User blog:FedeTkd/Entity Burst Online: Reasume - A review by FedeTkd

Entity Burst Online: Resume – A Review by FedeTkd

Finally.

After 5 years with nobody finishing a story, a user finally managed to finish one. For that commitment alone, Pyro deserves praise, especially when he tried and re-tried starting with a story several times.

But, is it any good? Let’s find out, shall we?

Keep into account that this review was written while considering that this is the first story written by Pyro and is a fanfiction, so I won’t be overly harsh over nitpicks. I’ll point them out, but they won’t break the story for me.

Also, this review contains spoilers. So reader discretion is advised.

Story, Game and Setting

EBO: R follows the story of Hunter Kasai, former SAO player and current EBO player who is tasked with stopping a former SAO player and former member of the red guild Laughing Coffin, Gemn, who wants to Resume SAO in EBO, for…reasons. He announced it to the public (for some reason) and now Hunter has to team up with members of the company to defeat him.

EBO has its own combat system, which is nothing alike SAO. Apparently, players capture creatures, or rather entities, and they can use the data from those entities to create armor-like devices they can transform into, similar to Tokusatsu shows, like Kamen Raider, Super Sentai or Power Rangers. On a personal note, I grew up with Power Rangers, so some of the sections of Pyro’s writing, if you’re really paying attention, pay tribute to transformation sequences. However, I’d argue this is a bit of a problem. A big part of the appeal of Tokusatsu shows is the visuals. Fights, and especially transformations, have mainly a visual appeal, and in many ways, that doesn’t translate that well to text, or at least, with Pyro’s experience at writing, the sequences weren’t that engaging.

Now about other aspects of the rest of the game, I find it a bit confusing to say the least. There also action units, which seem to modify the entity the users are already using by adding weapons. We don’t know much else about them. There are also several types of devices used by players to transform, called Drivers. There are three types of drivers, but we never know why they’re so different. What does one type offer than the other two don’t?

Also, to become stronger in the game you need to know…’DRUM ROLL’….CODING!!!

Yes. I’m serious.

By coding you can modify the Unit you make out of an entity, making it even stronger. I think this type of power system to be a bit boring. You become stronger by sitting in front of a computer, writing coding when so much more could’ve been done to make it more interesting and engaging. Instead of having the players think to find a way to better engage a fight or to better use their powers, we get coding…lots and lots of coding. Also, there’s little to no training, besides the most basic sparring sessions to know what an entity can do.

Lastly, in regards to the fighting mechanics, they cause a bit of power escalation, which is a problem. I won’t explain too much how this works, but all you need to know is that power escalation makes the story builds power up and over the top, surpassing the bar they just set themselves a few chapters ago. Then they do it again. And again. And again. To the point that it makes no sense what so ever. For more on that, click Here. The story is quite simple when you boil it down: Kuroto has more power, he engages in a fight against Hunter and his posse, he wins and they escape, Hunter manages to find a way to best Kuroto, they fight, they win and Kuroto runs away to find more power. Repeat. And it becomes a bit repetitive and grows to the point that it’s a bit absurd, with game-breaking abilities by the time of the final battle.

Also, we don’t really have much world-building. Especially regarding the: politics, geography economy, history, etc…in short, aspects that make the fictional world of EBO feel like a real-world, like if it was another character in the story. We only have the bare bones of a futuristic science fiction world, with a few aspects of a fantasy world.

In regards to exposition, Pyro did a good job with some of the necessary exposition here, part of the necessary exposition to understand the game was made by showing us how the game works. That’s good writing. That being said, there are sections of the story when Hunter begins rambling about entities, and network and drivers and units and quantum physics as well...ok, that last part was a joke, but you get my point. Pyro tends to make Hunter give a lot of exposition, and I guess this was made to show that he is a smart guy, but it is probably the worst way to make exposition. This is not to say that this type of exposition is always bad, sometimes it’s actually necessary.

How to do exposition is probably one of the things where writers struggle the most, so I won’t emphasize a lot in that here, but he needs to get better at it, especially when it comes to finding out backstory about the characters. Both Hunter and Nanaha have sections where they explain their backstory, and I consider this to be rather generic and repetitive to say the least, mostly because we see this in other anime or manga, characters talking about their backstory. This is rather rare in reality, I mean; do you meet someone and start talking about your past? No, you probably make a comment if the situation is worth it. This is not to say that all the times a character talks about his backstory is bad, but what matter here is HOW you do it.

Personally, I prefer when a character thinks back about his past.

Characters

Back when I wrote a blog about writing guidelines for new users I said that characters are the “soul” of any story. And, I’m sad to say this, but I don’t find myself liking most of these characters. This is not to say they are bad characters (with one notable exception), but I didn’t find many of them that engaging or interesting.

Let’s see them, shall we?

Hunter Kasai is our main lead, a former SAO player and shut-in nerd. His arc is simple in concept but it can be effective when done right: the nobody who needs to stand up and become a leader. Characters like Neo from Matrix, Izuku “Deku” Midoriya from My Hero Academia share this arc. This is the kind of Arc I believe Kirito should’ve had in the original story. That being said, is on the execution where Pyro fails to deliver.

Before SAO, Hunter’s failed relationships with girls seem to have truly impacted him, making him even more of a shut-in. Pyro never explores Hunter’s life outside of the game before the plot starts, besides a few comments from the MC himself. This would’ve been more effective to get to properly know and understand him as a character.

And even though he’s a shut-in, he’s never socially awkward to the point that he can’t have a conversation. Also he, rather quickly, assumes the mantle of leader of his posse, without much questioning. This is not to say that he has the capabilities to become one, after all, he’s quite smart and a good player. But the fundamental part of any leader is their personality rather than their skills. His personality had to be built up a bit more, he should’ve slowly opened up to his new friends, gaining more confidence in himself and later become the leader. A slower process would’ve sold this arc better.

Speed is a problem I’ll discuss later in the story.

Also, in the beginning, we find out that he seems to suffer some sort of PTSD, which would be logical considering he’s a former SAO player, but this is never really explored that much. It’s just mentioned by Hunter himself during the first few chapters and then never comes back again. I think that (at the beginning of the story) Pyro didn’t have much of an overall idea of where he wanted to take Hunter’s arc, and that is why we see all of these “arcs” for Hunter together. Either that or he first started going in one direction, then steered in another direction. What I should say is that, once you choose the narrative arc your characters have, stick to it.

We learn all this through Hunter explaining himself to other characters. And I’ve already commented on how this isn’t good.

Also, Hunter really, really, really likes to brew and drink Coffee. That’s not a critique, but it’s something that happens in almost every chapter.

With all that said, even with the problems that Hunter has, I wouldn’t say he is a bad character or a character I dislike. And that is more than I can say about our main antagonist, Gemn. Or rather Satoshi Kuroto.

Satoshi, same as Hunter, is a former SAO player and former member of the PK guild Laughing Coffin. He’s portrayed as a psychotic, sadistic and heartless, a guy with a god complex obsessed with recreating SAO again, for…reasons. However, we never truly explore the WHY of this obsession with him. This goes beyond a mere comment of creating what he deems SAO as “heaven”, but again, WHY is it heaven. The result of this is that Kuroto comes off as no more of a spoiled brat, wanting something out of a whim, and often showing tantrums when things don’t go his way.

It seems to me that Pyro tried to write a guy like Dio from JJBA (especially considering that the first opening of Jojo’s is one of the series’ theme songs), or some other character I don’t know from Kamen Rider. A guy with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. This could work, but not in a story with a rather serious tone, which is what Pyro is going for.

Satoshi has one thing going for him: he is powerful, and that makes him a threat to our characters. But that can get you so far. He may have a lot of story focus, but lacks any sort of charm, a compelling personality and he isn’t relatable at all. In short, I don’t see a human being when I’m reading a section of the story focused on him; I see one of the evil monster guys the Power Rangers have to defeat. Satoshi is simply a goal for Hunter to reach, and considering that the saying goes “the hero can only be as good as the villain”, that diminishes Hunter’s goal as well.

Satoshi also has an obsession with defeating Hunter, which relates back when they fought in SAO. But this just serves to establish their rivalry, not much else. Hunter does say that Satoshi took “everything from him”…uh…no…he didn’t. Or if he did, I lost that part.

Hunter’s posse is fine. We don’t really get to know any of them too well, nor do we get to explore their backgrounds, but they have enough personality to them to make their scenes…passible. When they shine a bit more is in the bond and when there is a bit of banter between them. It feels like they’ve spent a lot of time in-game together and that they’ve formed strong bonds.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from Kairi Touma. I expected another generic bad guy like Satoshi. To my surprise, gladly, I was wrong. Though not exceptionally unique or special, Kairi has something important that Satoshi really lacks: charm. He is confident, suave and can be rather sassy, and compared with Gemn, he’s an air of fresh air. He is a bit of a contradiction, however: he does everything for money, as he’s a thief, but he helps Nanaha, not for money, but because it’s the right thing to do.

To be honest, in the start, I didn’t care that much about Nanaha. More importantly, I didn’t understand why anyone would help a complete twat such as Satoshi in a genocidal mission such as this. It just feels that she was put there so that Satoshi could have a backup, someone to talk to and deliver his exposition. That being said, I did like the romance sub-plot with Kairi though, and I wanted to see them together. After all the shit Satoshi made her go through, it was nice to see her telling him to go fuck himself (anyone telling Satoshi that is great), leaving him and going off with Kairi, happy. That’s enough for me to say she’s best girl.

And btw Pyro, hoped they smashed in Hunter’s Bed.

Lastly, about the characters, there’s a bit of a Vimana effect here. In case you haven’t read SAO: Clashing Blades by User Ishimura elite, Vimana is a character that was introduced at some point in the story, and then disappeared without any traces. Therefore, I named this “the Vimana effect”.

We have two of those in this story:  Esoterror, a female player that appeared at some point, and then disappeared. I think she liked Hunter…to an extent? I’m not sure; she appeared so little I barely even remember.

And then there’s Anomaly, a player who streams online, what makes you wonder if he has been streaming since the death-game starts. I found him rather annoying, which I believe is what Pyro was going for, how annoying game streamers can be. Also, he temporarily obtained more power than Satoshi but…doesn’t defeat him? Why…? With the fame of being the player who defeated and cleared the game, he’d probably become even more famous and gain more views what means more money.

So, to sum up, the characters in EBO: Resume range from fine to “I really don’t like this guy”.

The Writing

In this section, I evaluate how Pyro wrote the whole story.

The biggest problem of the writing, which also impacts other sections of the story, is that it seems to always be in a rush to get to the next chapter. This can be seen already in the first chapter. After Hunter defeats a bunch of players, instead of getting to properly know and understand Hunter, we get the introductory scene for Kyoka and Hideo, and the explain what the main plot of the whole story will be, when it could’ve been easily done in chapter 2 or even 3. My point here is that, if the story is in such a rush to end, you’re not giving the characters any room to breathe or for the readers to properly understand relevant aspects of the world and setting. This story may have 20 chapters, but it should’ve had more.

Pyro changes the tense quite a bit during the whole story, including in the same chapter. Some parts are in the past tense, while others are in the present tense, almost as if Pyro doesn’t know which one to choose. I’d say that’s probably the most glaring things. If I had to choose one tense between the two, I’d choose the past tense, simply because most books are written in the past tense.

Also, the transitions between scenes aren’t really there. Generally, a paragraph that is telling you things about Hunter suddenly changes to the one that is talking about Satoshi, or vice versa. There’s no three/four dashes, nothing. This might sound like nitpicking, but it helps give the story some structure and a reasonable transition. That being said, he incorporates them in latter parts of the story.

Also, at the very start of the chapters, Pyro generally tells the audience how much time has passed since the last chapter, or makes some reference to a holiday, like Christmas or Halloween. This is rather; may I say it, lazy? There are better ways to start a chapter, especially because we can tell what day it is since Pyro actually puts the date on each of his chapters (something I think is perfectly fine and I even do it myself).

Pyro also goes into great detail about each of the armors and how do they look. This is not stellar writing, but it helps in “transporting” the reader into the world of the story, which is something I think all good literature should do. That being said, I think that drawings would’ve benefited this story a lot. As I’ve said earlier, the medium this whole story is based around, Tokusatsu shows, is a very visual medium, therefore, a few drawings of the armors and the characters would’ve benefited this story a lot.

Most of the mistakes I’ve pointed out I consider them to be reasonable for a writer who’s writing his very first story, especially when we consider this to be a fanfic. That being said, I’d recommend Pyro to read a book from a proper author. Doesn’t matter the genre, but read a lot. That’ll improve the writing in more ways than you could imagine. Also, the writing becomes much better as the story progresses.

Conclusion

It might seem that I bashed this series too much. To an extent, that is true. I’m not the same guy that wrote the review for SAO: CB all those years back. I’ve become more critical of the writing I see in media since then. That being said, I’m this review taking in consideration that this is a fanfiction, and the very first written by Pyro. And overall, even with the many problems, I found out throughout the story, I consider it to be: FINE.

It won’t be winning any writing awards, but nevertheless, it’s a perfectly fine starting base for a first story. Both Ishi and I, after a starting with our sequels, we found ourselves not liking our first stories that much, especially Ishi who has since started the re-write. But, happily I might say, that’s not my case. Even though SAO: PoA has more than a few problems, I’m glad that was my starting story, I’m glad I ended, and I’m glad that SAO: NA will turn out to be better. This thing of looking back and not completely liking what you do is something we’ll have to learn to live with, and learn from those mistakes and make sure the next chapter and the next story we write is better than the one before it.

I think I pointed out those mistakes pretty well here, so I hope it helps.

One thing that nobody, and I do mean, nobody, can take away here is the effort Pyro put into writing this story. Even when, I think he knew that what he was writing wasn’t as good as he wanted it to be and even when few, if any, people were reading it, he still finished the story. And that deserves praise.

One more thing I can say is that I’ll be reading the sequel.

…

And to end this review: Futaba is not best girl.

Mai is.