Which Dark Souls Has the Best Parry Animation?

Hello,
and welcome to New Frame Plus.

Every now and then,
I like to pick just a single animation

from a game
and really dig into it.

And, by patron request, today’s subject
is the parry & riposte in Dark Souls.

But I say why stop at just one!
Dark Souls didn’t, and neither shall we.

Let’s look at the parry & riposte
in all three Dark Souls games

and see which
one is animated the best.

Pop a humanity everybody,
we are going on a JOURNEY.

Alright, first up: Dark Souls.
Let’s give this thing a look ...

So, for the initial parry,
the character takes a wide stance

and swats the enemy weapon away.

From there, they will either transition
back to their idle animation

or the player can choose to
follow up with a counterattack,

which varies by weapon type.

Now the parry is actually my
favorite part of the whole thing.

I love how exaggerated
this shield swipe is.

She’s not just carefully
deflecting the attack,

she is swatting that sword
away like GET OUTTA HERE.

There is a real sense of
power behind this parry,

and a big part of that
is the weight behind it.

Watch her hips:

You see how her center of gravity
drops down and to the left

just before twisting to
help whip the shield around?

She’s throwing her whole
body into that parry.

Now, realistically, I would wager that throwing
your shield out to the side like that

is probably not an ideal
defensive parrying technique,

but I’m not an expert
in swordsmanship.

And also, I don’t care!

In the context of a video game,

clarity is FAR more important
than realism 99% of the time,

and the exaggeration on this
shield swipe is very clear.

And a lot of that clarity is
also thanks to the posing.

Look at the silhouette on
this succession of poses…

The anticipation pose brings
the shield way out to her right

(making sure it’s clear of
her body so we can see it),

then she whips it all the
way across to her left side

(again, clear of her body to
maintain a nice silhouette),

and then the weight of the thing
brings it down for the recovery…

even in the heat of combat,
all of those poses are super clear.

Now, the enemy’s reaction to
being parried is interesting…

Compared to the
ferocity of the parry,

the enemy’s animation feels
kinda soft and swimmy.

I mean, Dark Souls animation trends
pretty slow compared to most games anyway,

but this almost feels
like slow motion.

Maybe the original
animation played back faster,

but when they started
fine-tuning the combat,

they decided that the enemy needed
to be vulnerable for more time,

so they just slowed the
animation down a little.

Or maybe this was an
aesthetically intentional choice

to help the player more quickly
recognize the enemy’s vulnerability.

See, at first I was kinda
wishing that there was

a little more sharpness
to the start of this,

like more of a harsh bounce off of your
shield to match the intensity of your parry,

but then I remembered that that’s what
happens when you just do a regular block.

You see how much
sharper that bounce is?

Maybe the softness here
was designed to feel

tangibly different than
a regular blocked hit,

to make the riposte vulnerability
more immediately apparent.

Weird as it feels,
I do have to admit that -

especially when combined
with the sound effect -

it is IMMEDIATELY clear to the
player that that parry was successful.

Now, if the player
chooses to riposte here,

you’ll see the enemy’s
position change instantly,

snapping to a spot right in
front of the player character.

This warping happens because the
riposte animation in Dark Souls

is what many of us call
a “synced animation”.

See, when you need two
different characters in a game

to physically interact
in some complex way,

sometimes that interaction
is only going to look right

if both characters are playing their
respective animations at the exact same time

and in the correct position and
orientation relative to each other.

Like, if this ogre is going to
do a grab move on Wolf here,

then it’s only going to look right if his
arms are actually wrapped around Wolf,

which means that the two characters need
to be in the correct relative positions.

And if they AREN’T, well,
then you gotta force it.

Because for game-play purposes,

you don’t want to make the player
have to stand in the EXACT

pixel-perfect correct spot in front of the
enemy for that riposte animation to work.

That would be super annoying.

So instead, if the enemy is vulnerable
and the player hits the riposte button

while standing in GENERALLY the
correct position and orientation,

both characters will warp and reorient
themselves however is necessary

for that counterattack
animation to play properly.

It may look a little janky when you
slow it down, but it’s worth it.

So anyway: the riposte.

Once both characters
are position correctly,

your character will wind up
with their weapon of choice,

but the enemy fighter does
something kind of... weird.

They will transition from their
vulnerable parried animation

into this really neutral idle
pose, which I don’t love.

It’s as if they’re intentionally
lining themselves up to take the hit,

like they’re an amateur
stunt person or something.

And, like, I get wanting to put them in a
position where the deathblow is gonna look good,

and standing straight up
and unguarded like this

does certainly makes them look super
vulnerable to what’s about to hit them,

but this just makes it look like
they’re coordinating with you.

Like: “Oh,
you intend to riposte?

Capital! Here, let me get myself
all situated... there we are.

Alright! OOF.

Very good, sirrrr….”

I think this would look way better if
the moment before the riposte hit showed

the enemy trying to
defend themselves,

like they see the riposte coming and they are
making a futile attempt to recover in time.

Or maybe they could
see the attack coming

and visibly recognize
that they are screwed,

like a Punch-Out fighter.

Those guys wiff an attack and you can
see it almost immediately in their eyes:

the realization that they
are in very big trouble.

Something like that.

Or just keep them feeling off balance
until the attack lands, whatever.

Anything but THIS.

It is a nitpick, but still.

Anyway,
on to the deathblow itself.

The stab connects,
the particle effects fly,

the camera does this great little zoom
and shake to emphasize the moment,

and the drawn out finish
where the enemy drops and

you kick them off of
your sword looks awesome.

This is what a good synced
animation can get you.

That said, you may have noticed that there’s a
little bit of jank to that stab animation.

Watch the sword hand...

You see that little hitch?

It’s even more noticeable if
you track the tip of the sword…

Now I’m not saying that these arcs have
to be perfectly smooth or anything,

but this little hitch
in the stabbing motion

really saps the move
of some of its force.

It’s not as noticeable when played back
at speed, but you definitely FEEL it.

And when I look at the stab
animation more closely,

I’m actually not feeling a lot of
impact from the animation itself.

At least,
not as much as there could be.

It feels a little bit like the
character's carefully placing the sword

in the right position and the
camera and the particle effects

are doing all this work to
make the attack feel powerful.

You can really see this
when the character is

holding an extra long
weapon like this one.

You see how soft that feels?

It does still work,
but I think it would feel a lot punchier

if the animation was
contributing more to the impact.

Speaking of different weapons,
though, like I said before,

there are a few different
versions of the riposte animation

for the different categories
of weapons in the game,

but as you play, you’re quickly going
to notice that the riposte animations

they use for some of these
weapons seem... a little mismatched.

At the end of the day,
there are a LOT of weapons in Dark Souls

and only a handful of
riposte animations.

So you are occasionally going to
see some very silly-looking stabs.

But I’m not super
bothered about this one,

because if your two options are to either
have some silly-looking ripostes in the game

OR significantly reduce the number of
weapons just to avoid that problem,

I’ll take the silly ripostes.

This game kinda needs those
little dashes of levity anyway.

Last point (and this
one’s pretty small, but)

look at the player character as
she settles back into her idle.

You notice that little
last-second twist on her limbs?

I believe that this is a quick
blend from the male’s idle pose

to their female version
of that animation.

As best I can tell, both masculine and
feminine player characters in Dark Souls

are animated using the same
animation rig and skeleton.

As you can see here,
the two characters have been designed

to not have different
skeletal proportions.

Their limbs and such
are all the same length.

And this would likely be done
because they didn’t want to have

to make two versions of every
animation, which is reasonable.

If everyone’s animated
on the same skeleton,

then they can all pull from
the same library of animations.

But the animators did create a slightly
different idle stance for feminine characters,

just to make them feel just
a little different.

And the problem appears to be
that all of the animations are

designed to transition back into
the standard idle animation,

not the feminine
variant they made.

And so, as she finishes the riposte, we see
her step back into the default pose first,

then quickly shift into the fem
one that she is meant to be using.

It’s another tiny polish thing.
Not that huge a deal.

Theoretically, this could be fixed by
having that blend start much sooner

(like maybe here) so that by
the time she hits this pose,

she’s already in the
correct idle stance.

But maybe there’s some technical reason that
wasn’t possible for them, I don’t know.

Alternatively, if they had some more
room in their animation schedule,

an even better fix would be to
create some custom transitions

so that fem characters could transition
directly back into their own idle

instead of going to
the masculine one first.

But I’m guessing this was considered
a pretty low-priority problem,

so they just opted to accept that
minor bit of jank and move on.

I would argue that just not having a different
idle stance for the female characters

would be the preferable fix in
this case but, alright. Fair enough.

Overall, though, I would say this
animation is pretty successful.

Slightly lacking
in polish maybe,

but that’s pretty par for the
course for Dark Souls 1 animation,

What matters is that it feels great
in the moment, the clarity is good...

Solid 4 out of 5 stars.

But let’s move on to the
sequel: Dark Souls II...

The entire structure of the
parry and riposte here is very different.

Parry the enemy’s attack and now
they will fall on their butt.

And from there, after a slight delay
you can follow up with the riposte.

First let’s talk
about the good things:

that weird blend back into the
feminine idle pose at the end?

That is now fixed.

It appears that both masculine and feminine
characters use the same idle pose here,

so problem just kinda
sorted itself out.

Hooray!

And that concludes my segment
about the good things.

I hope you enjoyed it. NOW...

Let’s start with the parry. It is SIMILAR
to the original, but the posing is weaker.

She’s not hitting that
wide stance anymore,

which was a big part of what made
the original parry look so powerful.

And look at how
the movement ends.

You see the way she brings the shield
even further around on the swing,

all the way behind her body?

Now on the one hand, it DOES make
for a wider arc on that swing,

which could suggest more
power behind it, right?

But that’s coming at
the cost of clarity.

Look at the silhouette
here at the end.

Now compare that to the
posing in the original.

See how much more
clear that looks?

You NEED that clarity
in Souls combat.

And I would argue that
the enemy’s reaction to

being parried is a
pretty big downgrade too.

The original might have felt soft,

but seeing the enemy’s weapon get slapped
away by that shield felt pretty great

AND it clearly conveyed that, hey,
you deflected that incoming attack.

Good for you.

Here, the parry reaction seems to
ignore the attack deflection entirely.

Instead, they react like your parry is more
of a shield bash smashing them in the face.

Which... ok, that’s kinda fun too.

But in the heat of combat, I would argue it’s
just slightly less clear as a reaction.

I’m definitely
nitpicking at this point,

but those tiny clarity
issues can pile up fast.

Then the guy just sits
there, dazed, which

is kinda more goofy-
looking than anything.

It’s like: oof, your parry just gave
this hollow a LOT to think about…

And you have to wait for his fall animation
to finish before you can do your riposte.

Hit the button too early
and you’ll just attack,

completely losing your
riposte opportunity.

WHICH FEELS REAL FINICKY.

AND BAD.

And the riposte itself
is also not great!

The characters warp into position
for the synced animation.

Then comes the attack

which, to their credit, doesn’t have
those noticeable hitches that the original had.

But the clarity on this
stabbing attack is baaaaaaad.

Your weapon making contact with the opponent
is completely obscured by your character.

The camera still does
it’s zoom (which is great)

but what is there to
zoom and emphasize here?

you can’t see what happened!

In terms of both silhouette and
clarity, this riposte is Very Bad.

Maybe it looks better with an axe…

...wow, not really!

I mean, the swing itself
is more clear,

but something about the
perspective makes it

feel like it almost
isn't reaching the enemy.

Why DOES every one of these attacks
seems to be aimed at the crotch, anyway?

I’m not saying it’s not effective,
it’s just…

...like, right?

Listen, I love Dark Souls II,
like, a LOT.

But yeah, this parry/riposte
combo is a pretty major downgrade.

And that’s the thing, it’s not like there
aren’t ways to improve upon the original!

Which makes the Dark Souls III version
of the parry and riposte

even MORE baffling.

So Dark Souls III brought a
lot of the player character

animations back to the way they
looked and felt in the original,

so this parry and riposte are probably
gonna looking pretty familiar.

And there are a couple
of improvements here.

That little masculine-to-feminine
idle blend? Fixed!

And the posing on this parry is even more clear!

Just look at the snappy extension on that
arm as the shield comes around.

WhaBAM.

But the weird thing to me is that
all of the rest of the polish

problems that existed in the
original are STILL IN HERE.

That hitch in the stab animation?

Still there!

In fact, now there’s a even NEW hitch in
the upper torso at the start of the parry.

How did that get in there?

And not only that,
but the enemy character is back to

standing straight up in
anticipation of the riposte,

just waiting for it to land.

It’s like the enemy just suddenly
forgot you were fighting.

I don’t know what they’re going for here.

Especially because they’ve
gotten this right before!

Look at the riposte
reaction in Demon’s Souls!

You see how they hang in that parried state
right up until the counterattack lands?

Sure, they look a little disoriented
from having their attack deflected,

but they do still feel like they’re
engaged in the fight you’re having.

And they nailed this
recently with Sekiro too!

The enemy looks staggered and off balance
right up until the deathblow connects.

The reason this works for me is
because it feels like the attack

is catching them before they
even have a chance to react.

Whereas this looks like the character
IS reacting to your incoming attack,

just in a really bizarre, passive way.

Okay, to be a little
more charitable about it,

I’m guessing the reason they
brought this back is

either because they really wanted the
animation to feel familiar to long-time fans,

which ...ok.
Fair enough. I get it.

OR because they just decided
to re-use the old animation

and save that time for other things.

And… fine, I get that too. Dang it.

Well, at least the axe
riposte looks cool...

Hang on, is that a crotch shot again?

DARK SOULS. ARE YOU ALRIGHT?

You know, going into this,

I just assumed that Dark Souls III
was going to take an easy win here,

but looking at all these together?
Yeah, I’m giving it to Dark Souls 1.

Because that original animation
was good enough for Dark

Souls III to borrow it without
adding any polish on top.

And with that, I've just spent fifteen
minutes proving to you once and for all that,

uh….

...Dark Souls is good.

You’re welcome.

Anyway, I think that’ll do it.

This animation topic was requested
Dennis Bingham

(thank you, Dennis!)

and voted for by New Frame
Plus’s Patreon supporters.

If you’d like to take
part in future topic votes

or request an animation
for me to analyze,

consider supporting the show on Patreon
like all of these top notch individuals.

Look at ‘em! So great.

Anyway thanks for watching,
and I will see you next time!

[music]