Apocalypse: Regression 3

Apocalypse: Regression #3

by R.A. Mejia, Joshua Swayne (editor), Charles Dean

In this thrilling installment of the best selling "Apocalypse Regression" series, Nick Gallows emerges as a guildmaster, forming the Daedalus Guild to combat not only the supernatural threats lurking in dungeons but also the complexities of leadership. As graduation dungeon tests loom over Hillcrest School of Excellence, Nick's mettle is put to the ultimate test as he faces a colossal Wyrm, a Vampire, and more. Friendships, rivalries, and the mysterious appearance of events outside of Nick’s original timeline converge into a tale of unparalleled suspense and magical intrigue.

Will Nick’s training and alliances be enough to confront the impending apocalypse, or is there a greater threat hidden in the shadows?

When time weighs heavily, it's time to hit the weights in this regression LitRPG/Gamelit story of dungeon-diving, leveling stats, and facing down the apocalypse!

Genres: Litrpg, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Time Travel, Audiobook, Science Fiction

476 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 14, 2023

Reviews

[M Hamed]

the time traveler ,on a doomsday count down.wastes half of his available time going
to highschool to make his teen girlfriend korean parents happy .

so they can bang

[Johnny]

Book three

This was a fast read for me. I finished it in about half a day. It felt shorter than the page count showed.
Still a fun read that I enjoyed. Good writing and editing as far as I could tell.
If I had to pick something to complain about it would revolve around the ending.
If the competition is televised, why did nobody freak out about the cousin's camera not working. Or the one in the boss room?
Even if they don't have microphones for sound, you'd think someone like the MC's grandfather could read lips. So why would they keep talking about the MC being from the future?

7/10 Hey good news for those wanting more of the story! I am pretty sure that I have found book four being written over on Royalroad!

[Michael Marciano]

4 stars if not so short

The major problem with this book is how short it is. Like you can probably communicate everything that happens in the story in under a minute of conversation. It's not bad, it's just short and nothing really happens. none of the characters have any serious advancement. Very disappointing addition to the series

[ReadToBreathe]

4 Stars
Nick's family is full of bastards. Hopefully they all die soon in the most horrendous way.

[Steve]

Rating 4.0 stars

Better than the last first but it still doesn't hold up to the promise of the first book. There were just too many things that practically didn't make sense. Nick was under a compulsion to go into a new type of dungeon. Apparently from another time traveling adventurer? After this part was over the whole thing was just kind of glossed over. Was it real? What was the purpose? Maybe try and figure out what the gold dungeon means? Yeah, none of that happened.

Then there is Mariah. She is supposed to be the super strong hero from the future that will save the world. Nick is supposed to be the one training her and yet, she is hardly in the story. There are hints about her being a different person now than the one he remembers and that makes some sense, but the whole point was to train her specifically and that isn't happening.

The last thing is the family drama. It makes sense but how everything unfolded doesn't. Evan bribes his way into the graduation dungeon and tries to kill Nick. All the security cameras for the final were turned off and nobody noticed? How is that practical. When Nick wins the tournament, everyone is telling him how great he was, but nobody thought it was weird that they couldn't see the final when they could see everything else? The grandfather keeps talking about family like it really means something and yet doesn't do anything when murder plots happen. It isn't possible he doesn't know. Nobody is going to get in trouble for this? That isn't practical.

Besides those gripes, I still did like the story but that is why my rating dropped from 5 stars for the first book to 4 stars for this one. Still better than the last book which seemed more like a filler story.

[Evan]

Another great installment!

Great series. I’d rather have an MC that is underpowered on paper but is competent and creates advantages for himself than an MC that is OP, but just completely incompetent. The characters are amazing, and you can see genuine growth in each book.

Seo-Ah and Maria are Asian characters done right. It’s not just flavor text to hit a racial quota, but genuine characters. Great example of showing rather than telling, when it comes to the cultural component. TV and movie writers can learn a thing or two from this.

Having said that, this book feels more like a filler arc. Which is understandable given that it is more of a compilation of chapters from an ongoing web novel series. About this book is more like 3 mini-arcs: guild arc, dungeon arc, and school arc, to keep things vague without spoiling it. It felt like half this book coulda been tagged along with book 2, and the other half into the first part of book 4 (which would then be book 3). That is pretty much my only critique about it.

If you’ve stuck around this genre, this story is nothing new, no ground breaking ideas, but where this story shines is that the execution is well done. And that is a mighty accomplishment to any veteran reader of the genre. Good characters, decent world building, well done story… what more could a reader ask for? To describe the series in one sentence: it is simply enjoyable.

[Alesay]

2.95 stars. While there were parts I enjoyed, I was disappointed overall with this book. The MC’s friends don’t seem to be taking the whole apocalypse situation seriously, which became frustrating. On top of that, the MC himself doesn’t really act like an adult. I understand he couldn’t do much in his first timeline, but his mindset still feels too juvenile. We’re told he went through X, Y, and Z, yet I don’t see that experience reflected in his actions.

One thing that really pulled me out of the story was how the MC often jumps into plans without explaining anything to his teammates—or to the reader—until later. It made it hard to stay engaged or feel fully invested in his character because I didn’t see/experience how he got to that point.

All of this could’ve worked if there was strong character development, but there really wasn’t. Overall, I still enjoyed a few aspects, but the book didn’t deliver what I was looking for in a series. Things might get more intense down the line, but I’ll be stopping here.

[Gareth Otton]

This book contained much more meaningful story progression than the last book, while maintaining the elements that have made this series fun to this point. This is precisely what I was looking for in this book after being slightly disappointed by the last book in the series.

This was an easy-reading, fun book that only lost a star as I don't think it takes full advantage of the premise as much as possible. There is much more Nick could be doing to improve his forward progression and the world's chances of the coming apocalypse. Instead, we follow more traditional young-adult/college-age friend groups going on adventure tropes. It's not that this makes this a bad book, but rather that it is shying away from the actions and content that would make it a great one.

Overall, though, this is an enjoyable, easy-reading series, and I am looking forward to finding out where this story goes next.

[Adityanant Jain]

Wonderful third installment!

I do admit feeling like the book wasn’t long enough but then did a word count and realized it was just that I’d lost track of time reading. Great third installment - some random small things that weren’t totally clear. My only irritation was the gramps and his whole uber toxic family dynamic - I know it’s an anime sub-trope but hate the gaslighting. It breaks down some believability too when in the prior book gramps flat ow admits that he *knew* one grandkid was poisoning his other grandkid and did nothing to see how things would play out … I mean, you have to be kind of stupid to get to be rich and powerful on your own and still let that POS near you again...

[Travis]

Apocalypse regression book 3 shows that things in the world are beginning to heat up. The main character is changing things, so his knowledge may not be as helpful for much longer, and of course, the guild he creates is taking off faster than he ever thought possible. It's really a great installment in the series folks. If you've read the other books, and just want to know if this one is worth reading, then don't worry, there's no need to wonder, just go get it, it's worth the read.

[Greg]

3.5/5 While I still enjoyed book 3 of Apocalypse: Regression it wasn’t quite as strong as the previous 2 books. The haremish elements are a little more present but still not bad. But the plot just didn’t feel like it progressed as much.

Nick and his friends build their own guild with the assistance of the Walter’s and Gold’s Guild. Nick and Adele get lured into a a strange vampire dungeon. Then while on vacation in Italy Nick and Seo-ah have to help stop a dungeon break there. Lastly Nick, Seo-ah, and Allen have to tackle their high school final dungeon assessment.

Maybe the stakes felt a little lower this volume. All in all still fun but not as good as the last.

[Carl]

This book seemed pretty short. And what's going on with that final battle with Evan at the end? I mean, a camera was sabotaged so no one could see him ported to the boss room, does that mean that when MC et al arrive in that room and fight him, it's not even televised, when every other part of the entire dungeon test is? Why are people not complaining about that, not being able to view the grand finale of the dungeon test? That wasn't explained well, and dumb. Otherwise i really enjoy the series. Most of the characters are well written and likable (except you Maria) and the story is pretty entertaining.

[Adam Roberts]

Good, but it ends abruptly and feels short.

I really enjoyed the story, but the ending was very abrupt. And to compound it, while there were things going on, it also felt like things didn’t really progress much for the story. Idk maybe others will feel differently. Nick does get some cool
New abilities, and I’m really hoping for the cool stuff that will be revealed in the next book though so that’s fun!

[XR]

I'm marking this as 5 stars, just because the progress our MC goes through. I felt let down with this third book. I thought the author could have provided more information regarding Nick's situation with his family... but I was so caught up in everything else I didn't even realise the book ended.

I am totally looking forward to the next book, but Nick has been through so much shit with his family I want to see him on top for once.

[Bert Babb]

An excellent series, not just dungeon diving, but a mob family out to wack the MC

More trials, more leveling, more mob family drama, more dungeon diving. The MC and his main squeeze cant even take a vacation without a dungeon breaking near them. Danger and opportunity. Looking forward to the family heir trials, what a pit of vipers.

[Grant]

enjoyable story

Love the story that this series has and how the characters continue to improve and provide endless amounts of entertainment for everyone. Can’t wait for the next one.

[Chiah]

I really enjoyed this one as there was some travel around the world so we got to see how other countries were handling the portals. We also got to see the beginning of Nick’s guild and that was a good move. All in all i can’t wait for the next one.

[Anatoliy Kurnitskiy]

Good catch.

We all know that's its hard to find a book you can't put down. But not only is book 3 like that, but the whole series leaves you waiting for whats next. Great job keep going. Looking forward to the next one.

[Josiah Ploeger]

Another Good Entry

Book is well written and engaging start to end. That said, I’m glad we finally got to the end of the high school period since our MC is a regressed adult so the high school stuff seemed like a distraction. Looking forward to the next.

[Mike Goodman]

Under Powered MC

This story of a guy who’s been poisoned taking the Trainer class to help others fight the dungeon break monster was a very interesting entertaining read. In this book he finishes High School again and completes the graduate dungeon.

[M]

Lost 2 stars for NOT writing a Recap.

I think every reader needs to start doing this to force authors to write a quick Recap chapter, which readers can skip if they remember, and those who don't won't stop reading the series.

[Julie French]

Excellent continuation

Fabulous story, with really high quality writing and cohesion. Really enjoyed the ongoing world building and characters development.

Thank you to the authors

[Ralph Gongwer]

Goes Nowhere

Lost me. Was really hoping for better but it was not what I was hoping for. I even bought the entire series but am going to skip the remaining 3 books because it became so bad. /sigh

[Murphies_law]

DNF at 79%

The story goes nowhere. The protagonist introduces his own dosho, trains endlessly, goes to highschool, has a lot of juvenile teenage talk and even makes a holiday in italy with his new girlfriend. The story was boring and i cared less and less.

[Monica]

DNF, dropped at 43%

I just found myself not caring about what was happening, annoyed by the lack of character growth and baffled by the change in Adele's personality by that point.

The story is overall fine, I guess, just not worth the time expenditure to me.

[Suki Rickey]

Book 3

Book 3 was a fun read and had a few errors throughout. The book progresses well and the plot and characters are developing faster with the overall plot. The 1st and 2nd books are definitely a set up for books 3. I look forward to the next book.

[Kevinpatrick]

On to the next!

Fun read. Pace is fast. I wish there was a bit less focus on the workout sessions. I realize they are part of the plot, but weight lifting is not the most entertaining thing to read about and it gets rather repetitive.

[Elizabeth]

Fun, well written.

It's fun, well written, and the plot is clearly going places.

I'm looking forward to the next one for sure.

[Ray Ritchey]

Fun Read

Lots of high school and family drama, but in a LitRPG apocalypse. Fun read and magic / progression is well done.

[Johnie C]

Great one sitting read

I enjoyed reading this book very much and I recommend this book to anyone who like LitRPG and progression type of books with lots of action.