Grind XP and loot in an ancient land of powerful magic, fierce warriors, fire-breathing dragons, deadly monsters and horny demons.
Join the noble Paladin Ajax and his two companions. One a goth chick turned Demon Mage, the other a kink loving succubus with whips and a tail, as they journey through the world of Visaria Online, gaining levels, abilities and phat loot.
The real world is a frozen wasteland. Humanity is exiled to Visaria Online, living under the game’s rules and the dreaded specter of its now-defunct pay to win cash shop. Conscripted into the war between the two Visarian factions, Ajax and his companions must survive the brutal player versus player battles and grow in power and prestige.
But as the two factions of the game launch massive simultaneous invasions of one another’s lands, a new threat looms on the horizon that threatens to destroy the exiled home of humanity.
My Opinion: 169 pages, $0.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy of the novel for review. I purchased it, when it became available.
This story drops you right in the action from it’s first pages. Some of it doesn’t make sense but at least it’s action driven. The first scene in the novel has Ajax, the main character, trying to kill a rogue steampunk player only he ends up being saved by hot demon mage and her succubus minion. The two go off on some slice of life adventuring for a while that not only gets them some XP but also explores the larger game world and it’s politics.
That all shifts when they meet a high level player that claims to have seen a bigger threat to the game world. It then turns into a chosen one story where the MC has been picked to unite the kingdoms and save the world. The shift is honestly a bit of a negative for me. It feels like the MC is being forced down a story path because all he really wants to do is get to level 6 and join the kingdoms army. The additional power leveling he goes through makes his progress also feel a bit forced. But hey, it’s all going according to prophecy, right?
Thankfully there are hints near the end that everything isn’t predestined and the MC and his team may still lose. That at least keeps the story potentially interesting in future releases.
Game mechanic wise, the story has a strict class bases system with limited specialization choices. There’s pretty good information about the MC’s class and his specialization as a middling healer/tank. There’s unfortunately much less info about the other classes and the story only really has three other classes it names. There’s also this odd three lives rule where players can only reincarnate three times after they die in game then they’re locked out of the game to wait till they’re unfrozen IRL.
Overall, I liked the story a bit more when it was slice of life. It left me curious about all the things that were being gradually revealed about the game system and the world. The Chosen One thing just feels like it’s taking away the MC’s agency. Also, there was no foreshadowing for that last twist, so it felt a bit odd. Hopefully it all pans out in book 2 when it releases later this month.
Score: 6 out of 10