https://www.cybersport.ru/dota-2/articles/vselennaya-doty-glazami-nyufaga-obzor-seriala-dota-krov-drakona

At the center of the Dragon’s Blood story is Davion, the famous dragon fighter. The next battle turns out to be not the most pleasant way for him: suddenly he finds himself drawn into a struggle between dragons and the ancient demon Terrorblade, where he takes the side of those whom he swore to hunt. As if this is not enough, by chance he turns out to be connected with the princess Mirana, who has enough of her own problems. Together they will have a lot of travels and unexpected revelations on a difficult path.

Speaking about the plot, I would like to note the absence of an unambiguous display of good and evil: as soon as it begins to seem that it has finally become clear who is who, then the show neatly trips you up, demonstrating that the “good people”, in general something, also a stigma in the fluff. This does a good job of maintaining the intrigue, even if it is not some kind of revelation – this can easily be found in dozens of other shows, even from the same Netflix.

There are more central storylines here than meets the eye: the stories of Mirana, trying to recover what was stolen from her goddess, and Davion (Dragon Knight), accidentally caught up in an ancient conflict, stand out right off the bat. The life of the exiled elves and their conflict with the goddess worshiped by Mirana, the difficult fate of Invoker (voiced, by the way, by everyone’s beloved Troy Baker, the voice of Joel from The Last of Us and Booker from BioShock Infinite), the revenge of the dragon slayer Kaiden and history Luna, warriors with a dark past.

All the stories are intertwined in a surprisingly organic way and do not confuse: the characters are introduced gradually, well delineated and have individual characters – the elaboration, of course, leaves much to be desired, but enough to feel sympathy or antipathy for them. Equally important, they are also memorable. True, I had difficulties with names, but this did not really interfere with recognition due to the textured design of the characters.

Despite the assurances of the first reviewers that it is simply impossible to understand what is happening here without deep knowledge of the game, I did not have any problems understanding the story. In some places, there was a feeling that ignorance, on the contrary, only plays into the hands: when there are no expectations, it is much easier to perceive the behavior of the characters in a given situation.

Moreover, I would like to emphasize that after viewing there is no aftertaste that it was exactly “Dota”: most tropes and plot twists are typical of the fantasy genre, and although the characters are cute, they are not truly unique: the same Davion’s story resembles, for example, the Drakengard series of games, and Mirana is a typical mark of an archer – an image popular since the days of “bearded” fantasy. However, the heroes are not devoid of a certain charm: the same Dragon Knight is remembered for a good sense of humor and an easy attitude to life (which, however, will change somewhat in the course of the development of the story), and Luna remains in memory as a bloodthirsty monster, openly hiding behind good intentions.

The two central characters, Dragon Knight and Mirana, due to the events of the show, pretty much doubt the seemingly unshakable attitudes of life. The reasons are different: while Davion discovers that dragons are not as simple as they seem, and killing them is not such a noble thing, Mirana is confronted head-on with the truth about the goddess she worships. Here, by the way, I would like to note the similarity of their storylines with other shows from Netflix based on the games – “Dogma of the Dragon” and “Castlevania”. In the first series, dragons and the uneasy relationship with them are just mentioned, and from the second the religious doubts of the heroes migrated. I don’t know how things are in Dota, but Castlevania certainly did not attack religion, unlike the series of the same name.

The show is also related to the above-mentioned series by the style that combines traditional and three-dimensional graphics. Fortunately, there are no monstrous results in the spirit of “Berserker” 2012 here: 3D is cleverly used in general plans or to emphasize the power of dragons that are different from the rest of the world. At times, of course, some unfortunate moments are striking (for example, unpainted details – sometimes dragons’ teeth may not be white, as usual, but match the main body color), especially noticeable against the background of a generally high-quality animation. By the way, everything is really good with her here: the battle scenes are made at the level of the same “Castlevania”, although at some moments a little hack is felt like using static plans or reducing the frame rate (the technique for anime, however, is completely standard).

But most of the battles are worked out in high detail: smooth animation allows you to see everything in detail, plus the authors do not skimp on cruelty – blood gushes in a stream, entrails fall to the ground, everything is as it should be. In some places, especially bloody scenes, it is true, are “censored” due to well-chosen angles, but shown is enough to understand the level of cruelty taking place. Half-measures are not worth waiting for: if someone is torn in half, you will see both halves, and arms and legs will not fly into the camera when they are cut off. The quality sags only in large-scale battles – there, alas, the three-dimensionality of individual characters is striking when the key persons are drawn in more detail.

Eight episodes of the first book, as the creators called the season, is enough time to plant interesting seeds of future stories, reveal the characters and their motivations, and also lay the foundation for a much more global conflict, which will clearly be revealed in subsequent episodes. The sequel was not officially announced (although the animatics editor mentioned that he is already working on the 24th episode), but the open ending clearly hints that it is too early to say goodbye to the universe. However, the series could not drag me to the “dark side”: despite Valve’s obvious attempt to attract newcomers to the game in this way, I do not see a sharp urge to install Dota 2.