A.F

If you're the kind of people that dislikes PS1 like CGI, or CGI in general, this definetly won't change your mind.

Story 3/10

The story is pretty much non-existent, apart from this one thing in the ending that can be considered a cheap twist. Most of this 15 minute special is just action, and even that isn't all that entertaining.

Anyway, the setting is this sort of space ship that gets overrun by a virus. That's pretty much all that can be said, since they don't work on anything beyond that.

Art 4/10

It wouldn't be as bad if the poor story was backed with eyecandy, but the CGI is ... pretty poor, everything looks very dated (even for the time it was released) and nothing really stands out. Most backgrounds this grey/darkgreen colour that ends up making it even more unnappealing. I know it's a space ship, it's not supposed to be all colourful, but that doesn't change the fact it's not fun to look at.

Sound 5/10

Not much to say about the sound, okay voice acting, okay sound effects, might be the most "okay" aspect of this special.

Character 2/10

There are only 3 characters, and they are all pretty poorly fleshed out, because, as I said, it's basically 15 minutes of action without any sort of development, not that they'd have much time to do so if they wanted to, but in the end, they're still incredibly bland characters.

Enjoyment 4/10

I guess you could enjoy it if you want a quick watch with some space action/horror with really weird alien design. Other than that, I suggest you watch something else on your plan to watch list.

I didn't expect much going into Archetypes Forces, but even with these low expectations, I didn't think it was much good.

The story is basically a set-up for all of the action that happens throughout, and it's a very common sci-fi horror tale. Person is infected with some kind of parasite, this parasite takes over their body and controls them and tries to kill the others. These creatures shape shift and their heads start splitting open into monster tentacles or whatever. The humans run away from them... there's little tiny mech suits that they use to try and fight back. There's really no surprises here.

The characters ... are also completely uninteresting, and barely even have anything going for them. It's only been a couple hours since I've watched the film, and I honestly cannot even remember any of their names, motivations, or personality traits. They all come off as incredibly standard and faceless, and the they probably would have been just as uninteresting if they were all silent mannequins. The voice actors do their best job of trying to prop up the characters, but they're already such a lost cause that it's hopeless.

The art also isn't very impressive, but it's not too horrible to look at, it reminds me of the kind of pre-rendered CGI you'd see on some early PS2 games, except the character models look like they're probably even lower polycount than that. Things still move pretty decently, though... even if they don't look very good. Still, this looks like a collection of video game cutscenes instead of a film in it's own right.

The problem with the whole film is that because it's got such a basic, bland story that you're left wanting something else from it. Some visual flare, some awesome characters. However, we get none of that, instead getting some sub-standard CGI and some really uninteresting characters. Thus, after all of the parts are combined, what we're left with is a flat, dull shell of a show that is somewhat competent, but ends up being utterly unexciting.