I have rarely watched a drama that put me through such emotional highs and lows. What it did well, it did very well, but where it struggled in pacing, it struggled epically to the point that I shelved this drama for several months and very nearly dropped it. It is, in my opinion, a fairly flawed drama with an interesting concept but not nearly enough background or explanation for how things work. That being said it overcomes those flaws with colorful characters and an underdog story that keeps the viewer engaged.

The storyline as I mentioned before is, at its heart, your typical underdogs take on the big guns and come out victorious. It is also a comeback story for lead character, Ye Xiu, after being forced to retire from e-sports. It's overall quite heartwarming. It's fun to see this team slowly taking shape, to see the many personalities coming together and forming a cohesive unit. The first half or so of the drama focuses more on Ye Xiu and his comeback as Lord Grim, building up his new weapon and establishing his new character and the second half focuses more on the building of the team and their efforts to turn themselves into a professional team. Pacing during the first half is an issue with some real highs and then a lot of just filler that kills the mood. In particular, I believe it was around episodes 16-20 the pacing got so bad that it very nearly made me drop the drama. Thankfully things picked up again around episode 21 or so and the pacing improved significantly, but it was less than stellar there for a minute. One of the things I really appreciated about this drama was the lack of romance. I kept waiting for it to happen and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't. I enjoyed the focus on the friendships and felt that it was stronger remaining as such rather than evolving into something more.

This drama, overall, had a stellar cast. But there were a few that really stood out and a few that really didn't. Jiang Long as Shao Tian was a riot. I absolutely adored him and he was so entertaining to watch. He completely brought his character to life. I enjoyed his chemistry with Gao Han Yu as Yu Wen Zhou, they played off of each other really well and I overall just liked their friendship. Lai Yi is always a pleasure to watch because he just disappears into whatever character he's playing. He was so entertaining as the goofy Bao Rong Xing and I appreciated the chance to see him in a new kind of role. Daisy Li as Tang Rou did a good job of bringing her character's aloof arrogance while also showing her softer side. I've seen Yang Yang in a few dramas now and, in my opinion, he's mostly just a pretty face. He's not a bad actor, its more that it doesn't seem like he's really acting, like he's just being himself. He's not quite able to showcase more complex or subtle emotions. There's just a sameness to a lot of what he does that makes him a bit boring to watch. I really didn't find his character all that interesting and in part that was due to his acting. Lai Yu Meng as Su Mu Cheng had similar issues in that I felt she was very stale in her acting. Same facial expressions, same reactions throughout with very little variation throughout the drama.

Despite the large number of characters, I was overall quite impressed with how most of them were given enough screen time to make a meaningful contribution to the story. I was also impressed with the character development of many of the characters, particularly Sun Xiang. I really appreciated the fact that while his character improved and he wasn't the irredeemable jerk from the beginning, it wasn't like he'd turned into a saint either. He was still himself, still cocky, but not quite with that same I'm-better-than-everyone attitude. Chen Guo is another one who goes through quite a dramatic development from bullying internet café owner to supportive team manager. Her journey is definitely a bit more up and down and I found myself alternately really liking her character and finding her incredibly annoying. When she was being her bossy, badass self, I really liked her. She was a no nonsense, get stuff done kind of girl and I appreciated that. But once she found out who Ye Xiu was, I found her pandering to him to be annoying and out of character. And then once she became the team manager initially, her wishy washiness and weak willed attitude also seemed out of character. Once she snapped out of that and got back to being a girl boss, I enjoyed her character again. (As a side note, I had zero issues with her age. I didn't think she looked too old at all.) You also have characters like Yi Fan who starts out lacking confidence and acting as a doormat for others and by the end has gained confidence, is vice captain, and helps lead the team to victory. Each character has their own journey and there are a lot of characters who make personal discoveries through playing Glory and finding themselves better for it.

I was not overly fond of Ye Xiu's character for a number of reasons. First and foremost, he was just too perfect. I find characters like that supremely annoying because of how completely unrealistic they are. They're unrelatable and because of that I personally find them uninteresting. Similarly, the fact that he goes undefeated in the game until his weapon breaks, again, just seems unrealistic. I don't think he thought of himself as superior to anyone but his preachiness got irritating after a while. No one always knows the right thing to say in every situation.

Though limited, I really enjoyed the OST. The opening and closing songs were amazing and I enjoyed the other songs as well. My only complaint is that I felt they were overused. You had the same songs used repeatedly and it was noticeable after a while.

Despite overall enjoying this drama, there were definitely some flaws/things I didn't love.
-I like knowing how things work so one big issue I had was not having more information about Glory and the game's dynamics. With that I was left with a number of questions regarding Ye Xiu's Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. Could any player create their own weapon? And how exactly was that done? Were there any limits? And so on and so forth. Obviously not all of those questions could be answered, but I feel like a few of them could have been to give some basics.
-Sticking with game dynamics to an extent, more information on the guilds too and how they were laid out would have been interesting. They didn't play as big of a role after the first half of the drama, but during the first half it would have been nice to have a little more information.
-One aspect that I consider a flaw is that no one seemed to suspect Lord Grim of being Ye Xiu. Ye Xiu retires and suddenly this new, extraordinarily skilled player appears and no one finds that suspicious? Really?
-In these kind of underdog stories, I hate when they throw in gimmicks to make it so they win when they actually lost. They did that twice in this drama, the first time due to an issue with the referee's timer and the second in the finale they only won because Ye Xiu broke a record. To do it once is bad enough, but twice, especially in the final competition is just lame.
-I know Team Happy needed certain types of players for their team, but I didn't love the way they manipulated people to get them to join. Yes, they gave back game cards even after they'd taken them and ultimately no damage was done and people joined willingly, but they were still manipulative and that didn't sit well with me.

To sum it up, this drama left me with a mix of emotions. There were several scenes that left me feeling quite emotional, for example, when the captains and Shao Tian meet Ye Xiu in the Heavenly Domain and welcome him back and when Team Happy all assembles on stage at the conference. Those scenes were so well done, but a lot of the time, those highly emotional scenes would be followed by filler episodes or scenes that just kind of killed the mood. This drama was truly an emotional roller coaster and not necessarily in a good way. I'm glad that I finished it, but if Season 2 ever comes out, I don't think I'll be watching and I don't think this is a drama that I'll be rewatching, certainly not anytime in the near future.