Shenyuan Youxi

Qiao Jingting is your ordinary modern adult riding on a motorcycle before he finds himself narrowly avoiding a head-on collision causing him to swerve off a steep cliff. Qiao Jingting reawakens in a game world known as Fatal Rule where all souls gather after death for their last chance at life; Thrown into this world Qiao Jingting learns that only the strong survive in this cruel game world and is forced to find his own way of survival. How does he live it up in the new world?

Story & Character: 4/10
The premise is interesting, we get a new world with systemic levelling, unique awakened powers ... and several player-led factions that keep the balance in the world of Fatal Rule. However, the leveling was used arbitrarily as a showcase and nothing more, awakened powers that only four characters had, factions that became the poorly executed quasi-antagonists. These plot holes held back the narrative from developing into a great action sci-fi and there are many more plot devices that ruined its development. In the end the story becomes aimless after a certain point because the main goal set by Qiao Jingting and Shu Ai is achieved early resulting in a botched series finale.

Character development was fairly well executed in the beginning using mysterious characters with hidden backgrounds; However, there is a lot of unnecessary character loss where the well developed characters are replaced with arbitrarily thrown together small-fry who get power tripped from sudden rise in ranking. At a certain point character development is a waste because the antagonists use proxies that slow the story pacing with their insignificant conflicts and obstacles.

Art & Sound: 7/10 & 5/10
The art is fairly detailed by modern standards and the fight scenes were very dense with particles, detailed projectiles and physics. I'm not a fan of the slow motion during fight scenes since it breaks up the fast pace immersion of the moment. Character designs weren't too bad they definitely suited the dystopian style plot and futuristic urban era. Some of the shots were cinematic but they also felt a little too wide like a mobile advert.

Sound was passable; The music choice suited scenes with suspense, sound effects were used generously especially in scenes with unpredictable moments. The voice acting wasn't bad quality but lacked some emotion in characters; Most of them sounded monotonous despite having emotive expression.

Overall & Enjoyment: 3/10
I didn't enjoy this series like I hoped, it took me a while to finally get around and committing. However, I didn't enjoy the fact that they went from a primitive post-apocalyptic environment to a sci-fi urban environment. It lacked any consistency across the series especially with its awakening powers not being mentioned at all after their introduction along with the leveling system. Both the powers and leveling became an afterthought instead of an integral part like they are in any game world. Overall, a 3/10 because the art was good enough and main characters were somewhat interesting.