The second part of the Pathfinder
Legends series produced by Big Finish was released back at the
beginning of June . My apologizes for being so late in reviewing the
audio drama, my own marriage superseded
The Skinsaw Murders is the second part
of the Rise of the Runlords audio drama, an adaption of Paizo's Riseof the Runelords Adventure path from back in 2009. I have never
played the original path and even though I own the entire set I have
never read the adventure. Pathfinder and Runelords appears during a
pretty bad time in my gaming and real life so collector only was I.
The iconics, the pre-gen in setting
characters that Paizo uses in most pathfinder promotional material,
have been in the village of Sandpoint for a while at the start of the
new drama and the easy living (as it were) is beginning to have a
negative impact upon the companions. This all changes however with a
series of murders that the town lawman calls in the adventures to
investigate. That investigation leads to several major reveals, near
death (and undeath) for two of the characters and a move from the town
of Sandpoint to a major metropolitan area.
The first thing I noticed with this
second foray was the increased audio quality. Unlike the first audio
drama, Burnt Offerings, the characters' voices did not get lost in
the background noise of combat and crowds or in the music that
accompanied certain parts of the drama. This, as mentioned in the
first review, was one of my two biggest gripes with the production
and I am very happy that Big Finish was able to fix that the second
time around.
The story, or more precisely the
scripting, is vastly improved as well. This could be the result of a
different tone in the original adventure or in the adaptation of that
adventure. The pace is more even and the transitions from one group
of characters to another or simply a transition from location to
location is much better pulled of. I still think the series would be
greatly improved by some narration but at least this time the lack
of it is not so jarring.
The only big disappointment for me is
the lack of Ameiko. I enjoyed her character in the first audio drama
and felt the absence of her greatly. She added a seen of innocent
wit (in my opinion) that balanced out the iconics' more crass and
jaded sense of humor.
Overall the product is much improved
and I was able to listen to it straight through and not feel the need
to listen to it again to figure out what I had missed. Ezren,
surprisingly still manages to hold center stage for me and even make
magic-users seem interesting and kind of cool. I enjoy his almost
fatherly banter with the other characters (which has reached truly
Whendon levels at this point) and his more balanced attitude.
This time around I would give the
production 4 out of 5.
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