Overgeared - Manhwa Review

Manhwa Name: Overgeared (템빨, Temppal)

Author: Dong Wook Lee

Genre: Game-Isekai, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

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Overgeared (템빨, Temppal) is based on a novel of the same name by ‘Park Saenal’ (박새날) and adapted into a webtoon/manhwa by ‘Dong Wook Lee’

Story

The story is centred around ‘Satisfy’, The worlds greatest immersive virtual reality game. The protagonist Young Woo Shin, Username: ‘Greed’ (First translated as ‘Grid’, then changed to ‘Greed’) has always had bad luck revolving around him. One day he stumbled across a job during a quest, the strongest legendary job out of over 2 billion players!

After one day receiving an S-ranked quest to retrieve a book called ‘Legendary Craftsman’s Rare Book’ after a lot of bad luck and a painfully long time, he finally finds the book. We also find that he did not just do this out of determination alone, but because the S-ranked quest did not even allow him to quit halfway through.

As we would learn in the future as we read this had a lot to reflect on how Greed’s personality is in the early chapters of the story. He is selfish, money-hungry, cunning and sometimes despicable at times which can be some traits that he acquired due to him accumulating a lot of debt in the real world.

Characters

Although throughout most of the story we only see through the eyes of Young Woo Shin (Greed), we are able to take a glimpse of how other characters; players, his family and even how NPC’s regard him.

Because of his awful personality at first, the people around him seem to dislike him. But we do see great character development as the story progresses and also how other character’s perspective of him shifts to like him more.

Greed slowly becomes more empathetic towards his family, and to the NPC’s that help him.

An interesting dynamic that the story presents is that usually, players would disregard NPC’s as if they are not real, and so treat them however they see fit. Greed on the other hand slowly comes to bond with some NPC’s far better than he does with players, presenting a very emotional, human and realistic side of the NPC’s around him. As the NPC’s start to like him, he is able to receive better quests and get better rewards for them.

In particular, Greed’s relationship with the NPC called Khan who is a blacksmith is very heartwarming. They first meet as the smithy was being oppressed by outlaws, which Greed helps take care of for Khan.

They become so close that Greed eventually becomes like a son, a student and also a teacher to Khan. After he was saved by Greed he even makes him the Khan Smithy’s Successor.

World

[Frontier] The capital of the Steim Earldom

One thing that is admirable about this particular story that it focuses on the real world, perhaps not as much as ‘Satisfy’ but to a considerable degree. Young Woo Shin had to face a lot of trouble in the real world as his family was very poor and had a lot of debt accumulated, so they had to live very cheaply.

After he received the legendary class in the game, through a lot of effort and hours of playing the game, Young Woo Shin is able to earn money through it and change his lifestyle for the better. Although this makes him a little bit more mellow a lot of the parts of his greedy personality still remained.

Within ‘Satisfy’ there are a lot of different factions, nobility, guild and religions. And it is very interesting to see how all these different groups and grid interact with each other, and how they progress throughout the story.

Some of the most interesting things about Satisfy is all the new and different weapons Greed can make within the game, and as his skill becomes better, he continues to make even better weapons, armours and accessories for both himself and for others.

Art

The art of the manhwa is great, every panel is in full colour and the characters are designed well.

Every character looks unique and easily identifiable.

The backgrounds are very detailed and well-drawn even in most panels that do not show the background.

The shading and highlights also look very professional and the manhwa offers some of the best art you can find in webtoons of this sort.

Conclusion

Overall this is a very good manhwa, you will like the dynamic of the characters with Greed and how he progresses from the bottom to become stronger and stronger every day, creating new weapons, armours and accessories and also creating new bonds with different people.

Although like most Manhwa, it is still ongoing, and you might feel a little setback from reading since it may be yet another manhwa to add to the list and never finish reading.

This manhwa is a must-read to anyone who loves the game-fantasy genre. As it is unique enough to stand out on its own and it has both beautiful art, world-building and storytelling.

4.5 / 5

★★★★☆