The Legend of Vox Machina
Year: 2022
Created by: Matthew Mercer
Starring: Laura Bailey, Taliesen Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham
Episodes: 12
BBFC: 15
Published: 10/03/22
Created by: Matthew Mercer
Starring: Laura Bailey, Taliesen Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham
Episodes: 12
BBFC: 15
Published: 10/03/22
Dungeons & Dragons is a game that I have always liked the idea of playing, but unfortunately it requires a level of dedication I’ve never been able to afford it. Creating my own fantasy character and going on a grand adventure with a band of unlikely allies is right up my street, but the hours upon hours of playtime required is something I’ve never been able to come to terms with and so have never fully committed to any D&D game I have been a part of.
The Critical Role Youtube channel has over the past few years exploded in popularity, likely with people like me who simply don’t have the time to play D&D for myself. A collection of well-known voice actors playing the game, with an extremely intricate and detailed scenario devised by the Dungeon Master, the Critical Role team have spent thousands of hours over the last seven years playing D&D and so far have only recently started their third campaign.
With the huge success of the series and the cast being made up of beloved voice talent, a kickstarter campaign began to get the group’s first campaign adapted into an animated series. With its success and subsequent acquisition by Amazon, The Legend of Vox Machina has arrived on Prime Video, will Critical Role hold up as well in a serial format?
Vox Machina are a mercenary group consisting of gunslinger Percival (Taliesin Jaffe), half-elf siblings Vex’ahlia (Laura Bailey) and Vax’ildan (Liam O’Brien), gnome cleric Pike (Ashley Johnson), half-elf druid Keyleth (Marisha Ray), barbarian Grog (Travis Willingham), and their gnome bard Scanlan (Sam Riegel). After slaying a dragon, Vox Machina are granted settlement in the city of Emon, but when Percival’s past comes back to bite him in the form of his family’s murderers Lord and Lady Briarwood (Matthew Mercer & Grey Griffin), Vox Machina must spring into action to thwart the Briarwoods sinister plans.
The Critical Role Youtube channel has over the past few years exploded in popularity, likely with people like me who simply don’t have the time to play D&D for myself. A collection of well-known voice actors playing the game, with an extremely intricate and detailed scenario devised by the Dungeon Master, the Critical Role team have spent thousands of hours over the last seven years playing D&D and so far have only recently started their third campaign.
With the huge success of the series and the cast being made up of beloved voice talent, a kickstarter campaign began to get the group’s first campaign adapted into an animated series. With its success and subsequent acquisition by Amazon, The Legend of Vox Machina has arrived on Prime Video, will Critical Role hold up as well in a serial format?
Vox Machina are a mercenary group consisting of gunslinger Percival (Taliesin Jaffe), half-elf siblings Vex’ahlia (Laura Bailey) and Vax’ildan (Liam O’Brien), gnome cleric Pike (Ashley Johnson), half-elf druid Keyleth (Marisha Ray), barbarian Grog (Travis Willingham), and their gnome bard Scanlan (Sam Riegel). After slaying a dragon, Vox Machina are granted settlement in the city of Emon, but when Percival’s past comes back to bite him in the form of his family’s murderers Lord and Lady Briarwood (Matthew Mercer & Grey Griffin), Vox Machina must spring into action to thwart the Briarwoods sinister plans.
The Legend of Vox Machina is about as close as you can get to adapting a fantasy role playing game to a visual medium. Whilst my knowledge about Critical Role is superficial at best, I have spent plenty of time playing RPG video games throughout my life and Vox Machina feels very much like your typical fantasy quest with magic and dragons. It’s good too, so whilst it doesn’t stray far from genre conventions (considering it needs to remain grounded within the confines of D&D that’s hardly a surprise) it’s the characters that will keep you coming back to Vox Machina even if the quest itself seems somewhat cliché.
All of the characters are bursting with personality and have deep backstories which are drip-fed over the course of the season. Percy undoubtedly gets the largest amount of time committed to his backstory considering its rather central to the quest they are embarking on, but there’s still plenty of time given to the other characters to ensure we can connect with them and begin to understand the complex world of Tal’Dorei.
My personal favourite characters were Percy and Keyleth. Percy’s completely hell bent on revenge and getting to see this inner conflict of morality as a result was captivating. Keyleth on the other hand I couldn’t help but connect with, especially with her connections to nature and magical powers that I hope get fleshed out more in subsequent seasons.
Even the supporting cast are great with the likes of David Tennant, Dominic Monaghan, and Kelly Hu lending their considerable talents to the people Vox Machina meet on their quest.
Visually Legend of Vox Machina also excels with a gorgeous art style, richly detailed environments, and some great visual gags and storytelling. This isn’t just something hashed together for fans of the Critical Role webseries, this is a full blown fantasy epic that has had considerable care put into how it looks and sounds for all to enjoy.
That being said, I did find that the show had some frequent tonal inconsistencies regarding its use of strong language and bloody violence. Vox Machina does not shy away from adult themes, but its deployment of more mature content is haphazardly done and comes across as immature and crude more often than not. Dialogue is often jam packed full of f-bombs, and nasty slurs directed at the other characters, but all it indicates is that the writing isn’t as strong as it perhaps should have been. Rather than being able to properly convey thoughts and feelings, characters will often just resort to spewing all sorts of horrendous language. Similarly, with the blood and gore, there’s a lot of times where battles carry emotional weight narratively but are ultimately sullied by excessive use of bloody violence (think Kill Bill where severed limbs spurt high pressure fountains of blood, but used in a scenario where that really doesn't fit).
Whilst there are moments where the strong language and bloody violence are used well, it often feels like a crutch the animators and writers have leaned on because they don’t have enough faith in the quality of the product. I feel the show would have been considerably better off had these elements been more sparing but punctuated moments of real impact.
I had fun with The Legend of Vox Machina, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the series goes next. Whilst I think they could tone down the blood and swearing, on the whole Vox Machina is beautifully animated, has an excellent voice cast, and has great writing which ticks all the boxes for a great animated fantasy series which I’m sure will bring a whole new generation of players into the universe of Dungeons & Dragons.
All of the characters are bursting with personality and have deep backstories which are drip-fed over the course of the season. Percy undoubtedly gets the largest amount of time committed to his backstory considering its rather central to the quest they are embarking on, but there’s still plenty of time given to the other characters to ensure we can connect with them and begin to understand the complex world of Tal’Dorei.
My personal favourite characters were Percy and Keyleth. Percy’s completely hell bent on revenge and getting to see this inner conflict of morality as a result was captivating. Keyleth on the other hand I couldn’t help but connect with, especially with her connections to nature and magical powers that I hope get fleshed out more in subsequent seasons.
Even the supporting cast are great with the likes of David Tennant, Dominic Monaghan, and Kelly Hu lending their considerable talents to the people Vox Machina meet on their quest.
Visually Legend of Vox Machina also excels with a gorgeous art style, richly detailed environments, and some great visual gags and storytelling. This isn’t just something hashed together for fans of the Critical Role webseries, this is a full blown fantasy epic that has had considerable care put into how it looks and sounds for all to enjoy.
That being said, I did find that the show had some frequent tonal inconsistencies regarding its use of strong language and bloody violence. Vox Machina does not shy away from adult themes, but its deployment of more mature content is haphazardly done and comes across as immature and crude more often than not. Dialogue is often jam packed full of f-bombs, and nasty slurs directed at the other characters, but all it indicates is that the writing isn’t as strong as it perhaps should have been. Rather than being able to properly convey thoughts and feelings, characters will often just resort to spewing all sorts of horrendous language. Similarly, with the blood and gore, there’s a lot of times where battles carry emotional weight narratively but are ultimately sullied by excessive use of bloody violence (think Kill Bill where severed limbs spurt high pressure fountains of blood, but used in a scenario where that really doesn't fit).
Whilst there are moments where the strong language and bloody violence are used well, it often feels like a crutch the animators and writers have leaned on because they don’t have enough faith in the quality of the product. I feel the show would have been considerably better off had these elements been more sparing but punctuated moments of real impact.
I had fun with The Legend of Vox Machina, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the series goes next. Whilst I think they could tone down the blood and swearing, on the whole Vox Machina is beautifully animated, has an excellent voice cast, and has great writing which ticks all the boxes for a great animated fantasy series which I’m sure will bring a whole new generation of players into the universe of Dungeons & Dragons.