Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight

By Chris Bedard     February 18, 2002
Release Date: October 17, 2000



The Review!
Audio: A-
The review is based on the Japanese language track. I found the audio to be very good for a 2 channel stereo track. If you can overlook that it's not 5.1, the sound is terrific, and the score lends tremendously to the overall high rating of the audio. The opening song is so capturing, that I'm trying to find the import CD of the soundtrack, because I MUST own this song. The music throughout the series is also well suited to the theme (lots of strings and wind instruments, as well as some chorals). Voices were clear and distinct. There was also fairly good amount of directionality where appropriate (fights, creepy sounds while walking through woods, etc....). Just don't expect to find any bass in this soundtrack. I sampled the English language track, and found it to be recorded at the same level as the Japanese track, but the voice acting was horrendous.

Video: B
Overall, the video was good, with spots of artifacting, mostly in backgrounds. Colors were rich and vibrant, but not over saturated. Blacks were deep. The one glaring exception, at least in my copy of the set, is that Disc 2 has sub par video compared to the rest of the set. It was washed out, colors were not near as vibrant, and the deepest blacks, at best, reached a dark gray. Unacceptable. The animation itself was good. There was almost no blood shown, and many of the overall battle scenes were implied instead of graphically rendered by showing still animation cells with audio instead of full blown fight scenes. I kind of liked this though, as it let the viewer use their imagination about what was happening in a given battle, while keeping the show decent enough for younger viewers to watch without parents having a fit.

Menu: B
No complaints here, but nothing really special either. They work, and they are quick. No animation, just a quick pan across the cast. They score major points for using the opening title song across the menu though!

Content: A
I was completely new to the world of Lodoss, and relatively new to the world of Anime (Lodoss is only the seventh title I've owned). I found the collectible booklet was very informative, though it does spoil quite a bit of the show, so if you haven't watched it yet, don't read the booklet first. Let me say, that I loved this series. At first, it seems daunting, 27 episodes, but as you start to get into it, it will go by very quickly. Having played Final Fantasy on the Playstation, I got a familiar feeling watching this series. I found the characters and the story around them very involving, with more depth than I would have expected from an animated feature. The main characters were well developed, and, as a nice touch, grew both intellectually and emotionally throughout the series. I was thoroughly engrossed in the first group of heroes travels, and just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I came to like the second group even more. I found myself getting emotionally involved in the characters and story as well, which was good. I would get frustrated, sad, happy, whatever, and found myself liking and disliking certain characters as well. By far, Parn and Spark are the most developed, though I though Spark was a more enjoyable character. There is plenty of comic relief provided too, mostly by supporting characters like Shiris, Maar, Leaf, Ryna and Garrak. I also looked forward to the trailers, or the comic 'second part of the show' featuring child like Parn, Deedlit, Spark, Neese and co. Very funny, and a nice break from the more serious series. Overall, I highly recommend this DVD Boxed Set.

Packaging: A
The set comes in a nice 4 disc slipcase box, with solid red background, and shots of the main characters. The design is carried over to the individual disc case covers, featuring artwork of the main characters featured in each disc. Very attractive.

Review Equipment
Zenith IQB27FW Flatscreen TV (Video Essentials Calibrated), Denon AVR-3200 Receiver, Toshiba SD-2108 DVD Player, Paradigm CC350 Center, Paradigm Mini Monitor Left/Right Front and L/R Surrounds, DCM KX-Sub2 Sub-woofer, Monster M-series interconnects and speaker wire.