Dog Days in a Leashed World

I don't normally give out five star reviews because I don't often read stories that are just it for me, but this? This is it!

NPCs gaining sapience is always a lovely trope/genre/whatever for me and I especially love how it's portrayed here. The characters are natural, their loyalty to the pack and humurous culture is very fun to read. I'll warn you that the humor might not be for everyone. There are quite a lot of pee jokes (although they disappear by the end of arc 1).

The characters in my mind feel realistic. They have their own goals in mind and have very distinct personalities. Not one of them falls flat, each living their own lives in their own ways. (Hi-Hi can shove it tho)

The grammar and style is pretty good. No flowery prose, but it doesn't need that. No major flaws to my eyes which is saying something. I don't know if the author is new at this, but they've done a great job with their writing techniques.

There are a few criticisms I have but, as they fall mostly later in the story, i'll put them in the spoiler below

Besides these criticisms, the story is still pretty fun! I'm looking forward to see where the story goes and hope it lasts for a good long while. Long live Boss Yip-Yap!

I never thought that I'd be wanting or willing to read about the trials and tribulations of a bunch of puppy-adjacent monsters with collectively not enough brain cells to use as bait on a fish hook, not if you are expecting to catch anything, anyways. But fun fact! After reading this I realized that I did, and that it was good enough to remain invested even after they become no longer so intellectually challenged. Jokes aside, the story is great and there are a lot of good times to be had by following the shenanigans of the characters, with one of the selling points for me being how most of them do have a lot of character and aren't some simple cardboard cutouts.

A promising, fun first chapter! I love these silly furballs NPCs just trying their best in the backwater lowbie zone of The Kingdoms of Magica. What does the future have in store for Shh and his low stat companions? I can't wait to find out. Hopefully we see more from the author real soon. 

Although it has a simple starting pretense, this story quickly evolves into a clever take on Monster Evolution. The dialogue is clever and witty yet character-appropriate, and the individual characters are charming. Also, they're puppies – how can you not like puppies?

Certainly one of the better new stories I've read on Royal Road in quite some time.

  This novel is amazing, plots are intelligent, characters have personalility and matter ( if you see a character in one chapters you will see them again if they can be able to be in the story ) and the MC doesn't make dumb moves.

  An amazing read 10/10 would recommend. Also anything not explained will be answered in later chapters.

It feels weird to give this story an advanced review when all I'm doing is giving it five stars in all four sections, anyway. But it deserves them. In a sea of stories that are stiltified, difficult to read, overly complicated, and at times modestly squicky in some disturbing fashions, Dog Days begins sweet and cute, grows to fun and interesting and exciting, and as of chapter 48 is in-depth, amazing, and with realms of space to grow and only get better.

Style: The writing style in this story is glorious. It always feels loose and easy to read, without being dumbed down or uncritical. The scenes grasp the whole 'the main character is riding this by the seat of his pants and trying not to get anyone killed more than they have to without having his entire race massacred or worse' sensation.

Grammar: The story reads at about a 9th grade level, but covers in-depth concepts and ideas while being easy to read and not offering any words that the average reader should have any trouble with. The speech is very modern and moment to moment, instead of involving any higher grammar cases, making it easily digestible and uncomplex from moment to moment.

Story: The idea of an upjumped level Nothing mob procedurally finding a way to Not Suck and what that looks like is fantastic and I adore it. Even from the start of the story I was rooting for the little puffballs and every chapter on has just made the tale better.

Characters: I love love love love love love dog kobolds so much and every character is so great. I love Shin's 'I'm an asshole, but I'm not a murderer, and I'm The People's Asshole' vibe, I love Momo's 'hi yes I am squeaky and little but I will hit you with a holy lazer if you screw with me' attitude, I love Gero's bruiser chick chic, I love Bex's not-quite-in-tune-with-the-race-but-getting-there Player vibes, I love Higen's scum**** backstabber thing, and all of the more minor side characters all have unique aspects and concepts that are great. I want to play a dog kobold now.

In the end, I'm gleefully awaiting more of the tale, and to see if the Kobolds evolve into Dog Soldiers or something similar at higher levels. The worst part is having to wait for it to all be written down!  Ten out of Ten, would be an amorphous glowy ball of light again.

Hands down this is a must read. Overall, this might be one of the best written fictions I've read in a long time. Let me break it down for you:

Enter you, a newb this story. Well you're about to have an emotional rollercoaster and a couple reality checks as you gain experience through this story. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The crux of the story, and the reason it has a 5/5 is because you don't always know what's coming or how the mischievous and heartwarming little characters are going to solve each problem. You don't get to know every thought that goes on, BUT if you're extremely mischievous and clever yourself, there's almost always just enough clues to hint at what might happen.

In terms of grammar and style, I haven't seen/noticed any grammar issues whatsoever. It's flowed well to me and made sense throughout. And the style is just as flowing. The system snark, the meta of two real not real realms and all of it is really well handled and showcased where it makes you think yourself.

Lastly, we have the stars of the show. The characters. Their growth is top notch, getting a seat in there where every character, even those we only see a little of, is enough to feel the joys and pangs of sadness as things progress. Their success is our delight, their pains are our sorrows. They're so well written that I can't stop my eyes from flying across the pages, and you won't be able to either.

(Take it from me who had to take half a day off to recover from being unable to sleep until finishing what available chapters there were).

All in all, if you don't read this, you're missing out. *mic drop*

Few takes on RPG immersion have as strong and original character development, while keeping a reasonably interesting story free of pointless drama. The narrative smoothly ties the birth of conflicts to inevitable, and not necessarily initially antagonizing, interactions between the world (ever dynamic) and the characters traits (more consistent), all the while allowing for a (rather peculiar) amount of behavioural reflection by the main characters. Such mechanism leads to an unexpectedly natural development of relationships and personal characteristics, extending to problem resolutions (usually trough a conundrum of "scheming" and luck) that keeps the character's invulnerability doubtful without outright use of Deus ex machina, bringing to the scene notable actors whose depth and evolution goes far beyond your regular character sheet. 

On the other hand, the sheer scope that the overall story comes to, brings far more into scene that could realistically be explored as thoroughly as the first few dozen chapters. The whole situation kinda reminds me of when G.R.R. Martin splits his storytelling between the two continents, so as to preserve some semblance of the outstanding descriptions showed in the first volumes of a song of Ice and fire and keep developing the truckload of reasonably important characters he ended up introducing by that point. So far, no compromise to the quality of world building and character development has occurred that was deep enough to be a significant issue, but the way this situation (which is steadily growing in importance) is handled by the author might (or not) define this as a great story.