The neat thing about having a blog space now is I can ramble on about whatever happens to catch my interest. Initially, I had some big ideas for posts, and I am still working on them, but they’re closer to articles really. This is not such a case, and I’m happy about it. Fresh off the CN livestream, I had a thought about some random bullshit I wanted to write about. It will be no surprise that I love the event with new bunnies in Rim Billiton. That is perhaps the least surprising thing possible to anyone who has followed me for any length of time. But it goes beyond that for me. This event is just such a vibe and it continues on the trend of vibey and perfect summer events, so I had to write about my love of them.
That’s a bit funny considering how badly they started. I’m going to skip over HoSF and its rerun for the purposes of this post. The first year or two of AK was a weird time, and while there’s some hints (it would even be the basis for a future event) I could probably get into if I really cared, things don’t really start rolling until the first summer limited event so we’ll start there. Dossoles Holiday might have been the most dramatic event in the history of the games. Ch’en the Holungday was an overpowered (at the time) cashgrab that made no sense in lore and came out of nowhere. The idea of “4 limiteds per year” wasn’t a thing back then! There were a number of other issues at the time as well, and the Mastery article at the time was my most viewed ever because I had a rather scathing rant about it which drew in a lot of drama. So summer events got off on the wrong foot with a lot of the older players!
Yet, the basis of something good was actually there. We were exploring a completely new area. Outside of the whole Ch’en fiasco, the lore was interesting too because we had this mix of a “summer vacation” and “civil war” going on. Tequila was a great character too with a lasting impact on the game. The makings were there.
Ideal City improved upon this, although it was still flawed. Gavial the Invincible was just as bad lore-wise as Ch’en was, but she at least didn’t feel as much like gooner bait. Pozemka was still in a swimsuit, but it at least made sense for both her character and the story. Moreso though, we again got a fun story here. So here, I split into two digressions.
First, a comment about gooner skins/units. I rail on them a lot so you might come to the impression I am some kind of prude. Not so! I’ve been a high-tier pervert since longer than most of you have been alive! However, over time, I’ve come to realize that sex rarely enhances a story or game. Of course I understand the visual appeal of them (boy do I understand), but that’s not why I’m playing AK. Gooner games already exist, and H-content is literally everywhere. I play AK because it’s different. When we get things like Ch’en the Holungday that make no sense in the story or La Pluma’s skin, it just comes across to me as low-tier bait. They add nothing to the story, ruin the immersion of the darker setting, and they attract an… unsavory group of people. This isn’t to say that HG should never use bait though. This game is ultimately about making money, and if I was in charge, I’d probably do the same thing. If anything, I’m impressed by their level of restraint! But that just makes me appreciate HG even more when they don’t do it, or at least give a lore-accurate reason like Pozemka.
The second comment is about the story. This is inevitable in any long running series whether it be comicbooks, movies, or a live service game, but the stakes continually rise which leads to ever more nonsensical stories. As with the gooner point, I’m not saying AK shouldn’t do this. There are some great mainline story chapters with high stakes! But one of the great strengths of Arknights is how deep the world feels. There’s so much going on in the world! It’s nice when we do something “different”. I really enjoy stories like The Masses’ Travels which have huge spanning impacts on the world, but stories like Ideal City that only affect a relatively small group of people are great too. I’ll admit that the IC story is actually quite weak though, but that fact just sort of illustrates my point. Despite being a weaker narrative, it’s still a fun story, and one I have fond memories of despite me usually having negative feelings towards the weaker stories.
Simply put, lower stakes stories work very well in Arknights. You can tell there are people on the writing team who are at their best when we get to do these more character focused types of events! Not everything can (or should) be the end of the world, and stories like these really shine in this game.
Summer events specifically I think hit that sweet spot for the lower stakes stories just perfectly. There is some measure of personal preference at play here, of course. I really love more “adventure” oriented stories, which is kind of the theme behind most summer events. I also love the general summer themes that these events tend to bring. Small things like the beach-side diner in So Long, Adele are right up my alley! But beyond that, being a limited event gives them a lot more production value that I think really enhances things. For lack of a better word, there’s just a “vibe” that goes along with these events that really enhances these lower stakes stories. And I absolutely love them.
Anyway, this is what Ideal City did well. Gavial, although a summer alt with some bad lore, wasn’t just an old character in a swimsuit. The Durin storyline wasn’t some world ending event where society as we knew it was at risk! Half the story was about drunk Durin’s building a giant waterslide! The overarching theme is about characters who don’t fit in their home instead of some high-stakes bullshit like the burden of responsibility (sorry Amiya)! It was great!
Which brings us to So Long, Adele. Again, we have some flaws. Swire the Elegant Wit especially pisses me off because they repeated the same mistakes as Ch’en (yet for some reason no one got mad about it but me). And don’t get me started on the Myrtle skin. But I really loved the story here. It was fun. It explored a lot of older characters, and new characters. It had important stakes, but not earth-shattering ones. It was familiar. And it captured that beach-side tropical island vibe so well. The aesthetics behind it are just so top notch, especially with the day/night cycle. I could just imagine being at a night time pool lounge with them. Maybe more important though, the gameplay was great. Of course, novel enemy units are nothing unique to summer events. Amusing enemies are a great strength of Arknights! Yet it feels like the summer events often give them reasons to just go wild with an idea. The sheep enemies are a really top notch example. They’re unique, they’re memorable, they’re challenging without feeling bullshitty, and Dolly is a fun boss to tackle.
Which brings us to Inudi Harek Horaknet, my favorite summer event (so far) and what really got me thinking about the ideas and themes behind them. Pepe and Narantuya are perfect units (although Pepe could have had a bit more power behind her kit) that really feel like they encapsulate the strengths of the game. That will probably be mildly controversial to say. For reasons I will never understand, a lot of people seem to hate Pepe for no good reason. Yet I love both. We have a girlfailure thief with a heart of gold, and a scholar museum curator with an actually realistic representation of a young and professional female friend group. Exactly the kinda people that work well in AK.
The event so perfectly encapsulates that adventure feeling too, and it ties in wonderfully with the lore of the game. There’s a lot of lost history in Sargon, and a lot of immortal to semi-immortal beings in the world. The story intersects those ideas, plus Pepe’s archeology and Narantuya’s… thieving in a really satisfying way. The story has a lot of tension, but still feels grounded. I didn’t think I would especially enjoy an Egyptian themed event. It’s a topic that’s just overdone in general media, yet it ended up being one of my favorites.
After that is Ato, which I’ll confess is a bit of an oddity in the group and goes a bit against my narrative here. In fact, in the first draft of this post I outright forgot it as a summer event. While the “lower stakes, but high aesthetic” vibe is still here, it lacks in the “adventure” aspect of it. However, I think that’s mostly fine. In some ways, the summer event gets to act as the “other” group, which is something the cycle really needs. CNY is stuck in Yan by its nature, and the anni/half-anni are somewhat forced to be the higher stakes mainline stories. Hoshi is definitely worth being a limited, so while Ato doesn’t strictly fit in with the rest, it still works as its own thing! I do hope we can return to Higashi one day. Stupid real life politics…
Which finally leads me to the new event just announced, Till the Lands Become an Orange. When I say that I love this event beyond just the fact I’m finally getting a full Rim Billiton event and some new bunnies, this is why. Angelina is one of those characters that I love for some personal reason and not because I “waifu” her. She’s similar to Pozemka this way (as I wrote about in my Pozy x Mousse fic). Rather than specifically loving a character, she captures an aspect of my personality, which is the job of a lone traveller. She goes all over, alone, but for a purpose and always meeting new people and seeing new things. I really love her manga series because it just captures that feeling so well. Alone, but not, and never in the same place for long.
So the fact this event seems to be about her travels in a new place, seemingly on a big roadtrip, that encapsulates that summer time adventure feeling, while also happening to be in my favorite area with my favorite race, is just really right up my alley. The vibe is just perfect! Then on top of that, we have some really interesting looking units? Sign me the fuck up. This is about the most excited I’ve been for an event in a while, and it’s NOT because of the bunnies! In fact, I’m rather lowkey dubious about Thumpy (why loli)!
And that’s all I really had to say. A brief history of summer events and why I love them. This has been a pretty useless article, which is exactly what this blog is for, and if you bothered to read this far, I appreciate you. I don’t expect many to, so you, yes you, I love you too~