The Final Trial

Level UP, Book 3

By: Dan Sugralinov

Narrated by: Ramon De Ocampo

Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Phil Panfilov's tribulations seem to have run their course. He's quite prepared to quit the alien game installed in his brain. In fact, Phil looks forward to a normal existence: both he and his company are in excellent shape. Still, the timing seems to be badly wrong.

Humanity's enemies are stronger than ever. Despite all his new abilities, Phil has never been so close to defeat. But there's too much at stake this time, his interface included. Without it, all his hopes for a better future will be thwarted.

Phil can't afford that to happen. He has to face his enemies and defeat them, otherwise all his work has been for nothing.

Can he really confront a force which is infinitely more powerful than he can ever hope to become? A force which will stop at nothing to achieve its ends....

©2019 Dan Sugralinov; English translation copyright 2019 by Elizabeth Yellen, Irene Woodhead, and Neil P. Woodhead (P)2019 Tantor

Lovely. Worth every moment of my time.

I loved this series and thank the author for bringing maturity to the LITRPG genre. This is not a perfect book or series. There were times I found the main character to be stupid and naive. But the author remained true to the core of his work and strong character development.
During a time when every book in this genre is infected with harems and juvenile stupidity, Sugralinov produced a breathe of fresh air. This was completely new and different, grounded in the real world with real world problems and concerns. I look forward to this author's future works.
If you want harems, two dimensional characters and pointless motivations this is not the work for you.
If you want adult entertainment and a main character you wish you knew in real life, please pick this one up. It is worth your time.

terrible

the single most moronic main character ever. i really think it ruins the story and is incredibly annoying. it was mediocre in the others but its too much in this one.

Frustrating

Minor spoilers. Sorry.

Book 1 was amazing. So much so that I purchased both the book and then the audiobook. Book 2 was somehow just as great. Book 3 however was just frustrating. Then there's the ending. It wasn't bad per se, it was just ...why? You get the impression that somewhere in between book 2 and 3, they decided to go in a slightly different direction. They made obvious plans for certain plots that
they just disregarded entirely and kinda patched over. This lead to a slightly rushed ending that actually ruined our main character in my opinion.

Martha for example, was essentially used and thrown away without even a proper goodbye. She by far had the worst end. Other than Phill's ex wife that is.

Say what you want about Phill's ex wife (forgot her name), but Phill essentially ruined her life. She was used and abused by both Phill and her new partner in different ways. Mental, financial and even physical abuse. At least she got a new job though ...probably. It was never concluded. That alone would have been forgivable, but then there were the accusations that he got her pregnant then abandoned her. Obvious lies that he refuted because he would never intentionally do such a thing to a woman ...well until the ending that is.

Now my point isn't to say that everyone deserved a happy ending, but all these and more made our main character a bit unlikable by the end. The last moment of the book didn't help either.

The book was partially saved by a few decent parts and amazing narration.

Why did it end like that?

Wonderful book. But the last paragraph or so of it left a lot to be desired. They didnt have tonleave it like that. Damn you Mr Sugralinov.

Frustrating

I really like this series, but why oh why did Dan make Phil grow and improve in book 2 then suddenly go back to behaving like a moron again. The series is unique in the genre for concept, but falls into the trap of making the biggest challenges the MCs own idiocy.

Phil uses his writing skill to become Jesus

spoilers

the end resets Phil to pre book one so all of the three books was pointless.

Best in the series this far

The story starts to wrap up in this book. Everything has been leading up to some key events that takes place in a fast paced and interesting story. I was hoping it would go this way. There are more or less two stories going on (or a short third where we see bits and pieces) and both was entertaining to follow.

As with the others, there is lots that gets messed up in the translation to english. The dialouges are sometimes really bad (because of the translation) but the voice actor makes it believable and it works really good. This last book has less of the weird sayings or "similes" that I had to google to see what they ment in book 2, so thats good.

All in all, it´s easily worth a credit and some things in the book makes you think about yourself and your own choices. I recommend!

Spoils ending to his boxing series of Level Up

I enjoyed the series however some chapters are slow to start. With that said my biggest issue with this series is that book 3 ruins the ending to his boxing version of the series Level Up. I enjoyed that book and was looking forward to the next. Now that I know how it will end, more or less I just don't have that same desire. Crybaby did not really need to be add to this series, he really did not add much.

I recommend to wait to read/listen to book 3 until the boxing series catches up. Since I don't know the context I probably would read/listen to the complete boxing version first. A lot of questions get answered in this series. I don't think those same answers will be provided in the boxing version. The mystery should make the boxing version more enjoyable as the first read/listen to in this universe.

Not as good as Book 1 and 2. Unfocused Forced

This one is a definite downgrade or debuff from book 1 and 2. Many times this story feels scattered then forced forward unnecessarily. The main character continually has lapses that only serve to add to the oppositional goal of the author and seem to be a divergent move from the characters baseline performance. Imagine gaining untold levels of intelligence and awareness then you just dope along acting blind and unfocused and picking fights with people out of nowhere. The series lost me with this book.

Stop at book 2 while you can.

I'm the first two books the mc goes from useless nobody to mildly stupid but capable businessman. In this book he devolves into a complete and total incompetent. He has no foresight, no actual drive, his goals are so scattered as to be meaningless and his other self has zero competitive ability. If you were in a game to keep all you've worked for or forget everything and go back to being useless, then you'd expect to work hard and smart. The mc on the other hand, regardless of his past at gaming, just blunders around screwing up left and right, against people who've never worked with a gaming system in their lives. Couldn't bare to finish this one. Stop after book two and pretend this one doesn't exist.

Well, that was amazing

Start to finish the story was well kept well read and kept me totally engrossed with the characters. It's a shame it had to finish.

Very enjoyable 3rd instalment!

Fantastic final instalment in the initial trilogy.

I felt every story arch that was able to be followed through to conclusion were where possible, don't get me wrong the ending is still fantastic and left me with lots of new questions! Dan Sugralinov also managed to capture just the right amount of emotion - hard to explain unless you read / listen. Closing out of some characters will make you feel a bit sad and a bit happy for the most part.

There was a nice nod to the Side series of books with the inclusion of Crybaby, not really sure why the interface got his name wrong still? but that's probably just me and im sure i will understand once i start/finish up Level Up: Knock Out.

Great series

Great series overall. I did however find the hexagons and some other aspects of the trial confusing. Having said that it still was an awesome listen.

Thank you

What an ending

I've probably done about 3 reviews out of over 100 audio books I own, this being one of them. This entire series has got to be one of my favourites. The ending is amazing. I would recommend it to anyone.

brilliant

like usual Dan sugralinov writes a surprising book twisting the momento in a different sense and bringing you back.