All-Round Mid Laner Chapter 210+ Discussion

All-Round Mid Laner is a good novel but at the same time quite average, so I'm only giving it 4-stars. Let me elaborate on some points. Strong from the Start

Spoiler

I don't have any issue with MC himself being OP from the beginning since MC already has several years of experience in professional e-sports and as a captain to boot. However, the MC's new team after transmigrating is winning almost constantly, so my interest towards the games waned as I continued reading. The end goal for the author is that MC's team wins the world championships the first try (first for the MC.) And one of the main reasons as to why MC's team is winning so frequently is due to the "tacit understanding" between him and the ML even from the get-go. This term gets thrown out a lot in this novel and is most likely due to the 100% compatibility between the two, being an omega and alpha pair (EDIT: This was also kind of hinted in the extras too.) That in itself is almost kind of unfair. Yes, there is tacit understanding between players in opposing teams, but the tacit understanding between MC and ML is apparently just stronger. It does allow for daring strategies, but overuse of it makes games much less exciting to read in the long run because as the reader, you'll expect it. So far, they have only lost a single game. Although, I do understand that it's a subtle way to make it appear as though MC and ML are the perfect couple.

[collapse]

Length

Spoiler

There are many games in this novel, some written back to back, with each round of a major domestic game taking up whole chapters. And in between the games, there are glimpses of relationship developments between the MC and the ML albeit quite short. I don't necessarily mind these kind of transitions. I just think a lot of the games are too long-winded, and I just ended up skimming through a lot of them. It is nice that games are extremely detailed to help the reader visualize what's happening, but doing that almost every time can make it quite exhausting to read especially knowing that the MC's team is winning the majority of the time. The process of how they win gradually loses its meaning to me despite the author's creativity. However, starting at the world championships, the author is making the games shorter, which I appreciate to a certain degree. The main story of the novel has already ended, and it is slightly longer than most of the other novels I've read. My issue, though, isn't the novel length, just that the games are taking up more of the novel than anything else.

[collapse]

Pacing

Spoiler

Based from different reviews that I've read, a lot of people seem to like the pacing of this novel. In my opinion, it was somewhat decent at the beginning but was quite bad towards the end. The author wrote very long chapters for the domestic games yet kept them extremely short for the world championships, which seemed contradictory due to the difference in importance. The ending is rushed, and the transition from main story to extras is also quite abrupt. I feel like the extras could have been included into the main story because basically what happens is that the MC gets a permanent mark, and the public finally learns that the MC and ML are dating with the idea of marriage in mind. Having those events be designated as extras make no sense to me. After that are the extras involving the ML's transmigrating into MC's original world. Games are hardly detailed since this portion is meant to be short, but the varying degrees in which the author writes games give me whiplash. It's not done yet so I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I'm assuming they're gonna go through the world championships again and win it with their "tacit understanding."

[collapse]

Overall, the novel is certainly not bad, but I have some mixed feelings about it. Despite all of the cons I have discussed, I think the events that occurred within the novel are quite enjoyable. I just find the games to be quite stale after a while. I think if the author reorganized the novel and changed the length of the games, the reading experience would have been a lot smoother for me personally. You just have to read it for yourself and decide since I have my own preferences. I'll read until the end of the novel, but I don't think I would want to re-read it due to the sheer number of games.