Player Reached the Top: Player Reached the Top Series, Book 1

Player Reached the Top #1

by Rick Scar

2044. The world of games changed long ago. "Ascension" has become one of the most popular VRMMO games. It is a huge world divided into a hundred Floors, with each Floor a boundless location with its own countries, tribes, and millions of players.

The object of the game is to unlock all the gates and conquer the top.

Having joined the game, Will Thomson doesn't realize that he is all by himself. Then he accepts the first quest....

Cursed level 46....

Genres: Fantasy, Audiobook, Science Fiction, Action, Fiction, Amazon

Audible Audio

First published June 25, 2019

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a gamer. Nonetheless, this creative, imaginative story is supremely entertaining. 9 of 10 stars

[Atousa Karimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

A really disgusting protagonist! I tried hard to tolerate him, but he was completely revolting. And what a pity, because I liked the story and the depicted world.

[NiteHaze · Rating 2 out of 5]

'White Raven' the MC leaves a lot to be desired and by the end of the book I didn't even like him. Every time he 'negotiated' with another character I just rolled my eyes because all he did was throw out outrageous request and everyone eventually just agreed with him at the end even as he bumped up the original request. The book is honestly just gushing how amazing and witty Raven is and even though there are professional gamers and people who are richer and probably smarter than he is Raven is better than them.

I am also not a fan of how Raven progressed. I can usually forgive 'glitches' that allow a player a certain advantages so I didn't really mind when he was transported to a different floor than everyone else but it became unbearable when he managed to kill 5 monsters 40 lvls higher than him by just shooting them from where they couldn't reach. And then by usinng his 'wit' he was able to trick a boss to give him unique items

By the end of the book he is mentioning how he wants to be KING and how much of a hassle it is that he will have to marry the princess in order to do so.

Also the portrayal of women towards the end of the book leaves a lot to be desired which is actually a shame because it didn't seem like it would go downhill so fast.

[Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Read.

A LitRPG story. From some system error, the main character gets put in a high level zone as a level 1 character. The level progression is well done and make sense to me. ** One small gripe is use of the main character’s real and game name while in the game. **

[Topher · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first third or so is readable, and enjoyable. After the protagonist meets up with the race of miners who have speech oddities though, it's like they infected the rest of the text.

It's rare for me to give up on a story, and rarer still for me to review it. By the 2/3 mark (I stopped at Ch 67), it was no longer coherent. I'd say some of that weirdness was deliberate (5%) - and is some of what makes the story unique. Some of that weirdness is cultural (maybe another 5%) - e.g. people in dialog referring to the team leader as "Leader" instead of by name or as "Boss" etc. But the other 90%?

There is a scene near where I gave up that reminded me of little house of horrors. There was an incomprehensible argument, and a guard looked over not understanding what was going on. That hit a bit too close to home. The translation and copy editing got so bad though that I just couldn't read it.

[Twine & Ribbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Update*:
Translation issues have been more or less fixed, and the book rereleased. Moves it from 3 to 4 stars.

It's a conundrum I've noticed as I delved into the LitRPG Genre, that the middle ground series are often the best ones. Oftentimes, an author will go too deep into traditionally important details and sacrifice the heart of the LitRPG genre. I want action, secret quests, hidden knowledge, and power leveling, so when a LitRPG book ends with the main character having gained only 2 levels and like 3 skills, no matter how well written it is, I consider it a genre failure. That's not to say that character development is unimportant or that story planning and structure can be ignored, but those things are not at the heart

So what about Player Reached the Top's narrative, characters, and story? It fails in a lot of areas, but at it's heart, at the pillar of what makes LitRPG work, it's good. A lot can be forgiven when you get the core of the genre right, and this does. It's a fun journey, and entertaining to read, even if it's pretty heavily flawed.

Translation is coarse but serviceable. While mostly it feels natural there are highly questionable choices in the translation at times that stick out like a sore thumb. For example, the main character wears a Rain Coat as part of his main ensemble. When it first popped up, I thought maybe we were looking at a really odd set item or something, but then he consistently keeps acquiring Rain Coat items.... Just based on context, I'm about 99% sure a better word choice during translation would have been Cloak. A Cloak still serves the purpose of shielding the wearer from the elements, but has a very different context in English than Rain Coat. I would never picture a Rain Coat being a main set item for a Thief/Rogue in an RPG. Cloaks though, 100% makes sense. Most of the translation work is competent. It's just weird, outliers like this that lower the translation score from what I would consider a professional level to a more amateur feel. It does the job well enough that I am still getting an understanding of what is happening, but it is obviously a translation.

At the end of the day, this story is a good 4/5 for enjoyment. The translation issues, along with the imperfect character design and story drop it a star, but if you're here for the LitRPG, it doesn't disappoint.

[Johnny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book one

Don’t believe the blurb!
This is either still the rough draft or the worst Russian to English translation I’ve ever tried to read.
I made it through, but honestly this book is a giant mess.
2/10

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book.

The story was good and I enjoyed the rpg part of the story. The plot was similar to several others I have read but it was still very enjoyable. The characters are interesting and I look forward to how the author develops them.

[Logan Horsford · Rating 1 out of 5]

WTF. Seriously. W...T...F...

Translation: Felt like it was someone who was proficient in - but not fluent in - English. After translating, hire a good ghost writer.

Hated MC. Suppose to be military special forces, didn't read like it. Just ticking a box.

'Amazing AI' - which has rats that will just sit there and let you shoot at them for two hours if they can't get to you.

And on and on...

DNF

[Halvard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am left with several questions after this book.

Does Rick Scar know any women? All the female characters do in the book is getting manipulated (oh you are mad that I was an a-hole? Take this shiny thing and be happy) or get dominated by his words. I would like to see a female being something resembling a real person.

Where is the devs? Do they care that the MC is ruining their game? Are they at all paying attention?

How stupid can the AI be? It is supposedly possible to kill mobs WAY higher then you, if you are smart enough and have a great plan. Like shooting a mob for 16 hours while it stands still outside its home (where it would have been safe) since it can't climb. Literally the only great strategies the MC has is either shoot mobs that cant climb or kill steal NPC's.

MC is a total asshole that gets away with anything and getting everything for free in a world where the I didn't know or care about a single person.

[Arthur King · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty good attempt at the "real world" of MMO players. This might come as a shock to most people, but not everyone out there is a "professional gamer/streamer/guild leader" type. Most of the time, people play games because they want to play the game, and while its true that this player rides the harry edge between those two worlds, it is somewhat refreshing to find a story about a guy who just completes quests and plays the game.

This is the story of a guy who picks up a game after essentially playing a couple of hours in a rented pod at a cafe and then, somehow, glitches himself onto floor 30, completely by accident, but other than that, it's a pretty accurate description of how people approach RPGs. Spend 4 hours grinding down a monster 40 levels above you from the top of a box where the monster can't get you? (over and over again?) Yeah, that's legit. Using Mobs to fight other mobs? Yeah, that's legit too.

Overall, I liked this book. Definitely 4 stars.

[Leman Eda · Rating 2 out of 5]

SAO in book form. Truly terrible.
The first 3 chapters are expo dumps and it doesn't really get better. An army guy quits his job after hearing two guys talk about video games in a pub. You might enjoy some parts if you aren't really interested in video games or don't have any knowledge on how RPG usually is.

*Spoiler*
These are just few points that I couldn't stand while reading the book.
-He studies RPGs for a few months?! Who gets THAT good at video games just by playing for a while and studying?
-White Raven... Seriously??
-Same equipments cost more because you made progress is stupid. And he figures out how to get equipment for cheaper quick enough so what was the reason?
-Human rouge. Revolutionary.
-8 real life hours to kill one enemy 40 levels above his. Why didn't the rat hide, call for it's fellow rat friends or use any ranged attacks?
-Took him too long to figure out the glitch.
-This is not how video games work in general.

[Seawater · Rating 1 out of 5]

Character is an actual imbecile.

He overhears that a game has a lot of micro-transactions and decides that he can make money... spending money on these micro-transactions somehow? It was left unexplained and not touched on again up to the point I stopped reading.

He then quits his job and spends all day at an internet cafe researching classes for the game. He spends several months, including 2 months where he has the daily assistance of some kind of "class selection expert" deciding on a class. He finally selects... a rogue... because he decides sneaking and lock-picking, the two most basic aspects of that class, are cool. What most people could decide in 2 minutes, has taken this fuck up, almost half a year.

[Scott Wozniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting adventures and the overall mystery of the game was set up well. But the characters in this story aren't very believable. The way the main character "persuades" people is so blunt and the way so many people burst into a rage then calm down and become allies only to do it again...it pulled me out of the story every time

Also, the stakes aren't very high. There's no permadeath, there no real life consequences besides making more or less money, which also lowered the intensity of the story and gave him some easy escapes.

So, fun, but not fun enough for me to read the rest of the series.

[Joseph D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 1. This fun RPGLit book, albeit it is a translation, the translation is very well done. There were only a few very minor spots that you might notice, but overall it is well done. The main premise of playing a game for the money to send your sister to school meanders to him wanting to be rich. The hit points of all the monsters scale so quickly that soon the numbers are huge and he has to be creative on staying alive. The skill system felt static as if that was really the hard part of the game, to advance skills. Overall a fun read. Explicit language. ​

Joseph McKnight
http://www.josephmcknight.com

[Shad Ayres · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slightly Broken

I enjoyed this story. The plot wasn’t new or different but the game world was interesting and I wanted to find out what would happen next. Unfortunately at the half way point of the story, there was an abrupt end with it starting over again at the first chapter! I quickly scrolled hoping that there would be an ending somewhere further in the book. Once I reached the point where the original section ended the story started over again at the first chapter for the third time!

[Danae · Rating 2 out of 5]

A new worlds starts players on 3 differnen world level but the MC gets a glitch and starts on a much higher world. With a lot of passion he manages to kill very high level monster and starts rising in levels beyond all other player...
A bit standard story but somewhere in the middle the story left me. A lot makes no sense for me. And a scene where spies are discovered by saying hateful things about their country and later a scene where the MC lets himself tortured and killed to bring another spy to speak... Nope - sorry - but for me that is utter bullshit.

[Rico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Badly translated

This translation has numerous grammatical errors and sometimes just incomprehensible errors. I could generally understand the original intention but not always. The story was interesting but nothing new. The game mechanics are horrible and barely used, or flat out ignored. It is hard to say if that is lost in translation or was just never there. I don't regret reading this and will probably give the sequel a try, but I wouldn't recommend this book.

[Cory Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok

A few language or translation issues, it's definitely readable but with a lot of awkward phrasing, story itself is ok gets better the farther you get into it, my main gripe is that the mc doesn't actually do much himself, he gets lucky, has things happen to him, follows around other characters doing things and reaps the rewards without much personal involvement, will read a sequel, but it was just ok not hugely entertaining.

[Mike Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looting with Leveling

This is the good old must help his poor family and make money playing a game. I don’t know why he made the MC a USA ex military special forces guy, or for that matter a American. He seems like you’re regular hard working Russian older brother. Anyway the game is intense. Most every one else starts on floors 1 thru 3. He starts at a floor that’s much higher and quickly becomes the game number one player. Great game

[Vincent Archer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moderately classic VRMMO story.

It is an okay story, but it does not depart from the structure of the genre. It is translated from russian litrpg, and has a typically russian-type main character, along with the classic tropes of VR stories, even though it doesn't go straight into "stuck in game" tropes to artificially raise the stakes.

Do not expect an extraordinary litrpg. Just a competent one.

[Matt Shepker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lacking character development

This had been recommended to me several times so I decided to give it a shot. The plot was good and the LitRPG elements were pretty well done. My biggest issue was with the lack of character development or exposition. My opinion and knowledge of the MC was the same at the end as it was in the beginning. I’m going to keep working on the series, but this one was a bit of a slog.

[R. Scott VanKirk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Umreadable

In a genre which often sets a very low bar for the writers to reach, this one was easily the worst written I have come across. At times it devolves to some sort of pigeon English. I believe this mess was taken from Royal road or some other serial format website. The writer obviously took no effort to proofread or correct his writing. A writer with such low regard for the time of his readers, has no business publishing anything on Amazon.

Shame.

[Anna Brożyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Czytanie tej książki równolegle do grania w BG3 po raz pierwszy to był miód. Pewnie nie doceniłabym jej tak bardzo gdyby nie ten zbieg okoliczności. Nie jest to książka dla każdego, bo statsy broni mogą być męczące. Ale dla mnie frajda dynamicznego świata cRPG, tak bardzo przypominającego zwykłe RPG i znajdowanie tak wielu podobieństw z tym co zrobiono w BG3 było świetnym doświadczeniem. Podskakiwałam z ekscytacji, seria mnie zjadła.

[Holger Lange · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many spelling errors... The first ten percent were fine, but then I found at least one error on every page. The world is barely understandable and the character motivations made no logical sense to me. The skill and level progression were a show without any relevance to the world, although everybody within the story acted as if they matter.

Probably more a 3/10 than a 4/10 book for me.

[Person · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will not be going back and writing a review for this book, or any of the others in this series read before the account was created. Let it be said that the grammar is generally on the level of a not great translation, as this is, in fact, a translation. The story and world-building are pretty good

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The game world is interesting, and unlike other books in this genre the protagonist wasn't stuck there. Because of this he treats it like the game it is, but that was also a downside for me. His motivations in real life lead him to be a mercenary jerk in the game. It's mostly to NPCs, so no different from an evil playthrough of a game, but I found it a little off-putting.

[Mark Cochrane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Player

Translation is lacking also at around 43% book starts over from beginning so only half a book.basic story line isn't bad.still not worth your time until author completes the full book

[Nathanael Keeler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor translation

This started out quite interesting but I quickly found the story ruined by poor translation. The grammar of sentences is so poor I was having difficulty understanding the details of some sections. I would try this again if the translation was addressed.

[Benjamin Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

Didnt want to put this down. MC is likeable but not a saint and he isnt a complete idiot who forgets important stuff like half the other litrpg books out there. Cant wait to jump into the next book.