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Which old school 2d fighter had the best animations?

wafflebrain

wafflebrain

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,198
I just picked up KOF XIII on Steam and have always loved how fluid the animation in the characters and background are. I'd love to discover more fighters with great animation like this, so what would you consider to have some of the best?

More interested in the older stuff so stuff like Xrd not so much as impressive as that is. Basically across the board 2d animation/sprites, no cel shaded examples please :)

I hear SFIII has some of the best so might pick that up based on the recommends here.
 

Syril

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,895
wafflebrain said:
I hear SFIII has some of the best so might pick that up based on the recommends here.
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Makoto is probably the best animated sprite character ever.

Garou Mark of the Wolves is really good too, and so is The Last Blade 2. Mark of the Wolves also has some of my favorite backgrounds.
 
BurnKnuckle21

BurnKnuckle21

Member
Nov 17, 2017
1,035
Can't post gifs atm but off the top of my head SF3, Garou, Last Blade 1 and 2. Even Art of Fighting 3 looked great for its time.
 
Futaleufu

Futaleufu

Banned
Jan 12, 2018
3,910
Street Fighter 3, Garou, The Last Blade, Art of Fighting 3, Samurai Shodown 3, Real Bout Special, Xmen Children of the Atom, The King of Fighters 97/98, Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3, Martial Masters
 
Ferrio

Ferrio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,046
Third Strike, Garou, and rarely mentioned Art of Fighting 3.

latest
 
Billy Awesomo

Billy Awesomo

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,768
New York, New York
Art of Fighting 3 sprite animations were amazing and giant (the game was interesting). Also it came out in like 1996, Other then that I'd say Mark of the wolves or Last blade 2

 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

Member
Dec 16, 2017
11,404
Third Strike, hands down. It's got the animation and at a good resolution. MOTW would be a good second, but not as close because even though it animated very well, the sprite are postage stamps being blown up to normal sizes and it hurts the fidelity. Third is a tie, for me, between AOF3 and Daraku Tenshi.
 
Neo0mj

Neo0mj

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,273
Does it have to be an old sprite based fighter? You mention KOF XIII in the OP. Anyways Skullgirls has some crazy 2D animation.

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If it has to be an old fighter..I'm biased towards the late CPS II games like Vampire Savior and the VS. series, even if they might not be as large or have as many frames as the few CPS III games we got.

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lazygecko

lazygecko

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,628
Syril said:
Makoto is probably the best animated sprite character ever.
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She looks fluid as hell cause her animations are heavily rotoscoped. Likely from a combination of live action footage (didn't they discover the source for one animation from an 80s music video?) and a 3D model reference. This also has the side effect of making her look sort of jarring and lack a lot of stylistic flair in the details when juxtaposed against the other characters.

Art of Fighting 3 looks like it was nearly 100% rotoscoped.
 
DrFunk

DrFunk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,854
Street Fighter 3, bar none. Close second to Garou.

Honorable mention to Martial Masters
 
Kung Fucius

Kung Fucius

Member
Jun 28, 2019
700
hikarutilmitt said:
Third Strike, hands down. It's got the animation and at a good resolution. MOTW would be a good second, but not as close because even though it animated very well, the sprite are postage stamps being blown up to normal sizes and it hurts the fidelity. Third is a tie, for me, between AOF3 and Daraku Tenshi.
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Thanks for this! Sometimes I think of that third game you mentioned, but I didn't know the name of it. I only know it as the game with the smelly karate guy.
 

Deleted member 35077

Self-requested ban
Banned
Dec 1, 2017
3,999
Some of the later KoF and Fatal Fury games have great animations, and you only need to look at Kim's pants to see how much care SNK gave to the small details. I don't think any fighter back in 95' came close to having the level of pants animation as Kim's pants.
 

Syril

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,895
lazygecko said:
She looks fluid as hell cause her animations are heavily rotoscoped. Likely from a combination of live action footage (didn't they discover the source for one animation from an 80s music video?) and a 3D model reference. This also has the side effect of making her look sort of jarring and lack a lot of stylistic flair in the details when juxtaposed against the other characters.

Art of Fighting 3 looks like it was nearly 100% rotoscoped.
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Are you thinking of Elena? She's the one where one of her win poses turned out to be from a David Lee Roth video.
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

Member
Dec 16, 2017
11,404
Castile said:
Some of the later KoF and Fatal Fury games have great animations, and you only need to look at Kim's pants to see how much care SNK gave to the small details. I don't think any fighter back in 95' came close to having the level of pants animation as Kim's pants.
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They actually redid his idle sprite entirely in KOF2002 because at the time it was Eolith and they put more focus on the Korean characters in 2001 and 2001 (which they developed).
 
XaviConcept

XaviConcept

Art Director for Videogames
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,896
New school: XIII and Skullgirls

Old school, Id rank them like this

  1. 3rd Strike
  2. Garou
  3. KoF XI
  4. Capcom vs SNK 2
  5. Alpha 3
  6. SvC Chaos
  7. Guilty Gear XX
  8. Samurai Shodown VI
  9. Darkstalkers 3
  10. Art of Fighting 3
  11. MvC2
  12. JoJo
  13. Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness
 
XaviConcept

XaviConcept

Art Director for Videogames
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,896
lazygecko said:
She looks fluid as hell cause her animations are heavily rotoscoped. Likely from a combination of live action footage (didn't they discover the source for one animation from an 80s music video?) and a 3D model reference. This also has the side effect of making her look sort of jarring and lack a lot of stylistic flair in the details when juxtaposed against the other characters.

Art of Fighting 3 looks like it was nearly 100% rotoscoped.
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Correction aside, references and roto are a really useful tool. They are also very easy to spot due to how many extra frames are there and how messy the silhouettes get (real life doesn't care about jaggies) When you have time you take the capture and mold it to your needs, with Makoto you can see that she is heavily referenced but also heavily modified, giving you the best marriage of both. Superb work there and probably where they wanted to get to when animating Elena.
 
leder

leder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,111
Some good mentions in here. Top tier is definitely SF3, Garou, Last Blade, Vampire Savior.

Another one that at least deserves a mention in this thread is Pocket fighter

 
Iori Loco

Iori Loco

Member
Nov 10, 2017
2,288
Among the best has to be Warzard/Red Earth. I think it's not strictly a fighting game, but a beat em up with a versus mode, so some of the cool characters aren't playable.

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ghibli99

ghibli99

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,704
Garou and Last Blade had some of the best. Maybe not in terms of frames, but expression and personality were so good. Third Strike will always blow me away though in terms of sheer fluidity.

Edit: Oh yeah, Darkstalkers series is up there too!
 
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