Webcomic Ultimately never goes anywhere
Talking badly about Eight Bit Theater feels a bit sacrilegious. Starting in 2001 it's one of the oldest and longest running webcomics around and it's 9 year run created 1200+ comics. It can legitimately claim to be the inspiration for so much that went after it and references to Black Mage or Thief or Fighter or Red Mage will still instantly clue a lot of people in on what you mean.
But after reading it all through from start to finish, I can't help but feel my time was wasted. That's not to say it isn't funny, in fact there were two sections that were so funny I was literally laughing out loud for page after page. But two sections in over 1200 pages is pretty thin. The problem is two things
- All the jokes are character based.
- The characters never change.
So after such an extreme length of time you begin to see the same thing over and over again. And to be fair, the comic is self-aware and made jokes about that. But then you begin to see even those jokes again and again and the meta humour can only stack for so long. I'm aware that you can make some decent arguments that too much character development in things like Order Of The Stick can lose the soul of the thing, but this was too far in the other direction.
The plot continues and that led to some feeling of progression, but the joke at the end of each arc was that the party were too incompetent to finish it satisfactorily. And inbetween the jokes were about the party being too incompetent to get to the end in an efficient non-filler manner. To give a break from the main party there were sidelines about a party of villains too incompetent to do anything effectively. When that got tried they mixed it up with a different party of heroes who couldn't get anything done. And a party of heroes whose lot in life it was to fail at everything. Then a person whose lot it was to fail at everything. Then another person who was massively incompetent.
I'm making it sound like the whole thing is dull and unfunny, but it isn't. Some of the rambling conversations are inspired and the core concept is incredibly strong. But there are moments, particularly towards the end where something changes the status quo. A person does something intelligent and another person changes sides. But within a few pages they always snatch it away. The norm reasserts itself and nothing ever goes anywhere.
Webcomic AMAZING.
This is the greatest web comic I ever read. It's hilarious, and well... hilarious. All 4 of the main characters have incredibly interesting strips that focus on them, and nearly any joke involving them, if it's fighters' stupidity, black mages' evilness, theifs' backstabbing ways, or red mage's obsession for stats, it gets me to laugh out loud. But the 'Heroes' aren't the only funny ones. The dark warriors are also hilarious with their utter stupidity, or misfortune. This is by far one of the greatest parodies to me that I've seen in my life. You should read this web comic. Other ones like Bob and George, or VG Cats are decent, but this outshines them by far. Some of it's episodes can be to long, for my liking, but everything else is so well played out I rarely care. It is more then enough to get a 9.5/10.
Webcomic A Superb Read!
I got introduced to Eight Bit Theater back in the early 2000s by a friend back before I had my own Internet capable laptop; I had to view the hijinks of Black Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage at my local library.
The self-referential humor makes this fun for Final Fantasy fans; Black Mage reads the old Nintendo Power strategy guide early on in the series, commenting on the "Four White Mages" party. But the real laughfest comes from the characters, their quirks and their interactions: Fighter likes swords, Thief steals everything that is not nailed down, Red Mage is obsessed with RPG gaming mechanics and Black Mage is the Token Evil Teammate. While it does make some of the jokes predictable, it never goes into Strictly Formula territory and makes for potent humor.
Eight Bit Theater is a shining jewel in a sea of webcomics full of good works, really good works, so-so creations, forgettable work and the crap out there. You should read this today! 4.5/5