Branford Hubbard Reflects On A Wholesome Year in Gaming But There’s Still Work to Do… | Winter Spectacular 2023
As someone who grew up in the 90s, I enjoy my edgelords and stoic heroes. It’d be a lie to say I don’t think about spouting one-liners and embodying Batman’s too cool for school, brooding persona. Equally I grew up with films that sold a message of ‘as long as I excelled in my studies and went “Plus Ultra”, that would be enough to get the life I wanted’. At the same time, I’m not the type of person to wince when I see wholesome media. Sometimes, it can get a bit too saccharine, but I can recognize that and either accept it for what it is, or move on. However, in 2023, I started to notice a bit of a pattern.
The year in games for me started with Fire Emblem: Engage, a game that was quite the sea change from the very serious ‘Modern Epic’ that was Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The opening song and first few chapters of the game have an earnestness that turned out to be a little bit of a surprise, but I knew going into the game, pundits were saying it was very akin to Power Rangers. Which is completely fine - I had a stupid grin on my face for most of it as a result.
Outside of games it’s been a hard year: I’ve lost two jobs and had to file two police reports, so that might be why I have found myself completely ok, if not a little surprised with the large amount of wholesomeness I’ve encountered both in games and outside of it. While in truth, I think I started to see this trend much before this year, probably most prominently in Spider-Man: No Way Home. If you’ll pardon the slight spoiler, a big theme of that movie came from Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker in that they were there to not ‘kick some ass’, but ‘cure some ass’. Without getting into too many details, apparently this is also present in Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is another piece of media that even surprised me by having such a strong theme of family, and how even your enemy may not be all that different from you. My Adventures with Superman similarly reverts Superman back from whatever tortured messiah Zack Snyder had created into a guy who just wants to do good. I was definitely happy to have Snyder out of the picture, but for the show to be so whimsical and without a trace of mean-spiritedness, it was a bit of a shock to the system. On top of of that, it celebrated Lois and Jimmy. Three young adults trying to prove themselves just felt right in the moment.
On the gaming side, Sea of Stars emanates 'the power of friendship’ energy. I haven’t finished it, and I assumed the character of Garl wouldn’t be waiting for you after your characters graduated, but he was, and he’s still the same character who was dreaming of adventures and making friends almost a decade ago. Street Fighter 6 finally gives depth to characters you’ve seen on the screen for nearly 30 years now, and it’s adorable. Zangief likes to read, Juri sends you scams and virus-laden links over the phone, while Ryu is still learning how to use a phone. When characters K.O. each other, they (usually) have something positive to say, or offer to help the other character. Each their own flavor of wholesome.
Mortal Kombat 1 shows us the fruits of Fire God Liu Kang’s efforts to recreate the world: I’m sure we’ve all seen a world flipped on it’s head or engaged in an alternate universe story, but this one was different. Normally, we see someone who shouldn’t have power assume control, and the world in chaos or under a fascist thumb. That is not the case with Liu Kang’s new Mortal Kombat Universe - he stripped bad actors of their powers, found a place and role for nearly everyone. If I were to have guessed before witnessing this, Liu Kang would’ve used his newfound powers to favor Earth(realm), but he REALLY did back up his words with actions. Has any Mortal Kombat fan ever thought Baraka would turn into a kind, collected, diseased merchant and community leader as opposed to just an angry evil jobber? Sindel, Mileena, and other tortured characters were given a literal new lease on life. Of course, there were still problems, but talking, understanding, and compassion are keys to advancing in Liu Kang’s world.
I also take in a lot of anime, and so I’m no stranger to ‘talk no jutsu’, that medium’s version of showing compassion. Even still, with FLCL getting it’s ‘final’ series through Shoegaze and Grunge, Toonami (through Adult Swim) went through the entire series, which I partook in. Rewatching, watching, and commiserating with people about these shows was great. Especially in seeing people who had said they hated the later FLCLs (Progressive or Alternative) as they realized in their formative years, their kneejerk opinion might’ve been slightly too dramatic. The themes of freedom, anti-capitalism, the series’ limited runtime, and really good music by The Pillows all create something special in this east-west collaboration anime.
Demon Slayer’s Tanjiro is empathic to the point of hilarity, but his earnestness might just be what I needed in the year 2023. As was said in another 2023 series, Ms. Marvel: “Just because someone treats you as their enemy, doesn't give you the right to treat them as yours.”. While the current dub season isn’t as ‘wholesome’ as it usually is, it’s hard not to be reminded of Midorya’s drive to be the number one hero and get there through empathy, even if he, himself in Season 6 isn’t exactly himself. Dr. Stone rounds it all out with a bit different form of wholesomeness - Senku and some of his crew are more or less shitheads, but they want to return the world to what it once was, and in the process, marvel at the achievements of the human species and the talented members they end up de-petrifying. So often in Shonen anime, the spotlight is on, usually male characters who are the strongest, which DEFINITELY doesn’t describe Senku. I think especially in a time where science has been questioned in favor of willful ignorance, it is nice to see someone who clearly respects science and what it can do for their future-primitive world.
At the end of the day, I’d like to think with science like in Dr. Stone, or invoking Talk No Jutsu, our world would be able to solve the majority of its problems. The gaming industry itself wasn’t having a great year with layoffs on top of layoffs, but I was greatly effected by these aforementioned wholesome games and moments. Hopefully that can translate to the industry itself as it unionizes further. Have a happy holiday, folks.
