Amazon Prime’s newest animated series, Secret Level, is a doozy. Composed of 15 video game-inspired episodes, the show bewitches viewers with the pizazz only the nerdiest adaptations can take on.
Whether it’s the cult classic fantasy indulgences of Dungeons and Dragons or the retro nostalgia of Pac-Man, Secret Level does not hold back on its raw, nerdy appeal. I was thoroughly impressed with the stunning visuals and cheeky game references.
However, I found myself dissatisfied at the end of each episode. The narratives presented within the show often felt surface-level, cliche, and even incomplete at points. Many episodes felt less like a fully fleshed-out story and more like a catastrophic jumble of video game easter eggs.
This is most obvious in episode Playtime: Fulfillment. The episode follows O, a courier caught in the endless drudgery of delivering packages and chasing gems for upgrades. However, when a mysterious figure tasks her with delivering a strange package, O’s life is uprooted, and she finds herself being pursued by powerful figures. And by “powerful figures,” I mean a barrage of ham-fisted video game cameos. The episode was essentially a glorified game of Where’s Waldo?
And it’s understandable why the producers would do this; as an homage to the PlayStation console, Playtime: Fulfillment has an overwhelming number of video games to represent. However, I believe the producers fumbled this opportunity by including too many references.
O finds herself chased by a squad of Helldivers from Helldivers II and Kratos from God of War. While the cameos were interesting, they felt detached from the context, which left me wishing the directors had prioritized explaining why the God of War and Helldivers universes had collided. Instead, they oversaturated the episode with shallow references that ultimately overshadowed the plot.
Although the storyline of certain episodes left more to be desired, the animation more than makes up for it. Blur Studio does not hold back when it comes to flexing its cinematic-making muscles. No episode embodies this aspect more perfectly than the vibrant, painterly style of PAC-Man: Circle.
PAC-MAN: Circle was quite possibly my favorite Secret Level episode. A gritty escape story set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by otherworldly fauna, this episode turns a family-friendly classic into a sinister “eat or be eaten” tale of survival. Paired with the stunning art style reminiscent of Netflix’s Arcane, the short provides a fascinating reinterpretation of the franchise that left me breathless.
The episode follows Puck, a suspiciously PAC-MAN-shaped drone trapped in a labyrinth, who recruits a mysterious swordsman to help it escape. By transforming the familiar neon maze of the original PAC-MAN game into an exotic wild jungle haunted by nightmarish monsters, the episode masterfully contextualizes its exploration of themes such as fear and desperation.
However, while masterful, PAC-MAN: Circle is undeniably a marketing scheme, as it essentially functions as a teaser trailer for Bandai Namco’s newest game, Shadow Labyrinth. This left a bad taste in my mouth, but it most certainly does not dispel the creativity and love that was poured into this episode.
At its best, Secret Level is a masterclass in worldbuilding that conveys the appeal of the worlds its characters inhabit with lethal efficiency. At its worst, it’s a walking advertisement tacked onto an unsatisfying burning pile of cheeky videogame nods. For all its inconsistency, I enjoyed Secret Level, but only when I chucked my film critic notebook out the window and admired the pretty pictures passing by.
