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Maybe I’ve been overly harsh of the Reign series in the past.  The first two discs grated on my nerves, the prime cause being the fact the supposed protagonist is a complete jerk.  Fortunately with Volume 3, it’s revealed in a prophecy from the Oracle that Alexander will die – at the hands of someone closest to him, no less.

Act 8 lays out Alexander’s plans for his grand city, Alexandria.  While the plans are scratched in the dirt, Alexander is transported to the city some years in the future where he meets a couple of thieves bent on opening the tomb of the Great King.  Alexander opens the tomb, puts two-and-two together, and figures the tomb is actually his.  There are one or two confusing images then he finds himself back in the present looking down at the plans, which have taken the shape of a human being.

Act 9 has Alexander visiting an oracle to put to rest questions about his fate.  He’s informed that the person closest to him will strike him down.  Being a self-centered jerk, Alexander’s response is a shrugged, “Whatever, man.” (I paraphrase a bit.)  Meanwhile, Ptolemy receives a different prophecy – that he will be ruler of the world.  The fact Alexander is fated for this particular position seems to upset Ptolemy a little.

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As all this is going on, Darius III is massing his army to attack, which is a nice lead-in for the next act.  It also brings to the fore one of the other problems I have with Reign: quick battle scenes.

In Act 10, Darius III and Alexander meet on the battlefield – two massive armies (numbering in the tens of thousands) doing their best to slaughter each other amounts to less than a few minutes of screen time.  The recent Lord of the Rings movies (and even the end of Star Wars Episode II) have spoiled us with epic and vignette-filled battle scenes.  Being an animated production, Reign could have gone whole-hog on the battle scenes since it doesn’t have the same budget constraints of feature films.  In Reign we get simple flashes of the battle with one or two key moments given a minute or two of screen time.  It wouldn’t be a problem if I thought the battles weren’t interesting, but with the sci-fi / fantasy design I actually want to see more of the battles with the interesting machines and armor both sides employ.

If you know your history, you know the outcome of the battle, but the subplot of the polyhedron, which holds all knowledge, is complete fiction.  In this last Act of the disc, we get to see Diogenes and Plato ponder the polyhedron and its expected return.

Volume 3 has done what I thought would be impossible – it has caught my attention and actually made me look forward to the final disc.

- Omni

(April 18, 2004)

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