Now I love a good anthology series, little episodes that expand the lore of something I enjoy and I will admit, a lot of that comes from just how good the Animatrix was. Lately it seems that Star Wars Visions is keeping that spark going, so when Secret Level was announced, I was very intrigued. Could a series, that told new tales in game worlds that I knew, provide as much excitement as their inspiration, or was this a level that should have remained secret?

The short answer is no, the longer answer will take some explaining. Going in I knew that we would have shorts for Armored Core, Dungeons & Dragons, Splunkey and many more, but what I did not know is that some of them would barely meet the definition of what a short was. The Mega Man short, for all that it does, barely cracks a 5 minute run time, and where it ends, feels like its just the beginning of the adventure. Don’t get me wrong, there are a good number of the episodes that run around 18 minutes and you do get a lot to enjoy in that time, but those are the exception and not the norm. Due to the varied length of the episodes, it is hard to get into some of them, as one will have you on the edge of your seat for a good while, whereas another might be over before your you blink.

The other issue that I had with the shorts is just how incomplete some of them are, I won’t say which ones for spoiler reasons, but there are a good number of them. It is important to note that by incomplete I just mean they lack a proper ending, which is a weird thing to say for a short, but it is true. Many of them build up to big moments and then they are just done, we get to watch the build-up, but then see none of the moment it was leading up to. There are some that have a satisfying ending and they feel good, but they are sadly few in number. Probably the only other issue with the shorts, at least those not connected to a well known franchise, is that there is very little in the way of introduction to events or characters. Now for some of them, you really don’t need a lot of details, but for others, context to events or even characters would have been a very welcome inclusion.

The one area that I can’t fault is with the animation, as it is done by Blur Studios, I knew it would be amazing, but that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of just how good some episodes look. There are episodes like Spelunky or Sifu that embrace a more artistic look, which especially with Sifu lines up to the games original design, but most of the shorts just look photo real. That is not hyperbole as I do mean photo real, in the episode Crossfire: Good Conflict, there were times when I honestly had to remind myself that I was looking at CGI, it was that impressive. Now say what you will about Concord the game, but the cinematic trailer they released for it, with the heist and the hot sauce was amazing, but the episode here, Tale of the Implacable, blows that clear out of the sky. The one I was honestly a little disturbed by was the Outer Worlds short The Company We Keep, it looks amazing as you would expect, but there is a real uncanny valley to the look, which at times is fun and other times, weird and my brain just couldn’t quite make sense of what was going on.

Pairing well with the incredible animation is the series great voice work and wonderful score. Now I know they made a big deal about some Hollywood actors playing a part within the series and you will spot a few quite quickly, but some may surprise you. I knew actors like Keanu Reeves would be easy to spot and I figured that Kevin Hart would be just the same, but the character that he voiced took me longer to spot that I thought it would. That is not to say you won’t hear him, but his performance is not the usual that we see from Hart and honestly that could be said for a number of the actors in the show. I have to give credit to Michael Beach, he is an actor I like in most of the works he has been in, but his voice as a father who is doing everything he can to find his daughter, just felt personal. Even the actors whose voices I didn’t recognise sounded great, I again have to call back to Crossfire, as it was the one short with the biggest cast and all the roles felt right.

The score is as varied as you might imagine, having shorts that touch upon military shooter and dragon filled fantasy, but each episode had a great one to match the on screen visuals. Xan, the Unreal Tournament short had a techno-inspired track running behind the scenes and it honestly just kicked things into high gear. The action and music combined, honestly gave me vibes of Tron: Legacy where the folks are fighting in the arena. I don’t think I can call out any of the shorts for having a bad score, some have more going on than others, but they are all great.

Secret Level is interesting, there are some episodes that tell an interesting story, within familiar worlds, that you can’t help but get drawn in. The problem is there are some that fail to contain proper endings to the tales they are telling, which makes them feel incomplete. But the worst offenders are the ones that barely crack 5 minutes on the screen, because they simply can’t provide anything real to connect to. If you are a fan of a featured game, then you will likely enjoy the associated short, but there is very little for non-fans to connect with, something that is exacerbated by the shorter shorts. Overall, I did enjoy my time watching the shorts, but I just wish there was more going on, because right now it feels like a secret that is not worth the effort of discovering.