Steel-Eating Player

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Starts slow, but gets better as it goes on.

It's your typical dungeons/hunters manhwa, with the gimmick that the protagonist gets stronger by eating metals. He's also a regressor because of course he is. It is good in pretty much all aspects such as art, story, and general progression, but isn't particularly outstanding in any.

My main critique is that the protagonist grows strong incredibly fast. He starts out as an F-rank, but is strong enough to be mistaken for S-rank within the first 20 chapters.

Unlike many other regressor protagonist stories, the protagonist isn't completely omniscient. His plans almost always go wrong in at least some way ... and he has to improvise.

Overall, I'd say it is better than the average story in the genre but nothing exceptional. Worth reading if you're into this kind of thing.

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.