best animation in 2d games

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

At the end of the day, 'best' is relative.

Pacman for instance. I think the 'animation' in that is perfect as it does it's job and no matter what, any 'improvment' in graphics/animation wouldn't make the game and better.

Then you have games from the technical viewpoint.

Art of Fighting 3? Last Blade 2? Yes. Both amazing feats for what is essentially a limited 2D system.

STIII3S? Simply beautiful and one of the best from an artistic standpoint.

Any of this make any sense or is this just more drunkard ramblings from a bored Fami?

[TheForce]

the first games that I could think off were, the old Prince of Persia, Metal Slug games, Another world and Flashback.

As I remember MYTH on the C64 had some good animations as well back then

[Sane]

Garou Mark of the Wolves still has some of the best animation I've ever seen.

[Flabio]

Odin Sphere, by a country mile...

[crocky-chocky]

Shaq Fu!

Seriously, a tod game but very well animated.

Mischief Makers also has some amazingly animated bosses.

[moonwhistle]

SF3 and MOTW have simply staggering animation.

[Skull Commander]

Guilty gear for me. They always look great.

[moonwhistle]

Guilty gear for me. They always look great.

Really? I think GG games look great standing still but awful in motion. I think there's perhaps not enough frames to make the fighting flow smoothly. The result is rather unplayable yet intriguing looking mess.

[Soundwave]

It's difficult because I'm trying to think about older 2D games that look great but I'm so stuck in the modern 2D games that I can barely remember any now.

Anywho currently I think Hokuto No Ken looks freaking gorgeous, amazing sprites, stunning backgrounds & lush fluid animation.

Older games though I cant help but think the Star Wars games on the SNES looked very pretty moving.
Batman Returns on the SNES as well
Adventures of Batman & Robin was another I always thought looked good moving
Axelay looked great too in my eyes

Neil

[Super Monkey Balls]

Some of the recent Cave games have some beautifully animated enemies, DeathSmiles especially.

[J0e Musashi]

Odin Sphere far outshines anything mentioned so far.

[Profit]

In terms of technical quality, Odin Sphere is certainly the most detailed. Artistically too it may be. Grimgrimoire also had similar qualities. I think Odin Sphere was designed to be played in the Easy setting as it had much less slowdown and preserved the ranking difficulty.

Never liked the animation in SF3 much, thought it was speeded up and repetitive. The backgrounds let it down as well.

[kernow]

some of the sf3 animation is awesome, 3rd strikes backgrounds let it down a lot and the overall presentation, I don't like the music either. but in III new gen, the weighting behind the characters such as ken or ryu getting tripped up and the momentum of them falling on their asses, is just perfect, I could watch it for hours.

[Leon Retro]

Yoshi's Island

Metal Slug Series

GradiusV

There are many more - but the above have really special animation.

It's difficult because I'm trying to think about older 2D games that look great but I'm so stuck in the modern 2D games that I can barely remember any now.

Anywho currently I think Hokuto No Ken looks freaking gorgeous, amazing sprites, stunning backgrounds & lush fluid animation.

Older games though I cant help but think the Star Wars games on the SNES looked very pretty moving.
Batman Returns on the SNES as well
Adventures of Batman & Robin was another I always thought looked good moving
Axelay looked great too in my eyes

Neil

Yep.. all of those have exceptional animation. It's the sort of thing that really adds to a game - and makes it AAA.

[Baseley09]

Earnest Evans