Lately, I have been watching the run animation of Spiral Knights, and comparing it to those of other games. I think I might have just realized something...

Many of you have probably already noticed how knights hold their arms to the sides when they run...which looks rather unnatural. I've always wondered why the animators chose to animate their arms like this. When trying to apply my studies of how knights run, I have run into repeated problems of things mashing together and looking like strange, confusing blobs.

I looked at how, say, how Megamen (that is, all of the Megaman player characters) run, and their arms are always are back and forth. This is much more realistic and more obvious on a 2D scale. Then I realized...what if the arms to the sides is a clever design choice?

I mean, think about it. We play the game from a distant angle, and cannot see our knights all too well. It is nice to be able to see what we (and others) are holding, right? Well, if our player characters hold out their arms, then they're literally showing what they're holding to the world. This also is easier for those big, thick gauntlets which some armors have, since it reduces clipping.

Finally, it might help show direction, since direction is always perpendicular to the arms. Of course, the knight's face is so obvious that you rarely would lose the direction of another knight, but making it more obvious can be helpful.

Anyhow, I just thought it was interesting and wondered what you guys think.