[Vexx]

I grit my teeth as I write this because I had such fun with Nanoha season 1 and season 2. Season Three just kind of wallowed.

Tactically, the "limiters" really hurt and were basically unnecessary. Fate and Nanoha are like aircraft carriers. They wield enormous firepower but can't be everywhere at once... that's what all those missile cruisers, frigates, and hundreds of other support craft are for (in other words, all those new characters).

Storywise.... personally I think an entire season could have been made about the Knights and their growth as freed 'humans' battling some dilemma. Okay, yeah we got new recruits and they were quite interesting but anime-wise I felt there was a missing season. yeah, yeah, there was manga.... <shrug>. I just found the Knights to have more story potential.

I did rather like the grown "Aces" concept but, wow, these writers need to be sat in front of about a hundred war movies because they seriously need some clues in how to do this sort of thing. Turning recruits into battle veterans, yada yada....
Come on, one of the reasons the original Star Wars caught fire on the screen was because Lucas was doing shot by shot homage to some of the best war movies ever made and the story line threads straight from Kurosawa's epics and swashes of Campbell mythos. The resources are there..... d'uh. (visualizes slapping the crap out of a team of writers)

Most of the salient points have already been listed in other poster's comments. So I just sadly give this season a '6' and hope like hell they didn't kill the franchise with it.

I hope Nanoha gets another chance with a tight storyline and a smaller cast.