• Bushido Online: The Battle Begins

  • By: Nikita Thorn
  • Narrated by: Christian Rummel
  • Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,977 ratings)

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Bushido Online: The Battle Begins  By  cover art

Bushido Online: The Battle Begins

By: Nikita Thorn
Narrated by: Christian Rummel
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Publisher's summary

How Often Do You Get a Second Chance in Life?

Seth Kinnaman's dream has always been to become the best fighter the world has ever seen. After spending his entire life training, he's finally ready to test his skills in the biggest tournament on Earth, where hundreds of the fiercest competitors vie for the supreme title.

In the semifinals, Seth is getting the upper hand when his opponent uses an illegal blow to take him out. Upon waking up from a coma, Seth finds out he's lost his sight. He's become blind, and he's completely devastated. All his dreams are now shattered, and he soon falls into depression. What is he going to do with his life?

That's when he's introduced to Bushido Online, a game that promises to keep his skills sharp while he figures out what his next move is going to be. Set in feudal Japan, this VRMMORPG is the land of ninjas and samurai. A world where the most honorable warriors meet the vilest bandits and where mythical creatures roam free. When he'll enter that new reality, Seth will discover that while it's easy to make friends there, one doesn't have to try very hard to get his fair share of powerful enemies.

Soon he's going to have entire clans hunting him down as he struggles to learn the ropes and regain a sense of normalcy. Thankfully, Seth has a few things going for him: his extensive knowledge of combat and a never-say-die attitude.

Bushido Online: The Battle Begins is the first book in the Bushido Online series, a work of litRPG fiction.

Credit: Cover art by Pindurski

©2017 LitRPG Freaks (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

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A Gamer's Fun Ride!

Bushido Online is something that I have waited for, for a very long time. Most of these GameLIT, LITRPG books all tend to play out in a western fantasy setting. That is fine, as most fantasy novels I have read are in that setting but I really wanted something new and different. In fact, I was thinking about this and recalled when AD&D put out a hardcover called Oriental Adventures. That book changed my RPG life. I added ninjas and martial arts to my campaign, and soon I was having more fun than I had in years. Bushido Online made me think of that as I read it. This is the kick in the pants writers need to do something different and fun. No need to stick to the same old stuff, and man, did Thorn ever end up miles away from all the other books in this gaming category.

Are there some issues with the book? Sure, all books have some problems, and I like to get those out of the way first, so we can get into the good stuff later. We start with a protagonist who is a master martial artist, but after an accident, he becomes blind. As a result, he ends up spending all of his time in a new game, the titular Bushido Online. A game in which he can see and act normally again.

So what is the bad? To be fair, there is nothing that says you must have a character overcoming adversity. However, I do think that the MC, Seth, should have had some issues dealing with his loss of vision. Could he learn to cope better? Could he accept it? I don’t know because it seemed like he never logged out of the game. Other people seem to do so, but not Seth. He has hunkered down for the long haul and seems to have no plans to ever go back to eat, take a bath, or have a real life. So, I would have liked to have seen this addressed a touch more than it was.

Beyond that, this book was, to be blunt, a fun ride through feudal Japan. A place we rarely ever get to experience in the US as most games are Eurocentric. Another boon is the fact that Seth is not some overpowered Ogre running rampant with special abilities or opportunities no other PC seems to have. His training in the martial arts does help him a little; but not so much that it makes him untouchable. He is an average everyday player in Bushido Online. He is only 9th level when the book is completed and has some nice gear, but there is nothing that can secretly slay gods. It is very refreshing to find an MC in this genre who isn’t at least level 70 by the end of the story, and possess magic or equipment that no one else will ever find. I loved this aspect. Additionally, the story flowed. There were some emotional parts and action-filled episodes. The plot, the pacing, and the characterizations wound together in one nice tight story.

Rummel does a fine job narrating. His voice fits in with the characters and the setting. His voice is almost whiskey hardened, nice and deep. He plays each character, no matter how big or small as if they mattered, so no throwaways here. He adds a lot of emotion and gravitas that is needed. I loved his work.

I did receive a copy of this book from ABR for an honest and unbiased review, which I have fairly given here. Even though I did receive a promo copy for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and only inspired me to be more honest. In fact, getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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66 people found this helpful

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A very good LITRPG Book.

I saw a review that almost scared me away from the series but I spent the credit anyway. This guy does not mope about his handicap through the entire book or take a lot of time bringing it up. Everything that happens has relivance to the plot and the story as a whole.

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41 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • RJ
  • 08-08-18

Entertaining and original LitRPG!

Our protagonist Seth Kinnaman is a young man approaching the pinnacle of his dreams in the MMA world. Those dreams are shattered in the world-class semi-finals. Seth wakes up from a coma in the hospital and he is blind. Falling into a deep depression, Seth does not know what to make of his life. His manager, wanting to help put Seth on the road to recovery, enlists him into a VRMMORPG game called Bushido Online. With the aid of cutting edge technology Seth will be able to see, feel, smell, and experience a virtual reality to compare with the real world. In what I deem a novel and original approach, the setting for Bushido Online is that of feudal Japan around the 10th and 11th centuries where warlords called Shogun ruled and retained power through the Samurai. Seth enters the game as SethK, a level one noob in a tiny Japanese village with an elderly Japanese instructor to teach him a few beginning skills. As SethK slowly advances in statistics, skills and levels he makes both friends and enemies. Having no gaming experience whatsoever SethK must learn all the rules, mechanics, norms, and intricacies of the game world. This knowledge does not come easily and SethK makes a few minor and a couple major mistakes along the way. Given the rich environment and interesting setting of feudal Japan, Bushido Online is extremely fun and exciting to imagine. The game mechanics are fairly accurate and hold true to a world-building, dungeon crawling MMORPG path. I am liking this series as well as The Land: Chaos Seeds LitRPG Series, which I also found interesting and entertaining. I’m looking forward to volume two and more.

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24 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Different but Emotional

Different then normal LitRpg
Spoilers
2/3 trying recover from the trauma of loosing eye sight. 1/3 fighting/leveling
Asking NPC deep questions which they don't answer. MC takes the game very serious. The world building is mainly based off him being very emotional. That be ok but alot of the other characters (to many drop in characters that play a big part in one scene then are gone) in the story remind him it's just a game. Even telling him about what to expect next in the game story. Most of the story is filled with him looking for answers in the game about how he feels. Those two don't go together you can't have high emotions from MC and so many other characters just blowing it off. Then it's a martial arts books so it's highly descriptive about each move and fight style. The book has to choose what type of book it wants to be. It's a return

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23 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

love this book!

all I want to know is when the next book is going to be out? This book is good. I have listen to this book multiple times, and I still can't wait until the next book comes out.

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20 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointment

After reading all the good reviews, I had high hopes for this book that the work failed to deliver. The books is basically two distinct stories. First is a quick intro to Seth Kinnaman, setting up what you would think would be part of a main plot line. But no, the moment Seth Kinnaman enters the Bushido Online VRMMORPG and becomes SethK, the book never returns to the real world with a slight indirect reference at the end of the book. The second part of the story is just a series of RPG style battles as SethK explores the world and ranks up. SethK never once exits Bushido Online and there is no more character development in the real world, so by the end I was stumped to understand the point of this story.

The narration is very good, but I can't say that the narrator had much to work with. I found that I had to re-listen to many sections of the book when I realized I had tuned out or fallen asleep. Book 1 is where this series ends for me.

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14 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

More game mechanics than story

I prefer litRPG’s which use the game aspect as a backdrop to the story. For me this title overemphasized game mechanics and stats. It felt almost like hearing play by play of a D&D session with half of the text being in-game stats (level, hp, spell names, etc.). A bit too heavy a mix for me to enjoy. A nitpick regarding the story premise: a computer game developer setting up the tech described would more than likely make an FPS, not an MMO.

I had a tough time with the narrator. His character voicing for the most part I thought was fine but his actual narrator voice sounded to me like a top 40 radio DJ. I can usually get used to the timbre and phrasing of a narrator after a few chapters but I really couldn’t in this case.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Second chance at badassery

a talented fighter gets a second chance at being a badass. pretty awesome book and athletic non-gamer has a reason to enter a game world and he thoroughly enjoys it.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great, fast paced, but I wish there was more of a difference in time.

This book is great for the short answer, if you need a book to get you through until your regular series gets the next book out. The only little hiccup is that time is not really distinctive when it comes to how long Seth is in game. I hope on another listen I’ll know how long Seth is in game or if it’s just one long play through.

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7 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Starts strong. Ends weak.

Left too many questions unanswered. I realize it is part of a series but basic essentials like food and water IRL are never addressed.

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