Anyone who thinks Randidly even compares to My Immortal is a fucking reject

 

I wrote some (very similar) reviews for them on RR wherein I compared the two. Let me copy those for you.

Spoiler: Randidly Ghosthound - Epic LitRPG (Solo Style)

This is one of my favorites - not because it's one of the best (though it's very good) but because it's just the sort of thing I came to RR to look for (well, this one and Defiance of the Fall).

When I say "epic" Epic I mean that the stakes rise in a specific way, and it's more or less as follows: (1) World Changes, (2) MC gets himself out of trouble, (3) MC is ahead of the curve compared to humanity and can save the locals, (4) MC is still keeping up his lead and can save the area/region/nation, (5) MC interacts with larger scale multiverse for training, (6) MC saves the world this time, (7) MC heads off to further himself in the multiverse as he's surpassed Earth, (8) Profit ???

I make it sound too generic, but I really do feel that this is where the LitRPG genre shines. In a traditional fantasy it's going to feel a bit "too much" to go from "yah I ran track in High School" to "I break the sound barrier whilst running" in a year or so.

But add in stats? And a build? And skills?

Sure, runspeed is just your spec, dude.

In this particular story Randidly doesn't go for speed but that's the easiest way to illustrate it. LitRPGs ease the suspension of disbelief for this style of story, and I have a great time reading it.

Style is good - I'm interpreting part of this to be the implementation of the LitRPG elements, which I thought was creative and ramps up nicely. First of all you've got stats to work on, and then you start getting / evolving / combining skills that go with your class (if you have one). After that it transitions into needing to work on your 'images' to increase your power. There's always something to work on or towards.

The only critique of this system is that it can get a bit cluttered. I love the "Paths" option and the "Images" are good and serve a purpose, but sometimes the stats themselves seem so bloated as to be meaningless. Similarly some skills seem to be forgotten or not used much and everything feels a ... I guess it could be streamlined a bit? But it's creative and interesting.

Grammar is fine - I'm bad at picking up on issues but I can remember once or twice where it was a problem. But frankly if I'm engaged and page turning I'm not gonna notice a missing comma or mispelled word.

Story is good - I sort of summarized the broad strokes of it before, but ultimately it's about a regular guy whose circumstances give him a leg up early on when the 'system' comes to the world. He got lucky (even if it was a bit orchestrated behind the scenes) and he goes from one thing to another trying to keep ahead of the curve.

As he does he encounters some interesting / fun characters, helps to found a town, visits other planets, and finally takes steps into the broader multiverse for the over-arching plot. I don't know if the author will manage to stick the landing or not but it's got enough going on to keep me satisfied in a serial story.

Characters are fine? Randidly I like well enough. He is a decent enough guy in general but he's not overly worried about saving every single person (though he will try when he can) nor is he completely desensitized to killing. He likes fighting and he's decisive in most cases. He's not a big thinker when it doesn't have anything to do with training.

Shal and Vualla and Helen are Randidly's only 'real' relationships I feel like, and he doesn't interact with either to a significant extent.

Shal is pretty great though, I like the mentor vibe they have going on.

He's really just a determined, focused dude with blinders on for things that aren't training most of the time.

Anyway, yeah.

I recommend Defiance of the Fall if you liked Randidly Ghosthound. To me the primary difference in the two is that while Randidly has people he interacts with in his story he's ultimately a one man show with occasional allies and distant friends Zac (in DotF) has comrades along on his journey.

Spoiler: Defiance of the Fall - Epic LitRPG (Now with Friends!)

This is one of my favorites - not because it's one of the best (though it's very good) but because it's just the sort of thing I came to RR to look for (well, this one and Randidly Ghosthound).

When I say "epic" Epic I mean that the stakes rise in a specific way, and it's more or less as follows: (1) World Changes, (2) MC gets himself out of trouble, (3) MC is ahead of the curve compared to humanity and can save the locals, (4) MC is still keeping up his lead and can save the area/region/nation, (5) MC interacts with larger scale multiverse for training, (6) MC saves the world this time, (7) MC heads off to further himself in the multiverse as he's surpassed Earth, (8) Profit ???

I make it sound too generic, but I really do feel that this is where the LitRPG genre shines. In a traditional fantasy it's going to feel a bit "too much" to go from "yah I ran track in High School" to "I break the sound barrier whilst running" in a year or so.

But add in stats? And a build? And skills?

Sure, runspeed is just your spec, dude.

In this particular story Zac doesn't go for speed but that's the easiest way to illustrate it. LitRPGs ease the suspension of disbelief for this style of story, and I have a great time reading it.

Style is good - I'm interpreting part of this to be the implementation of the LitRPG elements, which I quite like. There are elements in place to keep the story from feeling too 'cluttered' which does it service.

Stats are a thing but more important are titles - titles can give you flat % bonuses on your stats so they are the real hidden ace with regards to stats. If you're the same level as someone but you have titles and they don't then your stats are gonna be better, which allows the reader to not need to just flat compare numbers.

Dao serve the same story telling purpose as "images" from Randidly if you've read that, though the two concepts are pretty different. In this story it appears to be an element of the Xianxia cultivation stories that's been melded with a traditional LitRPG, and I liked how it worked. It's basically a solid powerup that you can work on regularly - and having something that you can regularly sit down and train serves as a good timesink in the story when you need the character to do something tangible in just a page or three.

Skills and classes I like too. You get offered classes based on things you do, which is fair, but the skills are nice because there's a limited number of them. Some you get from your class and some you can learn otherwise but there are only so many 'slots' for them, so you can't learn everything. You aren't auto-good at them either when you get them, needing to practice/train to utilize them.

The only critique here is that there's just so many things to work on (race upgrade, class upgrade, level, get skills, open nodes eventually, learn dao, evolve dao, combine dao, find a path, etc). But at the same time it's almost nice because there are so many little ways to progress.

Grammar is fine - I'm bad at picking up on issues but I can remember once or twice where it was a problem. But frankly if I'm engaged and page turning I'm not gonna notice a missing comma or mispelled word.

Story is good - I sort of summarized the broad strokes of it before, but ultimately it's about a regular guy whose circumstances give him a leg up early on when the 'system' comes to the world. He got lucky (even if it was a bit orchestrated behind the scenes) and he goes from one thing to another trying to keep ahead of the curve.

I like the story otherwise too. Mostly because I'm into the fact that he engages with the world around him in ways that some characters in these stories don't. He makes friends, etc. He founds a town and is in the process of making it into something more. He interacts with other races in the role of a leader and sometimes those other races have interesting cultures.

Even the 'training tower montage' was enjoyable for all that it was almost a filler arc. I had fun reading it.

Not sure if the author will stick the landing or not - too early to tell what the true endgame here is even though the story has interacted with the wider universe some - but I'm excited to find out.

Characters are good, Ogras is FANTASTIC.

Seriously, Ogras is possibly my favorite character from any story I've read on Royal Road. He's got his own motivations, his own life, his own past, and it's all interesting. He's a side kick but yet he's NOT a side kick. He's an advisor except we're mostly past things he knows about. He won't betray Zac now that they've become comrades - or would he? He's perfectly happy murdering his way to his goals or torturing his previous underlings but he's kind to children. He's funny and pops out of the shadows to interrupt other peoples conversations constantly.

He's a phenomenol supporting character.

Zac himself is good enough. Focused on training and getting stronger to pursue his own goals, determined, lucky as all hell with the circumstances he runs into, etc. He's more sociable than a character like Randidly Ghosthound but he's still a typical protagonist for this type of story. No complaints but nothing groundbreaking compared to other MC's in this genre.

Other characters are fine. Many of them are... not fleshed out, but given enough background that they are unique. I'm not going to confuse Alea with Alyn, for example, even though both are demon women of roughly the same age. I never really need help remembering who is who and I have enough info on each person to get a sense of whether I like them or not.

But that's it. Only a handful of characters are really fleshed out past the broad strokes, but I think that's a fair choice to make.

If I had to criticize characterization in this it's that I'd like to see a few of the minor cast a little more often, not just in 'their role' but to interact with as characters. Emily is one. She and Ogras had kind of a ... not mentor, but when she first showed up they watched movies together and he liked her. And sure, she's older now and has a class but when we see her she's usually either buffing people or insisting to go somewhere dangerous. I'd like to get a bit more regular character interaction again, to see how she relates to Zac / Ogras / Thea / whoever.

I recommend Randidly Ghosthound if you like Defiance of the Fall. To me the primary difference in the two is that while Zac has comrades and friends and allies and underlings that he interacts with, Randidly mostly has acquaintances (with a scant few exceptions).

Of the two I probably lean more towards Defiance of the Fall because (1) I like having a regular, interesting cast of more than one person and (2) I prefer the 'he meditated for two years' style of growth to the training montages in Randidly where he gets random weird things like entire worlds in his soul somehow.

That said I think of them as being similar both in terms of style, type of story, and quality. Comparing them is like comparing two shonen animes targeted at the same audiences - they'll be different, sure, but a lot of the fundamentals will be there for both.

 

Is everyone for diddling and down to fuck? That’s what I’m hearing!