Overly-Long Fighting Animation: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

An attack animation in which the [[Rule of Cool]] is applied in excess, making it just too dang long.

 

[[I Thought It Meant|Unrelated to]] [[Long Runner|long-running]] [[Shounen]] anime.

 

 

* Though most hyper combos in ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]'' are fairly short and to-the-point, normal combos can be absurdly long thanks to ground bounces, wall bounces, assist pickups, aerial crossovers, delayed hyper combos, and the infamous "DHC glitch", which completely resets hitstun and damage falloff, effectively doubling the possible length of the combo. These sorts of combos tend to be called "Cutscene Combos" and a skilled player can make them last as long as 30 seconds.

* ''[[Evil Zone]]'' did this with some of the more powerful attacks. The length of the animation changed depending on when and how often you used it: first use would get about ten or twenty seconds, subsequent uses would be shortened to all of five seconds, and a use that would land the killing blow would take even longer.

* The First Hokage's Ultimate Jutsu in ''[[Naruto]]: Ultimate Ninja 3''.

** Bang's Fu-Rin-Ku-Zan [[Super Mode]] suspends gameplay for several seconds while Bang powers up and the BGM announces how awesome he is. Bang players in ''Calamity Trigger'' would frequently perform Fu-Rin-Ku-Zan after the match was over, simply to waste their opponents' time.

 

 

* Most of the time in the ''[[Black and White]]'' series, you really don't have to worry about uncontrollable cutscenes until you start or finish a quest scroll. This carries over into the sequel nicely. And then the Wonders start getting built... Although skipable after the first go-round, the first time one of these wonder-miracles goes off - or you get hit with a bug - prepare to sit there and watch every, last, frame of the siren rising up, speaking in creepily-lovey-dovey ways to your soldiers, sending out a swarm of MINI sirens who... seem quite fond of them, and your soldiers converting to enemy citizens. This also applies to the volcano miracle at the start and later in the game, fortunately not the earthquake or hurricane.

 

 

* While it doesn't sound like much compared to other examples on this page, the Amazon's "Impale" attack in ''[[Diablo II]]'' can take as much as 6 seconds to complete. Problem is, this is a game in which most other melee characters are attacking at speeds of 2-5 attacks per second, and the game is balanced accordingly. Any Impale-based build requires a mercenary or summon to tank so her attacks don't get interrupted before she can land a hit.

 

 

* The ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' series is another serious offender. Generally, the more powerful a mecha's attack is, the longer the animation takes. Most of them are pretty awesome, though, so it's not that annoying.

** [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion's]] signature Unison Kick combination attack breaks game mechanics by lasting technically more than one turn (which is defined as 1 minute).

*** Note that while there are attacks that take even longer, the Unison Kick actually has a timer in the lower right of the screen that goes over a minute.

** Any of [[GaoGaiGar]]'s attacks takes more than twenty seconds, but Hell and Heaven, Dividing Driver and Goldion Hammer clock at more than 50 seconds each. Ironically, the actual anime is rather unique among for the ability to interrupt attacks.

** [[Getter Robo|Shin Getter Robo's]] Getter Change attack lasts almost that much, with 40 seconds (more in some versions).

** The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfEIAKpJP14 Final Dynamic Special] deserves special mention in combinations: every iteration is up to a minute or more, but that doesn't prevent it from being [[Rule of Cool|awesome]], though. To be fair, it's basically at least 3 [[Super Robot]] doing their most powerful attack on one or more target/s. It ''is'' going to take some time.

** The Valzacard's Exa Nova Shoot OVER. It gets worse when the Dynamic Kill animation is scored.

** ''Super Robot Wars Z'' has the final attack of the final boss literally taking 1 minute 20 seconds to perform ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoioGHnWHio REALLY]''. Worse, at a certain point, it's his near constant counterattack.

** Also Ein Soph Aur and End of the Galaxy.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHkSmu91PRc One of Uther's attacks.]

 

 

* Pretty irritating in the MMORPG ''[[Wizard 101]]'', aside from the few spells that you actually ''enjoy'' watching endlessly. Each round of battle has up to four players and four baddies, and each of these can cast a spell which requires several seconds of animation.

** All of this reminds me ''repeatedly'' just why they dropped automatic fight animations in ''Brigandine: Master Edition''.

* ''[[Perfect World]]'' runs into this with the later Wizard attacks. An example is the ultimate water spell, [[An Ice Person|Black Ice]] [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons|Dragon]] Strike, which involves the character posing dramatically as a giant dragon made of pure water mana rises out of the ground and divebombs the opponent's head. It sounds like nothing, but the reason it's on the page is because they tried to get around it with the buff "Essential Sutra", which reduces all casting times to zero for a short period of time, but since the Wizard is the textbook definition of [[Glass Cannon]] and almost all of the later spells do even ''more'' ridiculous amounts of damage... [[Game Breaker|Yeah.]]

 

 

* Lampshaded in ''[[Psychonauts]]'' in Lungfishopolis, where the boss battle parodies various aspects of Godzilla- and Ultraman-style Japanese monster fights. The enemy [[Calling Your Attacks|announces the titles]] of each of his attacks as he prepares them, such as 'Overlyyy Intricaaate... COMBINATION!'

** And "Hard to avooooiiiiiidddddd... AREA ATTACK!"

 

 

* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games tend to be serious offenders:

** Though the animations didn't start getting minutes long until ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', in ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' Kefka's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2xBFqfURy8#t=05m25s Goner/Forsaken] was about as proportionally long to the game's other attacks as Supernova was to the normal animations in ''VII'', clocking in at approximately 20 seconds long when most other high tier spells animations were about 6 seconds long.

** Sadly, the game ''doesn't'' let you link Knights to the Quadra-Magic Materia, which casts or summons the linked Materia ''four'' times in a single turn, so you won't be able to leave it running and go cook dinner for your family. However, it ''does'' allow you to Quadra-summon Bahamut Zero, which isn't all that much shorter (54 seconds compared to KotR's 1:10.)

** Sephiroth's ultimate attack, [http://youtube.com/watch?v=hTc9sLmOR0A Super Nova], which is shown to destroy the solar system (by literally causing the sun to go Super Nova) every time he did it, clocks at 2 minutes and ''can't be canceled''.

** Every Aeon's overdrive in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]''. Thankfully, the option to use shortened cutscenes existed.

*** Ultima's multiple explosions take about ten times as long as any other black magic spell, which is a nuisance given that you will likely doublecast it many, ''many'' times between unlocking it and reaching max level. They do look very cool the first five or six times...the next five or six thousand, less so.

*** However, you ''can't'' shorten the {{spoiler|Aeon's overdrives when you fight them.}}

*** Even better, the summons were ''actual FMVs''. The [[Limit Break]] animations were pretty short, though, thankfully.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', the Quickening animations provide you an opportunity to charge and queue other Quickenings, allowing massive combo attacks. Also, the Esper summoning animations are rather short in this game.

* ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'', max level Nibelung Valesti.

** VP was borderline on this with most finishing moves (noting a few exceptions). But ''[[Valkyrie Profile]] 2'' had nearly every finishing move be like this (and twice as excessive power wise).

* ''[[Legend of Legaia]]'' has the Juggernaut summon animation. More generally, the way combat in the ''Legaia'' series works is that the player inputs a series of high, low, left, or right side attacks with certain combos resulting is special attacks which can even be strung together. The higher a characters level the more attacks they can use in a single turn. While this is useful for dealing high amounts of damage, it also meant that you can catch up on your reading while going through the final dungeon.

* Most attacks - especially special attacks and Mystech - in ''[[Anachronox]]''. It's meant as parody, though. A lowly [[Mook]] with an assault rifle fires about six thousand bullets in such rapid fire that it creates a veritable waterfall of expended shells? Why not?

* Both ''[[Golden Sun]]'' games have long animations on the more powerful summons late in the game, but luckily, they can all be skipped.

** And unless you really enjoy [[Button Mashing|Beating the A button]] to death, the Sol Blade's summon can get boring, fast. Not to mention that it's possible to have a setup that allows unleashing 100% of the time, as well as Sol Blade's unleash being the strongest non-summon attack in the game...

* The ''[[Tales (series)|Tales]]'' series. Can you say Hi-Ougi / Mystic Arte? Around ''[[Tales of Destiny]] 2'', when the concept became cemented, these killer moves went from being merely a very strong attack ([[Tales of Phantasia|Meikuu Zanshouken]] and [[Tales of Eternia|Aurora Sword]]) to involving time freezing, [[Super Move Portrait Attack|character portraits]], light shows, and excessively large areas and long combos.

*** Another offender is Emil's, in the same game. The player can add 15 extra seconds of animation by triggering Ain Soph Aur. And then ''[[Up to Eleven|another 30 seconds]]'' if you're fighting Richter, as he counters it ! On the bright (?) side, Ain Soph Aur is completely underpowered and cost an arm to cast, so nobody ever uses it anyway.

* In ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' some of the high-level spells (''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKZZEPoVb4c Mechanus Cannon]'', ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcGC2byVmoA Meteor Shower]'' and especially ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJyUQ7zarS8 Celestial Host]'') could have really long animations. The later involved a quadruple [[Summon Magic]].

* In ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'' the magic animations took so long that your enemies would frequently be out of the blast radius before the spell struck. Even supposed 'instantaneous' spells like Magic Missile could be seen looping back and around to the target because of the silly animation. Not to mention the combat attacks took so long that many were done 'invisibly' for high level characters to make sure they happened inside the round.

* ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]'' is like this, especially for Dragoon Magic. You can shorten most of the tranformation sequences, but none of the attack sequences.

** The [[Golden Sun|Catastrophe]] Summon in the first game.

** [[Kill Sat|Ion]], a Summon in the second game and a [[Limit Break]] for Lance in the third game

** [[Nuke'Em|Nuke]], Used by Lance in both the second and third games. It's a [[Limit Break]] in the third game.

** Natalie's Genesis [[Limit Break]] in the third game, in a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''.

* Mostly averted in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'', but ''inverted'' in the case of Savyna. Her attacks are always very fast, which means she burns through her combos faster than most players can select cards for her. She's probably the most difficult character to use.

** Played irritatingly straight with the Dance King, a high-level enemy in ''Origins''. Its Ring-Around-the-Rosy attack takes almost ten seconds to complete, which doesn't sound like much, but after going through 30+ hours of ''Origins''' blazingly fast battle system, it seems like forever. Doesn't help that the attack itself hurts like hell.

 

 

 

* In ''[[Touhou]] Soccer Moushuuden'', several characters possess cinematic shots. While most of those have a reasonable length, some are pretty long. Mima's Twilight Spark in particular, has a cinematic that lasts about fifty seconds, and that's not counting the actual shot that comes after the cinematic.

 

 

 

 

* The Power Shots in ''[[Super Mario Bros.|Mario Power Tennis]]''. Whenever they happen, all action freezes except the player who executed the shot. Gameplay only returns to normal just as the animation is about to end. You can't skip any of the animations, and what's worse, there are actually '''two''' types of Power Shots (offensive and defensive).

** Waluigi's defensive move is a ridiculous time-drain. He somehow fills his entire side of the court with a shallow layer of water, so the tennis ball doesn't hit the ground, and then hits back. Also, the power shots are needless at least 90% of the time; usually if you have one, so does your opponent. If you do a defensive power shot, they'll follow up with an offensive one. If you do an offensive power shot, they'll follow up with either offensive or defensive depending on whether they can reach it.

 

 

* Naturally, in a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'', ''[[Battle Moon Wars]]'' also has its more powerful attacks running a bit too long

* Most attacks in ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' games are fairly quick, but some spells, especially dark spells, legendary tomes and anything used by a final or semi-final boss, take forever and involve vortexes, background changes and other nonsense, and can be used twice in a row if the defender has low speed and survives the first. Luckily, they can be turned off.

 

 

* Subverted in ''[[No More Heroes]]'', when Letz Shake's "Disaster Blaster" Earthquake Generator goes through the long, fancy charging-up cinematic, and then just as it's about to fire, {{spoiler|Henry appears out of nowhere and cuts Letz Shake and the Disaster Blaster to pieces.}}

** Played straight with {{spoiler|Henry's instant-kill move, thought it's pretty awesome to see anyway.}}

 

 

* Parodied in episode one of ''[[The Tower of Druaga (anime)|The Tower of Druaga]] - The Aegis of Uruk''. "Soniiiiiiiiiiiiiii([[Overly Long Gag|30 seconds]])iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic BLADE!"

* In ''[[One Piece]]'' Jinbe's [[Blow You Away|Karakusagawara]] [[Megaton Punch|Seiken]]. In the manga the shock wave took four pannels to take effect after throwing the punch, in the anime it almost a full minute.

 

 

* ''[[Super Sentai]]'' animations tend to do this.

 

 

* Lampshaded in ''The Volet'': [http://volet.comicgenesis.com/d/20071208.html Long Animation + Timed Battle = "Ooops.".]

** That comic isn't funny to people who've played ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' and have memories of that ''actually happening'' in the battle with Odin. Well, and weren't using the [[Game Breaker|Break Sword spell]].

 

 

* On ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'', the Mooninites (who look sort of like pixelated video-game people) have their ultimate attack, the Quad Laser. The Quad Laser (and its larger cousin, the Quad Glacier) creates [[Painfully-Slow Projectile|a single giant pixel that moves at a snail's pace]]. This isn't really a cutscene, but it is a finishing move that takes a ridiculously long time.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Overly-Long Fighting Animation]]