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Speed Echoes: Difference between revisions

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Speed Echoes (view source)

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{{trope}}
[[File:Fox_Illusion_Move.jpg|link=Super Smash Bros|frame|[[Star Fox (Video Gameseries)|Fox McCloud]] shows how it's done.]]One common way of portraying a character as moving very, very quickly in fiction is to make multiple images of them viewable at once. They appear to be moving so fast that they're in several places at once. For the sake of preventing confusion, usually the "non-static" parts are shaded with less color, so we're sure that a character is moving really fast as opposed to being a monster with eight arms. Indeed, this trope is much easier to show than it is to describe -- it's one of those effects that usually has to be pointed out to a casual viewer for them to even realize it's there.
 
In some fiction, the echoes are more than just a special effect -- they're literal. Other characters can see them and be confused by them, making them effective covers for highly elaborate martial arts attacks. In video games, they can be used as an excuse to force the player to use timing to hit the "real" image. For various reasons, using [[Speed Echoes]] for the [[Doppelganger Spin]] doesn't really make a whole [[Fridge Logic|heck of a lot of sense]], but eh, [[MST3K Mantra|roll with it]].
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* Used by [[Lightning Bruiser|Signum]] during her first battle with [[Fragile Speedster|Fate]] in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's''. "You have pretty good senses for a mage... but when challenging a Belka-type knight, it's not enough!"
* This is one of Shinomori Aoshi's special attack in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', ''Ryusui no Ugoki''. Its weakness is while the flow of afterimages itself is seemingly unbreakable, the transition towards an offensive move (as is the case with the ''Jissen Kenbu'' combo attack) can be anticipated by a skilled opponent (like Kenshin and Okina).
* ''Gundam'' has this for [[Super Prototype|some suits]] in various series. Often [[GundamMobile FSuit Gundam 91F91|occurs]] [[Mobile Suit Gundam SeedSEED Destiny|when]] [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|the Gundam]] enables a [[Super Mode]].
 
 
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In one of the ''Dune'' series, this effect was used to show the preternatural speed Paul had earned through his martial training.
* A variation is found in The Picard Maneuver of ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]''. The premise is that making a short warp jump allows a ship to overtake their own image traveling toward the observer and thus appear in two places at once. Too bad this is completely ridiculous at least for ''Star Trek''. If starships didn't have filters to prevent this, they'd be surrounded by ghost images of every ship that ever entered or left warp in that area, as proven by Lawrence Krauss.
** The [[Hand Wave]] is that although long-range sensors are faster than light, targeting sensors are limited to lightspeed. This fails to explain why they don't use FTL sensors for targeting, but that can probably be handwaved too.
* In ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', when Hiro stops time, he sees a long Daphne-colored trail leading him to the speedster.
* This effect was used with Vicki in the ''[[Small Wonder]]'' episode "My Robot Family".
* Suggested by Raj as a solution when all four of the main characters showed up for a costume party dressed as [[The Flash]] on ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]''.
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* Used for the [[Big Bad]] in ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]'', although in his case it's more a matter of slipping through hyperspace (the "underverse") than super-speed.
* Used to unintentionally hilarious effect in ''[[Queen of the Damned]]''. Vampires' unnatural speed is represented by a smeary trail of afterimages... even if the vampire otherwise appears to be moving at the same speed as nearby ''non-''vampires.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children]]'' does this with Cloud's [[Finishing Move|Omnislash version 5]].
** Loz too.
 
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* This is how the Speed Booster power-up is animated in the 2D ''[[Metroid]]'' games where it appears.
* Likewise when the similar power-up appears in the ''[[Mega Man X]]'', ''[[Mega Man Zero|Zero]]'' and ''[[Mega Man ZX|ZX]]'' games.
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' and friends show this in the 2D games, mainly the [[Sonic Advance Trilogy]] and [[Sonic Rush Series (Video Game)|Sonic Rush Series]].
** First seen when Sonic became [[Super Mode|Hyper]] [[Up to Eleven|Sonic]] in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
* Employed by Hotsuma in the PS2 version of Sega's ''[[Shinobi]]''
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