So I finally had enough time to stop playing Batman: Arkham Asylum (fuck you, Riddler and impossible to get riddles unless I've upgraded the right weapon) to watch Tarboy. And might I say, I was quite impressed. At how underwhelming it was.
Yes, it was a very good flash; great effects, nice use of digital, and a storyline that I loved. The musical was adequate in general, but since it was custom made for a flash rather than just stolen from some feature length movie, it was excellent and fit perfectly with the movie. But there were a lot more flaws that detract from it.
Outside of the digital and special effects, the art style, to put it nicely, was modern and very very stylistic. In otherwise, I've seen a lot of flashes with the same style of drawing and animation, and they all were drawn a little better than this. Sure, Grandpa, grandson and killer robot look good, but the rest could have been drawn by any other decent flash artist on NG.
Also, the sound effects aren't always there when I expected them to be. When Tarboy was chasing the dude into the building, there should have been footsteps or squishy sounds when the music stopped. Or when Tarboy was getting melted, there could have been a thousand screams of the dead robots. It may sound like nit-picking tiny things, but it's those tiny things that are noticed.
And the length. I understand for Newgrounds that they wanted to keep it under 10 MB and save some for the sequel, but it felt way too short. Throw in that cut elevator scene. Have a little more of a fight to get in or search to find the asshole that led him to the trap. It just felt like there could have been more.
Overall, it was a great flash with a great story, but it shouldn't be at the top of anyone's list.
