I picked up Riftside books 1 and 2 during a sale and honestly let them sit for a while. They didn’t immediately grab me visually, and I kept choosing my usual favorites instead. When I finally ran out of those, I gave book one a try — and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. That led me straight into book two.
Overall, I’m glad I continued.
Let’s start with the narration. In book one, Roq the hammer was… loud. Distractingly loud. It genuinely pulled me out of the experience at times. In book two, they clearly adjusted the mix, and it helped significantly. Roq’s volume now matches the other main character voices much better. I still sometimes wish his delivery was a little more subdued — I understand what they’re aiming for with the character — but at least it’s no longer overpowering.
Story-wise, the progression remains engaging. The characters keep me invested, and there’s enough forward momentum to maintain interest. However, I continue to struggle with the system mechanics.
The leveling structure feels clunky.
To move from one tier to the next (1–9, 10–19, etc.), you must reach level 9, fully max experience, and then use a Class Gem. The problem is how rare those Class Gems are. It’s implied you essentially need to defeat named monsters to obtain one, which creates a massive bottleneck. Early on, they’re priced around 50 gold — which seems reasonable — but then the cost shifts into the hundreds and becomes borderline unobtainable unless you’re extremely lucky or politically favored.
On top of that, gaining experience requires consuming Mind Gems, which drop at roughly a 1-in-20 rate from normal groups. Each level takes about 10 gems, give or take, though the variance isn’t clearly explained. It becomes a grind layered on top of a bottleneck. At times it felt like the author realized just how restrictive the system had become and introduced an alternate experience path specifically for the main character to ease the grind — though notably, normal characters don’t have that same option.
For me, this is the least polished aspect of the series. The ideas are interesting, but the execution makes progression feel more tedious than rewarding.
Near the end, there were also a few developments — especially the setup of a nemesis — that felt somewhat contrived. Not enough to ruin the book, but enough to cause a bit of eye-rolling.
And because the author apparently wants this mentioned: Platypus.
There. It’s officially part of the review.
All jokes aside, despite my frustrations with the system mechanics, I still enjoyed the book. The world has potential, the characters are compelling, and there’s enough here to keep me moving forward in the series.
For me, this was a good installment with noticeable rough edges — enjoyable overall, but still in need of some refinement.