VERSUS: The Elite Trials

First off, the biggest pro that I see in this game is how the story evolves. The first book focuses more on consistency, with developing the main goals of your character and making consistent choices paramount to succeed. However, the second book, while still making sure you keep consistency, offers you some more flexibility given the politicking scheming side of it. Overall, despite it being a little confusing at times, I find it best to take it at face value. If I don’t understand what is being explained, I either read it over or simply look at the choices and see which stat the choices utilizes best. This way, I can take it at “face value” and just determine which choice coincides with my stat if the explaining gets too confusing. That said, I’d recommend it to anyone. Very well done.

I enjoyed all of the Heroes stories that's been written by this author and I've come to enjoy Versus as well. There's so much depth to the character you create and how it represents your own desires. I love delving into the lore and learning about all of your fellow Versians and their motivations. I was really touched by Grog's decision to save his people if he managed to become Reborn. Apart from this, I honestly would just replay this story over and over to go through the Wone chapters over and over again. Great work!

I usually love ZS's games so I'm having a hard time figuring out why this game in particular just doesn't work for me. I guess it feels like we're still doing a lot of literary (and literal) world building and not really following the main plot as much. If anyone asked me what the plot of this game was, I would have to shrug; a lot happened but none of it contributed to a coherent overall story, unlike the first game where I could tell you the plot. If the goal was to feel like a detective story, it missed the mark by a lot, which is really disappointing and very unlike the usual quality I see from these games. I'm still going to keep hoping the next game makes sense of this one, but it will be with less enthusiasm for sure.

Like heroes this is a great read. The effort put into it is nothing less than magnificent. Sadly, at times the writing could be more detailed. At other times it seems confused. Perhaps due to the enormity of the work, the author tried to put in. Also the gender bending and abbreviated writings tend to get old and make following the story difficult at times as it tends to pull the reader out of the story until you get used to it. All the little things that need tweaking resulted in this being rated at a 4 out of five. You can certainly replay this.

Great follow up to book one, still has me wanting more! Time for the year wait for book three unfortunately. If you are hoping to have the same "need for more" you got from book one this will do it. The say the story itself is ..... "deep" is a understatement. If you are looking for a easy read this book will be a little more than you might want, but don't let that steer you away. Please give it a chance rather than go off my word.