I enjoyed the other novels, and will keep reading… but I found the main characters simply too beaten down in this one for very little reason. There was far too much loss on the MC side to justify everything that happened. The main scenes of the story were good… but really? Frank loses all his soldiers, AND the reward AND Alexion gets away? But don’t worry… we are still some pretty big badasses here.
The twilight throne is decimated, beyond the ability to recover it sounds like… but we can still salvage this? We have more recruits coming.
Let’s fight the nefarious bad guy who has literally demolished everything in the kingdom, and setup a brilliant plan to destroy the Twilight Throne even if he loses… but Jason is going to stop him with an obvious mechanic about crystals that was introduced across a couple of books?
Reading this was like watching someone cut huge chunks of flesh from the characters, but leaving just enough for them to get by. Let’s really hurt the MCs with things they should be able to handle… but let them limp through to a “win.”
I felt like I enjoyed the characters in the real world More than their digital selves. I loved listening to those parts… especially concerning Alfred. Good scenes there. Brilliant scenes with the parents.
Their game avatars are just so… poorly played? Too many bad things happening to them without much justification. Hell… Alexion and other players still standing toe-to-toe with Jason and the crew is a bit absurd after what we have seen Jason and the others deal with.
I realize that the series could get boring without some conflict… but watching what happens to the MCs felt like a worse torture than what happened at the end.
*My thoughts throughout the book*
“Stop. Stop. He’s already dead.” meme…
I felt like… after all that… what? Are they worse off than they started? And to what purpose?
So many questions, and concerns. Well written parts and some excellent real world scenes… but the game stuff was baffling this go around.