Animation and Fighting Games

This is something I've wanted to write about for some time now, because, as a psuedo-animator, I find this highly technical talk very fascinating. I don't think there is genre of video game in which animation is more important than the fighting game. The fighting game is such a technical, well oiled machine that even the slightest inconsistency will make or break an experience.


Guilty Gear Accent Core

Like other older video game genres, the original fighting games were defined by their art design and animation. In many ways, fighting games at their inception were interactive cartoons. You choose an animated character and you choose what animations to play out. You have to react to your opponents decisions and counter his attacks in order to deplete his life bar. The scene that plays out often appears as though it could be taken directly from an anime.


Case in point: BlazBlu

But what makes fighting games, and the professional community, so interesting is the knowledge that one must have in order to be competitive. Fighting game pros often analyze specific character animations down to their frames and the speed at which the movements play out. This is incredibly important when trying to plan and memorize a combo for actual use during a tournament. In some ways, a true fighting game master has to know almost as much about animation as the actual animators. This makes it especially easy for people with an understanding of animation to understand the terminology of fighting games. Here's an example:



In order to parry (the blue flashing animation), in Street Fighter 3, a player must hit forward at the exact moment of impact. This makes parrying risky, as missing means you are certain to get hit. This is simple to see and perform when blocking a slow moving or predictable attack. What makes the video so famous is that Daigo (Ken) was able to block multiple attacks from Justin (Chun-Li) in quick succession. The first hit would be difficult enough to time, as there are multiple frame variables to keep in mind when attempting to parry (which is hard to do, and after a successful parry a player is stunned for several frames which resets the animations) Daigo had to press forward once for each specific hit of that move. That means not only memorizing the animation, but also knowing the exact timing of each individual kick.

People might find it hard to believe, but in fighting games people really do look at frame and animation data. I can't say for certain that Daigo studied the data (though he is currently world champion, having beat Justin *USA* AGAIN this year and I wouldn't be surprised if he eats and breathes stuff like this) but it is vital to know because it helps show potential openings in combos and specific moves. For instance, if an opponents punch takes 12 frames to complete, and the move hits in the opening 6, then the other player has those 6 frames to launch a faster attack in order to cancel out the first one. This is very important in knocking an opponent out of a combo string. And all this information is literally useless if you don't actually know a bit about how the characters are animated in the first place.

Still, it's not like a player HAS to know the frame information in order to play, it's just extremely helpful at higher levels of play and when planning and testing combos. For everyone else, the animation is, if anything, simply fun to watch.