History Main / GoingThroughTheMotions

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' is notorious for this, to the point some of Phoenix's movements have entered the wider nerd sphere. The writing is more than capable of carrying the emotions across, however, and most of the central characters have a fairly wide palette of actions. One character, Marvin Grossberg, only has two facial expressions (upset, and non-upset) due to another reason for the use of this trope -- they ran out of cartridge space, though this improves in the third game when he plays as Mia's co-consul in the first case.

** Gumshoe has sprites for being angry, glum, embarrassed, but none for anguish. This shows when Franziska whips him in ''Justice for All'', and he yells "Oooow!" with a cheeky smile on his face. And in ''Trials and Tribulations'', he weeps tearfully over being rejected by the girl he's crushing on... and he stands motionlessly with a smile as he does so.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' has a various amount of animations and effects that are used to display emotion when the characters are talking. In ''Animal Crossing: Wild World'', players can learn some of these emotions and set them off whenever they want. This was carried over into ''AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'', which has at least 40 such emotions the player can perform at will.

* The ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' reboot for [=PS4=] sadly has this for the in-game dialogue, due to the developers being given a very little time to do them.

* Lt. Kirce James in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'' acts exactly as the seductress example given above, shifting from one 'sexy' pose to another at the end of every... hang on, she's a ''[[BadBadActing real(ly terrible) actress]]''!

Animating {{Cut Scene}}s in a video game is not easy, and much of this is due to sheer volume. Even the shorter story-based games are longer than all but the most avant-garde of movies, and that's just for starters -- depending on what the player does, they may see more cutscenes, or fewer cutscenes or different ones. It can be the equivalent of animating four WesternAnimation/ToyStory-length movies.

* To the point of ridiculousness in ''[[Manga/DragonBall Dragon Ball Z]]: Burst Limit''. There's some scenes which are faithful reproductions of scenes from the cartoon, but for a lot of the side scraps they use a small amount of generic animations, merely replacing the characters. Characters will fall over in the same way, they'll be taken aback in the same way, and get beat up/beat someone up in the same way. It's not just limited to the cutscenes though -- there's also the Drama Pieces, which use a lot of the same animations.

Pretty much the only time it's completely avoided is when the director is convinced that they are not making a game, but making a movie. At that point, all they can really do is hire a large amount of motion actors and hand animators and caffeinate them.

Pretty much the only time it's completely avoided is when the director is convinced that they are not making a game, but making a movie. At that point, all they can really do is hire a large amount of motion actors and hand animators, caffeinate them, and walk up and down behind them with a large stick threatening violence to them and their extended family if they fail to portray your grand artistic vision. [[Creator/HideoKojima Hideo Kojima]] favors this method. That or work for Valve.

Animating {{Cut Scene}}s in a video game is not easy, and much of this is due to sheer volume. Even the shorter story-based games are longer than all but the most avant-garde of movies, and that's just for starters - depending on what the player does, they may see more cutscenes, or fewer cutscenes or different ones. It can be the equivalent of animating four WesternAnimation/ToyStory-length movies.

And there's another problem with animating video games - technology. In the first decade or so of 3D gaming, in-engine cutscenes had to use extremely simple models, often with no moveable mouths or visible eyes. It took until about the year 2000 before motion capture technology (recording an actor's movements with sensors) began to be seriously used (and seriously affordable). And even this must be processed by hand in some cases, because the sets at mo-cap record time may have changed in-game since the mo-cap was recorded (or no sets were used at all), or because the characters can perform actions that the motion capture actors can't possibly replicate or have proportions that real-world acting can't translate to. It is much harder to translate mo-cap to a game with surreal or exaggerated styles like WaddlingHead or SuperDeformed, for instance, and so this trope is much more likely to show up those games.

Related to {{Machinima}}, it involves small clips of gesture animation being predefined for all the characters - for instance, Bob might have a sarcastic {{facepalm}} gesture, while Alice might have a hand-on-hip gesture, a raise-gun gesture, a stretch gesture, a hair-toss gesture and a fold-arms gesture. These can then be strung together to make a coherent scene; something like:

As motion capture becomes less expensive and game engines and animation software become more powerful (and as game budgets increase), the practice of Going Through the Motions for the whole game seems to be almost dead. Nowadays it's a lot more common to use stock gestures for only low-ticket, talky scenes which aren't particularly plot important - {{Exposition Break}}s, [[HeKnowsAboutTimedHits player tutorials that break the fourth wall]], things like that - and use full motion-capture or animating from scratch for everything else. If you have enough gestures however, particularly character-specific ones, it can help [[CharacterTics establish characters]] when mixed with fully animated cutscenes.

* Every character in ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesAlice'' has this little "vanishing" animation they use ''every goddamn time'' you meet them, whether it is Cheshire Cat's fading out or the gnome's "twirl and shrink into nothing".
* In ''VideoGame/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', Hermione adopts a folded arms position in every cut scene. Even in one scene, immediately after having her life threatened by a rampaging troll moments before.
* ''Videogame/{{Okami}}'' has these, but the only one that really jars is Waka's "uncross arms, gesture with flute, cross arms" sequence. This is because Waka is MrExposition, so you'll see him frequently.
* The ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' series as a whole is pretty good at avoiding this, but the [[UnexpectedGenreChange Dreadful Crimes]] from ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedSyndicate'' feature it when talking to interrogation subjects. No matter what they're saying, they'll throw their arms around and gesticulate wildly.
* Ditto with the ''Franchise/GrandTheftAuto'' series starting with the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII the third game]] where civilians and the player alike make [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHMu9YGSvV4 exaggerated arm gestures]] during conversations which do not involve elaborate setpiece animations.

* Creator/TelltaleGames uses this technique in their episodic ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'', ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'' and ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'' adventure games, presumably to facilitate their tight production schedule. It's generally done well, but a few gestures do stand out, such as Sam's "thumb to the side" gesture, Max's "twiddly fingers" gesture, Strong Bad's "rub hands (gloves?) together" gesture, Strong Mad's "point and raise eyebrows" gesture and Guybrush's "posing heroically while looking off into the distance" gesture.
** In ''Sam and Max Season Two'' the characters learn to click their fingers, but it happens a little too frequently. Sam finally puts his hands in his pockets, to the delight of fans.
** ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'' resorts to [[OnlySixFaces reusing a pair of character models]] "Fat Guy" and "Skinny Guy", to save on the amount of animations necessary for minor characters. While this is quite obvious, two characters (Bugeye and one of the Spoon Isle pirates) use Guybrush's character model, though this is much less obvious and you have to watch their animations closely to realize it.
*** {{Lampshaded}} at one point where Guybrush and another character with his model introduce themselves to each other, reciting nearly the same line of dialogue and performing the exact same motions.
** ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'', especially the first season. The movements Lee makes with his shoulders and eyebrows during conversations will become very familiar to a player by the end of the game, and ''every time'' Lilly is angry with someone, she ''always'' steps forward and jabs her pointer finger at their chin, to the point it becomes comical. They got a bit better about it in subsequent seasons.
* ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'' unfortunately did not do this for non-major characters, causing a lot of [[UncannyValley unnatural looking]] conversations where [=NPCs=] stand completely stock still moving only their mouths.

* The [[Recap/DoctorWhoTAGE01CityOfTheDaleks Doctor Who]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoTAGE02BloodOfTheCybermen Adventure]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoTAGE03TARDIS Games]] suffer from this to a ridiculous degree. The characters never stop making the same four or five movements, making them all appear like weird, hyperactive drug-addicts. It does not help that NPC dialogue can reflect this if you interact with them rapidly, causing them to repeat the first word they say.

* To the point of ridiculousness in ''[[Manga/DragonBall Dragon Ball Z]]: Burst Limit''. There's some scenes which are faithful reproductions of scenes from the cartoon, but for a lot of the side scraps they use a small amount of generic animations, merely replacing the characters. Characters will fall over in the same way, they'll be taken aback in the same way, and get beat up/beat someone up in the same way. It's not just limited to the cutscenes though - there's also the Drama Pieces, which use a lot of the same animations.

* ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' has ''one'' animation for when a character is talking to you. It gets repetitive.
* ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' has expressive motion-captured body language and subtly-animated facial expressions... during the "social battle" conversations. In regular conversations, ''everybody'' has the same set of animations. Men will perform the downcast head-scratch, the sly chin-stroke, and the angry "cut it out" arm gesture. Women will clasp their hands, bobble their heads nervously and generally act like they're plucking up the courage to ask Adam on a date. Once you notice the reused animations, you can't ever ''not'' notice them.
* ''Videogame/Borderlands2'' is a pretty heavy offender whenever an NPC is talking to you. Not only is it much more noticeable since they go through numerous stock motions in quick succession, but they tend to do little more than move their arms and occasionally shift their weight a bit.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManPoweredUp'' has a stock set of emotive gestures for use in the short cutscenes preceding a boss fight - since most of the characters have the exact same body type, these animations are shared across all characters except Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, Roll, and Gutsman (Who has his own versions of the exact same animations).
* Creator/EpicGames' early platformer ''VideoGame/JillOfTheJungle''. Jill's 'look up' and 'look down' animations had her facing the screen/camera. Idle animations would post text at the bottom of the screen: "Look, An airplane! (look up animation)" "Your shoe's untied! (look down)" Also at various points, these sprites were cycled to make Jill nod.

** The Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog series, in general, averts these for cutscenes, with a few exceptions. One of them is Classic Sonic in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' and ''VideoGame/SonicForces'', which was a deliberate choice to make him look like a FishOutOfTemporalWater--namely from a less technologically advanced era of games. Where everyone else moves fluidly and the other FunnyAnimal characters are animated from scratch, Classic Sonic does stock flips, backflips, short hops, hand-waves, running in place, etc., albeit adjusted such that he appears natural and not [[UncannyValley uncanny]].
* The Franchise/RatchetAndClank reboot for [=PS4=] sadly has this for the in-game dialogue, due to the developers being given a very little time to do them.

* The characters in ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology'' have a suite of extremely bombastic/overacted gestures to go with their dramatic voice acting and badly-rendered mannequin-like models. It works surprisingly well.

* There's one particularly iconic pose in the console games of ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', as well as the GBA game ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories Chain of Memories]]'' - a pose of Sora's where he crosses his legs over and puts his hands behind his head, relaxed. In ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Birth by Sleep]]'', his {{Expy}} Ven also uses the pose. ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'' has to use GoingThroughTheMotions. By the time you finish the game, Axel's headscratch and Roxas's depressed glance down probably will have been burned into your memory forever, as will their particular ways of sitting on the edge of the clock tower.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', widely regarded as one of the best 2D sprite [=RPGs=], still had to resort to spinning around for certain emotes, though much more rarely than other SNES [=RPGs=]. The attentive player will find a number of emotes are reused in surprising ways, however.
** Parts of animation loops, whether cutscene or battle, sometimes get cut out and stuck in to be dancing or flirting etc.
* ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'':
** The game manages to get through a good many cutscenes like this while still looking believable. The only really jarring one is the "push" animation, which gets recycled as trying to shove one's way past something and even picking flowers.
** For main characters, sure, but the vast majority of human [=NPCs=], especially those who never fight, get no frames of animation whatsoever beyond walking in the four main directions. Every ounce of visible emotion from these characters comes in the form of jumping or spinning (made even weirder by the fact that the main characters almost never jump or spin.)
* The Playstation RPG ''VideoGame/LegendOfLegaia'' has gestures for happiness, sadness, excitement, anger/defiance, and what have you for the three main characters. They're thankfully unique enough to reflect that character's personality.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' started including cutscenes in Issue 6, making use of the game's existing library of {{Emote Animation}}s for the motions.
** This was also used for the advertisement for the recently released Mac version, which parodied the Mac VS PC ads.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is very guilty of this. From Colette's arm pump, Lloyd's wild arm gesture, Zelos waving his arm up and down as he speaks, to Kratos' quickdraw sword slashes, you see each motion SEVERAL times during the game.
** The [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld sequel]] does as well, though it is avoided during major cutscenes, which use motion-capture.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' uses the built in emote system in order to make the animations in their cutscenes. Cutscenes for the later installments did have arguably better animation, and ''Nightfall's'' release ''did'' allow for basic lip-synching for all cutscenes, even those of the previous installments.
* Every single ''VideoGame/{{Grandia}}'' game has been full of this.

* [=BioWare=] games often have hours if not tens of hours of cutscene content, which would be impossible to custom-animate on time and on budget. Even their most recent games use an automated system for lip-syncing, setting up character motions and arranging camera angles in cutscenes; the scenes are then touched up by a human being to make them look a bit nicer. Their older efforts were a bit more obvious about the motions they went through. In no particular order:
** ''Mass Effect'' has one that many characters use, a generic "I'm a little confused" animation that even Shepard does sometimes, involving a small shrug and the character awkwardly rubbing the back of their neck. This one is notable because there's a small sidequest where you have to keep an NPC talking for as long as possible, and the quest-giver tells you to press him on subjects that make him nervous so he'll try to dance around the issue and talk more. The tic to watch for? The NPC rubs the back of his neck when he's nervous.
*** As mentioned in the page quote, there's also a generic "shake fist grr grr" motion used throughout the franchise that looks wrong no matter who is using it from Counselor Udina to a teenaged biotic.
** In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', everyone expresses misery, no matter how mild, by grabbing their head and shaking. The same game features a standard script animation where the characters gesture with their hands, and this is extensively used during conversation. Because the characters are rendered with weapons in hand, this can get unnerving. There's nothing quite like seeing Carth Onasi, ''GunsAkimbo'' fighter extraordinare, talking to you while waving a pair of blasters around wildly. Especially when he's angry at you. More amusingly, performing the 'bow' animation with a sword in hand results in the character impaling their own head.
*** Early in [=KOTOR=] 2, the Exile relinquishes her lightsaber to the Jedi Council... which can be represented by stabbing the guy (s)he's giving it to. Who grabs the 'saber by the cuts-through-anything blade.
*** Both [=KOTORs=] have lots of motions doing double- to triple-duty. The same animation is used for cheering, dancing, and being powered up.
** Bioware's ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' does this very weirdly. The characters mostly move very naturally, except that everyone loves to cross and uncross their arms while talking. In some longer conversations, you may see arms cross and uncross three times. Even better, rarely the game's timing gets a little too predictable, and multiple character will start doing it in sequence, which rather kills the drama.
*** This is made even worse by the Dwarves, considering their arms don't cross properly. Their hands end up clipping through their forearms.
** There's one action in ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' where the character sort of raises their right arm, as if in benediction, and wave it back and forth and up and down in front of them. This not only looks ridiculous, ''everybody does it'' at random points.
* Every character in the ''VideoGame/PokemonRanger'' series of games has a short animation that plays for a few seconds if they're standing around for long enough. This can get rather comical when, for example, a villain is hanging around, taunting you to go stop his master from executing his plans - and all he does is stand around, pausing every five seconds to put his hands behind his head in a laid-back manner.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' gives the player-characters a limited amount of animations, which are often used and re-used to limited effect on Role Playing servers. Most can be seen (including the ridiculous dances) on the ''South Park'' episode set in the game.
** Unfortunately, alternative forms (from one of several gag items or druid forms) often have even less variety. One model of a birdlike humanoid, however, actually has a lot of animations, including a simple but unique dance, a sleep pose (instead of simply using the death pose) and several others that are never used normally on enemies. And the item that transforms your character into this for some minutes is pretty hard to obtain, too.
*** The large number of emotes in that NPC race led to rumors it was going to be a PC race in the next expansion-- it wasn't.
** Almost every crafting ability uses the same 'rubbing an invisible grapefruit' animation, from cooking to tailoring to leatherworking. This is especially jarring with male trolls, who hammer one hand against the other. Alchemy uses the same animation but has the character holding two flasks. Blacksmithing and mining use a 'pounding on something' animation with a hammer or pickaxe.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'' has a truly impressive number of unique situational sprites. There weren't more than a couple scenes that were made with stock poses. You could tell when crap was going to hit the fan by the use of Valkyrie's more emotional reactions or more dramatic poses.
* The lack of variety of expressions causes much {{Narm}} in some ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'' cutscenes.

* The first two ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' games mostly avoided this, only using stock poses for unimportant scenes, and otherwise using nicely animated cutscenes... until the third game, at which point they changed the format over to oldschool textboxes-and-stock-animation for the most part, which was somewhat disappointing.
* {{Creator/Bethesda}} games are major user of this trope. To note:
** Bethesda's [[UsefulNotes/GameEngine Gambryo Engine]] games from the ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' (''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'') and ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'' (''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'') series lack even individualized gestures. This isn't so noticeable when its monologue being delivered in the "Talking Head" style which comprises the vast majority of dialgoue in these games, but it's highly noticeable in staging what are intended to be a dramatic in-engine cinematics. All models have the same wooden hand gestures which are reused whenever needed (ex. pulling levers, opening doors, etc.) with elbows locked at their sides and scant body language. Even the celebrity voice-acted characters do this (it must make Liam Neeson wince to see the movement associated with his voice). Any modder can find the vast library of idle animations the designers had at their disposal, but for whatever reason, very few were implemented.
*** The few rare instances of humanoid [=NPCs=] ''not'' using the same stock motions in conversation are almost jarring thanks to their novelty. One that comes to mind is in ''New Vegas'', where the Courier can speak to a Hispanic Ghoul mechanic, who has some unique response animations when spoken to about certain subjects, most notably an exaggerated head-hanging slump that basically seems to convey "I don't know, but I'll say something anyway."
** This also shows up to a lesser extent in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' and ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', despite using the more advanced Creation Engine. There are a greater variety of motions utilized over previous installments, and prominent characters are more likely to have to have a few unique gestures, but the vast majority still get repetitive quickly. For example, in ''Skyrim'', "drinking" seems to always involve drunkenly swaying back and forth to some music with a tankard in one hand, your followers all respond to trading with you with the same gesture (shrugging their shoulders a few times), and people react to finding a dead body by kneeling before it and hovering their hands over it.
* ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'' uses this, which is an acceptable trade-off for the amazingly detailed sprites it features. Though it does have its stranger moments: At one point, a character is injured, and his sprite shows him holding one arm. When he turns to face the other direction, he switches the arm that he's holding in a [[AmbidextrousSprite lazy sprite-flipping way]].

* Used for {{foreshadowing}} in ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga''. [[TheSpock Gale]] demonstrates a common habit of touching his forehead whenever he's thinking. The player can later infer that this is because [[spoiler:in his past life, he wore glasses.]]
** The rest of the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games aren't that good with it, even the ones that use 3d models. ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' regularly uses Yosukes "Lean forward and wave hands" gesture whenever he says something with force, while Chie's crying gesture is so [[{{Narm}} silly]] that the developers seem aware of what it looks like, and use it for her getting a bug off herself.
** ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' indicates any measure of determination from the main character by him putting his hand over his heart, leaning forward and grinning angrily. [[ScrewDestiny You will see this a lot.]]
*** This might be also be a case of FridgeBrilliance. [[spoiler:The main character is [[CainAndAbel Abel]], and in one of the paths Cain mentions how he stabbed him in the heart. One would be a little careful with ones heart after that.]]
** ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' has the main character do an AsideGlance whenever something humorous happens.
* The original ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' was pretty clever in it's use of stock motions, enhanced through emotion bubbles, but Covenant had Yuri put his hand on his hip ''every time he spoke''.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' had hardly any additional frames for the characters. However, during cutscenes they use the standard walking, jumping, waving, etc. motions combined with sound effects to great effect. Usually, this was in the form of [[HeroicMime re-enacting what had just happened, in an effort to explain it to someone else.]] Its [[SpiritualSuccessor spiritual sequels]], the VideoGame/PaperMario and [[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi]] series, do the same thing.
** One creative bit is when the "mute" pose of a bowed head is used to show [[spoiler:Mario bowing to Mallow when he's revealed to be a prince.]]
* Every character in ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'' has one specific gesture to themselves which they go through when they speak. Yes, (nearly) every time they speak.
* ''VideoGame/TheYouTestament'' has characters often repeating the "checking the wind" animation.

* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', big time, and often accompanied by a matching bit of stock voice (the dialogue was not fully voiced).
* ''VideoGame/WildArms5'' had this. From Dean's "rub upper lip" to Carol's "lean forward, fists clenched". Bonus points: each of the characters has a special default pose they regress back into when they're not moving. Unfortunately, this can lead to such cases as Rebecca informing the others that they have to save an orphan in a semi touching scene... then leaning a bit to the side and placing a hand on her hip in a sassy way.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' uses this trope during general play and minor cutscenes, the most egregious example being the way the party leader will look over their shoulder at an interjecting party member when they accept or complete a sidequest, every time, and every character ([[TeamPet save one]]) uses a near-identical animation skeleton for it. The same handful of gestures and minor facial expressions are also used extensively for the minor cutscenes, though the heavier, more dramatic scenes use full motion-capture and give the characters much more detailed, expressive faces.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomsOfAmalurReckoning'' has plenty, but they aren't ''too'' noticeable. Except for the overly-exaggerated "shocked" animation, which is so over the top that it's impossible to ignore and looks so silly that it kills any seriousness the conversation may have had.

* The entirety of ''VideoGame/LittleTownHero'' is animated in this way, though each character has at least a dozen different animations, even minor characters and every MonsterOfTheWeek. There's even a menu accessible from the Press Start screen where you can view their stock animations and animation cycles, all of which are modular, meaning they can be combined where feasible. Oddly, a large number of them are never used in the game.
* Except for the opening cutscene and climactic cutscenes, ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' subsist almost solely on stock animations--or, in some cases, none at all. That being said, it does get creative sometimes: [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever Dynamaxed Pokémon grow huge and will look downward at normal-sized Pokémon]], and this pose was used on a normal-sized Silicobra to indicate it's sleepy. The credits have no mention of motion capture whatsoever, suggesting everything in the game, including those cutscenes, was animated completely from ground up without the use of actors.
* Conversations in ''VideoGame/KingdomComeDeliverance'' involve a set of gestures that are recycled by all characters.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' has a various amount of animations and effects that are used to display emotion when the characters are talking. In ''Animal Crossing: Wild World'', players can learn some of these emotions and set them off whenever they want. This was carried over into ''AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'', which has at least 40 such emotions the player can perform at will.
* ''VideoGame/TheMovies'' is a movie studio simulation, but in fact can actually be used as a studio for Machinima. It puts the player in the seat of a cutscene director: You can actually write, direct and edit short cutscenes (or long ones if you have the patience) which can include many actors with a staggering array of backdrops, camera angles and costumes. The game has a very large assortment of possible character animations in each "scene", but most of the motions look extremely exaggerated or contrived, making it difficult to make anything which doesn't look like a satire of itself. Still, with the editing tools at your disposal, and a bit of talent it's quite possible to [[http://www.machinima.com/channel/view&id=2 actually make a movie that looks reasonably good]]. Some have won awards.

* ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'' did this quite often; the same animation was often recycled by different characters. One of the most prominent examples is an indignant/belligerent hand-on-hip, fist-shaking motion, shared by [[TheSheriff George]], [[SupremeChef Nick]], and at least one other male character, if not more. York's characteristic tap-the-collar motion is also done by other characters, like Deputy Emily.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', despite being sprite-based, avoided this, with sprites drawn for every conceivable situation and every cutscene rendered in-engine. The tradeoff for this was very generic actions in battle scenes--other than using fists or a bow, attacking is the same downward sweeping gesture, charging is achieved by squatting, all spells are cast by raising hands, and summons are "rendered" by a still image plus particle effects.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' has very few actions that can happen to a particular unit on the map - moving, exploding, and "leaving". This leads to a few strange ways to set up scenes - when characters fall into a body of water, for instance, it's shown by them moving very quickly over the body of water, then leaving. Cutscenes also have to use the offensive and defensive support features to reasonably good effect. Generally, unless you know what's going on, just watching the little units dance around can look very strange.

** In the games that use the Squad System, certain ALL attacks invoke this when used on Squads that only have one or two units - it can easily lead to {{Narm}} watching a unit shoot or slash at targets that aren't even there.
* The ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series. Spoofed in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 2|CursedMemories}}'' when [[NoFourthWall the characters realize that they FINALLY get a fully animated cutscene]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1Q5qM6w-E&feature=related thoroughly abuse the hell out of it.]] With [[MoreDakka a chaingun]]. (The video spoils only the good ending of the first game)
** ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 6|Defiance of Destiny}}'' marks the game's first VideoGame3DLeap, yet in cutscenes the characters are animated using generic motions that look identical to what the sprites used. Whether this is delibrate or done out of laziness or cutting costs is uncertain.
* The cutscenes (besides the opening and ending ones, which are beautifully animated) in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagicV'' are painful to watch, as the only motions the characters have are their various spell casting ones. Every sentence is punctuated with a swirl of magic.
** Expansions, thankfully, dealt with the issue and added much wider variety of movements - and also finally allowed the character to get off their mounts.
* Used (and repeatably mentioned in the "team-streams") in ''VideoGame/MassiveChalice''. Wherever possibly every character will be using the same set of animations to save time and money.

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' is notorious for this, to the point some of Phoenix's movements have entered the wider nerd sphere. The writing is more than capable of carrying the emotions across, however, and most of the central characters have a fairly wide palette of actions. One character, Marvin Grossberg, only has two facial expressions (upset, and non-upset) due to another reason for the use of this trope - they ran out of cartridge space, though this improves in the third game when he plays as Mia's co-consuel in the first case.
** The very first case in the first game shows how rediculous the motions are. When Phoenix needs to send a signal to Larry inn the very first case, it plays like this:

* ''VisualNovel/{{Again}}'': Outside of small cutscenes, character portraits are often animated this way. such as with Detective Lane's does this occasional {{facepalm}}s and some instances of GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger.
* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' has a particular set of expressions for each character, such as anger, fear, happiness, or confidence. The high versatility of their expressions caused several poses to be iconic for some characters to the point where the AnimatedAdaptation slips them into the show fully rendered.

* This effect is not limited to games. In ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars Transformers,'' the robots' various transformation sequences were stock motions -- freshly animated each time, often from different angles, but with their body parts transforming in exactly the same way.
* In Creator/ScottMeyer's ''[[Literature/{{Magic20}} An Unwelcome Quest]]'', Todd kidnaps several wizards and then forces them to play out a video game of sorts that he created. Except he put about as much effort into making believable animations for the artificial constructs as most games. For example, the "quest" involving a blacksmith forging an InfinityPlusOneSword generally involves the blacksmith simply waving his arms around the object, making it appear like he's doing something, and then the object instantly transforms into something else. Todd gets called out on this lazy method by the "players".

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' uses this trope during general play and minor cutscenes, the most egregious example being the way the party leader will look over their shoulder at an interjecting party member when they accept or complete a sidequest, every time, and every character ([[TeamPet save one]]) uses a near-identical animation skeleton for it. The same handful of gestures and minor facial expressions are also used extensively for the minor cutscenes, though the heavier, more dramatic scenes use full motion-capture and give the characters much more detailed, expressive faces.

* In ''VideoGame/HarryPotter and the Philosopher's Stone'' videogame, Hermione adopts a folded arms position in every cut scene. Even in one scene, immediately after having her life threatened by a rampaging troll moments before.

* VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}} used this during less important exposition or dialogue cutscenes, but only sparingly. Some animations that stand out are Raz's "stand there in rage with gritted teeth" animation and Sasha's hair-flip and arm gesture animations. However, the facial expressions are not tied to the body movements. For example, Raz has a standard talking gesture that is basically moving forward a bit and shrugging. In one scene, when Raz is talking to Bobby about winning the levitation race, they play that animation halfway and make him smile, making it a hilarious blend between "I'm better than you" and "Please don't kill me". Also, the facial expressions Raz makes during Mr Pokeylope's reveal scene are ''hilarious''.

* VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG had hardly any additional frames for the characters. However, during cutscenes they use the standard walking, jumping, waving, etc. motions combined with sound effects to great effect. Usually, this was in the form of [[HeroicMime re-enacting what had just happened, in an effort to explain it to someone else.]] Its [[SpiritualSuccessor spiritual sequels]], the VideoGame/PaperMario and [[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi]] series, do the same thing.

And there's another problem with animating video games - technology. Up until recently, in-engine cutscenes had to use extremely simple models, often with no moveable mouths or visible eyes. It took until about the year 2000 before motion capture technology (recording an actor's movements with sensors) began to be seriously used (and seriously affordable). And even this must be processed by hand in some cases, because the sets at mo-cap record time may have changed in-game since the mo-cap was recorded (or no sets were used at all), or because the characters can perform actions that the motion capture actors can't possibly replicate or have proportions that real-world acting can't translate to. It is much harder to translate mo-cap to a game with surreal or exaggerated styles like WaddlingHead or SuperDeformed, for instance, and so this trope is much more likely to show up those games.

And there's another problem with animating video games - technology. Up until recently, in-engine cutscenes had to use extremely simple models, often with no moveable mouths or visible eyes. It took until about the year 2000 before motion capture technology (recording an actor's movements with sensors) began to be seriously used (and seriously affordable). And even this must be processed by hand in some cases, because the sets at mo-cap record time may have changed in-game since the mo-cap was recorded (or no sets were used at all), or because the characters can perform actions that the motion capture actors can't possibly replicate or have proportions that real-world acting can't translate to. It is much harder to translate mo-cap to a game with a SuperDeformed, FunnyAnimal, or PuniPlush style, for instance, and so this trope is much more likely to show up those games.

* The entirety of ''VideoGame/LittleTownHero'' is animated in this way, though each character has at least a dozen different animations, even minor characters and every MonsterOfTheWeek. There's even a menu accessible from the Press Start screen where you can view all of their stock animations and animation cycles. Oddly, a large number of them are never used in the game.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' has a various amount of animations and effects that are used to display emotion when the characters are talking. In ''Animal Crossing: Wild World'', players can learn some of these emotions and set them off whenever they want.

And there's another problem with animating video games - technology. Up until recently, in-engine cutscenes had to use extremely simple models, often with no moveable mouths or visible eyes. It took until about the year 2000 before motion capture technology (recording an actor's movements with sensors) began to be seriously used (and seriously affordable). And even this must be processed by hand in some cases, because the sets at mo-cap record time may have changed in-game since the mo-cap was recorded (or no sets were used at all), or because the characters can perform actions that the motion capture actors can't possibly replicate or have proportions that real-world acting can't translate to.

And there's another problem with animating video games - technology. Up until recently, in-engine cutscenes had to use extremely simple models, often with no moveable mouths or visible eyes. It took until about the year 2000 before motion capture technology (recording an actor's movements with sensors) began to be seriously used (and seriously affordable). And even this must be processed by hand in some cases, because the sets at mo-cap record time may have changed in-game since the mo-cap was recorded (or no sets were used at all).

As motion capture becomes less expensive and game engines become more powerful (and as game budgets increase), the practice of Going Through the Motions for the whole game seems to be almost dead. Nowadays it's a lot more common to use stock gestures for only low-ticket, talky scenes which aren't particularly plot important - {{Exposition Break}}s, [[HeKnowsAboutTimedHits player tutorials that break the fourth wall]], things like that - and use full motion-capture for everything else. If you have enough gestures however, particularly character-specific ones, it can help [[CharacterTics establish characters]] when mixed with fully animated cutscenes.

** Bethesda's [[GameEngine Gambryo Engine]] games from the ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' (''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'') and ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'' (''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'') series lack even individualized gestures. This isn't so noticeable when its monologue being delivered in the "Talking Head" style which comprises the vast majority of dialgoue in these games, but it's highly noticeable in staging what are intended to be a dramatic in-engine cinematics. All models have the same wooden hand gestures which are reused whenever needed (ex. pulling levers, opening doors, etc.) with elbows locked at their sides and scant body language. Even the celebrity voice-acted characters do this (it must make Liam Neeson wince to see the movement associated with his voice). Any modder can find the vast library of idle animations the designers had at their disposal, but for whatever reason, very few were implemented.

** The very first case in the first game shows how rediculous the motions are. If you have Phoenix gesture at Larry to tell the truth, it plays like this:

Not to be confused with stock sequences triggered by the player, as {{Victory Pose}}s, spell effects, etc. They're something different.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' Basically every emotional reaction is represented by ''jumping up and down''. There is even a scene in the first game where the two main-characters try to explain that the world is going to end and stuff by [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments running around and jumping.]]

** It gets just plain odd (and [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments hilarious]]) in ''Super Robot Wars Z'' where, after completing the ''Anime/OvermanKingGainer'' plotline, the entire team does [[DancingTheme the Monkey to "King Gainer Over!"]]...which is represented by their map sprites, '''including''' the battleships, spinning and "hopping".

** In ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', everyone expresses misery, no matter how mild, by grabbing their head and shaking. The same game features a standard script animation where the characters gesture with their hands, and this is extensively used during conversation. Because the characters are rendered with weapons in hand, this can get unnerving. There's nothing quite like seeing Carth Onasi, ''GunsAkimbo'' fighter extraordinare, talking to you while waving a pair of blasters around wildly. Especially when he's angry at you. More amusingly, performing the 'bow' animation with a sword in hand results in the character impaling their own head.

* Happens ''a lot'' in the first three ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' games.

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' is notorious for this, to the point some of Phoenix's movements have entered the wider nerd sphere. The writing is more than capable of carrying the emotions across, however, and most of the central characters have a fairly wide palette of actions. One character, Marvin Grossberg, only has two facial expressions (upset, and non-upset) due to another reason for the use of this trope - they ran out of cartridge space, though this improves in the third game...