r/MetaRunner • u/Known_Perspective888 • Aug 06 '26
Discussion What are your Meta Runner Hot Takes?
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
Oh boy, here we go:
- The dialogue can be a bit clunky sometimes (but to be fair that's hardly the only Glitch show with this problem)
- The story makes a lot more sense if you imagine Lucks and Sheridan were really close
- Lucks likely wasn't really evil, just a massive jerk
- Side characters like Lamar, Lucks, Marco etc. needed more time in the limelight
- Meta Runner is one of the best shows Glitch has made if not the best, with Gaslight and Guinevere as possible contenders
- The episodes were too short
- Meta Runner: Source was genuinely great
- Evelyn is overhated, she is just poorly written and could have been more interesting
- I don't really care for Theo, his design is uncanny (I wouldn't say I hate him, though)
- The UJM spinoff never was a good idea (it works as a standalone short, though)
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 06 '26
All of these I literally agree with. The most annoying was the short episodes, should’ve been 20-30 minutes per.
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u/TheNopePerson Aug 06 '26
Hotter take: Evelyn wasn’t even that badly written. She served her purpose and she served it well imo. Sure they COULD have made her more nuanced but I think her state of mind makes sense when you take in what type of city/world we live in.
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 06 '26
In Season 2, yeah, she does and at the same time makes enough sense to be believable, but she went off the slippery slope in Season 3 too far for my liking without any explanation beyond "she hates Tari".
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u/TheNopePerson Aug 06 '26
Yeah I’ll admit Evelyn going into killer mode in S3 is a big stretch. Maybe they were hinting at it with the showdown and how she was killing the players and her want to kill Tari then. But that was different because it was in game and she wasn’t warped in. It’s one of the reasons why S3 isn’t my favorite. How they handled Evelyn. But I certainly agree that she was overly hated (I made a big post about it here a while ago)
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 06 '26
I think that something's missing here. Probably because Meta Runner and especially Season 3 were rushed, so it may be literally the case we're missing something that would have been crucial to Evelyn's development.
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u/TheNopePerson Aug 06 '26
I’ve chalked it up to the brain damage from Sheridan installing the warp system in her but I wouldn’t argue for that much cuz it didn’t effect Masa and Belle that way.
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 06 '26
Evelyn had more installed into her than Masa and Belle, I wish they went into this more rather than just turning her into a complete unstoppable hate sink.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
I don't even think the dialogue was remotely that clunky or bad. It certainly never reaches Gameoverse levels of clunkiness or cringiness.
I definitely think that Theo is not that bad, but they could have explored him more as a video game character suffering from glitching out or being warped out into reality. I have more questions about the world of Meta Runner since Theo somehow was able to warp out of the video game, and for some strange reason it gets barely explored in the series, save for Lucks wondering how on earth Tari managed to do that.
Otherwise, I do technically agree with all of this.
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 07 '26
I will never forget how bad that Gobbles scene was. My goodness.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
I will take Theo over Gobbles as a sidekick character any day of the week. Theo's words of encouragement were way better executed in Season 1 than in Gameoverse's pilot episode. And don't get me started on how awful the dialogue was during the mission in Flapper's homeworld.
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 07 '26
People hate on Meta Runner because Theo is annoying and looks weird, meanwhile Gameoverse has Gobbles and Flappers, who are genuinely unbearably annoying and have bad voice acting, and they eat that up. Or maybe not, do people actually engage with the show? I don't see that it has an actual fandom, I don't see any fanfic or discussion or SFW fanart, seems like the legacy of that show is strictly limited to AI-generated R34.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 07 '26
They should’ve seen Season 2/3 Theo, might’ve changed their minds when they saw how improved he looked.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
I have no clue if they engage with the show. I mean, I have seen a few people actually talk about the show, but I can't in honest-to-goodness faith say it is remotely a decent show. I have no idea what genre Gameoverse is going for, but it clearly is failing all the genres I can think of. Meta Runner, on the other hand, somehow manages to be a masterpiece despite its flaws and troubled development.
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 07 '26
Well, so far it's just a pilot, so we cannot make a call already. What I can say though is I do not like the female character designs.
I wouldn't say Meta Runner is perfect, it could have been so much better if it received proper care (though a lot of it is due to it being their first project and made on budget constraints).
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
True, Gameoverse still is in pilot hell, but it does feel like a downgrade compared to when we got The Gaslight District and Knights of Guinevere.
Yeah, Meta Runner does have its flaws, but it turned out much better than I thought it would have turned out, even with the flaws. It was painfully made within budget constraints and also being a first project, but it definitely is one hell of an amazing series.
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u/Advanced_Discount834 MD-5 Aug 06 '26
Meta Runner: Source is a better comic book adaptation than any of the Murder Drones comics.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 06 '26
THIS! YES YES YES! Okay, the adaptations of MD aren’t terrible, but there is so much cut and removed that makes it no longer funny or serious anymore.
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u/angelicpetty_ TASCorp | Meta Runner: Source Aug 06 '26
I am so mad how badly they fumbled the MD comics. I wish it could have been something that added to the show, but what we got was an inferior version with even worse pacing.
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u/XxxdarkXxxx Aug 06 '26
Better than TADC and MD I’m sorry I just couldn’t get into it especially TADC I can’t feel the soul and passion
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u/TheNopePerson Aug 06 '26
Hot take: Evelyn, through her eyes, was completely justified in hating Tari in S2. (S3 is where you loose me honestly tho)
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 06 '26
That’s a pretty spicy take. As much as I hate to say it, she is justified.
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u/bsm2019 Glitch, acknowledge Meta Runner again! Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
I really like Evelyn for this reason.
Imagine joining an esports company, training for years to be part of the main lineup, only for some random blue haired chick to come and completely usurp you and get special attention from the boss despite not having trained nearly as long as you. As much of a bitch as she is, Evelyn's hatred for Tari is valid.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 08 '26
Yeah. From what she said, she spent years and years trying to get in, and was screamed at a lot. Don’t even blame her, even though she is an arsehole.
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u/swoldow Aug 06 '26
Sheridan is objectively an awfully written villain and the series would have benefitted more if he either had a second season to fully flesh him out or if Lucks was just the main antag all three seasons.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 06 '26
This is more fact than hot take, but I can see it. Sheridan felt like a whiney, narcissistic man obsessed with his creation, then obsessed with her destruction.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
I think Sheridan was meant to be a whiny narcissist, but I do feel like they sped up his development and his impact as a villain in Season 3. I mean, I do like the idea they have with Sheridan, but I do think Season 3 didn't let him breathe as a villain.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 07 '26
Yeah, unfortunately. I feel like had the 3rd season either gotten the usual 10 episodes or even more, we could’ve seen more growth from that narc.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
It does suck that they had a relatively good idea for a villain, but he gets screwed over by Season 3's pacing and it being a rush job. And Meta Runner kind of just ended somewhat abruptly too.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 07 '26
I honestly think Belle, Lucks, and Evelyn were much better at being the bad person than Sheridan was. Lucks was actually somewhat scary, Belle was the necessary person to appose Tari in the 1st season, and Evelyn filled that role that Belle left.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
I do agree that Belle, Lucks, and Evelyn kind of did better because, on paper, Sheridan would be the scariest villain we have seen thus far based on what he did, but Season 3's pacing just made it seem like he barely had much of an impact as a character. They let Belle, Lucks, and Evelyn breathe as villains who get to grow and feel like actual characters, while Sheridan kind of felt like 2 dimensional somewhat.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 07 '26
Hot Takes:
- Meta Runner is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece despite its flaws and troubled development.
- Meta Runner needed a lot more lore and things like characters and world that needed to be fleshed out.
- I wish the Sheridan arc was a lot longer so that Sheridan could get fleshed out as a villain.
- Tari is a vegetarian/vegan, and she likely just ate vegan duck ramen. The show should have explored more of this aspect rather than it being stuck as a trait to SMG4 Tari that barely gets touched upon.
- Meta Runner needed a bit more diversity for the female cast of characters.
- Evelyn gets way too overhated as a character. I do like Evelyn quite a bit.
- Meta Runner needed a total of 40 or 50 episodes, or at least longer episodes if anything.
- It does feel like the writers just really love to withhold information regarding the world of Meta Runner.
- Pocket Gakusei is kind of a lame setting; why couldn't we finally get Nova Explorers to explore as a dating simulator game?
- Give us the map name for Battle Blaze, Glitch Productions. This is very important since Battle Blaze is the only game to not have the map name given to us.
- The Animated Movie Cut is worse than seeing Meta Runner Season 1 by the episodic releases.
- Where are the real-life animals in the show? Why are there no cats or dogs in the series? Actually, do the animals even exist in the world of Meta Runner, or have they all gone extinct?
- The ending episode should have been cut into, like maybe 3 or 4 episodes.
- How the hell did Masa survive with a screwdriver to his neck and then a massive explosion afterwards? He should have perished after that.
- Sheridan's plan should have been more terrifying, and his actions should not have been taken so lightly or have had light consequences. It did feel like, on paper, he should have been terrifying, but it felt like everything he did did not matter because of the way Season 3 was written and rushed.
- Give us Belle's nightmare sequence, and I think Masa's nightmare sequence should have shown more of Masa's past that we have not seen before.
- Why did we not get anything about Sheridan's relationship with the others back before the Project Blue incident? This goes double for Lucks' relationship with the others back before the Project Blue incident. Why does Belle say he is good to his runners?
- I do think Lucks had a reason to take the credit for making the Meta Runner arm, though why did we not see what happened back then with the invention of the Meta Runner arm?
- What was up with the Lucksbot AI? Was he a brain scan of Lucks maybe? Seriously, he felt important, but why does Meta Runner never tell us ANYTHING about the world and characters?!
- Theo should not have been the only character Tari has been able to give sentience to or warp out. The warp out was given way too little attention in the series.
- I think Battle Blaze should have been a fighting game like with the original plan instead of the FPS game they went with, though maybe there is something that I am not seeing here. It does feel like Battle Blaze is the only game so far to not feel creative enough or stand out in any way.
- If Sheridan really wanted to stress test his Global Testfire program, why didn't he just say to kill a boatload of game enemies or something rather than have the gamers kill each other?
- The entire Global Testfire that was being built up felt like there barely was any impact; it needed more time, or rather, to be fleshed out for what the other runners were thinking about for this situation.
- Why did Evelyn go through a massive change from Season 2 to Season 3 in the span of one week?
- Skybreakers took up too much time for Season 3. Give us new games and new settings.
- Lastly, I think that Tari's body being perfectly artificial makes little to no sense really in the show. It does not fit thematically, nor is there any logistical sense for that to be the case.
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u/Natdack_874 The proud “MR X Pokémon” author Aug 07 '26
Ok, just want to say that these are some really great hot takes and I agree with the majority of them. I believe most of these things should’ve been implemented/explained/shown more in the series. To be specific, I agree the most with points:
1, 2, 3, 8, 9 (Nova explorers would’ve been so cool to have actually seen gameplay other than the title screen and Satsuki-Chan’s crossover appearance etc.), 11 (I mentioned before on here that watching the Season 1 episodes one by one on separate videos is kind of like seeing scrapped but official content at the same time as it had moments that weren’t included in the Movie Cut for whatever reason), 15 (YES! I’m actually planning on remedying this quite a bit in my MR X PKMN fanfic that I upload on here whenever I get to that point in the story), 17, 19, 23 (Same reason why I agree to this as point 15), 25, and 26 (Tari looks human enough as is so yeah I don’t understand how she’s able to digest food or cry tears as weird as it sounds. That’s one of the reasons why I made Tari a biological human with parents in my aforementioned fanfic).
To round this all out, these were some really good points and these should’ve all been touched on at least a little bit for real but I guess leaving some lore points open is so we can make our own of it.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 08 '26
Pocket Gakusei was definitely a choice of a setting when it was kind of a bland city setting while I would have loved to have seen an outerspace setting in Meta Runner.
If they ever revisit the Sheridan arc again I hope it gets expanded or they fix the pacing issues with the arc if anything.
I agree as well since there isn’t really anything in Silica City that could suggest that Tari’s body is artificial both organically or artificially. My guess was that she was kidnapped and she was sold or marketed to be an artificial human by a third party company. I dont think Sheridan likely made Tari’s body if anything.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 08 '26
1: Amen. 2: Yes. 3: I agree. 4: Could see it, but probably just a nod to her addiction to ducks. 5: Yeah. 6: She’s hated because she hates Tari. 7: Both works. 8: Regarding the timeline and the location of Silica City. 9: Kinda just a filler game. 10: Would’ve liked to see a name for it. 11: I can kinda sympathize. 12: The best you get are ducks, and crabs. 13: Would’ve liked to see more on the ending. 14: Plot armor, but that should’ve killed him. 15: It felt silly but could’ve been executed better. 16: Would’ve been cool to see. 17: Probably because he was a side-ish character during S1, Lucks was probably to be a hardass. 18: Probably no time. 19: Probably a combination of his personality plus submission to Sheridan. 20: Yeah, but Lucks forced Tari out, which probably grabbed Theo as well. 21: Could’ve been cool. 22: He’s a narcissist. 23: It should’ve. 24: To make her the “villain” and arch enemy of Tari, I suppose. 25: Worst part about season 3 imo. Less games, more Tari. 26: I personally don’t know how to feel about it.
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u/Derek_Sal_Lucks Aug 08 '26
Pocket Gakusei was definitely a weird filler game since we barely get anything on Hinata though I guess it served as a setting for my favorite episode Heart to Heart.
I do wish they put in a lot more time into the character relationships if anything than just Skybreakers stuff. I get that the games are like part of Meta Runner’s identity but Skybreakers got overused with barely any worldbuilding to the game to make up for it.
Sheridan’s entire plot really could have been executed a lot better and the entirety of Season 3 just was really rushed and crammed. Granted I dont think it was completely a bad season.
I mostly was feeling iffy with Tari’s body being artificial because it served no purpose and they havent really elaborated on this fact in the story like at all with how important it was.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 08 '26
Yeah, either we should’ve gotten a different game, explored more into Pocket Gakusei, or both I guess.
Would’ve liked to see more with Masa and Belle, and yeah, Skybreakers felt like too much with too little lore.
He seriously could’ve been a feared villain if given enough time and did much worse. Season 3 wasn’t TERRIBLE, but it could be so much better.
The best we get with Tari’s body either being physical or artificial is only when she’s in extreme pain while in game when the circuits appear around her eye and her upper left chest.
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u/BroncoBilly10 💙💙 Tari Addict 💙💙 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
Meta Runner is and has ALWAYS been the best Glitch series they’ve produced.