A really perfect first half, that makes up for second half's shortcomings

A solid fun filled drama, with an underlying mesage of self love and romantic love in its purest form.

This drama tells the story of Ling MiaoMiao, who was suddenly dropped into a parallel game universe of the novel of her favourite author Fu Zhou, as the vicious SFL. In this historical game world, she needs to complete two major tasks which include, helping to defeat the villain and winning the heart of the hostile SML, set up in the novel as MuSheng.

This drama starts strong, the beginning episodes were incredible! The comedy and romance had me giggling. The directors knew the audience short attention span, a key advantage in this period, where we have so many cdrama being released; so it does a great job of hooking the viewers from the start. Being dropped right in the middle of an action scene with little to no explanation, but a FL running around trying to figure her way out and dying multiple times during the game "trial" period was quite funny and kept me glued to the screen. You'd think it's a short length series with the way it began and how fast paced and enlightening the story was set up. To make it even better, Episode 7 is a defining moment, that ultimately makes the viewer to never let go of the drama (you have to watch up to that episode to understand what I mean).

OK let's move to the Pros and Cons.

PROS :
• Main Leads - The story set up such entertaining leads that everyone comes to love. ML might come off too antagonistic in the beginning which might be offensive to some, but that's just how his character was created in the game. HOWEVER, within a few episodes he will turn out to be one of the MLs you will cherish in drama land. Both leads were deeper than they seemed, you will find yourself rooting for them in their journey. We also have 2 other leads and a cutie little bamboo shoot CuiCui, who stole the heart of not just the viewers, but the leads themselves.
• Acting - Esther Yu and Ding Yuxi are good actors, and they gave their all in this script. Esther's cuteness, great comedic timing and relatable bubbly vibe held it down effortlessly. For Ryan, when it comes to delivering different emotional scenes, as well as looking as if he is head over heels for the FL, he nails this and even goes the extra mile! He was a definition of "the eyes speak louder than words." Then, there was CuiCui who was also good as a child actor.
• The comedy was gold.
• Favorability score - It was one of my favourite things in the show as it intensified the romance - The roller coaster of having it go up and down, with the main excitement being how one could already feel the tough cookie ML was in love with the FL even at a low percentage.
• The chemistry was insane! It will have you kicking your legs in the air with excitement. Esther and Ryan have acted previously in the romance drama 'moonlight', therefore, reuniting again meant the chemistry will be taken up a notch. As mentioned above, even when the favorability score was low the chemistry was already too thick.
• Great premise and plot - I might be a bit biased here, but I really love this kind of plot, even in short length dramas. So I was glad to see this plot in a full length drama.
• The drama breaks all the nonsensical character tropes we normally see; for eg No FL and SFL rivalry, we had a beautiful sismance with both ladies very protective and supportive of each other.

No triangle (I hate triangles)! The supposed love rivals got the hint and moved on and in turn the FLs were all about supporting and not being cruel to other ladies. We also got sort of a bromance. One of the love rivals, the Marquis was a nice guy who genuinely liked the FL and never manipulated or forced any situation on her as we do see in some tropes. Finally, we had the perfect balance of ML (Green flag and grey).
• Cinematography, visuals and styling on point. I must commend the makeup team for the beautiful work they did for the 4 leads! The MUA especially for Lin MiaoMiao was chef kiss, this is hands down my favourite look of Esther and Ryan.


CONS (aka the second-half shortcomings):
• Too many side plots were crammed into the second half and we had multiple themes such as "end of the world--revengeful woman--consort dowager--half brother--demon reveal--amnesia--modern day plot--CuiCui grandpa--Fuyi's background--mother's friend'' and every other imaginable side plot all at once. Then, totally neglecting the romance, which was not supposed to be, as the name of the drama is titled 'love game' in eastern fanatsy.
• Editing and too many cuts - If a drama episodes are reduced, it's only right to reduce the number of plots as well or at least space them out. Rather some scenes were cut and we were left with some unresolved matter, and this was glided over as if nothing happened (Yes, I'm mainly speaking about that damned bracelet, legit the most hated item)!
• Thinking the second leads were like npcs, but in the second half they gave us too much of their scenes with almost zero romance for the leads. Unfortunately, the second leads' situation didn't really hook me, I wasn't buying what they were selling.
• The FL was not well utilised in the second half that I started missing her vibe. In the first half she brought the comedy, drove the plot with others etc. However, in the second half she was put a bit in the background.
• The romance was watered down so much between the leads in the second half. In the first half, we literally started with a favorability score and I was anticipating how passionate their romance will be when the score gets high. Also, the ML is very intense in everything he does. So, I expected when he falls in love to be even more intense, cause at 50% we already saw it and at close to 100%, I expected more fire from their relationship. But they glided over their relationship,  and all focus was on the multiple side plots.

Finale :
I love that the transmigration setup was much more deeper than what we normally see. The message passed across showed this was definitely not a simple fluff and more about self love in its pure form. My only annoyance with the finale is how they never showed Fu Zhou even for a second in the last minutes of the ending. [SPOILER ALERT, DON'T READ] - He was under a life threatening situation the last time he was showed, and as self love was one of the main theme for the drama, wouldn't it have made more sense to show him, so that viewers can jubilate alongside that he got healed? Yes, I know its his book signing and it's obvious that he is fine as we hear him call out her name from a distance, however, seeing him healthy and smiling would have gone a long way in making an impact, and reuniting our leads.

In general,  I enjoyed this drama and I do recommend it, even if you get annoyed with second half, you will always have a smile on your face when you remember the first half. Btw it has a high rewatch value! OK I should stop repeating first and second half atp..

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The drama with so much potential (in the first few episodes), that didn't fully deliver.

A straightforward plot, with no real twists. A case of too much reveal too soon until there was nothing to hold unto.

Before I start with the pros & cons (I know I have long cons, don't judge), I just want to say if you are starting this drama, you will have so much fun in the first 3 episodes. It was like Cdrama grey ML was back with a mix of Tantai Jin + Xie Wei character, coupled with a Badass Assassin for FL. To top it off Liu Xueyi is an insanely good actor and WunJinyan - you can't mention revenge and a fight scene without her!

However, this show lacked the mystery, scheming and complexity that I was expecting.

Pros :
- Fight scenes : Well choreographed, looked downright dangerous. Best fight scene was of WuJinyan and the Crown Prince's guards.

- Acting of main leads: I might be biased here but I like Liu Xueyi, always seen him as a good and mature actor. His ability to deliver multi expression won't leave you doubting what he is feeling at any moment. His role in first 4 episodes as the unhinged Prince and shadow master (spoilers alert 🌚), was too good, with the lazy drawl and look. Its a shame they did a total 360 on his character immediately; cause the grey character was more in line with the premise of the story.
WuJinyan pulled off a determined, undying assas*in, whose purpose was to revenge her people's death. She outdid herself with the fight scenes, surviving her trauma and the danger lurking on the path to revenge. Both are beautiful actors who don't care how they look in a scene, as long as they deliver and I like such.
- The chemistry between leads esp. in the first episodes was sizzling and intense! The kiss scenes were good! However, the intensity fizzled out and the romance became more fluffy.
- Sound engineering was ok! I have watched recent shows where the sound is jumbled and messy, but here it's perfect.
- The way they filmed traumatic situations
were quite professional and mature. The leads had deep conversation and worked through their experience together. There was a particular scene where they were stuck in the forest; ML was injured and couldn't feel his nerves and had to relive his trauma. The ensuing incident that occurred could have been labelled laughable or embarrassing if it was not well filmed, but the directors, LXY and WJY outdid themselves in that scene. What came out instead, was a heartfelt moment.
- Cinematography and OST were nice
- MeiLin being a girls girl! Her friends also came through for her a lot in the 2nd arc 👏
- Good premise.

Cons:
- The plot in its entirety was quite underwhelming (🚨SPOILERS, don't read) : The ML's 10 year revenge plan was to train a victim, as an assassin that will try to kill him inorder to reopen the case. All those years could have been used to lay traps and plan better but he spent it on just trying to reopen the case (like this is the reason he used poison on the FL). There were faster ways to reopen the case than that route. Then, after he got evidence, his plan was to tell his dad in the privacy of their Chambers that he is innocent and it was the CP. No backup or anticipated plans whatsoever. The culprit had better plans even though ML had a head start.
Also, when the FL had learned about the real culprit, ML stopped her from kil*ng him as it will be too easy and he wanted justice to be served. Well guess what, there was no real justice served, the culprit died peacefully in the hands of the woman he loved while only few court members knew of his crimes. FL never carried out her revenge directly; ML was sadly still regarded as the mass murder*r, until he had to go prove himself. With the initial setup of a grey ML, I was hoping for a scheming one that will expose the culprit on a wider scale & punish him publicly.

- Went downhill as it progressed: It was gunning for one of the drama of the year with the first episodes, until it wasn't. Everything was revealed too soon. From first scenes, it felt like the CP had a huge red alarm above his head screaming - "I am the culprit🗣." I didn't mind so much reveal at first, cause I thought there were more twists to come, but nope. The story arc from ep 24 took me ages to finish. I remember rejoicing when the SML left in the 1st arc, only for them to pull a 2nd arc with his obsession more prominent. No offence to the actor cause I love BWJ.

- LuoMei and CP romance: They bored us so much with their scenes. At first, it was an endless cycle of love declaration and refusal. Then all of a sudden, after a creepy aphrodisiac incident orchestrated by him, she fell head over heels and was willing to jeopardise her loyalty, morals and army for him. It weirdly took a nanosecond for such devotion. That was character death inmo. Would be understandable if they made her fall out of love with MJH and started getting a bit attracted to the CP (cause let's be honest, contrary to what too many drama show, no one stays in a hopeless unrequited love situation in real life). But to pull the full switch, to the extent of a general willing to betray her country was crazy writing. They never told us why she ..... the Eunuch; that scene annoyed me.

- Concubine Yan and granddad husband: On all levels its weird, I tried to ignore as they weren't all up on our faces with it, but they had to make her pregnant making us know the fact we were all trying to deny. Yes I know during those periods, such marriages happen blah blah, but that doesn't make it right. It wouldn't have been that bad if the lady's mannerisms were mature. But Yan was clearly portrayed as a naive, cute little girl, looking to live life. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed how cute she was throughout the show (esp. cause I love the actress since her role in 'To get her'), but when it came to the emperor situation, it's not cute!
- Ending: I won't rant about the ending to not give out spoilers, but whenever a show's rating suddenly goes low, you already know it wasn't what people wanted. We didn't power through 32 episodes just for all that to happen (Yes, no spoilers this time 🤗).

In general, it was a good watch that could have been great if they kept to the initial premise of the story.

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