Metaworld Chronicles

Metaworld Chronicles has become one of my favorite stories on RR.

It started off with a fairly standard 'MC ported into a younger version of herself in a version of Earth with magic and monsters', and has become a very enjoyable story.

The grammar is solid, the author has released fairly long chapters twice a week consistently for as long as I've been following the story, and the pacing of the story is good.

Regarding the story and characters, if judged by traditional fantasy standards, they aren't perfect, but for a web serial they are great. All of that pales in comparison to the fact that this story is so damn fun to follow. I look forward to new Metaworld chapters more than almost any others, because Gwen is a fairly well developed MC whose story is a feel-good blast to read.

I strongly recommed this story. 

(as of Chapter 270)

Gwen the MC is thrown into a magical society with its own rules and obstacles.
Mages have thereby a dominant postion while Non Mages have only limited influence.

The world building creates many options for future content but focuses so far only on mages. The visible main plot line has grown a lot more exciting with the first interlude. The introduction of side characters is solid.

The editing lacks in parts but i am sure the author will fix the minor mistakes.


Genres:
LitRPG - the magic System is loosely based on RPG magic Systems but there are no pop-ups and the "magic rules" are not strict in areas like mana consumption.
Male Lead -  No male lead so far.

Reincarnation - the reincarnation plays only a minor role but allows the MC a more mature personality with more willpower.

The story is good.. i do like it.. generally at least.

One of the most hating aspects however, is the mc. I do find some parts to be fun and make for a good and clear headed character.. but then. You have lots of people who would feel nothing to capture her. Abuse her. Kill even. Sell her alive or dead for parts. Have done this to who knows how many other people already.

And you say she still hesitates.

She still hesitates.

I dont know of anyone who sees a mass murderer, rapist, human trafficer, go after that person, and he or she be like 'they are human, so we let them live'....

Like wtf

This is an old sh*t like the old kingdoms. I was born to royality so i am better than the rest of my people.

Those .. bad* people here.. sure. You are born human. I dont care what the hell you do about your life. But when you go destroy the life of many others and go even to want to destroy mine... well its ok right. Right. He is human. Maybe he can change. Well guess what. Now isnt the time for that. You lost your opportunity

Competently written, but full of unnecessary anime/manga cliches which lead to scenes feeling contrived. One example is that events always seem to happen in public so there can be a 'peanut gallery' to make comments or snide remarks that felt more like youtube comments than real people talking.

Written on ch 55.

This isn't a reincarnation story.

Why?

Because the MC who is supposed to be a 30 year business woman with a difficult past and strong character has all the wit, resolve, and social ability of a 16 year old girl. 

Now, this isn't to say this is a bad story. It's fairly good for a pretty standard wuxia, which it is. Just because the MC is a woman and the world is more magic, less cultivation, doesn't make the plot armor any less thick nor the characters any more deep. Personailty is literally affected by elemental affinity, leaving about 12 or so character templates, NoM are general simpletons, and everyone thinks the MC is the best thing since sliced bread, not to mention she gets a power-up every fifth chapter. But, all-in-all, it's totally readable, downright binge-worthy, if it wasn't for the false promise that this was a reincarnation story, because it isn't. The MC is supposed to be a business-savvy mature woman so why is she as clueless as an already pretty stupid teenage girl? Why can't she handle awkward social situations with the 15+ years of emotional maturity she has over nearly everyone around her? Why is she so needlessly reckless in a world she barely understands? There are so many holes in her character backstory, you could pass a truck through them. She thinks and acts like a teenage girl constantly and only pretends to be mature by stealing famous lines from authors in her old world. Just because she dresses fancy and reminds the reader every chapter of how secretly old she is doesn't mean she acts like it. It's more like "Upgrading Specialist in Another World," where the soul that was supposed to travel to another world gets destroyed along the way and the actual MC just gets his power; the story would be more honest if it was written that way. But it wasn't, so now I have to read about a 30 year old woman whose never been in a relationship and can't handle horny teenagers, thinks she can beat evil Magus with her less than a year of training, and wanders around slums in stilletos. 

The grammar is great, the style is above average, and the story is okay, but the characters, especially the MC, just leave too much to be desired for me to give it a good score.

Not that you need care. 

Edit: Despite having taken a break relatively early due to frustrations, I ended up coming back to this story - it was stuck in my head.

 What this story does right:

• Great world building potential - follow through initially weak but as the story continues on it gets much stronger
• Very solid plot; intricate and intriguing without being overly complex, bringing details, plot points, and characters back around consistently but not quickly
• Great looks at two underrepresented settings (Sydney, Australia and Shanghai)
• Magic system that feels both familiar, fundamental and fresh, exciting
• Excellent take on narcissistic parents and toxic family environments
• Interesting and relevant look at deeply classist society
• Respectful representation of various ethnicities and orientations
• Very in depth exploration of economic and, to a lesser extent, political landscapes and opportunities, a rare treat in quality fantasy fiction
• Good pacing that, I would say, improves to great in the later chapters of the story, though I was fairly consistently gripped past the first dozen chapters

Things this story does not do right:

• Repeated sexualized descriptions of minors; the frequency and intensity improve considerably in second half of story
• Somewhat uninspiring character cast in the first half of the story which does not take full advantage of word space devoted to character development; most characters are eventually fleshed out and each new character is an improvement on the last. Only a handful of characters remain two-dimensional by chapter 240, approximately the extent of the story at the time of this revies
• Strong Mary Sue tendencies in main character, this never fully resolves itself but does become less potently felt as time goes on
• A struggle with consistent perspective; story may shift from standard third person to third person omniscient and back in the blink of an eye, or perspective might shift to observers for the space of two paragraphs for a jarring and often fawning look at our MC's actions or figure.
• What appear to be consistent sexist undertones; tired gendered stereotypes given extensive word space, stark and consistent distinctions between featured traits of male and female characters. Much less prominent in the second half of of the story but still rears its head occasionally.

This is an excellent story periodically shot through with jarring stylistic choices and short descriptive sections that feel almost masturbatory in nature. The growth of the author is palpable however as pacing, characters, setting, action, dialogue, and grammar all improve drastically. The first fifty chapters have been edited and are pretty readable, the next fifty a slog; if you can make it through that it is very likely you will quite enjoy the story as a whole. One day I firmly believe this will be a set of novels worth buying.

Pros:
Great plot - lots of conflicts, difficult to predict outcomes.
Characters are complex, with varied motivations (rather than the good/bad guy dichotomy you see in most stories here)
Good writing. Many stories on this site make me want to bust out a red pen and send the author corrections. This isn't one of them.
Internally consistant setting.

Cons:
Endless descriptions of clothing. They initially really bothered me, now I skip them.

This story most certainly has a good premise, and it definitely delivers some good moments. However, at some points, it really falls through.

So first of all the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was the style. Damn, I can't count how many times I've read how the side-characters admired Gwen's legs or her amazing features. It REALLY does get tiring to read about her amazing legs. And this is not only limited to her, every single time we meet a new character in the series Wutosama needs to tell us exactly how attractive their features are. I swear practically everyone in this series is supposed to be a walking model. 

Not only their appearance I also cannot imagine how much time I have spent reading what sort of CLOTHES they are wearing. I mean seriously why do we need to know what their attire looks like at any given moment right down to what their shoes look like.

Anyway, this is not the only problem I have with the style. Perhaps it is only me, but the amount of complicated and academic words in this story is just crazy. Perhaps the author is just really educated but this really frustrated me since I constantly had to look up words. (perhaps this is just because I am not a native English speaker). 

Apart from these problems, and the fact that some of the characters lacked a bit of life, I did actually enjoy the story. The idea of a clever protagonist who actually uses her brain to get through the different situations was indeed quite nice

Anyway to summarize I would recommend this story to people who like a well-developed modern fantasy world and can ignore the aforementioned faults in the style. The story really does have a good premise, and I really did enjoy a lot of it.

Pretty cool.

Good story

Good grammar

Good style

alright characters

Only problem is some of the characters are truly impossible. Like Evelynn (Evie) or whatever her name is. Gwen's usage of her name to calm down is pretty out-of-place. I don't understand how anyone would use "cuteness" as an anchor to reality. Really..... I mean, I guess it makes sense, but it is too unreliable? So yeah, if you can get past the first arc in Singapore (loads of cringey, weird interactions), the story's characters become more solid in the China arc.

But don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good plot points that make up for the cringey dialogue in the beginning. Just.... be prepared for a lot of unnecessary "cute" moments.