Exandria Unlimited Kymal Review
Exandria Unlimited Kymal is a 2-part sequel to Critical Role’s 2021 8-part mini-campaign Exandria Unlimited. This ExU “part 2” continues the story of the non-Campaign 3 Crown Keepers.
Aabria Iyengar is back to DM/GM along with:
Dorian Storm played by Robby Daymond
Dariax Zaveon played by Matthew Mercer
Opal played by Aimee Carrero
Fy’ra Rai played by Anjali Bhimani
Morrighan Ferus played by Erica Lindbeck
Minor Spoilers for Critical Role Campaign 3
Dorian Storm and his brother Cyrus Wybernwind have left the Bells Hells and are reunited with the Crown Keepers. The brothers are looking for ways to earn money to pay off Cryrus’ (huge) bounty on his head. What better way than Kymal, a city known for its casinos?
Part 1 of Exandria Unlimited Kymal consists of the party meeting Morrighan a bartender, who overhears the group talking about ways to acquire a large sum of money for Cyrus, by possibly doing a heist. Well, they’re in luck because Morrighan cons casinos in Kymal by working as a bartender until she can gain access to the vault. She teams up with the Crown Keepers and they scheme a plan to steal lots of gold.
Exandria Unlimited Kymal Expectations
In my Exandria Unlimited Review, I’m very clear that I didn’t like it. Despite a couple of decent episodes, I thought overall, it was bad. What was promised via hype, both with the experience and story of ExU, as well as Aabria Iyengar as this master storyteller and GM fell completely short for me.
Going into Exandria Unlimited Kymal, my expectations were the exact opposite; low, very low.
I was hoping that Critical Role and Aabria would prove me wrong. With an 8 episode mini-campaign experience and fan feedback behind them, Exandria Unlimited Kymal should be a better product, especially since it is a short, more easily focused 2-shot. Plus, no longer is our cast filled with D&D newbies; Robbie Daymond in particular was a temporarily main player in Critical Role Campaign 3 and is a well-deserved, fan-favorite.
But unfortunately, and I’m sure you saw this one coming; I did not like Exandria Unlimited Kymal.
There was nothing so exceptionally bad or angering (experiences I felt during the original ExU). No longer were there 50 confusing plotlines, potty humor, or tension between GM and players. Not at all.
Exandria Unlimited Kymal was just really boring.
I found nothing about Exandria Unlimited Kymal fun or exciting. Two and a half hours into Part 1 I noted
- “Still nothing has really happened.”
- “Boring. A lot of meandering and setup. This reminds me a lot of TV shows that pad out the season so they can hit 10 or 12 episodes when they really only have 6 episodes worth of story.”
After the first episode, I contemplated even bothering to watch Part 2 because I really didn’t enjoy my time with Part 1. I really, really wanted to like it; In my Exandria Unlimited Kymal announcement video, I talked much I would love for Kymal to be a good, fun time. I had hoped that it would help to jumpstart my love for Critical Role, as I have found Campaign 3 to have the same exact issues. It’s boring; combine that with The Legend of Vox Machina, Critical Role’s animated series covering Campaign 1 and Vox Machina, being ultimately pretty forgettable, and you can see why I haven’t been excitied.
Exandria Unlimited Kymal is also at a little bit of a weird spot, as you really need to have watched both the original Exandria Unlimited and be caught up with the majority of Campaign 3 to fully grasp what exactly is going on with the Crown Keepers and Cyrus.
It doesn’t help that I still don’t particularly like any of these characters (excluding Dorian), especially Opal. No disrespect to Amiee Carrero, but I pretty much hated Opal in both versions of ExU. She has this Vestige of Divergence, this Crown of Barbed Vision, and can speak directly with Lloth, but spends more time talking about her outfits and appearance.
Robbie and Dorian sort of took a backseat this time; my guess was to let Aimee, Anjali, Matt, and Erica get more screentime since he was obviously a big part of Campaign 3.
Exandria Unlimited Kymal gets a 2/5.
If you liked Exandria Unlimited Kymal, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I personally think this is another fail on Critical Role’s part. Arabia didn’t win over and I gave her a second shot to do so. Unfortunately, I think I’m in the same boat with Exandria Unlimited in general. If this comes back for a third round, especially with this cast playing these characters, I’m not checking it out. I don’t know if swapping to another DM does it for me, either.
What a Critical Role low point for me. It’s kind of sad. I was hoping this got me pumped to catch up to Campaign 3 and maybe start back up with creating more videos, but I’m torn. It’s hard for me to cover a show or series that I’m not feeling. It’s not fun to always have a negative take, especially when creating videos takes hours and hours.
What did you think of Exandria Unlimited Kymal? Do you agree with my ExU Kymal review?
Should I give Campaign 3 another shot? I’m currently on episode 10 and heard it picks up around episode 13.
If you haven’t watched my Exandria Unlimited Kymal Video Review, check it out here.
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