Paul had waited months to play Unexplored, the latest fantasy VRMMORPG boasting a realistic feel, exciting combat, and the opportunity to experience sensual pleasure. Even an extremely nervous and socially awkward guy like himself could live an exciting life. Unexplored was everything he could have dreamed. What he didn’t expect, however, was joining a player guild led by a cunning megalomaniac who dealt in secrets and seemed intent on world domination.
As the elf Estelar, Paul helped lead the guild to greatness, meeting new and interesting friends along the way. In return, he was rewarded with all the food, ale, women, and gold he could ever want. Life is awesome, until he meets a down-on-her-luck dwarf named Fonwilsia during a caravan raid which leads him to question himself and his role so far in the game.
Wealth, power, and all their benefits were his to enjoy as a member of the Crimson Warriors. The only question was, how far was he willing to go to keep it?
Warning: This book contains erotic content. Reader discretion is advised.
My Opinion: 244 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
*Warning, graphic sex scenes in this novel*
From the author of Unexplored - Into the Wilderwood which has regular graphic sex scenes with an ok fantasy LitRPG story. Most of the author's other stories are "monster" fantasy erotic fiction.
This is a prequel story that describes the rise of the Crimson Alliance and the Fey Wilder Guild who are prominent in Into the Wilderwood.
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This is LitRPG, it’s just not good LitRPG. The game mechanics in the story show up only during combat and are rather inconsistent. Levels and skills increase but there’s no logic to how it occurs. Ie: Beginning of the novel, the MC kills some kobold and rabbits and gets a couple levels. (no damage descriptions or XP numbers), then a little later he helps wipe out a whole village of goblins and only gains one level.
You can really tell just how much the game mechanics mean to the author when the MC gets to level 5, then about 10% later gets level 5 again and a little while later, get’s level 5 again. It’s not that the MC died and had to make up the XP. He just leveled three times, all to level 5.
That’s probably the biggest problem I have with the story. The few game mechanics in the story feel like they were applied after the story was already written and just aren’t particularly important to the story.
Storywise, it's a fairly predictable story. A couple of guys decide to play this great new game. They have a hard time raising their skills and leveling but want the girls in the game to like them and want money. They meet a bad guy who pays them to do bad things. This leads to them joining his bad guy guild and the two characters are sent on missions of increasingly evil natures.
(Slight spoilers ahead)
Eventually, one of them starts to question what he’s doing and leaves the guild. He then eventually starts developing relationships with other and they oppose the bad guild.
Regular sex scenes are inserted into the story and makeup about 10% of the text in the novel. They get increasingly BDSM themed and if you’ve read the Into the Wildwood, some of the character names will seem familiar.
Personally, I skip the sex scenes. They make sense within the context of the story and that’s all I really check for. Where I have issues are with the predictable story and the fact that it feels more like portal fiction. Yes, there are RPG mechanics. The story does meet the minimal requirements of LitRPG but they feel like they don’t matter to the story.
Overall, not a good read for me.
Score: 4 out of 10.
Unexplored - Rise of the Crimson Kingdom: A LitRPG Adventure (Book 0 Unexplored Cycle)