Best (in-game) animation on PCE

[spenoza]

What PCE games do you think have the best animation? I'm not talking about HuVideo stuff, but in-game. Ninja Warriors has lots of frames, especially for the main characters. Also, I think Prince of Persia is pretty well animated (as are all versions of it). Dracula X also has a great variety of animation. The animation isn't always fluid, but there are many different positions and graphics for each character and enemy. What other games really put in the attention to animation detail?

[Arkhan Asylum]

Street Fighter 2, duh!

[NecroPhile]

The arcade card stuff!  Sapphire and the NeoGeo fighters are stuffed full of great sprite frames.

[CrackTiger]

Valis Phantasm Soldier
Kabuki Itouryoden

[_Paul]

The main sprite in Shadow of the Beast. Apart from his head, which looks odd.

[JoshTurboTrollX]

Prince of Persia (Main Character)
Loom - Decapitation part where bad dude bites it
Beyond Shadowgate has some amazing animation throughout the game.

[CrackTiger]

Games sprites facing 8 directions like Vasteel have a lot of frames.

Star Parodier is loaded with animation, but like Drac X it is used well and doesn't stand out.

Bomberman '94 is very animated.

[HercTNT]

I'm with NecroPhile on sapphire, i just finished it for the first time today. Its full of seamless morphing animations and rotations. Star parodier and Beyond shadowgate would be second and third for me. Both are excellent as well.

[SuperDeadite]

The mini-boss on Rayxanber III stage 2.  The stretchy tentacle thing.  It's walking animation is one of the most fluid I've seen on the system.

[BigusSchmuck]

Does Dragon Ball Z count?

[Tatsujin]

Yeah, sapphire clearly wins in that department. It crushes any 16bit programms outside the arcade.

[SignOfZeta]

If number of frames is your definition of good, then Sapphire wins. Overall I'd say SFII wins in the quality department. I think Kaze Kiri makes really good use of the animation/frames it has.

[rag-time4]

When it comes to quality JJ and Jeff comes immedeately to mind. The kick technique is silky smooth!

[Arkhan Asylum]

China Warrior has life-like kung fu animation.

[geise]

Lemmings!

[BigusSchmuck]

Lemmings!

Was waiting for someone to say that. ^^ Still can't figure out why those buggers are so fascinated with cliffs and such. The best part is blowing them up and watching the little pieces go all over the place.

[Tatsujin]

Lemmings!

Still can't figure out why those buggers are so fascinated with cliffs and such.

Did you had a window seat at school?

[spenoza]

Lemmings!

Was waiting for someone to say that. ^^ Still can't figure out why those buggers are so fascinated with cliffs and such.

They're not Disney faked that in a "nature" film about Lemmings. They used a turntable to throw them off. Lemmings to mass migrate and they do lose a lot of their number, but they don't commit suicide and throw themselves off cliffs. Total fabrication.

[saintfu]

I think the boss of "Psychic Storm" also have good animation.

[geise]

Lords/Winds of Thunder is another game with great animation.  Bonk is another that has a good amount of nice animation.  Lemmings is still my main game for best animation.  The sprites are small but there's a shit ton of inbetween animation.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Bonk doesn't really have good animation though.

The game's just so cartoony and bubbly that it looks nice anyways.

If you actually look, most of the animation is pretty dopey and basic, lol.

[CrackTiger]

Lords has great variety, but is pretty low on frames of animation per sprite. It's more in the style of Genesis and SNES carts that fans of those systems say is technologically and aesthetically superior (sprite jumbles>art/animation).

There are lots of nice little animations inbetween though, like the tiny hadoukeners.

[geise]

Yeah that's why I mentioned Lords of Thunder.  There's a lot of little animations through out the game.  Some of the bosses have a decent amount of animation as well.

[SignOfZeta]

Aside from their multi-jointedness aspects, I remember the bosses in LOT having almost no animation at all. Same for the rest of the game.

[shubibiman]

If we're talking about frames, Kabuki Itouryodan has my vote.

[nat]

When it comes to quality JJ and Jeff comes immedeately to mind. The kick technique is silky smooth!

Oh, please. I hope you're not being serious!

[CrackTiger]

If we're talking about frames, Kabuki Itouryodan has my vote.

The animation itself is also well done for a console-only fighting game and the characters are nice and shaded, yet the animation looks perfectly fluid without stray pixels standing out.

[Keranu]

Jungle Bros!

Beyond Shadowgate probably has the most fluid, life-like animation.

When it comes to quality JJ and Jeff comes immedeately to mind. The kick technique is silky smooth!

Oh, please. I hope you're not being serious!

He brings up a good point: good animation doesn't always equal more frames. It's especially important in video games since frame counts can affect gameplay. For quick attacks like kicks or jabs, anything more than one or two frames would not only look unrealistic, but would slow down the responsiveness.

I love the slash attack in Strider, it's only a single frame flash of a sword. An entire sequence of the slash trailing by wouldn't have had that same swift feel when taking down enemies.

[HercTNT]

right, its quality vs frames. you can have many frames but poor quality and vice versa. I liked sapphire because i felt it has both. The bosses, the enemies, they all have a very organic feel to their movement.  The Giant rock guy and the end of the second stage comes to mind.

[Digi.k]

apart from the arcade stuff and SFII' BB.  Parodius Da!?!'s stage 2: miss chichibinta and boss from the pink cloud level !!

[FraGMarE]

Pretty much everything in Kaze Kiri has amazing animation.  Just sayin'...

[esteban]

Pretty much everything in Kaze Kiri has amazing animation.  Just sayin'...

I like to critique Kaze Kiri

If only the character designs for the generic enemies in Kaze Kiri were more inspired. They are bland. The bosses are nice...but the foot soldiers you interact with for 99.99% of the game? Ugh.


I always thought that Legendary Axe II had a little extra bit of love put into it.

[RegalSin]

Kazi Kira is meant to be a Ninja game, that is reasonable. Not like Ninja turtles where you hump everything, or Shinobi where you fight godzilla, batman, and the thing. Even spiderman is insane, where you take on webster and homeless man A, B, and C.
Then we walk into the kiddy sand box and fight the sand man. Ninja Gaiden, bleh you have dogs, policemen,
and the works.

Kazi is perfect. You get the option of taking on one to four Ninjas at one time, you have a rival. What about the animation of the arrows? Name one other Ninja game with a creative controls that allows you to run and zoom pass the stage like a Ninja? I do not think their was one made yet.

Yes Kazi could have had flying enemies, and things like that but it would have taken away from it's realism.
Like the original street fighter, was attempting to be a martial arts fighter not an over the the top game it has become. Now everybody looks foward to all those flashing lights, and animated combos.

Kazi accomplishes this brilliantly, without going over the top. Kazi is the opposite of Strider, where all the dignataries sitting down all form a centipede. If strider was like Castlevania, instead of being a direct port. Strider would be more buyable for the PCE. Then they could have tweaked the original strider a bit longer.

[FraGMarE]

Pretty much everything in Kaze Kiri has amazing animation.  Just sayin'...

I like to critique Kaze Kiri

If only the character designs for the generic enemies in Kaze Kiri were more inspired. They are bland. The bosses are nice...but the foot soldiers you interact with for 99.99% of the game? Ugh.


I always thought that Legendary Axe II had a little extra bit of love put into it.

I'm not saying Kaze Kiri is the best ninja platformer game around.  In fact, Ninja Spirit on the PCE/TG16/Arcade tops it in just about every conceivable way.  I'm just saying a lot of work was put into animating the sprites, and it shows.  On a side note, I've never been a big fan of Strider in any form (arcade or otherwise).  The gameplay just seems clunky and it's as if Capcom was like "LOL HAY GUYZ LOOK, WE MADE PLATFORMER ENGINE WHERE YOU CAN RUN UP AND DOWN INCLINES AND WE ABUSED IT AD NAUSEUM!!!1"

[rag-time4]

When it comes to quality JJ and Jeff comes immedeately to mind. The kick technique is silky smooth!

Oh, please. I hope you're not being serious!

Oh but I am!

The kick technique really popped off the screen the very first time I played it. JJ and Jeff has a stiff look and feel to it, but the kick itself is very well animated. Which is important since you'll be using it a ton if you want to discover the hundreds/thousands of secrets in the game.

[TheClash603]

I saw each of these games mentioned already, but I will second them.

Street Fighter II - Probably the most obvious answer to this question.
Beyond Shadowgate - Talk about charm, love this game.

[RegalSin]

I have been holding it in, but I can not deny in my heat "Fiend Hunter" probably makes the best usage of sprite animation. The emotion of the dialog characters, the cut scenes, and even the enemy, and main characters. Somebody said the game was released in the USA under another title.

Ninja Spirit

That game is also on the Mark III, so it is like a differnt world, at least for me. Kazi is nothing but Ninja action, it feel like I am playing a martial arts film, especially when the music loops and their is a long quietness, but the clash of the metal.

[Tatsujin]

Ninja Spirits on the markIII? Reari?

[esteban]

Pretty much everything in Kaze Kiri has amazing animation.  Just sayin'...

I like to critique Kaze Kiri

If only the character designs for the generic enemies in Kaze Kiri were more inspired. They are bland. The bosses are nice...but the foot soldiers you interact with for 99.99% of the game? Ugh.


I always thought that Legendary Axe II had a little extra bit of love put into it.

I'm not saying Kaze Kiri is the best ninja platformer game around.  In fact, Ninja Spirit on the PCE/TG16/Arcade tops it in just about every conceivable way.  I'm just saying a lot of work was put into animating the sprites, and it shows. 

I hear ya! I know you were focusing on the extra love they put in the sprite animations.

I think I was overcome with a little bit of Zeta* and felt like ragging on Kaze Kiri.


*Zeta, you know I love you.



I still can't believe no one will back me up on Legendary Axe II. Come on! You can see the love that went into the character designs AND the animation (which is the focus of this thread). I'm not arguing that it has hundreds of frames, but it is OVERFLOWIN' with LOVE people!

OK, I'll stop now.

[ccovell]

I'll back you up on Legendary Axe II... the zombies that can be chopped up a million ways... the bugs that twiddle their antennas on the ceiling on level 2... the victory animations by your character... the facial expressions on the snake boss... this game is really well-animated!

[esteban]

I'll back you up on Legendary Axe II... the zombies that can be chopped up a million ways... the bugs that twiddle their antennas on the ceiling on level 2... the victory animations by your character... the facial expressions on the snake boss... this game is really well-animated!

Thank you

Even the undulating alveoli (a lawn of tonsils?) in the organic stage move nicely. The lightning, too, is effective and aesthetically pleasing, despite the limited frames of animation used.

Who can forget the cute little boss pulling the huge "ball-n-chain"?

We could go on and on...

[RegalSin]

Which one? Is that the one that takes place in Egypt/Roma or is the one that takes place in a Jungle?

Sure I was so into the Egypt one. Especially how the centipede boss would keep kicking my behind. I forgot why I stopped playing that game, it was sooo Mad Max.
I almost finished it, but I got tired and just decided to turn it off.

Was Legendary Axe was more animated then Cadash? 
I remember seeing mad skellengtons in Axe, but Cadash
slime boss is simular to a boss in Earnest Evans ( a game on the Mega Drive ) .

[esteban]

Which one? Is that the one that takes place in Egypt/Roma or is the one that takes place in a Jungle?

Sure I was so into the Egypt one. Especially how the centipede boss would keep kicking my behind. I forgot why I stopped playing that game, it was sooo Mad Max.
I almost finished it, but I got tired and just decided to turn it off.

Was Legendary Axe was more animated then Cadash? 
I remember seeing mad skellengtons in Axe, but Cadash
slime boss is simular to a boss in Earnest Evans ( a game on the Mega Drive ) .

I love the character designs in Cadash, but the animation always struck me as kind of stiff.

[NecroPhile]

Ninja Spirits on the markIII? Reari?

Only in RegalSin bizarro world.

[spenoza]

Which one? Is that the one that takes place in Egypt/Roma or is the one that takes place in a Jungle?

Sure I was so into the Egypt one. Especially how the centipede boss would keep kicking my behind. I forgot why I stopped playing that game, it was sooo Mad Max.
I almost finished it, but I got tired and just decided to turn it off.

Was Legendary Axe was more animated then Cadash? 
I remember seeing mad skellengtons in Axe, but Cadash
slime boss is simular to a boss in Earnest Evans ( a game on the Mega Drive ) .

I love the character designs in Cadash, but the animation always struck me as kind of stiff.

I found the animation in Cadash a little inconsistent, but overall pretty well-done.

[CrackTiger]

Ninja Spirits on the markIII? Reari?

Only in RegalSin bizarro world.

Maybe he was thinking of Rygar?