Being a longtime Critical Role fan, I now find myself so eager each year for the latest season of their animated adaptation for campaign one. It’s been a longer wait this year for the new season, but I can tell you that it’s been well and truly worth it.
The foul mouthed, loveable misfits that are Vox Machina are back for a new season of brutal battles, amazing character moments, and hilarious shenanigans. And whether you’re a fan of the actual play campaign or are just keen to check it out because you’ve watched the first two seasons, there’s a lot here for you to love in this year’s season. Season 3 takes us to new places, introduces new characters, and isn’t afraid to change things up from the original campaign when it needs to so that it can deliver a better story. But it remains clear that the Critical Role crew continue to be masters of creating deep characters and telling emotional stories regardless of the medium they choose to do it in.
The new season picks up right where the group were left at the end of the second season. 2 of the 5 Chroma Conclave dragons have been dispatched, and the double agent Raishan has approached Vox Machina with a proposition to work together to take down Thordak before his nest of dragon eggs is given the chance to wreck havoc on Exandria, but it’s unclear just how much she can be trusted. Knowing they still lack the strength to take the red dragon head on, the group know they need to track down the additional Vestiges of Divergence and continue to hone their abilities if they stand any chance.
Last year, in my review of season 2, I said that it mainly felt like the beginning of something much bigger. Season 3 confirms that I was in fact correct, but thankfully this season does come with a lot of answers and conclusions to existing plot threads that have been set up across the previous 2 seasons and also delivers an ending that feels more like a resolution this time around compared to the ending of season 2 which ended right at the point where the danger was really ramping up for Vox Machina. And as with the last 2 seasons, we once again have numerous subplots that play out alongside the main mission of the season which provide further character development, backstory reveals, and worldbuilding. My favourite of which involving Percy and his long awaited reunion with Anna Ripley.
One of the show’s strengths is that it does a fantastic job at giving each character their own time to shine. That’s still the case in season 3, and it’s not something that’s just limited to the main cast of Vox Machina which was something I really enjoyed seeing further. But when it does come to the main cast, just about each character gets their time to shine and a plot line of development that plays out throughout the season. And they fit quite a lot of character growth and interesting plot beats across the season’s 12 episodes. Upon finishing the season and looking back, I was surprised by how far many of them had come since the start of the season. The one that draws the short straw this season was unfortunately Grog. He’s the one character out of the core group that misses out on getting a development arc this time around despite being involved with the group’s antics every step of the way. This was something I was ultimately ok with this time around given the extended plot threads he was involved in during season 2.
Fans of Critical Role are going to be excited to see some brand new places in Exandria that have yet to be seen in animated form. Including iconic places and cities that fans of the actual play series will know have significant importance in later campaigns. The Legend of Vox Machina series has consistently had the characters journey to many varied locations each season, and I was glad to see that continue as it keeps things visually interesting and also shows how diverse and expansive Exandria really is. This is all further enhanced thanks to the awesome animation. The world feels alive, the action sequences are fast paced and detailed while also being fluid, and Phil Bourassa’s character designs continue to be amazing and pop on-screen. Another thing I noticed this season is that the 3D animated creatures seem to be integrated better into the regular 2D animated scenes. Right from the beginning of the series, the 3D models that are typically used for the larger creatures have always stood out in quite a jarring way. It seems either the technology has advanced or perhaps the longer development time for this season has really helped the presentation to become more unified overall and the dragons in this season appear, at least to me to be far improved over what we saw in previous seasons.
By far the biggest highlight of the season, and this show in general, is its characters and, along with that, the stellar performances. The core cast continue to grow and develop even further this season, and it shows how much thought and effort must have gone into each and every one back when these characters were just ideas on a piece of paper as D&D/Pathfinder characters. It’s also clear how attached the voice cast are attached to these characters. They give it their all in each scene, and that really helps sell the performance, whether it be in moment to moment conversation, a humorous scene, and especially in this season’s many emotional moments.
I also appreciated that the team weren’t afraid to change things up a bit from what happened in the original tabletop campaign when making the animated adaptation. There are events that happen in different orders, and certain events that happen at different times that are combined. It’s hard to go into specifics as it touches on some major spoilers. But if you’re familiar with the events of Critical Role’s tabletop campaign 1, you’ll be able to spot where they have tweaked things. Most of these changes are small, such as who delivers the final blow to certain enemy characters, and the order in which events take place. The best thing about it though is that these changes are always in the service of the story. It’s done to allow certain characters to have a payoff moment or to complement an existing story arc. Season 3 covers a lot of content and shares the screen time pretty evenly across it’s main cast, there’s no time wasted, the pacing is consistently top notch and the aforementioned changes help the pacing of the story that needs to be told across the season.
Overall Thoughts
Season 3 has smashed it out of the park once again. I’m still in awe every time I watch this show, knowing that this amazing production stemmed from a bunch of voice actors getting together to play a pen and paper RPG that has blown up to become the worldwide phenomenon that is Critical Role. This season offers a lot of payoff to the events that have been set up across the previous 2 seasons while also unveiling a heap of new backstory and progressive development for the characters. Best of all it does so at an amazing pace and doesn’t feel rushed or overwhelming. The season’s end definitely leaves the door open for more (which we know there is the source material for given there’s still more of campaign 1 to cover) but also feels like a fitting wrap up for the group should the worst occur and we get no season 4. I certainly hope we do get plenty more, but in the meantime we do know that there is an animated adaptation of The Mighty Nein series in the works, and I’m increadibly excited to see what this team can deliver with that.
If you want to see more content like this and never miss one of our frequent gaming and anime giveaways come and Follow Ani-Game on Twitter.
10
- + A lot of new world building and character growth
- + Provides payoff to setups from previous seasons
- + The character performances are stellar
- + Not afraid to change things for the better
