Little update here (just if you don’t know it):
Honestly, less truly is more sometimes- especially with the Warrior. We play this class for weapons and strength and power fantasy, with as little magic or mysticism as possible.
Bluntly put, this new Warbreaker animation looks like it was made by someone who doesn’t understand the Warrior’s fantasy appeal and/or has played a bit too many JRPGs, where inexplicable floating weapons don’t need to be explained.
A piece of body armour appearing above the enemy head and shattering doesn’t raise eyebrows because it’s purely symbolic. But these spectral silver ghost weapons? They quite literally are the source of Warbreaker’s quake. Which means the Warrior is in fact summoning them. Why is there so much ‘silver’? And glass? and white dust??? If you transmogged a Warrior into a Paladin set- I would 100% believe you that it was a Paladin using a new ability.
Lastly, that semi-whirlwind-into-overhead-slam animation preceding the bizarre silver ghost weapons just doesn’t flow nicely. It looks too silver, too sparkly, too magical, too “nice”, and most importantly it sorely lacks the impact and “OOMPH” and just looks way too gentle for what a move like Warbreaker very much needs.
Some ideas to fix it if change is necessary:
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They should give Warbreaker it’s old Legion animation back, but change the void spikes to be brown rocky earth spikes instead. Stomping the ground so hard that you create tremors from pure strength and impact force very much fits the Colossus theme too.
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Alternatively, if a certain artist or three are bent on keeping the floating weapons- only keep them for Warbreaker. It is legitimately confusing that a single target attack like Colossus Smash would then show a bunch of weapons smashing around the area that do absolutely nothing. If we’re talking readability, this is as nonsensical design-wise like as if Thunderclap was a single target ability yet still did that very aoe-looking spell effect
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Lastly, adding to the previous bullet point- if floating weapons are a must, stick to the class colours. The weapons should not be Silver or White. That looks like a priest or paladin thing. The weapons should be dripping with a blood effect or just yellow/brown/black/red in colour. The more “savage” the weapon looks, the more it fits the aesthetic of a Warrior. After the weapons have hit the ground, the impact should be dark, brown, earthly. It still looks too much like silver dust.
Ending all of this by saying I really question who is making these changes, because this is, in every facet, a downgrade. Not too late to course-correct and do something that fits the class fantasy and what players typically expect though.
Browns, cracks in the earth, bones, the more “juggernaut” and “barbarian” it is, the more Warrior it is.
I see this being thrown around a fair bit and i’m wondering what crappy JRPGs have these phantom weapons showing in attack animations.
Games that I’ve played in that genre over the years don’t ever have any of that sort of animation in their warrior archetype class/job/character.
Stuff like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy 7 remake and rebirth, Tales of Arise (The most weeby one, but fun nonetheless), Bravely Default, Xenoblade Chronicles 1/2/3, Warriors games - Hyrule / Fire emblem, Trials of Mana, Legend of Zelda just to name a few.
All of them tend to stick to slash trails, or adding in elemental effects accentuating the weapon trail or on impact be it earth shattering effects or an elemental imbuement of the slash itself (lightning/wind/fire etc).
One thing I’ve noticed though coming through some animation movesets there in providing some feedback is that Demolish looks very similar to Alphen’s Vaccum Blades albeit with a Wow coat of pain on it, from the similar side slashes into a heavy overhead swing. Intentional or not this is what they should be looking at in improving animation movesets in how characters swing their weapons in these other games, the embellishing on the weapon trails and force provided on impact is the main thing they have in common and what makes them look good.
There’s always the classic omislash that Cloud does in FF7.
Though more recently I’d say, Octopath Traveler II has a job class called Armsmaster (lol) that has an attack called, “Sixfold Strike” where the character attacks with six different weapons all equipped to the character. Thats also a pixel art based game so its difficult to show all those weapons equipped at once and they just kind of magically rotate through each weapon with the attack.
Edit: Also please play Octopath Traveler II. Its so good!
Omnislash in the og FF7 was all slashes with his equipped sword from what I remember and could find animations wise. Correct me if I’m wrong.
There is the whole Omnislash Vers.5 from the Advent Children movie, which he’s got his Fusion Sword, which is practically 6 swords in one which Cloud splits them up and speeds between grabbing each one and Slashing at old mate Seppy in the film.
Played through 1 mostly, but got distracted before finishing off the last two character stories had a fair bit of fun with it through.
Played the demo for 2 with Hikari’s first chapter, bought the game but it’s been sitting on my desk since will get around to it at some stage. Even then Octopath animations mostly follow the flourish of weapon trails in it’s 2d animations and doesn’t exactly have summoned weapons as the forefront.
The GBA fire emblem crit animations
Nope you’re correct! The multiple weapons is an advent child thing that extends into other games depending on how the devs are feeling. I know its shown up in Dissidia titles, Smash Bros, and a few other places.
I love how I lied to myself that I was gonna pick a different character to start with for Octopath II (I started with Olbreic for the first one), yet I was like, “Cool Samurai Guy!”
For sure, this one attack though happens so rapidly it feels like magically a new weapon is put in the character’s hand with each attack, even though its more like, “I’m some person walking around with 6 different weapons strapped on to me! Thats not improbable at all!”
Are you referring to the Sword Master Crit? I always felt that one was more of an after-image type thing than summoning weapon kinda thing.
Yeah Fire Emblem GBA styles were usually weapon trails / after images for their Sword/Axe/Lance units. LTC be damned, those general chain weapons were the best animations.
I know in Fire Emblem titles there have been magical swords like Wind Brand, Levin Sword, Light Brand that caused either a wind slash, lightning strike or light beams to hit the target.
A title that had solid animations too, the DS games, those Berserker and Hero crits were always a joy to see.
There definitely needs more momentum to be brought into WoW’s animation sets.
The GBA ones were either after images, flourishes or weapon trails. I think a combination of weapon trails and after images would be cool.
Honestly I’m still surprised that Slaying Strike is not an after imagine of your character jumping in and slashing at your target with different strikes each time at random.
My beloved Levin Sword.