InSaintMonoxide: Regarding the point of animations, i am one of the people who believe good animations can bring great value to a game, but only if they are actually controlled by the player. Ubisoft games for instance often times have the problem of including many beautifully animated moves in combat which are triggered at random and without much player choice or control, and that makes them feel like a redundant cutscene after a while instead of actual combat moves.
If i sneak up on an enemy in Assassin's Creed i press one button and the game displays an elaborate takedown animation where i stab the enemy multiple times, snap their neck and drag their corpse out of sight. That's wasted potential. If i sneak up on an enemy in Metal Gear Solid V, i actually have to grab them, drag them away, crouch down and choke them unconscious manually as seperate actions which i can control and have alternatives to. All those things are smoothly animated as well and result in the entire action feeling much more dynamic.
ubisoft is just a company with a specific public in mind, i have a couple of the assasins games as well as the new heroes, settlers, even tried a bit of not watchdogs but that online thing of theirs with the missions and a world in flames, lets leave it at that they have good writers, probably good programmers as well as a superb economics supervisor in their ranks but the genius that started it for them has left the building for a long time already... great for the beginner gamer or the casual soon to be father
I can only agree in part with you here, since i have the feeling part of the problem Ubisoft has is tacking on different mechanics without thinking them through properly. I have recently started playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey and i was flabbergasted at how bloated the game was with confusing mechanics. You have a dedicated face button for sneaking attacks, you can knock out people with the push of an analog stick (which is required for recruiting them after the fact), you have another face button for picking up unconscious or dead bodies, you have a button combo for push-kicking enemies away etc.
If Ubisoft aimed for accessibility to casual players, they failed miserably with it, as it would be much simpler, more intuitive and satisfying to use for the player (both casual and expert) if they just copied ... let's say the grab mechanic from Shadow of Mordor, which can easily be used for killing, throwing, body moving, recruiting and knocking out as well without a thousand different mechanics but much rather with one mechanic that allows players different things. What i believe they are doing instead is keeping their originally simplistic core mechanic and just keep adding more and more new ones without rhyme or reason.
InSaintMonoxide: Regarding the point of animations, i am one of the people who believe good animations can bring great value to a game, but only if they are actually controlled by the player. Ubisoft games for instance often times have the problem of including many beautifully animated moves in combat which are triggered at random and without much player choice or control, and that makes them feel like a redundant cutscene after a while instead of actual combat moves.
If i sneak up on an enemy in Assassin's Creed i press one button and the game displays an elaborate takedown animation where i stab the enemy multiple times, snap their neck and drag their corpse out of sight. That's wasted potential. If i sneak up on an enemy in Metal Gear Solid V, i actually have to grab them, drag them away, crouch down and choke them unconscious manually as seperate actions which i can control and have alternatives to. All those things are smoothly animated as well and result in the entire action feeling much more dynamic.
What about animations that are the result of enemy actions?
The worst offender I'm aware of is obviously Final Fantasy 7's Super Nova (a spell with a 2 minute animation, during which you can't confirm commands), but I could also mention Zelda: Ocarina of Time's water temple boss, who can grab you and throw you around for a bit before you regain control. The Water Temple is such a fun dungeon aside from the boss (and the fact that putting on or taking off Iron Boots requires opening the menu; those boots should have been a C button item); it's a shame they had to ruin it with such a lousy boss fight.
Enemy attack animations like that are only okay with me if they're decidedly short. For example, when Dracula in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia grabs Shanoa and chokes her for like 1 second i have no problem with that, but when enemies have drawn out animations which at worst throw you away again so you need to spend time closing the distance (and risk getting grabbed again in the process) it makes fights tedious and frustrating for me. If those moves are telegraphed poorly and the enemy has many invincibility frames, the fight becomes completely unenjoyable.
Generally speaking, i like it when some enemies have grabs though as long as they are not drawn out attack animations but rather something you can struggle out of (like Zombies or Vampires in many games or the enemies in Kung-Fu Master). It's important that those attacks aren't overused though.
