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Jun 11, 2024
The premise of the story is pretty straightforward, and similar to other regression manhwa. Our protagonist, a formidable fighter in his timeline, has gone through decades of war with monsters and evil humans, gone through loss after loss, and finally dies. Only to wake up years before, during the period of his military service. Being a F-class undesirable solider, he had to struggle significantly and overcome insurmountable odds to reach a position of power. This time around however, he'll use his experience and foreknowledge to prevent the annihilation of civilization as we know it.
Reading the Steel-Eating Player was similar to reading the 'Rising of
...
the Shield Hero'. All the things which work for the story, it's not something new or innovative. It is your regular regression power fantasy, but what it does well, is going back to the basics, and not making your MC a one hit Gary Sue (Which in my opinion, is one of the reasons why this sub-genre is becoming rote and less appealing).
But this story, it sticks with the tried-and-true method of making you have a stake in the fate of the protagonist. Unlike usual stories of regression, our MC doesn't automatically become an unstoppable juggernaut using hack skills and foreknowledge of the future. He starts of from a negative, and hence has to use the information he has of the future, and the experience from the past life just to stay in the game with the skin of his teeth.
Another aspect of the story which I appreciate is how, they gave him a weakness and vulnerability, which his enemies can exploit, and if he's not well prepared can cause serious harm. Much like in video games, your playable character has a health bar or the like, which drains as you engage in fights, and puts you in an anxious state for the continued wellbeing of the character. Similar to that, our MC he has a limited amount of mana to power his overpowered abilities. So, even if he knows how to use his abilities for maximum effectiveness, the lack of fuel to power it oftentimes ends up being the limiting factor. Much like the Axis during World War II, despite having comparable military infrastructure, even having a Tiger tank is useless, if you don't have enough fuel to run it.
How this translates to a more engaging reading experience is because, during fights, his counter for mana keeping trickling down. If he's unable finish the fight or achieve the goals during that limited window, it's game over.
Due to this limitation, our MC has to constantly find ways to improve his constitution; be it chugging down mana potions and powerups or coordinating with his teammates to cover for these weaknesses.
This is also a story where, instead of the MC literally clearing the board of enemies, all by himself, he has to instead use the resources at his disposal, be it manpower or terrain advantage, to outsmart and outthink his enemies.
Suffice to say, I'm interested in seeing where this story will progress to.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 11, 2024
There is overpowered fantasy, then there is lazy gary sue power fantasy, and this story I feel falls under the latter.
I mean, the entire premise of the story is how the protagonist doesn't even have an interest in the game that he's in and uses it just for sleeping. And that act, sleeping! somehow gave him an overpowered SSS rank ability. Guess what it is; he gets stronger by sleeping.
Seriously, there's lazy, and then there's hilariously lazy, and then there is this.
One draw of such power fantasy stories is seeing our MC get their powers, either due to luck/effort/foreknowledge or a combination
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of all. Most of the time, they actually get off their ass and make at least some semblance of an effort in earning the overpowered ability that makes them succeed.
Here, the same is literally given to him on a silver platter. What next, another story where the MC becomes overpowered by breathing! (Some manhwaka reading might just take that as an inspiration for their next mediocre work 'I became the strongest just by breathing'.)
When your character gets stuff without literally lifting a finger, it feels unearned; and you as a reader feels cheater, after all, watching the character struggle to achieve a goal, overcome insurmountable odds, makes that final victory all the more pleasing. But when they're literally given everything, like rich entitled spoiled chaebols, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Now maybe, as the story progresses it might improve in quality. But based on how much I read, which was I believe when he got an ability which makes him invulnerable while sleeping, to overcome the weakness of, you know, sleeping while in battle, which was total BS. Which was also when I decided to bid adieu.
I could've just left it at that. It's not like this is the first trash work which I've read. But somehow, the sheer laziness of the whole thing just pissed me off, for no reason whatsoever.
So, this is Moreso a therapeutic rant, so that I can get this bad taste out of my system and move on to the next mindless power fantasy.
Definitely would not recommend.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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