3S, Skullgirls, Darkstalkers series.
Wow no doubt. I’d never even heard of that game till now! Those animations are great…
My picks are very much the norm: Third Strike, GGXrd VSav, Skullgirls
3S is something else to look at. Just the idle animations are beautiful.
Vampire Savior
Then SG at second best
Obligatory KOF XI Momoko post:
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (CPS3).
But then again, I’m pretty sure all CPS3 games (Warzard/Red Earth, Jojo, SF3) all had the same level of fluidity in their animation.
Not SF4. I actually find 3D animated games to look sub par.
For example, in SF4, compare any of the shoto’s pants to say, SF3. Massive difference, with SF4 looking lifeless and static. No flow, no wow factor, just like most any 3D animated game. Everything looks like plastic action figures.
On the other hand though I think SF4 uses it’s 3D models to good effect. Each motion is set as a path rather than frames so in instances like super freeze the motions stay fluid. Couple that with the dynamic ultra combo camera angles and whatnot and you have a very nicely animated fighting game. But yes, as traditional animation goes, shoutouts must be given to 3S and VS. I honestly wish Xrd would have followed SF4s style of animating the motions for super smooth play but it still looks good regardless.
I’ve always thought Garou: Mark of the Wolves looked really really nice. I suppose it’s pretty normal for SNK to turn out some top-quality sprites, and anything associated with them is generally going to be pretty. I like the look of the more recent King of Fighters games as well. But especially Garou for me, I think that game looks amazing. Outside of that, I’m going to have to go along with everyone else and say 3rd Strike. That game is stunningly gorgeous. Any Arc Systems game as well, like Guilty Gear XX and its variations.
And the animations from that Martial Masters game look cool as heck. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of it before.
I’m gonna have to disagree with you there. I feel Blazblue while very pretty is pretty sub-par annimation wise. I may be being a lil harsh here but to me, Blazblue’s annimation is borderline stop motion. For a fighter released in 09, that’s surprising.
Any GG with the exception of Xrd has really simple animations, sure the sprites are cool but the animations are just keyframes, you can count the frames while people are mashing insane combos and you don’t even have to be intimate with the game.
I’m not even trying to shit on GG, its cool, but its like saying you love ST for its 3d effects.
No mention of Dark Awake? for shame.
Outside all the games that have been mentioned, i have to say that i don’t find their animations breath taking for one or another reason VS looks weird for me the major part of the time like there are moments that look choppy and not well animated outside some moves, is like they try too fool everyone with all the deformations but that makes it look kinda shitty actually, i also find 3s animations to be dull at best outside 1 or 2 chars (and not all their animations mind you), add that there are a lot of chars that share their animations with others, and SG animations vary from well done (but not WOOOW so great) to nothing really to talk about.
Well, that is because the Hitstop which stops the animation for a while before it gets cancelled for the next move. But i agree, its animations are not the best out there, it is very inconsistent, sometimes you have stuff that is well animated and others you have stuff that is kinda meh.
Well for me, animation style and art direction > pureframe count. I think Garou looks better than 3S does even though 3S has much more frames of animation because to me the 3S art style is inconsistent and the animations, while fluid, look boring. Garou has a ton of really nice “particle effect” sprites and animates things in really cool ways that makes things look fast and powerful. I don’t care about fluid animation unless it’s so jerky it’s bad like ASW animation.
I’d say Gear animated better than BB, but yeah, BlazBlue animates like crap.
I know no one’s going to pick a 3-D fighter. For me Skullgirls and KOFXIII.
Niggas in BB straight up have like 3 knees in some moves. The sprites in GG and BB are good but goddamn if you say the animation is good. Even in their stances there is a lot of pointless movement. You don’t get that feeling from 3s or vs, or hell even a lot of KOF.
Yeah obviously hitstop is part of the equation, but that doesn’t happen between every animated frame of every move, well at least not with other fighting games 
3S, KOF XIII, Skullgirls.
I’m really liking how this thread turned out. Me and probably others are discovering different fighters and styles of annimation.
Well 2-D just by nature animates better than 3-D because there are no restrictions with 2-D like you have with 3-D. But IMO it’d be between Virtua Fighter 5 and DefJam fight for NY for best annimation in 3-D fighters. But I don’t have much experience with 3D fighters so my opinion on them should be taken with a grain of salt.
Well if we are talking about 3D fighters then the throws in Virtua Fighter 5 are a pro wrestling fan wet dream
Some really good animations there