains a single time at the beginning, which is fair enough, assassins use underhanded tactics, but they are also paid. So it comes off weird that he has to explain himself in detail, just so anyone would believe an assassin actually did the work, especially since he had his own client kill the target. It was a convoluted mess, but fair enough, Aizen Sousuke, I'll step down and accept that was fair, because I might end up having a stroke if I try to argue on this one. Let me cut into this section with another thing: I'm fine with stories doing quick level-ups. Especially in stories like this one, which are clearly meant to have a very strong, if not overpowered protagonist. In fact, it's worse if the enemy comes off too strong, because it will just make the story feel as if it will never end and the goal unreachable, because the protagonist won't have the fucking time to level up that much, if we don't gain strength fast enough. And it's catastrophically WORSE when you already have an OP protagonist and then, in chapter 200, you're suddenly introduced to a foe who wipes out every character that's either as strong or even stronger than the MC, all grouped up to fight as a team, in a heartbeat. Like, where is the story fucking going if shit like that comes out this late? Sorry, gripes with a different story. I'll return to the topic at hand. It's fine to get stronger quickly in the beginning, because obviously, the original is usually weak or even has a disadvantage. But firstly, am I the only one who heard his dying wish correctly? He didn't just say he wants to go back, he said "if only I wasn't cursed", so why does he even still carry the fucking curse? The curse and its penalty is brought down to a point where it only ever emerges when the plot needs to dampen the MC for half a second. That happens, like, once after chapter 15? And it's already degraded to D vom SS at that point, so why wasn't it simply gone to begin with? Everything he did, which involved him immediately overcoming everything, would have been the same had he no longer carried the curse or just remnants of it left behind in his body, as his whole physical constitution had been struggling its effects until this point. Him learning the sword and physically getting stronger or learning Mana could have broken through old bindings and given him basically a new body. That's what I would have written, at least. He also only trains physically by doing handstands. Btw that's quite literally something I wrote in one of my Female Lead stories, which had the main character also regain some physical strength after transmigrating into a weak body, because she knows how to use Mana and held a contract with an inhuman being. But even my protagonist did more than just handstands, though she often did that, because it was easy to do in a room, while concealing herself, so it's similar to MC here. Still - that alone doesn't mean you can regain your ability to actually carry and wield a blade, so she did more than that. And one very important factor I used as an "excuse" to not train her in a special way was the fact that she had already been trained in her former world and had years of experience. And that's added to the fact that she never really wanted to fight, because she didn't fight in her old world because she wanted to. She never wanted to become a soldier in the first place. In other words, its her old habits and the feeling of being "unprepared" that make her take the bare minimum steps to be able to "defend" herself, but she doesn't want to have to do use it. Ever. Most poeple who read this Webtoon might notice where I'm going with this little anecdote. Firstly, he actually wants to fight. His goal involves him becoming significantly more powerful than a lot of other people, because his father, who was deemed strong, as well as his talented brothers, all went missing, thus they were too weak. And beyond that, there's something that wasn't utilized until now in the slightest. This MC acts in most fights as if he had never fought before in his life. He gets easily flustered and oumaneuvered by absolutely everyone and their grandmother. He also gets stronger way too fast, yet way too slow at the same time. It's too simply, yet also too complicated. But what do I mean with that? He got back the stat window from the time he spent in the other world after transmigrating before - or maybe "retained" would be the better word for it. With that, he had access to an odd Gacha-esque class system, which I barely remembered after it showed up for the first time and couldn't be bothered to wrap my remaining braincells around it to properly understand. Or in other words: A million supercomputers could be calculating for an eternity and wouldn't be able to reach the number of fucks I don't give about this story's lore. But anyway, it required him to basicfally shuffle through a class tree, of which the Necromancer is an evolution based on the Assassin class. In his case, emphazis is on the AssAss, because I don't know what makes him an assassin, but we already went over that. Is an assassin just a job title? It shouldn't be, because here, it's a class. If assassin is just someone who kills for money, that would make the class absolutely redundant. If anything, we would need to be talking about the original assassin theory. Stealthy, proficient in acting and masquerading, as elusive as a shadow and gone as fast as they appeared to murder you. But that is, though cool by itself, a pretty "boring" class for a protagonist, depending on the world we are in. In a world like this, where people openly fight, and prestige comes with literal fighting power, an assassin is a back alley urchin, even if they are feared for their skills. You would want flashy abilities for the MC to show in a fight. Or at least have abilities that rock the boat. But here's the thing: His abilities are literally a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing. Again, magic isn't really very interesting in this universe. They manage to make me believe it would sound cooler when described in a novel than seeing it drawn in the webtoon. His skills as an assassin are so subpar, I don't get why that step was ever needed. He could have been an assassin or mercenary without choosing the class, since he should be capable enough to actually fight with almost any weapon after enduring such a long time as a plaything to a god who only ever wants to witness carnage. And again, he was supposedly the best in the other world. Yet he can't properly fight; while he wins a lot, it always feels underwhelming, even as he overwhelms his opponents in one way or another. His necromancy is never really relevant. He hunts down the legacy of a great necromancer who existed in their world, because his abilities are so great and all, so he can pretend to be his successor, but in actual fights, I can't remember him actually using necromancy properly. He once created a random female undead from a dead male magician. That's why I called this shit "Gacha-esque", and I really don't want to waste brain power on deciphering how exactly that worked, because the math ain't mathing. Apparently, he can't properly use that undead anyway, because it takes too much Mana. To be honest, I felt completely annoyed and didn't want to right this comment right away, so I wrote half of it and finish it now - but it was so shite, I already deleted most of this story from my mind.
3. I Just Can't be Asked I remember some idiotic, generic harem tropes, like some bimbo showing up, getting on MCs ass, and then coming in hot with the "Let's make a bet and the loser will have to obey the winner!" classic trash bullshit. Of course, she loses. Obviously. I don't even remeber what the bet was anymore, because my brain was starting to leak through my ears at that point, but it happens so often in these stories, I could recite this phrase in my sleep while farting. Can we never get an MC who simply says: "What would I want with you?" or, after winning, cashes in on the "obey me" thing with the good old "Well, now give me money as repayment for being annoying and never talk to me again"? Aside from that, it's hard to guess what the protagonist is really thinking, but not in a good way, like Light and L to some extent weren't easy to read, but actually because he feels inconsistent. He's pretending to be tough and roughless at times, but seems to be too naive at others. Maybe I'm thinking this because I couldn't be asked to try and understand him, so it might really just be me, but that's the feeling I had while reading. It also meant he got on my nerves a lot. So where are we at, with a broken, convoluted lore, a pacing that shits the bed at every turn, and an MC who could make watching paint dry seem like an enjoyable passtime? Oh, yeah, we will have reached "The Player of the Fallen Family".
Seriously, if you want to read a story of someone regressing many years into the past to beat the shit out of an elusive enemy who killed his father and everyone else in his clan, read "Absolute Regression". It's the only Murim action Manwha I know that doesn't bombard you with tropey female characters (in fact, there aren't many female characters, as there logically shouldn't be, but the ones that are there are strong, actual characters with personalities that I simply can't find in me to dislike), and comes PACKED with chapters that are spent by talking and nothing else. Yet their yapping feels so genuine and is so interesting, nobody fucking complains about it. Actual peak Webtoon. Go read that. I'm out now.
Feeds
Because I am not such a cheap person to give up my valuable time for nothing, I will have to make your eyes bleed as much as mine did by telling you exactly what went wrong here with a story that seemed to have a solid premise and a promise to pick up on it.
1. Basic Context
MC was originally a noble, whose initially prestigious family had fallen apart when first his father, the Patriarch of Sermin, and then his two promising older brothers went missing - together with a bunch of magicians and knights that had followed them on the search and rescue mission. In general, this tactic of taking someone and then taking those that come to rescue the missing person when they walk in by themselves is something that happens not once, but twice in this story. This tactic should not happen even once.
It is a complete brainrot tactic that only works if the people in question are dumb as bricks. Like, if you realize that more people go missing when you go and search, why don't you try to find out more about the case before charging in first? WHY do they keep rushing into the trap? Do they not have this nifty ability called "pattern recognition" available in this universe? Okay, if one got missing and the search party too, fair enough, but why send ALL your people into it? And if they didn't send ALL of them at once, how did they all go missing? How strong, capable, and promising could they have been?
No, wait, I digress. Context. We were giving context. Anyway, MC got kidnapped at the age of twelve, when at least some of his family's standing was still there, even as a mere husk, so they sent ALL of their forces once more to search and rescue the last heir, but they never found him, and thus, he died three years after the family managed to completely combust. He then dies, is transmigrated to a weird world where a god uses human souls as "players" with stat windows and all, because his golden ass gets bored sometimes.
MC overcomes a god-given curse he was born with, which caused him to be the only one in his family showing no promise whatsoever, learns how to fight, and becomes the most skilled player of this other world. He dies as the champion and receives a wish from that other god who played with him for, like, a century, and doesn't want to wish for anything, but the god takes his original dying wish, from when he was tortured to death by another noble's child, which is going back in time to change the future. That's where the actual story starts, as he's twelve years old again.
2. What the Fuck, Man?
First off, I don't know if anyone gathered it, but I started this story thinking he was a swordsman. I'm not saying he couldn't be using magic or something else, because duh, of course he would need more than that to be the best of the best, but we never see him wield a sword properly even once. He just haphazardly swings it with no refinement.
He later on uses some short swords or daggers of sorts, but he barely ever really fights. Fair enough, apparently he was an assassin and necromancer; a magician of sorts first.
Kay? But we never see him use proper magic, so that's not it. Abilities of an assassin? He doesn't really have them. He shows off his brains a single time at the beginning, which is fair enough, assassins use underhanded tactics, but they are also paid. So it comes off weird that he has to explain himself in detail, just so anyone would believe an assassin actually did the work, especially since he had his own client kill the target. It was a convoluted mess, but fair enough, Aizen Sousuke, I'll step down and accept that was fair, because I might end up having a stroke if I try to argue on this one.
Let me cut into this section with another thing: I'm fine with stories doing quick level-ups. Especially in stories like this one, which are clearly meant to have a very strong, if not overpowered protagonist. In fact, it's worse if the enemy comes off too strong, because it will just make the story feel as if it will never end and the goal unreachable, because the protagonist won't have the fucking time to level up that much, if we don't gain strength fast enough. And it's catastrophically WORSE when you already have an OP protagonist and then, in chapter 200, you're suddenly introduced to a foe who wipes out every character that's either as strong or even stronger than the MC, all grouped up to fight as a team, in a heartbeat. Like, where is the story fucking going if shit like that comes out this late? Sorry, gripes with a different story. I'll return to the topic at hand.
It's fine to get stronger quickly in the beginning, because obviously, the original is usually weak or even has a disadvantage. But firstly, am I the only one who heard his dying wish correctly? He didn't just say he wants to go back, he said "if only I wasn't cursed", so why does he even still carry the fucking curse? The curse and its penalty is brought down to a point where it only ever emerges when the plot needs to dampen the MC for half a second. That happens, like, once after chapter 15? And it's already degraded to D vom SS at that point, so why wasn't it simply gone to begin with? Everything he did, which involved him immediately overcoming everything, would have been the same had he no longer carried the curse or just remnants of it left behind in his body, as his whole physical constitution had been struggling its effects until this point. Him learning the sword and physically getting stronger or learning Mana could have broken through old bindings and given him basically a new body. That's what I would have written, at least.
He also only trains physically by doing handstands. Btw that's quite literally something I wrote in one of my Female Lead stories, which had the main character also regain some physical strength after transmigrating into a weak body, because she knows how to use Mana and held a contract with an inhuman being. But even my protagonist did more than just handstands, though she often did that, because it was easy to do in a room, while concealing herself, so it's similar to MC here. Still - that alone doesn't mean you can regain your ability to actually carry and wield a blade, so she did more than that. And one very important factor I used as an "excuse" to not train her in a special way was the fact that she had already been trained in her former world and had years of experience. And that's added to the fact that she never really wanted to fight, because she didn't fight in her old world because she wanted to. She never wanted to become a soldier in the first place. In other words, its her old habits and the feeling of being "unprepared" that make her take the bare minimum steps to be able to "defend" herself, but she doesn't want to have to do use it. Ever. Most poeple who read this Webtoon might notice where I'm going with this little anecdote.
Firstly, he actually wants to fight. His goal involves him becoming significantly more powerful than a lot of other people, because his father, who was deemed strong, as well as his talented brothers, all went missing, thus they were too weak. And beyond that, there's something that wasn't utilized until now in the slightest.
This MC acts in most fights as if he had never fought before in his life. He gets easily flustered and oumaneuvered by absolutely everyone and their grandmother.
He also gets stronger way too fast, yet way too slow at the same time. It's too simply, yet also too complicated. But what do I mean with that?
He got back the stat window from the time he spent in the other world after transmigrating before - or maybe "retained" would be the better word for it. With that, he had access to an odd Gacha-esque class system, which I barely remembered after it showed up for the first time and couldn't be bothered to wrap my remaining braincells around it to properly understand. Or in other words: A million supercomputers could be calculating for an eternity and wouldn't be able to reach the number of fucks I don't give about this story's lore. But anyway, it required him to basicfally shuffle through a class tree, of which the Necromancer is an evolution based on the Assassin class. In his case, emphazis is on the AssAss, because I don't know what makes him an assassin, but we already went over that.
Is an assassin just a job title? It shouldn't be, because here, it's a class. If assassin is just someone who kills for money, that would make the class absolutely redundant. If anything, we would need to be talking about the original assassin theory. Stealthy, proficient in acting and masquerading, as elusive as a shadow and gone as fast as they appeared to murder you. But that is, though cool by itself, a pretty "boring" class for a protagonist, depending on the world we are in. In a world like this, where people openly fight, and prestige comes with literal fighting power, an assassin is a back alley urchin, even if they are feared for their skills. You would want flashy abilities for the MC to show in a fight. Or at least have abilities that rock the boat.
But here's the thing: His abilities are literally a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing. Again, magic isn't really very interesting in this universe. They manage to make me believe it would sound cooler when described in a novel than seeing it drawn in the webtoon. His skills as an assassin are so subpar, I don't get why that step was ever needed. He could have been an assassin or mercenary without choosing the class, since he should be capable enough to actually fight with almost any weapon after enduring such a long time as a plaything to a god who only ever wants to witness carnage. And again, he was supposedly the best in the other world.
Yet he can't properly fight; while he wins a lot, it always feels underwhelming, even as he overwhelms his opponents in one way or another. His necromancy is never really relevant. He hunts down the legacy of a great necromancer who existed in their world, because his abilities are so great and all, so he can pretend to be his successor, but in actual fights, I can't remember him actually using necromancy properly. He once created a random female undead from a dead male magician. That's why I called this shit "Gacha-esque", and I really don't want to waste brain power on deciphering how exactly that worked, because the math ain't mathing.
Apparently, he can't properly use that undead anyway, because it takes too much Mana. To be honest, I felt completely annoyed and didn't want to right this comment right away, so I wrote half of it and finish it now - but it was so shite, I already deleted most of this story from my mind.
3. I Just Can't be Asked
I remember some idiotic, generic harem tropes, like some bimbo showing up, getting on MCs ass, and then coming in hot with the "Let's make a bet and the loser will have to obey the winner!" classic trash bullshit. Of course, she loses. Obviously. I don't even remeber what the bet was anymore, because my brain was starting to leak through my ears at that point, but it happens so often in these stories, I could recite this phrase in my sleep while farting.
Can we never get an MC who simply says: "What would I want with you?" or, after winning, cashes in on the "obey me" thing with the good old "Well, now give me money as repayment for being annoying and never talk to me again"?
Aside from that, it's hard to guess what the protagonist is really thinking, but not in a good way, like Light and L to some extent weren't easy to read, but actually because he feels inconsistent. He's pretending to be tough and roughless at times, but seems to be too naive at others. Maybe I'm thinking this because I couldn't be asked to try and understand him, so it might really just be me, but that's the feeling I had while reading. It also meant he got on my nerves a lot.
So where are we at, with a broken, convoluted lore, a pacing that shits the bed at every turn, and an MC who could make watching paint dry seem like an enjoyable passtime? Oh, yeah, we will have reached "The Player of the Fallen Family".
Seriously, if you want to read a story of someone regressing many years into the past to beat the shit out of an elusive enemy who killed his father and everyone else in his clan, read "Absolute Regression". It's the only Murim action Manwha I know that doesn't bombard you with tropey female characters (in fact, there aren't many female characters, as there logically shouldn't be, but the ones that are there are strong, actual characters with personalities that I simply can't find in me to dislike), and comes PACKED with chapters that are spent by talking and nothing else. Yet their yapping feels so genuine and is so interesting, nobody fucking complains about it. Actual peak Webtoon. Go read that. I'm out now.