Dota Dragon’s Blood Diaries – That’s a Wrap (Episodes 3-8)

Well, well, well, unsurprisingly I binged the remainder of the series during the weekend. So here is the final part of our Dota Dragon’s Blood Diaries. There will be unmarked spoilers for the entire series in this article. You have been warned.

If you are looking for my first impressions on Episodes 1 & 2, you can find them here:

• Dota Dragon’s Blood Diaries – Diving Straight In (Episode 1)
• Dota Dragon’s Blood Diaries – Strap In, This Ride Ain’t Ending Anytime Soon (Episode 2)

So, where did we leave off last time? Oh right, an eternity ago or should I say episode 2? Since then we have moved from a quest to find Lotuses and questions about what happened in that cave to all-out war (including indiscriminate mass murder), world-ending stakes, heart-wrenching tragedy and the downfall of a Goddess. You could say it was a rough day at the office for every character involved. But let’s take this review step by step.

Stunning animation

One of Dragon’s Blood’s strengths is without a doubt the amazing action sequences they show. Be it from the very first episode, leading over to the other fights in the series, like Kaden’s fight with Slyrak in episode 4, Invoker containing one of the Eldwyrms during episode 7 or Terroblade’s beatdown of Selemene in the final episode.

While the action-packed fights are not really indicative of the gameplay of Dota, they still give you that itch to fire up the client and beat some noobs on ranked. It just looked that cool. For most of the series Studio Mir really nailed the mixture of CGI and 2D-animation to make the scenes atmospheric and enjoyable.

However there were also some places where the budget seems to have run out. Most glaringly in the final episode’s battle at the Elven village. The 3D models stick out like sore thumbs and the scenes are just a bit too much uncanny valley territory.

But in general Studio Mir did well on the animation part of the project and delivered enough eye candy to cover for the biggest weaknesses the series had: Pacing and Plot.

Speedrunning plot with no prisoners taken

Some of the problems with pacing obviously stem from the fact, that Dragon’s Blood had to wrap it all up in eight episodes. Hardly enough time to fully flesh out the characters and motives behind them. The worldbuilding itself also falls quite a bit short as the pace quickened towards the half-way point of the series and does not really show what makes Dota 2 so special, that we have been playing this game for more than a decade.

In isolation some of the arcs themselves worked out really well. Especially Invoker’s background really fleshed out the character and served to give him motivation, purpose and meaning. But looking at all the different plotlines, the writing could not really bring them all to a satisfying conclusion within eight episodes. Some of the worldbuilding is also never really expanded on or explained, the most prominent examples would be the exact significance of the stolen Lotuses or the brief sneak peek we got from a Direstone. Hopefully a second season can remedy that.

“Do you love me?”

So did I enjoy Dota Dragon’s Blood? Definitely. It is far from ground-breaking or a master piece, but it was a very entertaining albeit short series. The action sequences delivered and there were just enough eastereggs for Dota fans to enjoy to cover up the weaknesses it had in pacing and writing. However much of it feels like laying the foundations for future seasons and the lack of a resolution to any of the open plot points makes it even worse.

We can only hope that the positive reception so far will greenlit more seasons to truly dive deeper into the world, introduce more heroes and tie up the open questions. 

Then again as a Dota 2 fan I am still happy to have gotten the biggest marketing Valve has ever done for the game in a form that has widespread reach and can draw in more players. With the short eight episode glimpse into the world of Dota 2 we also got plenty of new characters that could make for great heroes. Although I might be slightly biased on that:

Is Dragon’s Blood a good introduction to the world of Dota?

Honestly I am not so sure about this one. While it certainly helped its mainstream appeal by not having too many ties to the actual game besides the setting and background, it does make for a jarring transition should a new fan try to pick up the game after watching the series. But the reworked new player experience should at least alleviate some of that.

All in all it serves its purpose in bringing attention to the game that we have loved for so many years and I really hope we get more Dragon’s Blood or similar ventures in the future.

More Dota 2:

• A quick look ahead to the Dota 2 Singapore Major Main Event
• Is following proper quarantine protocols that hard? – A Singapore Major rant
• Dota Valkyries aims to inspire women in the Dota scene
• Esport Legends – Puppey

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Image Credits: Netflix