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Can old games have great animation?

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Yes!

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Yes, they can.

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But just for fun, let’s do a quick episode
about it anyway.

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Hi, I’m Dan.

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Welcome to New Frame Plus.

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When I made a video critiquing
Skyrim’s mining animation last year,

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there was one particular category of reaction in
the comments which caught my attention.

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The specific phrasing varied, but the 
general gist of these responses was:

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Now, on the one hand,
there IS some truth to this statement:

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you DO have to consider a game’s context
when critiquing its animation.

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You have to factor in the hardware limitations
of the era,

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as well as the game’s budget,
intended scope and genre.

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Like, it would be ABSURD of me
to criticize Super Mario Brothers

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for not looking like a 2019 AAA game.

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Or even a 2019 indie game!

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All that context I mentioned should be 
factored into any game animation analysis.

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dismissing criticism of Skyrim’s
mining animation due to the game’s age

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(or even the age of its engine) is still
a bit silly, and for a few reasons.

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1). 2011 wasn’t THAT long ago.

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2). Even if it was, you can learn a lot by
analyzing animations in older games.

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And most importantly,

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3). there are plenty of even older
games with GREAT animation in them!

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And I don’t expect most of you need convincing of that

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(if anything, I’m probably preaching to the choir)

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but just to prove the point and have a little fun,

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let’s just count backward
from the year of Skyrim’s release

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and list off some older games
with great animation in them.

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2011 -- you’ve got Uncharted 3, with some
absolutely top tier performance capture work.

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Look at the level of polish here!

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Still amazing.

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2010 -- you’ve got Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

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I don’t even 100% understand
how this animation was constructed,

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but the style COMPLETELY works
and looks like nothing else out there.

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Beautiful.

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2009 -- you've got Punch-Out!!

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Man, I made a whole video on why
that game’s animation is amazing.

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That game's almost 10 years old now!

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Looks JUST as good as the day it launched.

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2008 -- Prince of Persia,

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bringing a new level of style and polish to

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the climbing and traversal animation systems
Ubisoft Montreal was becoming known for.

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Look at that wall run!

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That looks nice!

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2007 -- Heavenly Sword comes out
with some lovely combat animation

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and raises the bar on motion capture performance
with some wonderfully over-the-top character acting.

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[Screams.]

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[Also screams.]

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"Kill her."

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2006 -- You got Final Fantasy XII

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bringing a level of character performance and cinematography that series had never seen before.

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2005 -- Shadow of the Colossus!

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That game was a huge achievement, both on
a technical level and an aesthetic one.

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Like, not only does the animation of all the colossi
convey this massive sense of majestic scale,

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but this is still some of the best-looking
horse riding animation in video games.

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2004 -- you got the original Monster Hunter.

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The creature and combat animations in
the Monster Hunter series are fantastic,

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and they've ALWAYS been good.

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Like, yeah, the newest titles may have 
smoothed over some of the rough edges,

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but I bet some of these animations you're
seeing on screen right now look a little familiar,

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and that's because they're basically
still using a lot of these same animations,

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because they STILL look good!

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15 year old game!

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2003 -- the year of the Wind Waker.

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Pure charm, this animation.

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And the most expressive version of Link
we’ve seen before OR SINCE.

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2002 -- you got Kingdom Hearts.

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The sequels would improve on this a lot,
but even here in the first one,

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you’ve got some impressive blending between
Square’s Final Fantasy animation style

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and Disney’s… Disney animation style.

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Like, Sora’s animation exists in
this perfect middle ground

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between 'anime' and 'Mickey Mouse cartoon'

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and I love it.

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2001 -- Metal Gear Solid 2.

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A HUGE leap over its predecessor

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AND one of the best-looking early uses of
motion capture animation in games.

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A lot of these cutscenes still look really cool!

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The year 2000 -- Marvel vs Capcom 2

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with some beautiful pixel animation.

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Just look at these poses!

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LOOK AT THEM.

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Every frame of this looks good!

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Speaking of fighting games...

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1999 -- Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.

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STILL some of the best animation in the
entire Street Fighter franchise.

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Maybe still THE best.

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And even before that,
1998 -- we’ve got Soul Calibur,

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already in 3D and looking pretty darn good.

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I’m still impressed by the weapon-handling
animation in these early entries.

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This game is over 20 years old now!

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1997 -- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,

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with some more lovely pixel art animation.

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Alucard's run is maybe a little bit floaty-feeling
for my tastes, but those sword slashes?

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MMM.

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And yeah, things are starting to look
pretty primitive compared to where we are now,

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but you see how many of these games are still
managing to showcase some great animation

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even within those limitations?

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Like, 1996 -- Mario 64.

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SUPER primitive 3D animation in this game.

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AND YET

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they got so many things right on this, their first try!

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The way Mario leans into his turns like that?

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The way he briefly curls into a ball on
the second rotation of his third jump flip

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before stretching back out again on the descent?

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The way he already looks and feels 
responsive to control in 3D space.

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Again: on their FIRST TRY?

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That’s a lot better than some
other first attempts went!

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1995 -- you got Yoshi’s Island.

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Super simple sprite animation, but the posing
and the movement on Yoshi is here is cute!

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The floaty jumps!

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And his little marching in place!

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It looks GOOD.

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1994 -- Darkstalkers.

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I’ve seen people use this game’s sprites to
demonstrate the 12 principles of animation before.

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25 year old game, still has
fantastic posing and exaggeration.

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1993 -- Capcom’s Aladdin?

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Like LOOK at this.

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They had actual Disney artists working on this stuff.

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1992 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2!

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Early Sonic sprites have SO much personality to them.

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That’s one thing early hedgehog did
better than early Mario like every time.

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And in 1991, the original
Sonic the Hedgehog looked great too!

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And yes, at this point, the hardware is getting
so primitive that the ability to animate characters

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(or even make characters recognizable)
is pretty difficult,

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but if you look, there are still games in
the mix with better sprite posing,

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and more appealing character animation.

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Super Mario World in 1990.

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Bonk’s Adventure in 1989.

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Mario 3 in 1988.

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The original Punch-Out in 1987.

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Wonder Boy in 1986.

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Yie Ar Kung-Fu in 1985.

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Listen.

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Don’t ever let someone tell you that old
games can’t have great animation in them.

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Or that bad animation in an older game
is only bad because it’s old.

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There is a big difference between
OLD animation and BAD animation.

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Yes, hardware might limit your capabilities,

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but artists have been creating good animation
within those limitations for decades.

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Even if the most you can give a
character is 12 pixel-y poses,

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you can still do your darndest to make those
12 poses as clear and appealing as possible.

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Anyway! Thank you for indulging me on this.

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Be sure to subscribe if you want to see
more videos about game animation,

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and I will see you next time.