History Literature / ShangriLaFrontier

** Eito "Eight" Sasahara is a gaming idol with her own TV Show that decided to make her own special ''SLF'' event. However, neither her nor her crew realized that around the same time was a special event celebrating the anniversary of Saint Eristella, an important NPC in the game, which would gift players that complete her Unique Scenario double EXP and five-fold Drop Rate for the day, which means that the bulk of the players would be invested in grinding for levels or items at that point. As a result, only 10% of Eight's expected crowd showed up. Towa and Momo even point this out as Eight had already participated in the previous instance of that same vent.

** Eito "Eight" Sasahara is a gaming idol with her own TV Show that decided to make her own special ''SLF'' event. However, neither her nor her crew realized that around the same time was a special event celebrating the anniversary Saint Eristella, an important NPC in the game, which would gift players that complete her Unique Scenario double EXP and five-fold Drop Rate for the day, which means that the bulk of the players would be invested in grinding for levels or items at that point. As a result, only 10% of Eight's expected crowd showed up.

** Eito "Eight" Sasahara is a gaming idol with her own TV Show that decided to make her own special SLF event. However, neither her nor her crew realized that this happened in the anniversary Saint Eristella, an important NPC in the game, where there would also be a special event, which gifts players that complete her Unique Scenario double EXP and fivefold Drop Rate for the day, which means that the bulk of the players would be invested in grinding for levels or itens at that point. As a result, only 10% of her expected crowd showed up.

** Also InUniverse, it's mentioned that once VR games were just starting, there was attempts at increasing the realism of games by also using the technology to induce pain onto players if they suffered an in-game injury (first mentioned in a throwaway line by Sunraku on his fight against the Mud Digger, then expanded when talking of the dead ''Survival Gunman'' game). It has been all but stated that it was uniformly decried as a terrible idea that should never be implemented, both for the enjoyment and the health of the players involved.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Discussed. ''United Rounds'' had a gameplay that heavily prioritized the realism of living in a dying kingdom, causing the drop rate to be so realistic low that starting TwentyBearAsses type quests could take hours to finish. Players then took up looting and stealing instead of trying to save the kingdom to make up for the atrocious in-game economy, which Pencil Knight leveraged for her power takeover. In other words, the game would be better designed if it was less realistic.

** ''SLF'' has no hard safeguards against SequenceBreaking. If a player wants to ignore the suggested leveling path to freely explore they can do so, with one origin even allowing players to start at a random location rather than in the starter town. While this increases player immersion, it also means players may miss important tutorials, like Sunraku missing the entire exposition about skills and some of the game's deeper mechanics. [[spoiler:More importantly, while the developers planned for the Seven Colossi to be defeated in a certain order to progress the game's story, they're all available to fight if players can locate them. This allowed Sunraku, Oicazzo, and Pencilgon to take out a late game boss years earlier than planned, leaving the creators scrambling to adjust their plans to this unforeseen circumstance.]]

* DramaticIrony: Rei is over the moon about starting a friendship with the target of her affections and believes she has made a significant advancement in their relationship when they interact both on real life and in-game. Sunraku however, considers Psyger-0 a useful acquaintance at best (and is somewhat ''terrified'' of them at worst, occasionally mistaking Psyger-0's intense interest as anger for some unknown slight), is a little weirded out by their overly polite way of speaking, and only calls when he needs them for something, while outside of it, Rakurou doesn't even know Rei's name and only vaguely recalls her from school.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: Pencilgon became friends with Oicazzo and Sunraku after the two of them ended her reign as Queen in ''United Rounds''.

** ''SLF'' has the no hard safeguards against SequenceBreaking. If a player wants to ignore the suggested leveling path to freely explore they can do so, with one origin even allowing players to start at a random location rather than in the starter town. While this increases player immersion, it also means players may miss important tutorials, like Sunraku missing the entire exposition about skills and some of the game's deeper mechanics. [[spoiler:More importantly, while the developers planned for the Seven Colossi to be defeated in a certain order to progress the game's story, they're all available to fight if players can locate them. This allowed Sunraku, Oicazzo, and Pencilgon to take out a late game boss years earlier than planned, leaving the creators scrambling to adjust their plans to this unforeseen circumstance.]]

* ClassAndLevelSystem: The titular game uses classes during character creation, where players can pick a specific job to level up throughout the game, with most of the later customization tied to equipment and sub-jobs. The initial chosen class offers both benefits and drawbacks (e.g. [[BareFistedMonk Oicazzo's monk class prevents them from equipping any weapons or armor in exchange for being able to use some potent buffs]], while Sunraku's Mercenary/Wanderer improves their proficiency with dual weapons but their location during the player's first time logging in is randomly chosen rather than in the starter town like most other classes).

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The game's setting is a near future Japan with the major difference from modern day being the adoption of full-immersion VR gaming systems in place of traditional systems.

** There is no safeguards against SequenceBreaking in Shangri-La Frontier (aside from {{Beef Gate}}s), which while making for a sprawling detailed world that allows players to explore and immerse themselves in the game, makes it pretty easy for players to lose content and tutorials, like Sunraku missing the entire exposition about skills and some of the game's deeper mechanics, because the game doesn't require him to go to the starter city. [[spoiler:More importantly, the esoteric and hidden Seven Colossi can be defeated in any order because, although the creators have planned an order which will heavily influence the changes in the world of the game, they're all available to fight in any order from the get-go. The Colossi are so hidden, together with their lore, that it's not left clear for players that there even was an order in which they needed to be defeated, leading to players that are none the wiser about the lore like Sunraku, Oicazzo, and Pencilgon to take out a late game boss and leave the creators scrambling to adjust their plans to this unforeseen circumstance.]]

** There is no safeguards against SequenceBreaking in Shangri-La Frontier (aside from {{Beef Gate}}s), while this makes for a vast explorable world that allows the player to explore and immerse themselves into the game, this makes it pretty easy for players to lose content and tutorials, like Sunraku missing the entire exposition about skills and some of the game deeper mechanics because the game doesn't require him to go to the starter city. [[spoiler:More importantly, the esoteric and hidden Seven Colossi can be defeated in any order because, although the creators have planned an order which will heavily influence the changes in the world of the game, they're all available to fight in any order from the get-go. The Colossi are so hidden, together with their lore, that it is not left clear for players that there even was an order in which they needed to be defeated, leading to players that are none the wiser about the lore like Sunraku, Oicazzo, and Pencilgon to take out a late game boss and leave the creators scrambling to adjust their plans to this unforeseen circumstance.]]
** The decision to use the game engine for ''Shangri-La Frontier'' in the newest game in the ''Galaxia Heroes'' fighter series. While fully understandable given how advanced the engine is, and a net boon all around, apparently the developers didn't through the implications of what might happen when a setting featuring [=NPCs=] with realistic appearances and reactions is put in the hands of a [[{{Sadist}} player who is more than happy to play the villain in a basically consequence free environment]]. [[spoiler:As Towa/Pencilgon's match shows, the result can be InUniverse ''NightmareFuel'' for the audience, and one of the commentators remarks that they'll have to edit out much of the carnage she caused in any footage they release.]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: The decision to use the game engine for ''Shangri-La Frontier'' in the newest game in the ''Galaxia Heroes'' fighter series. While fully understandable given how advanced the engine is, and a net boon all around, apparently the developers didn't through the implications of what might happen when a setting featuring [=NPCs=] with realistic appearances and reactions is put in the hands of a [[{{Sadist}} player who is more than happy to play the villain in a basically consequence free environment]]. [[spoiler:As Towa/Pencilgon's match shows, the result can be InUniverse ''NightmareFuel'' for the audience, and one of the commentators remarks that they'll have to edit out much of the carnage she caused in any footage they release.]]

* ScienceFantasy: The titular game itself talks of a highly advanced human civilization that traveled space to find a new home in another planet, where science and magic have merged so thoroughly they're indistinct, so you get concepts like Wezaemon, who is a zombie, but wields super advanced weaponry and rides a mecha steed. Setsuna heavily implies that the magic being used are actually super advanced programs.

''Shangri-La Frontier'' (Full Japanese title: シャングリラ・フロンティア～クソゲーハンター、神ゲーに挑まんとす～ ''Shangurira Furontia ~ Kusogē hantā, Kamigē ni Idoman to su'', roughly translating as "Shangri-La Frontier: Crappy Game Hunter Challenges God-Tier Game") is an action and fantasy WebSerialNovel written by author Katarina, which was originally released on the website Platform/ShousetsukaNiNarou in 2017.

** Unique Scenarios are special side quests that grant unique and powerful rewards. That said, the conditions to triggering said side quests are deliberately kept a mystery from the players, who have even created guilds to hunt down these quests and learn how to start them: In particular, the "Invitation from Rabituza" scenario Sunraku stumbles upon requires triggering similar conditions to the "Tour of Rabituza" scenario while fighting Lycagon well enough for it to see the player as worthy enough to inflict its cursed mark, which is a scenario so super-specific, not to mention near-impossible to reliably do given Lycagon's unclear spawn triggers, that nobody else has achieved it, meaning there's no information anywhere about it.

* CheeseStrategy: [[invoked]] Sunraku is not above using them against strong enemies if he realizes there is one, but won't do them if he feels that they drain the game from the fun of playing it. For example, he realizes that it is possible to use the Clown Spider's GimmickLevel against it and easily beat it with it, but refutes it because he finds more fun to actually fight it. Meanwhile, he uses a cheesy strategy to make the Crystal Scorpions fight each other and get them to drop loot, though he uses it specifically to gather materials, since they're way over leveled for him.

The novel has a manga adaptation illustrated by Ryosuke Fuji, which began serialization in ''[[Magazine/ShonenMagazine Weekly Shonen Magazine]]'' in 2020, and an anime adaptation which aired as part of the the Fall 2023 anime season. In 2022, it was announced that there is a video game based on the novel in the plans.

* CheeseStrategy: Sunraku is not above using them against strong enemies if he realizes there is one, but won't do them if he feels that they drain the game from the fun of playing it. For example, he realizes that it is possible to use the Clown Spider's GimmickLevel against it and easily beat it with it, but refutes it because he finds more fun to actually fight it. Meanwhile, he uses a cheesy strategy to make the Crystal Scorpions fight each other and get them to drop loot, though he uses it specifically to gather materials, since they're way over leveled for him.