Auz's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Little Fighter Alpha Ch.3]

Best episode so far

In my opinion, this was the best episode so far. A lot of action in this one. Some talking at the beginning, but that didn't bother me. Anyway, it were some good fights, although the sorcerers were beaten pretty easily. That was about the same as with episode 2, I think it would've been better if those fights took a bit longer and the main characters had a little bit more trouble beating them.

I also noticed that a lot of things were moving during the fights. The girl who was moving the ice block, Henry was shooting arrows, the other two guys just fought with their hands, the wizards tried to defend themselves. It looks good, but I have to watch the episode twice if I want to see what everybody was doing. Anyway, one thing that has improved in my opinion was the sounds and the music. I liked the final fantasy music you added (those games always have good music) and I'm not sure, but I think you've added some more sounds at some places. That's a good thing, so I gave a bit higher for the sound. I also think the graphics were very good again. I'm pretty suprised that the rain and all the other things that were moving in the screen didn't caused the movie to run slower, good job.

Overall 8 out of 10, 4 out of 5. I said it was the best episode so far, but I don't think it deserves a 9, sorry (I do not easily give things a high vote). Anyway, I think you've done a good job here again. The series haven't bored me so far. By the way I also noticed that orc from the beginning (MaxR productions screen) passes by in every episode. Is that some kinda easteregg or what?

MaxR responds:

I too thought this was the best chapter so far comparing with ch.1 and ch.2 I do try to have many movements in teh fight so you really get more action, and like you said, watch it twice even. The peon is kinda like an easter egg, but I regret not making it clickable. The peon is my producton icon.

[Little Fighter Alpha Ch.2]

Not as good as part 1, but still good

Second episode of the series. No explanation about the story in this one, too bad. I guess there are 5 enemies that the main characters try to kill and they save their country or the world or whatever by doing that, right? It would've been easier if I knew about the game.

Anyway, I think this episode was not as good as episode 1, the first part was just a little bit better. Maybe cause the first episode had a better fight with a stronger enemy (the archers were kinda weak). I also didn't liked the close-ups. The music in this was still nice, I like the offspring. I'm happy that you didn't added heavy metal music as in most people do in movies with fights (I hate that). The graphics were also very good again, the fights looked excellent and I really like the backgrounds you use. The forest and the prison looked great. I saw you also had a different kind of preloader. The preloader already says what's going to happen in the episode. I don't have any problems with that, and if you use it like that, the preloader is fine with me (know what I'm saying?).

Overall I'd give this 7 out of 10, 3 out of 5. As I already mentioned, I didn't think this one was as good as part 1, but it was a good sprite-movie. Still no scene-selection, but I guess I'm too late with suggesting that. Anyway, I hope the next parts will only get better and better. I'm very interested in the next couple of episodes, I'll watch part 3 pretty soon.

MaxR responds:

Yup, I gotta admit ch.1 was better than ch.2 due to excitement of me trying to make more movies quickly, maybe too quickly. But if you will see ch.3 it makes it up for this chapter's disapointment,

[Little Fighter Alpha Ch.1]

A good first episode

Alright, my first review for this series (yes I'm gonna review them all). Let's see, the first movie of the series. It was an interesting one, not starting with a loooong story, but it almost immediatly starts with some action. I like that, although I do not really know what is going on right now. I barely know anything about the characters yet. I hope the next episode will explain some things. Anyway, back to the movie:

Graphics: Well it were sprites, it isn't that hard to make decent graphics with them. When it comes to sprites I usually rate on the special effects and how the moving/fighting looks. The walking didn't look so good. It went a bit slow. The fighting however looked excellent. The special effects (I mean all that eyelazer and fireball stuff) also looked very good. I think there's nothing wrong with the graphics.

Sounds/Music: It had some good music. I think it suited the movie pretty well. The sounds were also alright, you even added sounds for footsteps, I liked that. Anyway, same as with the graphics: nothing wrong with.

Interactivity: I didn't really liked the menuscreen (or the preloader, whatever). You could've added a scene selection and some other things there. I did liked the buttons at the textboxes. I don't have to read so fast then. The boxes looked pretty nice, the button could look a bit better.

Overall 8 out of 10, 4 out of 5. An interesting first part as I already said. It's one of the better sprite movies I've seen here on Newgrounds for sure. I'll probably give part 2 a review tonight and otherwise tomorrow, if I can still remember it of course =). Anyway, I hope episode 2 will be as good as this one.

MaxR responds:

Thanks for the review. This was my first movie and chapter of the series, so I was pretty much new at it back then. But I improve every chapter by looking back at my previous ones and see what was missing and what needs changing. I will be looking forward your other reviews.

[Survivor: Hyrule]

Excellent movie

An excellent movie, with a lot of humor, 'perfect' graphics, good voice-acting and sounds, but it was too bad that it was a little bit short. That was one of the few bad parts of it, so that's the reason it doesn't get a 10.

The other bad parts in this were that I think you should add some subtitles to this. Not that I couldn't follow the movie, but sometimes I didn't understood what was said. Even if it was all very clear, it's still nice to have some subtitles in it. Also you should add a good looking menuscreen in this with scene-selection (and if you really want a score of 4.50+ you should add a minigame). I know I said the movie wasn't that long, but it's the same as with the subtitles, it's nice if a movie has that.

I would like to see more episodes of this. Somewhere in the movie I saw that there were more contestans (like darunia, ingo, ruto and an evil plant) so why not make episodes where you can see how they all get voted away. That would be pretty cool and I'm sure it'll be a very populair series. I know it's probably a lot of work to make this, but you'll get famous (on NG) =)

Anyway overall 9 out of 10, 5 out of 5. I already told you why I didn't gave it a 10. Anyway, I hope you'll make new episodes in the future. This one goes to my favorites for sure. You did a very good job for one of your first movies (maybe you made something before, but this is the first thing you submitted), keep up the excellent work.

Stingicide responds:

I did go through and add subtitles before I submitted it, but I found that they drastically took away from all the quick visual references in the movie. Thanks for the suggestion anyway, next time I'll try to make the audio clearer so no one misses anything.

[Bag Boy: Episode 1]

Could become a pretty cool series

Well this looked quite promising. Maybe it'll become a pretty popular series in the future. You submitted episode 2 before this one, right? Would be better if you submitted this one first, but meh who cares? Anyway, here are a couple of suggestions that might make this a bit better.

One: You should add some subtitles. I could hear Bag Boy pretty good, but I could barely hear what Justin was saying. Just make some kinda box where the text is so that it's not diffecult to read or something like that. Two: You need to work a bit on the graphics. They were kinda average and if you want this to get a very high score, you have to draw better. Three: Well there wasn't really that much going on in this episode. In my opinion, it was a little bit boring. I hope the next episodes will be a bit more interesting and a bit longer.

Overall I'd give this 5 out of 10, 2 out of 5. It was a kinda average movie, but it was pretty original I think. I haven't seen anything like this before actually. I hope you'll improve on your drawings and that more stuff will happen in future episodes. It could become a pretty cool series like I said before. So put a bit more work in it and good luck with making all the other episodes.

~Auz

Oneity-EightThree responds:

Yes we did submit ep2 before this one. We thought it to be better, but I like the simplicity of this one so I decided to add it aswell. We have three future Bag Boy scripts written already, and I'm ordering one of those Wacom drawing tablets so we'll be stepping up a bit in the near future. Thank you for the pointers, we'll be sure to consider what you've said when we work on episode 3.

[Devoid City Trailer]

Not bad

Well it's pretty clear to me that you got your inspiration from the movies of LegendaryFrog and The_Super_Flash_Brothers. The humor was about the same. It was a pretty nice trailer I have to admit.

It seems like you mixed some pictures (the city, the vampire) with some drawings. Well the drawing were allright, deffinatly not bad. My only complaint is that because of this mix, it didn't really looked like one movie to me, more like something random. I know it's not just something random, but it gives the idea that it is. I hope that in the real movie, you'll only use drawing and no pictures. Some good parts were the subtitles (very good that you added those), the voice-acting and I think the real movie will be a pretty good story.

As for the rest well, it's always okay to improve a bit with the graphics cause they can really give your movie a high score. 2.90 isn't bad surely, but with even better graphics, the score could be over 3.00

Overall I'd give this trailer 6 out of 10, 3 out of 5. It wasn't bad for one of your first flashes and I think you could become a pretty good author if you keep on making flashes and don't get lazy.

Oh btw you don't have to apologize that it took so long all the time, quite honestly, your no big author (yet), so I don't think the people of newgrounds would care if they have to wait for 5 weeks =) Anyway, good luck with making the real movie.

~Auz

Pokelord-EX responds:

Just want to say thanks for your "Essay" about this, dont worry, it was laziness that put those pictures on there, but still I cant promise the drawings will be better than this, might stick to what I know, but I can promise you no pictures, like what you described will not be used unless they are either posters or movies like in the easter egg (if you can find it).
And I am also from DeviantART, so that is why I am apologising, because a few people know me there, and know of whats to come and such. but anyway, thanks for the review, all is appreciated, this is the best review today!

[Professional Soccer 2]

Much better then the intro

I just watched both of them and I think this one was a lot better then part 1/the intro. The intro was very short and didn't seem to have much point. Anyway, I think this was a pretty good movie. I'll not be suprised if this won a daily fifth or fourth place tomorrow (don't think it will win a daily future though, 3.66 as a score is probably not enough). Here are a couple of suggestions that might make the movie a little bit better:

First of all, I think it would be better if you added subtitles. At some moment I could barely here what was said (like when that coach spoke for example). A subtitle-box would be good I think, otherwise the text is not always readable. Second, there wasn't really that much going on here actually. I thought this movie was about football and I'll I've seen now is a lot of blah blah by some of the players and the coach. Okay, I know one of those guys got a red card, but please add some more football and less talking, I think it would be a lot more interesting then. Third, well not that they were bad, but work a bit on the graphics. They were pretty good actually, but if you improve them a little bit, then the score might go up as well.

Overall I'd give this 7 out of 10, 3 out of 5. Of course there were also a couple of good things in this. Like I said, the graphics were pretty good. I also liked the joke with the hand of god coming from the clouds and the part with the muscles, so I gave you some points for humor. The sounds were also allright, the voice-acting was decent, although I did not always understood it well. I also liked the fact that this is about football, I haven't seen many flashes about football here on NG. Anyway, this is all for now, I'll keep an eye out for Professional Soccer 3 and I might review it again. Good luck with making the rest of the series.

~Auz

Renegade-Hamster responds:

I'll try to respond to some of your suggestions here:

1, "Add subtitles"
I had no trouble hearing them talk. Maybe you didn't have your sound up enough.
I considered putting up subtitles, but I dislike them when you can hear what the characters are saying anyway. It also wrecks the comedic timing, so I didn't put them in.

2,"Too much 'blah blah', not enough action"
This is mainly a dialogue comedy. There is some action, but it will only happen if the comedy warrants it. (e.g. the pidgeon getting the crap smacked out of it, Mills taking a dive to get Keagan sent off for tripping).

3,"Improve graphics"
You're welcome to give me examples. But I like 'em. I'll improve them as I see fit as I learn more about flash and improve my techniques.

Thanks for the review!

[Hyrulian Rhapsody]

You sure you made this in 2 days?

Say this was pretty good. It's kinda hard to believe that you made this in 2 days. If that's true then I would like to know what you could make in 2 weeks. I mean, 2 days of work and a low filesize. Normally that stuff is blam-material, but this was far from being blammed. 3.18 is a very good score. I also see that this is one of your first flashes (or at least one of your first flashes you submitted here), I must say I'm pretty impressed.

Although I don't think this movie is enough to win an award, and it will most likely not get one. Well maybe the underdog of the week award, but that's also very unlikely (1.50 difference is quite a lot, but not enough I think). Well I think the only that could make this movie a lot better is that you should have made it longer. The movie was not really that short, but it could've been a bit longer. Just add some more scenes or something and maybe you could add a menu screen with some short extra movies and a minigame. I've seen stuff like that before that got a very high score (somewhere close to 4.00), so maybe you should try making something like that.

Anyway, overall I'd give this 7 out of 10, 3 out of 5. Like I've said, it's pretty impressive that you made something like this in such a short time. Could've been better if you worked a bit longer on it. Well maybe you should try to draw real figures instead of using sprites. If your sure you probably can't draw anything better then stickman then keep using sprites cause sprites > stickmovies. Anyway, I hope to see some more (good) stuff from you soon. Keep up the good work and good luck with any other movies you were planning to make in the future.

~Auz

Neon-Shadow responds:

Thankyou for a PROPER review :).
Yeah, I made this in 2 days on and off. I could have worked longer on it, but this was just a little thing I wanted to do to get me back into Flash after making my last cartoon in December! It was going to be much shorter, but I managed to add some more stuff into it.

I can draw though, sprites isn't the only thing I do ;) check out my site for more on that. Thanks a lot for the encouraging feedback. I plan on spending longer on my future projects!

[Brunk's Zelda Collection]

This was pretty good

I would call this a pertty good flash. I expected less actually, those submissions that have like a couple of short cartoons are usually not that good. This was one of the better in my opinion. Still, you need to improve on a couple of things. Also, I think you should add a couple of things to make this even better.

First of all, the drawing could use a little improvement. They weren't really that bad though, they were actually pretty good, but if you want to get an even higher score, you have to draw a little bit better. Second, the 3 cartoons were kinda short. A minute for every cartoon is not really that long and I even doubt if they all are one minute. You could either make the movies a bit longer, you know add some extra scenes and all that or you could add some more cartoons. I saw that you were planning to make more of these kind of movies, so I hope there will be more to watch there. Third, well it's not really that important, but the menu screen could use some music maybe. You don't have to add that, it would just be a nice extra thing.

Anyway, overall I'd give this 7 out of 10, 3 out of 5. I think you've done pretty well here, could be a bit better, but it was a pretty good submission. Well I've seen that you were planning to make some more of these in the future. I'll keep an eye out for them. Keep up the good work and good luck with making the movies.

~Auz

von-Brunk responds:

I actually wrote and began animating several other shorts, but I wanted this to be a small file. Plus, this cartoon collection itself was beginning to lag in Flash MX 2004 (due to lots of content and wav files) when I finished making it, so a few cartoons were cut. They'll be in the next Brunk Zelda Collection.

[Halo 2D]

Not that entertaining

Well this didn't really entertained me at all. I guess this is only one of your first flashes so I shouldn't expect that much I guess. On the other hand, you really worked a couple of weeks on this? That's hard to believe, I heard about other people who could do stuff like this in a couple of days (or even a couple of hours). Anyway the things that need to improve:

First of all, the subtitles. I think it would be better if you added some black box at the bottom of the screen so that the text is a bit easier to read. Second, it was kinda short. I think you should make this a bit longer. You should also add some storyline in this, that'll make the movie a lot more interesting. You could at some scenes about why they were fighting and stuff like that. Third, I think the music was way too loud. I know you'd say: 'turn your speakers down then', but they were already at a very low volume. So please make the music a bit less loud and add some better music cause I didn't really liked the music it had now. Fourth, the fights could be a bit better, they weren't really that spectacular. Practice a bit more with making good fights I'd say.

Anyway, overall I'd give this 4 out of 10, 2 out of 5. Like I said, didn't really entertained me. To answer your question about if you should keep making it, I'd say yes. Not that I'm really waiting for anything like this again, but I just hope that you'll get better with flash cause of that. Dunno if your planning to make a whole series out of this though. Anyway I hope you'll take some of my advice and that your next submission will be better then this. Keep it up and good luck with any future projects.

~Auz

Dog responds:

What I ment was i did this animation a couple of weeks ago then gave up on it. It actually took me a few hours to make, thats why it was ordinary. Sorry Guys