Van-pl's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[H.E.L.L]

Leaving a decent impression

I'm really impressed by your submission. Maybie not too graphically awesome, but complete, conclusive and had the purpose.

1-st person narration was awesome. All that hell, not being too hellish isn't really new idea and quite repetetive, but demons serving newcomers, those retrieving their memories, all that caste system, it was very fresh, and I'm amazed, how great actually you made it and how the story is unfold.

All that 49-day rules, eternity option choices, all that system, and mosty, the main protagonist, who managed to trick it. Every that stuff make you feel so satisfied and pleased. It isn't one single idea forged into flash (something like Bad Hair for example), it's like you've created a small universe for your needs and presented the full story, not demos, not slideshows. And that's why I found it very awesome, even epic.

Voices were very decent, overally good for flash animation needs. Visuals wasn't top class, but maintained to keep some quality, and overally were catchy.

Good luck in future, im keen on your further projects! 8/10 5/5

Xennethy responds:

Hey thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it. :D

[Koden X Prologue Part 1]

too much fan-service

I belive you meant to create something epic. In some dimensions, this movie kicks ass, but the thing most important, the story, the meaning went to fan-service dragonball shit.

Look, animation is fucking great, drawings were decent, sure you had to put much much effort in special effects, such as reflections, smokes, wind. I felt the atmosphere of awesomness. Also, you for sure must worked yourself big time on animating stuff. Later on, in girl and bed scene, it went to shit. Room design was shitty, and you see that rooms in every fucking anime. You could design some more claustrophobic interior, imitate more dusty atmosphere.

I'm not gonna stomp on your chara design, cuz everyone have their own. I didn't however, liked it. The girl eyes were too much anime for my taste. It made her face very flat and 2d. When drawing static panels such as girl looking, or talking without spinning her head, try to put some more effort, beacuse she looked crappy. Also I see some other artist influence in man designs, but whatever, at least they looked better than the bitch.

Sound went really good though, I apprecieate, that you've been through this big effort to have your wery own music credits, and that's great for sure. Sounds quality and variety was also very decent, so here you earned big plus.

Voice acting was quite good, but you guys and girls must work on intonation and make your voices more convincing. But it was g00d.

And everything leads to storyline.

Nice thing for you to have such great prelude. To develop few petty thieves characters, lead them into the essence of GAYNESS (only one girl in this very movie, plus very underdeveloped and repetetive character, dumb fanservice bitch), then *POOF* you fucking kill them all to make killer intro to your super-vegeta character.

And look, he wakes up! He's so fucking awesome that his hair stays always the same, even if he lied few days in bed, propably in agony.

If you must build some dumb-ass funny jokes and "hilarious" situations, do it with some style, otherwise don't do this at all. Just to help the watcher avoid akward, stupid and totally unrealistic pepole behaviors, who all just act like like sociopats, unable to build normal, dull and making sense conversation.

-"i didn't realize I had a bunch of girls on this trip."
Please man. It's actually sad, beacuse you desperately needed at least one girl ther. Beacuse it was a gay trip.

Generally it's very good, you need to continue your work. But please, next time, making an movie, consider what I have wrote here.

3/5 7/10

[Castle Repercussions - A]

Niiice

The movie, I must admit gave me nice kickup! Almost flawless.

The first think i'd want to concentrate on is the sound. Great score up there! Having a professional and climatic music in your movie surely did very much. Also voices are very well done, especially the strange creature had it very creepy. Sounds are also very good, overally I was very pleased hearing your submission.

What goes to the visuals. Backgrounds were awesome, minimal, yet creative, athmospheric and nicely arranged. There was a mass of motion tweening to simulate 'camera' in your movie, overally great and creative, but somewhere all that animating didn't went as well as elsewhere. The Animation could be better, stickman moves are sometimes unamusing and distracting viewer. Also i didn't liked your specefic animation for the turning heads (by putting them under the round mask layer), which make faces/helmets/whatever looking very 2d and flat. Unless you wanted it that way.

You're nicely gaining viever attention and succesfully building atmosphere, which is very amusing, but overally I was kinda unsatisfied with the story. All that intro and building atmosphere made me stunned for what will happen next. And guess what: nothing really big happened. You don't really know what happened to Ray, what's with the Lloyd and whatever. You 'spin the wheel' and spin and suddenly you cut the movie, leaving the watcher ultimately unsatisfied.

I still enjoyed it very well ;) 9/10 5/5

Get-lost responds:

I understand you can get frustrated with how many questions are just left unanswered, but I'll let you know that most of them will be answered in the next parts. Thanks for the great review anyway :)

[The Real Legend 3]

What the fuck! You are totall going up the river..

You made it totally against the popular parodies, which are suprisingly amusing, even if they're overrushed speed animations concentrated to make the entertainment as easy for the watcher and animator as possible. Their lacks in graphics and that horrible 1-1.5min shortness are often masked by great spontanous ideas and voice actors.
In this field you're totally diffrent. You somehow managed to make this funny, and visually beauyful, plus totally ballcrushing voiceacting (the fairy rocks!).

I especially liked your colour play and concentration on details such as crushing ground or destroyed wall. With combination of flexible characters your visuals are truly amazing and worth your work.

Big plus is that you managed to make a "finished quest" movie, not some cutoffs. Many artists tends to gather their 666 ideas and pack it into one movie making it an overkill mix. In Real Legend 3 the story flow doesn't look chopped, and your ideas are linked very well.

Why not 10/10? I'm personally not very well into the Zelda universe, but it was still fun for me to watch. Also, more like hardcore humor entertains me, so Link getting his face outfucksmashed by boulder (even if awesomly animated) isn't as funny as it was meant to be.

Overally great, you're one of my most favourite artists now (all those Valhalla knights and other your stuff is great and I watch them from time to time)
9/10 5/5- cheers and keep the great level of your works :)

[Triangle n' Octagon]

Best from x n' x series

It's the bestest. It still amazing for me how did you put such great creativity load into such tiny minimalistic movie. Also fantastic job is that you've put great voice acting into it and just by few sentences you outlined and presented the characters.

I agree its kinda low-effort made, but you get really big points for clever presentation. You aren't maiming the viewers with eye-candy graphics, you put the story straight and nice.

More of such geniously telled story combined with really decent gfx and voice acting should make your animation epic, i think :)
Cheers!

PS. What is the music track?

[jesus party]

%u0CA0_%u0CA0

Sorry dude, that was like wow. How dumb.

Seriously, as much as I like all the jokes about Jesus and the catholic religion (I'm catholic- still), cuz they are always laughing about those unclarified aspects of christianity, or totally abusing the Holy Icons. Take the Marc M. for example. (kinda contoversial example, but still)
He blended all that "black-motherfucking-gangsta-rap" with jesus, and made him the ultimate PIMP. That was totally nuts, fresh and funny, just unlike yours.

I get the feeling that you wanted to make the animation politically right, and still funny too, but saying sadly, your efforts went to shit. Spitting with wet paper balls at sinners at hell is rather dumb than funny. Overally, even though this animation is labeled "mature", it was just childish.

Animation went decent, still it was a little bit static and didn't really catch my eye. Overally it could use more shading and highliting, but your character design is flawless. Demonic chicks were sexy, just as the stereotype says :)
In general, your design is very good, but colouring could use some polishing.

Music was pissing and I really appreciated the elevator scene, it was relieving for my ears. Seriously dude, try "hearing" your animation in headphones.

Overally it was not bad, but I don't think the score should be this high, just beacuse you made it in "Christmas Mode".
Next time make something more worthwhile. Anyway, you're an rather artist who pepole remembers, so make those memories a good ones. :)

peixeaquatico responds:

thanks for honesty

I will try to do better next :P

[BiteyCastle Christmas]

Whoa

Awesome! At last somebody shown the true face of santa as an ultimate bum. No wonder why he's so fat and have red face. :D

I propably don't even need to praise your animation beacuse your name is a quality mark on everything you do. Kinda like walking legend :). Instead of that I wanted to point out, how nice you composed whole audio layer to this animation. You shown your amazing voice flexibility while acting all those drunk santa blubbering, and the sound of falling Christmas tree was epic.While watching this you didn't saw the tree collapsing, yet you knew the Santa knocked it down.

Such audio process is kinda risky and very few flash animators tend to use it, beacuse they are afraid of misunderstanding, so they are more likely to literally animate some action instead showing echoes, which just play in our imagination. And in conclusion, that's why you are so popular and succesful, beacuse your work isn't a masterpiece by itself, but also work on our imagination and inspire us!

5/5 9/10
Masterfully done. Oh and it's good that you're still letting us know that you're still alive and submitting some works of yours here! Merry christmas!

[Rwd: 023 Silent Night]

soo accurate

The movie was very accurate, mostly beacuse such times are coming in. I found it very good, beacuse I had to go to the mall yesterday to buy some stuff, and as always it was full of angry crowd eager for useless xmas presents. And while being there, "Silent Night" suddenly came out of speakers. It kinda pissed me off, how the Christmas are commercialised these times. The angry crowd surely thougt: "OH SILENT NIGHT! WE'RE SOO CHRISTMAS-MODE RIGHT NOW. LET'S BUY SOME SHIT IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!"

But, about the movie. As always, style was qunique for you guys and enjoyable. It fit well. The song you sang was awesome, and you shown your full voice acting potential in it, Yotam.

And just one word about blasphemies: Everyone who has been offended by this movie should know, that on newgrounds you can see potentially everything, and entering here you should leave your righetousness and morality calls behind the door.

Cheeers, merry xmas, buy big presents! ;-)
4/5 7/10

[Broken Glazz]

As the queen said to the king at their first night

"Nice equipment you got here, but does is have any practical use?"- In other words:
It's good that we have another ambitious artist growing under the newgrounds wings, but he seems to don't know how to use his skills.

To be very honest, your movie sucked cock. Animation and design, I agree, they have artisic value at some point and are at high quality, but it's nothing we've seen before. You basically build everything on cliche's and rip-offs from other movies, adding your own ideas.

You write, that it can be found as music video, but it's not true. Music isn't fitting so well, you don't feel the 'flow' coming from the mix of animation and audio. Also, I heard some voice acting there, but it was completely random, and off plot.

But, you don't have any plot at all to discuss on.

Why am I giving you low score? Beacuse i'm heavily dissapointed. You build up all tension and anxiety for nothing. I bet your animations could have great final score on newgrounds, but in order to archieve that, you must force yourself and finish at least one of them.

5/10 3/5

I really hope you'll make something good out of the animations you have so far.