the thing about a lot of legendaries is that they were made back when a champions animations and voicelines were doodoo, like the appeal for a lot of people is that they could provide a higher quality character to play with than their original incarnation. think of how pre-ASU ahri looked vs pre-ASU SG ahri looked
a lot of other legendary skins are like this, pre-rework galio vs pre-rework gatekeeper galio (though that one wasnt too big a diff because it was still 2013), jinx vs SG jinx, teemo vs omega squad teemo, lee sin vs god fist/dragonmancer lee sin
as the game evolved and champions got reworks or ASUs the animation quality improved significantly, a lot of champ animations have squash and stretch and are exaggerated and they have multiple unique animations, it becomes difficult to make something truly unique when it comes to animations when everything is already high quality
i also feel like riot games' overreliance on reusing skin thematics again and again eventually exhausts any possible chances at being unique, especially when (lately anyways) a lot of legendaries are going to characters that already have legendaries
like mythmaker jhin for example, i think its an OK skin visually speaking, like i think the design isnt anything special but its also perfectly serviceable
but this is not a legendary-tier skin no matter how hard riot tries to tell me it is, and unlike a lot of other people, i genuinely dont think adding more unique animations could save it. he already has a peak legendary with dark star and this skin is just nothing in comparison, it wouldve made for a perfectly fine epic skin and legendary (no matter how much people try to push for newer animations) can save it for me
but you know who couldve gotten the legendary. cassiopeia. because it was literally the year of the snake? but i dont know riot is just Allergic to giving legendaries to less popular champions so it went to jhin instead, and what happened was that his skin was completely uninteresting, and it had to compete with dark star jhin, so it would never win anyway
meanwhile cassiopeia already had a good idea for a skin because she literally created the fucking mythmaker universe, she had a unique design (mostly because shes green instead of red), and she couldve made perfect use of new legendary animations because all her default animations are dogshit
so the only two solutions that i see here are either riot bites the bullet and starts making More legendaries for less popular champions (which they rarely do nowadays, because i presume these would naturally make less money) or just stop making as many legendaries in general. a lot of newer legendaries dont do anything truly unique with the character, they just put them in a different universe with different lore and thats it, and league animations have reached a peak in which they cant really improve on, which means that its just easier on the animators to reuse already existing animations rather than remaking animations that realistically Most people wouldnt even notice.
i would be perfectly fine with getting less legendaries per year, or maybe even getting legendaries for lesser played champions, if it meant the quality of these skins could improve. theres champions with interesting skin ideas that arent built upon because they just wouldnt make money, but im willing to make some sacrifices if it meant the original idea of legendary skins in the first place (that is, recontextualizing a champion) could return rather than just 'this champion is in an AU and theyre COOL and SUPER POWERFUL give us money'
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