Heya! I was one of the animators on River City Girls 2! I love your content and I'm so glad you enjoyed the game! Big shout-out to the art director too! They're a force of animating nature lmao
These are not only an incredible celebration of fine animation work, but also an amazing place to go grab recommendations for games I missed (which is to say, all of them). Thank you Dan!
Exactly what I was about to say! I picked up Webbed for my wife because of these animation recap videos, and it looks like I might buy Potionomics for the same reason. You're the man, Dan 😎
That's a slippery slope. Remember, we like all of the games in this video based on their art style and animation alone. The gameplay might be not for you, or straight up not good. I do WANT to like all of them though.
@MegaDeox fair. Of course I'll read up on them more before I buy but some of the best games I ever played were basically recommended to me by a 1 minute clip and the phrase "Look at this shit" which basically a reduced version of this video XD
Let's also remember that many of those beautiful 2d intros seen in Indy games nowadays are done by smaller animation companies. They also deserve to be mentioned and praised.
A quick correction in regards to DNF Duel: ArcSys actually gave the development team at 8ing (who did the large majority of the work on the game) the tools and a tutorial on the techniques they use, rather than send an of their animators over to this project. It's a really great testament to the talent present at 8ing that you can't tell, although they also did Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the Bloody Roar series which had great animation in their own right. It also shows that this technique is actually teachable and not just ArcSys exclusive magic.
@on10n It's a shame that Nexon basically abandoned it and announced a season pass too late, but it's a really fun game if you're down for that 8ing brand of crazy, especially after the recent patch; they succeeded in making every character feel complete and viable while still having insanely high average character power. A really volatile fighting game that feels straight out of 2007 in a sea of very deliberate modern ones, and I love it for that.
I don't know if it was too late, there's certainly more people playing on ps4 then there was like 4 months ago. Steam population's not that much bigger but that was never too bad
The amount of polish in Trombone Champ that only a huge band nerd would pick up on was a huge delight for me. Like when I saw that they animated the Trombone to be in accurate slide positions for each note. Absolutely fantastic
That is exactly what I thought of watching that section of the video, I’m shocked he didn’t compare it to that. I love the popping between poses, it’s so charming!
@@Volvagia1927 There *was* some mention of AA7 in leaked documents from the Capcom hack some years ago. The same documents stated work on the GAA duology which we did get, so there's some evidence, but it's also been a while and we obviously don't know if/how things shifted internally in that time.
absolutely loved splatoon 3’s remodel and reanimation of all the player characters. that and the addition of hair physics make them feel so alive, even though they’re nearly all identical. they also really pushed the animation of shiver and frye specifically to make them feel distinct from each other and from past idols. really good stuff
Classic Dan, saying everything is pretty /s Also Classic Dan, delivering a superbly edited, extremely funny, and just plain delightful commentary on the work of tons of talented people. Love every video you do, the effort is abundantly clear and by gosh does it work!
/s? I mean, that first sentence accurately summed up the video. Also, how curious that the following superlative appraisal of this work mirrors the 30 minutes Dan spent loquating about how superb and delightful and abundantly efforted are the works of other talented people.
Not sure about the Animation itself, but I feel like the Live A Live Remake definitely deserves a shoutout for the biggest glow up a remake has ever gotten. Just some amazing visual design going on in that.
The _second_ you brought up the pixel animation category, I knew/was excited that River City Girls 2 was gonna take home some gold.It's a hell of a gorgeous game, WayForward just doesn't miss. What I did _not_ know was that the animation director on RCG2 is the individual behind Holocure?! That's...huh. Worlds colliding in unexpected but beautiful ways.
Kay Yu (the webname/name, no idea tbh) of the animator does pop up in surprising places from games such as Holocure and River City Girls (1 and 2) to tv series (with the cooking scene of Onimai being the most recent).
I was hoping for Signalis too! Glad I’m not the only one. I’d also like to see Tormented Souls mentioned, though that came out in 2021. It is also really odd that he didn’t mention Pentiment, now that I think about it lol
I'm surprised Pentiment didn't get a shout out! I absolutely love the tapestry-esque style Obsidian went for, while managing to keep their characters expressive
Pocky & Rocky Reshrined was the tightest pixel art animations this year for my money. I really appreciate Tengo Project taking the art style of those older titles(Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns as well) but massively improving it from the SNES originals. It's the sort of thing that looks like you remember the old games, but side by side the difference is staggering. Awesome work.
@@StewNWT 100% agree. We don’t understand why the game is single-player only for story mode and requires players to either beat story mode or get so many coins in order to unlock local co-op for the non-story mode. Then they didn’t have online co-op at all, what a shame. Reshrined could be seen as a downgrade from past entries, especially if they ever put Pocky & Rocky 1 and 2 on the SNES emulator for Nintendo Switch.
One setback with its release though- after Pocky and Rocky, Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns, I'm not sure what charming pixel-art games Natsume has left for them to remake.
I was also gonna mention Pentiment. As you say, the animations themselves are simple, but the artstyle mimicking illuminated manuscripts was such a good idea. Also it has so many deligthfully weird-looking animals.
I feel like the way the text is animated alone is worth a mention, if not a deep dive. I've never seen simple text used to express so much information. Beyond simply being incredibly satisfying to watch, it's even used to comment on each character, their background and level of education, or their status within the world.
The animation not breaking the game's art style I think belies its intelligence in design - less care would've had the game looking like Rock of Ages or Astrologaster, and they manage to use their simple animation without shattering the illusion.
Yes, I would love to see Dan do a dive on text animation in games or maybe rare period piece animation, jumping off of Pentiment's style. I think the game does a lot of interesting things that are worth exploring
I honestly can't wait for next years The Best Game Animation video just because of Hi-Fi Rush alone! Tango Gameworks really outdid themselves with the animation and it's probably my favorite part of the game.
love the kay yu shoutout. dude grinds so hard n works on so many projects simultaneously. he goes between making games n working on seasonal anime so often it almost makes u worry for him LOL.
Something about the outright positivity that you exude not only makes these videos enjoyable, but almost downright emotional. When you started talking about the mouse in Moss, I couldn't help feeling happy (and I haven't even played either Moss!) Keep making these excellent videos Dan!
a huge thing about elden ring's animation compared to previous fromsoft games is that they changed the way boss combo patterns work. They split up a 5 attack combo that would previously always be the exact same series of attacks into 5 fully separate attacks, so that they could shift the patterns around without needing to add new moves. It adds so much to the gameplay by making it so that you dont instantly know the next 4 moves by seeing the first one, and the difficulty of animating this to make it look like the attacks all flow seamlessly makes it nothing short of witchcraft.
one game that i really enjoyed the animation of this year was splatoon 3, which has a lot of subtle but really impactful improvements from the (already very distinctive and charming) previous titles. they've added all of these fine details to push the physics of the hair, the designs of weapons and characters, the genuineness of the ink puddles, all that. the lighting looks _gorgeous_, the ink is scarily convincing as a liquid, and everything plays into the bright colors and punky aesthetic that the previous two games already did excellently.
i think the biggest improvements in Splatoon 3's animations REALLY show in the story mode cutscenes. Seeing that cast of characters talking and moving SO FLUIDLY in those moments before the final boss was incredible, and i wish i could forget it all just to play it again.
I’m really glad you gave multiversus a look! Besides Tom and jerry, the cartoon characters side of the roster have some great squash and stretch. Bugs, taz, shaggy and Marvin the Martian who just got added last month. Marvin ESPECIALLY has some love put into how he fights and move. You can even make him get into his helmet and walk!
The quality of your script is incredible. You covered several games and it all feels like one long connected line of dialog. Also the sense of humor is on point. Really one of my favorite channels and one of the very few exceptions where I actually have notifications on and I watch every single video.
I absolutely love the look of Stray and the animation is so spot on, any cat owner will tell you. I just wish the game was bit longer or that it went some more interesting places, than it did. I certainly don't think it should have beat out Tunic at the game awards for best indie, since that game was insane.
I`m so happy to see Sifu get some appreciation. I have been saying that the museum level is the most visually striking level of any game I`ve ever played. The boss transition into phase 2 gives me goosebumps every time
Gotta give a shout out to Live A Live. The animation done on that game uses a lot of modern touches, but still feels very much like a classic RPG. So glad they Square is doing more with their HD-2D engine than just Octopath.
Honestly a little surprised he didn't mention any of Total Warhammer III's monsters. Some of them had great animation. The Nurglings were a special treat.
Can't believe that, as someone who makes games, I'm only hearing about Masahiro Sakurai's channel about MAKING GAMES now. Thanks Dan for keeping me up to date on that and also every single game in this video because wow I missed pretty much everything coming out this year
I'm so glad you highlighted Sakurai's channel. It's such an amazing and unique channel and he's put so much amazing stuff on it already. It's crazy to get to see such an in depth inside window into the work process of one of the greatest game creators of all time. Could you imagine if we got to see Miyamoto or Kojima or Todd Howard do one of those?
I love these. They are so focused on one aspect of a game. He doesn't care or even speak about if a game is good or terrible, he is talking about the thing he knows and doesn't let anything else influence it.
I just wanted to give a personal shoutout to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, specifically it's facial animation. Xenoblade is already really good at ripping your heart out and the expressions MonolithSoft has been able to get out of their characters really helped sell those emotions to me.
I think what I noticed most often was fight choreography as well as cinematography and camera work. The biggest example of both in my mind is the fight just before the end of chapter 5, especially with how the main portion of it is captured in a single panning shot moving with and around the action. It feels like that scene would be much more difficult to read if the camera wasn't helping trace the movement of the most important parts and where they were relative to the surroundings at all times.
I loved how different Noah and N felt from each other even though they had the same character model and voice actor. They lived different lifetimes and their animation completely sells that There were so many small animation subtleties even in seemingly "unimportant" cutscenes that really endeared each character to me in distinct ways
I literally came to this video to see NF+’s take on XC3, but alas, the animation last year was just too good. Thanks for saying this better than I could.
these are always so great every year. wonderfully positive and spotlights a very wide spectrum of games. never heard of potionomics till now but gosh the animations grabbed me as soon as you started showing them
Not even a mention for Pentiment? I've never seen a game put so much charm and style into the mere act of rendering text on the screen. The font choices that give you a hint about the character's place in society, the misspellings getting scratched out and corrected, the sheer difference between handwritten dialogue and machine-printed dialogue, really making you feel like you're on the cusp of changing times... There are very few games that commit more fully to their visual style and it just oozes with passion all the while.
There's a lot of games out there using 2D animation these days, but Cuphead is still the only one that actually looks like what I imagined when I dreamed about games looking like cartoons when I was a kid. There's really no replacement for talent putting the work in, and I'm glad they've been able to do even more on that game. I dunno what's next but I hope they keep using their 2d animation chops to their fullest.
Ah! I'm so happy for the love given to indies here. Young Souls went under the radar for a lot of folks so I'm happy it's here. Potionomics was my favorite game last year and I would die for any of the characters in it. Great video, Dan! You're a real inspiration!
Marvel's Midnight Suns has some of my favorite superhero attack animations I've ever seen. Every single attack has the perfect amount of impact and flair, which makes your improvised rounds of henchman-pinball so very satisfying.
As far as Arc System Works animation goes, my highlight last year has to be with the dlc characters of Strive. I especially love the expressiveness of Bridget, and the insane amount of work that must have gone into Sin's flag.
Bridget's animation just exudes this confidence in herself that she lacked in every other iteration. She is no longer awkward in the body she has, trying to be someone she's not, but throwing herself full-stop into every attack, win pose, taunt, idle pose, etc. And almost all of this is shown just through the animation. Even before everyone played her story and followed her self discovery that she was trans, her animation in her trailer screamed her being comfortable in her body, in who she was, and in the what she was fighting for. It was such a recognizable huge departure that *tons* of people recognized her transition before she was even released. That's something special.
This one's arguable since it doesn't technically release until this year, but MAN I was blown away by the Street Fighter 6 animations in the beta. Footsies, supers, combo transitions, taunts, all of it. So much love and attention put into every newcomer and returning character.
I would have LOVED to see you talk about the animation in Splatoon 3. It is SO good in all the right ways, and has so much animation detail that you would almost never notice, even playing the game frequently because so much of it is only visible to the other players who happen to be standing close by, not yourself. It's so delightfully designed that I'm surprised you showed it but didn't even talk about it. Also, Potionomics is 100% on my playlist just because it looks so delightful. I have no idea if the game play will interest me at all, but I want to play it because it just looks so good.
I don't know if I'd submit it as a contender for this list, but the procedural animation of Rain World is really interesting and can lead to some very scrambly, desperate, natural looking motions that I don't think could be achieved traditionally. When I'm hammering the jump button trying to get up a ridge away from something, the character moves with the same uncoordinated panic that I do.
Thank you for not including some of the more gory/extremely violent parts of some of these games. Not only does it mean videos like this can be shown for educational purposes, it also is greatly appreciated by people like me who want to see cool animation without the more gruesome bits. ❤ Thank you!!
I love your videos. It always put so many games I didn’t know about on my radar. I was lil surprised that Shovel Knight Dig didn’t get a shoutout though
"the team at fromsoft know where the animation budget needs to go" Exactly. They could've given lip sync to all the characters, but instead they chose to ensure that the random guy in frenzied flame proscription has his fingers perfectly animated in tune with the song he's playing.
I would also recommend you check out Freedom Planet 2. A retro indie platformer based on classic sonic style gameplay. It may not be as polished as the others, but it shows a whole bunch of personality in each character. The pixel art is quite frankly gorgeous to look at. And i honestly think it needs some more attention.
Obviously there's already a lot of Nintendo games mentioned but xenoblade 3 and splatoon 3 I feel are huge highlights, one being an amazing showcase of emotional subtle storytelling from Monolithsoft whilst allowing for a class system so perfectly animation budget Then there's splatoon 3 which as a huge fan I've noticed how refined splatoon 3s animation is with so much added personality it's stunning
I think you might have overlooked your notes on Lost In Play :D! A super charming game about two children playing. It had me smiling from the first moment and can absolutely recommend it!
I just started learning Blender a few days ago. I know it will take a… non-zero amount of time to reach this level of quality for stylized 3D Animation (especially since I’m still learning other skills), but it’s good to know some stuff for me to strive for :D
I kinda hoped to see Darkest Dungeon 2 in the stylized 3D animation sector, Red Hook Studios nailed the jump to 3D models and animation extremely well. My Personal favorite is the Man-at-Arms attacking with his Mace, and then dragging it back on the ground. But all the "Prepare to attack" animations are also fantastic and give a sense of "not my first rodeo" from the characters. Not to mention some rarer animations used for one-offs when you unlock new moves. I really hope you'll take a look because while the game is still in early access, it's already well-animated imo
I would like to nominate Signalis It uses a kind of low-fidelity character models + pre-rendered backgrounds for close-up stuff + hand-drawn anime for important scenes, all while remaining very unnerving
Great video Dan it was a treat to see! I want to throw the Total War Warhammer Series into the mix. It truly has one, if not the best animation and animation variety in the history of strategy. Especially in the 2022 released 3rd installment they somehow managed to portray the themes and personalities of all different Eldritch beings, called Chaos Gods, into their respective roster. I can only recommend you having a look at it.
Happy to see Gotham Knights get even the smallest shoutout. Of all the coverage I saw of that game, not a single person ever mentioned how good a lot of the animation work is.
Always love these end of the year videos! Hope that FFV video is coming along nicely and isn't causing you too much grief. Would love to see you more often, but I also appreciate the time and dedication you put into each of your uploads
kudos to getting to all those late 2022 games! as a now regular viewer of your other channel PlayFrame, it's bonkers to me that you can still put out summative videos like these, but also very cool that i get to hear your initial comments from PlayFrame pared down into a digestible 30 minutes. :)
Literally picked up potionomics on your recommendation, and holy cow this game is dripping with charm. Gonna try and see what I can copy for my projects
Vampire Survivors should get some recognition, particularly the animations when you open chests. It's a perfect way to reward the player for surviving long enough to pick it up
Loved how rogue legacy 2 translated the first games pixel animation to a 2d perspective 3d model style, kinda like to arc system work games, albeit much less bombastically.
One thing I've really enjoyed seeing this year is the evolution of Square Enix's "HD-2D" animation. Octopath Traveler basically picked up where the 2D Final Fantasies left off, with some shiny effects here and there, but on the way to the *Live-A-Live remake* this year they've gotten so much more polish, variety, and _character_ out of the style. (Every single party member has multiple idle animations in the menu!) They're pushing the camera around a lot more, matching the genre inspirations - the bleak establishing shot of the Western, the framing of the corridors in the Alien riff. Somehow the combat effects animation got even flashier? And the true final boss - new in the remake - is a real masterpiece in the realm of Massive Boss Sprites. I do think it probably can't stand toe-to-toe with The Best Game Animation of 2022, but as its own thing, I find it fascinating to watch. Really feels like an alternate-history branch from The Animation of Final Fantasy.
I'm not a fan of the look of many of the games in this style. It looks too gaudy and bright to me. But with Live-a-Live they managed to make it look pleasant in a way I could appreciate.
@@NuiYabuko "Bright" is maybe the wrong word. High contrast? Bloomy? You get a lot of effects on top of the art in those games that I think make them hard to look at, and Live-a-Live isn't so intense about it.
When my roommate and I played Shredder's Revenege we were so happy to see it retained a pixelart aesthetic. Absolutely gem, especially in co op. RCG2 is also on our bucket list.
I will admit, I was a little disappointed to not see Xenoblade Chronicles 3 mentioned, but hey what are comments for. Xenoblade games have always featured fantastic action animation in both cutscenes and gameplay, and Xenoblade 3 takes it even further. For cutscenes, all of the main characters have unique weapons and styles of fighting, and the animators really take full advantage of it. Not to mention all of the characters can transform into big robots that also have their own way of moving and fighting, and while all of that is happening the camera and direction capture that action in such an energetic way. In terms of gameplay, Xenoblade 3 has a system where each of the 6 party members can use any of the available 26 classes, all with different weapons. Some share the same style (2 handed gun, sword and shield, etc), but they feature different animations for their class' attacks. I think it's a real accomplishment to fit that many animations onto 6 different characters, and have them all work so well. On top of all of that, each class has a "talent art," basically a special attack, where the camera gets taken into dynamic angles, and it's really cool to see that stellar animation work in cutscenes injected into the gameplay a little more. Aside from action, Xenoblade 3 also does a great job with character dialogue and emotional moments. The style is a great evolution on that "3D anime" style that so many games attempt. The characters have exaggerated features, but still feel grounded and realistic. One of my favorite touches is that all of the human characters have a constant eye dart animation, and it really just helps to bring these characters to life. It also makes an impact later when we meet a villain who seems soulless, and he lacks the eye dart really giving the impression of the lack of life behind the eyes. The game does use a modular animation system from time to time and they really work well. Xenoblade 2 had very linear transitions between poses, and muppet like lip flaps, whereas Xenoblade 3 has well designed poses and transitions that all feel hand crafted. Xenoblade 3 also gives effort to lip animation during modular cutscenes with different animations for the english and japanese dub! It really helps to let the performances of the voice actors shine, which I think is one of the best qualities of the game. I could continue, but I'll just stop here. It's great to see how much Monolithsoft has improved over their games, and just how they took the Switch's hardware to its limit.
These series are THE recap videos i'm looking forward to each year! Thank you, Dan! And also thank you for inspiring me to make games all those years ago
Live A Live definitely deserved a mention, supposedly the dev teams were such huge fans of the original that they put in way way more frames of animation into the sprites than they were supposed to and it shows. It's still the SNES JRPG style of animation where a library of short animations are reused all over the place, but there's so many lovely little details to those animations (like the bouncing of hair or fluttering of capes) that you appreciate all the more if you compare it to the (visually) poorly aged original.
I could listen to you talk for days. I love the care and consideration you give every game and how you judge each animation for what it's trying to do and present itself as within the bounds of what's reasonable for the game to achieve. You don't ping indie games for not being perfectly polished, or stylized games for not being realistic enough. Fantastic video! I'll have to take the time to watch these games more closely when I play through some of them!
- im glad the Holocure Bug has grabbed you, the Rabbit Hole is an inviting trip (also still funny that there's 2 Calli X RiverCity tangential conections) - Stray gets the animation of Cat so well, i legit thought they mocaped a real Cat, which considering Cats are Cats is probably something that will never work, but still great trickery - Sakurai deciding that his next passion project was going to be teach everyone how to be the next Sakurai is such a chad move i feel nothing but respect for the man... Kirby Air Ride should till be a 2 Button game & i ill fight him on that - love the Strikers personality in their animation, shame they ran out Peronality on their everything else regarding that game - "feel that team's fingerprints" probably NOT the choice of words i would use when talking about Ubisoft, no, i will not stop bringing up their company policies until they fix them
Thanks for this! A well written script to identify and celebrate the amazing work done in animation across the industry of the past year. I don't dip my toe into many of these genres of game so it's an eye opener to see how much love is put into them.
I think another fighting game that deserves a lot of recognition for its animation is KoF 15. Really great stuff from an all-time great series when it comes to animation. For that matter, what about a video going over the history of KoF animations?
These videos are a delight to see! The work you put into these videos is appreciated. Whether it's a game I've picked up myself last year, something I've seen snippets of before or something I completely missed it's always nice to gush over or find new appreciation for the animation being showcased.
i also really wanna see an extrapolation of Pizza Tower's animation!! it's got such a perfect thin fluidity to its absolutely bonkers animations, it really does throw me back to the bigger Flash animations from earlier internet.
I was holding out hope the whole video that you would talk about Potionomics and to have it as the very last shout-out made me so relieved. It really is a gem of a game and the expressive animation really drew me to actually playing it.
So happy to see potionomics ihn this video, I've been following the animation devlogs they post on twitter for ages and have always been blown away by them
18:07: I'm a little disappointed that Dan didn't _literally_ copy-paste footage of him complimenting Monster Hunter from past videos. That would have been hilarious.
Yooo! Forgot about this series, Excited to watch when I get the chance. - Done watching now and there's a couple games I'll have to check out! Also slick insert of Frontiers at the end, lot of fans devastated it wasn't your Number 1 I'm sure lol.
Thank you so much for the video, when I saw it in the notifications I was so happy. So much time passes until we can get more of your quality content. Informative and precise as always. Thank you
I play Elden Ring and the other fromsoft games almost exclusively for their animations. Its a mesmerizing experience. And what you said about strategically allocating their budget to where it really matters is especially relevant to an almost comedic extent in Dark Souls 3. The player character's animation quality was sacrificed to the animation gods in order to boost the animation quality of the bosses and enemies. Most of the player's animations are only slightly altered from Dark souls 1, and this is 100% ok because in the game, your attention is going to be focused on the enemies and bosses.
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Heya! I was one of the animators on River City Girls 2! I love your content and I'm so glad you enjoyed the game! Big shout-out to the art director too! They're a force of animating nature lmao
W game and series
Thank you for that game @Yudouu Im love them both
These are not only an incredible celebration of fine animation work, but also an amazing place to go grab recommendations for games I missed (which is to say, all of them). Thank you Dan!
Exactly what I was about to say! I picked up Webbed for my wife because of these animation recap videos, and it looks like I might buy Potionomics for the same reason. You're the man, Dan 😎
My thoughts exactly! I’m going to pick up Cursed to Golf and Sifu after this
That's a slippery slope. Remember, we like all of the games in this video based on their art style and animation alone. The gameplay might be not for you, or straight up not good. I do WANT to like all of them though.
@MegaDeox fair. Of course I'll read up on them more before I buy but some of the best games I ever played were basically recommended to me by a 1 minute clip and the phrase "Look at this shit" which basically a reduced version of this video XD
This 100 Times this! Already putting that potion game on my wishlist.
Let's also remember that many of those beautiful 2d intros seen in Indy games nowadays are done by smaller animation companies. They also deserve to be mentioned and praised.
A quick correction in regards to DNF Duel: ArcSys actually gave the development team at 8ing (who did the large majority of the work on the game) the tools and a tutorial on the techniques they use, rather than send an of their animators over to this project. It's a really great testament to the talent present at 8ing that you can't tell, although they also did Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the Bloody Roar series which had great animation in their own right. It also shows that this technique is actually teachable and not just ArcSys exclusive magic.
That's actually incredible! I'd love to see even more studios pick up that faux 2d artsyle, even studios outside the gaming industry.
Unfortunately, the actual game sucks and it never gets updated
@on10n It's a shame that Nexon basically abandoned it and announced a season pass too late, but it's a really fun game if you're down for that 8ing brand of crazy, especially after the recent patch; they succeeded in making every character feel complete and viable while still having insanely high average character power. A really volatile fighting game that feels straight out of 2007 in a sea of very deliberate modern ones, and I love it for that.
I don't know if it was too late, there's certainly more people playing on ps4 then there was like 4 months ago. Steam population's not that much bigger but that was never too bad
@@borederlands5387 146 30-day average on steam, that’s pretty terrible
The amount of polish in Trombone Champ that only a huge band nerd would pick up on was a huge delight for me. Like when I saw that they animated the Trombone to be in accurate slide positions for each note. Absolutely fantastic
The only mistake they made was implying by omission that the trumpet is not the best instrument.
Potionomics feels alot like a 3d Ace attourney game, with the looping, expresive poses, just lovely
That is exactly what I thought of watching that section of the video, I’m shocked he didn’t compare it to that. I love the popping between poses, it’s so charming!
For some reason it's got something that makes it look more like the 2D Ace Attorney games than the 3D AA games do.
@@happily_blue We don't what it'll look like, or if there'll be, an Ace Attorney 7, but I hope for that AND a Trilogy 2 cart.
@@Volvagia1927 There *was* some mention of AA7 in leaked documents from the Capcom hack some years ago. The same documents stated work on the GAA duology which we did get, so there's some evidence, but it's also been a while and we obviously don't know if/how things shifted internally in that time.
It's not only charming as hell, the gameplay is superb as well. It's one of those indie games you feel like you just can't praise enough.
These are my absolute highlight videos of the year, Dan, I enjoy this so much!
Aww thank you!
absolutely loved splatoon 3’s remodel and reanimation of all the player characters. that and the addition of hair physics make them feel so alive, even though they’re nearly all identical. they also really pushed the animation of shiver and frye specifically to make them feel distinct from each other and from past idols. really good stuff
Classic Dan, saying everything is pretty /s
Also Classic Dan, delivering a superbly edited, extremely funny, and just plain delightful commentary on the work of tons of talented people. Love every video you do, the effort is abundantly clear and by gosh does it work!
/s? I mean, that first sentence accurately summed up the video.
Also, how curious that the following superlative appraisal of this work mirrors the 30 minutes Dan spent loquating about how superb and delightful and abundantly efforted are the works of other talented people.
Not sure about the Animation itself, but I feel like the Live A Live Remake definitely deserves a shoutout for the biggest glow up a remake has ever gotten. Just some amazing visual design going on in that.
Thanks for including us in your list! 🙌
The _second_ you brought up the pixel animation category, I knew/was excited that River City Girls 2 was gonna take home some gold.It's a hell of a gorgeous game, WayForward just doesn't miss. What I did _not_ know was that the animation director on RCG2 is the individual behind Holocure?! That's...huh. Worlds colliding in unexpected but beautiful ways.
Kay Yu (the webname/name, no idea tbh) of the animator does pop up in surprising places from games such as Holocure and River City Girls (1 and 2) to tv series (with the cooking scene of Onimai being the most recent).
Signalis and Pentiment are 2 more games with very stylized presentations that are well worth checking out.
Yeah, definitely two of my favorites from last year.
i was fully expecting Signalis to be on this list tbh
@@d_eexe Same. It was so distinct and wonderful.
I was disappointed to not see either of them, especially Signalis. :(
I was hoping for Signalis too! Glad I’m not the only one. I’d also like to see Tormented Souls mentioned, though that came out in 2021.
It is also really odd that he didn’t mention Pentiment, now that I think about it lol
0:01 Splatoon 3 (Switch)
0:02 Overwatch 2 (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
0:06 Neon White (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch)
0:12 Tunic (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
0:17 OlliOlli World (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
0:38 A Musical Story (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
0:44 The Cruel King and the Great Hero (PS4, Switch)
0:49 Blast Brigade (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
0:52 Melatonin (PC, Switch)
1:01 Card Shark (PC, Switch)
1:11 Cult of the Lamb (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
2:17 Cuphead (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox)
3:26 B.I.O.T.A. (PC)
3:30 Blade Assault (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
3:37 Infernax (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
3:44 Souldiers (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
3:52 Moonscars (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
4:08 Jack Move (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
4:24 River City Girls 2 (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
5:07 Holocure (PC)
5:18 Cursed to Golf (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
6:09 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (Android, iOS, PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
7:14 A Memoir Blue (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
7:18 ANNO: Mutationem (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch)
7:22 Tinykin (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
7:30 RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
7:49 Young Souls (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox)
8:45 Gotham Knights (PC, PS5, Xbox)
8:51 NBA 2K23 (Apple Arcade, PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
8:58 A Plague' Tale: Requiem (PC, PS5, Xbox)
9:03 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox)
9:14 The Callisto Protocol (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox)
10:16 The Quarry (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox)
11:22 Sifu (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch) (Xbox coming soon)
12:42 God of War: Ragnarok (PS4/PS5)
13:55 Elden Ring (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox)
15:41 Aperature Desk Job (PC)
16:27 Horizon: Forbidden West (PS4/PS5)
17:54 Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (PC, Switch) (PS4/PS5 and Xbox eventually maybe?)
19:08 Stray (PC, PS4/PS5,)
20:46 Lil Gator Game (PC, Switch)
20:51 Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)
21:17 Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
21:26 Time on Frog Island (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
21:47 Trombone Champ (PC)
22:44 DNF Duel (PC, PS4/PS5) (Switch coming soon)
23:37 Multiversus (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox)
24:39 Moss: Book II (PC, PS5)
25:35 Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games (TH-cam)
26:52 Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (Switch)
27:49 Mario Strikes: Battle League (Switch)
28:41 Potionomics (PC)
30:13 Nobody Saves the World (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
30:19 Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Switch)
30:22 Sonic Frontiers (PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox)
30:25 Itorah (PC)
30:30 Scorn (PC, Xbox)
Okay, wow, thank you, this is super useful. Have a cookie! 🍪
@@mariacargille1396 I had to look up like half of them anyway for myself so figured I'd take the time for everyone else
You're an absolute hero! Thanks so much
You're a saint
I'm surprised Pentiment didn't get a shout out! I absolutely love the tapestry-esque style Obsidian went for, while managing to keep their characters expressive
Pocky & Rocky Reshrined was the tightest pixel art animations this year for my money. I really appreciate Tengo Project taking the art style of those older titles(Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns as well) but massively improving it from the SNES originals. It's the sort of thing that looks like you remember the old games, but side by side the difference is staggering. Awesome work.
I love Pocky and rocky and bought the game but the insanely stupid design decisions really hurt that game
@@StewNWT 100% agree. We don’t understand why the game is single-player only for story mode and requires players to either beat story mode or get so many coins in order to unlock local co-op for the non-story mode. Then they didn’t have online co-op at all, what a shame. Reshrined could be seen as a downgrade from past entries, especially if they ever put Pocky & Rocky 1 and 2 on the SNES emulator for Nintendo Switch.
I think Tengo Project does the best job of integrating modern effects with pixel animation.
One setback with its release though- after Pocky and Rocky, Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns, I'm not sure what charming pixel-art games Natsume has left for them to remake.
@@goranisacson2502 Lufia II and Harvest Moon?
I know that Pentiment's animation was fairly simple, but the style and the way it used text was so charming and clever!
I was also gonna mention Pentiment. As you say, the animations themselves are simple, but the artstyle mimicking illuminated manuscripts was such a good idea. Also it has so many deligthfully weird-looking animals.
Thank you! I was going to make the same comment. The inking and drying animation of the writing is just spectacular
I feel like the way the text is animated alone is worth a mention, if not a deep dive. I've never seen simple text used to express so much information. Beyond simply being incredibly satisfying to watch, it's even used to comment on each character, their background and level of education, or their status within the world.
The animation not breaking the game's art style I think belies its intelligence in design - less care would've had the game looking like Rock of Ages or Astrologaster, and they manage to use their simple animation without shattering the illusion.
Yes, I would love to see Dan do a dive on text animation in games or maybe rare period piece animation, jumping off of Pentiment's style. I think the game does a lot of interesting things that are worth exploring
I honestly can't wait for next years The Best Game Animation video just because of Hi-Fi Rush alone! Tango Gameworks really outdid themselves with the animation and it's probably my favorite part of the game.
love the kay yu shoutout. dude grinds so hard n works on so many projects simultaneously. he goes between making games n working on seasonal anime so often it almost makes u worry for him LOL.
Something about the outright positivity that you exude not only makes these videos enjoyable, but almost downright emotional. When you started talking about the mouse in Moss, I couldn't help feeling happy (and I haven't even played either Moss!) Keep making these excellent videos Dan!
a huge thing about elden ring's animation compared to previous fromsoft games is that they changed the way boss combo patterns work. They split up a 5 attack combo that would previously always be the exact same series of attacks into 5 fully separate attacks, so that they could shift the patterns around without needing to add new moves. It adds so much to the gameplay by making it so that you dont instantly know the next 4 moves by seeing the first one, and the difficulty of animating this to make it look like the attacks all flow seamlessly makes it nothing short of witchcraft.
Exactly! The studio keeps on improving on its technical and animation abilities its incredible to watch
one game that i really enjoyed the animation of this year was splatoon 3, which has a lot of subtle but really impactful improvements from the (already very distinctive and charming) previous titles. they've added all of these fine details to push the physics of the hair, the designs of weapons and characters, the genuineness of the ink puddles, all that. the lighting looks _gorgeous_, the ink is scarily convincing as a liquid, and everything plays into the bright colors and punky aesthetic that the previous two games already did excellently.
i think the biggest improvements in Splatoon 3's animations REALLY show in the story mode cutscenes. Seeing that cast of characters talking and moving SO FLUIDLY in those moments before the final boss was incredible, and i wish i could forget it all just to play it again.
I’m really glad you gave multiversus a look! Besides Tom and jerry, the cartoon characters side of the roster have some great squash and stretch. Bugs, taz, shaggy and Marvin the Martian who just got added last month. Marvin ESPECIALLY has some love put into how he fights and move. You can even make him get into his helmet and walk!
Dan's love and enthusiasm for each of these games sells me on them more than any commercial ever could.
I love Melatonin's art style. It's comfy yet also has depth. Not sure what the art style is, but it is a good one.
The quality of your script is incredible. You covered several games and it all feels like one long connected line of dialog. Also the sense of humor is on point.
Really one of my favorite channels and one of the very few exceptions where I actually have notifications on and I watch every single video.
I absolutely love the look of Stray and the animation is so spot on, any cat owner will tell you. I just wish the game was bit longer or that it went some more interesting places, than it did. I certainly don't think it should have beat out Tunic at the game awards for best indie, since that game was insane.
i was just waiting for the sifu mention
picked that game up last month and its retroactively my game of the year
still havent put it down
I`m so happy to see Sifu get some appreciation. I have been saying that the museum level is the most visually striking level of any game I`ve ever played. The boss transition into phase 2 gives me goosebumps every time
Gotta give a shout out to Live A Live. The animation done on that game uses a lot of modern touches, but still feels very much like a classic RPG. So glad they Square is doing more with their HD-2D engine than just Octopath.
Honestly a little surprised he didn't mention any of Total Warhammer III's monsters. Some of them had great animation. The Nurglings were a special treat.
Can't believe that, as someone who makes games, I'm only hearing about Masahiro Sakurai's channel about MAKING GAMES now. Thanks Dan for keeping me up to date on that and also every single game in this video because wow I missed pretty much everything coming out this year
I'm so glad you highlighted Sakurai's channel. It's such an amazing and unique channel and he's put so much amazing stuff on it already. It's crazy to get to see such an in depth inside window into the work process of one of the greatest game creators of all time. Could you imagine if we got to see Miyamoto or Kojima or Todd Howard do one of those?
I love these. They are so focused on one aspect of a game. He doesn't care or even speak about if a game is good or terrible, he is talking about the thing he knows and doesn't let anything else influence it.
I just wanted to give a personal shoutout to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, specifically it's facial animation. Xenoblade is already really good at ripping your heart out and the expressions MonolithSoft has been able to get out of their characters really helped sell those emotions to me.
I think what I noticed most often was fight choreography as well as cinematography and camera work. The biggest example of both in my mind is the fight just before the end of chapter 5, especially with how the main portion of it is captured in a single panning shot moving with and around the action. It feels like that scene would be much more difficult to read if the camera wasn't helping trace the movement of the most important parts and where they were relative to the surroundings at all times.
I loved how different Noah and N felt from each other even though they had the same character model and voice actor. They lived different lifetimes and their animation completely sells that
There were so many small animation subtleties even in seemingly "unimportant" cutscenes that really endeared each character to me in distinct ways
I literally came to this video to see NF+’s take on XC3, but alas, the animation last year was just too good. Thanks for saying this better than I could.
Thanks Dan, for the 15 plus games I have now wishlisted because of this video.
these are always so great every year. wonderfully positive and spotlights a very wide spectrum of games.
never heard of potionomics till now but gosh the animations grabbed me as soon as you started showing them
Not even a mention for Pentiment? I've never seen a game put so much charm and style into the mere act of rendering text on the screen. The font choices that give you a hint about the character's place in society, the misspellings getting scratched out and corrected, the sheer difference between handwritten dialogue and machine-printed dialogue, really making you feel like you're on the cusp of changing times... There are very few games that commit more fully to their visual style and it just oozes with passion all the while.
Ah, so I was not the only one missing a mention of Pentiment.
I also mentioned Pentiment! Ursula and baby Magda have stolen my heart forever.
These videos make me want to play every single video game ever made
There's a lot of games out there using 2D animation these days, but Cuphead is still the only one that actually looks like what I imagined when I dreamed about games looking like cartoons when I was a kid. There's really no replacement for talent putting the work in, and I'm glad they've been able to do even more on that game. I dunno what's next but I hope they keep using their 2d animation chops to their fullest.
Ah! I'm so happy for the love given to indies here. Young Souls went under the radar for a lot of folks so I'm happy it's here. Potionomics was my favorite game last year and I would die for any of the characters in it. Great video, Dan! You're a real inspiration!
Potionomics charmed me with its animation with its first trailer in like 2020, and I love it. Glad it got a spot.
Marvel's Midnight Suns has some of my favorite superhero attack animations I've ever seen. Every single attack has the perfect amount of impact and flair, which makes your improvised rounds of henchman-pinball so very satisfying.
As far as Arc System Works animation goes, my highlight last year has to be with the dlc characters of Strive. I especially love the expressiveness of Bridget, and the insane amount of work that must have gone into Sin's flag.
Bridget's animation just exudes this confidence in herself that she lacked in every other iteration. She is no longer awkward in the body she has, trying to be someone she's not, but throwing herself full-stop into every attack, win pose, taunt, idle pose, etc.
And almost all of this is shown just through the animation. Even before everyone played her story and followed her self discovery that she was trans, her animation in her trailer screamed her being comfortable in her body, in who she was, and in the what she was fighting for. It was such a recognizable huge departure that *tons* of people recognized her transition before she was even released.
That's something special.
This one's arguable since it doesn't technically release until this year, but MAN I was blown away by the Street Fighter 6 animations in the beta. Footsies, supers, combo transitions, taunts, all of it. So much love and attention put into every newcomer and returning character.
I would have LOVED to see you talk about the animation in Splatoon 3. It is SO good in all the right ways, and has so much animation detail that you would almost never notice, even playing the game frequently because so much of it is only visible to the other players who happen to be standing close by, not yourself. It's so delightfully designed that I'm surprised you showed it but didn't even talk about it.
Also, Potionomics is 100% on my playlist just because it looks so delightful. I have no idea if the game play will interest me at all, but I want to play it because it just looks so good.
I don't know if I'd submit it as a contender for this list, but the procedural animation of Rain World is really interesting and can lead to some very scrambly, desperate, natural looking motions that I don't think could be achieved traditionally. When I'm hammering the jump button trying to get up a ridge away from something, the character moves with the same uncoordinated panic that I do.
Playing MoonScars right now and loving it feels like it came out of no where much like the exquisite Chained Echoes I played before it.
Literally the highlight of my winter every time these videos come out, thank you.
Thank you for not including some of the more gory/extremely violent parts of some of these games. Not only does it mean videos like this can be shown for educational purposes, it also is greatly appreciated by people like me who want to see cool animation without the more gruesome bits. ❤ Thank you!!
I love your videos. It always put so many games I didn’t know about on my radar. I was lil surprised that Shovel Knight Dig didn’t get a shoutout though
"the team at fromsoft know where the animation budget needs to go"
Exactly. They could've given lip sync to all the characters, but instead they chose to ensure that the random guy in frenzied flame proscription has his fingers perfectly animated in tune with the song he's playing.
I would also recommend you check out Freedom Planet 2. A retro indie platformer based on classic sonic style gameplay. It may not be as polished as the others, but it shows a whole bunch of personality in each character. The pixel art is quite frankly gorgeous to look at. And i honestly think it needs some more attention.
Signalis and Solar Ash were probably my favourite looking games this year, both absolutely gorgeous in their own unique respects
Take a look at the animation for Rain World: Downpour this year, I think you’d like it. It’s procedural animation is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Obviously there's already a lot of Nintendo games mentioned but xenoblade 3 and splatoon 3 I feel are huge highlights, one being an amazing showcase of emotional subtle storytelling from Monolithsoft whilst allowing for a class system so perfectly animation budget
Then there's splatoon 3 which as a huge fan I've noticed how refined splatoon 3s animation is with so much added personality it's stunning
Those Xenoblade 3 chain attack animations are 💋👌Surprised they didn't get brought up in the video at all
I think you might have overlooked your notes on Lost In Play :D! A super charming game about two children playing. It had me smiling from the first moment and can absolutely recommend it!
I just started learning Blender a few days ago. I know it will take a… non-zero amount of time to reach this level of quality for stylized 3D Animation (especially since I’m still learning other skills), but it’s good to know some stuff for me to strive for :D
I kinda hoped to see Darkest Dungeon 2 in the stylized 3D animation sector, Red Hook Studios nailed the jump to 3D models and animation extremely well.
My Personal favorite is the Man-at-Arms attacking with his Mace, and then dragging it back on the ground.
But all the "Prepare to attack" animations are also fantastic and give a sense of "not my first rodeo" from the characters.
Not to mention some rarer animations used for one-offs when you unlock new moves.
I really hope you'll take a look because while the game is still in early access, it's already well-animated imo
I think Dan doesn't cover a game in these videos until it's fully out of Early Access. Hence Hades not getting a mention until it hit 1.0.
@@wavesofbabies That was my second thought too.
If it's that, then I guess we'll see it mentioned next year then ^^
I would like to nominate Signalis
It uses a kind of low-fidelity character models + pre-rendered backgrounds for close-up stuff + hand-drawn anime for important scenes, all while remaining very unnerving
Great video Dan it was a treat to see! I want to throw the Total War Warhammer Series into the mix. It truly has one, if not the best animation and animation variety in the history of strategy. Especially in the 2022 released 3rd installment they somehow managed to portray the themes and personalities of all different Eldritch beings, called Chaos Gods, into their respective roster. I can only recommend you having a look at it.
No mention of We were here forever? That is truly sad.
Happy to see Gotham Knights get even the smallest shoutout. Of all the coverage I saw of that game, not a single person ever mentioned how good a lot of the animation work is.
Always love these end of the year videos! Hope that FFV video is coming along nicely and isn't causing you too much grief. Would love to see you more often, but I also appreciate the time and dedication you put into each of your uploads
Awesome video Dan! Really enjoyed the game choices, specially the most unknown ones. Great that you're showcasing the hard work behind these games.
kudos to getting to all those late 2022 games! as a now regular viewer of your other channel PlayFrame, it's bonkers to me that you can still put out summative videos like these, but also very cool that i get to hear your initial comments from PlayFrame pared down into a digestible 30 minutes. :)
Literally picked up potionomics on your recommendation, and holy cow this game is dripping with charm. Gonna try and see what I can copy for my projects
Vampire Survivors should get some recognition, particularly the animations when you open chests. It's a perfect way to reward the player for surviving long enough to pick it up
Loved how rogue legacy 2 translated the first games pixel animation to a 2d perspective 3d model style, kinda like to arc system work games, albeit much less bombastically.
The animation of GigaBash was awesome! They even added Godzilla with his funny dance and tail slide!
One thing I've really enjoyed seeing this year is the evolution of Square Enix's "HD-2D" animation. Octopath Traveler basically picked up where the 2D Final Fantasies left off, with some shiny effects here and there, but on the way to the *Live-A-Live remake* this year they've gotten so much more polish, variety, and _character_ out of the style. (Every single party member has multiple idle animations in the menu!) They're pushing the camera around a lot more, matching the genre inspirations - the bleak establishing shot of the Western, the framing of the corridors in the Alien riff. Somehow the combat effects animation got even flashier? And the true final boss - new in the remake - is a real masterpiece in the realm of Massive Boss Sprites.
I do think it probably can't stand toe-to-toe with The Best Game Animation of 2022, but as its own thing, I find it fascinating to watch. Really feels like an alternate-history branch from The Animation of Final Fantasy.
I'm not a fan of the look of many of the games in this style. It looks too gaudy and bright to me. But with Live-a-Live they managed to make it look pleasant in a way I could appreciate.
@@Kriss_ch. Bright? Octopath Traveller and Triangle Strategy? What?
@@NuiYabuko "Bright" is maybe the wrong word. High contrast? Bloomy? You get a lot of effects on top of the art in those games that I think make them hard to look at, and Live-a-Live isn't so intense about it.
When my roommate and I played Shredder's Revenege we were so happy to see it retained a pixelart aesthetic. Absolutely gem, especially in co op.
RCG2 is also on our bucket list.
I will admit, I was a little disappointed to not see Xenoblade Chronicles 3 mentioned, but hey what are comments for. Xenoblade games have always featured fantastic action animation in both cutscenes and gameplay, and Xenoblade 3 takes it even further. For cutscenes, all of the main characters have unique weapons and styles of fighting, and the animators really take full advantage of it. Not to mention all of the characters can transform into big robots that also have their own way of moving and fighting, and while all of that is happening the camera and direction capture that action in such an energetic way. In terms of gameplay, Xenoblade 3 has a system where each of the 6 party members can use any of the available 26 classes, all with different weapons. Some share the same style (2 handed gun, sword and shield, etc), but they feature different animations for their class' attacks. I think it's a real accomplishment to fit that many animations onto 6 different characters, and have them all work so well. On top of all of that, each class has a "talent art," basically a special attack, where the camera gets taken into dynamic angles, and it's really cool to see that stellar animation work in cutscenes injected into the gameplay a little more.
Aside from action, Xenoblade 3 also does a great job with character dialogue and emotional moments. The style is a great evolution on that "3D anime" style that so many games attempt. The characters have exaggerated features, but still feel grounded and realistic. One of my favorite touches is that all of the human characters have a constant eye dart animation, and it really just helps to bring these characters to life. It also makes an impact later when we meet a villain who seems soulless, and he lacks the eye dart really giving the impression of the lack of life behind the eyes. The game does use a modular animation system from time to time and they really work well. Xenoblade 2 had very linear transitions between poses, and muppet like lip flaps, whereas Xenoblade 3 has well designed poses and transitions that all feel hand crafted. Xenoblade 3 also gives effort to lip animation during modular cutscenes with different animations for the english and japanese dub! It really helps to let the performances of the voice actors shine, which I think is one of the best qualities of the game. I could continue, but I'll just stop here. It's great to see how much Monolithsoft has improved over their games, and just how they took the Switch's hardware to its limit.
You've reminded me of why you're my favorite TH-cam channel. Well done. Loved this.
These series are THE recap videos i'm looking forward to each year! Thank you, Dan!
And also thank you for inspiring me to make games all those years ago
Come for the animation analyses, stay for those delightfully creative segues.
Live A Live definitely deserved a mention, supposedly the dev teams were such huge fans of the original that they put in way way more frames of animation into the sprites than they were supposed to and it shows. It's still the SNES JRPG style of animation where a library of short animations are reused all over the place, but there's so many lovely little details to those animations (like the bouncing of hair or fluttering of capes) that you appreciate all the more if you compare it to the (visually) poorly aged original.
I could listen to you talk for days. I love the care and consideration you give every game and how you judge each animation for what it's trying to do and present itself as within the bounds of what's reasonable for the game to achieve. You don't ping indie games for not being perfectly polished, or stylized games for not being realistic enough. Fantastic video! I'll have to take the time to watch these games more closely when I play through some of them!
I have a good feeling Hi-Fi rush will be on the 2023 list. It's nice to see the Spider verse aesthetic being used more in this medium
- im glad the Holocure Bug has grabbed you, the Rabbit Hole is an inviting trip (also still funny that there's 2 Calli X RiverCity tangential conections)
- Stray gets the animation of Cat so well, i legit thought they mocaped a real Cat, which considering Cats are Cats is probably something that will never work, but still great trickery
- Sakurai deciding that his next passion project was going to be teach everyone how to be the next Sakurai is such a chad move i feel nothing but respect for the man... Kirby Air Ride should till be a 2 Button game & i ill fight him on that
- love the Strikers personality in their animation, shame they ran out Peronality on their everything else regarding that game
- "feel that team's fingerprints" probably NOT the choice of words i would use when talking about Ubisoft, no, i will not stop bringing up their company policies until they fix them
Thanks for this! A well written script to identify and celebrate the amazing work done in animation across the industry of the past year. I don't dip my toe into many of these genres of game so it's an eye opener to see how much love is put into them.
I think another fighting game that deserves a lot of recognition for its animation is KoF 15. Really great stuff from an all-time great series when it comes to animation.
For that matter, what about a video going over the history of KoF animations?
9:40. I mean. W O W. comparing the images, the "glisten" is 'wrong' but hot damn that's impressive.
I appreciate a video that's a celebration of quality work, instead of being a teardown like so much of TH-cam.
These videos are a delight to see! The work you put into these videos is appreciated. Whether it's a game I've picked up myself last year, something I've seen snippets of before or something I completely missed it's always nice to gush over or find new appreciation for the animation being showcased.
I'd love to see you dissect Pizza Tower's animation once the game releases, it's super expressive while still being responsive.
This this this. Pizza Tower looks INSANE
i also really wanna see an extrapolation of Pizza Tower's animation!! it's got such a perfect thin fluidity to its absolutely bonkers animations, it really does throw me back to the bigger Flash animations from earlier internet.
I was holding out hope the whole video that you would talk about Potionomics and to have it as the very last shout-out made me so relieved. It really is a gem of a game and the expressive animation really drew me to actually playing it.
So happy to see potionomics ihn this video, I've been following the animation devlogs they post on twitter for ages and have always been blown away by them
Thank you for making these by the way. Finding so many cool styles through your channel I may never have.
18:07: I'm a little disappointed that Dan didn't _literally_ copy-paste footage of him complimenting Monster Hunter from past videos. That would have been hilarious.
Yooo! Forgot about this series, Excited to watch when I get the chance.
- Done watching now and there's a couple games I'll have to check out! Also slick insert of Frontiers at the end, lot of fans devastated it wasn't your Number 1 I'm sure lol.
What a great rundown. You have a very generous style of describing these games. Thanks for that much needed light touch.
These videos are always a treat I look forward to at the start of a new year. Thanks for continuing to show some of the best of this amazing medium!
So glad I got to experience so many of these titles on your let's play channel!
Shoutout to the transitions! Appreciate the extra effort in the script!
Thank you so much for the video, when I saw it in the notifications I was so happy. So much time passes until we can get more of your quality content. Informative and precise as always. Thank you
Love the way you script your videos, amazing content. Thank you.
Potionomics reminds me a LOT of phoenix wright in the way that they animate their characters! In the best way possible
I play Elden Ring and the other fromsoft games almost exclusively for their animations. Its a mesmerizing experience. And what you said about strategically allocating their budget to where it really matters is especially relevant to an almost comedic extent in Dark Souls 3. The player character's animation quality was sacrificed to the animation gods in order to boost the animation quality of the bosses and enemies. Most of the player's animations are only slightly altered from Dark souls 1, and this is 100% ok because in the game, your attention is going to be focused on the enemies and bosses.
It's always delightful when you upload something on this channel.