I can’t remember the last time I was this excited for a skin. What could be better than making Lux into a magical girl anime protagonist?
Design Overview
Okay, if you guys didn’t know this about me, I’m a massive anime fan. So this is basically one of the greatest things to ever come into existence for me. Not to mention, somehow Riot managed to make a magical girl themed skin and not sexualize it one single bit. There’s no boob window, no super low neckline, no purposeful upskirts; it’s like they understand that magical girls are meant to empower girls and not reduce them to sexual objects. I’m proud of you, Rito. I love the colors of the outfit (ya’ll know I love purple), and the star motif isn’t pushed too heavily which I like. The stars on her wand constantly pulsate with energy, which is another nice touch. At first glance, it’s absolutely adorable, and I can only hope that the splash art turns out just as well. Plus it totally fits with her characterization as an anime reference in the first place (her taunts are references to Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z).
Animations
Recall
I think this recall is nicely done, despite the clear lack of magical girl transformation sequence (I feel like that might have turned out terribly). It’s super, super anime, and the addition of the swirling pink particle effect and the bursting starts just adds to the cuteness. I’d like to imagine that before she strikes her end pose, she taunts with “In the name of Demacia, I will punish you!”
Dance
This new dance is adorable, and is apparently a reference to DokiDoki! PreCure which is a magical girl show about love and saving the world and stuff. It’s interesting to note that her hip movements are very sharp, instead of being slow and swirly and sexual, which I’m down with.
Death
The new death animation is also pretty cool; Lux flies backwards and lands on the ground as her wand bounces out of her hand. She then dissipates into a magical star and circle particle effect.
Basic Attacks
This is a simple and sweet change to her auto animation. It’s the same particle effect that happens for her death animation, but being thrown in a line instead. At first I thought that the star burst at the end of the auto was only for the passive proc, but it seems like it’s for every auto!
Active Q/W/E
Q: Light Binding
The uninterrupted light binding is a rush of bright pink energy that looks like it may or may not be in a heart or star shape. It’s got a dense particle effect of pink stars and bubbles. When the binding hits a target, it turns into a rounded star prism that looks almost like a pulsating pink flower.
W: Prismatic Barrier
Lux throws a slightly simplified and much more pink copy of her wand out into the air. It’s accompanied by a trail of pink sparkles, and if it comes back to her, her pink tinted shield gets a star burst effect across its top.
E: Lucent Singularity
This is the one animation that I think could especially use some work – it seems like it’s lacking creativity to me. It’s just another star rotating and pulsing until it bursts. Looking back at animations like the ones that accompany Ziggs’ and Zilean’s new skins, it seems like the team could have come up with something a little cooler for this animation.
R: Final Spark
This is my favorite ability animation of the bunch. Her laser has transformed into a bright pink swirl of different colors, stars, and sparkles. It narrows at first, then explodes with a burst of color. You can see the passive being set onto the minions that were hit in the form of little yellow stars.
Overall, I’m more impressed with the non-ability animations more so than the ability ones. The recall, death, and ult animations are probably my favorites overall. For the most part, I think that the star imagery is a little overplayed in the Q/W/E animations. Maybe it’s just me, but I could use a little more variation. Of course, the general idea is incredibly cute and I’m in love, but I’d love it even more with some more interesting ability animations!
What do you think? Any other suggestions for improvement?
Featured image from ReignofGaming
Yeah they didn’t seem to spend a lot of energy redoing or updating any of the actual ability animations but what they did looked pretty god especially Final Spark but they could have done so much more. But the death was A+
Hopefully it’ll be updated a bit more before release!