Samurai of Hyuga Book 3

The part of the series where the railroading kicks into high gear. You fight two of the five deamons in this book but both fights are one hell of an anticlimax as you fight and win outside of choices and its completly unsatisfactory. Your ronin is for the most of the second part utterley incompetent and you do not even get to kill the utterly despicable secondary villian. Seriously, why set up a confrontation like that and then have it go nowhere exept to get the ronin into the breakdown necessary for the next book. Alignments do not matter anymore outside of changing some lines. The second big problem is with the pacing. As a consequens of the no-climax in the last book, this book has two storys. First regarding the island-cliffhanger in the last book, then a complete new one. The new one isnt bad, heck its the second best in the series and introducing Kohaku a well written and interesting character. But thanks to the whole two storys part its underdevelopt, doesnt get enough time to set up and resolve and is seriously hampered by the railroading necessary for the ronins breakdown. Just wasted potential.

Not as good as the first two but hopefully served its purpose. Though only after reading the 4th will I know if it worked. I was not a fan of the main "Fallen" theme, and did not really like the deduction or observation as it made me feel like (As with most of the choices in this book) like I had to make the RIGHT choice not MY choice as the previous two did WAY better with that.

Another fantastic entry in this series. Again, I have to give this a 10/10 and I'm already beyond eager for the next installment. Hopefully it's not another year away.

This book in the series, I have to say, took the most turns than the previous entries. At many moments I was left wondering what the "right" answer would have been in ways I did not find myself asking in either Book 1 or 2, which I was almost always consistent with the character I had created, Rin. In Book 3, I felt every other option I selected decreased my attunement, which I have gauged for a long time now as the metronome of how consistent my character was with her particular personality (and by that nature, her spirit as the Striped Snake). With the conclusion of Book 3, Rin is filled with many regrets she may well, never recover from. The beginning was an interesting shake up from the usual stuff in Hyuga, but not much different than the Shogi matches in Book 2, so I was pleased with it. What I was less pleased with was how the demon met his demise... I was left very, very confused by what was happening in it, and was releaved when it moved on to the main plot of this book. It felt like too much was going on to keep track of. In fact, I found the number of items that needed to be accounted for in this book rose pretty dramatically compared to the others. It took a lot of mental gymnastics to "play optimally" and I often didn't. Rin-"sensei" was marred with failure in this book. Which, while I am unhappy for the sake of our protagonists, is fairly realistic! In life, it will never be always smooth sailing, and you will make many choices which you regret, so I say that regret should definately be a characteristic of this on going story, of our most interesting Ronin of Hyuga. I await patiently for Book 4

only pain and suffer have given during book3