- Dungeons And Dragons Cartoon Dvd
- Dungeons And Dragons Original Set
- Dungeons And Dragons Box Set
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Last year, one of the most talked-about crossover events was when IDW helped collide the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons and Rick And Morty together. Since that time, the comics have gotten a sequel series, IDW released the comics as a complete set, and people begged Wizards Of The Coast to do their own adventure. Well… ask and you shall receive. The company, along with Adult Swim, created a box set combining both of those entities into a fully-fledged playable adventure. I had to play this thing more than once before I could come in here and do a proper review.
Dungeons & Dragons: The Complete Animated Series on DVD (03) from Mill Creek Entertainment. Staring Teddy Field III, Tonia Gayle Smith, Katie Leigh and Peter Cullen. More Fantasy, Swordfighting and Swords & Sworcery DVDs available @ DVD Empire. Media Format: Multiple Formats, Full Screen, NTSC, Color, Animated, Box set; Run time: 9 hours and 54 minutes; Release date: August 25, 2009; Actors: Willie Aames, Adam Rich, Donny Most, Frank Welker, Jennifer Darling; Studio: Mill Creek Ent; ASIN: B002DH20Q0; Number of discs: 3.
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- Dungeons & Dragons is an American animated television series based on TSR's Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. A co-production of Marvel Productions and TSR, the show originally ran from 1983 through 1985 for three seasons on CBS for a total of twenty-seven episodes. The Japanese company Toei Animation did the animation for the series. The show focused on a group of six friends who are.
So let's start with the basic question you may be asking as an obsessed fan of one or both of these properties. Yes, this is an official R&M game. No, it is not some secret episode, a prelude to an episode, or official cannon to the series. Yes, there are a ton of jokes in here that match the series. No, it was not written by Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland, or anyone on the show's staff. This was designed by Kate Welch with the help of several R&M experts who also know how D&D works and how to craft the show around the game. Yes, there are a ton of references to past episodes. Several upon several, in fact. A fuck-ton you might say. Basically, these are people who know the show and know the game and took time putting it together well. Cool? (I don't really care if you're cool with all that, those are the facts.)
The game comes with a few different items. This includes a Rulebook, an Adventure book, a specially designed DM screen, character sheets for all five characters, and a set of 11 dice for the DM to use. The dice and the DM screen are pretty self-explanatory. The character sheets are that of the family, each of them having their own roles in the party that will help you out in every scenario. Summer is a Fighter, Morty is a Rogue, Jerry is a Wizard, and Beth is a Cleric. The fifth character is a Fighter added to the game simply called Meatface. He was made solely for this game so you could do an adventure up to five people and have an extra fighter so you could survive.
The Rulebook has been written and designed to teach anyone how to play D&D from scratch. Complete with Rick jokes throughout it to simplify it and give the game some humor. I like to believe this was done because they knew there would be hardcore Rick And Morty fans who have never played a second of Dungeons & Dragons in their life. But they were determined to buy this, and if they wanted to play it, they had to create a guide that was easy to learn. They did a fantastic job with it that rivals many of the other easy-to-learn guides I've seen. Finally, the Adventure book, which is called The Lost Dungeon Of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy. Without getting into spoilers, the story is that Rick created a D&D adventure that the family is now playing. It is a very Rick-inspired dungeon with a lot of jabs at Jerry, but figurative and literal. Your goal: get to the end of the dungeon, alive, as a team if you can.
I had the chance a while ago to play this game with several members of the press, as well as fellow D&D fans and high-profile people like Satine Phoenix, Kate Welch, Kelly Knox, and more. We played through a session as a group that was pretty awesome, then I got my copy to take home where I played this three more times. One of the best perks of this is that it's pretty easy for anyone to grasp. I grabbed a couple of newbies who love Rick And Morty, but don't know much about D&D beyond the few times they played it as kids. This version of the game is the equivalent of putting medicine in ice cream. It's was a big enough entity to get their attention and make them want to learn. It's the kind of branding and mixing of genres that geeks appreciate and will go to great lengths in order to try it.
Credit: Gavin SheehanCredit: Gavin SheehanCredit: Gavin SheehanCredit: Gavin SheehanCredit: Gavin Sheehan
Credit: Gavin SheehanOverall, I think this is one of the highlights of Dungeons & Dragons during Fifth Edition. When you're able to do a crossover with something in pop culture that's so over that even your grandparents know about it, you have a license to print money. This is the kind of box set that will get a lot of people who had zero interest in D&D to the table, and maybe bring back a few who tried it once and weren't too into it. The trick afterward is getting them into the regular game. But having a Rick And Morty adventure is an awesome way of making it happen. I highly recommend it for R&M fans, especially those looking to try something new beyond R&M Monopoly.
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As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Mill Creek Entertainment has picked up the license to the 1983 Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, one of my favorite mainstays from Saturday Mornings as a kid. The series was originally released by BCI Eclipse back in January of 2007, but has since gone out of print due to Navarre shuttering the BCI Ink & Paint imprint. I was a huge fan of that original set as it was one of the first bright examples of an 80s cartoon property handled with love and care, and one that wouldn’t make a permanent dent in your pocketbook. As much as I hate seeing all the BCI titles starting to drop off into OOP obscurity, I was really glad to hear that Mill Creek was picking up some of the pieces.
That being said, I was a little skeptical of what this would mean for the series being kept alive on DVD. Mill Creek is most known for distributing public domain material in via large box sets like those 50 movie packs (featuring horror and westerns to name a couple) as well as the 150 packs of old public domain cartoons. The quality of these public domain titles ranges from medium to poor for the most part and the sets are geared more towards introducing one to obscure nostalgic fare than being a source for nice copies of these movies and cartoons. From time to time Mill Creek will also take on a licensed property like their releases of the Teddy Ruxpin series. I picked up one of the TR sets in a dump bin for about $5 and that’s pretty much all it was worth. The video and audio quality of the show left a lot to be desired, but the price was right and honestly that’s what Mill Creek is all about. So how would the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon fare?
Dungeons And Dragons Cartoon Dvd
Well, I just received an advance copy of the Complete series set, which will hit store shelves on August 25th, and should be retailing for between $13 to $24 depending on where you find it. They’re also releasing an entry level disc which features only the first nine episodes of the cartoon in tandem which should retail for around $10. After cracking open the set I was both pleasantly surprised and a little bit let down with some quality issues that should have been expected…
Dungeons And Dragons Original Set
First off, the bad. The main issue I have with this set is the packaging. It’s cheap, really cheap and it’s sort of a shame. I guess I was spoiled by the nice embossed sturdy box that the BCI release came in, the beautiful fold out digi-pak that housed the discs, and the included episode guide. Compared to that the Mill Creek release is about as bare bones as you can get…
This set features all 27 episodes spread over 3 single sided discs which are housed in black paper sleeves that sort of snap into the plastic case. Granted it keeps the DVDs sturdy enough, but I can imagine over time these paper sleeves are going to get worn and torn up. Besides this, it’s just an annoying to have to pull out the sleeves like this and fish out the disc. DVD packaging companies are doing wondrous things with minimal packaging these days, and a case like the ones used for the Family Ties releases (that has spindles on either side of the inner case and a flap with a DVD spindle in the middle) would have been a vast improvement at very little increase in cost…
As for the DVDs themselves, they’re not bad. First off, all of the special features from the BCI edition have been stripped. There is nothing extra on this set, it’s just the episodes. Like I mentioned above, there are a total of 27 episodes, 9 to a disc, and the DVDs default into the episode selection screen for each disc…
The most surprising aspect of this set is how well the quality of the actual video and audio held up. The BCI discs had up to 7 episodes per disc, so there wasn’t a ton of added compression to fit a couple more on, especially considering that all the fancy frills were discarded. To my eyes, the quality is almost a direct transfer. As far as the audio goes, it’s a little bit quieter on the Mill Creek DVDs, with the background music suffering the most, but it’s certainly not to a level that it’s ever distracting. With the video, the Mill Creek version isn’t quite as rich, but the difference is really subtle. Here are some screen to screen comparisons. The Mill Creek version is on the left, and the BCI on the right…
Mill Creek BCI
Mill Creek BCI
All in all, if you’re more interested in just getting a decente copy of all the episodes, I’d highly suggest picking up a copy of the new Mill Creek set. It’s a little shoddy on the packaging side, but for $13 on Amazon right now it’s one hell of a deal. If you’re more concerned with a nicer presentation and a great set of special features, than I suggest picking up one of the remaining BCI sets before they fall into seriously over-priced out of print obscurity. Amazon still has copies available for around $40.
Dungeons And Dragons Box Set
As far as the cartoon itself, I still love it as much as ever and I’m glad to see it staying in print for a new generation. If you’re interested, you can find my original review of the BCI set, as well as my expanded look at the first 13 episodes from my Cartoon Commentary! column by following these links:
Dungeons and Dragons Overview
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
Episode 13
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