Critical Role | Exandria Unlimited Episode 7 “Beyond the Heart City” Review
While Exandria Unlimited Episode 7 has some decent character moments compared to the abysmal, episode 6, the second to last episode of this Critical Role mini-campaign isn’t anything special. If you were looking for an epic, reveal before a nice wrap-up finale, much like HBO’s Game of Thrones did with their seventh episode each season, you won’t get any of that with Exandria Unlimited. It’s unfortunately more of the same.
More of the same is bad because now it’s the little things that are really starting to irk me, since this series has been so completely, meh. Still, Aabria constantly tells the characters what they are doing.
“You go and relieve Orym from his shift, and take watch.”
Aabria iyengar
Aabria’s questions to the party are never the right ones. Why couldn’t this moment have ended with “what do you do next?” or just simply waiting for a PC to jump in take the wheel? The questions she asks are always very vague. Many times during Exandria Unlimited she asks a PC “what do you want?” I understand she’s trying to go for some godly being potentially asking the character a deeper question. But there never seems to be any sort of payoff. Plus, doing this so many times, makes the specialty of it wear off. Another example from Episode 7 was when she tells Orym he “remembers” the seed that was given to him. Telling a character what they think just rubs me the wrong way.
I understand what Aabria is doing when she takes time (in what seems like every episode), to get the thoughts and feelings of each character. When Matt does it during Campaign 2, it’s usually a single character at a time, because:
- It’s a full campaign, so everyone will get their episode (or arc) in the spotlight.
- For the listener, it’s a lot to take in, especially at the beginning of the episode.
I’ve said this before but, I still don’t really care about (or even like) the characters in Exandria Unlimited, so I find these sections to drag on quite a bit. In Episode 7 this sequence lasts nearly an hour! That’s nearly an hour before the characters start talking with each other about the events from the previous episode. The main plot of Exandria Unlimited is already hard to follow, so these long scenes just highlight this.
The pacing of Exandria Unlimited is all over the place.
There have been a lot of these moments in Exandria Unlimted, and they’ve been bookended, unfortunately, with some boring battles. It doesn’t help that — I still really don’t understand everyone’s:
- Goals
- Motivation for staying together
- Why they are doing anything they are doing.
Why are they keeping the crown? No one has put it on. Why carry this scary thing around with people you barely know, who don’t like speaking about opening up about themselves. Up until the very end of this episode, the crown really is the only consistent antagonist the party has faced.
I know I place a lot of blame on Aabria, but it’s not all her fault. This time, we’re going to talk about the players and their characters.
Matt and Dariax, I love. They both give 0 fucks, and maybe for Dariax’s case, doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.
It’s pure chaos and I love it. The problem, the rest of the cast is very aloof, especially Fearn and Orym. Maybe it’s to let the rest of the players shine? Matt, who rarely gets to play, and the two newbies, Robbie and Aimee? This group very much lacks a leader, and I don’t mean one like Fy’ra Rai, who was just an extension of the GM (a guide). I mean someone who takes charge and gets the group on some sort of path. Having Travis or Sam in the Exandria Unlimited cast would have been a great choice; swapping them with Liam or Ashley. From my experience ( 64 episodes into campaign 2), Liam and Ashley don’t play leaders, they play the silent type, who wait for their moments to shine. This can pretty much sum up everyone in the EXU party. No one talks about themselves, no one has any goals.
The story at this point is what it is. Eventually, the party leaves Nirrdal-Poc and journeys towards the ruins on the map they have acquired. What was a pretty cool puzzle encounter with ruins is sort of just whatever to me, since I still don’t really know what they’re doing there, and I’m listening and watching each episode; I have just found Exandria Unlimited’s story elements to just be very hard to follow.
After a very long battle (where the party starts getting superpowers?), Myr’atta shows up, ground pounds Opal and speaks of freeing Ted. So I guess Myr’atta is the big bad? I just remember her being some elven woman the party met before seeing Dark Fearn, but, sure?
Exandria Unlimited Episode 7 | Beyond the Heart City gets a 2/5.
Exandria Unlimited Episode 7 has some decent character moments, but much of it dragons on for way too long. It’s hard for me to rate this much higher because I just really don’t enjoy it as a whole. Listening to each episode and writing my reviews; I’m always hankering to get back to Campaign 2.
The next episode is the finale of Exandria Unlimited. Will there be a TPK? Will the Observer respond to Dariax’s offering of morning wine and true love? Find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z.
Read my review for Episode 8, the season finale!
If you haven’t watched Episode 7 yet, see it below.
Originally published at https://currentkick.com on August 10, 2021.
