Reviews

It's mostly just a big budget, high special effects action movie, with all you'd expect from that. Especially with its fast-paced action and transformers-like robot battle effects, and everything building up to that kind of big, flashy 'final battle' you know is coming at some point.

But, it also:

• Is very well acted for the most part, especially the main character.

• Balances out the fast paced action with some quiet yet tense points, some basic human drama, and a 'memories' approach to character building that is integrated into the world building in a way that makes complete sense.

• Purposefully goes for the emotions in a way that seems blatant, but actually works.

This is what action movies should be like!

Definitely worth a watch for the first season. It's getting rarer and rarer to see characters who are genuinely nice people, regardless of how others treat them. And rarer to see that kind of character without kindness being treated as a weakness. But in this show, they give you not one but two nice people and kind of treat them as heroes, and manage comedy and drama and conflict all in one show. Very well done, and a great show to unwind to.

Except, the second season almost drops the comedy altogether, and in place of the encouraging, nice, hero characters, are a collection of miserable, anxious, frustrated characters all suffering from depression. Probably realistic, but not the uplifting way to relieve your own stress and depression that the first season was. And just as you think it couldn't get any worse, the my throw in a bonus episode that is some kind of arthouse double-down on the misery with side characters, before finishing up with a funeral. Not many laughs, that's for sure.

The movie starts out like a stylish action flick with some big name actors, before shifting gears entirely into what seems like a clever play on the genre with a mix of light comedy and spy thriller. There are even some neat twists of the kind that could keep you guessing in a proper spy thriller.

Unfortunately, nothing else seems to work. The main characters don't work together; the actors are pretty average; further twists feel jammed in; it triws so hard to have its own style, but it just turns out cheesy and over the top. And it just got worse and worse as it moved into the last 30min.

Overall, it feels like a script writer had a great idea, but the main cast and director didn't take it seriously enough to do anything decent with it.

For the first half of the season, I thought it was going to turn out to be one of the best series I'd watched in years. It does well at both setting up the mystery, and exploiting its unique type of dystopia. The acting starts out strong too, and it's hard not to like several of the main characters.

Unfortunately, as it gets closer to the end, the plot gets a bit confused with itself. I'm one of those people who are happy to suspend disbelief, and believe stories should not care about real world physics and logic. But this story ends up not even being consistent with itself.

Most of all, the main character is made out to be someone who is universally loved, and who ends up doing a great job at something everyone doubts she'll be good at. The way she's portrayed when it comes to relationships is as if she only does good on behalf of other people. But if you take a step back and just look at her actual actions, she's a selfish loner who ignores everyone around her, except when she's angry and criticising them.

So much love, and I hope there's a second season. But, I hope it's more consistent with itself and logical if there is.

Love the atmosphere. Love the plot/story and the mystery involved. Love the non-player characters and enemies (ranging from otherworldly beasts to robots to ghosts to possessed people). Love how extremely different each world/area is. It's neither linear, nor too 'open world'. And every game is a bit different because of the way worlds/areas are partly randomly generated and presented in a different order for each player.

Gameplay is a tonne of fun. There's challenge, but it's not over the top difficult. Enemies, whether standard, elite, or boss, vary dramatically and can therefore require quite different strategies. And there are so many secret areas to discover and puzzles to solve that it's always an adventure.

The character choices and progression, and the weapon and mod and ability progression systems are interesting and varied. At first, it felt like it was going to turn out to be one of those really grindy games with slow progression and probably in-app purchases to speed things up. But it has definitely not turned out this way. Rather, it's gradual enough to add to the challenge and encourage extra exploration, without ever getting boring or dragging on too slowly. Just the right balance.

Controls are refined. Movement and targeting is extremely smooth and natural, and camera angles are just right. Up there with the very best in quality.

Most of all, the more I play Remnant II, the more I feel like it's a game designed by people who genuinely play games themselves and really care about what they're doing. Such a refreshing surprise!!!

Basically, it feels like there are two movies here. The first is a deep, stylish, well-acted, inspired, artistic yet purposeful movie dripping with Chinese culture. The second is some kind of overdone propaganda flick whose primary message is hateful, nationalism promoting the idea that 'whatever horrible violence is necessary it is worth it if it empowers our nation'.

Overall, it is made up of the first by far, and I'd honestly recommend it to everyone, but especially to people familiar with local Chinese culture (eg. Having lived there or watched numerous Chinese movies and series)... IF you could find the right place to stop watching about 10-15min before the very end.

Since I can't suggest where to stop without major spoilers, I can't recommend it though. I don't think anything with that hateful kind of message should be promoted, especially delivered in its overt, repeated, and intended-to-be-inspiring manner.

Right from the start it's obvious that it's going to be b-grade dialogue and acting throughout.

Yet, the way the main story kicks off and the subsequent mystery and intrigue keeps it entertaining nonetheless. Even when they do drop significant hints as to what's going on, the main plot has enough to it that you should want to keep watching - both to find out what happens to the protagonist and to see if she learns (and therefore you learn) much about what's going on and why.

The weird thing is, the part of the story that seems the easiest to get wrong, actually ends up alright. Unfortunately, the rest of the ending is a complete let down. And combined with the weak acting and dialogue, that just makes it not in the least bit worth watching overall.

The main actors are all brilliant, especially the two leads. And the first half portrays depression and a feeling of hopelessness about one's life in a deep and genuine manner. The rage the two main characters get into as a result, the mistakes they make, their selfishness, etc, all make sense in this light.

But then at some point, the writers decided one character would see imaginary things, crows could straight up talk to each other, and a couple of otherwise careful criminals would happily take extreme, clumsy risks with no planning, etc.

It's still okay, but the first half was so poignant and real, it's a shame the second half got so over the top.

* Edit: It's a bit buggy. Be prepared to restart a few areas from scratch due to crashes or freezes (at least, on the PS version).

Ignore the terrible dialogue (especially the 'self aware' nonsense) and bad acting, and there's a really amazing game here.

The world is a creepy, surreal, dystopia, and the intrigue stems from both political intrigue and whatever strange, possibly alien thing that happened to the world. It doesn't take the plot long to dive right in. Visuals are great too.

And the same goes for gameplay. At first, it seems just like any other turn-based, small team tactical game. But they quickly introduce a couple of skills and abilities that make the most of it. And the , as if it's not getting good enough by then, they introduce an optional stealth element. That combines so well with the tactics (eg. Taking out a couple of guards off to one side before setting up the rest in an ambush, etc).

Really a tonne of fun, and a tonne of mystery all wrapped into one.

Basically a non-stop action flick that had the potential to be so much more, but didn't bother trying.

Various aspects of the background and setting established room for a lot of intrigue and mystery. There are various races and caste-like social levels with complex politics and rebellions, unexplained AI tools, powerful military machines, and serious moral and ethical dilemmas. Yet these are all subsidiary to the action and never explored.

The action is interesting enough, and there are historical reflection scenes that help pacing by allowing for an occasionally slower pace and a bit of character development. Unfortunately, that's pretty much limited to getting a bunch of selfish idiots to work as a team. Their individual characters aren't explored, and the two that get the most lines are the most annoying: one stereotypically silly and boisterous; the other constantly whining and selfish from start to finish.

It's also not very consistent internally. For example, early on the 'heroes' are fighting against tech that was effectively stolen from their own military. Yet, despite their specialist training they seem to have never seen nor heard of any of that tech before. They even have an AI assistant that can control some tech, but have no idea that it can.

The worst part is the ethics of the whole thing; but that's getting into spoiler territory.

Watchable, even entertaining, if you can ignore the whining. But don't expect much in plot or character dev.

This is a 5min animation combining cartoon and real-life objects, with tiny characters smaller than a mahjong tile having a clumsy battle: a girl trying to save the boy she's in love with from a cupid-devil cross.

The devilish thing puts some kind of curse on her, which I won't spoil, but adds to the humour. And they battle around parts of a very typical looking Chinese apartment. Not only is it funny, but it also manages to show off quite a lot of culture (common products, brands, interior decor, a celebrity, etc).

If you've lived in China, it'll be nostalgic. If not, it's a 5min way to see a dash of what homes are like there, while laughing at the clever animation.

Nb. It's by the director of Scissors Seven, which is a great cartoon itself (for the first 2 seasons, at least).

It starts out as mostly a comedy, about a goofy, clumsy hairdresser who wishes he was a lihai kungfu assassin. His sidekicks are funny. His love interest is a secretive and powerful assassin herself. The plot is witty and unique.

Some episodes are pure drama. Some are mostly kungfu action, albeit lighthearted. Some are a bit artistic and abstract. Most are comedy.

It continues that way for two seasons. But then, in the third season, it starts to drift more into the kungfu action. Drama remains here and there. Comedy starts becoming rarer and rarer.

And by the fourth season, it feels like a completely different show. Episodes 1 and 2, for example, are each a single kungfu battle, both over-the-top yet taking itself seriously. It feels like a group of teenage animators took control and are just trying to one-up each other with 'here comes a really unstoppable ability' after another after another after another.

And where's Ronnie in all that?! :(

If it ever gets back to its season 1-2 roots, it'll be a must-see again!

Seasons 1-2: 8 stars Season 3: 4 stars

Seasons 1-2 were surprisingly good. I'd played one game (the third) and read one book (the first), and wasn't expecting The Witcher to live up to either. I even thought Cavill would turn out to be a bad choice. But, I was thoroughly impressed by the series on every respect - and Cavill especially so.

The mini-stories, overarching plot, characters, monsters, setting, abilities, politics, etc, were in line with both the book and game, while also adapted properly into an addictive show. Almost all acting was solid. Special effects were mostly worked in naturally, and integrated into combat in ways that made it feel even more like the game. Characters were developed over time. And the direction did it all justice.

If you can decide in advance to watch just the first 2 seasons, and never worry about what might happen in the end - do it.

Unfortunately, season 3 is a complete dud that feels like an entirely different show altogether. It's more like generic fantasy series that just happens to borrow from the Witcher here and there. Direction is amateurish. Actors struggle to perform well, as the dialogue has become bland and/or stereotypical. Witcher-style mini-stories have been replaced with hedonistic, artsy parties, romance, and characters constantly staring at each other with sexual intensity. It's like some kind of daytime soap-opera, except modern and woke, and there's an occasional monster fight.

Worst of all, when the overarching plot does start to take hold, it's full of random, out-of-character changes. Since character development was set aside for love scenes, there was never any chance learn that characters were conflicted, gradually convinced of an alternate view, secretly a spy, etc. Instead, just 'bam, now I'm on your team / on the other team - yay/boo'.

It's not like the classic 'the first season is always the best', either. It's such an extreme difference with season 3 that it really doesn't feel like the same show at all. So very disappointing.

If you can't stop after just 2 seasons, I'd recommend it watching it at all. It really is that bad.

Likeable main actors and a few complex characters make this an easy to watch drama that otherwise is pretty mediocre.

Although the murder mystery is central to everything, it feels like just a backdrop for exploring three complicated marriages that are falling apart in slightly different ways. The three strongest actors play three of the four main characters in these marriages, and it's exactly them that make the show so watchable.

Other acting is either mediocre or pretty bad, but luckily most have relatives minor roles. Meanwhile, the setting, the mild Aussie accents, and a satisfying (if a bit obvious) ending add just enough more to make it worth a watch.

It seems to strike just the right balance between being a modern game and yet still retaining the feel of the original games for nostalgia.

Importantly, it's based mostly on the third in the series, when the character could change into various animals. That was when it took on a kind of Castlevania feel, in that there were areas you couldn't access at first, but which opened up later. The typical examples being when you can see a ledge early on but it's too high, and when water is blocking your path - but later on, you gain a double-jump ability and the ability to swim. (Not that these are necessarily in this game - I'm using generic examples to avoid spoiling).

To me, that kind of thing is what really makes games fun. It creates a sense of exploration and makes you feel clever when you remember to return to a certain place after unlocking a relevant skill.

Unfortunately, there's one, tiny bit impactful problem. The character moves *so* slowly for a modern game. And to compound the issue, much of what you do involves both back-tracking to previously travelled areas (to try out new abilities), and falling off things only to have to go back to the beginning where the only ladder is, etc. So the character speed quickly becomes a frustrating, dragging experience.

It looks like you might be able to unlock 'shoes' with greater speed values. But making the early game dull in order to build to something better later on seems like a pretty poor design decision.

Still, overall a very solid continuation of what was one of the greatest series of games of its time.

Pros It starts out with intrigue right from the get go. You can't quite remember anything after apparently waking up from some serious binge drinking, but are probably a cop, and are in a strange hotel to investigate a suspicious death.

Curious setting. There's a kind of 50s or 70s vibe, or both, but it seems to be an alternate universe or dystopia in which there is unusual tech, and the way society and politics are organised is strange.

Character abilities are so very different from anything else. The categories of abilities are largely reflective of mental and physical characteristics a detective or cop could benefit from, ranging from empathy to visual acuity, and from persuasiveness to logic and reasoning. These are divided into subcategories for more specific skill sets. And on top of that, raising the level of a skill too high can have both positive and negative consequences.

It really feels investigative. It has a combination of the various items to pick up and decide how or where to use them later, and a dialogue option system built around interrogation.

Cons The characters are also quirky, but often to the point that it feels too over the top or tongue-in-cheek to take it very seriously.

Whereas the first 4 of the above 5 points would each individually be a strength, the combination doesn't really work for me. In trying so many unique and quirky things all at once, it goes a bit too far. The end result is more like an artistic experiment than a cohesive and fun-to-play game. You really need to be in just the right mood to play it for long, but since it's so story and dialogue driven it's also not the kind of game you can just dip into for half an hour here and there.

It's can be a bit too slow.

Overall I'm glad I gave it a try. It's quite the experience. But I'm also glad it wasn't too expensive, because I can't imagine ever finding the time to finish it.

In short: Surreal setting and intriguing plot with roguelike die-and-start-over gameplay and fluid, polished FPS controls and camera.

Lacks the growth and progression of many roguelikes, making many play-throughs entirely wasted, and the game inaccessible if you lack hyper twitch skills.

More detail: Mystery right from the start, in a surreal world with a surreal premise, and the intrigue is cleverly built into the rogue-like gameplay, with gradual reveals as you slowly unlock more areas and abilities and discover more secrets. It's dark, creepy, and the lightning, soundtrack, and sound effects combine well.

It's the first FPS I've seen that's a roguelike, and I expected it to be poorly implemented. But the controls are smooth, both in movement and shooting, and the camera is easy to control. Areas where combat starts allow for a wide range of tactics, with natural cover, potential for chasms or other drops to maintain distance, and often ways to get higher or lower than the enemies.

You might have to be familiar roguelike, rogue-lite, metroidvania style games to properly enjoy the semi-repetitive nature of dying and restarting over and over and over again. But honestly, that's what makes them such addictive games. Most 'runs', you'll unlock just a little more to make the next run easier. It could be a stat boost, a gear upgrade, or a more unique ability that gives you access to shortcuts and new areas. Whatever it is, that constant little increase in achievement just feels so good.

Unfortunately, while it looks like there are going to be tonnes of different things to unlock and to discover... the difficulty level can be a significant barrier.

In most other roguelikes, the difficulty is extreme to begin with too. But in many, as you replay over and over, you grow in minor ways that ultimately lead you to reaching a level where you can manage. That makes each play-through feel rewarding, even if you die right near the end of a level or after getting tonnes of abilities and power ups - because you know that even though you missed out on that try, you're a fraction closer to success next time. In Returnal, each death just feels like a complete waste, because all the relevant investment and growth is reset each time.

Importantly, within each run most of the game mechanics are designed to only award perfection. Three primary examples are:

1) The healing items double as max health increases, except you only get that max increase if you don't use it as a healing item. That is, the only way to increase your max health is to never get hit, otherwise the items are wasted in simple healing instead.

2) All weapons have a 5-stage power up that is entirely dependent on not getting hit. One of the power ups is a considerable increase in the resource used to gain access to higher level weapons. If you get hit, the power up resets, so your progression will be too slow to ever reach higher levelled weapons.

3) Another of the power ups is having an additional weapon ability, such as firing off a range of homing pulses in addition to the main ammunition. If you get hit, it resets back to just the main ammunition.

In summary of those three points: if you get hit, you lose out on a range of benefits and bonuses that will prevent you from levelling up properly during that run, in numerous ways. As a result, you'll be more likely to get hit again, and the cycle repeats. The overall impact this has is that if you get hit once or twice, you can be sure that run will be wasted, so you may as well die right there and start afresh. Perfect play or restart, perfect okay or restart, perfect play or restart...

Final comment: Another in a string of games that are hard for the sake of being hard. Except in this case, it's otherwise an amazing, intriguing, addictive game. That makes it all the more painful to have to let it go afterixx cd you get stuck in an endless loop of dying with no benefit.

To be honest, it's easy to watch. The acting is solid and the dialogue is usually good quality (in that the characters are well-developed, have rich personalities even when a bit stereotypes, and actors rarely have to struggle with something out of character). And the way it pretends to be a mystery thriller or horror does make you want to keep watching to find out what might happen.

That said, it's not really a mystery of any kind at all. It's more like two connected soap operas: * One is a teen drama with a soccer team of girls stuck on an island with 2 boys and 1 man, and the crushes, and cliques, and jealousies, and in-fighting that all stem from that.

* The other is an adult soap opera, centred on a few women with a supposedly dark past plus a bit of local govt politics, and the broken relationships, and cheating, and betrayal, etc, that stem from that.

There are some twists and extreme situations that might superficially seem like part of the 'mystery'. But if you really think about what's normal for a soap opera, you realise it's just the kind of events that are typical of that genre anyway.

Oh, the music is nostalgic for 90's teens and young adults, while also generally fitting the mood well. That's a big plus.

I bought this because everyone was raving about it, some friends included, and it seems to have high ratings everywhere. But after playing for 10 or so hours, it seems like a pretty average game in almost every way except for the unique setting and creatures.

Pros Gorgeous world. I mean, the quality is average. But the design is amazing. It's otherworldly and many of the creatures and bosses and ancient ruins are weird and unique.

There seems to be plenty of secrets to uncover - from half-hidden caves, to tiny alcoves you only find if you're willing to risk dropping off a cliff, to side-quest length side areas hidden behind magically sealed barriers. Discovery!

Some of the side areas are puzzle-like trap-filled nightmares, but weirdly fun nightmares that make you play them a bit like a rogue-lite. Jump down. Poison. Death. Try again - ladder down, run through poison. Just make it. Rolling spike trap. Death. Try again. Try again. Try again. Inching ever closer to the grand secret as you learn something new or try a better strategy with each attempt.

Cons Camera angles are often awkward, and require a lot of hands-on control.

Some control settings are a bit odd, and make it difficult to set it up the way I'd like to. (eg. The shield block button is shared with a magic ability. I'm familiar with left bumper for block, but left or right trigger for magic. You're able to change which button is used, but the two change together as a pair.)

Yet another aimless open-world. I so wish games would learn from older Final Fantasy and similar games, or Prey. Linear is boring, but so is pure open world. I miss the combination of drive plus freedom of older games that knew how to strike the right balance.

Yet another 'perfect party timing' hack n slash. It's basically Dark Souls but open-world. All the abilities and spells and stealth and bow options are just a trick - all the early battles fall down to simply, can you time a block or parry right. Such repetitive game play both in the game itself and considering it's what pretty much every other non-shooter seems to rely on nowadays.

Overall I suppose it's fine. Mostly, Dark Souls lovers will probably still love it.

But it's not for people who like stories, adventures, or complex or unique gameplay mechanics. And it's not the mind-blowing 10-star game hype and meme would have you believe (looks like that'll be Baldur's Gate III).

If it's not your usual style, decide carefully be buying.

Once you get a full team of four characters, these game really takes off.

CONS The graphics are low-quality, in the style of so-called 'retro' games. It starts off slow, as the real joy comes from having multiple characters, but you start out with just one and only gradually get the others over the first few hours. The stories are decent, but nothing particularly special (unless there's a twist or things come together much later in the game, which I haven't got to yet). And the story is text and cut-scene heavy, rather than driven by gameplay.

PROS Both the combat and 'in-town' interactions are amazingly fun. The 8 characters to choose 4 from, have unique sets of combat abilities, semi-unique NPC interaction abilities, and one completely unique special ability. On top of that, there's a 'job' sharing system that allows each character to essentially copy the combat ability set of one other character. Although the base graphics are a dud, they make clever use of a range of visual effects, like blurring, fog, glistening sand, sun rays, etc, to at least make many of the backgrounds strangely beautiful!

This combination of features means there are a tonne of possible ways to combine characters for unique and clever combinations, and plenty of bonus fun to be had with some of the completely unique abilities.

Regarding in-town interactions, there are essentially 4 special ways to interact with NPCs (in addition to the usual chat): 1) Get stuff off them.

2) Challenge them to a duel.

3) Elicit hidden information.

4) Get them to tag along so you can call on them in battle.

In each of the cases 2-5, there are two characters with similar abilities that ultimately do the same thing (eg. For 2, one character can steal and another can pay for the stuff you get). There are minor differences, but the end result is essentially the same. With the right combination of characters, all options will be available to your party at all times. And you can swap characters when in town if you really need to, if you don't normally have the right combo.

This adds so much to the game that many similar games are missing, acting like 4 built-in mini-games.

Regarding combat, in addition to all the variety, there are two features that make you really want to play into that:

• A 'break the enemy' system.

• And enemy weaknesses.

These combine in a clever way that encourages you to use all the variety available to you. That's because a weakness is there until the enemy has been broken. That encourages you to use varied abilities, because you adapt to exploit different creature's weaknesses - both dealing slightly more damage and leading to a 'broken' creature. And at the same time, it doesn't lock you in to just the abilities enemies are weak to, because once a creature is broken it temporarily becomes weak to *everything*.

It seems to strike the perfect balance between focusing on weaknesses without doing it too much.

As for completely unique abilities, want to get townspeople to fight for you, or how about monsters, or have a special 'tank' character that can auto-protect others, or better exploit enemy weaknesses, or steal stuff, or find money everywhere, or combine herbs to have more unusual effects!?!

Try them all out - so... much... fun.

Finally, one tip if you do play. Aim to have one from each pair:

• Apothecary* or scholar: the two that can elicit hidden info from NPCs.

• Cleric or dancer: the two that can get NPCs to tag along.

• Thief or merchant: the two that can get items of NPCs.

• Hunter* or warrior: the two that can challenge NPCs to a fight.

* I'd recommend apothecary and hunter over scholar and warrior, because their completely unique abilities are much more unusual. Don't worry if you want warrior or scholar combat skills - you can still give each to a character using the 'secondary job' system. You can't do that with the completely unique abilities, though!

AND on top of all the points below, it's another one of those nonsense shows with no real ending.

Four episodes in and it seems like a really intriguing and complex plot, enough so that I'll definitely keep watching. They don't hide much (as far as I can tell so far) about the main conspiracies involved, but there are a number of groups and people involved in different ways, which keeps it suspenseful.

The one problem is that the acting is really weak. For some actors it relates to the dialogue. Although it's generally okay, it's occasionally too obvious/stereotypical, or out of character, which the actors can't handle. For a couple of other actors, like Stephen Baldwin, they're like mannequins with no expression and a flat tone. I can't tell if they're weak actors or just unwilling to try for some reason. In both cases, it's pretty distracting and frequently pulls you out of the story.

I feel like it's a shame they didn't spend just a little more time and money tightening up the dialogue and allowing a few more takes. Still okay to watch for the plot, and for the scenes in which the acting and dialogue are decent.

To be fair, if you enjoy 'souls like' games (eg. Dark Souls and God of War), you'll probably find a lot to like on FF16. It's a basic hack and slash in which the most important thing is perfectly timing parties and dodge rolls, just like those games.

But on top of that, the world/setting is stunning and unique; the cinematics are blended in alongside some of the gameplay, and are crazy impressive; and there's a wider range of combat abilities to sprinkle in here and there between the perfect timing hack n slash.

Some people might also enjoy the massive battles between the latest variation on summons/eidolons/guardian forces. They're big and beautiful like most of the game, and tie in fast-paced cinematics with combat.

Personally, I found both so boring that I couldn't play through much of the game. The hack n slash is both repetitive in and of itself, and doubly so for people like me who are already tired of the same kind of stuff in a million other games (Dark Souls, God of War, Devil May Cry, Assassin's Creed, Horizon, Batman Arkham, Spider-man, and so many more all end up feeling samey). And the eidolon battles are just jazzed up quick time events. It feels like 'how fast can you ignore all that's going on to press this particular button that's displayed on the screen'.

Basically, all the tactical decisions of choosing from a wide range of spells, attacks, and abilities you might expect from Final Fantasy has been replaced with twitch timing. On top of that, the exploration, mini-games, and multi-character parties that truly make a game feel like 'Final Fantasy' are completely gone. All the variety swapped for speed.

The story and characters are typical of Final Fantasy, but in gameplay not at all. Such a shame that Square Enid didn't just start a big, bold new action series with this under a different name, and let FF be FF.

I love this type of show in general, with hidden agendas, intrigue, and one-upmanship between master manipulators. Every episode either ends with a shock reveal or a cliffhanger, and it just begs you to keep watching.

The two main characters are very well acted, except in a few awkward places where the dialogue doesn't quite work (like some that is trying to force a relationship between them too early on). Some of the characters much less so. Although, aside from one that is very badly acted (the accountant/supposed comedy relief), it very much could be because the dialogue is frequent either too contrived or too out of character.

That weak dialogue and acting stop it from being a really amazing show, but still doesn't stop it from being a decent one that's well worth a watch.