Hardcore Leveling Warrior

For those low ratings: I was also on the same boat before too. I read the first chapter several months ago, hated the HCLW and his personality and didn't like the premise of the story (so what if he goes back to lvl 1? jerk character deserves it!), and gave up on it.

Now, since the series became a daily pass on May 26, I decided to try it out and finish it. And I'm so thankful that I did LOL.

This freaking series is AWESOME. There is a reason behind his assholery, but the character development is so amazing. You'll grow to love HCLW and also all the other minor characters too.

The plot is so DAMN GOOD. The author grasps the action genre right and is able to make it fun and exciting all the way through (season 2, we'll talk about that...). Like the characters, the side arcs are all written well that it doesn't drag on or gets boring and distracting (cough looking at Bleach). The action and adventure bit of this series progresses at a reasonable yet exciting rate. It's also very interesting how there is the game vs reality interconnection too.

Some of the key, noteworthy things to mention:

The final fights were just so awesome, especially Sora vs Lila and *HCLW vs Giga. Even the secondary fights from the unknown teams were great too. The grandpa dying was expected, but the gods playing a hand into everything, and the internal betrayal that happened, was an unexpected twist! Season 1 ended on such a great note. So many things to talk about... But it was beyond a 10 for me at that point.

*I LOVE LOVE LOVE the final fight between HCLW and Light. It was insane because you really couldn't tell how his noob, lvl 1 self could beat them... but bam! the time rewind makes a comeback! And HCLW PUMMELED Light so bad, when Light was seen to be so godly and powerful. This showed absolutely how strong HCLW is, which was a necessity for the end. Which, let's get to talking about ...

Now, why season 2 sucked ...

Unfortunately, HCLW was MIA for the entirety of season 2, and Dark essentially becomes the protagonist for S2. This sucked, because although we love Dark, HCLW is supposed to be the main character! HCLW was trapped in a coma state, both irl and in game, but this, along with several other things for the ending, was not something I understood since it wasn't explained well. (How on earth does collecting the lucky coin fragments help narrow down where he is? Chota just died so fast in the end that his character, like Cave, was so useless. There were a lot of loose ends here in S2...

...but it was humbling to read the author's afterword, because he apologizes for not being able to portray the ending well. Which I feel bad about, because he did do a great job for season 2 ending despite "not grasping it".

The ending for S2 was just bonkers, because everything happened so fast at once, and the fights just got too OP that it was absurd at that point. The nightmares, dragons, No Name, *Nathan Han, and then Zero and the witch ... It was too crazy at that point, but still it was enjoyable. Just don't get too hung up on trying to understand it LOL.

The other thing was the ending epilogue. That was totally off the hook too, and so random since it was a completely different world (why was Sora with Armes, LOL). But again, the author explains how he wanted to show it was something like an alternate universe, and Lucid Adventure still exists too.

I'm not sure if I'd read the sequel for HCLW. But definitely in remembering how Season 1 went, this series is still a solid 10 for me despite Season 2 going nuts. This webtoon will hold a dear spot for me. Please give it a try! I think you'll enjoy it 🙂

*Webtoons: PLEASE STOP renaming the characters with English names. I've gotten used to the "white" names, but jeez I rather read their original Korean names that the author intended for them.

Season one was a solid 9/10 for me but boy is season two absolute dog shit..

If there was one webtoon that I've reread multiple times, it's HCLW.

The worldbuilding is very interesting. It shows the dark side of both reality and the game world. Character development is also well done.

The MC is also unique. Arrogant but with good reason. He's not the type that tries to be in anyone's good side like a bitch and will antagonize anyone who insults him or his group.

Side characters matter. They aren't left behind and actually stay relevant throughout the series instead of just piggybacking.

The amount of side characters are healthy enough that you don't need to worry about who gets the spotlight.

The first season is a fun half-parody of the VR world weak-to-great shtick. It is one of the better if not the best of
this genre. Yes, the main character is a bastard, the whole point is he is a bastard, but you will still learn to like him the more you learn about his background and situation.

But you can't really read only one of them, unless you are fine with stopping there and inventing your own ending. The actual ending is just too random.

The second season starts much worse, but still okay, and just becomes weirder and weirder. Dark isn't good enough of a character to carry a series. And the author is actually pretty good at writing fun characters. There are like 10 characters I would have followed gladly. Dark worked well as the "generic MC" placeholder that HCLW adventured with and showed how things should be done, but he is too generic and perfect to actually be a good MC. Sora could have worked. Master Swordsman could have worked.

The story itself is all over the place, this clearly wasn't planned ahead well.

Honestly this series is so much more than what these people give it credit for. Amazing character development awaits you if you just read more than 2-3 chapters 🙂

I'm surprised people read this, char sucks, really, just kill him already, story is not interesting at all, worldbuilding is just bad, both the game and as Samken says, explanations on backgrounds and so on, art is not particularly good, comedy sucks... not one redeeming quality.

Asshole who plays a VRMMORPG, is the most powerful guy in the server, can do whatever he wants without any repercussion for his actions, involves himself in a plot to make him lose his powers (levels), they succeed, and he's now demoted to a newbie again.

Watch him succeed back to where he was...or not. To be completely honest, Attaque does it so much better the asshole turn a new leaf plot that it's not even funny.

The introductory chapters turned me off completely, since you have ZERO introduction in how he got to where he was, the rules of the MMO, introduction of his "Friends"/Enemies or any capacity of basic worldbuilding, except he was an asshole, here's the quest now lose your powers and climb it back again. At least the artwork is rather tastefully done i guess?

Powerful asshole gets depowered and must regain it. He's a huge dick, but I want him to succeed in his revenge, and possibly get a new outlook on life. I'm a sucker for revenge stories tbh.