Yeah Yeah, this was probably something I should have asked when the first season came out, but I slept on it okay! And the only reason I watched it was because some of my friends asked me to watch it with them, I know, Blasphemy.
Regardless, by that time, the time for writing articles was long gone, or so I thought because I was essentially trend surfing.
But I am better now, I think.
And Now I am finally in a place to give my totally valuable and totally needed opinion on why Video Game Adaptations are good now.
In fact they are so good, that this particular one actually got people super excited for it's second season.
SO! What went wrong! Or right, in this case, I mean Video game adaptations are supposed to be shit right.
Well the main reason they are, is simply due to a change in medium, similar to Novel adaptations everything in a Novel doesn't translate well to screen.
Well actually in this case, a better comparison is comic book Adaptations, because like in Comic books, a lot of information is given in Narrative bubbles, colors, art style, and various other things, and since the pace is essentially up to the reader, everything can be drawn attention to, case in point, Omni man's tears.
On the left is the comic panel, and on the right, is the show, as you can see, even in a still, the comic panel is much clearer, and the tears are more visible, in motion this goes by so quickly that many didn't even see it.
But while there is loss of information, there is also gaining of information in voice tones, and directionality, in Novels the loss of information is in background Narration and the info gained is visuals.
This of course gets worse when its a live action adaptation, therefore animated video game adaptations have a natural advantage, but Studios still want live action because of course they do. Which that ain't going away anytime soon, because the Audience is the Audience.
But none of this, is as bad as the loss of information in playing a game to watching a show, because one is interactive, and allows one to explore all the maybes and the what ifs and most importantly what happens when a game over takes place, you can tell an enemy is hard because you died to it many times, in a movie, or a show, they did it all the first time.
More importantly, Game stories are often made to supplement the main point of the game that being the gameplay, and the story is often an afterthought.
Not just that, the story is of a particular type, case in point Injustice.
Everything in that universe is set up to lead a lot of punchy punchy between the heroes and villains.
But here in lies the main strength of this show, the idea, behind League of Legends, is a team v team multiplayer battle, a war to be precise.
And that is something that this show uses to make many many parallels to real life, ever heard politics is a game?
See one of the things about this show is, you can almost certainly be sure that if there is something good, it will go to shit in the next about ten minutes.
But the main thing is not it going to shit, it is in how it goes to shit, so there is a sweet little romance blossoming between Vi and Caitlyn, they are like the Romeo and Juliet of this story, being from opposite sides of a War and still caring deeply about each other, so, did their sides force them to break up?
Nope, they are both too strong for that.
Did they both die in a strong show of romance?
Nope, they both want to live.
Did one of them die while defending the other?
Nope too strong they are individually, see they empower each other and therefore don't need to save each other, I wish more relationships were like this.
Well actually no, cause one of them get's consumed by hate and almost kills a child, while the other tries to save her soul, but that is seen as betrayal and then under the influence of a very, very prominent war monger Ambessa Medarda this one ends up becoming a Dictator...
WTF, ARCANE!!!
But this, works perfectly as the story of a game, cause now we can have an epic battle!
Another thing that plays in the favor of Arcane, which could, very easily have gone against it, is the very central reason why Game adaptations often fail, see, main characters in Games are often designed so that the player can place themselves in them, so they can grow with the players.
Not all of course, Kratos is one such example of a protagonist with a lot of personality.
But unlike in a lot of action movies Game characters aren't trained professionals who are forced to deal with situations so we can have some cool action scenes, or some cool drama or manipulation, no, as I stated above, the video game characters are often the worst at their jobs and then they have to rise up to the occasion.
Everyone here is the exact wrong person for the Job, instead of Vander we get Silco, instead of the Good enforcer in the beginning we instead had the corrupt enforcer who would cut shady deals with Silco to keep Piltover and Undercity at a stalemate.
Instead of Powder we get Jinx, who is a deranged killer, and I swear to god when their entire group got slaughtered by one wrongly placed but well intended bomb from Powder, in spite of the development they got, my jaw was on the floor.
And the fact that this was the first time her bombs actually worked, this was a triumphant moment for her, and all of this is just season one.
In this one, instead of Viktor who is the master of Hex tech curing Jayce, the roles are reversed, Instead of Caitlyn's mother we have Caitlyn herself, a severely Traumatized girl who is being used as a pawn by an even more manipulative person.
This makes all of them the underdogs, and everyone likes to see an underdog succeed, but more importantly, they are active underdogs, they give it their all, almost like, a player trying to win a game and getting their bearings but the game just keeps upping the difficulty.
And all of this is not even mentioning the incredible Artstyle and music choices, that this show uses brilliantly.
Arcane is not a show that likes to Dilly Dally, the very first shot establishes this, Viktor is there on the ground, and then it is intercut with Jayce running and trying his best to save him, a lesser show would be afraid to break flow, cause that is a real thing that happens, but Arcane takes the risk and it pays off, every single time.
Music being used in story telling can very easily backfire, I should know, I watched Joker 2 Folie a Deux... ah I'll stop.
Take a look at this above shot for example, only Vi is colored and animated everything else is stationary and blended together into grey, almost like how it feels in real life post a Tragedy, and then there is Jinx's visions, when she sees random mouths and creepy smiles everywhere, giving an eerie feel to it all.
But artstyle shifts like this can be risky as they can make a show feel inconsistent, but Arcane once again takes the risk and it pays off.
All of this goes to show that regardless of what you do, what really makes a Video game adaptation great is if the people working behind the scenes really care about the product they are making, because like I said, a lesser team, would mess it up.
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