Ambidextrous Sprite: Difference between revisions

[[File:ambidextrous-sprite streetfighter2 6766.png|link=Street Fighter II|frame|Behold, the mystery of the flipping scar, eyepatch, and hand wraps.]]

Sprites are pixel art characters used in video games. Unlike a 3D model, you can't simply rotate a sprite to get a new view of it. Additional clothes, poses, and each frame of animation for actions have to be made almost entirely from scratch. For this reason, artists will usually make sprites perfectly bilaterally symmetrical. That way, any poses or actions made facing left could simply be flipped to make the same poses and actions facing right. There were also memory size concerns on earlier platforms - it was often more efficient to mirror the sprite than to store the opposite poses.

{{examples}}

* ''[[Bubble Bobble|Puzzle Bobble 3]]'' aka ''[[Title Confusion|Bust-A-Move '99 (or 3)]]'' had Lunaluna (or, since the names were not outright revealed, "that one fortune teller lady with the crystal ball and affinity for tarot cards"). [[Peek-a-Bangs|Her hair was made so that the left side of her head was covered with a very long bang that covered quite a bit of length of her body.]] [[Fashionable Asymmetry|The other side was barely shoulder length.]] All artwork depicting her throughout the game had shown her with the long hair to her left, including splash screens, the ending, etc, but there was one problem. When playing her as Player 1, she is flipped so her long hair is on the wrong side and can't be fixed. It is only fixed when you face her (but you aren't the one in control) or when you play as Player 2 (in which [[Color-Coded Multiplayer|her hair is now green]]).

** Something similar happens with Lip's hair in ''[[Panel de Pon]]''; she has a swirl on the right side of her head and a flipped-up part on the other. Naturally, this gets reversed when any of her sprites are mirrored.

* [[Muramasa: The Demon Blade]] justifies this with non-player characters by giving them turning animations, allowing them to move whatever objects they're holding around so that they look the same facing the other direction (like Torahime switching her bow from one hand to the other.)

* It's not just limited to sprites, either. ''[[Gears of War]]'' mirrors your character's skeleton if you put your back to cover in a way that'll make your character use his left hand. Even some of the weapons magically mirror scopes, bolts etc.

* ''[[Contra|Contra: Hard Corps]]'' - Brad Fang has a cybernetic arm on the side closest to the background and a gun on the foreground side. [[Multiple Endings|While even the different endings are not consistent]], the promotional illustrations depicts his left arm as his gun arm.

* ''[[Rastan Saga]]'' - The enemy guards in the castle stages are demon-headed humanoid warriors that have one half of their skin in green and the other half in white flesh tone.

* Most games in this genre do this whenever a character is holding a weapon. They change hands when they look in a different direction. This is especially noticeable in weapon-based belt-scrollers like Sega's ''[[Golden Axe]]'' and Capcom's ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (video game)|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' games.

* ''[[Final Fight]]''

* ''[[Growl]]'' - Nitroman, the Round 1 boss, wears a shoulder pad and an armband on the side that he's not facing.

* The Runaway Five's van in ''[[EarthBound]]'' ...doesn't do a particularly good job of this. During part of the trip, when it's driving left, it reads YAWAИUЯ.

** Ness's sprites when walking horizontally or diagonally are mirrored. However, he's also the sole character whose "walking towards the screen" animation doesn't use simple mirroring.

* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' had this hold true in the overworld sprites of their DS games, which is jarring when hand-in-hand with [[Peek-a-Bangs]] characters such as Kazemaru and Edgar, or those with eyepatches like Sakuma.

* In general, 2D fighting games (even titles created in a 3D engine) are designed so that the characters do not turn their backs to the camera, as 1) giving characters two unique sprite sets puts extra work on the development team, and 2) characters can gain/lose an advantage from being on a particular side, which can lead to combos not working (or, worse, can create [[Game Breaker|infinite combo opportunities.]]) Always having one sprite set evens up the odds of victory.

* Sagat from the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series has a diagonal scar across his chest when Ryu defeating him with a Shoryuken since the first ''Street Fighter II'' installment, along with an eyepatch he has worn over one his of eyes since the original game. However the eye and direction of the scar change depending on which side of the stage he's on. While all the illustrations since ''[[Street Fighter II]]'' depicts Sagat's eyepatch on his right side, some of the original art for the first ''Street Fighter'' depicts Sagat with the eyepatch on his left eye.

** ''[[Mortal Kombat 4]]'' (despite using 3D models instead of digitized sprites) would still employ mirroring if the characters reversed sides. It was especially noticeable with weapon-wielding characters.

** Cleverly Averted in ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'' with [[Guest Fighter]] Freddy Kruger. [[A Nightmare on Elm Street| The canon version]] uses a razor-glove on his right hand, but the game designers give him a second one on his left hand, simply to avoid this Trope.

** More recent example: K'. May not carry this illness at first, but you may notice that he wears a red glove on one of his hands. Look closer and you'll never figure out on which exactly.

** Even more recent example: Bonne Jenet, who was carried into the series (for a short time) from ''Garou: Mark of the Wolves''. Even if this game had really smooth animation, it couldn't fix the problem with mirroring for some reason, so now her dress with Jolly Roger drawn on it is either on the left side, or the right, depeding on which side she's facing.

* The American flag on the back of Geese Howard's gi in the first ''[[Fatal Fury]]''.

* ''[[Unreal Tournament]] 2004'' gives the option for players to have their guns appear in the lower right (standard), center, or left of the HUD. Left-handed guns are mirror images of the standard view—which wouldn't be noticeable except that some of the guns have serial numbers on them, which are backwards on the left-handed versions.

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' is guilty of this, as well. Most weapons don't have text on them, but those that do are reversed, as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA2wWiJPNs0 this video] of a ЯƎϤϤAϨ-OЯTϽƎ˩Ǝ illustrates.

* In ''[[Maple Story]]'', ''every piece of equipment'' will follow this trope.

** Also happens in the suspiciously similar MMORPG ''[[La Tale]].''

* ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' has this with its 2D sprites, though some headgears are not flipped/mirrored(Such as the ribbon).

* ''[[Drawn to Life]]'' makes an interesting case of this. It's played straight in the Rapo of Heather, who has a face that's half yellow and half black (think like [[Batman|Two Face]]), yet inexplicably, when she turns to either side, you always see the yellow side. However, since the player makes the player sprite himself, whether it uses this trope or not is up to him or her.

* [[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]] switches hands with his gun depending on which way he faces, even while [[Charged Attack|charging]].

* The GBA ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' titles do this. The final boss of the first game has a metal helmet over half his face, which switches if you somehow get past him. The {{spoiler|second-to-last}} boss of the second has a whacking great projectile claw on one arm and is designed to face both ways in his battle routine, but does this anyway.

* The most egregious example in ''[[The Lost Vikings]]'' would be Baleog's bionic arm in the second game. However, the first game has a curiosity: Baleog's character portrait (which faces right) shows his sword in the opposite arm from his right-facing sprites.

* In ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]]'', the front-on sprites used in the Phoenix/Apollo arcs are changed to sprites seen from the side (as if conversing with each other). This results in Franziska's mole and jacket buttons changing sides. Gumshoe's band-aid, Kay's scarf, Calisto Yew's jacket... the list goes on.

* Due to its [[Isometric Projection]], ''[[SimCity]] 2000'' takes this trope to the next dimension. Though each building in the game has only one sprite, there are ''four'' different viewing angles. This is made especially glaring as most of the buildings are obviously asymmetrical yet appear exactly the same when viewed from the north or south. When viewed from the east or west, the sprites are simply mirrored.

** [[Alien Geometries|GYAAAAAAH!]]

* Whoever designed the main characters in ''[[Harvest Moon]] Grand Bazaar'' did not think about how they would be affected by this trope. They have a feather that they wear on one side of their hat, and a small bag they carry on one side of their body, both of which constantly switch places as they change direction.

* Really obvious in the ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' games with the Alt Eisen. In the Rampage Ghost attacks in the second game, the autocannon and revolver stake will magically switch places halfway through the attack, in the case of the stronger variation you actually get to see the change as it happens onscreen. Also in a scripted event midway through the first game you see Kyosuke say that the left arm is unusable before proceeding to use an attack which uses a weapon usually on the right arm, but as he's an enemy for that mission it appears on the left.

* The ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' series uses this and you can see it when a unit uses a weapon. They will use the weapons in either hand, similar to Link from the Zelda games.

* ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'''s sprites have this a lot, due to having different weapons in each hand for the most part.

* [[Nippon Ichi]] games have this for all characters.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] II: Daggerfall'' allows your character to switch between a weapon in his left hand and one in his right hand, even switch hands while fighting completely unarmed. Despite this difference, the animation for your chosen weapon hand always appears on the right side of the screen.

* ''[[Iji]]'' averts this.

* ''[[Illusion of Gaia]]'' avoids this: Will always wields his flute with his right hand, Freedan uses his sword right-handed, and Shadow slashes with his right arm.

* While 2D ''Zelda'' games usually include this trope, ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'' has Link carry his shield in the correct hand (his right, since he's left-handed) when he has it equipped but not active, regardless of direction faced. When blocking with it, he falls under this when facing left or right, but up or down has the shield closer to his right side.

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages|The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games]]'', Rosa the Subrosian always carries her key on her left side, regardless of which direction she's facing.

* Averted in ''[[La-Mulana]]'' by a single whip frame. Other than that, he's quite ambidextrous.

** Also as he's coming down from a jump, he holds his hat in place with his left hand regardless of which direction he's facing.

** On the other hand, in Batman Forever: The Arcade Game (released on [[PS One]]), his bad and good sides switch places depending on which side he faces.

* The main concept of ''[[Silhouette Mirage]]'' is an aversion of this trope, as main character Shyna is one of few beings in the game who is half Silhouette and half Mirage - literally, being split down the middle with one attribute on each side. Since she generally faces left or right during the game, only one half is seen at a time, and the visible half determines the affinity of her attacks. Sprite mirroring is still used, since she has the ability to swap her Mirage and Silhouette sides in order to use their attacks in opposite directions.

* In ''[[Wolfenstein 3D]]'', all the regular enemies have all eight views stored and used for all movement poses. Some later ports of the game also avert this by storing just ''one'' view, making enemies always face the player.

* In the SNES ''Jurassic Park'' game, all eight views of Grant depict him holding his weapon on his right side.

* In the ''[[Fist of the North Star|Hokuto no Ken 2]]'' game for the [[Mega Drive]], Kenshiro wears bandages around his left arm and an armband on his right. The bandages and armband are drawn accordingly based on the direction Kenshiro is facing. Note that this was changed in the game's overseas version of ''[[Divorced Installment|Last Battle]]'', where [[Dub Name Change|Aarzak]] wears bandages on both of his arms.

** Solid Snake himself and some of the enemy soldiers also have separate sprites when they're facing east or west. However, the original game plays this straight when Snake is unarmed (this was corrected in ''Metal Gear 2'').

* Averted in ''[[Pokémon]]''. When viewing the status of the Pokemon in your party or your PC, asymmetrical Pokemon like Absol or Roselia aren't flipped like symmetrical ones are.

** And in the first ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' games, the Absol that joins you is the only one to have two different portraits.

** ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver|HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'' have a mechanic where your lead Pokemon follows you around throughout the game. Asymmetrical Pokemon get different "walking west" and "walking east" sprites. Bizarrely, they did that for the Pokemon but STILL not for the human characters.

** ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' averts this with the PC sprites (scarves and such), as well as Ghetsis' (because of his weird...monocle thing).

* ''[[Xenogears]]'' has ordinarily left/right-swapping 2-D character portraits for all the bilaterally symmetric characters, but both Bart and Sigurd have patches over their eyes. Each character has two different portraits depending on whether they are being viewed from the left or from the right, {{spoiler|which is slightly plot-important as their eyepatches are on different eyes from each other and this enables them to both simultaneously use the Fatima Jasper retinal scanner during a [[Cutscene]]}}. This asymmetry is even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in one scene, where Bart and Sigurd are noticed to both be wearing their eyepatches on the wrong eye—this is a practical joke on their part.

* Gill from ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' was designed specifically to show that the CP System III (the arcade hardware the game was originally released on) could be used to avert this problem. The red half of his body always faces to the left of the screen, and the blue half always faces to the right, no matter which direction he turns. His special attacks even change depending on which way he's facing. His secretary who shows up in his win poses has an asymmetrical haircut for this reason as well.

** And then they played it straight with Oro in the same game, as noted above.

** Raphael is, however, left handed solely so he can face the screen when wielding his rapier when selected by player one.

* Interesting case of aversion in ''[[Donkey Kong Country (video game)|Donkey Kong: King of Swing]]'': Towards the end of the tutorial segment, Cranky Kong turns to the opposite direction and walks away. His sprites are mirrored, of course, but in his turn-around animation, he actually switches his cane to the other hand, making the sprite-flipping seamless.

** However, it's played straight with K. Rool, whose larger eye switches sides when he turns. This happens in numerous other games in which he's appeared as well.

* ''[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kagiri/kagiri.htm Kagirinaki Tatakai]'', a Japanese computer game brought out of obscurity by [[Hardcore Gaming 101]], features multiple technical innovations for the time it was made. Among others, it averts this trope by featuring separate sprites for facing left or right, in a game stored on cassette tape (meaning there wasn't much memory to work with) and written for the Sharp X1 computer [[Older Than the NES|in 1983]].

* The switch-hitters from ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Baseball]]'' have mostly mirrored sprites and gimmicks when they come up to bat, but the face is never mirrored.

* In ''[[Fire Emblem Elibe|Fire Emblem: Sword of Flame]]'', Nergal's turban always hides his right eye. {{spoiler|No points for guessing [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|what he reveals under it]] in the last chapter...}}

** Idenn of ''Sword of Seals'' has [[Mismatched Eyes]].

** ''[[Fire Emblem: Awakening]]'' may be the series' first complete aversion: Krom has been seen with two different portraits for facing different ways. It remains to be seen if the same will go for everyone else, but given that characters similar to Krom (such as Ike) haven't had this done to them before...

* Averted flawlessly in ''[[Yume Nikki]]''. Any asymmetrical features of the protagonist are correctly placed no matter which direction she faces. This is most prominent with the knife effect, because you can even switch which hand holds it.

* Averted during one part of [[Tales of the Drunken Paladin]]. The trope is mainly played straight when the main character Anebriate faces left or right because he has no asymmetrical features showing. One area of the game changes his sprite because he dons a winter parka to deal with the harsh cold weather. During this part, he carries his spear with him, and it stays in his right hand regardless of facing up, down, left, or right.

* In ''[[Garfield (Comic Strip)|Garfield]]'', it's been repeatedly shown that Odie has a spot on both sides of his body.

{{reflist}}