This is why God Hand still works, despite the budget feel. You can tell they put the bulk of their art budget into the animations. They're smooth and beautiful

Yo, that analogy with the movement of the circle was a great way to illustrate your point. Good stuff.

With regards to Arkham, you can disable those prompts and still be very effective in figuring out what's going on. The key is paying less attention to the attack animations and more to the overall movements of the characters. They'll start moving closer towards you with a much more aggressive posture overall when they're getting ready to hit you.

I was an animator before, I was in a competition from Stickpage called BSE, I did my entry (it was a combat animation oriented competition, they gave you a sequence of moves with certain conditions to animate) I think I got a 6.5 because the animation was a little rushed, everybody walked super fast and when the chatacters talked there was absolutely no sound so it was boring to read text with nothing for 1 minute. Butwhat the judges liked about my animation is that the combat scenes were well done and it had impact, I knew the basic preparation for a move-execution- cooldown formula, but I never really understood why it makes the move feel impactful. This video helped me a lot, thanks.

Fantastic music selection. Nujabes is life.

Ninja Gaiden has by far BY FAR the best combat animations of any video game I've seen, it single-handedly revived my interest in the genre. Never played a game with more satisfying combat and it's more then just flair. All 3 main games, Sigma 1, 2 and Razor's Edge are amazing. It's hard to get exited for melee combat in other games after having played those games.

this was great. As a dev, I never contemplated this. I think you just internalize what is good from a "hands on feel" so this was a great break down + 10:05 *YAH THAT ENDING MUSIC*

You are so undersubbed man. Honestly I am so glad that I stumbled upon your channel. Some of the best video game material I've ever watched. Keep it uo

Great video! The best I saw about the theme! Antecipation was very important to translate 2D brawlers to 3D. Final Fight and Streets of Rage didn't have so much antecipation since it worked on a 2D plane, which is much simpler to react. I remember how my mind was blowed when I played DMC for the first time! "A proper brawler in 3D! The genre is safe!"

Monster Hunter is a pretty good example for this. It's all about weight, commitment, exaggerated / clear moves, and tells. Especially when running solo. It's what makes it such a great game, and separates it from most of the clones and other action games IMHO.

I know this video is more than 1 year old now, but I feel like I have to say something about the God Hand Part. For between Level 1 and Level 3, the animations really do not get faster, but I think this changes on Level Die. The enemies really attack faster there, you'll especially notice that for the demon enemies.

Incredibly informative/awesome video! Great job!

I really like this video. Very thoughtful. Good job man.

I am glad that I'm subscribed to you. Thank you for this!

Good presentation and great music taste. You deserve a sub.

this was fascinating! great video

Subbed. Awesome channel, you're really taking things to the next level. Hope you keep doing what you're doing.

Been marathoning your videos for most of today. Very excellent content on here!. You really deserve more subscibers

This is a fascinating video, you got a sub and i will easily look into more of yours

That screen tear @ 6:14 was seriously on cue :D

This video is superb. I can't wait to see more!

Dude, I just came across your channel and I have to say that your videos are awesome. I'm totally binging all of these videos for sure. Keep it up :)

Man, you were doing great and informative videos, this for example had great analysis of the mechanics and interesting data, let's hope that someday you'll upload great content again, wish you the best.

Really interesting video, thanks for the info!

In arkham games there's this weird rhythm the goons end up falling in, at least for me, where I need to parry an attack at a very consistent timing. It lead to me not really needing to watch the screen and need only listen at the sound of my attacks since I knew their timing and could count to when I needed to parry.

Awesome video, very smart and in depth. And you use music from Catherine, a man after my own heart.

That Catherine soundtrack in the background

Great choice of background music. I heard a track from Samurai Champloo and that really brought me back to the show xD

This is an excellent video! It was posted on neogaf and I'm now a new subscriber :)

Only just found this channel :) Subscribed! Excellent work bro

This reminds me of a short documentary I saw on how Jackie Chan edits his fight footage, where the wide shot ends with a fist/foot connecting, but the zoom in/close up, is pulled back a frame or two to exaggerate the strength of the hit, while making it easier to understand what's going on in a fight on screen. Having more frames for a wind up, cancelable or not, feels pretty cool when done right, even when just watching gameplay.

Great video! Definitely earned my subscribe!

IMO you can't compare batman with the other games in this video... the Fighting system in batman is basically a reactiontest, comparable with Music games. it is all about not breaking the combo and 1 wrong buttonpress kills your combo. if you counter without anyone to counter you loose your combo, if you punch the air, you loose your combo etc.

An analysis video with nujabes in the background. How original. All snark aside, this is a pretty cool video. I'll check out your other stuff.

Good shit as usual Turbo Button.

JSRF music in the end!

Not sure if anyone has commended you on this, but you choose excellent music for your videos.

Excellent video. I can tell you put a lot of time into this. I agree that DMC2's animations were perhaps the biggest blunder with that whole mess.

This video reminds me of the old KZfaqr Alarmhat, he used to make a lot of great videos about action games.

love the video and aruarian dance!!!

Good video, great nujabes

EXACTLY my thoughts. I planned on writing something on this topic for quite a while. Some great examples as well. This whole thing can also be applied to non-interactive animations, like for example the finishers in the God Of War games. Some of them feel so satisfying to pull off (=watch and occasionally push a button or waggle the stick) because of the great, weighty animation that has a buildup, a very fast execution, and an aftermath. Example: The finisher of the elephant dude in Ascension. The Cyclops eye-rip in GOW3. All the Cerberus-type finishers, no matter which one. I remember watching all the finishers of all the GOW games. There's actually compilations on youtube of all of them.

It looks like you went deep in your research, great video, you should do a video about the PS2 Berserk game, I think it is a good action game.

Action isn't a genre, it's a hypergenre, containing many genres within it.

You´ve got good taste in games and music. I doubt that even half of the viewers knew that it´s Ollie King at the end ;)

aaaahhww.... the amagazing GODHAND i really love that game!!!

Ur every vid is great mate. Subscribed long ago just kiddin 10 min ago.

A lot of great points were made. I've never played God Hand so I can't really comment, but I do agree with what was said about Batman and DMC2 in particular with no weighty motion, or the DMC games and Bayonetta with their cancels. That being said, the Arkham games aren't combat focused, like other action/Hack'n'Slash games, so I don't think its that fair of a comparison. The Arkham games are way more fun when you're stealthing around. I also think it was a bit unfair to talk about DMC2, but then not mention the improvements 3 or 4 made. I know gameplay was shown, but a passing comment on their improvements would have been nice.

Love Ninja Gaiden 2 Singma and this video!

Just found out about your video. Great content, yo. So, talking action animation, what do you think about " lost soul aside " ,the still in development game of a Ps4 ?

Pretty good video. Good job man.

Really good channel. Playing bloodborne made me realise how much I miss the action genre.

It's funny that you show footage of Bayonetta 2 while mentioning enemies telegraphing attacks, since B2 has some glaring examples of bad audio/ visual tells. especially with the Masked Lumen.

Shinobi (PS2), I LUV YA!!!! Great Video, btw. ;)

Mad Max has the best fighting in an open world sandbox game I think. The punch and kicks and breaking necks are so violent and punchy it's like you feel your mouse has an in built vibration

My man! Droppin that Nujabes on this video

This video is really old and it feels like the channel is dead but i have to comment about something. In GodHand you can cancel animations with dodges. It is just something really unexplored but at a higher level of gameplay it feels great. Also, loved the channel, don't know why it's dead.

Really great video! Does it not fuck with the frame pacing of the game though if animations are delivered like this? (I'm probably wrong, just wondering)

Team Ninja is amazing at combat animation. I think DOA also implements easing pretty well. Still hoping for Ninja Gaiden 4 though. :

This reminds me of how well Shadow Fight franchise animations!

Very interesting - I've never really thought about just how complex animation in games is, maybe that's because if it's done right you don't really think about it. The Last Of Us had an interesting animation on the enemies - when you hit them they are knocked back or to the side in a single frame, which I didn't notice while playing. In the making of videos I think they said this was to give more impact to the combat, and it really works.

Ninja gaiden 2 is such a amazing game... never found another fighting game that was as satisfying to play as the ninja gaiden series.

Great point about the Batman Games. I knew I hated the game for its combat but I couldn't pin point my main gripe with it.

What should happen when a melee weapon, like a hammer or sword hits an enemy? Screenshake, Particles ... but then? Slicing through enemies as if they where ghosts? What animation should be played on the player on a hit vs missing the enemy or are they the same? Is there a difference between blunt weapons (club, hammer) and sharp weapons (sword, knive)?

you should do a video about animation in survival horror

I always assumed the hardest difficulty of Batman removed the prompts. I liked the prompts because I'm not Batman, but I like to feel like him.

Thoughts on DMC5's animations? I heard some people keep saying it's animations are jank.

The primary reason for prompts in Arkham games is accessibility. The hard fact is that Arkham games sold many millions of copies, are popular and acclaimed - while God Hand sold poorly and was so obtuse that even most reviewers didn't 'get' its fighting system, hurting even its critical reception. FUN FACT: Arkham IS playable without prompt and lack of pre-knowledge about enemy patterns. Arkham Asylum allowed you to disable prompt on the FIRST playthrough (that's what "Hard" difficulty mode was) and it's perfectly doable to look for enemy tells ahead of time, the game is perfectly beatable this way. In fact, it seems that the very first room of AA was designed so you learn tells of basic enemies (which are 90% of enemies in the game) or die trying, acting as a natural, if brutal, tutorial. Original intent, I'm guessing, was probably that seasoned hack'n'slash* player can disable the prompt and manually look for tells, while the casual audience who never played a hack'n'slash game doesn't need to be burdened with looking for enemy tells by having baby wheels on. I don't know why in City and later they shifted prompt-less combat to a NG+ thing - probably to artificially inflate amount of game content because Warner Bros. * - I'm using the term 'hack n slash' because that's the only real name this genre of games has. "Action game" is generic and can refer to fighting games, first person shooters, third person shooters, shmups, rail shooters, action RPGs - I've seen people call even some platformers 'action games'.

Okay, so I'm not going to argue with any of your points because a lot of them are actually really good points, I just want to ask a question about how your points relate to Devil May Cry 3 and 4. The reason for this is because, I've been watching footage of Devil May Cry 3 and 4, and have even played these games before, and I've noticed that Dante in Devil May Cry 3 doesn't really have a lot of exaggeration in his moves, not really a whole lot of wind-up or impact effects but Dante's attacks are still a lot of fun to pull off nonetheless. Of course there are exceptions to this in these two games, depending on the weapon you're using (I've noticed a lot more windup on Beowulf and Gilgamesh than Agni & Rudra or Cerberus) but in general the weapons in Devil May Cry 3 and 4 are still a lot of fun to mess with but they don't seem to me, on the surface, to be utilizing the strategies in animation that you've presented. So what's the problem? What is it that I'm not getting?

lol i hear that champloo soundtrack in there

Neat.

mind blowing

about your argument with Arkham city (nice HUD by the way, is that exclusive to the PC version?): In the new game plus mode, the game forces you into combat without those attack prompts above enemies' heads. Meaning that you will have to pay attention the next time you play the game. Just pointing it out. I think the developers did this attack prompt in the normal mode to allow players to familiarise themselves with enemy attack patterns so when the time came to play the games again, the players would be ready for a tougher, more intense challenge.

Are you using a mod for that Catwoman outfit or is it dlc? I have never seen it before

OMG NUJABES

Animation is fundamental for kinesthetics. Without a good animation in action games does not help to feel immersed either in battles as frantic as Bayonetta or in slower but with great weight as in the Souls games.

L.A. noire music ;)

In 'Arkham' - ya can turn off the _'I'm about to attack'_ lightning-halo thingie, in the game options....Seems like a fair design compromise to me.

is that nujabes

Watching from vietnam

Nujabes 👌

Oh god, that screen tearing in Ninja Gaiden...

is weight only a delusion in action games animation? no gravity on the bodies involved?

Your vids should be more popular. I don't know what to add to this comment but I can at least add a few numbers to the view count.

Great video. So this is why Dark Souls 2 feels weightless and floaty in comparison to Dark Souls 1

NG best games ever

haha which is better ninja gaiden or dmc

But DMC3 doesn't have low commitment. You can't cancel your attacks in this game. You can still cancel the recovery frames after the attacks. I would say it's an average commitment.

I like to think that the lack of animation cancelling is a bad game design.

bayonetter.....

I know it's an old video (Thanks by the way. Tons of deceptively obvious information that most people don't think about), but I just have to point out one thing: Fortunately your fears about motion capture didn't came true. Looking at the games that Naughty dog produces (especially behind the scenes videos), DevDiary of Ninja Theory's Hell Blade and many more became apparent that you can't just throw in a bunch of mocap footage into the game - it simple doesn't work that way ) Not any time soon anyway )

Is this kid a genius or does he work in the gaming industry? or both? can't tell

I really wish I could hit a "like all" button. Fairly pointless to have to scroll down at this point.

Animation is most critical in sports games but the usually game critic snobs never bother

Dark souls 2 you can cancel attack animations

Game shown at 9:51?

what's the game at 9:50?

what's the game at 0:47 ?

nujabes and catherine ost, cool choice of music!

Not to be that guy but you're totally wrong about god-hand, lol. lvl 4 difficulty really boost their anims