I Became a God in a Horror Game Chapter 160 Discussion

cenap · February 19,2025

Rating: 3.5/5

Strengths: Calculating and Intelligent Protagonist, Interesting Horror Instances, Plot Twists.

Weaknesses: Pacing issues, Annoying Characters, Lonely Protagonist, Deus Ex Machina

Read the pacing section if you want to know why I DNF'd.

Summary: Laid off from his job, money-loving Bai Liu is down on his luck. His extreme desire for money triggers the entry conditions for a horror game system. In this system, he enters various horror game scenarios and must triumph in order to win strength, skills, points, and money. Fortunately, Bai Liu's profession happens to be a horror game designer. With his intelligence and obsession guiding the way, Bai Liu conquers every game, but there are secrets in this process that he must unravel or risk being killed.

Setting:

Fairly standard. There's a pretty interesting tidbit about the layering effect of the game on reality.

MC:

The MC is calm and calculating, which is pretty fun to read. The worst part though, is that so many of the MC's actions are just the author justifying the situation. Is MC smart or does the author just want us to believe that MC is smart? MC literally predicts every little thing that people will do, and they do it. It's unreasonable. I would even buy it if MC had like multiple plans and fail safes, but he literally succeeds and survives by some convoluted method that screams deus ex machina. LITERALLY because of the ML sometimes.

The MC's interactions with his crew reminds me of Kim Dokja, the MC of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. That being said, MC doesn't have anyone like Han Sooyoung, much less Yoo Jonghyuk by his side. This means that he alone is soldiering the entire intellectual burden with no one else who feels genuinely close to him. This is mildly irritating.

It's also harder because MC doesn't have or show the same type of emotion and feeling of Kim Dokja. For those who haven't read ORV, I mean that MC doesn't seem to actually care about anyone and explicitly states that the only reason he saves people is to take advantage of them or because of a deal. This makes it a little dreary to read because MC doesn't care about the people he's with most of the time and the people around MC either dislike him but have to help him or worship MC for his perceived kindness when we, the readers, know that there really isn't any actual kindness. There are hints by Chapter 160 that MC is more than what he seems and is capable of normal human connection, but it's barely there and seems to be focused specifically on one person who it seems is the ML.

Speaking of the ML,

Spoiler

he is practically non-existent yet also almost too present. He's a "god" and a "bug" in the system, an NPC of the God Class.

[collapse] Supposedly, it's really rare to encounter him in these horror instances and you'll die if you do, yet MC has encountered him in each game and is saved (?) by him. He always gives MC items that are very useful but "unknown" quality and effect. It's kind of annoying that it's supposed to be hard to see him, yet he is always there.

Spoiler

Every time MC is going against the system, one of the items helps MC buck the system. Futhermore, it's hinted that the reason ML helps MC has to do with their past together which is also supposed to explain MC's emotional state.

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General Characters:

The other characters are not that interesting and are on the annoying side. This really is the MC's show. There's many people that MC controls but they are either sycophantic towards MC or adverse towards MC.

There are a few things about characters that are immediate icks for me in novels. Especially in bl novels.

1. Female characters that are OBSESSED with male characters one-sidedly. (2 counts)

1. This obsession pits them against MC. (2 counts)

1. The narrative judges them negatively for being female and stereotypes them. (2 counts)

1. Sycophantic characters who sacrifice themselves for someone who does ONE nice thing for them. (4 counts)

1. Cannon fodders are disgusting people who any reasonable person should hate or be disgusted by yet are supported by others to go against MC. (3 counts)

Pacing:

The pacing is kind of good, but also excruciating. As mentioned earlier, the arcs drag on. The horror instances are interesting and the chapters pass by fairly quickly, until you get to a part that is just annoying and you're stuck reading that mini-arc or arc for more than a dozen chapters. For example, the arc that's making me want to DNF this right now is characterized by a stubborn and inflexible person who appeared suddenly. It's very annoying because they've set up the character as fairly OP, so MC will need time to defeat them. As a result, it's been a very frustrating exercise to slog through these chapters.

Beyond that, this character's arc actually messes up the overall pacing of the story too. There was a direction and goal of the story before this arc, then this arc happened and it's like going from step 3 directly to step 8.

Spoiler

Tang Erda, this character, is a timeline traveler who goes to different timelines in order to achieve his goal of getting everyone out of the game, the system that brings those with strong desires into the horror instances. Somehow, this character is in a position of power in the government and has been entrusted with the authority to unlawfully imprison "heretics" (players) who will or could cause trouble. The problem is that this person is very convinced of himself, his knowledge, and his ability to pinpoint "heretics".

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The next spoiler contains specifics.

Spoiler

Tang Erda has gone through multiple timelines where MC is an evil person who even sells drugs to the public. In TE's timelines, he always meets MC after MC is already really strong. By the time TE meets MC usually, MC is the "White King" and the leader of the team "Wandering Circus" with members who are known to be very powerful but also insane. TE in this timeline, has met MC before MC's meteoric rise, however, and knows that there are significant differences between the previous timelines and this timeline. Yet he decides to treat MC the same as the previous timelines. It's very frustrating, not just due to MC's suffering but because it feels so sudden and pointless in the story. MC at present is not the "White King", he's much weaker. On top of that, MC at this point has not done anything even similar to what TE accuses and blames MC for. It's like the author is telling us that MC is going to get so powerful and strong without showing it to us. As a result, it feels premature to have to deal with TE

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Furthermore, TE reads like the protagonist of many other novels, so it seems like the author is trying to compare them? I honestly wonder if TE will end up switching sides to join MC and become the Yoo Jonghyuk-like character for MC. I'm not thrilled. His character is boring and makes me want to DNF.

Rating:

Due to the characters and pacing, I can only rate this a 3.5/5.

I Became a God in a Horror Game Chapter 160 Discussion

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