This very problem is also an eternal struggle in game development when it comes to player character animation. There's some people who wish to start blending i

This very problem is also an eternal struggle in game development when it comes to player character animation. There's some people who wish to start blending into the next animation the moment a new player input comes in. This is great for responsive gameplay, but causes wonkey looking animations, feet sliding etc. Then there's the people that simply want to always let an animation complete. It looks great, but obviously is very frustrating as your inputs get ignored and you can't react to things when you want to. Buffering inputs is not viable either. Sadly, it seems in modern games the latter group is winning more and more. For example, in the Witcher 3 (which is otherwise an amazing game) orienting your character such that it is looking at (and the right distance from) a pickup is almost a minigame, since every time you tap a directional key to move in the a direction, an animation plays, which inevitably moves you too far. I can't really resist playing games like The Witcher 3 anyway, but if I could I would "vote with my wallet" and not play any games that prefer animation fidelity over good player controls. Sigh.