Absolutely love what Chinese studios are bringing into the world, its an absolutely awesome experience for me and relevant to evolving times

great video! loved all the awesome insight!

Yeah I understand what you’re saying but I just don’t think it’s a particularly meaningful critique with zzz at least. The over animation really fits the emotions and playfulness of the game. And it’s would be frankly very boring and not eye catching without it.

1:03:16 Thank you, lol. 1:03:21 And don't worry Dan, we'll get you hopelessly addicted one of these days, even if I have to get a job at DE and set you up with a sponsorship myself.

ZZZ may have a reputation for being a gooner game, but doing a perfect dodge in that game never gets old.

dan just dropping a 90 minute video out of nowhere the same year he also does all the highlights. we eating soo good this year

I do think that once you sit down and play the game for a bit, you kinda get used to how exxagerated it all is. Its still probably a bit too much but I don't mind it most of the time. I also think they've heard the criticisms and started to tone it down a bit.

Overwatch Cassidy dodge was not mentioned in FP dodges. Sad :(

I'm no animator, but what you said definitely makes sense. I feel like there is just no room to breathe and take in what's going on onscreen. Don't get me wrong, the animation is very beautiful and bubbly, but I feel like there is a need to tone down the animation in more serious or non action scenes to help give it a good pace.

Warframe does have a few characters with alternate dodge animations too. Wisp and Hildryn do a kind of dash forward instead of a roll. Hildryn's dodge is sort of like the heavy armor dodges from Soulslike games, and wisp's dodge helps her stay airborne.

I love this games animation in the combat and cinematics but ive never been that enthralled by the characters and now you tell me its BECAUSE of the animation? i need to lie down

Daaaaaan, what about a dinner time animation tier list? Anything where you get to have a meal, you can grade it not only on the way the food looks but also on variety and how each game incentivizes you to see the animation. Dining with friends in Yakuza LAD, Ignis prepping dinner for the boys in FFXV, Link utterly ruining his ingredients in BotW/TotK, a joke about the process of cooking a stack of porkchops in a minecraft furnace, all of Cooking Mama?

i could watch Billy for hours just by how expressive he is having no face at all

mine

Great video 👍

Criminally underrated content

The triple dodge in Black Myth: Wukong is really neat! Curving the staff in Kena: Bridge of Spirits is also a great touch. I'm also impressed with Max Payne 3's complexity. I know you already looked at a ridiculous number of games, but during the Castlevania portion, I kind of wish you'd looked at Shanoa's backflip from Order of Ecclesia; stylish, well-animated, and feels good to use, even if it doesn't grant invincibility. If you're looking for suggestions for similar video(s), I'd be interested in looking at parry/counter type animations.

What about Devil May Cry? Tekken? Yakuza? Viewtiful Joe?

This was an exceptional video to spend some time with. I enjoyed it and will likely watch it again... or a few more times. Breakdowns like this are absolutely my favorite. Thanks for taking the time, Dan. This was awesome.

I would really love to hear your opinion on the dodging in Dust: An Elysian Tale. I would also like to point out the visual clarity of the dodge in Gunfire Reborn.

Function and Animation delivered to *Nier* prefection, one might say?

You nailed it. I played this when i was rather young, so often id skip text or if i read it, it didnt fully click in my young brain. But i always knew what was going on in the story, and the impact of both the little and large scenes. Youve explained why that was the case. What an accessible story. They really need to sell the rights to like... Fortiche or something 😂

DMC5 Dante SDT dodge animation is S tier

Final Fantasy 5 is my favourite Final Fantasy game. I've been recently doing a playthrough of the pixel remaster version on my phone and the other day I was looking after my 4 year old nephew for a bit while his mom did some Christmas shopping on a rainy day. I was playing a bit of ff5 while he watched and I was kind of explaining what was going on and reading him the dialog and stuff. He was pretty into it asking me questions and stuff and getting excited. Spoilers ahead if you haven't played FF5 I was playing through the Phoenix tower and I got to the top and the cutscene with Hiryu played. I sort of explained a little bit what was happening without going into too much detail. Something like, he's your dragon friend and he said he wants to help on the adventure so he's giving you his power. I didn't explain what happened in the flashback with Lenna's mom or anything but afterwards it goes back to the tower and they're all standing there with their heads down and my nephew looked at me and said 'what's wrong uncle, why are they sad?' And it made me think of this video. My nephew can't read properly yet and he's never really played a lot of older 2d games. His parents do have an Xbox so he has played that, but, even still he could understand what was happening enough just from the animations that something sad had happened and that the characters in the game were sad about what happened even though I tried to explain it to him as positively as possible without mentioning any of the darker stuff. I just thought it was cool honestly and it makes me appreciate the game even more and the fact they were really able to convey things so well using such simple sprite animations. My nephew actually seemed to get way more into the game in general than I was expecting. I was honestly expecting him to be bored by it and want to do something else. He thought the chocobos and the fact I was flying around on a bird was hilarious. He's really into pirates so he got all excited when I told him that one of the party members was actually a pirate captain. He liked all the job costumes and wanted me to make the whole party into ninjas. He got super excited by Bahamut and all the summon spells and the battles in general. He asked me what all the monsters were and would get all excited when I'd beat them. He figured out right away the Magic Jars in the Phoenix Tower weren't real bad guys and he thought they were funny and silly. It makes me wonder if kids maybe can immerse themselves into those older games more thoroughly. He has a good imagination, like most kids, and it seems like his brain is far more able to fill in the blanks and imagine all the stuff the game leaves out.

Since you included Gacha games I suggest looking PGR as well. That one also has fantastic character animations. Its similar but different to ZZZ. It's also older but phenomenallg well animated.

First time i see big "gamer" cc includes gacha games Also there are 2B collab in PGR (same dev to WuWa, its feels similar in game)

Great video. I have no objection against this tierlist, but among those dodges I prefer some more than others even uf they are lower in the ranking. Besides Nier Automata I think my favorite dodge animations come from Monster Hunter World. They just feels really good to use and look really polished even among 3rd person action rpgs with that sort of heavier feeling combat. I mean games like Nier or Bayonetta inherently have a bit of an upperhand in this case imo, because they are completely over the top games that can get away with extremely flashy animations. Whereas animations in Dark Souls and Monster Hunter have to be more "grounded" to fit the setting and feel of their games. Speaking if Monster Hunter I really hope you will make a deep dive on Monster Hunter Wilds, bevause Capcom completely remade all of the charackter animations and they look so good. The player animations were the first thing I noticed when the game was announced and imo it's not getting enough attention.

Qick thought about Link‘s backflip: Maybe they choose it, just to have the backwards evade be distinctly different from the side evasion? Like, just having another of those hops, but towards the camera, imo wouldn’t read as easily as the flip does. You know what I mean? I guess they could’ve done a backwards roll, but would that be so much better? In OoT or the recent Zelda games, Link mostly stays on his feet in combat, he’s not rolling around like in Wind Waker, so a flip where he lands on his feet and not in a crouch or has to come out of a roll, is imo a good and very functional choice! That said, I agree about it feeling a bit too acrobatic for him.

I'm exited for him to talk about the animation in Shadow Generations since the animation quality got a massive boost in quality

Can't wait for him the talk about the animation in Shadow Generations, because he is gonna be so happy seeing that the animation is actually getting expressive.

I'm very curious about the games you've worked on personally.

Super interesting as always. I'd love to see your take on Death's dodge move in Darksiders 2. I genuinely love all of the animation because it's so super fluent and makes the character feel so agile.

Noooooo you didn't mention the sheer POWER of the Remnant spot-dodge noooo! Which I think is fair to say it's not really a move that avoids is it's more of a action that simply prevents damage like a block. STILL -- It's a really good spot dodge Edit - going through the video it should have been included AAAAAAAAA!

Content like this is an actual service to the games industry. Thank you! 🙏

I was hoping Metal Gear Solid 2’s dodges would be talk about because there is something to be said about Solid Snake’s functional dodges, Raiden doing a cartwheel, and naked Raiden doing a weird variant of a cartwheel.

Honkai Impact 3rd animations are pretty good too.

What about Path of Exile II's dodge roll?

I thought you'd at least mention Cassidy's dodge roll in passing during the first person shooter section.

04:45 Red dead redemption 2 follow the exact opposite principle.

Kirby's perfect dodge also has a counterattack mechanic similar to the Zelda flurry rush.

2:41 yet Genshin Impact is in this video

gigantic c tier is criminal. not higher because it doesnt have enough dust clouds rip

for my money, the best dodge I've experienced functionally is god hand animation wise, it probably is a c, but as a function it is SSS dodging things in that game feels better than anything in almost any game I've ever played

8:15 from my experience with BOTW, the perfect dodge always felt more like a distance check than a timing check. As in, if you're dodging when you're closer to the enemy or swing, you'll trigger the flurry rush. If you're not, you won't

To me, the animations from ZZZ feel cartoony. Like, actually cartoony. You know how in old cartoons characters were very stretchy and rubbery to emphasize movement? I get the same feeling from this game's cutscenes, which more often than not take me out of the experience because it feels like I'm watching an old Willie Coyote cartoon: they're fun to watch, but not something I can get emotionally invested in. Because I associate that kind of movement with comedy

I feel like I remember the first paper Mario game, when you get that lucky miss from badges there was a little Mario animation of him straightening his cap that was really cute. I wonder if I'm misremembering or if they actually got rid of that in the sequel?

WuWa, Genshin, ZZZ - yet no HI3 nor PGR. Somehow. Double weird considering how vastly evasions can differ depending on character in those 2 games, you might get an entire second video just from them alone.

I see you Pho Queue.

What about ranking traversal animations in precision platformers like Celeste? I think that could involve interesting breakdowns as well.

I would love to hear your opinion on the *Devil May Cry* series dodge animations.