#Two for the year

[extremesalsaing]

Two for the year: Games 2022

Last year on Twitter, I tweeted two favorites of 2021, across games, movies and albums. I liked that way of doing things, and decided to do it again! When I did it before, I was able to capture a pair of very different new games - one broad and expansive (Monster Hunter Rise) and one smaller and tighter (Metroid Dread). This year, I played fewer new games, and put a lot more hours into them. I promise the day will come again when I lift up something other than Switch games, but not today.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Talking about Pokemon in 2022 is a sticky, disgusting thing to do. We've spent years now talking about how the series has a million roadblocks keeping it from evolving - all of them coming from within. Not only is Game Freak trapped under an unfair and unlivable work pace at the hands of The Pokemon Company, but its own leadership has internally been firmly resistant to change. Sword and Shield truly got the conversation going around the ways in which the franchise refuses to move forward, from the top down. The Wild Area idea pushed at the walls of the dusty box that every game in the franchise has sat inside for over two decades.

That all changed at the start of this year. Pokemon Legends: Arceus breaks the box down, wall by wall, and reimagines what it means to be in the Pokemon world. From capturing to collecting, Pokemon feels like something new than it did, and I hope beyond hope that the series is able to really start moving forward. From moment 1, I couldn't deny the feeling that this franchise was trying something new. At god-damn last.

Completing the Pokedex no longer just means capturing every Pokemon, but completing lists of tasks unique to each one of them. They turned that task into a project that I actually enjoyed enough to finish it - the PLA Pokedex being the first I have ever finished. Finding the rare Pokemon you're looking for isn't just about running around in the grass for a rare spawn rate, but waiting for the right time of day or night, and being careful not to spook a timid Turtwig back into the forest.

Players have been playing Pokemon functionally the same way for over 25 years, and this is the first "core entry" to change that in ways that go beyond adding a new gimmick or mechanic. It changes what the player's relationship to the world is. It's the first time in Pokemon that you can scale a mountain, get to the top, see a Togekiss flying around in circles, and spend half an hour figuring out how to skillfully and tactically bonk it with custom-crafted balls until maybe, just maybe, you chance your way into catching it. It's an easy shot to say that it's adopting Breath of the Wild design sensibilities, but it's pretty undeniable that this game wants you to feel small in a big, wild world. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is the first time I have been felt really challenged to learn something new by this franchise in at least a decade, and god, I hope it's not the last.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 3 are both about a group of central characters learning that "the way things are" is a fake idea. The world is constructed based on rules, and those rules are written by people with names and addresses - even if the name is "Zanza the Great" and the place is called "Prison Island." In XC1, this revelation comes gradually, over the course of a journey that starts out as a simple revenge mission and ends as a fight to save a world that was engineered as one living being's life source. It's the blood cells rebelling against the body. Late into the game, protagonist Shulk learns that he - and by association, all of his friends - has been a pawn in a system whose nature was too big for him to understand.

XC3 is also about this, but much faster. What I have described as happening over the whole of the first game happens to two opposing groups of soldiers in the first two hours of this one. Xenoblade Chronicles 3's six main characters are child soldiers, who don't know that there's anything else to be. They're born at some ambiguous age around 10 or so, are given decade-long natural lifespans, and then dissolve into light when their time is up. Every soldier in every colony across the world is fighting for their lives - literally. Groups of soldiers harvest the life force of their foes, absorbing them into enormous machines that power the lives of their soldiers. It's a tightly-locked system, an endless cycle of soldiers killing each other to stay alive, all for a purpose none of them are given the leeway to even ask. Every one of them is born too deep into the system to understand that there is a system at all.

So, what happens when a group of people is removed from that system? The opening of XC3 culminates with two opposing trios of soldiers coming together to investigate the presence of an unknown force on a battlefield, which leads to all of them becoming untethered from the Flame Clock - the instruments of control that keep the soldiers of both armies locked in a fight to drink each others' life away. Suddenly untethered, and given new abilities defined by their newfound unity, the six protagonists are given a direction and told to go there in search of answers for the question that those oppressed aren't often given the chance to really act on: What made the world this way?

From there, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a story about liberating your fellows from the systems that hold you down, as the party frees colony after colony from both sides. It's also about coming to terms with mortality and tells a series of very intimate and tender stories about loss, old and new alike. Third, it's about young people learning and expressing what love is without...knowing what love is. Its plot is about teenagers and young adults learning how to be people, which is something I am an unabashed and wholehearted sucker for.

The story eventually culminates in a simpler fashion than I was hoping for, but the journey is something I will not manage to get out of my head for a long time. On top of that, it builds arguably the best version of the Xenoblade combat system, marrying ideas from the first two games with a job class system that initially felt overwhelming, but later transformed into a series of gifts, each new one opening up what I could do further and further. The gameplay is great, even if it's not the main thing I'm talking about when I write about it. I'm not sure if it's topped the original for me, but Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has a heart, soul and mind that will likely stay close to mine forever. What a beautiful and special game.

Okay, thanks! I will probably write one of these about movies and maybe music as well! I also put this on my Cohost, out of curiosity to see where more people are reading them, as we all navigate this terrible post-Elon world. Cheers!

#video games #xenoblade #pokemon #Pokemon Legends: Arceus #Xenoblade Chronicles 3 #XC3 #spoilers #game of the year #two for the year

[cozylittleartblog]

cant tell you how bad it feels to constantly tell other artists to come to tumblr, because its the last good website that isn't fucked up by spoonfeeding algorithms and AI bullshit and isn't based around meaningless likes

just to watch that all fall apart in the last year or so and especially the last two weeks

there's nowhere good to go anymore for artists.

edit - a lot of people are saying the tags are important so actually, you'll look at my tags.

#please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads#in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

#not art #but important #please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads #in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

[gayrudeboys]

yesterday i was ringing up an old man at work and he asked if i wanted to see his pride and joy, pulled out his wallet, and in the place where you’d keep a picture of like your family he had this

#the conversation two minutes prior to this: #‘is that the senior citizen price?’ #‘we don’t have a senior citizen discount’ #‘just say it is’ #‘that is the senior citizen price’ #‘oh! perfect!’ #i would drop dead to give this guy five more years

[jakeperalta]

I'm curious. what job would you do if money was no object (you just automatically had an income you could live comfortably on)? including work like volunteering, studying etc. please share in the tags :)

#under this premise part time work is valid too! #personally i think i'd probably study. maybe do another masters maybe part time across two years this time #if i were to do a job job i think i'd try out working in a library (ideally an academic library). which would technically be more studying #since i'd need to get a library qualification first #i'm just very curious what people would choose if it was purely a choice of what appeals to you over the practicality/necessity #talking

[akashicrecord]

no offense but if your friend is trying out a new hobby be fucking nice to them

[soaked-doors]

when it rains, it pours

#reading through post war stuff with my head in my hands #it’s getting me rly bad guys. It’s getting me rly bad #anyways you ever think about luzo being so in tune w/ eo that even strange cosmic forces pick up and reflect their emotions #something something zoro couldnt be there for his captain when he needed him the most and spent two years in penance without the sun #roronoa zoro #one piece #monkey d. luffy #one piece fanart #zoro #luffy #my art #luzo #zolu

[hattersarts]

im already at the south downs cottage guys, catch up

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #they're nb in the flavour of being lesbian gay men bc its such a lesbian move to pine for someone for a few thousands years #and literally not make a move #PLUS u know when they have sex it takes like 9hrs and if you wrote what they did down on paper it really wouldnt look like much #but they still had to take intensity breaks bc they kept getting overwhelmed and then just making out for an hour #thank u for coming to my ted talk #high amounts of gender of all types happening all the time with these two

[keymintt]

YOU MUST TRY TO LOVE YOURSELF WHEN NOTHING ELSE DOES. THIS WILL BE THE HARDEST PART

#art #painting #drawing #coyotes #coyote #traditional #body horror #gouache #black #white #neon #sword #eye strain #my art #trying a different color scheme with this one yeehaw #would love to be able to do more than like. two of these a year but alas i am Busy #greatest hits

[ash-and-starlight]

taking the crumbs of venetian agna qel’a chewing biting gnashing on them until there aren’t even bones left and then spitting out. carnevale northern water tribe style

#id in alt text #plus lil zukkini kissini bonus bc this year carnival fell the day before valentine's day #aaand posting it at almost midnight so we get the Perfect meeting point of the two dates #not bc i drew everything in a rabid frenzy & finished it NOW #anyway venetian carnival in the nwt. hi. is this thing on can anyone hear me. #and when i start talking about the marriage to the sea ceremony- [gunshot] #ough i wish i had more time to draw more masks in sakha-venice fusion style but alas. only had time & brain space for the blorbos 😔 #hope this is enough to send the Vision Wavelenghts #yue #sokka #katara #zuko #zukka #my art

[triona-tribblescore]

I just wanna draw them being all soft n stuff okay? :'( <333

#no like they have consumed all of my thoughts #ik im quiet here atm but im freaking out In a feral non girly totally concept way about hazbin #BEEN WAITING FIVE FUCKIN YEARS FOR THIS #AND ITS EVERYTHING I HOPED IT WOULD BE AND MORE #ahem #But yeah!! :'D #I love almost all the characters but these two always have and always will be my favs :'> #<3 #tribbleart #hazbin hotel #hazbin #hazbin angel dust #hazbin husk #huskerdust #angel dust #hazbin hotel fanart #husk #angel dust fanart #husk fanart #I LOVE THEM- *sobs grossly*

[hiirenvirna]

tragic news: two guys ruthlessly bully little kitty cat every day

#doodle #comic diary #we got two foster cats recently :) they are sillyyy #i've fostered for a few years now but this is the first time in our new apartment!

[mydairpercabeth]

There’s something extremely heartbreaking about Nicos cameo/first words in the show being him looking for Bianca. He’s always going to be the little boy looking for his big sister. Season three is going to be the end of me.

#MY BABY BOY NICO DI ANGELO #AND HIS LITTLE ITALIAN ACCENT #i will cry when he finds out about Bianca in two-3 years #my sweet boy #nico di angelo #percy jackson #pjo #percy jackon and the olympians #bianca di angelo #percy jackson the lightning thief #pjo tv #percy series #pjo tv show #solangelo

[evercelle]

hold that heart close... happy birthday, wanderer!!

#genshin impact #wanderer #scaramouche #ever makes art #i finished this drawing two minutes too late... clown emoji #HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDERER you have so very many painful years behind you but infinitely more hopeful ones ahead

[wyntonyang]

#tumblr destroyed my resolution please expand #deltarune fanart #deltarune #utdr #kris dreemurr #noelle holiday #susie deltarune #utdr fanart #I realize Kris’s hair doesn’t look like this #I’ve been using my hair as ref for the last two years but it’s grown out

[apollos-boyfriend]

just saw a clip where f1nn5ter was saying how at this point, he can’t be cis, but at the same time, he doesn’t feel like he’s trans—he’s just neither. and someone in chat was like “you can’t be neither cis nor trans that’s not how it works” i love finn but why is his chat so fucking bad 😭 stop recreating binaries for the love of god, identity does not have to fall into these neat little boxes for you to police

#icarus speaks #neg #AND THEN PEOPLE WERE TRYING TO GIVE HIM LABELS???? LIKE HE DOESNT KNOW???? #not only has he been at this for two years but one of his closest friends is a transwoman #i think he fucking knows what non-binary means 😭 #containment breach #<- i haven’t edited this one yet b it just in case

[criticalrolo]

are you guys ready to admit that ofmd, good omens, and what we do in the shadows have Extreme SuperWhoLock energies or do I need to wait another year to post this take

#two of these shows are fine. they’re fun. but we have to be so real here #they are giving !! superwholock energies!! #I’m right but if the people aren’t ready to hear the truth I’ll try again next year