Seol had everything – a loving family, a beautiful girlfriend, and an instinct for danger that let him navigate through life safely. Unfortunately, an addiction to gambling cost him everything. Seol was at the lowest he had ever been, and had decided to end his life... but instead, he received a second chance to make things right – a chance of redemption – in a different world called Lost Paradise, where danger abounded at every step. Wanting to escape reality, and guided by his dream, Seol decided to take a leap of faith and entered Paradise.
In this new world, where gods are able to bestow powers upon humans, will Seol be able to redeem himself? Will he find the meaning of his vivid dream? Join Seol as he embarks on an epic adventure, creating new legends in his search for answers in this new world of Lost Paradise…
My Opinion: 649 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
I come to this story as a fan of the manhwa (webcomic) version of the story, so I can’t help but compare the two.
The basic storyline is a slice of life transported to a fantasy RPG world. The main character (MC), a person with unique visual powers dies somewhere in the future at the end of earth and because he’s one of the last survivors gets a chance to get part of his memories and feelings sent back to the start of his adventures. From there, it follows the MC as he hits the low point in his life and is then given a chance to go to a new world where he can gain power and enough money to pay off all his considerable debts. It’s really just an excuse for a slice of life adventure where the MC goes through a brutal survival urban setting tutorial, uses advantages, fights monsters, trains, completes quests, and eventually connects with other people in a new fantasy game world for even more adventures.
The novel follows the same storyline but you get more dialogue, internal monologue, and thoughts from the main character (MC). I enjoyed the extra layer of information and some of the more graphic descriptions of combat. I’ll also note that there are some issues that are pretty normal when something is translated. There’s some phrases that are lost, though there’s an appendix with definitions, and some dialogue just translated oddly. Additionally, some of the descriptions in the novel just aren’t as vibrant as the color panels in the manhwa.
As LitRPG, this very much hits all the points like notifications, levels, special skills, and equipment descriptions. It actually has even more notifications than the comic and there’s more internal thoughts from the MC about those game systems and progression.
Overall, other than a couple small things, the story is just as good as what I’d already seen in the webcomic and even better there are a full 10 novels out that outpace the online comic storyline. It’s a good read, as long as you understand and are ok with some of the issues that come with a translated story. Though some might like the webcomic version for the added visuals.
Score: 7.3 out of 10