Damn, I was scrolling through the comments close to the end of the video, when I read your comment I scrolled back up, perfectly timed with the ending. Damn that was good timing
id like to add my own criticism or pet peeve The color palette is so awful, i though the point of MK characters having bright colors was to stand out and be memorable but in MKX they are so desaturated to the point where they get lost in the background and it gets really annoying when playing and especially since a lot of the cast have dark and black clothing. it's kind of like the movie adaptations of Xmen, all of their memorable costumes that give them all the personality are being replaced by the same, uninspired, boring black uniforms.
add the fact they put too much motion and bright colors in the backgrounds and you have the perfect trainwreck.... oh and dont get me started on stages with elements that reach the characters, yea im talking about a certain blood ocean
For the record: DOA's stance does actually affect gameplay, but only really at a high level. If both characters's bodies are facing separate background/foreground, it's considered a "closed stance". If the same, it's an "open stance". Certain moves will affect the opponent differently depending on the stance. Virtua Fighter has this same open/closed stance concept, but it's much more prevalent as its tracking moves are affected.
I've always felt that something felt off about MK's animations that turned me away from the game. That "trying to throw a punch over a waist-high fence" bit summed it up to me better than I could have.
Yeah, like whenever you're talking about writing, animation, act structure, etc. there's a pretty good chance that most people won't immediately be able to point to the thing they're looking at and say "Oh, this is the problem". But, even if you don't notice, your brain probably does, which makes it feel 'off' even if you're not really sure why. I feel like there's a lot of people who look at analysis of stuff like that and they just hand-wave it as nitpicking when it's super important to sell the experience.
well in MK1, 2, 3 and Trilogy it was a result of the motion capture. MK4 was just bad. The next 3 games were an improvement, yes but still noticeably trying too hard. I think with MKX and MKXL there is no excuse anymore.
That just shows your own fanboy bias that you were that quick to write off his complaints as "whiny criticism." Learn to have an open mind and accept that nothing's perfect.
You're like that mom who yells at their kid to wash the dishes while they clearly see them washing the dishes. OP already admitted his own bias and even stepped over it to really appreciate the vid. You just commented for the sake of being a shitter.
I teach game animation and I actually use this video quite a bit in class because so many of my students try to argue that MK has great animation (they tend to laud its realism...lol); and specifically much better animation than a series like Street Fighter. I'll argue them down for a bit, but then decide it's much easier to just show them this video haha. I also enjoy that you go through some basic fundamentals to reinforce some of the things I teach in class and show what looks good and what doesn't. Great stuff.
@AT Productions It's crazy how much visual fidelity influences people's view of animation. And of course some people just view animation in terms of how pretty something is, like they literally don't know the difference between graphics and animation haha.
@@WikiHL Oh most definitely. Darkstalkers and Third Strike are two pieces of my holy grail for 2D fighting game animation haha. I love that Darkstalkers does so much with such a limited amount of frames. KoF can be inconsistent but overall has some great stuff too.
I disagree, the fact you have to level down to the fact that you can’t convince your class and having to resort to a higher influence, this being another professional animation major further supports this. I believe mkx has good animation for a fighting game, I see it like the naruto vs pain fight. It breaks traditional fighting game norms, it’s rapid, fast and all the characters move with fluidity. The gameplay at hand is what we are watching and it embraces it fully. You can’t possibly tell me that street fighter gameplay is as energetic or rapidly paced as mkx.
I never understood why people harped on MK's animation, but I get it now. To be honest, I still don't really care. But this video was great in helping me to understand. Great insight from an animator.
Read the title. Always thought that myself. As a martial artist I always cringed at characters in the 3D games because they don’t keep their core still. You have to keep your core solid as you move, throwing fast snapping punches and kicks. In a real fight you would lose your balance and fall over doing fast moves. Not only is keeping balance crucial, it looks cool and stylish. (Edit) I commented before even watching the video and you hit all my points and more. 🤘🤘
As a real person, I always cringed at characters in the real world who became martial artists because they didn't keep their core of shit nobody cares about. Lols
Funnily enough, the characters do keep their core muscles rigid whilst using weapons. As a practitioner of mostly weapon based martial arts, I can say some of it is biomechanically sound, if horribly awkward looking (scorpion's uppercut slash).
Ive only played NRS for the longest time, and since this videos, i still play them and have fun, but oh boi did i find gold moving away to other fighting games Im having a blast with DBFZ, wich working with so little frames and still making things readable with clarity is amazing, the new GG strive is from arc system so no disapointment But Tekken, you fucking feel every punch, sure the hitstun, close up camera and particles help, but the pure force they put in the punch, you feel it
If anyone is going to raise awareness for good animation, it's certainly not going to be this idiot, he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Go to any animation channel that teaches 3D animation, not 2D animation, and learn a thing or two. He's applying faulty principles that don't mesh with the art style or the medium.
"guys guys he talked bad about muhhh muh gaaame, I didn't watch the video! buh let's ignore the fluid animation from smaller studios like Soul Calibur, Street Fighter V, Dead Or Alive, Dragon Ball Super with actual martial arts attacks and poses!!11!1! he don't know what he is talking about even though he's probably studied animation with a degree more than me! but listen to me because because im right! >:[[["
It amazes me how you're fooling yourself into thinking those people exist. No one said they're good, just because there are people that don't mind it's flaws doesn't mean they call it good. Learn the fucking difference between calling something good and accepting it's flaws.
Personally, I think Jason's idol animation is quite good. I think the way he tilts his head while studying his victim fits his "personality" quite well, in my option of course
Uhh look at Marvel vs capcom, Or smash, or blazblue or any other game with air combos. The characters don't fucking lay down in the air while the opponent slaps their feet.
MEAD3MAYNE games like those have it like that because they're meant for air combos and putting them vertical makes it easier to hit them. I'm talking about games that are more ground based like mk, sf, tekken. they have it horizontally because the combos are easier to hit in a ground based game.
As a black belt in kempo, you're correct about posture. Being hunched over like scorpion is not a good stance, and moving like that in the idle animations will tire you out, when you couldve saved that energy for a punch or kick. The letting loose stance is a big no no as it REALLY tires you out, but people do it to cope with the fight to show "Yea! Lets do this!". The calm and collected posture is smart as it gives you the ability to keep your cool and fight more fluidly, but it leaves you wide open for an attack if you're not careful. The beastly posture shows the fighter is animalistic, unpredictable, crazy or a very dirty fighter, which actually has a lot of advantages as it strikes fear into an opponent. The posture sub zero uses is VERY effective as it is a defensive stance, one hand is in front so he can block, grab, or reach with ease, and his other arm is there to pull a punch or collect more power for a strike. The feet also being flat shows balance, their feet are glued to the floor to prevent ease of being knocked down. But you are right, mortal kombats fighting stances are not good as it can hinder fighting ability and stamina due to poor posture or excessive movement
I liked Liu kang animations in 9, he looked so footsie, very in tune with a character which most signature moves involved his legs. Also im glad im not the only one to notice the lack of charisma from 70% of the MK cast, aside from my man Johnny Cage, the mascots of the franchise sub zero/scorpion and Raiden with the main duo Liu Kang and Kung Lao, everyone else is just meh in both personality and design.
As someone who does boxing as has experience in martial arts, these animations are atrocious. My coach would slap the shit out of the MK fighters for how they throw a punch. All off balance and slap-like.
I totally agree about everything you said here. I used to be a professional character animator and it pains me to see that both MK and Injustice, both made big-budget by an awesome studio with highest-quality character models, has animations below the level of an amateur indie project.
Presumably because they spend 90% of the animation budget on the cinematics and ultra-brutal finishing / super moves and then afterwards remember “oh fuck we’re supposed to make a fighting game alongside it too?!”
@@darkshat3077Sad, because stances are among the most important things in a fighting game. All the stances in MK look like guys who have never fought in their life lmao. like a discord mod trying to look cool and shit with their made up kung fu stance
I'm actually amazed you STOPPED where you did. There's this sort of fluidity to TAKING hits that MK is really bad about, especially in terms of momentum, and it's one of my biggest problems with the series. It's something that Soul Calibur does well and it's one of DOA's major strengths, but MK's failure at it is part of why it feels so stiff.
I think the problem with NRS/MK as a whole is that they're hamstrung by their origins. The original Mortal Kombat used live action rendering to give what was pretty unprecedented levels of detail in characters. Five games of the series rendered things this way, so the series had an iconic look to its characters. Only so much can be tweaked with photo rendered characters. "Live action" renderings have much less wiggle-room for distortion before they look offputting. But 16-bit video gaming was much more primitive than 32-bit (and beyond), so this limitation wasn't as noticeable. It wasn't until the 3D era that the series started to show its age. Now that we're in the modern era, characters have very little room to change. Characters aren't photo rendered now, but the series is arguably defined by its wooden character action. The same distortions, framing, and other animation features other 2D-to-3D franchises have been able to use are too foreign a concept for NRS to consider. The studio repeatedly fails to make bold design choices and instead is content to wallow in safe bets always
This is why I haven't played Mortal Kombat since 3. Everything just looks "off". Even to a layperson. I play a ton of fighting games, but not MK. People would ask me why, and I would say it's too "floaty". Not the best description, but the video sums up a lot of my problems.
Not gonna lie, I went into this video expecting it to sound pissy and whiney. I am so happy I was proven wrong. Yeah, MK's animation DOES look watered down compared to LITERALLY ANY OTHER FIGHTING GAME. You have opened my eyes, good sir. Good job! 👏
For those complaining that "This is a video game with a crazy universe, why should we expect any rules to be followed?" Willing suspension of disbelief allows me, for the purposes of enjoying the work, accept the idea that people can create ice or generate fireballs with their hands, or enough strength to cut off human body parts "cleanly" is moderately common. What it doesn't allow for is people not behaving sensibly for the context they are in. Like for example the character, who is human in all other respects, and the "magic" of that universe" doesn't demand it, contorts their body inhumanly to make that fireball and only in that context. Yes, Mortal Kombat is a crazy universe, but nothing about it would give us the impression that the core fundamentals of balance and momentum would be different; gravity still works. There are just more tools to add confounding variables. Or more generally, that people presented as skilled fighters actually look like they understand the basics. If your character has something about them that justifies breaking rules, then yeah, ok. Like for stance and balance, if the character has a such a weird body shape that normal poses wouldn't make sense for them, or they have non-locomotive flight abilities so balance is a non-issue for them anyways. Then, OK, yeah I can buy it. But many of the characters in MK11 have no such justification, and yet break that rule anyways.
Yes exactly. Characters defying gravity is breaking the rules of MK's world. Firing a fireball isn't. And no one is complaining about that. But gravity is still a thing so this animation is just inacceptable.
So you are bothered by the charcters not punching with proper stance but isn't bothered by the fact that in all fighting games, you can stop someone twice your size charging torwards you with a big punch by poking him in the legs because you have "frame advantage"? Or the fact that everybody blocks in a nonsensical way just puttin their hands in front of their body and taking the full hit passively? As if somehow putting your hand in front of your face blocks an overhead just because you're standing. At this point its not suspension of disbelief, its just cherry picking.
@@Freefrosthmm good point but it's a damn *fighting* game. Imagine if a Jackie Chan fight sequence was directed by that guy who made that sh!t super shaky cam fight scene, it'd be an absolute travesty sure in universe it would makes sense that they would be fighting, logically speaking but you'd lose the clarity, the back and forth and progression of the fight. It's not about what's logical, it's about what's cool and fact is other games animate in a triple a game more than mkx does, which means, not just cinematic wise but in game *fighting* wise, it looks cool, which is the point of animation
This one of the best videos I've ever seen. It's changed the way I think about animation. I've been playing fighting games competitively forever and it never hit me how much proper animation and characterization mattered. And just how the little details on character animation, overall color palette, etc are important for visual information. And how being a good animator requires you to think about adhering to real physics regardless of how fantasy the setting is. What adds to MK's disjointed animation is that the games feel rigid to play too. Playing MK felt more like controlling a mech than an actual character, like the delay between doing things and how they looked was jarring. I loved the perspective this vid took on MKX's animation.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that most of the attacks in both MKX and ow in Injustice 2 are based on spins. Everything is freakin spinning! None of the characters can do a combo without swinging their limbs or weapons like a maniac. I'm looking at combo videos in MKX and Injustice 2 and all I can see is Gun Jack from Tekken 3 doing the "Wild Swing".
PREACH. I absolutely hate nrs animations. Although they have gotten better in mk11, I still think they could have done better with the budget they have to work with. Smh
There is something about MK9 that makes the animation look more natural than the latest MK games, even MK1. I can't figure it out but the engine of MK9 is amazing and made me wish NRS utilized this engine more.
What is worse is that a big chunck of the MK fanbase isn't even aware or care for this problem. And are problably in a very defensive mode to protect anything related to MK/NRS. Im a long time fan but agree with all of your points. It's only for the better of the MK series.
No i expect awareness atleast. Im not an animation artist and i can acknowlidge it too. The MK community should aswell as it does only better to their games.
Julio Brian Nor are they martial artists, have witnessed martial arts, or had any fight experience to know the difference. You don't have to be an animator. Even a white belt or some learning how to throw a punch from their dad in the backyard or whatever could tell the difference.
Lol exactly this. One of my homies wanted to actually get me the game so I could start playing with him (I'm more into capcom games and smash). I told him not to do it because even though MKX has good story and cool characters, I find the game and its gameplay absolutely hideous to watch and overall just feels super slow and clunky. However, I couldn't really explain to him the exact science of why the game was an abomination when he was insisting on an explanation, because he's really into MK. I told my brother about our argument and he immediately linked me to this video, where this wonderful man perfectly and thoroughly explains why MKX fucking sucks. I had my friend watch this video immediately after. To my surprise, he just laughed and admitted that this guy definitely makes sense, but at the end "it's just a game and it doesn't really matter if the animations look funny". Just to point out, my friend is also into league of legends, cod, assassin's creed, and fifa.
You've put into words what I've been too indifferent to bother expressing whenever I'm asked why I don't play NRS games much. I'm no animator but I understand balance, center-of-gravity, and proper form; enough to tell when something looks off, or absolutely hideous. The things you highlighted have always been eyesores to me, and makes the game a chore for me to play for any extended period of time.
The thing that bothers me the most is MK's obsession with low kicks looking like they would break the character's joints/bones. Seriously...have these people at Neatherrealms Studios never seen human anatomy?
skillustrate - The game becomes a chore to play because of the animations? Are you kidding me? If the actual GAMEPLAY is bad, THEN I would understand your pain. But you let some animations ruin your fun in a video game? This is a video game, buddy. Not a movie. This sounds a tad bit too whiny to me.
honestly your idle animations part with the makoto sprite reminds me why I love makoto so goddamn much just the way her flesh and lims stay absolutely stiff as stone while her clothing flows gently, and then intensely, in the breeze really conveys how absolutely like, angry and concentrated she is genuinely my favorite SF character design by far
For animations based upon actual fighting, as someone who actually likes martial arts and understands what stances do to express where power comes from, and how a certain art moves and receives, and how characters have personality in movement, I agree with all of your points. I am a fan of Mortal Kombat but I always knew that their actual poses and movement kinda sucked. There was a different time actually when in Deception and Armageddon they used some real stances from real martial arts, and they kinda worked like dead or alive as you mentioned in the video. I appreciated those stances that were accurate, but unfortunately they were mostly on side characters and still looked stilted and awkward. I'm still a fan of the games just because they're fun, but you're right.
@@TheDarioushurtRight lmao. They won’t know what to think without another video breakdown. Which ultimately goes to show that animations aren’t a problem, if 99% of the people who play the games don’t recognize them as such
@@EggEnjoyer it feels wrong, and currently MK1 is getting bad reviews. Casual fighting game fans which made a huge part of the sales of MK are moving away from MK1. The EVO tournament sign ups refelct this as more people are competing in SF 6 and Tekken, both of which have amazing animation and music and SF 6 has a very inovative world tour/story mode and so much more taht just makes MK1 look bad.
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Thanks for putting in words what always put me off NRS games.
Yeah, the same thing. It's pretty obvious, but when someone takes a serious analysis on **why** animation is crap, it makes things easier to understand and explain your thoughts on it. Story and visual style aside, any fighting game relies on moves. Moves are based on animations. If animation is horseshit, it's pretty obvious that moves would be shitty aswell. MK franchise is all about gore and violence, so that's why people buy it and do not care about animation. Casual gamers do not care about how deep gameplay is if you can cut your enemies in half and crush their skulls in slow-motion. When somebody wants to get a fighting game, others will recommend MK in most cases, because of its popularity.
Looks like the insecure weebs are starting to lash out against MKX with their only criticism being leveraged against it is some shitty animator who's gone nowhere on youtube, lmao. Keep raging, cucks.
Expect for the snide remarks about the series and the characters lacking personality and the ending monologue about the game never being great without the good animations. Those were clearly personal bias on his part.
Out of curiosity, what does the detached, impersonal, classy "objective" criticism of an arcade video-game franchise about cyborgs, bikini ninjas and cowboys ripping out each others' spines look like?
He talked about how the characters are supposed to feel like and how the animations don't do that justice. Like the whole tangent about Mileena's stance not feeling sexy, feral, or dangerous, just uncoordinated and messy. The characters _have_ personalities, they're just not portrayed well due to the animation being lacking. Y'all missed the point entirely on purpose so you could complain huh? I refuse to believe people this stupid exist.
this video was a TREAT omg I'm subbing immediately.I have been on the MK animation hate train since 9 and I love how much more you pointed out that I wasnt even always able to see. 8 out of 8 would r8
Virtua Fighter has stance switching, and it affects combos quite a bit as well as what side your half circular moves will cover. It also has great animations, probably the best.
Honestly i agree. I understand why they exist since they're a staple but the focus on fatalities is just absurd at this point, they went from cool quick animations at the end to a fight to becoming literally multiple minutes long and are treated as the most important part of the game with so much of its marketing focused around it, hell its so bad they had to make Xrays which are just fatalities that don't kill you and they are easily the worse Super moves in video games because they take so god damn long to actually watch. I swear NRS has a fetish for making sure you're playing the game for as little as possible
Street Fighter: Hey, watch this guys.... Yo, MKX! Act like you're going to fight someone! MKX: Oh- okay, you mean like this? (starts swaying) I'm-a gonna kick someone's ass! C'mon, I'm so ready to hit something! Tekken: Poor guy's been spending too many nights at the bar recently....
You can try to do such a punch yourself with your whole weight behind it, record it and just use that as a reference for the animation. They don't even do that for the animation, they're just guessing with no knowledge of anatomy, gravity, impact, etc, kinda sad. Anyway, trying to do the punch yourself might give you an idea of how it could look. Or look at other fighting games.
It always felt slow and controlled to me like everyone's fighting underwater with weighted clothing. Overall I like how in depth this video is it's such an interesting watch.
Classic MK when run by Midway did have martial arts experts, but they were forced to use similar moves for every character.... everyone had an uppercut, a low sweep a hard standing roundhouse or crescent kick, and a string of high punches that weren't strategic to the gameplay.
I never noticed any of this...to be honest I don't really care about it, but yeah! it definitely makes sense, I hope they see this so they take note and make their games even better :)
Hmm, no mention to Tekken in regards to changing stances, or even how to animate 3d fighter right? That game does it the best of all. Check out Howarang's move list.
You wrong , in fact he admitted that MK11 animations are great for the most part, except jumping , sword swinging , dashes and a few cases . With MK1 it’s not relevant at all.
@@Outcast89R You seriously need to go back to that video. He doesn't say they're great, not even close. He says in general there's as much okeyish animation as there is bad animation. In fact, the video ended in ABI giving up on MK delivering animations worth its budget after seeing how Sindel and Terminator were horribly animated.
The way the characters walk and their stances still look stiff. and so does the jumping. but once the attacks get going the movement seems to be better. Game like Tekken, VIrtua Fighter an Street Fighter have always animated better than MK.
Great video. As someone who studied character animation, and who's been a martial arts instructor for 20 years, I just have to give this a thumbs up :)
Yes, I edited my own comment, because I'm not a stupid inbred who leaves mistakes in his posts, unlike you apparently, who can't even use the proper "your" (it's 'you're'), and refuses to use any sort of proper punctuation to get his ideas across. " liked your own comment" Yea, so? Who's gonna stop me? Did I say I didn't? Clearly if such petty little things bother you so deeply, the only one who's a joke here, would be you. Have fun in that empty thing you call a life with such a shit personality that you'll never have any actual friends or actual relationships or veritable happiness by any measure. Bye! Oh, and FYI, I edited this comment.
The extra irony here is that even though he's crying like a little baby at me for liking my own comment, he went and signed onto a separate profile, just to pretend like someone else gave a shit about him, lmao, talk about pathetic.
bud389 Who the hell are you even talking about here? Put down the tinfoil hat. All these keyboard warrior-ings have messed up your brain. Also don't go around calling others "pathetic" when you have been coming back to this comment section REPEATEDLY to talk shit to almost anyone who dares to agree with the video, like a fucking twat. Hypocrite much?
15:07 Ironically enough even though DOA5 doesn't have a button for stance switching, there is actually a minor gameplay element tied to the stances since it affects how close both players can get to one another (thus closed and open stanced combos.)
Goddamnit you had to go and convince me of all this and now I'm never going to be able to not see it. And I LIKE playing MKX! DAMN YOU SUGARPUNCH! (No but seriously, this was great. I love having stuff I never would have consciously noticed spelled out for me by an expert, and realizing it was subtly impacting my enjoyment without me realizing it.)
Am no expert on animation or games design but I always hated this game for the animation . Now finally I realized am not alone yet an expert pointing this out clearly just feel great
Cant believe that this is the only video on TH-cam that talks about how bad the animations are in MK. I have always felt that something was off in their animations and this was the only video that I found that explains it. I only played until MK3. When Tekken 3 came out I was so impressed with the animations and played the Tekken series ever since.
5:36 - WTF IS THAT? That animation is just amazing! Im sold on that character even tho i dont know ANYTHING about him. It feels scary, dangerous and mad.
I always called MK and Injustice as clay fighters. As juggling always felt like hitting a clay ball in the air multiple times. Now I understand why I felt that way.
I have never once complained about the animation. This video was great you got my sub. I think the animation works for this specific IP but they def can be hella better and I’m with it this movement 100%
Hahaha holy shit those fucking crouch kick animations... I have a friend who does Animations for and mo-cap clean up... he'll have a heart attack over this. Especially as NRS has such a huge budget.
I just discovered your channel. Way to go! I'm not as a game nerd as you but I'm a player, and I spent time trying to be an animator. I did not understand the praises on mortal kombat new games, I found the animation flaws so obvious!! Thanks, I'm going to loose few hours of my life on your channel now.
THANK YOU for making this video and breaking down what many have been saying for years! It actually turned me off from the franchise even though I have been big a MK fan since 1992. When Deadly Alliance was first showed before it's release, I said "it looks like claymation". It's cartoony and I never could get into it. Mortal Kombat characters' stances look really uncomfortable and the graphics are sub-par. They're wasting so much potential. They should take pointers from Tekken 7 which has amazing graffics and animation, as well as the ones you showed here. I'm loyal but I didn't buy/play Armageddon, DC, the Injustice games, or MK:X. I gave up. Really hope they fix this problem because it does make a significant difference. Animation is everything in a fighting game with human characters. Yiu have it down to a science and I really hope the Mortal Kombat developers take this for what it is--constructive criticism and a genuine admiration for the franchise, and really use it to improve such a great product.
Man look at all these people defending NRS's shotty animation standards. Is this what I sounded like when I defended Suicide Squad as a great movie? Of course the answer is no. Suicide Squad was an epic movie with no narrative flaws what so ever.
Yup...and Mortal Kombat 11 has come out and aghhhh same mistakes. You are so right. And the one that stand out the most for me is the poor payout in those fatalities 😔
An interesting problem I saw no mention of in the video is that there is no weight throughout the length of the animation; IRL, part of the physicality we perceive in motion is that not all parts are equally rapid. This is related to the key poses, yes, but it also means that some parts of the range of motion will be considerably (and quite visibly) slower than other parts. In MKX and MKXL, attacks look like no part of them is any slower or faster; no part of the animation feels like the muscles move any slower at one point, compared to another. This is very clearly wrong.
What was the name of that music track in the beginning with the piano? It sounds like a training stage of a fighting game I just can't put my hand on it.
You also forgot to note the Virtua Fighter series. Game regularly has characters switching how they stand depending on when they used certain spinning attacks. Heck, Jacky has a simple move that purposely switched how he stood so that he could mix-up which way his own spin attacks would go (in case the opponent side-stepped the wrong way). But Virtua Fighter does it really well because everything flowed together naturally... that and it is a full 3D arena fighter. This video is good. Should do a follow-up on exceptional fighting animations.
I really hope NRS saw this. I'm an MK fan but they need a lot of work on their character models and animation. The faces in MK 10 looked like they were 2 dimensional and most of the character faces were hideous. Only Tanya, Mileena, Kuai, Hanzo and Kenshi looked good. And now they ruined Kuai's face in MK11.
MK seems to focus a lot less on actual martial arts the past few games so it, kinda makes sense why it is this way. Though I don't really get the bit with Torr though because... the dude's arms are each like torso-wide, I don't think he _needs_ his whole core to lift a regular sized person.
@@scottchaison1001 every character had a chain punch, every character had a low spinning sweep kick, everyone had the same uppercut. SF 2 had so much more variety between each character which made it feel like you were using a different martial art for each character.
1:15 "Looking too far into it because you're an animation major"... Just like how that one guy is looking too far into my constant vomiting just because he's my doctor! Or the other guy is looking too far into my divorce just because he's my lawyer!
A wonderful piece of work, and I eagerly await your video on Erron Black. A small note: there is a small mechanical reason for the stance switch command, as the hitboxes and hurtboxes are slightly shifted based on the stance side you're in, which slightly affects range and such of moves. They're rare, but there at stance-specific combos.
i cant pinpoint the problem on mortal kombat animation before and ready to disagree with your argument, but after finish your video i can understand and my view just become like you on mortal kombat animation. good video dude.
This is one of the few videos on TH-cam that changed something in the world. One point on how an NRS fails on something very crucial to another fighting game is the stance position (changing stances). In Virtua Fighter (a game almost completely forgotten) an "open" or "close" position relative to the opponent will determine what strategy/combo will work.
![หมานแต่ผัวเขา - แสตมป์ โตเกียวมิวสิค [ OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/m0g1TSBJPgo/mqdefault.jpg)
![[สตรีมสด] เปิดแพ็ค Show Time Bullet Header สายเปิดโหม่งมาอีกแล้ว ! #efootball](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DuMr2uE8KOY/mqdefault.jpg)
The "low kick" duet at the end killed me.
Damn, I was scrolling through the comments close to the end of the video, when I read your comment I scrolled back up, perfectly timed with the ending. Damn that was good timing
id like to add my own criticism or pet peeve
The color palette is so awful, i though the point of MK characters having bright colors was to stand out and be memorable but in MKX they are so desaturated to the point where they get lost in the background and it gets really annoying when playing and especially since a lot of the cast have dark and black clothing. it's kind of like the movie adaptations of Xmen, all of their memorable costumes that give them all the personality are being replaced by the same, uninspired, boring black uniforms.
Great breakdown I agree when I first play this I first notice this.
add the fact they put too much motion and bright colors in the backgrounds and you have the perfect trainwreck.... oh and dont get me started on stages with elements that reach the characters, yea im talking about a certain blood ocean
Y E S
YES
YES
THIS IS TRUE!!!!
ALL OF THEM ARE TRUE!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Injustice: Gods Among Us had the same problem
Part of the reason why Deadpool 3 is bringing the old outfits back.
For the record: DOA's stance does actually affect gameplay, but only really at a high level. If both characters's bodies are facing separate background/foreground, it's considered a "closed stance". If the same, it's an "open stance". Certain moves will affect the opponent differently depending on the stance.
Virtua Fighter has this same open/closed stance concept, but it's much more prevalent as its tracking moves are affected.
I actually just learned something right there. I mean, I know you posted that a year ago at this point, but still, nice to know!
@@flamewolfscout3978 ikr
Yeah, its a big part of DOA5 (Jacky, Akira, and ayane for e.g)
I've always felt that something felt off about MK's animations that turned me away from the game. That "trying to throw a punch over a waist-high fence" bit summed it up to me better than I could have.
Gettles
The funny part is that the actual iconic MK generic move (because frame data is hard) is the uppercut which I think works.
Yeah, like whenever you're talking about writing, animation, act structure, etc. there's a pretty good chance that most people won't immediately be able to point to the thing they're looking at and say "Oh, this is the problem". But, even if you don't notice, your brain probably does, which makes it feel 'off' even if you're not really sure why.
I feel like there's a lot of people who look at analysis of stuff like that and they just hand-wave it as nitpicking when it's super important to sell the experience.
They have always looked a bit robotic and unnatural tbh
@@suddenllybah I think the leg sweep is the worst but God the upper cut
MK 4 animates the best out of all 3d MK games in my opinion
i always thought of mk games as stiff but never understood why. thanks for the breakdown
Me too, I always felt like something was off with the animations, but couldn't put my finger on it
well in MK1, 2, 3 and Trilogy it was a result of the motion capture. MK4 was just bad. The next 3 games were an improvement, yes but still noticeably trying too hard. I think with MKX and MKXL there is no excuse anymore.
he better only be talking about x cause if he isn't FUCK HIM!!
reymart christian Cruz copypasta harder m8
thereisnousername99 FINALLY
SOMEONE
I liked your comment
At the beginning of the video: another whiny criticizing a game he doesn't like.
5 minutes in: damn he's right
lol
Martinsuki THIS was exactly my thoughts!
That just shows your own fanboy bias that you were that quick to write off his complaints as "whiny criticism." Learn to have an open mind and accept that nothing's perfect.
stfu
You're like that mom who yells at their kid to wash the dishes while they clearly see them washing the dishes. OP already admitted his own bias and even stepped over it to really appreciate the vid. You just commented for the sake of being a shitter.
reymart christian Cruz i appreciate the attempt in english, but please, fuck off.
I teach game animation and I actually use this video quite a bit in class because so many of my students try to argue that MK has great animation (they tend to laud its realism...lol); and specifically much better animation than a series like Street Fighter. I'll argue them down for a bit, but then decide it's much easier to just show them this video haha. I also enjoy that you go through some basic fundamentals to reinforce some of the things I teach in class and show what looks good and what doesn't. Great stuff.
@AT Productions It's crazy how much visual fidelity influences people's view of animation. And of course some people just view animation in terms of how pretty something is, like they literally don't know the difference between graphics and animation haha.
AT Productions
This is why that awful Lion King remake exists.
Have you showed them Darkstalkers/KoF animations?
@@WikiHL Oh most definitely. Darkstalkers and Third Strike are two pieces of my holy grail for 2D fighting game animation haha. I love that Darkstalkers does so much with such a limited amount of frames. KoF can be inconsistent but overall has some great stuff too.
I disagree, the fact you have to level down to the fact that you can’t convince your class and having to resort to a higher influence, this being another professional animation major further supports this.
I believe mkx has good animation for a fighting game, I see it like the naruto vs pain fight. It breaks traditional fighting game norms, it’s rapid, fast and all the characters move with fluidity.
The gameplay at hand is what we are watching and it embraces it fully. You can’t possibly tell me that street fighter gameplay is as energetic or rapidly paced as mkx.
I never understood why people harped on MK's animation, but I get it now.
To be honest, I still don't really care. But this video was great in helping me to understand. Great insight from an animator.
It's harder not to care when you play a lot of these kinds of games.
@@sladejosephwilson2300 I don't know I only play fighting games and I also don't really care. Injustice 2 was the only time it was noticable for me.
@@slamtown1903 Well it's 2018 man. This crap reminds me of the movement from ps1 games. Even the cheapest fighter does it better.
@@sladejosephwilson2300 ps1 games are dope though. street fighter ex hell yea.
@@slamtown1903 It's 2018 man. The shit looks bad. Even a cheap ass anime fighter has better animations
Read the title. Always thought that myself. As a martial artist I always cringed at characters in the 3D games because they don’t keep their core still. You have to keep your core solid as you move, throwing fast snapping punches and kicks. In a real fight you would lose your balance and fall over doing fast moves. Not only is keeping balance crucial, it looks cool and stylish.
(Edit) I commented before even watching the video and you hit all my points and more. 🤘🤘
Real martial artists also don't punch your fist through people's solarplexis and rip out their innerds, but, ya know.... Video games?
As a real person, I always cringed at characters in the real world who became martial artists because they didn't keep their core of shit nobody cares about. Lols
@@davecarsley8773 Your point?
@@uppercutgrandma4425 I cringed at the fact that you cared enough to reply at something no one supposedly cares about.
Funnily enough, the characters do keep their core muscles rigid whilst using weapons. As a practitioner of mostly weapon based martial arts, I can say some of it is biomechanically sound, if horribly awkward looking (scorpion's uppercut slash).
Whenever a new Mortal Kombat game is out I always come to your videos. MK1 still has the same issues with some animations and it's really sad.
Wait, does it? It seems to fix a lot of it to me
@@richardw1043have you seen Johnny’s front kick?
That kicking animation while the characters are crouching gives me anxiety.
Want some eye candy? Check out Tekken 7. Their Slow Mo shots during fights are practically there to just show off their glorious animation.
I dont play Tekken cause i hate 80% of the cast,
I dont play Mortal Kombat cause all MK games have shit animations and shit design.
Ah yes, I love watching slo mo close up action of my characters leg clipping through my opponents character.
Ive only played NRS for the longest time, and since this videos, i still play them and have fun, but oh boi did i find gold moving away to other fighting games
Im having a blast with DBFZ, wich working with so little frames and still making things readable with clarity is amazing, the new GG strive is from arc system so no disapointment
But Tekken, you fucking feel every punch, sure the hitstun, close up camera and particles help, but the pure force they put in the punch, you feel it
And to reveal the SHENANIGANS...
HOW DID THAT HIT ME!?!
@@Ramsey276one BRO I TOTALLY SIDE STEPPED! AWW SHUCKS, I WENT LEFT INSTEAD OF RIGHT!!!
Lets start the movement to raise awareness for good animation. I firmly believe in this cause.
X Life we should, someone tweet this out
will support
start the.... "movement" get it? Because it's about movement? I'll go.
If anyone is going to raise awareness for good animation, it's certainly not going to be this idiot, he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Go to any animation channel that teaches 3D animation, not 2D animation, and learn a thing or two. He's applying faulty principles that don't mesh with the art style or the medium.
"guys guys he talked bad about muhhh muh gaaame, I didn't watch the video! buh let's ignore the fluid animation from smaller studios like Soul Calibur, Street Fighter V, Dead Or Alive, Dragon Ball Super with actual martial arts attacks and poses!!11!1! he don't know what he is talking about even though he's probably studied animation with a degree more than me! but listen to me because because im right! >:[[["
It always amazed me how people could say that the animations in MK are good.
It amazes me how you're fooling yourself into thinking those people exist.
No one said they're good, just because there are people that don't mind it's flaws doesn't mean they call it good.
Learn the fucking difference between calling something good and accepting it's flaws.
@@daddysaso my brother said it's good tho 😐
@@daddysasoChill, netherealm isn't paying you to defend their games
Personally, I think Jason's idol animation is quite good. I think the way he tilts his head while studying his victim fits his "personality" quite well, in my option of course
>idol
I agree 100%. I'm surprised you didn't talk about how characters lay down horizontally when getting juggled. It looks disgusting
MEAD3MAYNE how else are they supposed to look while being juggled
Uhh look at Marvel vs capcom, Or smash, or blazblue or any other game with air combos. The characters don't fucking lay down in the air while the opponent slaps their feet.
MEAD3MAYNE games like those have it like that because they're meant for air combos and putting them vertical makes it easier to hit them. I'm talking about games that are more ground based like mk, sf, tekken. they have it horizontally because the combos are easier to hit in a ground based game.
Sf definitely doesn't have that problem either. Open your eyes dude
MEAD3MAYNE um yea they do, when you launch them it has the same animation.
As a black belt in kempo, you're correct about posture. Being hunched over like scorpion is not a good stance, and moving like that in the idle animations will tire you out, when you couldve saved that energy for a punch or kick. The letting loose stance is a big no no as it REALLY tires you out, but people do it to cope with the fight to show "Yea! Lets do this!". The calm and collected posture is smart as it gives you the ability to keep your cool and fight more fluidly, but it leaves you wide open for an attack if you're not careful. The beastly posture shows the fighter is animalistic, unpredictable, crazy or a very dirty fighter, which actually has a lot of advantages as it strikes fear into an opponent. The posture sub zero uses is VERY effective as it is a defensive stance, one hand is in front so he can block, grab, or reach with ease, and his other arm is there to pull a punch or collect more power for a strike. The feet also being flat shows balance, their feet are glued to the floor to prevent ease of being knocked down. But you are right, mortal kombats fighting stances are not good as it can hinder fighting ability and stamina due to poor posture or excessive movement
Interesting, thank you for sharing.
Pathetic comment
@@offended323 Offended got offended huh...
@@anibalrodriguez2626
Offended by pathetic comments? Well, if you wanna see it like that.
Geez, why so salty?
I liked Liu kang animations in 9, he looked so footsie, very in tune with a character which most signature moves involved his legs. Also im glad im not the only one to notice the lack of charisma from 70% of the MK cast, aside from my man Johnny Cage, the mascots of the franchise sub zero/scorpion and Raiden with the main duo Liu Kang and Kung Lao, everyone else is just meh in both personality and design.
In Liu Kangs defense... he is dead.
MrSunshine1079
Squigly and Hsien-Ko walk by.
Lord Raptor then bounces into frame.
It's like MK and Injustice characters are "uncomfortable while fighting, making me, the player, feel uncomfortable while playing and watching. "
As someone who does boxing as has experience in martial arts, these animations are atrocious. My coach would slap the shit out of the MK fighters for how they throw a punch. All off balance and slap-like.
Don't say stupid things.
@@scottchaison1001take your own advice corporate bootlicker
@@scottchaison1001???
Coming back here to say they listened to almost nothing 😭
I totally agree about everything you said here. I used to be a professional character animator and it pains me to see that both MK and Injustice, both made big-budget by an awesome studio with highest-quality character models, has animations below the level of an amateur indie project.
Presumably because they spend 90% of the animation budget on the cinematics and ultra-brutal finishing / super moves and then afterwards remember “oh fuck we’re supposed to make a fighting game alongside it too?!”
Because stances are the least of their problems
@@darkshat3077Sad, because stances are among the most important things in a fighting game. All the stances in MK look like guys who have never fought in their life lmao. like a discord mod trying to look cool and shit with their made up kung fu stance
Why does mk have so many blind fanboys?
I don't know every mk had awkward animations but despite that I still enjoy the mortal kombat series.
I'm actually amazed you STOPPED where you did. There's this sort of fluidity to TAKING hits that MK is really bad about, especially in terms of momentum, and it's one of my biggest problems with the series. It's something that Soul Calibur does well and it's one of DOA's major strengths, but MK's failure at it is part of why it feels so stiff.
Pete Martinez - "No-sell" animation.
I think the problem with NRS/MK as a whole is that they're hamstrung by their origins. The original Mortal Kombat used live action rendering to give what was pretty unprecedented levels of detail in characters. Five games of the series rendered things this way, so the series had an iconic look to its characters. Only so much can be tweaked with photo rendered characters. "Live action" renderings have much less wiggle-room for distortion before they look offputting. But 16-bit video gaming was much more primitive than 32-bit (and beyond), so this limitation wasn't as noticeable. It wasn't until the 3D era that the series started to show its age. Now that we're in the modern era, characters have very little room to change. Characters aren't photo rendered now, but the series is arguably defined by its wooden character action. The same distortions, framing, and other animation features other 2D-to-3D franchises have been able to use are too foreign a concept for NRS to consider. The studio repeatedly fails to make bold design choices and instead is content to wallow in safe bets always
Nah, MK9 is great, I don't know what are you talking about.
@@scottchaison1001
MK9 was mid at best and the reason it even got so much praise was because it came after MKvsDCU
This is why I haven't played Mortal Kombat since 3. Everything just looks "off". Even to a layperson. I play a ton of fighting games, but not MK. People would ask me why, and I would say it's too "floaty". Not the best description, but the video sums up a lot of my problems.
Thats the most fucking retarded shit ive ever read
@@lyricchristopher503 use your big boy words so that everyone understands what you mean.
@The Monster Under Your Bed ur a loser
@The Monster Under Your Bed the gameplay itself is actually great, even if it doesn't try to sell you on it with the animation.
@@lyricchristopher503
lmao
Not gonna lie, I went into this video expecting it to sound pissy and whiney.
I am so happy I was proven wrong.
Yeah, MK's animation DOES look watered down compared to LITERALLY ANY OTHER FIGHTING GAME. You have opened my eyes, good sir.
Good job! 👏
For those complaining that "This is a video game with a crazy universe, why should we expect any rules to be followed?"
Willing suspension of disbelief allows me, for the purposes of enjoying the work, accept the idea that people can create ice or generate fireballs with their hands, or enough strength to cut off human body parts "cleanly" is moderately common.
What it doesn't allow for is people not behaving sensibly for the context they are in. Like for example the character, who is human in all other respects, and the "magic" of that universe" doesn't demand it, contorts their body inhumanly to make that fireball and only in that context.
Yes, Mortal Kombat is a crazy universe, but nothing about it would give us the impression that the core fundamentals of balance and momentum would be different; gravity still works.
There are just more tools to add confounding variables.
Or more generally, that people presented as skilled fighters actually look like they understand the basics.
If your character has something about them that justifies breaking rules, then yeah, ok.
Like for stance and balance, if the character has a such a weird body shape that normal poses wouldn't make sense for them, or they have non-locomotive flight abilities so balance is a non-issue for them anyways. Then, OK, yeah I can buy it.
But many of the characters in MK11 have no such justification, and yet break that rule anyways.
Yes exactly. Characters defying gravity is breaking the rules of MK's world. Firing a fireball isn't. And no one is complaining about that. But gravity is still a thing so this animation is just inacceptable.
Too much text
So you are bothered by the charcters not punching with proper stance but isn't bothered by the fact that in all fighting games, you can stop someone twice your size charging torwards you with a big punch by poking him in the legs because you have "frame advantage"? Or the fact that everybody blocks in a nonsensical way just puttin their hands in front of their body and taking the full hit passively? As if somehow putting your hand in front of your face blocks an overhead just because you're standing. At this point its not suspension of disbelief, its just cherry picking.
@TaigaHolic same lmao
@@Freefrosthmm good point but it's a damn *fighting* game. Imagine if a Jackie Chan fight sequence was directed by that guy who made that sh!t super shaky cam fight scene, it'd be an absolute travesty sure in universe it would makes sense that they would be fighting, logically speaking but you'd lose the clarity, the back and forth and progression of the fight. It's not about what's logical, it's about what's cool and fact is other games animate in a triple a game more than mkx does, which means, not just cinematic wise but in game *fighting* wise, it looks cool, which is the point of animation
This one of the best videos I've ever seen. It's changed the way I think about animation. I've been playing fighting games competitively forever and it never hit me how much proper animation and characterization mattered. And just how the little details on character animation, overall color palette, etc are important for visual information. And how being a good animator requires you to think about adhering to real physics regardless of how fantasy the setting is.
What adds to MK's disjointed animation is that the games feel rigid to play too. Playing MK felt more like controlling a mech than an actual character, like the delay between doing things and how they looked was jarring. I loved the perspective this vid took on MKX's animation.
Every time a new nrs game comes around this video gets shared a ton
No.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that most of the attacks in both MKX and ow in Injustice 2 are based on spins. Everything is freakin spinning! None of the characters can do a combo without swinging their limbs or weapons like a maniac. I'm looking at combo videos in MKX and Injustice 2 and all I can see is Gun Jack from Tekken 3 doing the "Wild Swing".
Manobaru well, he does on his latest video
reymart christian Cruz copypasta harder m8
At least Smash Bros. has good spinning animations
Jason Alen *Loogie* *intensifies*
I know I'm late but I'm obligated to leave this here: "I'll try spinning. That's a good trick"
Sadly they never learned ☹️
PREACH. I absolutely hate nrs animations. Although they have gotten better in mk11, I still think they could have done better with the budget they have to work with. Smh
Don't say stupid things, MK9 is great.
There is something about MK9 that makes the animation look more natural than the latest MK games, even MK1. I can't figure it out but the engine of MK9 is amazing and made me wish NRS utilized this engine more.
Exactly.
What is worse is that a big chunck of the MK fanbase isn't even aware or care for this problem. And are problably in a very defensive mode to protect anything related to MK/NRS. Im a long time fan but agree with all of your points. It's only for the better of the MK series.
A huge chunk of the MK Fanbase are not Animation Majors. What did you expect, a Rebellion?
No i expect awareness atleast. Im not an animation artist and i can acknowlidge it too. The MK community should aswell as it does only better to their games.
Julio Brian Nor are they martial artists, have witnessed martial arts, or had any fight experience to know the difference. You don't have to be an animator. Even a white belt or some learning how to throw a punch from their dad in the backyard or whatever could tell the difference.
You acknowledge it because you had someone in this video explain it to you.
Lol exactly this. One of my homies wanted to actually get me the game so I could start playing with him (I'm more into capcom games and smash). I told him not to do it because even though MKX has good story and cool characters, I find the game and its gameplay absolutely hideous to watch and overall just feels super slow and clunky. However, I couldn't really explain to him the exact science of why the game was an abomination when he was insisting on an explanation, because he's really into MK.
I told my brother about our argument and he immediately linked me to this video, where this wonderful man perfectly and thoroughly explains why MKX fucking sucks.
I had my friend watch this video immediately after. To my surprise, he just laughed and admitted that this guy definitely makes sense, but at the end "it's just a game and it doesn't really matter if the animations look funny". Just to point out, my friend is also into league of legends, cod, assassin's creed, and fifa.
1:20 Naw. I'm a welder and even I noticed how bad MK's animation is. It aint just you.
Don't say stupid things.
@@scottchaison1001still coping huh
After I watch Peacemaker's trailer, nothings new still the same stiff animation.
Revisiting this video after MK1 came out. I hope you do the same breakdown for that game. I think NRS games are getting worse animation-wise.
You've put into words what I've been too indifferent to bother expressing whenever I'm asked why I don't play NRS games much.
I'm no animator but I understand balance, center-of-gravity, and proper form; enough to tell when something looks off, or absolutely hideous.
The things you highlighted have always been eyesores to me, and makes the game a chore for me to play for any extended period of time.
The thing that bothers me the most is MK's obsession with low kicks looking like they would break the character's joints/bones. Seriously...have these people at Neatherrealms Studios never seen human anatomy?
skillustrate - The game becomes a chore to play because of the animations? Are you kidding me?
If the actual GAMEPLAY is bad, THEN I would understand your pain. But you let some animations ruin your fun in a video game? This is a video game, buddy. Not a movie. This sounds a tad bit too whiny to me.
Some dude on earth why look at something subpar when you could look at something actually decent or even good?
Steven, got it? - Mortal Kombat X has more to offer than just its looks.
Some dude on earth still LOOKS subpar. Not saying it's a bad game, just that visuals are lacking.
honestly your idle animations part with the makoto sprite reminds me why I love makoto so goddamn much
just the way her flesh and lims stay absolutely stiff as stone while her clothing flows gently, and then intensely, in the breeze really conveys how absolutely like, angry and concentrated she is
genuinely my favorite SF character design by far
For animations based upon actual fighting, as someone who actually likes martial arts and understands what stances do to express where power comes from, and how a certain art moves and receives, and how characters have personality in movement, I agree with all of your points.
I am a fan of Mortal Kombat but I always knew that their actual poses and movement kinda sucked. There was a different time actually when in Deception and Armageddon they used some real stances from real martial arts, and they kinda worked like dead or alive as you mentioned in the video. I appreciated those stances that were accurate, but unfortunately they were mostly on side characters and still looked stilted and awkward. I'm still a fan of the games just because they're fun, but you're right.
Please do one for Mortal Kombat 1
did the weeb say he was done whit mk so he cant give you your opinions anymore
@@TheDarioushurtRight lmao. They won’t know what to think without another video breakdown.
Which ultimately goes to show that animations aren’t a problem, if 99% of the people who play the games don’t recognize them as such
@@EggEnjoyer it feels wrong, and currently MK1 is getting bad reviews. Casual fighting game fans which made a huge part of the sales of MK are moving away from MK1. The EVO tournament sign ups refelct this as more people are competing in SF 6 and Tekken, both of which have amazing animation and music and SF 6 has a very inovative world tour/story mode and so much more taht just makes MK1 look bad.
Thanks for putting in words what always put me off NRS games.
Puppet Kombat
Yeah, the same thing. It's pretty obvious, but when someone takes a serious analysis on **why** animation is crap, it makes things easier to understand and explain your thoughts on it.
Story and visual style aside, any fighting game relies on moves. Moves are based on animations. If animation is horseshit, it's pretty obvious that moves would be shitty aswell.
MK franchise is all about gore and violence, so that's why people buy it and do not care about animation. Casual gamers do not care about how deep gameplay is if you can cut your enemies in half and crush their skulls in slow-motion. When somebody wants to get a fighting game, others will recommend MK in most cases, because of its popularity.
Looks like the insecure weebs are starting to lash out against MKX with their only criticism being leveraged against it is some shitty animator who's gone nowhere on youtube, lmao. Keep raging, cucks.
Carlos Ferrão meaning you can't speak for yourself so you need someone eles to...
Critics also said MKX had great animation and graphics as well.
9:36 you killed me man
DD107 rip best jojo
I thought he was a little too nitpicky until I saw that.
No people. He’s not whining about something he doesn’t like. He’s criticizing something bad.
Expect for the snide remarks about the series and the characters lacking personality and the ending monologue about the game never being great without the good animations.
Those were clearly personal bias on his part.
Out of curiosity, what does the detached, impersonal, classy "objective" criticism of an arcade video-game franchise about cyborgs, bikini ninjas and cowboys ripping out each others' spines look like?
Hey look at that, you just described part of the personality that the game doesn't have! And, he was definitely doing both by the way.
@Jeeses99 i haven't lost hope in the next games, maybe the series might recover...
He talked about how the characters are supposed to feel like and how the animations don't do that justice. Like the whole tangent about Mileena's stance not feeling sexy, feral, or dangerous, just uncoordinated and messy.
The characters _have_ personalities, they're just not portrayed well due to the animation being lacking. Y'all missed the point entirely on purpose so you could complain huh? I refuse to believe people this stupid exist.
Ever see nerds fighting each other?.. Just watch MK animation...
Lmao
If they ever CROUCH...
XD
this video was a TREAT omg I'm subbing immediately.I have been on the MK animation hate train since 9 and I love how much more you pointed out that I wasnt even always able to see. 8 out of 8 would r8
Don't say stupid things, MK9 is great.
@@scottchaison1001 nah.... No stupid things said mk9 is mid
@@sethb023ify You say stupid things again. You like to say stupid things, huh?
Sorry, mate. MK9 is great.
Virtua Fighter has stance switching, and it affects combos quite a bit as well as what side your half circular moves will cover. It also has great animations, probably the best.
The fatalities are so overdone they're bad. You don't need 10 different killing blows, it redundant.
Honestly i agree. I understand why they exist since they're a staple but the focus on fatalities is just absurd at this point, they went from cool quick animations at the end to a fight to becoming literally multiple minutes long and are treated as the most important part of the game with so much of its marketing focused around it, hell its so bad they had to make Xrays which are just fatalities that don't kill you and they are easily the worse Super moves in video games because they take so god damn long to actually watch. I swear NRS has a fetish for making sure you're playing the game for as little as possible
they really put too much energy into the fatalities and killing blows. Their's no balance between action and gratuitus violence.
Such great games with great atmospheres and characters but unplayable due to the stiff comical animations.
Imagine calling the games unplayable just for that. Don't say stupid things.
@@scottchaison1001
Imagine defending mediocrity and spamming the same reply on every comment. Grow up
Street Fighter: Hey, watch this guys.... Yo, MKX! Act like you're going to fight someone!
MKX: Oh- okay, you mean like this? (starts swaying) I'm-a gonna kick someone's ass! C'mon, I'm so ready to hit something!
Tekken: Poor guy's been spending too many nights at the bar recently....
Dracocrusher
KOF - I think there’s a purpose to the sloppiness...
LMAO
8:50-8:53 It's probably hard to make a standing overhead punch look cool, but Jax looks freaking stupid.
I can't believe they kept that for MK 11, it looks exactly the same
You can try to do such a punch yourself with your whole weight behind it, record it and just use that as a reference for the animation. They don't even do that for the animation, they're just guessing with no knowledge of anatomy, gravity, impact, etc, kinda sad. Anyway, trying to do the punch yourself might give you an idea of how it could look. Or look at other fighting games.
It always felt slow and controlled to me like everyone's fighting underwater with weighted clothing. Overall I like how in depth this video is it's such an interesting watch.
Netherrealm should get some actual martial arts experts, or maybe a second team in Japan to design their animations.
Classic MK when run by Midway did have martial arts experts, but they were forced to use similar moves for every character.... everyone had an uppercut, a low sweep a hard standing roundhouse or crescent kick, and a string of high punches that weren't strategic to the gameplay.
Two years later aaand...
Yeah...it's still the same.
I think mk11 has less fence punches
I never noticed any of this...to be honest I don't really care about it, but yeah! it definitely makes sense, I hope they see this so they take note and make their games even better :)
perfect response to this kind of video
Agreed
@@saulspanco854 it is also useful as reference and analysis for game developers, which i thought it'd be most of the public here
2 years later........ they still fail at it
Glad I'm not the only one who felt MK animation was shit. Now I know how/why.
You're wrong.
Hmm, no mention to Tekken in regards to changing stances, or even how to animate 3d fighter right? That game does it the best of all. Check out Howarang's move list.
Cant believe Ive found a video talking about something I thought about for so long. Oh boy I’ll enjoy every second of it
And til this day, Mortal Kombat has yet to fix this issue. Their animations are still trash.
Don't exaggerate.
You wrong , in fact he admitted that MK11 animations are great for the most part, except jumping , sword swinging , dashes and a few cases . With MK1 it’s not relevant at all.
@@Outcast89R You seriously need to go back to that video.
He doesn't say they're great, not even close. He says in general there's as much okeyish animation as there is bad animation. In fact, the video ended in ABI giving up on MK delivering animations worth its budget after seeing how Sindel and Terminator were horribly animated.
The way the characters walk and their stances still look stiff. and so does the jumping. but once the attacks get going the movement seems to be better. Game like Tekken, VIrtua Fighter an Street Fighter have always animated better than MK.
Great video. As someone who studied character animation, and who's been a martial arts instructor for 20 years, I just have to give this a thumbs up :)
You're clearly a very shitty martial arts instructor. I could probably beat the shit out of you, what do you teach, some fake form of Karate, lol?
Yes, I edited my own comment, because I'm not a stupid inbred who leaves mistakes in his posts, unlike you apparently, who can't even use the proper "your" (it's 'you're'), and refuses to use any sort of proper punctuation to get his ideas across.
" liked your own comment"
Yea, so? Who's gonna stop me? Did I say I didn't? Clearly if such petty little things bother you so deeply, the only one who's a joke here, would be you. Have fun in that empty thing you call a life with such a shit personality that you'll never have any actual friends or actual relationships or veritable happiness by any measure. Bye!
Oh, and FYI, I edited this comment.
dave longsdorf Why did you feed the troll?
The extra irony here is that even though he's crying like a little baby at me for liking my own comment, he went and signed onto a separate profile, just to pretend like someone else gave a shit about him, lmao, talk about pathetic.
bud389 Who the hell are you even talking about here? Put down the tinfoil hat. All these keyboard warrior-ings have messed up your brain.
Also don't go around calling others "pathetic" when you have been coming back to this comment section REPEATEDLY to talk shit to almost anyone who dares to agree with the video, like a fucking twat. Hypocrite much?
15:07 Ironically enough even though DOA5 doesn't have a button for stance switching, there is actually a minor gameplay element tied to the stances since it affects how close both players can get to one another (thus closed and open stanced combos.)
Although I enjoy MKX I will say your points are very valid. Here's to hoping with the new engine they did a better job with animations!
Goddamnit you had to go and convince me of all this and now I'm never going to be able to not see it. And I LIKE playing MKX! DAMN YOU SUGARPUNCH!
(No but seriously, this was great. I love having stuff I never would have consciously noticed spelled out for me by an expert, and realizing it was subtly impacting my enjoyment without me realizing it.)
...?
grow up dude
Did... Did you just reply to yourself?
Am no expert on animation or games design but I always hated this game for the animation .
Now finally I realized am not alone yet an expert pointing this out clearly just feel great
This game in a nutshell: WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR!!!
SpongeBob music mod?
Oh wow now that I look at it some of mk9s idle stance are better. Lui kang looks like he’s lazy compared to mk9
Yep
Cant believe that this is the only video on TH-cam that talks about how bad the animations are in MK. I have always felt that something was off in their animations and this was the only video that I found that explains it. I only played until MK3. When Tekken 3 came out I was so impressed with the animations and played the Tekken series ever since.
5:36 - WTF IS THAT? That animation is just amazing! Im sold on that character even tho i dont know ANYTHING about him. It feels scary, dangerous and mad.
I know I'm 4 years late but I'll say it anyway its ‘Painwheel’ from Skullgirls
>Johnny cage
>only MK character with personality
This is the only thing I disagree with you on
I agree, you have a point. Still love the game, it's really fun to play, but it can be better.
I always called MK and Injustice as clay fighters. As juggling always felt like hitting a clay ball in the air multiple times.
Now I understand why I felt that way.
I have never once complained about the animation. This video was great you got my sub. I think the animation works for this specific IP but they def can be hella better and I’m with it this movement 100%
Hahaha holy shit those fucking crouch kick animations... I have a friend who does Animations for and mo-cap clean up... he'll have a heart attack over this. Especially as NRS has such a huge budget.
Beyond two souls better than heavy rain, now that's a good one haha
I just discovered your channel. Way to go! I'm not as a game nerd as you but I'm a player, and I spent time trying to be an animator.
I did not understand the praises on mortal kombat new games, I found the animation flaws so obvious!!
Thanks, I'm going to loose few hours of my life on your channel now.
Very well said. Each time I said mkx animations are very bad, they think am crazy. Still mad about how fucked up Lui kang looks.
THANK YOU for making this video and breaking down what many have been saying for years! It actually turned me off from the franchise even though I have been big a MK fan since 1992. When Deadly Alliance was first showed before it's release, I said "it looks like claymation". It's cartoony and I never could get into it. Mortal Kombat characters' stances look really uncomfortable and the graphics are sub-par. They're wasting so much potential. They should take pointers from Tekken 7 which has amazing graffics and animation, as well as the ones you showed here. I'm loyal but I didn't buy/play Armageddon, DC, the Injustice games, or MK:X. I gave up. Really hope they fix this problem because it does make a significant difference. Animation is everything in a fighting game with human characters. Yiu have it down to a science and I really hope the Mortal Kombat developers take this for what it is--constructive criticism and a genuine admiration for the franchise, and really use it to improve such a great product.
I stopped reading when you same mk has subpar graphics. Are you high or just need glasses
Man look at all these people defending NRS's shotty animation standards. Is this what I sounded like when I defended Suicide Squad as a great movie? Of course the answer is no. Suicide Squad was an epic movie with no narrative flaws what so ever.
it's the same shit, only smells different
you can love it but you can't defend it
reymart christian Cruz Lmao!
lol
I have not seen a single comment defending the animation, and I'm pretty far down by now.
Yup...and Mortal Kombat 11 has come out and aghhhh same mistakes. You are so right. And the one that stand out the most for me is the poor payout in those fatalities 😔
This video still holding up to this day. MK1 hasn't changed at all.
I am now haunted by that crouching low kick. Oh. My, Gawd.
3:35 to be fair, Bo Rai Cho is a drunk martial artist, so it would make sense for him to be hunched back and looking like a drunk person
they still got the same issues in mk11 wich is laughable
And they will STILL have those issues in “MK1”, which is embarrassing lol.
@@orlanzo2621 It’s no hope at this point lol
@@orlanzo2621 damn... even MK1?
What song is playing in the back
An interesting problem I saw no mention of in the video is that there is no weight throughout the length of the animation; IRL, part of the physicality we perceive in motion is that not all parts are equally rapid. This is related to the key poses, yes, but it also means that some parts of the range of motion will be considerably (and quite visibly) slower than other parts.
In MKX and MKXL, attacks look like no part of them is any slower or faster; no part of the animation feels like the muscles move any slower at one point, compared to another. This is very clearly wrong.
What was the name of that music track in the beginning with the piano? It sounds like a training stage of a fighting game I just can't put my hand on it.
You know, I'd love to see A.B.I. do a Design Shop on Killer Instinct
You also forgot to note the Virtua Fighter series. Game regularly has characters switching how they stand depending on when they used certain spinning attacks. Heck, Jacky has a simple move that purposely switched how he stood so that he could mix-up which way his own spin attacks would go (in case the opponent side-stepped the wrong way).
But Virtua Fighter does it really well because everything flowed together naturally... that and it is a full 3D arena fighter.
This video is good. Should do a follow-up on exceptional fighting animations.
Why do the characters feel like elastic rubber puppets?
I really hope NRS saw this. I'm an MK fan but they need a lot of work on their character models and animation. The faces in MK 10 looked like they were 2 dimensional and most of the character faces were hideous. Only Tanya, Mileena, Kuai, Hanzo and Kenshi looked good. And now they ruined Kuai's face in MK11.
But did you see the animations for Mk11?
@@PrinceRalexiel I played the Beta and they vastly improved. I would like to think that these videos helped.
MK seems to focus a lot less on actual martial arts the past few games so it, kinda makes sense why it is this way.
Though I don't really get the bit with Torr though because... the dude's arms are each like torso-wide, I don't think he _needs_ his whole core to lift a regular sized person.
MK was weird with Martial Arts from the beginning MK 1, they hired experienced Martial Arts actors but their moves all were the same types of attacks.
@@Swordsman-gr9qcI don't see the problem.
@@scottchaison1001 every character had a chain punch, every character had a low spinning sweep kick, everyone had the same uppercut. SF 2 had so much more variety between each character which made it feel like you were using a different martial art for each character.
1:15 "Looking too far into it because you're an animation major"... Just like how that one guy is looking too far into my constant vomiting just because he's my doctor! Or the other guy is looking too far into my divorce just because he's my lawyer!
A wonderful piece of work, and I eagerly await your video on Erron Black. A small note: there is a small mechanical reason for the stance switch command, as the hitboxes and hurtboxes are slightly shifted based on the stance side you're in, which slightly affects range and such of moves. They're rare, but there at stance-specific combos.
What are your thoughts on MK9?
the animations are the single reason i havent bought the game
13:38 "What happened to the intestines?!" That disappointment in your voice made me laugh
i cant pinpoint the problem on mortal kombat animation before and ready to disagree with your argument, but after finish your video i can understand and my view just become like you on mortal kombat animation. good video dude.
This is one of the few videos on TH-cam that changed something in the world.
One point on how an NRS fails on something very crucial to another fighting game is the stance position (changing stances).
In Virtua Fighter (a game almost completely forgotten) an "open" or "close" position relative to the opponent will determine what strategy/combo will work.
Wut...this video changed pretty much nothing. I don't even understand that comment.
Few? Lol, no. I didn't expect my old comment to be here. Lmao