The Legend of Vox Machina Free on YouTube for Limited Time

The Critical Role animated series The Legend of Vox Machina is now free on YouTube for a limited time. To promote the launch of the next series of the show, Prime Video has put up the entirety of the first two seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina on their YouTube channel. The episodes will remain up through October 3, which conveniently is when the next season of the show premieres. You can watch the first episode of the show down below:


The Legend of Vox Machina is the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign run way back in 2021, with Critical Role raising over $11 million to fund production of the first season. Amazon Studios picked up the show and renewed it for subsequent seasons. Critical Role and animation studio Titmouse are also developing an animated series based on the show's second campaign, with The Mighty Nein show expected to air in 2025. The cast of Critical Role, all of whom are professional voice actors, voice their respective characters in the shows, with DM Matt Mercer lending his voice talents to a variety of characters and villains.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Save me wasting some time, the dialog isn't actually all done with a text-to-speech machine voice, right? Because if you're going to call yourself Vox Machina, I damn well expect to get a nostalgic flashback to the early days of Drachinifel and Alfabusa's TTS Emperor series.

 

[bedir than]

Pike also gets a little short shrift so far. Offscreen for a lot of Season 1

That's true to the portion of the actual play season 1 is based on. The person playing the character wasn't present for large portions of that arc.

 

[SuperTD]

Save me wasting some time, the dialog isn't actually all done with a text-to-speech machine voice, right? Because if you're going to call yourself Vox Machina, I damn well expect to get a nostalgic flashback to the early days of Drachinifel and Alfabusa's TTS Emperor series.

No, it's a joke name based on the fact that all the players in the campaign were voice actors (Voice in the Machine).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No, it's a joke name based on the fact that all the players in the campaign were voice actors (Voice in the Machine).

The biggest failing of the Critical Role crew: They are terrible at adventuring party names. Vox Machina is actually their best.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'll say I enjoyed both of the first two seasons well enough, and the second thankfully tones down (but doesn't eliminate entirely) the more crass jokes.

 

[rules.mechanic]

Hadn't seen any Critical Role and this was the first time seeing the cartoon. Weekend marathon of both seasons and I got to say I really enjoyed it. Great to see where dice rolls went good or bad. Everyone goes on a character arc from being (mostly) irritating to (mostly) heroic. And the antics move from (mostly) one-dimensional jokes and manic action, to (mostly) relevant callbacks and dramatic set-pieces. With familiar player banter and potty humour. Felt like a proper D&D campaign (except everyone's committed to their backstory and the DM's somehow managed to link them all together)...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Felt like a proper D&D campaign (except everyone's committed to their backstory and the DM's somehow managed to link them all together)...

Listening to the full four-hour actual play episodes, everyone is also thrilled to have deep talks about their feelings and back stories at the drop of a hat.

"Oh, we're fleeing across the frozen tundra to try and prevent a high level magical apocalypse? OK, OK, that feels like a good time for the two of us to discuss our unresolved romantic feelings for one another."

Almost certainly a byproduct of them all being actors who go deep into developing their characters' backgrounds.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That's true to the portion of the actual play season 1 is based on. The person playing the character wasn't present for large portions of that arc.

Yeah, that makes sense. Most of the time, when I'm finding a fault with this show, whether it's the jokes or the violence or the characters, I'm like, "No, this actually is very reflective of the experience of playing D&D, even if it doesn't make the BEST narrative."

 

[kenmarable]

Yeah, that makes sense. Most of the time, when I'm finding a fault with this show, whether it's the jokes or the violence or the characters, I'm like, "No, this actually is very reflective of the experience of playing D&D, even if it doesn't make the BEST narrative."

Yep, and part of that is intentional (and I'm sure opinions vary whether that is a good thing or bad thing). I remember Matt talking about being very clear with the cartoon writers that he wanted to keep the randomness of an actual D&D campaign in there. Sometimes things take weird turns and the writers should try to avoid always going for the standard "tie everything together" inclinations typical of writing. Sometimes a bad or lucky roll happens and you have to deal with it rather than rewriting it according to traditional screenwriting rules.

 

[GreyLord]

As a side note, I suspect one of the barriers to getting a short/long form drama being made for D&D for the longest time was a focus on taking the material too seriously. It doesn't have the pop culture gravitas that LOTR does.

In fact, for the longest time, I would have given my eye teeth for my tables to up their game and take my sessions much more seriously but there is always that one class clown.

Then I decided to take my own gaming less serious and clown around a bit myself. Once I did that, I had more fun and so did my players.

I think the only shows and movies that actually took D&D seriously was the Animated Cartoon (which was well received overall), the Second D&D movie (which most will say is better than the 1st, though not spectacular), and one that people normally revile the dragonlance animated movie...I'm drawing a blank on any others.

Most of the others have it as a comedy or farce for the most part. Perhaps that's why many of them haven't done as well. Even the more recent D&D movie wasn't really serious (like a LotR serious).

It is ironic that some consider the best D&D movies, not those made with D&D in mind at all, but things like the Fellowship of the Ring and the First Hobbit movie. These take the setting far more seriously than even the D&D cartoon and other film.