It's incredibly difficult to see anything in this that one may have liked about the 1997 series, and it's such a jarring step down from the Golden Age Arc trilogy.

I won't belabor the point regarding production, but it's really just horrible. The CGI is uncanny and awkward, the sound design and mix is unbalanced and awful, and it feels like an overall amateur production. There have been better flash cartoons made by neckbeards in their basements in the 00's than this professional studio production. It's a real shame.

Personally, I found many of the new characters insufferable, totally detracting from the grimdark brutality of the other entries into the series. While diehard fans might find defending this a hill worth dying on, I just can't recommend this series to anyone who liked the previous entries--it's just a different show, with a different tone, and a wild tangent from the original story's narrative and themes. I won't spoil it for anyone who wants to put themselves through it, but the story at this point no longer deals with any of the interesting dynamics between rivalrous friendships, the conflict between individualism and altruism, or even really the horrors of war. If there were any characters you liked in the original show, they're probably not in this one, and if they are it's in name only.

I suffered through this series just to get some closure to the story, and unfortunately wound up with a less-interesting, unfinished story. It's been 6 years, so maybe in another 5 we'll get an even worse sequel (if the very poorly received later source material is anything to go by).

Weak plot. Weaker production. 3/10.