I like the overall architecture, the shape, of the animation, but there's something about the way that the feet slide around on the horizontal axis that really seems to make the overall actions a little bit to floaty. The feet need to be grounded and anchored to the place where they're standing in order to give the whole action a greater sense of authority and kinesis.
In particular, the punch animation has the back leg sliding backwards which really robs it of a feeling of solid connection. The front leg lifting and supporting for the thrust works, the back leg losing traction does not. The grab and throw feels like both arms need to be involved or the character needs to get closer to the target before the actual throw behavior begins.
The aim and fire animations are nicely grounded and sell the feeling that there is some effort going on. Less so in the guy's case because he seems to be half floating during most of that cycle; you might want to think about just committing to going completely off the ground and pointing his ankles downward during the whole thing to sell that idea.
Otherwise, really good.
Hey! Thanks for detailed feedback. Really appreciate this kind of substantial input.
First let me say that I had to stick to sprites that were already made. So I had to follow the line of that first art and re-draw most poses and moves. Some I essentially changed but some I had to stick to them. Previous art functioned as a sort of concept guide.
About the floaty feet. You're absolutely right, but the thing is this game is about fighting in near-zero gravity, so these guys never touch the ground, they're always floating. Think goku fighting in the air. This in particular was challenging, cuz when I was sketching most actions my mind just didn't compute the physics involved lol, I was a little frustrated. But I resolve to maintain the center of gravity around the belly for the most part.
The grab and throw were a pain, I wanted to do something á la street fighter, but had to stick to the previous art and there the grab was with just one hand.
Same for the aim and fire animations, the girl's one is inspired by goku (kamehameha) and the guy's by piccolo. Also had to stick to the previous art.
I'm gonna put together a gif inverting the characters - now the guy's gonna hit, hopefully in a few hours.
Thanks again for the nice comment!