You can really tell which people seemingly didn't watch past the first five seconds and typed angry comments without the full story of why Alucard's run cycle goes against conventional animation rules
Unfortunately I think the nature of shortening pre-existing content like this into a short is practically asking for misinterpretation. It’s not that the short is bad or something, but some people are… well, they’re beginning to have attention spans as shallow as the length of a TikTok. I guess that separates the people actually paying attention and not, though.
Nothing past the first five seconds really rescues this video. The comments also fail to mention that such smooth run cycles were common in 2D games in that era. This was likely a product of the stigma against 2D and bias towards 3D, which would have led developers to try and imitate 3D's smoothness- The very thing that makes it seen as undesirable for games meant to be in an animated style today. Absolutely everyone just missed the pink elephant in the room.
I always loved his run cycle. It looks off/not right, but it's perfect because it fits his otherworldly nature. It's a good example that sometimes breaking the rules for a good reason can lead to something great/iconic.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy i think the issue you are encountering is that shorts causes context issues in my own assessment i find that trying to show abit of a full videos content can lead to misunderstandings like this
His run cycle is one of the best animations I've ever seen in a game, along with his turn and his floaty jump, it's one of the most graceful animations I've seen in pre 2000s pixel art.
It's been a while, but I remember in a lot of older vampire novels, it was described that vampires don't really "walk" per se... Like, they definitely take steps to move around, but it looks more like they're gliding along the surface of the floor. Kinda like, they've perfected ground movement to the point that they don't really need to make any unnecessary movements in their upper body. That's how I always thought of it, anyway.
I love his walk cycle. I've always considered it to be kinda half floaty and not exactly 100% firmly walking on ground. I always got that impression since when you start walking he kinda flies/floats forward a bit THEN starts doing the walk cycle
I really appreciate this kind of thing where "Here's the parts that look unconventional" recognises that in a vacuum these would be poor choices, but given his Dhampiric nature, the hypersmooth motions bursting into snappy attacks turns out to fit Alucard better than something conventional would.
The fun thing about saying Alucard's run cycle is like this because he's half vampire is that Soma's run cycle in Aria and Dawn of Sorrow is practically identical to Alucard's in terms of movement, basically being a subtle animation hint as to the big twist of Aria.
I think the purpose is to draw attention to how fast he is actually moveing, without trying at all. Despite the animation, he moves pretty fast with seeming ly no effort on his part.
It really stands out in Dawn of Sorrow when the Bad Ending unlocks Julius Mode. Since you get three different characters its really fun to compare their 3 movement styles. Julius is alot heavier in his movements. Yoko is slow and gentle unless she uses melee since shes a magic user. And Alucard feels even more vampiric and weightless in comparison because of the other two.
From an animation perspective, I like his walk. You can see every individual change in his sprite as it happens. Plus the start up to it is nice as well. A good example of how pixel art can be fluid, I'd say
Yeah, I figured he had to compliment the animation at some point lol But this kinda makes sense only up until Dawn of Sorrow, after that even human characters have smooth animations, which makes me think if they still managed to keep this consistency.
If you heard of the concept of Curve of Forgetting, basically it means we will gradually forget information we don't review. And that applies to education videos, too. So even if we viewed your videos before, these shorts allow us to review the information we've already seen, improving retention!
Hey man I love Alucards walking animation, especially that smooooth initial slide he does beforehand 😂 Not sure if it has anything to do with him being a Vampire though cos I remember Shanoa, a full human having a very similar animation
To me, I think it's reflecting his heritage to Dracula. Dracula always has his movements convey a sense of unnatural power and smoothness, as if the laws of reality simply dont apply to him. Alucard's slick movement feels like a reduction of that effortlessness, as though the fact that he moves his feet along the ground is only a formality. He's not *as* powerful as his father, and yet something about the way it looks feels as though if Alucard broke into a dead sprint you wouldnt hear him at all. He's just *that* fluid and graceful. It's a really solid visual indicator of Alucard's nature as somewhat terse and distant despite his power, compared to his Belmont counterpart's stoic, almost dutiful march/strut. Despite the animations not really showing their face, you can tell with certainty that whatever Belmont has the face of a no nonsense ">:[" expression. "I am here to kill the supernatural and by god I will." Whereas with Alucard it conveys a near emotionless ":l" expression, as though the hordes of supernatural against him are a minor inconvenience, like a fly landing on your arm. It's really impressive just how much "language" in character design a movement cycle can deliver.
it does give it a glidy smoothness that i think fits (as you point out in the end) and it allows it to be unique because of it. I’d hate this as a normal run but in this context i think i quite like it
I think his arm movements are supposed to be callbacks to previous Castlevania protagonists doing the same thing, but it looks less weird there since they had less pixels and less frames of animation. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if they rotoscoped someone in the Konami offices.
I feel the same, but consider its age I think that run cycle were decent at that time. However the 180 turn animation must be the coolest one that was ever made. Also brilliant since he doesnt have to pause after turn. Both feels off and graceful at the same time.
I kinda like Alucards run animation because I’ve stared at it so long, but when I thought about Alucard being in smash as a playable character, I thought yeah they’d definitely have to tweak his run cycle a bit because it’d look a bit silly in 3d animation. So does the Belmonts walk animations in smash, but it works because it’s so iconic to the characters, it wouldn’t feel right if they didn’t have that overly manly walk animation. Alucard's run animation on the other hand could definitely use a change, and I don’t think people would mind.
An important aspect of his run cycle that's absent here is the gliding animation that it beings with, before transitioning into the full run cycle. It gives this effortless, ethereal ballet quality to it. When you're moving through the game; stopping to fight enemies, jumping across platform, etc, you mostly move in short bursts, where this glide animation is what you see most of the time. It makes it feel like he's just skating and dancing between each action. The transition to this stiff, steady, determined walk cycle for long spaces becomes sort of special, because you need such a long stretch of area to even appreciate it.
are you forgetting he starts levitating first? hes both levitating and running to use less power or magic or whatever youd call it on fully levitating the whole time, the levitating adds speed, the running adds the ability to move like that without effort. all of his movement is floaty because... HES USING FLOATYISH MAGIC
I just changed my profile pic to Alucard for the Halloween season, and this is the first short I get recommended... It's great don't get me wrong, but now I'm scared of how much my phone monitors my actions lol 😅 Anyways I never thought anyone would analyze a character's walk-cycle, so great work!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy yeah, thinking about it now, I feel like the whole Castlevania series has some really memorable walk-cycles, whether it's Alucard or the Belmont strut. It's weirdly impressive that they've made their characters' basic walking animations as recognizable as they are. Anyways, awesome video, cheers!
In the original canon of the series, before the Lords of Shadow reboot, Alucard was named Adrien Fahrenheit Țepeș and he was born to a human woman named Lisa (possibly short for Elizabeth, there are some inconsistencies). As such, he is a half vampire, or a dhampir. He doesn't require drinking blood to survive, he can be in sunlight, he isn't harmed by holy items in the same way. In Lords of Shadow, he is Trevor Belmont who is the son of Gabriel Belmont, that setting's versions of Alucard and Dracula respectively.
To drive this point further home, compare and contrast Richter's animations. You can really see that the wispyness of Alucard's animations were absolutely intended.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy unfortunately not. The Castlevania collection doesn’t include SOTN. The collection, Castlevania Requiem does come with SOTN and Rondo of Blood, but that collection only released on the PSN.
I think you're the first person who doesn't like this animation. Though I wonder if that's cause the animation is actually bad or if you're applying the animation process too heavily instead of feeling it out. 😅
I didn't say I hate it, I was kinda offering both sides of critique. I like it for the most part. I was trying to create a sort of light hearted humour take, but one since avoided such attempts 😝
His shoulders are "kicking" his hair... Also Alucard doesnt rly need to walk to be honest... he practically floats halfway though before even starts his walking animation...
You mean because speedrunners backstep the whole game? What makes that "right?" What makes it a requirement that you play the game as quickly as possible?
Everyone already said what I was going to bring up in a *gooder way of saying it,* so I'll say this. SOTN is a masterpiece and gets a pass on a ton of "criticisms".
Ive never looked at the sprite sheet, anyone know the frame count for this off the top of their head? Id guess right around 8 frames or is it more than that?
You can really tell which people seemingly didn't watch past the first five seconds and typed angry comments without the full story of why Alucard's run cycle goes against conventional animation rules
Mm yeah. Ah well, people like to have their say, I suppose.
Welcome to earth
Yeah nah you didn't understand the video. You at least haven't watched the full version of the video, I know that.
Unfortunately I think the nature of shortening pre-existing content like this into a short is practically asking for misinterpretation. It’s not that the short is bad or something, but some people are… well, they’re beginning to have attention spans as shallow as the length of a TikTok. I guess that separates the people actually paying attention and not, though.
Nothing past the first five seconds really rescues this video. The comments also fail to mention that such smooth run cycles were common in 2D games in that era. This was likely a product of the stigma against 2D and bias towards 3D, which would have led developers to try and imitate 3D's smoothness- The very thing that makes it seen as undesirable for games meant to be in an animated style today.
Absolutely everyone just missed the pink elephant in the room.
I always loved his run cycle. It looks off/not right, but it's perfect because it fits his otherworldly nature. It's a good example that sometimes breaking the rules for a good reason can lead to something great/iconic.
Absolutely, I like it too
When the comment is better than the video
Have you checked out the full video?
Yes.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy i think the issue you are encountering is that shorts causes context issues in my own assessment i find that trying to show abit of a full videos content can lead to misunderstandings like this
His run cycle is one of the best animations I've ever seen in a game, along with his turn and his floaty jump, it's one of the most graceful animations I've seen in pre 2000s pixel art.
It is, I agree!
I like the the double jump, the cape is like wings flapping
Smoothest walk in gaming history
Soma Cruz would like to know your location
@@Juicedbelmont His DoS sprite is just 😫💦
It's been a while, but I remember in a lot of older vampire novels, it was described that vampires don't really "walk" per se... Like, they definitely take steps to move around, but it looks more like they're gliding along the surface of the floor. Kinda like, they've perfected ground movement to the point that they don't really need to make any unnecessary movements in their upper body.
That's how I always thought of it, anyway.
I love his walk cycle. I've always considered it to be kinda half floaty and not exactly 100% firmly walking on ground. I always got that impression since when you start walking he kinda flies/floats forward a bit THEN starts doing the walk cycle
I really appreciate this kind of thing where "Here's the parts that look unconventional" recognises that in a vacuum these would be poor choices, but given his Dhampiric nature, the hypersmooth motions bursting into snappy attacks turns out to fit Alucard better than something conventional would.
The fun thing about saying Alucard's run cycle is like this because he's half vampire is that Soma's run cycle in Aria and Dawn of Sorrow is practically identical to Alucard's in terms of movement, basically being a subtle animation hint as to the big twist of Aria.
*meanwhile speedrunners backdashing*
I think the purpose is to draw attention to how fast he is actually moveing, without trying at all. Despite the animation, he moves pretty fast with seeming ly no effort on his part.
Yeah that's right
Backdashing go brrr
This
He turning back is so pleasant to watch
Fun Fact about Dhampir; In some myths they don’t have bones and can slip through impossible spaces.
That's interesting!
>SotN Grates: Only mist allowed here
I mean, he can turn into mist lol
That intro where he was running in the forest was amazing.
The movement of his cloak is still mesmerizing to this day. The animation is so well done..........
It's more realistic than the janky strut of the Belmont clan, that's what makes Alucard special
Everyone knows Simon Belmont from Castlevania 1 has the best walk.
I've always assumed he's moving extremely fast and we don't notice it because we're playing from his PoV.
Belmont strut is and will always be op. Nothing is supreme over it.
I love the contrast between the Belmonts and Alucard walk cycle. You can even feel the differences when starting as Richter and then to Alucard
It really stands out in Dawn of Sorrow when the Bad Ending unlocks Julius Mode. Since you get three different characters its really fun to compare their 3 movement styles.
Julius is alot heavier in his movements.
Yoko is slow and gentle unless she uses melee since shes a magic user.
And Alucard feels even more vampiric and weightless in comparison because of the other two.
From an animation perspective, I like his walk. You can see every individual change in his sprite as it happens. Plus the start up to it is nice as well. A good example of how pixel art can be fluid, I'd say
Nobody sees this animation anyways, they’re doo busy shield sliding
Yeah, I figured he had to compliment the animation at some point lol
But this kinda makes sense only up until Dawn of Sorrow, after that even human characters have smooth animations, which makes me think if they still managed to keep this consistency.
Love the Alucard stride. Looks like he's sliding or floating
If you heard of the concept of Curve of Forgetting, basically it means we will gradually forget information we don't review. And that applies to education videos, too. So even if we viewed your videos before, these shorts allow us to review the information we've already seen, improving retention!
New research shows that this is completely useless unless you can apply it in higher levels of learning (i.e. analysis and creation)
@@jac1011 Source? I wanna read more about that.
Hey man I love Alucards walking animation, especially that smooooth initial slide he does beforehand 😂
Not sure if it has anything to do with him being a Vampire though cos I remember Shanoa, a full human having a very similar animation
dude yess. that initial dash he does is so smooth
To me, I think it's reflecting his heritage to Dracula. Dracula always has his movements convey a sense of unnatural power and smoothness, as if the laws of reality simply dont apply to him. Alucard's slick movement feels like a reduction of that effortlessness, as though the fact that he moves his feet along the ground is only a formality. He's not *as* powerful as his father, and yet something about the way it looks feels as though if Alucard broke into a dead sprint you wouldnt hear him at all. He's just *that* fluid and graceful. It's a really solid visual indicator of Alucard's nature as somewhat terse and distant despite his power, compared to his Belmont counterpart's stoic, almost dutiful march/strut. Despite the animations not really showing their face, you can tell with certainty that whatever Belmont has the face of a no nonsense ">:[" expression. "I am here to kill the supernatural and by god I will." Whereas with Alucard it conveys a near emotionless ":l" expression, as though the hordes of supernatural against him are a minor inconvenience, like a fly landing on your arm.
It's really impressive just how much "language" in character design a movement cycle can deliver.
That's not a run. It's an olympic march.
He's always had a flair for the dramatic.
I personally like it, especially the hair flow, it’s fiction and it’s dramatic, no need to be realistic, I mean, he’s a vampire after all😅
@@VideosLikeIn2000
Yeah I like it too!
Well if we are gonna go this far, might as well throw in the start-up animation for his movement, where he draws his cape up and slides forward.
Also worth noting is that his walk cycle does not match his movement speed, further emphasizing the fact that he is gliding across the floor.
it does give it a glidy smoothness that i think fits (as you point out in the end) and it allows it to be unique because of it. I’d hate this as a normal run but in this context i think i quite like it
Oh yeah definitely, it sure works.
I disagree, I love Alucard's walk cycle
So do I
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy My bad lol
This movement is one of the best in any side scroller ever. It's epic.
That is a fact
Nah he looks cool like that
I always found it interesting how Soma's animations are nearly Identical to Alucard.
Like father, like son, like reincarnation of father?
How to tell if people watched the whole video or not: Alucard Animation Edition
I think his arm movements are supposed to be callbacks to previous Castlevania protagonists doing the same thing, but it looks less weird there since they had less pixels and less frames of animation.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if they rotoscoped someone in the Konami offices.
I feel the same, but consider its age I think that run cycle were decent at that time. However the 180 turn animation must be the coolest one that was ever made. Also brilliant since he doesnt have to pause after turn. Both feels off and graceful at the same time.
When I studied in the University I wanted to walk like Alucard just for fun through the hallways
I kinda like Alucards run animation because I’ve stared at it so long, but when I thought about Alucard being in smash as a playable character, I thought yeah they’d definitely have to tweak his run cycle a bit because it’d look a bit silly in 3d animation. So does the Belmonts walk animations in smash, but it works because it’s so iconic to the characters, it wouldn’t feel right if they didn’t have that overly manly walk animation. Alucard's run animation on the other hand could definitely use a change, and I don’t think people would mind.
The reason as to why it looks off is to encourage the player to backdash!
He's, and I quote, "floaty, vampire Jesus."
Who said that?
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Trevor, in the Netflix series
Majesticly Walked/Jog
Idk about y’all but I love it, especially when you first begin and the music kicks in and it looks like he’s vibing to the music
I always interpreted it as looking a bit off, specifically he is a supernatural half-human and therefore is going to look and move strange.
Yeah that's right
An important aspect of his run cycle that's absent here is the gliding animation that it beings with, before transitioning into the full run cycle. It gives this effortless, ethereal ballet quality to it. When you're moving through the game; stopping to fight enemies, jumping across platform, etc, you mostly move in short bursts, where this glide animation is what you see most of the time. It makes it feel like he's just skating and dancing between each action. The transition to this stiff, steady, determined walk cycle for long spaces becomes sort of special, because you need such a long stretch of area to even appreciate it.
Yeah that's right, I have actually included more in the full video, the link _should_ be in the description but if not you can search my channel.
I love his goofy run lmao
I think ALL of the sprite animation in SotN is godlike. That game is a beautiful masterpiece, although I do understand where you are coming from.
I don't hate it, the animation and sprite work is absolutely stunning
He is running so the air is pushing his hair back!
It looks weird
One of the smoothest criminals from the ps1 era
His head clearly moves up and down slightly with his body!
Slightly
are you forgetting he starts levitating first? hes both levitating and running to use less power or magic or whatever youd call it on fully levitating the whole time, the levitating adds speed, the running adds the ability to move like that without effort. all of his movement is floaty because... HES USING FLOATYISH MAGIC
Yep, that's right 👍
Wow. I was just thinking about this...I was jogging and got bored. So I did Alucards start and run as a joke....
Dang most of the sotn players here use dash/shield cancel seeing this is nostalgia.
I just changed my profile pic to Alucard for the Halloween season, and this is the first short I get recommended... It's great don't get me wrong, but now I'm scared of how much my phone monitors my actions lol 😅
Anyways I never thought anyone would analyze a character's walk-cycle, so great work!
Phones are always listening!
Thanks, despite the opening of the video, I love the walk cycle it's awesome.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy yeah, thinking about it now, I feel like the whole Castlevania series has some really memorable walk-cycles, whether it's Alucard or the Belmont strut. It's weirdly impressive that they've made their characters' basic walking animations as recognizable as they are. Anyways, awesome video, cheers!
Alucard’s animation is amazing!
It is!
He was a Belmont before he was turned by his father dracula
Only in Lords of Shadow
In the original canon of the series, before the Lords of Shadow reboot, Alucard was named Adrien Fahrenheit Țepeș and he was born to a human woman named Lisa (possibly short for Elizabeth, there are some inconsistencies). As such, he is a half vampire, or a dhampir. He doesn't require drinking blood to survive, he can be in sunlight, he isn't harmed by holy items in the same way.
In Lords of Shadow, he is Trevor Belmont who is the son of Gabriel Belmont, that setting's versions of Alucard and Dracula respectively.
I like his run cycle
I do too
He is wearing a fuck ton of armor
To drive this point further home, compare and contrast Richter's animations. You can really see that the wispyness of Alucard's animations were absolutely intended.
That's right yeah, that's somewhere in the video.
Soul steal
Metamorphosis
Well that obvious.. clearly Devs knew the the player who be dash moonwalking throughout the entire level so they made him dad dance
Random thought, why the hell isn’t SOTN on the switch already???
Is it not? Or is the Castlevania collection not on it?
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy unfortunately not. The Castlevania collection doesn’t include SOTN. The collection, Castlevania Requiem does come with SOTN and Rondo of Blood, but that collection only released on the PSN.
Dang I was hoping he was leading into changing the animation :(
Watched the entire video?
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Oh dear I’ve made a foolie, I’ll go watch the full video I thought it was just this clip 😂
I think you're the first person who doesn't like this animation.
Though I wonder if that's cause the animation is actually bad or if you're applying the animation process too heavily instead of feeling it out. 😅
I didn't say I hate it, I was kinda offering both sides of critique. I like it for the most part. I was trying to create a sort of light hearted humour take, but one since avoided such attempts 😝
The Castlevania powerwalk is unbeatable
His shoulders are "kicking" his hair... Also Alucard doesnt rly need to walk to be honest... he practically floats halfway though before even starts his walking animation...
That's right, yeah!
time to load up some SOTN music
"he said he was going for a walk"
He runs like steven seagal lmao
It's really funny to me the way he says "complete lack of head bob" literally as he highlights the head, which....is bobbing....the whole time.
Not that much. It's very static mostly, though he is a vampire so it's meant to float.
For i second I thought this was a vampire survivor sprite lol
What do you think vampire survivors is based on
@@gv82089 true
Alucard also does the Michael Jackson moonwalk in the game too
This is a moonwalk cycle
i like the sakuya one in koumajou densetsu 2
Yeah but does he moonwalk like Simon? Didn't think so
Reminds me of the wheels on a train. Lil choo choo man
He looks off balance.
Chu chu Alucard
S M O O T H E R
Um, his hair move like that because of like vampire magic, duh
I love pixels
Pixels are perf
You dare criticize the masterpiece?
Did I? Where?
hes running and the wind blows his hair back genius, the run cycle is fine and smooth especially for 97.
@mattwatts7008
I know it is, why the aggression?
We all know this is fake.
Alucard doesn't walk/run anywhere; he backslides everywhere. ;)
You ain't even gonna see it if you're playing the game right lol
You mean because speedrunners backstep the whole game? What makes that "right?" What makes it a requirement that you play the game as quickly as possible?
Not another unkind word about his strut ............
There are kind words too.
Alucard's goofy ah run
Who even runs in this game?
*slides away with twice the speed*
People who don't care about speedrunning or playing "optimally".
he looks like a mall-walker
Squinting creates the illusion of it being a lot more detailed and less pixelated than it truly is.
That's why playing retro games on proper hardware (CRT TV screens) is beneficial for the visuals looking better.
I feel like “who cares” needs to be inserted in here somewhere 😂
@@SuperBrentis
You'll be surprised who didn't watch and understand this video properly.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy oh I get that. And again I say “who cares”
If you don't care, why watch it, why comment, why even be on CZcams?
get a load of this guy. respectfully giving his organized opinions. smh people these days..
I don't know what you mean.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy you know what you did, sir.
Well I'm sure it was good 👍
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy it was good, I enjoyed hearing what you had to say
Everyone already said what I was going to bring up in a *gooder way of saying it,* so I'll say this.
SOTN is a masterpiece and gets a pass on a ton of "criticisms".
Absolutely
Bro what is this guys problem 😂, alucards walk is fine, fits him perfectly
I don't have a problem? 🤔
Did you not watch past the first half of the short?
Ive never looked at the sprite sheet, anyone know the frame count for this off the top of their head?
Id guess right around 8 frames or is it more than that?
Stop hating on Alucard bro...
I'm not
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy oh, ok. Cool.
is the audio super low?
Is your audio low?
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy oh I had my audio low on normal videos and that translated to low audio on short videos where I can't adjust it I apologise