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danielkilgore-05966
Reviews
Ark: The Animated Series (2024)
Entertaining, but doesn't quite capture the heart of Ark.
Episodes (1-6)
There is a niche of people who care deeply about how the lore of Ark is handled, and there are others who are simply excited just to see more content from the Ark universe. I'd like to think I'm somewhere in the middle. The lore of Ark (game) is more extensive than a lot of people would ever know at face value, but there is definitely a lot of ambiguity involved in the story. The show takes liberties with the story, to try to add some cohesion to the lore, and simplify it as well for casual viewing. I don't mind these decisions, as they are understandable, but they were not handled in the best way. The idea of a survivalist and explorer setting is ditched by shallow subplots and way too many flashback sequences. The pacing is absolutely goofy too - Helena defeating the broodmother on like, her 3rd day on the island by making normal sized spiders attack it? What?? And what's up the taming dinosaurs? It's like Helena could literally just smile at one and it would be "tamed". I could go on nit-picking, but instead I'll finish this review with some positives.
The good: the animation is great, the action scenes are as brutal and gruesome as you'd hope with dinosaurs, there are quality voice actors, the soundtrack is fun, and there are some decent attempts at translating parts of the lore into a watchable story. I understand that I gave this a 7/10 even though I complained in the majority of the review - that's because I see little glimpses of something epic at times during this show, and I hope it gets a chance in the future to become something great.