Can old games have great animation?
Yes!
Yes, they can.
But just for fun, let’s do a quick episode about it anyway.
Hi, I’m Dan.
Welcome to New Frame Plus.
When I made a video critiquing Skyrim’s mining animation last year,
there was one particular category of reaction in the comments which caught my attention.
The specific phrasing varied, but the general gist of these responses was:
Now, on the one hand, there IS some truth to this statement:
you DO have to consider a game’s context when critiquing its animation.
You have to factor in the hardware limitations of the era,
as well as the game’s budget, intended scope and genre.
Like, it would be ABSURD of me to criticize Super Mario Brothers
for not looking like a 2019 AAA game.
Or even a 2019 indie game!
All that context I mentioned should be factored into any game animation analysis.
dismissing criticism of Skyrim’s mining animation due to the game’s age
(or even the age of its engine) is still a bit silly, and for a few reasons.
1). 2011 wasn’t THAT long ago.
2). Even if it was, you can learn a lot by analyzing animations in older games.
And most importantly,
3). there are plenty of even older games with GREAT animation in them!
And I don’t expect most of you need convincing of that
(if anything, I’m probably preaching to the choir)
but just to prove the point and have a little fun,
let’s just count backward from the year of Skyrim’s release
and list off some older games with great animation in them.
2011 -- you’ve got Uncharted 3, with some absolutely top tier performance capture work.
Look at the level of polish here!
Still amazing.
2010 -- you’ve got Kirby’s Epic Yarn.
I don’t even 100% understand how this animation was constructed,
but the style COMPLETELY works and looks like nothing else out there.
Beautiful.
2009 -- you've got Punch-Out!!
Man, I made a whole video on why that game’s animation is amazing.
That game's almost 10 years old now!
Looks JUST as good as the day it launched.
2008 -- Prince of Persia,
bringing a new level of style and polish to
the climbing and traversal animation systems Ubisoft Montreal was becoming known for.
Look at that wall run!
That looks nice!
2007 -- Heavenly Sword comes out with some lovely combat animation
and raises the bar on motion capture performance with some wonderfully over-the-top character acting.
[Screams.]
[Also screams.]
"Kill her."
2006 -- You got Final Fantasy XII
bringing a level of character performance and cinematography that series had never seen before.
2005 -- Shadow of the Colossus!
That game was a huge achievement, both on a technical level and an aesthetic one.
Like, not only does the animation of all the colossi convey this massive sense of majestic scale,
but this is still some of the best-looking horse riding animation in video games.
2004 -- you got the original Monster Hunter.
The creature and combat animations in the Monster Hunter series are fantastic,
and they've ALWAYS been good.
Like, yeah, the newest titles may have smoothed over some of the rough edges,
but I bet some of these animations you're seeing on screen right now look a little familiar,
and that's because they're basically still using a lot of these same animations,
because they STILL look good!
15 year old game!
2003 -- the year of the Wind Waker.
Pure charm, this animation.
And the most expressive version of Link we’ve seen before OR SINCE.
2002 -- you got Kingdom Hearts.
The sequels would improve on this a lot, but even here in the first one,
you’ve got some impressive blending between Square’s Final Fantasy animation style
and Disney’s… Disney animation style.
Like, Sora’s animation exists in this perfect middle ground
between 'anime' and 'Mickey Mouse cartoon'
and I love it.
2001 -- Metal Gear Solid 2.
A HUGE leap over its predecessor
AND one of the best-looking early uses of motion capture animation in games.
A lot of these cutscenes still look really cool!
The year 2000 -- Marvel vs Capcom 2
with some beautiful pixel animation.
Just look at these poses!
LOOK AT THEM.
Every frame of this looks good!
Speaking of fighting games...
1999 -- Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.
STILL some of the best animation in the entire Street Fighter franchise.
Maybe still THE best.
And even before that, 1998 -- we’ve got Soul Calibur,
already in 3D and looking pretty darn good.
I’m still impressed by the weapon-handling animation in these early entries.
This game is over 20 years old now!
1997 -- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,
with some more lovely pixel art animation.
Alucard's run is maybe a little bit floaty-feeling for my tastes, but those sword slashes?
MMM.
And yeah, things are starting to look pretty primitive compared to where we are now,
but you see how many of these games are still managing to showcase some great animation
even within those limitations?
Like, 1996 -- Mario 64.
SUPER primitive 3D animation in this game.
AND YET
they got so many things right on this, their first try!
The way Mario leans into his turns like that?
The way he briefly curls into a ball on the second rotation of his third jump flip
before stretching back out again on the descent?
The way he already looks and feels responsive to control in 3D space.
Again: on their FIRST TRY?
That’s a lot better than some other first attempts went!
1995 -- you got Yoshi’s Island.
Super simple sprite animation, but the posing and the movement on Yoshi is here is cute!
The floaty jumps!
And his little marching in place!
It looks GOOD.
1994 -- Darkstalkers.
I’ve seen people use this game’s sprites to demonstrate the 12 principles of animation before.
25 year old game, still has fantastic posing and exaggeration.
1993 -- Capcom’s Aladdin?
Like LOOK at this.
They had actual Disney artists working on this stuff.
1992 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2!
Early Sonic sprites have SO much personality to them.
That’s one thing early hedgehog did better than early Mario like every time.
And in 1991, the original Sonic the Hedgehog looked great too!
And yes, at this point, the hardware is getting so primitive that the ability to animate characters
(or even make characters recognizable) is pretty difficult,
but if you look, there are still games in the mix with better sprite posing,
and more appealing character animation.
Super Mario World in 1990.
Bonk’s Adventure in 1989.
Mario 3 in 1988.
The original Punch-Out in 1987.
Wonder Boy in 1986.
Yie Ar Kung-Fu in 1985.
Listen.
Don’t ever let someone tell you that old games can’t have great animation in them.
Or that bad animation in an older game is only bad because it’s old.
There is a big difference between OLD animation and BAD animation.
Yes, hardware might limit your capabilities,
but artists have been creating good animation within those limitations for decades.
Even if the most you can give a character is 12 pixel-y poses,
you can still do your darndest to make those 12 poses as clear and appealing as possible.
Anyway! Thank you for indulging me on this.
Be sure to subscribe if you want to see more videos about game animation,
and I will see you next time.