Random TV Season Review - Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix

 

Lots of franchises and companies have interesting ways to celebrate the things they have done. While a crossover would be considered by many to be a cash grab, it has paved the way into some quite significant things. Things such as Super Smash Brothers and Kingdom Hearts have helped celebrate the companies and franchises that have made those games possible. In both cases, they put various characters, elements and settings from multiple franchises into a scenario where they play a part in the story (or lack thereof for some Smash Brothers games), but will otherwise not take the spotlight and let the original characters go their way. Now we see something a little bit different to that as Ubisoft decided to take a different approach. While this series is primarily inspired by the Far Cry 3 DLC called Blood Dragon, the people behind it, decided to use a magnitude of Ubisoft things such as Rayman (voiced by David Menkin) being a refugee from another universe and a media personality, DedSec from Watch Dogs being a resistance movement, a Templar Order of sorts having existed at one point (from Assassin's Creed) and among other things, the Rabbids being kaiju monsters. Yeah, it's going to be a little strange this one, so let's get to it:

Set in an alternate United States in 1992, the United States has become a place called Eden. A dystopian place of sorts that is populated by both humans and anthropomorphic monsters that are known as Hybrids. The show focuses on Dolph Laserhawk (voiced by Nathaniel Curtis) who goes on a heist with his boyfriend Alex Taylor (voiced by Boris Hiestand and based on the character from The Crew). Alex ends up betraying Laserhawk who ends up getting captured and becomes the leader of a "Suicide Squad" style team known as the Ghosts. Doing missions that ultimately lead into some shocking revelations and more.

For a show that goes its own way, but nevertheless attempts to combine many characters and elements from various Ubisoft franchises into one show, it's pretty good. Its tone feels like anime shows that set out to have a serious tone, but on occasion, a few funny moments. I love how they have used all the Ubisoft things like what I mentioned earlier, plus things like a character's dad being a Splinter Cell like character, a French frog being an assassin and many more. It's also got moments where the style changes from an anime and into something gamers like me will be familiar with. It did leave on a cliffhanger, and you probably will feel a little confused if you don't know about Ubisoft's games and the lore they all carry. But overall, a fun and over-the-top series that is both brutal and heartfelt. Definitely for the hardcore fans, and it's nice to see Rayman play a major role in something again after so long. 9/10