Secret Level- REVIEW: It’s Brilliant, Obviously

Right. So Amazon Prime has gone and made another one of those animated anthology things. Except this time they’ve raided the video game cupboard like a teenager at 3am looking for leftover pizza and regret.

It’s called Secret Level. And before you ask, no, it’s not about finding hidden bits in Super Mario. Although frankly, that would have been less mental than what they’ve actually done.

Because what we’ve got here is Tim Miller, the madman behind Love, Death & Robots, deciding that what the world really needs is Pac-Man. But serious. And dark. And possibly eating people’s souls instead of dots.

Each episode is like opening a loot box of gaming nostalgia that’s been left in Chernobyl. One minute you’re watching Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines shouting about heresy and firing guns the size of Volvos, and the next you’re watching Mega Man having a midlife crisis. It’s like scrolling through the fever dreams of a GameStop employee who’s had too much Red Bull.

Now, the animation. Good Lord, it’s spectacular. It makes Pixar look like something drawn by a bored GCSE student with a biro. Every episode looks exactly like its game, only more so. The Armored Core one, for example, has robots so heavy you can practically feel the floorboards creak under your sofa.

But here’s where things go completely off the rails. They’ve taken Pac-Man, a yellow circle whose main life goal is eating dots, and turned it into something that would make Christopher Nolan say, “Steady on, that’s a bit dark.” It’s genius. Completely barking mad, but genius nonetheless.

The Dungeons & Dragons episode is Game of Thrones if it had a baby with a dice set. The Sifu one is basically John Wick, but if John Wick knew kung fu and occasionally aged backwards. And Spelunky is Indiana Jones meets Groundhog Day, but everyone’s miserable.

Now, you might be thinking, “But Charles, I don’t play video games. I have a life.” No, you don’t. You’re reading this. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know your Mega Mans from your Metal Gears. These are proper stories told through characters who usually spend their time being controlled by sweaty teenagers shouting at screens.

It’s violent, deranged, and absolutely not for children. Which means, of course, it’s brilliant. It’s like someone handed fifteen animation studios a blank cheque and said, “Go mental. But make it gorgeous.”

Is it perfect? No. The New World episode is a bit pants. And sometimes it tries too hard to be edgy, like a middle-aged dad turning up to school pickup on a Ducati in sunglasses. But when it works, and it often does, it’s some of the best animation ever put on a screen.

In conclusion, Secret Level is what happens when talented lunatics are given too much money and not enough supervision. It’s ambitious, beautiful, and slightly unhinged. Everything television should be.

Watch it. Even if you think video games are for children and shut-ins.
Especially if you think that.
You might learn something.

Though probably not anything useful.

Secret Level is available on Prime Video, which costs about the same as a cappuccino in Sliema these days. So basically, your life savings.