Pretty good VRMMO story overall. The main character is not overly broken where he simply breezes through the game and is OP, but there are reasonable explanations on why he is good at what he does. World building is okay, in my opinion the manga does it more justice due to having visual and a better story flow compared to the webnovel.

The translation isn't bad and if you just want to read it in English and be able to understand the story or read further ahead of the manga then... more>> you are set. However be warned that you may find some translation discrepancies, mainly being characters occasionally (and in one case constantly) being referred by the wrong pronouns/gender (eg. Pencilgon occasionally being referenced with a he, Emul completely being referred to as a male even though she has been revealed to be female). Also from comparing the translation to the raws, some names of characters/areas/items/skills will seem to be oddly translated or completely wrong, which leads me to assume that the translator/editor doesn't seem to have a strong grasp of how to translate katakana into English. Once again doesn't detract from understanding the story overall, just a "huh?" moment, especially if you are coming from reading the manga.

Overall I would rank the novel a solid 4/5, but the translation itself would only be a 3.5/5 as its definitely not a quality translation just a passable and readable one. <<less

This is one of the more realistic VRMMORPG novels out there. The MC is definitely the highlight of this novel; he is extremely skillful and experienced, yet is very pragmatic. There is barely any plot armor; the MC dies a lot in this game, sometimes intentionally too. There are some nice side-characters too, players or NPCs alike.

Meanwhile, the story is really boring, definitely the weakest point of this novel. This is probably why this novel is still a web-novel. The saving grace 0f this novel is the epic boss-fights, which... more>> are really fun reading. The author also managed to nail down the technical aspects of the VRMMORPG in this novel fine. This is a novel where good moments only come in periods. <<less

This will be my first review so forgive me for the badly structured review.

So for this novel I actually started from the manga version of this, then to the novel cus I really liked the concept of this story.

The first flaw I will point out, is that this is a web novel so the quality and the order of the events can be boring just like what most other jp novel tend to suffer. This is further shown when you read the manga first, where in it events flow so... more>> much better and of course visually pleasing.

Second flaw/con, the hook that will make you like this novel is more shown in the manga than in the wn. If I had found this novel b4 the manga I would have dropped it because in the wn because it lacks the world building and explanation of how great Shangri La Frontier is. Like if you only read the wn all you would think is that "Oh, all the protag has to do defeat in game is defeat the Raid Bosses" but really the hook that wasn't explained well in the wn is that in Shangri la Frontier, what the players thought was fully explored because they have explored almost everything, it has given everything it has to offer, isn't. In the manga within like the first 5 chapters it is shown in the panel, so not really a spoiler, the plot progression percentage is still at "0%" like we are shown quickly, the Raid Bosses are the plot, the mystery to be uncovered and not just something for the MC to defeat.

Third con is just a minor one, translation is normal, like there are a few translation mistakes made on the sentence structure that can be noticeable and can be irky at times. Also some mistakes are confusing the he and she, , especially when it comes to Pencilgton where I know she is a she but in some lines she is mentioned as a he.

Now that the Flaw/Cons are done, onto the Pros next.

First Pro, the game mechanics are solid enough, the status and mindset of the MC can be easily understandable. It deals more on the actual understanding of how the developer made the AI's and the patches and its utilization. The Raid bosses are just something you fight without a plan where you encounter it and somehow you beat it first try. There are actual planning and strategy to fight them, clear and cut phases. As a side bonus we are also given to us as readers what are the reasons why those phases pops out and how to clear the bosses the actual way and we can compare it to how the MC and the group cleared it.

Second pro, the story isn't only contained in Shangri La Frontier, it also goes into the other tr*shy games that MC has played b4 and we meet some Online friends that MC has. Real world is included but there is only just some bits that is slightly bit interesting, tho latest arc is more interesting as it deals with MC fighting actual professional gamers so I'm hyped to see how well he does.

All in all I rate this an avg of 4/5. It lacks on pacing as a translation, it can be a bit boring on some parts but it has great fights and an interesting MC who knows how to play lol. Read this first then read the Manga to savor how the quality is improved, also in manga we get the full First Raid Boss finished and translated so yeah... <<less

This is good. Side-characters are pretty good too. MC is good too, Overall This is pretty awesome.