Can Old Games Have Great Animation?

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.