Change: New World

If I had to pick one aspect alone for why I enjoy this story, it’s the MC. Hide follows a realistic mindset in an unknown, yet hellish, world. If you want to survive, surround yourself with people that are useful. He realizes and understands that attempting to tackle a world he knows precious little about will inevitably get him killed because it’s simply impossible for him to cover all of his own weak areas. As he gathers allies that he can use for this purpose, he does what’s necessary to gain power himself whilst safeguarding against potential betrayal by making aforementioned allies reliant or otherwise loyal to him.

However, despite all of his craftiness, all of his manipulativeness, he still has his limits, his humanity. His title might be that of [Psychopath], but he’s not an inhumane monster, eager to butcher everything in sight for the experience. He’s simply doing what he feels would benefit him most in the world, and what benefits him tends to benefit his allies as well in the long run. Hide is by far, in my opinion, the most interesting character in the story. Seeing how his mind works, how he processes things, his decisions, his ideas, it’s engaging.

His humanity has been put on display especially in the more recent chapters (as I am writing this Chapter 78 was recently published). His actions are very clearly emotional in addition to his usual logic of "my allies are useful to me, therefore I will defend them." It's clear he's become, on some level, attached to his usual companions beyond their inherent value in this crazed new world, even if he prefers to not show it. It's interesting to see this side of him, the side that attempts to be cold and calculating whilst at the same time holding some odd sense of camaraderie and friendship with those closest to him. I hope this side of his personality gets some time to shine, in-between fighting for his life and attempting to be the leader, or at least take command over, to a slightly larger, slightly more dysfunctional group.

The pace of the story is also something that I quite enjoyed. It’s slow, it’s methodical, it covers its bases. The issues of food supply, bathing, acquiring skills and grinding levels, etc etc, it’s all gives a vibe of being very thought out and well planned. Nothing is just written as “They did this and that and this and that was it, everything was solved”. There’s a certain level of forethought that goes into the character’s actions, a reasoning given for why they’re doing what they’re doing. I like that, the level of detail the author gives. Like I said, it’s slow, but it’s the good kind of slow. The type of slow where everything’s explained and made sense of before the protagonists advance to their next task.

The one demerit against this story is the sometimes spotty grammar. Misspelled, or otherwise missing, words can break the pace and immersion the story gives, requiring the reader to re-read a line two or three times to get the meaning the author is trying to convey. Other than this slight blemish, this story’s fantastic. I’d gladly recommend it to someone looking for a long read and I hope the writer continues it until the end.

Only 12 chapters are out at the time I write this review so my opinion may change in the future.

So far I really enjoyed this fiction and I'm impatient to see what's going to happen next to Hide.

The story happens in a RPG-like world but instead of the MC getting transported/summoned to this new world, the world itself comes to the MC in the form of the appocalypse. I kinda like this Shin Megami Tensei vibe the story has.

Speaking of the MC, he is one of the strong points of this fiction so far. He is normal in a good way, he acts like a normal person would in those situations. When he makes a mistake you're not thinking "Why the hell would he do that?" but more "It's a shame that plan didn't work." because his thinking process is understandable and grounded by logic.

We didn't meet a lot of secondary characters so far and the few that we met were not given much "screentime" but I hope they will be fleshed out more in the future.

I didn't encounter any spelling mistakes/grammar errors so far, I'm very thankful for that, those things can really put you out of the story and break the immersion and flow of reading.

The only tiny problem I have with the fiction so far is that the chapters are quite short. The chapters are getting released very quickly (1 chapter per day) so it isn't that much of a problem.

Overall I love this fiction and I recommend it.

(03/12/15)

This story is a bit hard to review, there are things that I like but other may not. And there are things that I don’t like but others may like. Let’s start with what I like…

PRO

Story: I love the story, very unique RPG style. I read a lot of RPG style novel and many times they feel overlapped and make me think of other story while reading them. However, your story is very original( at least for me) Always make me look forward to the next chapter. The MC isn’t too OP and actually work hard to get strong.

Grammar: Very easy to read. One of a few story that i rarely notice any mistakes. 

Release speed: Awesome! Change: New World never failed to keep me occupied 

CON

Style: Everything is good except battle screen. It annoys the heck outta me sometimes. They are way too lengthy. Some might like this kind of over-detailed battle, but not me. Just explaining a desperate look on a character sometimes took 2 paragraphs. I do like a battle but when it’s longer than the actual story, it’s feel dragged.

Character: Um.. I understand that it’s apocalypse but aren’t they too quiet? I love the story but im not really attached to the cast. Hide isn’t talkative but at least he start conversation occasionally. Cielle is shy and  doesn’t talk. Hina was lovable at first then she got depress and doesn’t talk. Very few dialog. A nod is enough for them to understand each others ?

Don’t get me wrong, the story is great. The over-detailed battle is the only thing out of ALL things that annoys me. Everything else is good->great and always looking forward to your chapters!

Thanks!

EDIT:  (06/16/16)

So, after over a year of reading this.... now it's just plain awesomeness! No more annoyingly dragged battle. The author just keep getting better and better. And now this is my #1 favorite in RRL. The characters are still the same old awkward group but finally have a progress.... after over a whole real life year :P Anyway, great job! Keep up the awesomeness Slime sama!

After I finished reading this story to the last updated chapter, this has become my favorite FF and I can't wait to see what happens next.

What I lile about this story is that even without an ultimate goal for the MC to strive for and is still just adjusting to the Apocalypse, this web novel stays exciting with each and every chapter. With the characters and setting, I can see this FF going plus 500-1000 chapters, not coming close to the final battle, yet each chapter would be interesting enough to draw you back in without getting fed up. 

My only concern is how the author changed his style to be more wordy than necessary and focused to much on pointless things like walking up or meaningless mental dialogue.

Great Web Novel you have here and hope you continue the good work.

I really enjoy the whole idea where the world shift to the apocalypse with a game like theme. It lets Lv1Slime keep his protagonist on earth and insert game elements in a unique way that doesn't seem too forced. Grammar has no noticeable mistakes. Character seem interesting but they could use a little more info although it seems like we are being kept in the dark about background info for some reason. There are various unique skill and i can't wait to learn more of them.

FTaku out

This is my favorite story on this site, and it is exceedingly well written.  The fact that it feels like the real world with game elements, and not a story where it feels like the mc was transported into a videogame.  The fact that the system seems to apply equally to everything and doesn't simply serve to power up humans it what truly drives the story.  Instead of convenient power ups and the mc creating a specific class build, it instead feels like the characters are simply struggling to get by with what they can finde.  

The other great aspect, and the most important one is the characters and how they behave.  Having read upto the end of the first ark, all I can say is that What the author did with Kido was extremely impressive.  The way the characters behave is very detailed, and it feels like the mc is simply one character among many instead of the sole focus of the story with other characters clearly their simply to support or oppose the mc.  I have yet to find any flaws in this aspect and it definitely feels to me that the characters are struggling to forge a path instead of simply following what is an optimal route from an external perspective.  

If there is one flaw, it is that the chapters are slow, at less that one a week currently.  This is frustrating.  As such things are generally necessary for chapters of such length and quality as we have been receiving recently however, I would not ask for a change.  Honestly, the fact that I am frustrated with a slowish release schedule only goes to show how enjoyable this story is.  

Like it so far Although, for your future harem, can you flesh out your characters and keep immediate lovers under 3? 

just read 13 chapters of this Novel and i must say it has alot of potential, it can be something great if done correctly. the writer has a whole new world to start with and even a potential other world connected to the person who change the world. i am looking forward to this FF.

The story is very interesting. It greatly reminds me of a Chinese novel (God and devil world, basically the same setting, without being as game-y with dungeons)

All in all it's a good story, the main growth opportunity point of the story is that character, specifically skill growth is fairly poorly handled. 

Every time you show stats the skills just take a seemingly completely random value, most of them don't seem to be growing at all. Then suddenly one chapter will say: 'I also leveled up [x] skill because I've been using it a lot'

It's a bit of a lack of organic growth, rather than skills constantly improving with use they seem to just have random bumps in power that have no foreshadowing at all. 

I would greatly recommend the author to check out some VRMMO series that handle this properly. Legendary Moonlight Sculptor for example. That clears the concern of a skill raising ranks too quickly which I imagine is a concern the author might have, since right now skills seem to be divided in [Beginner] -> [Medium/Intermediate] and I speculate -> [Advanced] -> [Mastered] or something along those lines.

I understand that when your skill progression is like that assigning a percentage and letting the skill rank up would quickly lead into a power creep situation, or a gap between skill levels being underwhelming to preserve balance which is why the author is taking it slow.

However it might be a good idea to subdivide the skill levels into something like 10 ranks:

1. Beginner[1]
2. Beginner[2]

• Beginner[...]
• Beginner[10]

Congratulations! Your example skill reached Beginner [10] and reached intermediate level!

Something along those lines. As of now the character growth seems slow, which is reasonable, but subdividing, or at least allowing percentages to grow and showing them constantly would give a better sense of 'the character is getting stronger', or 'An upgrade is coming! Get Hype!' as opposed to now, where the character progression all in all seems a bit stagnant. From when he fought goblins to now the only thing I feel has concretely gotten stronger is the ability to attack weak spots, I know he's faster but it's poorly represented, I know he's stronger but so are his enemies so the stuff he can do stays roughly the same. This leads to a feeling of stagnation. 

Do not take the criticism above as lack of endorsement, I love this series, and my main wish is for it to get even better, which is why I wrote this.  

If the author of the story happens to read this, please do not lose heart at what I've said, I truly like your story, and I think you have the potential to make it even better. 

a excellent read very enjoyable and detailed it has realistic element's with real tribulation's for the character's, the mc is not perfect and does have flaws which draws the reader in more deeply then if he was a over powered prick, in my opinion it's very detailed and a plausible post-apocalyptic setting and re-actions, chapter length is good and has excellent grammar and flow with no plot holes that I can spot, reason for 4 instead of 5 stars "a half star because there's no such thing as perfect" and "a half star because of harem" now normally I don't read things with the harem tag but this "novel" is of such quality and draws you in that in my opinion it can be ignored for now,

[so I encourage you to give this novel a good try!!!]