10 Secret Ways Video Games Make You Feel Like A Badass
5. Animation Telegraphing Ramped Up To Eleven
The startup phase of a game animation is incredibly important on an enemy (far less so on a player character). This is how the player knows what the enemy is going to do next, so they can react accordingly.
If the enemy just fired off his Heart Mutilator laser on frame number one, killing you instantly, you’d feel pretty agitated, I’d imagine. Also, your heart would be mutilated.
However, some games have variable startup/telegraphing times for certain attacks - usually attacks that are problematic or particularly dangerous to the player - so they can learn them far more effectively.
What does this mean? Well, if the boss has a move - let’s call it “Quite Considerable Kick” - which connects/beats you up a lot, some games will simply slow down the otherwise identical windup animation to Quite Considerable Kick, so you can register the motion, learn the effective counter, and react accordingly.
From there, the game might return to its original startup animation timings to test your skills once more, but in a way that hasn’t seen you unnecessarily killed multiple times beforehand.