As A Fan Of The Legend Of Vox Machina, These Are My Favorite (And Least Favorite) Elements Of The Mighty Nein After The Finale

Spoilers ahead for Season 1 of The Mighty Nein, available streaming now with an Amazon Prime subscription.

One of the most highly-anticipated animated series of the 2025 TV schedule has come to an end, and Critical Role’s The Mighty Nein didn’t hold back on the action to close out the first season. Set in the same world as Prime Video’s The Legend of Vox Machina, The Mighty Nein can’t really be considered a sequel or spinoff despite some nods to the original show. I went into The Mighty Nein as a fan of Vox Machina, but mostly uninformed about Critical Role’s Dungeons & Dragons campaign that inspired the new show.

So, going on not much more than the background I picked up while researching Tusk Love and the social media spoilers I couldn’t avoid, I went into The Mighty Nein ready to enjoy it. Now that the first season has ended, I can’t help but compare it to The Legend of Vox Machina.

My Favorite Elements Of The Mighty Nein

I did enjoy The Mighty Nein on the whole, and was convinced after the first few episodes that I was going to be tuning in weekly. Knowing the world of Exandria from Vox Machina was helpful, and I quickly discovered one difference that I wish could apply to the original.

A Longer Run Time With Weekly Releases. New episodes of The Mighty Nein are considerably longer than Legend of Vox Machina's. The shortest episode ran for 43 minutes, while the longest ran for 49 minutes. The longest episode of LOVM ran for 30 minutes, with the shortest clocking in at just 24 minutes. I also preferred the weekly releases for the newer show. It allowed time for discussion of each episode instead of blowing past three at a time.

More Matt Mercer. If you haven’t watched the credits of either show, you may not recognize Matt Mercer’s name, but you’ve definitely heard his voice. In LOVM, he voiced everybody from Palace Guard #2 to larger roles like Sylas Briarwood and Umbrasyl. He's just never had a full-time character like his Critical Role colleagues. That seems to be different for The Mighty Nein, as he’s credited with playing Essek in four of the eight episodes. Assuming Essek is here to stay to continue his story, Matt Mercer may finally have a character of his own.

Starting From The Beginning. While The Mighty Nein took its time in actually forming the group, I did appreciate getting to see them come together. The in medias res approach worked well enough for Vox Machina, but getting context for some relationships from the start has been fun, especially Nott and Caleb.

More Mighty Magic. Have I gotten into debates with friends and siblings about preferring non-superpowered superheroes to superpowered heroes? Yes. Is part of why Percy is one of my Vox Machina favorites because he doesn’t have any magical abilities? Sure. But The Mighty Nein is killing it with the animation of the magic, especially for Caleb.

Vox Machina Easter Eggs. Call me a Legends of Vox Machina loyalist, but I got a kick out of the nods to the original series. There were a few early on, including “dandy as a de Rolo,” which is slightly hilarious considering Percy's very un-dandy story in the latter half of LOVM’s third season. The finale included a shout out to the Chroma Conclave. The Mighty Nein is taking the right approach to Easter eggs: noticeable for fans who are keeping an eye out, but not distracting from the new story being told.

Honorable Mention: Sam Riegel As Nott The Brave (No Comma). Sam Riegel is playing a female character for The Mighty Nein, and as such pitched his voice much higher than how he plays Scanlan on LOVM. It’s pretty impressive.

My Least Favorite Elements As A Vox Machina Fan

Before I get into the elements of The Mighty Nein that I felt weren’t done as well as LOVM, I just want to disclaim that I’m a fan of the newer show, and having least favorite elements doesn’t mean that I disliked them. I’m open to having my mind changed. But let’s jump in!

Fewer Musical Numbers. What can I say? I love a good musical number, so Scanlan’s skills as a bard have been much appreciated. I can’t say that “Pull My Beads of Love” is a song that I'll walk around singing, but there are definitely tunes that have gotten stuck in my head. While it doesn’t hurt The Mighty Nein that there are no impromptu tunes, I did miss them.

Seemingly More Reliant On Critical Role’s Campaign. Technically, I can’t say this with certainty, but I felt like I would have gotten a lot more out of the show with more context for the characters. For example, Yasha’s appearance as the big cliffhanger wasn’t really enough to have me toppling off the edge of my seat, because The Mighty Nein hasn’t gotten me to care much about her yet.

This is also the first season of Critical Role animation that I’ve watched since playing Baldur’s Gate 3 as my first experience with Dungeons & Dragons, and there were parts of the action that I know wouldn’t have hit as hard if I didn’t know the game.

Less Emotional Impact. I’m not actually sure what it is about The Mighty Nein that doesn’t pluck as hard at my heartstrings, but I do know that The Legend of Vox Machina had me more emotionally invested in those characters by the end of their first Briarwood showdown in Episode 3 than I am in the Mighty Nein after eight episodes.

Perhaps part of that is due to the show starting at the beginning with the group as opposed to Vox Machina’s in medias res approach with strong relationships already formed, but I'm more emotionally invested in The Mighty Nein's plot than I am in the characters, and that's rare for me.

Fjord And Jester’s Romance. Now, I love a good romance, and I definitely don’t hate the sparks flying between Fjord and Jester. I nearly left them off this list entirely, but since I found myself comparing them to all three LOVM couples, I figured it was only fair. My hangup with Fjord and Jester is the same as mine was with Vax and Keyleth (to to a lesser extent, Pike and Scanlan) early on.

It was clear from the very beginning that The Mighty Nein is pairing these characters up. I’m more of a slow burn kind of gal, and I got that with Vex and Percy taking a few seasons to heat up on LOVM. (And then they heated ALL the way up.) I’m hoping for a slow burn pair to develop as The Mighty Nein continues.

All in all, I’ll definitely be tuning in for Season 2 of The Mighty Nein whenever it arrives on Prime Video, but The Legend of Vox Machina is up next. After an Ocean’s Eleven-esque sneak peek at Season 4 over the summer, the next batch of episodes is set to premiere at some point in 2026.