Reading this blind without any experience with deepwoken.
It's okay, not really bad but not good, just mediocre in my opinion. Really expected a better story because of the rating but I forget that biases do in fact exist.
My main complaint is pacing and it doesn't help that every other chapter is a perspective switch to a different location. The main characters' relationship feels rushed and lacks screen time.
Maybe the story hasn't progressed enough but I'm really disappointed with the ratings. Majority of the ratings are a 10 and the "rating spread" really shows bias, even if we account the bayesian average, this story doesn't feel like an 8 or even a 7.75
It’s rated highly solely because of how it’s made, the story has a specific targeted audience, the majority of the people reading and giving this such a high rating are people that actually seem accustomed to deepwoken. Sure the story may be mediocre at best, but its high rating isn’t solely based off of the story but more on the gags and references that the story makes.
Think about the Minecraft movie, the story is genuinely average at best, however it’s highly rated by fans due to all the memes it produces.
You are judging this story in the ways of a critic, nothing wrong with that, but you should understand that this story is inclined towards people who play deepwoken, many parts in the story references iconic moments which simply isn’t a thing that blind readers can comprehend.