I think people look at the black shadows with rose tinted glasses. In my opinion it made some shadows look very drab and weak eg any projectile shadow. But thats just me
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But it’s not a black shadow. It had color to it. It matches the color of your character. This adds character to it. Purple is just there. No reason for it besides Gargos having Shadow Energy.
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It may be true for many topics, but in this case, we’re talking aesthetics. No matter how you slice it looking at the same-old-same-old gets boring, even if it’s really awesome. The purple’s not bad exactly, and they had a decent reasoning of color-coding the game to help as a means of giving better visual cues, but still in gaining the purple, we lost the shadowing effect in the smoke.
I’d like to say my previous idea of a unique shadow color for each character
(Presently found in the animation of Starfire’s different burning desire special move color trails according to the shader used )
i think they’re bad examples because all i take away from it is how incredible Shadow Jago’s Ultimate looks with the background falling apart behind him 
I’ll never be happy with the black screen after we had a tease of how good they could look.
On topic, i’m a fan of the purple shadow but i wasn’t crying out for a change to shadow in the first place so i’m happy either way. One thing i think helps the original shadow moves is that theres a lot more visual flair going on in S1. The screen goes dark in conjunction with particular moves. Fireballs eat all the light around them and cast massive glows on the grounds etc, Looks really nice overall.
You can still see that any time you want to in the game you know… 
I do miss that animation and it makes me miss season 1 and 2. I felt KI was at its darkest and more sinister stage with the darker backgrounds and animations. I can’t explain it but it just felt amazing to play back then.
I like the old shadow effect but I definitely DO NOT think it is worth the wasted time and effort to create a toggle and effects for new characters. Id rather have better Exhibition search filters set to default tier… a time limit fro player 2 to pick their music…an option to pick your color for custom load outs… ULTs for remaining characters… new accessories for Omen and Shago.
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No you’re a hundred percent entitled to that opinion. But the reason why I put two videos in my original post was because I was legitimately struck by how much better I thought the old moves looked.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not looking at this with rose tinted glasses. If anything, I like the game a lot more now than I did in season one. I think it’s grown in to an awesome game.
Also, I wasn’t triggered by the change. I didn’t take to the board and scream at MS or IG about it. Let’s also acknowledge the fact that voicing an opinion doesn’t automatically equate to one being “triggered.”
Regardless though, like I said, I was just surprised by how much better I thought the old version looked and it’d be nice if they could switch it back or allow us to switch between the two. I don’t see it happening, but I just thought I’d throw it out there. No worries. 
This. I just think that the art style of the old one has a cooler effect on it that really gives the moves some pop that I think is absent from the current style.
I can respect that. I wasn’t really throwing this out there with the idea that we had to trade something specific away to get it, but I guess that’s kinda how working within a budget goes. I’m not sure what we’d lose out on if they were able to do this, but it’s just something that would be nice if possible.
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As someone who missed out on being there for season 1 (I’ve played since the PC release/Season 3) was there ever any comment given on why exactly the changes were made?
Was it because the shadow effect was more difficult to see on some stages, or was it a purely aesthetic decision based on season 3’s green and purple colour scheme?
Looking back on the original shadow effect, I much prefer how it looked back then, very reminiscent of the old games and it really does seem to add some impact to the animations, rather than the purple smoke we have now, which just frames the moves instead.
(Though there are certain characters I really feel suit the purple shadow moves however, Hisako being one example, especially Shadow Possession.)
as far as we know the only reason given to us was because they wanted the change to reflect gargos and his influence since season 3 along with the other purple related UI changes
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They did a few other color-coding changes around the same time IIRC…for example Spinal’s skull projectiles changed to the color of what meter they were cursing.
So, the shadows were black/silver/grey right up until the release of season 3?
Sorry for all the questions, I followed the game for the longest time but I guess my brain must have skipped out on this particular detail, plus you don’t notice things as much when you’re not actually physically playing.
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I will say this. The black effect with the character colors looked good on Cinder because it looked like a mix of smoke and fire. It was a good look on him.
That being said however, I don’t think it would look good on everyone, especially in Season 3. I don’t think it ever looked good on the humans except when they were doing something energy-related since those colors came into play too. It ended up looking real muddy in my eyes and just ended up looking like a really unappealing color. I will support the toggle for those who want it but I wouldn’t want the black back myself.
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if they ever brought it back i think it would be better to go above and beyond and assign specific charecter colors for the shadow move to blend with. spinal, orchid firecat and cinder shadow move looked the best because of those color blending. do the same for other charecters and it will be better than before.
gargos can keep purple but tj could be blue like his instinct, aganos can be green like his old metal part of his body and etc for those that didnt have alot of color melting in their shadows
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The old shadow effect is so unambiguously better in my opinion that I just kinda imagine that they simply must not have played nice with the stage relighting and had to be axed. The inky black and gray trails were pretty friggin godlike.
The purple shadows look fine and are 100% serviceable, but the old effect was sick :-p
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I prefer the old effect much better to be honest. It looked great on the majority of characters especially Omen when he used shadow form or his ultra. It would cover a large portion of the screen in that effect and made it look as if you were getting beat by an evil cloud.
Understand why they did it to follow the theme of the game but the old one could’ve worked just as well it was dumb to change it in the first place I said it is soon as it was announced if we could get a toggle that would be the s**t
I have never been a fan of the entire purple theme. and yes that includes the purple shadows. I much prefer the old style. Toggle switch would be amazing.
I would like a option to switch between them maybe different colors.