I seriously wanted to like this, I really did, but I'm sorry y'all, I really couldn't take another minute of it. I can't believe I'm giving a HIStory installment a 3.5, I almost wanna gaslight myself into liking it simply because of how fond I am of this franchise.
What started out as a unique fun plot ended up being a bunch of unexplained unrelated nonsense held together by my undying boredom and Linus Wang's good looks. I genuinely don't know what to say about it but to sum up the issues with this one, the plot said sike and left the building, the music is nothing short of uninteresting and uninspired, the camera work and editing is probably one of the worst out of all the previous parts, none of the characters were likeable and don't get me started on the non existent chemistry between our first main couple because boy I am vexed. I know most of the people behind the franchise have left so the production value and the writing took a blow, but I really can't help comparing this absolute mess to the other series that preceded it.
If anyone is interested in watching this, I advise you to lower the bar so as to not be disappointed because if it isn't for the sake of nostalgia or watching the final series of one of the most popular Taiwanese BLs then I really don't recommend it. Were the older parts perfect? No, but they sure as hell were more enjoyable than this one, even HIStory4, which is my lowest rated HIStory installment, got a 6/10 from me, I really hope whoever's watching likes it better than I did, but yeah, this one will be living in my "on hold forever" folder indefinitely.
Have a nice day/night everyone.

P.s: I've just come to the conclusion that I actually don't like any of the characters so I changed the bit in my review where I exempted two of them. I thought I liked magic man and Huai En but now that I think about it, one is extremely boring and the other makes no sense so yeah, not a fan of anyone in here.