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REVIEW: Overlord III BD + DVD [Standard Edition]




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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:36 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Episode five (of thirteen) marks where the shift happens, but if you've been paying attention, Ainz has been making a slow slide into villain territory for quite some time now


I mean, it was definitional subtle, like the time he slaughtered hundreds (thousands?) of lizardman in the most over complicated scheme to figure out if the floor guardian could learn on there own. It's really those little subtle hint adroitly weave into the narrative that really show how masterful the writing is. Laughing
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Stampeed Valkyrie



Joined: 10 Aug 2014
Posts: 823
Location: PA
PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:24 pm Reply with quote
This series has been on a downward slope since season 1.
While season 2 wasn't bad per say... it wasn't season 1.

Season 3 is mostly forgettable. There are a few moments that stand out, however in all reality when your joke episode.. (ep 1 btw) is your strongest... something is very wrong.

Getting a B ranking on ANN must not take much.. as this season is more then enough to turn me off of the franchise completely.

Let's hope Season 4 is not as much of a letdown.
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BaronViolet



Joined: 27 May 2018
Posts: 212
PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Really? S3 was forgettable? Come on. I think you are being too harsh.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4404
PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 3:50 pm Reply with quote
I'd say that season 3 has been my favorite so far. It was good to finally see substantial progress on the whole world domination thing.
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Calsolum



Joined: 11 May 2010
Posts: 898
PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 3:52 pm Reply with quote
After that confrontation with Foresight that was the point where I stopped reading the LN as it was too much to stomach personally. I always realized that Ainz was a merciless to his enemies back in episode one but as long as it was directed to 'bad' people it was tolerable and depending on the enemy downright cathartic to see someone like Clementine tortuously hugged to death. But when his opponents are good people with good intentions in otherwise bad situations... it leaves a bad aftertaste. Which I assume was the intention of the author, to demonstrate that Ainz is now a villain at heart(at least no longer just playing at one).

My personal hope for a happy end is that he eventually meets/finds TouchMe and he is disturbed by his transformation and either beats some compassion into him or reminds him of why he started a guild in the first place. Or a 'hero' of some sort native to the world rises up and challenges him and eventually beats him in a battle where he can showcase all of his abilities, fulfilling the purpose of a 'last boss' to be defeated.

I doubt either of those things will happen and if TouchMe is in the new world somewhere I feel like Albedo will meet him first and he'll tell her his plan and be killed by her, then she'll blame it on the humans or someone else to push him against humanity.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 9:29 am Reply with quote
I don't think any of his previous player guild members are here, or ever going to be here. They all quit and moved on to other games or just stopped playing. spoiler[While there are indications in the light novels that possibly other gamers have come here over the ages, I don't think they were taken outside of the game.]

As to the evilness of Ains, well most of his people are evil. And when you consider the greater world, when in Rome do as the Romans. The Slane Theocracy is evil as it comes. The Empire is not much better. You know, the yearly invasions on the Kingdom and hiring mercenaries to conduct clandestine attacks.

Then the Kingdom. At first the Kingdom appears all nice. Well, the Princess is not all there, and who knows what her real agenda is. Then we come to the now dead Heir. He was a piece of work too. Quite twisted and evil. So what does that say about the King, when two of his children are human monsters.

Very few (important characters in the show) are actually good.

Ains was never going to be able to play a good character in this show. Most of his people are evil NPCs. After what the Kingdom was going to do to the people of that village, I do not feel sorry to what happened to the soldiers at the end of season three.

Food for thought here:
In a futuristic full sensory virtual reality game (where you have all your human senses available) can you really role play as an evil person. When you can actually feel the full sensory experience of murdering, raping, and torturing NPC's (virtual humans) or even player characters (who have signed off on the EULA and other safety legal documents), does it really matter that much that they aren't real. WIth pencil and paper D&D, and computer games, you are removed from that sensory experience, even today's virtual reality there is still that separation. But the future is coming. So the question will be, when you can feel everything, when does the role play actually end, and when you'll have to be asking those hard questions about yourself.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 11:05 am Reply with quote
Regarding Foresight: Recall that Ains drew them here, but before they entered his home, he asked all of the Adventurers what was motivating them, and they all (including Foresight) said it was for the money. At that point, Ains washed his hands of them.

Then, when he'd captured Foresight, their leader, in desperation, made Ains think that one of his comrades was out there and that the leader had met him and been told to deliver a message. When Ains realized that not only was he being played, he was being played about his deepest wish... well, he lost it. Even his emotion-suppressing lich persona completely failed to reel in his anger.

Ains had no way of knowing what the individual members of Foresight were really like. He didn't know why they needed the money. We don't know if the other teams also had more noble reasons for wanting money, either.

This isn't to say that I disagree about Ains' moral decay. I definitely see that happening. I'm just saying that events and assumptions made what happened more pronounced than would've been the case otherwise, which is probably the reason it was written that way.
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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
Posts: 648
Location: Heart of africa
PostPosted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 4:01 pm Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:

Food for thought here:
In a futuristic full sensory virtual reality game (where you have all your human senses available) can you really role play as an evil person. When you can actually feel the full sensory experience of murdering, raping, and torturing NPC's (virtual humans) or even player characters (who have signed off on the EULA and other safety legal documents), does it really matter that much that they aren't real. WIth pencil and paper D&D, and computer games, you are removed from that sensory experience, even today's virtual reality there is still that separation. But the future is coming. So the question will be, when you can feel everything, when does the role play actually end, and when you'll have to be asking those hard questions about yourself.


I doubt game developer will ever give consumers that experience. I'm reminded of the light novel series Infinite dendrogram where the players can not only adjust their ability to feel pain, but also how the world appears to them; ranging from realistic to CGI to cartoon. In that series the Player killers we get the first person POV uses spoiler[the cartoon setting, and jokes about how only a serial killer would use the real setting]. Later, though there is a player killer who spoiler[admits that if they had their game powers in real life they would still be a killer.]
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:15 pm Reply with quote
@HAL14

In the United States that might be true, but with the increasingly global nature of MMORPG's I see this as a very real possibility. One that U.S. game developers might not be able ignore.

As each generation matures, there is increasing larger percentage of adults who play such games. FPS and RPGs are no longer just for kids and teenagers

Also, as the industry advances, full immersion vr will have an allure all its own for those looking for greener pastures, (like the Yggdrasil players in Overlord and the players in Ready Player One). Due to quality of life issues.
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