Popular Reviews of Critical Role

Theres nothing wrong with the content of Critical Role itself, but recently they have started to insert multiple podcast only ad breaks randomly in the content of the episode, sometimes between sentences that should really not be split by up to 60 seconds of ads for things I will never use (like the unaccredited "therapists" from better help)There is a clearly defined break in the middle of the show where they used to play these ads, and now its just a small bumper about their own products, this is on tip of the sponsored ad reads at the very start of the show from the livestream itself.Critical Role makes more money than God from Teitch revenue alone, I severely doubt they need the extra trickle of money from injecting ads into the middle of the podcast that dont exist in the source material, and ill find a different way to listen or just stop listening entirely if it doesn't get better, or gets worse as these things tend to over time.

To be honest, you should going into this knowing that this is an audioversion of a streamed game rather than a podcast, and it really shows.Some of the jokes will be tied to the visual cues, face expressions and gestures.Overall, it's just a wonderful (though a bit lengthy and sometimes emotion-inducing) way to get yourself familiar with TTRPGs and D&D. And maybe start playing.P.S. It's better to start with Campaign 2 (the beginning can be found in Geek & Sundry's CR feed), C1 tends to be... loud

I was worried the first time I listened because so many actual plays end up being just about the jokes. However, Critical Role explores the characters at all levels, from humor to drama.

Critical Role is, in many ways, the gold standard of narrative actual plays. Everybody embodies their characters so well, and the story is full of twists and turns, but quiet moments of contemplation and drama.Really, the only fault of the podcast is that it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the livestream. Tighter editing to remove dead space, waffling, and references to visuals that are no longer present could probably bring these episodes down to a more manageable hour or two, instead of the three-to-four hour behemoths they currently are. If you want to listen, you really need to commit to listening, currently, and that's just not possible for many.

This show is hard to recommend. On the one hand, I am deeply invested in the characters and loved this as my first real foray into an actual play. For that, it has my undying thanks.However, the show is painfully slow. Additionally, as my taste has changed, I've found myself to not be a great fan of Mercer's style; albeit that might be due to the internet response to his style, rather than the style itself. Campaign 1 is...rough. Characters take a long time to get interesting, some moments feel really forced, and jumping in mid-season with a character that eventually gets dropped is...oof. Watch the show, and leave it at that.Campaign 2 is good! It takes a second to find its footing; but I feel all the characters there get fleshed out really, really well. CR hit their stride STRONGLY here. Reccomended!Campain 3...is pretty lukewarm for me. Due to the nature of CR and how slow it is, I'll have more feelings as the campaign gets deeper; but as it stands, the recuring advice I heard was to skip episodes like; 10-50? Because nothing of signifigence happens in that time which is just...agonizingly slow. TLDR: Watch the actual play of season 2, maaaybe season 3 on a second monitor if you want a slowww burn. It's worth it, but it's gonna take its fucking time.