Hellprinces (Salvos: A Monster Evolution LitRPG)

Salvos is not a groundbreaking masterpiece.  It's not an exciting adventure the likes of which you've never seen before.  You will not be bowled over with awe at its unrelenting magesty.  But that's not what a story has to be in order to shine.  Sometimes I just want to read something that gives me a goofy smile.  Salvos is that story.  

A lighthearted adventure about a demon trying to go home to see her friend, Salvos starts off a little dark but quickly progresses into an almost sitcom-style journey about a silly, dorky demon girl who likes to fight making friends with humans and repeatedly baffling them.  The plot progresses smoothly and sensibly, the character motivations are simplistic but consistent, and Salvos's slow character progression, while occationally heavy-handed, is satisfying and enjoyable to read.

MelasD is a fantastic author with an excellent sense of grammar and flow.  Chapters are snappy and I never found myself getting bored with the pacing or uninterested in the current objective.  Past the beginning section, the story just feels fun.  Tropes from similar stories are introduced with amusing twists, combat is snappy and interesting but never feels grim, and the constantly upbeat attitude of the main character is a joy to read.  

To anyone looking for a simple fantasy romp to make you grin, I can't recommend this enough.

The main character is silly, adorable, and thoroughly fun to read about as she progresses from a 'demon larva' as innocently cute as a puppy into a 'midday demon,' an overpowered toddler bubbling over with enthusiasm and energy. Her adventures and interactions with the secondary characters are amusing and enliven the usual LitRPG setting and world. Grammar, spelling, and sentence structure are superior. 

I like this story. It follows a young demon learning about the world and gaining levels and evolving to different subspecies based on her experiences. During her story she meets a variety of different beings. Some are sympathetic, while others are less so. But her adventures and personal growth are engaging and sometimes even emotional. There is also some great artwork in some of the chapters.

The writing style fits in well with this type of story. The story contains typical but highly enjoyable aspects of gaining skills, levels and evolving to more powerful demon subspecies. Salvos starts off knowing very little of the world and how it functions. As she learns about it, so do we. She is not OP, but she is a survivor. She does not always win her fights and sometimes has to run away, but she grows more powerful over time and gains more skills.

In terms of story and pacing, the first volume is really great. The second volume starts expanding on the world but also loses a little of its focus and direction; as it seems more like the random wanderings of Salvos and her daily life. The first volume was where Salvos had a long-term goal and a short-term goal and the focus was on achieving these goals with the occasional interlude. The second volume reverses this in that it seems like the focus is on side quests with the occasional interlude mentioning the main long-term goal in passing. There is nothing wrong with this new approach, but it is sufficiently different from the first volume's to feel a little jarring. The third volume seems to have more direction in it, in that Salvos is more focused and drive while still occasionally have side-quests that pop up or external events derail her from her current plans. I enjoyed it much more than the second volume. I like the fourth volume more than the previous two, and while there are still interludes with other characters' POV, I think Salvos is given more time to shine and show more of what made me so interested in this story in the first place (i.e. intriguing main character with a interesting view of the world). The interludes also show interesting character growth for some of Salvos' companions and help flesh out what is going on in other parts of the world.

If you enjoy this genre, this is an entertaining story and you should at least try it out. Just note that the second volume is a little less focused on Salvos and more on the larger world and the side characters.

PS: As officially required for an advanced review, some details on the spelling and grammar: it is decent. There are some errors but it is not an unreadable mess. Unfortunately, time constraints seems to mean that suggestions in the later chapters are left unaddressed. However, on the plus side chapter releases are relatively frequent and if I had to pick between more chapters to more editing, I would prefer the former.

Hope this feedback both helps the author as well as potential new readers.

Originally written 10 Dec '20 (when Chapter 12 'Two of Us' was the latest chapter); latest update 15 December '21 (when Chapter 245 'Nightsveil Part 5 (End of Volume 4)' was the latest chapter).

First off, I really do have mad respect and even envy for anyone who can keep consistently cranking out words on a regular schedule to this extent. That's a gift and no mistake. Nothing I nor anyone else can say can devalue that level of commitment and drive.

That said, there are issues here that are hard to miss.

The first of note is that including a litRPG system built into the world sets up a bunch of different pitfalls for the story and suspension of disbelief to get caught in, and Salvos proceeds to plunge headfirst into each and every one with enthusiasm. I won't go into detail because others already have.

Second: "Tell, Don't Show" is in full effect nearly all the time. A bit more subtlety would go a long way towards improving immersion and flow.

On a related note: brevity is all but avoided. All too often, many words are superfluous and don't really add anything to the meaning being conveyed. On the contrary, there are occasional bursts of purple prose that are just distracting. Too much of the time you can get by with just skimming the first sentence of every paragraph and backtracking if something catches your attention. You are unlikely to miss anything of consequence to the story.

Tied right into that last line is why you might be tempted to start skimming over things: pacing. The amount of writing it takes to progress the story a meaningful amount varies quite a bit. I suspect that's mostly just because this is a web serial where planning is problematic.

Characters: I actually don't really have much of a complaint about the characters. I think mostly they are simple but effective and show thought and feelings in a way that's a cut above most similar stories. Character progression, (and to an extent motivation) can certainly feel stunted at times for aforementioned reasons, but the characters are pretty good all things considered. I kept reading generally to see what happens to Salvos next.

Story: a bit meandering and nebulous. Doesn't exactly have much in the way of urgency or a compelling hook to it. It's been called SoL, but from what I've seen that wasn't really the initial intent. I think perhaps it just grew into that direction over time as that was what felt natural. But there are unresolved plot hooks from a hundred chapters ago that don't look to be wrapping up aaaaany time soon.

Bottom line: I don't like litRPGs. I still kind of like Salvos. Make of that what you want. 

Salvos the MC basically carries the entire story. She is an interesting character, cute, witty and smart. I would have called her mary sue if not for the fact, she does have flaws. But the story is too light hearted for any of the consequences to affect her in any meaningful way.

The world, if looked at from an ordinary human perspective, is an incredibly dark place. I am still not sure how the hell do humans still exist. They have been made too weak and the demons in contrast are too strong. A level 40-60 demon can basically rampage across towns and cities and totally destroy them. Later on this problem keeps getting bigger, when a couple of archdemons(<150) can  fuck around with dozens of level 150+ elites.

 Worldbuilding is pretty weak.

The story style follows a partial shonen anime style with character arcs and plots build ups. This has become more and more apparent in the latest arc. We have dozens of chapters of irrelevant side characters fighting these irrelevant demons all with those dialogues announcing their skills mid fight. Despite many fights occuring, there are no deaths. Atleast no deaths which mean anything to the MC. This reminds me of those dragon ball z episodes.

Basically I hated the Alyras arc. Too shonen for my taste

 The main side characters Daniel and Edithe are kinda interesting characters. While their interactions with MC is entertaining, unfortunately they cannot stand on their own. Daniel basically cripples himself by selecting a non combatant second class. Author may have something in mind for that so Ill give it a pass.

As I mentioned earlier, Story is pretty much shonen type. New Enemies keep popping up randomly after defeating pervious one. These new antagonist are higher level which Salvos somehow defeats by having....special power ups. Well atleast its not the power of friendship.

The story is still entertaining, although the last couple of arcs made me lose some interest. I also dont like, how little we know of the rest of the world or other species like elves, beastfolk  etc. Its way too concentrated on Humans/Demons conflict.

To keep it simple this story is really catchy, the vocabulary is varied and makes the reader's progression alongside the lines really smooth. 

The narration doesn't have loopholes and the author is always here to clarify some questions that we may have.

Really a nice book to read ! 

With the premise of the title I already get caught, I always like to see a non-human protagonist with a good development.

A demon that is born, thinking, in a world where everything is interesting for the new being, will soon find others and will have to interact with them to survive. The first few chapters already show the kind of approach that MelasD, the author, wants to give to this adventure and action story, it is worth giving it a try. 

I don't write reviews often, but this is such a great, easy-going story, about a fresh, naive mind, new places whilst making some fantastic friends and companions. 

What makes Salvos so good, is the way MC interacts with the world, and how others react to that. Her relationship with Daniel and other humans is fantastic, bringing out more and more of Salvos as the story progresses. What starts out as a simple, single minded quest to return home, turns into battles for levels, friendship, growth and vengeance.

The growth during her journey is immense, both in the classical LitRPG sense, and emotionally and mentally. Her endearing yet clearly demonic nature makes her both loveable and interesting, showing a different side to what is out a classic demonic race. 

The humour, light hearted nature, and cast come together to give a story well worth reading. Something easy to read, with more depth than you'd think, and characters you can't help but love. Give it a go (and Melas), you won't regret it!

Thank you, for making such a good story! And don't be disheartened, ignore the haters and tell reviews, you've got a green in your hands, polish it good and proper! 

the story follows a battle-junkie demoness as she stumbles through life and meeting hardships such as losing friends, getting spirited away and adjusting to human society when people don't really get along with demons well in general. The characters are well-rounded and the writing style invites you to keep reading, I enjoyed it very much.

I will rate this a 4.5 since for the standards of this site it is top notch, but it is not a masterpiece yet.

This is a great story. The characters are all interesting and the grammar is great but there is one galaring problem and that is the main character herself. While her naivety and bluntness were fun for a while I slowly began to notice myself skipping past her dialogue and antics as time went on. She never changes and she rarely faces consequences for her actions. Instead the people around her are punished and she could care less.

Now the author tries to play her off as eccentric but intelligent yet the more I read the less it makes sense for the character (to me at least) that she suddenly swaps from having no idea what the hell is happening to a tactical mastermind.

The character goes from funny to annoying around the 50th chapter and it just keeps getting worse. I implore the author to bite the bullet and kill a main character because Salvos needs to change and this is the only way it would make sense for it to happen in the story. Her obsession with being a princess was funny for until the author continued to (and still does) hammer the same joke into everyone’s skull. Running jokes can be funny but when the same ones are used in almost every chapter they quickly become infuriating.

Daniel and Edith are better characters in every way imaginable. Their backstories interesting, their motivations are stronger than “I want to save the friend I barely knew!”, they actually acknowledge their flaws and actively try to improve themselves. Salvos on the other hand only has one of these things going for her. The Netherworld and her birth are very interesting and the situation as to how she ended up trapped outside of the Netherworld is interesting as well. But unlike her companions she never grows as a character, refuses to acknowledge both her flaws and weaknesses, is incredibly naive, and extremely prideful.

I understand why many people like her character but I’m at the point where I can’t stay invested in the story anymore because I find the MC infuriating. I’d recommend this book if you don’t care about character development all that much but if that’s something you like the just move on to something like “The Prefect Run”.