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In praise of Arcane season 2
To me this is the best thing I've ever seen, movie or series or otherwise. Characters, artstyle, writing, animations, worldbuilding, character depth, mental issues and disability representation and the music.
It's bold, it's flashy, it's outright heartbreaking and earth-shattering yet comforting and soft when it wants to be and then totally can spin the story again in a new direction. Bravo.
And I've seen anything from the Shawshank Redemption and The Dark Knight on release to obscure anime and bad TV series these past 25 years.
I bow to the incredible talent that has made this possible.
Season 2 Act 1 was a bit shit and had a tonne of writing and pacing problems but Act 2 more than made up for it and even managed to hit the peaks of the very first season. Can't wait to see what the finale is like next week.
I didn't bother watching Arcane since I've never played LoL, but I've heard the show doesn't require any previous knowledge of the game. Is that correct? I keep hearing good things, so I'll have to check it out if that's the case.
It doesn’t. And, to be honest, you don’t really learn any league lore from the game to begin with.
I still find it incredible that the game's lore is available in so many mediums except the game itself. They could have done PvE campaigns around lore events, maybe even a single-player mode that you could repeatedly complete using different (relevant or not relevant) champions.
It is a weird situation. To be honest, most players don’t care about the lore. But, if you were to speculate, what if they just didn’t bother? I think the game would have less players. Despite the fact that most people don’t care. It may be that the fact that you know there’s some 4 hour YouTube essay on the character you’re playing out there gives a feeling of polish even if you don’t watch or know any of it.
It also informs the design of the characters from a gameplay perspective. If the world is fleshed out then you have many little hooks where you can add-on your mechanics and visual design. Which indeed makes the entire experience feel more polished, but it also feels very cohesive.
Because of its addictive nature & occasionally toxic community, I don’t feel like it should be as popular. Despite of this, I can still appreciate the artistry behind it. It shows in Arcane, but even before this, they were always interested in making a story, an experience out of a “simple” game. By this I mean, there is not a lot of meta-gameplay going on. You’re on the same maps all the time, with the same objectives, dynamics and goals.
They put in a lot of effort into everything across the years: lore, character stories, presentation, UI, and more. The game went through many redesigns from each of these perspectives.
If a person reading this doesn’t know anything about League of Legends but you are still interested in visual media, look at this 80 second cinematic and tell me it’s not a great piece of audiovisual media.
And they’ve always done this sort of thing. Many cinematics, music videos, character design videos, etc.
So I find it natural, but fortunate that this ethos spilled over into Arcane.
It was, but then they purged and retconned a bunch of it and pushed it all elsewhere. There aren't many people that still remember the Megling Genocide for example.
Yeah never played the game but my partner and I both enjoyed season 1 alot.
I did not know Arcane season 2 was already out. I had such mixed feelings about season 1. It was impressive showcase of the capabilities of 3d animation but somehow managed to burdened by and unfaithful to the source material it was adapting in some very frustrating ways.
Fun fact: Arcane is considered canon to the game and any inconsistency in the game will be retconned according to Riot.
But as someone who haven't played LoL for over a decade, what was unfaithful?
Absolutely loving it and I am very impressed with the rich world that Riot has managed to create.
Great animation, great characters, great story. Without a doubt one of the better shows out right now.
Weird, I enjoyed the first season, but thought this one was pretty bad. It just seemed very disjointed and chaotic.