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To begin this review, I have to say that I played the Utawarerumono games first and that it's my favorite VN of all times. When it comes to Mask of Truth specifically, I think that the game is an easy 10/10, and that other than some slight issues with the endgame (although not the ending itself; I think that the ending is glorious) I really don't have anything bad to say about it. I'm largely evaluating with the criteria of how much it does justice to the source material.

To be frank, I think that as far as VN adaptations go this is about as good ... as it gets. It's very faithful to the source. It does cut content of course, as cramming 70 hours of story into 28 20-minute episodes just isn't possible unless you compress and/or cut a bunch of stuff. However, it's clear to me that the directors of the anime were very careful in selecting what stayed and what had to go. All of the most important moments are still in the anime and manage to be just as emotional as they were in the game. The slice-of-life bits were cut down, but they still managed to keep some of the charming moments (like Shinonon climbing "Mt. Osh"). Most of the less important battles are gone and some of the ones that stayed were simplified to save time, which was a smart decision. The one thing that I don't agree with them cutting is Oshtor's rematch against a certain warmonger because it was an important moment in Oshtor's an Nekone's character development; I feel like they could have gone 1 episode longer and included it. All in all though, everything important is there and almost completely unaltered.

The voice acting is as good as it is in the game, but Kentaro Tone deserves a special mention. With the unfortunate passing of Fujiwara Keiji I feared that Haku just wouldn't be the same no matter who they put on the role. However, just how in the story Haku took Oshtor's mantle, in real life Oshtor's VA took over the role of Haku's VA. I was really impressed to see how good Tone's Haku was, and I was not in the least bit disappointed.

If it depended on this third part of the anime series alone, I would absolutely recommend people to just watch the anime even if they haven't played the games. Even though there's plenty of content that enriches the story in the details that were cut in the anime, it's strong enough to stand on its own and people who haven't played the game can get more than less the same experience. The problem is that I sadly can't say the same for the adaptations of Prelude to the Fallen and Mask of Deception. Without going into too many details (since I'm reviewing this season), I feel like those adaptations change too many things in directions that don't make much sense to me. For example, I feel like Haku's character was dumbed down too much in the Mask of Deception anime.

What this means is that while I can recommend watching Mask of Truth even if you haven't played the games, I can't fully recommend watching the first and second seasons of the Utawarerumono anime unless you've played the game first. And if you already played Prelude to the Fallen + Mask of Deception, you might as well play Mask of Truth before watching the anime version.

With all of that said... if you really can't be assed to play the VN for some reason (be it that you don't like VNs, don't like SRPGs, or if 150+ hours of combined time is too much for you), then I absolutely recommend that you watch the anime for all 3 parts. Utawarerumono is a wonderful story and I think that everyone should experience it in some form. I think that the first two parts are serviceable enough and you can expect the story to end strong with Mask of Truth, which is splendidly done.