Dragon Age: Absolution

I've been a fan of DA universe since Origins was a new thing on the block. To be honest with you all I went into this expecting to hate it. Netflix has disappointed me more times than it pleased me statistically.

Once the credits rolled after the first episode I was ready to stop and leave a terrible review. It really was bad.

The first episode is the absolute definition of RUSHED. The entire episode felt like a recap of the previous season that you haven't watched. The pilot could have easily been split into two or even three episodes to properly establish the characters and what the main quest is. But instead we just got a TLDR of who is who and what the main objective is.

Decided to continue anyway cause I had nothing better to do with my evening. And I am glad I did because the other five episodes are much much better. The pacing is perfect, the story is entertaining, the characters are somewhat fleshed out.

So overall I am glad I decided to continue after the horrible first episode cause I did enjoy this. Is it the best thing since sliced bread? No. Not even close. Is it a fun and quick watch? Yes, it is. Even for the fans of this universe.

I'd give it a higher score if the first episode was split into two or three episodes as I said. But if they only got 6 episodes to work with and something had to be rushed I'm glad they decided to rush the intro so that the actual plot can have the proper pacing.

Now for the cast and VA. I adore Kimberly Brooks (Miriam), but not in this. All of her lines were emotionless and disconnected to what was happening on the screen. It honestly felt like she was bored to be there. And that's sad cause her character is the "protagonist" here.

I checked out the Japanese VA after I was done and that one did a far far far better job than what Kimberly Brooks did here.

Qwydion as a character didn't do it for me. She is only there to be a comic relief and nothing more. Japanese VA sounded marginally better for me.

Lacklon was amazing and I preferred the English VA much more.

Roland I also preferred as an English VA as well cause he had that "vague" French accent that everyone from Orlais has, which the Japanese VA doesn't do.

Rezaren I absolutely adored! Both the character and his English VA. Japanese VA makes Rezaren sound like your generic pure evil guy, which he is not.

And speaking of that, I never saw Rezaren as the villain. In fact I found our cast of characters to be the bad guys in this situation.

They were such troublemakers and an annoyance to a point where Rezaren simply had to resort to "going bad" in order to deal with all the trouble that they have caused.

Rezaren did nothing wrong.

Its something to watch sorta related to dragon age. Thats about all i can say.

Why the freak do people start shows like that though? Episode 1 starts off in the middle of something with zero backstory. Watching episode 1 feels like i missed a whole season or 2 beforehand. The only reason i sorta like it is because i have played the games before and somewhat familiar with little bits here and there.

Just finished ep 3 and the feeling is still the same. Not much clue as to whats all going on. No connection to any of the characters at all except perhaps the slave elf.

This is definitely not the dragon age i envisioned coming to the screens. Whomever made this should be ashamed of themselves for butchering dragon age like this.

A decent show that edges on an 8th rating from me in thanks to it's expressive animation, the 2D work is just as good as The Witcher Nightmare of the Wolf and way better than the recent works of Studio MIR in Dota and Young Justice also AMCs Pantheon. 3D work is decent to good. The animation studio here is really flexing and advertising it's self for future projects.

The thing that holds the series down is the story compared to Arcane. But if you can stomach Season 3 of Dota the plot here is good. The backstory seems to be a better story to tell with this season should have been some follow up but we fall into this world with developed characters that I personally can't seem to like cause I can't feel their stuggles no matter how many times the show tells me.

Overall it's a good show, I'd come back for 2nd season.

Another decent game anime on Netflix. It's certainly not up there with Arcane, but it's not bad either.

The animations are great and the fighting is intense.

What bothered me most was the story. It's very cookie cutter where someone has to steal a MacGuffin, someone betrays someone else and there's someone pulling the strings behind the scene.

It's pretty short with only six episodes, so you barely get to know or care about anyone. Most of the cast are pretty one dimensional, even though the voice actors do a good job.

I'll certainly watch it if a second season comes out, but as it stands it's just going to fade into memory like most of the other shows like it.

The story is a little light but they pack a lot into the few episodes that there are. It's very short and I managed to watch it all in one session.

The action and animation is really quite good and the voice acting is surprisingly decent. So surely we have the makings of a great show?

I've seen some other reviews perfectly summarising the problem with this show; it feels like joining a DnD campaign halfway through the story. Although the characterisation is good, it's thrown at you all at once and doesn't really give you time to build empathy with the characters. The supposedly emotional scenes just seem to be lacking something, maybe the music? The music always seems so generic and barely appropriate for what is happening on screen.

Having said that the characters are all well written and make for a good dynamic in both action and dialogue.

An enjoyable series with fun action scenes and a compelling narrative. I hope Netflix stick with this one.