Reviews for The Promise of Home

[TwatLlama]

A Difficult Review

I remember your 1001 Wishes flash and just as that one the plot is trailing. I am trying to view your work from a art perspective but still don't see the message. I am guessing it is one view of how war and ill will can destablize one family in one current situation. Looking at things from a micro perspective, I appreciated the work but you have to somehow incorporate more style than just scene-change, new text, scene-change. I feel you can work on your ideas to make a better flash presentation. Best of luck.

[rexman]

it was ok.

the graphics weren't great. the mouths were horible. you should try to fix the faces so that they move smoother.
the music was a bit too repetitive in the lyrics, the song also didn't match the movie at times. also when the song stopped it made me less intentive to the movie, expecialy when you played the same song after the silence which made me a little annoyed.
the story was very good,
but don't switch from him talking about his past to him talking as if it was now.
when you changed from third person to first person like that it can confuss da duffasus and just make you look bad.
also in this kind of sad story don't give the "and we lived happily ever after" soon after a major trajedy.when the mom died you didn't but enought of a sad scene. you just kind of said she died and didn't give enought respect to the fact that the kid's hopes and second most important charater just died.

my thoughts,
Rexman

[Zorn27]

It was alright

I like your 1001 wishes better, probaly because I can to it relate better . Try fixing up your animation as well.

[TheArtrix]

I'm seeing a pattern here...

I barely post reviews here on Newgrounds, but for this movie, I make an exception.

I liked your submission called Her and Mine 1001 wishes, but it had exactly the same flaws as this movie, notably the mediocre graphics, and especially the animation. You have a knack for influencing people emotionally, and you should definitely keep your focus there. The poor quality of the movie itself weakens the effect, reducing it to mediocrity.

One thing you should ditch is the pattern you seem to apply to your movies. You basically pick a song, play it twice, and show a slightly animated slide-show in the process. I noticed how you incorporated a running animation somewhere in the middle of the movie, it didn't look all that bad. If you just take a little more time and use this kind of animation thoughout most of your scenes, you could definitely make the whole thing easier to watch, and improve the storytelling.

The combination of on-screen dialogue and music works, but try and use two different songs, and don't let them determine the length of the movie. Get rid of the silence in the middle and try and use music without any lyrics.

I hope you find this review useful, and that it might help improve your next works. I'm definitely going to watch them.

[Trickster-71]

Well... Where to start?

I watched it twice, wrote down about 15 mistakes, and these were the ones that I thought had the most impact on the story. It just wasn't right, man.
-When the mother and the little boy were being transported, it appeared as though the mother's kiss to the little boy was more mouth to mouth, like they were making out. It wasn't really that great of an animation.
-When the boy is having his little spurt of anger, the dialogue is something like this: "At that moment, I became really angry at my mother, and said, 'We will.'" For a spurt of anger, all the little guy can say is "We will"? Sorry man, just didn't work out.
-The little boy is talking in narration and he says "...hear was your voice". So, he heard OUR voice?
-They're homes are bombed, they loose their father/husband and son/brother, and yet they are suddenly "the happiest people on earth"? Better choice of words, man, that just did NOT fit the story.
-Last but DEFINITLY not least, if your going to tell a story with a flash, at least use proper grammar. It made me CRY that you had so many grammatical errors. A man of your flash talent should at least check over his work when he's done, because there was at least 20 times you forgot to capitalize the first letter of a sentance.

Now that I've finished that, it seems theres so much to go on about. If you had sound in your animation, there would not have been reason to have to stare at the bottom of the picture the entire time, reading the story like a picture book. Also, why the same song all the way through? And why such a delay between sequences where the song was playing?

This just didn't really cut it for me. You had an absolutely beautiful animation going on, and then you chop it up with bad grammar and a dialogue that could've used some work. Also, the whole thing was just to... Unreal, for my taste.

One last thing: I bet a lot of people are going to read this and think "Fuck you, this was amazing," but it wasn't amazing to me. And a note to Infernix: If Newgrounds doesn't need soppy Chinese stories, then what DOES it need?

Work harder, dude.

~Trix