I don't think the fact that Naughty Dog is an incredibly talented studio is particularly news to anybody, but I've recently been playing the Jak & Daxter Precursor Legacy and I'm really surprised at the quality of the animation. I have beaten every Jak game >10 times in the past, and I've always thought the animation was good and pixar like, but I thought it would be disappointing to re-visit it since our memories sometimes are too ideal of our experiences.
One of the things that was somewhat jarring, and this becomes more apparent in HD, is the low-resolution assets. I can count the polygons on everything, yet they manage to animate these things so well that it almost doesn't matter. I've seen modern games that have far crappier animation, and it's because there is no style to them. There is so much nuance and detail in everything that is happening. There are a wide range of animations for every action the player takes during gameplay. For instance, after a spin-kick, daxter will struggle to hold on to Jak in different ways before landing back on his shoulder. Everything is also making excellent use of stretching and squashing, which makes everything look very fluid. Everything in the game is alive, and as someone who's tried 3d animation and modeling, I'm even more impressed by it now than I was when I was younger.
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