Shangri-La Frontier (シャングリラ・フロンティア)

Finally... You've finally defeated the evil god!

It's all thanks to you, Sunraku.

Thank you!

Looking back, it's been such a long, hard journey.

Yeah.

I've been waiting for this moment.

Faeria.

You're going down along with that evil god!

You're more of a evil god to me!

Most of the craps were your fault!

Woohoo!

I finally beat Failia Chronicle!

I got my revenge, yeah!

In the present where anything using a TV screen seen as retro,

and Full-Dive VR games are the standard.

Underneath a few great games, many titles were released

with abysmal gameplay unable to keep up with visual advances.

They are what's called "trash game."

Normally, these are games people despise and never want to play,

but there are actually those who seeks out to play them.

In other words, the freaks.

It was a trashy game that lived up to the rumors.

And Rakuro Hizutome is one among such freaks.

What a sweet feeling of release!

Now I know how prisoners must've felt getting out of prison.

Well then, what trash game should I play next?

It is him, the "Trash Game Hunter."

I throw away my defense and put on my bird mask headgear

I'm a hustler My point only goes to my luck stats

Parry parry now this is my style

playing broken games all night... who's that knight?

Broken game is sickness

toxic scattered, now you're a patient

My heart is beating almost twice as fast

The chaos wither get it bite that bug

Terrible gimmick

new game a.k.a suicide??

I don't give a damn

No, not yet NO it's not enough

NO it's not enough

I still can go

Everyone looks dirty to me

Everything looks broken to me

we can go, we can go

to that mountain top, not afraid to drop

this world is going to be mine... duh

Morning.

Nobody's here, of course.

Mom, one of your butterflies just escaped.

Oh, dear! Thank you!

I'm off.

Take care!

U-Um, Hizutome-kun.

Wh-What are you doing right now?

Wait, no. What game are you playing right now?

Whoa, really? I actually play that one, too!

Okay!

- Hizu... - Sup, Rakuro!

- Hey. - Staying up all night playing game again?

Oh, you should hear this. It was really awful!

You won't believe how trashy it was!

Tomorrow's summer break, huh.

That ought to drive up sales.

Welcome! Oh, Rei-chan!

Hello.

Back from practice?

Yes.

Sorry, but he's not here today.

N-No! I'm only here to check out some games...

C'mon, there's no need to hide it at this point.

Aww, a girl in love. So nice!

C-Come on, Mana-san!

He's taking on a big trash game right now, so he hasn't come here in a while.

Big?

The one he's playing right now is that Failia Chronicle, after all.

It might take him a bit longer.

Oh, you mean Faeria Chronicle Online?

My sister told me about it.

I heard it's a tough one.

It's a legendary trash game now.

It got an awful friendly AI,

the enemies charges at you with unfair attacks,

and it's packed with bugs and other stuff.

Without a high enough play skill, you can't even beat the first boss,

so a lot of players throw their VR devices in frustration.

And I heard he's taking on the last boss in swim trunks and a wrestling mask!

Why is that?

Dunno. I heard that it's more effective that way or something.

So, how's it going with your game?

Well, that's what I wanted to talk about...

Do you have any nice trash game lately?

Oh, it's been a while, Hizutome-kun.

Huh?

She's gone.

What?

Oh, never mind.

Did you beat Failia Chronicle already?

Of course! I pulled it off!

How was it?

It was awesomely trashy!

Glad to hear that.

The worst part about it was the heroine!

Her name's Faeria, but she's constantly pissing you off!

She's the reason for nearly all the trouble you run into,

but she always makes things worse and get villagers and party members killed!

Oh no! I hit someone!

What the heck are you doing?!

And when you wonder how she would pay off for it...

Curse you, evil god! This wouldn't happen if he wasn't here!

...she kept blaming everything on the final boss!

I was like, he wasn't even involved! It was all your doing!

The same thing happens whenever you go,

so when I decided to hit her out of frustration...

I'm angry now! I won't walk another step!

What?!

She refuses to advance the story!

It auto-saved so I can't even go back, and it takes three hours to fix her mood!

And that's not even all of it!

Ugh, just thinking about it pisses me off!

I'm impressed you put up with it until the end.

That's the thing!

There's about three minutes between beating the last boss

and the credit roll that's treated as a cutscene.

That's where you can beat the crap out of Faeria with no risk!

Ironically enough, the more annoyed you are at Faeria,

the more you wanna keep playing for those three minutes of reward! It's hell!

But... in that moment...

...it feels like it cleanses my entire being.

It makes me really appreciate being born.

I'm glad you're having fun.

But man, Failia Chronicle's just one hell of a trash game.

I can't think of anything else to play now.

Then how about you try out a good game for a change?

A good game?

You know something is good because you know what's bad,

and vice versa.

A Full-Dive VR game with over thirty million players.

Shangri-La Frontier...

It might be nice to try out the mainstream for once.

Right?

The opposite of trash game...

An undisputed god-tier game, huh.

Shangri-La Frontier, SLF for short.

It released last spring, and it's made it to Guinness World Record

for highest simultaneous player count.

As for the world setting...

An immigrant space fleet dies out,

leaving a new breed of mankind in their wake.

Several millennia later, the new mankind had built

a medieval-level society, and the players play as its resident.

So it's a classic fantasy world with some sci-fi elements.

Unlike Failia Chronicle where haters ended up having to look for good parts,

the haters here are outnumbered dozens of times over by the fans.

Utopia Entertainment Software, UES for short.

Funded by the creator of the Full-Dive VR game system:

the genius programmer, Tsukuyo Tsukuri,

it's the leading company in software, hardware development,

as well as internet service.

There's no way SLF that's made by UES themselves would be badly made.

I wonder when was the last time I played anything that's not trash.

I'm logged in, right?

Gotta first start by picking my job.

Whoa, this is impressive. Just how many jobs they have?

I'll go with Twinblade Mercenary since it looks good to get into.

Next is my origin.