As a fan of the first hour (The Quest 2014 blew me away!), I can't help to compare the old and the new. I'll be honest, as soon as the soundtrack set in, and I realised they had gotten the same composers from 2014 back, I was hooked, and a second later, I was fully emersed in Everealm.
Yes, the show has its flaws, that was to be expected.
Filming with underaged teenagers makes some things more difficult in general with limited filming hours per day and such. Some of the after-challenge-talks among the Paladins came across kind of staged and clumsy although I'm sure they were authentic. As soon as a scripted character was present and asked them questions, this awkward atmosphere was gone, so maybe to that more next season?
The scripted characters sometimes - very rarely though - acted incomprehensively, especially the castle's guards and also Prince Cederic. He drove me nuts with his actions.
Some of the challenges were well thought through, others were hard to grasp for the audience and the Paladins alike, and the fact that there was no elimination this time (Thank the Fates!) often made it hard to understand how the winner was chosen.
While most of the props and costumes were top notch (I SO appreciated that the royals wore different costumes every day as royals would.), a few props and costumes looked super cheap like bad LARP equipment, and the same goes for the creatures, which is very strange because some were SOOO lifelike and others looked like unconvincing Power Rangers villains. It was almost as if two different teams had worked on the make-up, props, and costume department.
Apart from these points of criticism, there's only good things to say.
The writers filled the story with so much lore and history, so much character development. The characters have depths, they have pasts, there is no black and white. The story starts off much darker and with an imminently menacing atmosphere. All actors were 100% convincing, I suffered with them, I cheered with them. The special effects (I know how difficult CGI fire is!) were fantastic, the music combined the old Quest soundtrack and also had new beautiful themes. The Paladins were a fantastic team, each of them super likeable, and they were 100% immersed in this world - as was I.
I can't wait to return to Castle Saenctum next season!
Continue the Quest.
