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.

Show is decently good.

Great artwork, great voice acting, some of the characters are a bit ham, but fun. The main thing that makes me think of this as a 8/10 rather than 6/10, is the villains.

Because unlike so many shows they are not either soulless enemies (zombies, "evil" demons, robots, etc.) but people. People, who genuinely see themselves as good people. The villains are horrible, disgustingly evil people, but don't consider themselves as anything but good. That's great to see.

I'm not much into Dragon Age, and based on the other reviews, that might be the reason why I enjoy it more..

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.

Epic fantasy this is not. While Dragon Age: Absolution has some redeeming qualities, such as being fairly inoffensive, and an honest attempt at telling a fantasy adventure, for me it ultimately falls flat, and here's why:

The characters all talk as if they are 16-25 teenagers with a mix of fairly unbelievable bravado, or undeserved gravitas, so you just get the feeling that these characters are mediocre D&D Larpers.

Yeah this show just feels like a group of teenagers getting together to play a fairly mediocre D&D campaign. And well that's not very compelling.

Can't the script writers and voice actors make any attempt to sound medieval, instead of a load of 21st century hipsters in fantasy bodies? It just breaks the immersion for me.

The art work is okay though. Over all, inoffensive, but not interesting enough to keep my attention.

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.