R1665's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Quest for the Front Page]

Yup.

Daily 2nd.

I'd say you have a pretty good shot of making that front page in the very near future.

R1665

[Ryu Vs Kyo]

Not bad, but there is room for improvement.

I will repeat and perhaps clarify a few tips given by others while adding my own.

1.) As Tech stated, sprite alignment is an issue. The process of making your previous images visible is called "onion skinning" and there are a myriad of tutorials available online if you want a quick explanation of the process. When onion skinning character sprites, it's usually a good idea to pay special attention to the feet. The feet, waist, and head are your most common "anchor points" (I don't have a better description for it).

I wouldn't recommend the outline method unless your sprites were already aligned beforehand. Sprites pulled from MUGEN characters almost never are.

2.) I would strongly recommend using blur effects as little as possible. I'm on a good computer and I still had an issue with skipped frames during and after the free-fall part. Leaving those background clouds blurred for the final section of the fight made my computer shit a brick. If you have to have a blurred background, blur the image in Photoshop and import it rather than using the native blur feature in flash.

3.) It would probably behoove you to get some better hitsparks. In my opinion, MvC sparks linger too long. A good hitspark should show the hit, then get the hell out of the way as soon as possible.

4.) General choreographic tip: Don't let your characters land free hits. Make them work for it. Blocks and counters should be the norm, not the exception. If a standing attack CAN be blocked, it probably should be.

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I'm a firm believer in the "tough shit" rule when it comes to flash releases, so I must disagree with Tech regarding how to go forward. If you release it and you want to later improve upon it, then tough shit. It's out. It's done. Unless your change is minimal and improves performance (like changing the menu or taking steps to remove lag issues), don't bother with it.

Gotta keep moving forward...

4/5 8/10

R1665

[FutureForce Installment 1]

Good times...

...but it could be much, much more. You're one of the most clever sprite choreographers I know but I feel that you've hit a plateau on the technical end. I've said this a dozen times and I'll say it once again - get Photoshop and learn how to use it.

You're probably sick of hearing that, so let's get to the stylistic stuff.

While the action was well-done and the story was pleasingly in-depth, I found it a bit tiring to have so much detail thrown at me all at once story-wise. The biographies were more confusing than helpful considering the amount of information displayed for characters that weren't really involved. It might prove more illuminating to get into that information later on when their involvement becomes more prominent. Generally speaking, stuff like that should provide a few (but not too many) answers and not create additional questions.

While I was glad to see Reiko take part in the action, his presence struck me as being pretty much random. The series tie-in potential is interesting, but I would have liked to have seen him make a bigger impact rather than be a wildcard for Bishop/Cyke/Sabes.

Also, directional tails for speech bubbles don't have to go all the way to the mouth. A simple short point will do the job and look less distracting.

Well, those are my thoughts. I hope you find at least some of it useful and constructive.

5/5 9/10

R1665

smoothuser responds:

As always very good info from you. I know how to use photoshop. I used to have photoshop. My computer shat and I no longer have photoshop. I'm not sure what you want me to do with photoshop unless you are still referring to my stages. I suppose once I get photoshop, I'll ask you that question again. If you tell me where I can get photoshop, I'll get it and start photoshoping all kinds of shit. REALLY!
Dialogue: You say it's too much info. My characters needed to say something about something. They are supposed to tell the story are they not? As far as the bios go, they were ment to answer some questions and piece things together. Like I said, the Multivers is in use. I didn't really want to copy you in any sort of way. I'll figure a way to rectify that. I do understand what you mean about too much info on the supporting characters. That's a good idea. Reiko was random haha, but I really wanted to use his sprites.
Speech bubbles were a last minute thing. I couldn't find a good text bar to use, so I went with the classic thought bubbles. I'll take your advice on those. Thanks a lot for the info and the rating. Helpful as always. I'll pick your brain about photoshop once I attain it.

[Street fighter Epic Ep.5]

Some issues

As it stands, you've got some lag issues and that "Swift Optimizer" banner (which wasn't there when I watched it this morning) was extremely intrusive and took me out of the film every time I saw it.

For future reference, you can upload your flash to your file dump and preview it in an internet environment before you submit to the portal. Watching it from multiple computers with varying capacities will allow you to identify most of these bugs before mass release.

Stylistically speaking, my only complaint is that the video changes gears too often between action and dialogue. By the time you get in the groove of one, it switches to the other. Sometimes actions can tell your story far more effectively than words.

Just my two cents.

R1665

TechLeSSWaYz responds:

the optimizer is only there because I was testing compressors. thats the last one I used, sorry I kept it.
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actually i did, I upoaded it on several sites before touching newgrounds. and it was perfectly fine! I wake up and BAM lag problem like crazy. Compressing it didnt help so im out of ideas.
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oh well I guess Im deleting this anyway.

[MKU 3: Ressurection]

Not bad at all

I do have a couple of thoughts, though.

To be perfectly honest, I much preferred the fight music of the preview over the final cut. It just seemed a lot more intense. It also skipped frames a few times during some of the more strenuous camera work, and I'm on a good connection. It might behoove you to go with a smaller window size on future installments to help ease that up.

I must say, though, that the "I don't have any running sprites" bit was GOLD.

10/10 5/5

R1665

smoothuser responds:

Thanks. I'll look into what you said and attempt to correct it. I kinda thought the Gargos theme from the preview was kinda old, but it did have a bit of a flare to it. I tried to size the camera as close as possible without the sprites looking all pixilated. Me and the vcam went through hell producing this. Haha, I'm glad you liked the line. I try to add a little bit of humor where I can. I appreciate the help, advice, and feedback, and the 10! It still doesn't live up to your recent works, but i'm working on it. Thanks for watching.

[32-Bit Tournament-3]

Time well spent

Structurally speaking, this movie deserves every bit of the 10/5 that I am giving it. Although I do have a few critiques/concerns, none of them are grounds enough to warrant a reduction in score. It's all a matter of personal opinion, so feel free to disregard.

Now, anyone familiar with your style will know that they are in for a mingling of action with humor. It works well for you. However, it seems that this movie has a bit of an imbalance. In previous installments, most of the sight gags were short and sweet, especially during the action. That made it enjoyable without serving as a distraction. The issue that I had with this one is that it changed gears too often. I couldn't really get into the flow of the Epic Battle scene due to the constant jumps between "funny" and "serious". The prolonged presentation of the funny parts was much more distracting than the usual fare of the tournament.

I must also admit to having a bit of cognitive dissonance during the more violent parts. The relationship between humor and murderous, dismemberment violence is tricky. For example, I have watched this movie a few times and the Ryu part gets the same LOL reaction out of me every time. It was set up perfectly and the unexpected outcome was just priceless. However, the same thing applied to the Rikuo and Dan seemed out of place.

Anyway, those are the main points I wanted to make and I've rambled quite enough. The time and hard work you've put into this definitely shows through and I eagerly await future installments!

R1665

Trixiaoyu responds:

Thanks man. Your review always means a lot. I tried to improve the fight scenes as much as I could in this episode. However I think that I should have improved the story element of it as well. The relationship between violence and humour did class. I was trying to make the violent parts funny, but I guess that I FAILED! :-(

I will keep on working hard to improve my skills. In the mean time, I shall await your next VG instalment. Thanks for the review.

[TUPT-2: The 2nd Encounter]

Finally back in the game, eh?

I was actually quite amused that the "timing failure" made it into the final cut. I thought that was just something you did earlier to get a few laughs.

I noticed a few grammatical mistakes in the dialogue sections, but nothing that should lower your score. The only real constructive suggestion I can make is that you should work on making the fight a bit longer. As amusing as the ending was, it came a bit too soon.

As for your next installment, I'm looking forward to watching Spidey kick Ryu's ass. Honestly, having shotoclones get the shit beaten out of them is pretty much the only entertaining thing left for them to do. But I digress...

R1665