Reviews for VG Exiles - Episode 3

[Encaitaron]

Great fight.... but the rest...

Rare are now the days I even bother to check on newgrounds, but I'm glad I did it for this animation deserves a review :P

I'll start with the bad:
This animation has 3 major problems: sense of pace, history and voice acting.

The animation starts on a slow pace, but increases until the begining of the fight.
During the battle, you have a lot of action going on, long fight, yet it never lets the viewer bored.
However, once the battle is over, the animation nearly stops and everything runs soooo slowlly.

The story is usually the least important on this sort of combat animations and, although a little of story is always welcomed, in my opinion, seems this tries so hard to be taken seriously that ends up being a negative point on the overal animation. Maybe because of the overflow of info? ( I'll get there soon).
Additionally, it kinda seems that without reading the extras, some people will hardly have a good understanding of the story.
Also, another problem with the story, that kinda mixes with the pace is the giant amount of information that is given to the viewer after the fight.
Imo, most of that info could be probaly mixed and removed, example1: after the fight there is a huge dialog between cage and wolf dude, followed by Jill's monologue. While SOME of Cage/Wolf's info was revelant for probably any future events, MOST of Jill's was not. So an alternative could be keep switching between Cage/Wolf scenes and Jill's shower scenes. Less info on less time, the same amount of fan-service, but on a more enjoyable pace.
Example 2: change all the "I see how he looks at me yada yada" by a small comment (maybe a "spicey" one) on Jill's Striker 1st communication (even if a lot were given)...maybe a blush?

The voice acting... well I'll just quote FightningSeraph on "all characters having no emotion or specific traits". I just mention this, because I strongly believe that the voice actors can do much better, though I felt no emotion, I found the voices fit well the various chars.

As for the good...
First of all, the battle is really really really badass.
I'm no fan of bison, I'm no fan of striker (nor most of the mk cast actually) yet the battle was really good and on a certain way it is particulary cool not seeing all the same chars over and over again (ryu*cough*ken*cough*chun li*cough*random mk ninja*cough*).
Good sound, hit/sprite effects, nothing I wasnt expecting after watching the previous episode. Also, great choise of music!

Another strong point is, obviously, the comics.
Though they were probably one of the reasons for the awkward chance of speed on this animation, most drawings were really really really good, if someone doesnt want to pay attention to the story, can just pay attention to the drawings lol.
Hoping to see more of it, who knows if some of those drawings can't be used during all the sprite animation scenes (like in MvC 2 supers?...idk just brainstorming).

All things considered:
+ great fight scene
+ great drawings
+ originality

- too much useless info (remember, 1 pic is worth a thousand words, and sometimes just a small sentence can say a lot)
- smooth HELL YEAH FAST sloooooooooooooooooooooooow
- comme on people, use those great voices you have!

Good work :)

[normalguycap]

I jumped into this with no prior experience.

I have not seen the other episodes. Yes it has amazing animation and effects. It reminds me of another SF vs MK video with Akuma vs Chameleon. However, what bothered me was how that non-super police man Stryker killed Bison. I don't know much about the story, but that seems very wrong. BIson. The KING bad guy of all SF gets killed by that loser cop?

Everything else was very good. The drawings, the animation, the voice acting, the atmosphere.

[manikdreamer]

Excellent!

I found FightingSeraphs review helpful, but a bit harsh concerning the actors and plot. I find it very brave of you guys to introduce a tragic hero/romance angle in here, also very realistic! I've known guys with attitudes like you have given Stryker. None of them were cops, but most were soldiers or ex-military. Rough, reckless guys with nothing to lose but family or a love interest. I felt real emotion from the characters, was interested in what's going to happen next. I was scared for Heart when she was surrounded by Nashs troops. I not only understood the friction between Jon and Johnny, I felt its necessity.
Plot holes are to be expected when one deals with muliple universes/fantasy genres. If Marvel Comics and other venues (such as the diverse Star Trek series ) can't deal with it, I don't expect you guys to have to worry overmuch about it either, so please don't.
What I'm trying to say is: Although FightingSeraph may be right concerning the 'bad' points, there is an overall sense of completeness to the story which satifies and entertains me, the viewer. Good job, guys, keep up the evolution, and thanks.

[FightingSeraph]

Mixed feelings

As much as I liked the first two episodes of this series; this one and the one before it have left me with mixed feelings. To Ce-Rap: Good job on the stills, but I never saw the appeal of video comics. I found them to be too static for my taste.
Aside from that, let's get started...

Animation: I liked the use of custom sprites even though most of them are just recolors. Plus, The stills looked better than episode two. Unfortunately, due to the comic approach, there wasn't much animation aside from the sprite segments and makes this very inconsistent in style and quality. I mean, the comic parts seem to be better imported than the sprites. Are you sure that you're importing and resizing them properly? For future episodes, I second Dark Karate's suggestion on making sprites completely from scratch.
Sound: Great usage of various videogame sound effects (finding "free for everyone to use" sound effects that are just as good as professionally made ones is hard as hell) and clever music selection. Bonus for not using some stale/overhyped mainstream song like MaelstormM or the All Fads Die game. That and using Audacity to edit the sound. However, I think you should get Xarnor, Hades, or Xenogenocide to make some music for this because you can only go so far on music taken from various games and bands. By contrast, the voice acting is horrible with almost all characters having no emotion or specific traits aside from Tomamoto's parts, especially his Ron Perlman* impersonation. (*He was Stryker in MK: Defenders of the Realm.) Plus, why did you have Rina-Chan in this considering that it was going to piss off the Street Fighter Chode guys?
Content: Last, but not least, the content of this is one step in the right direction, and two steps in the wrong direction. On one hand, I enjoy your fight choreography and timing. One thing that sprite movies usually get right is staging, something that people here should study. On the other, the plot, the pace, and the dialog are just execrable. The story, is not very cohesive, needlessly slow/drawn out, and littered with plot holes. Plus, the script is unintentionally funny due to how badly written it was. (Why would Stryker use internet slang? It's never a good sign when people use internet slang as character dialog.) May I also recommend that you get a co-writer/editor? By contrast, SMBZ, Rick's Adventure-Legends, and Final Fighting Fantasy were better written and directed.

The Good:
-Nice drawings
-Great fight choreography
-Fitting music and sound
-Not another SMBZ clone

The Bad:
-Not much animation aside from the sprite segments, and they could have used more polish.
-Horrible voice acting except from Tomamoto
-Badly written and directed
-Needlessly slow (Slow pacing is fine, but only when it's done right.)
-Inconsistent in style

Overall: R1665, CE-Rap, here's a seven for both of you and I hope you take these (mostly) constructive crits to improve on this so you don't end up like certain has-beens on this site.

[CE-Rap]

Though admittedly self-serving--

--THIS "ten" is meant to be a THANK YOU for all the support from you fans. --"Y'all sum badass muthas!"

And to SLAYHAY and GHOSTBLADE-->

Just remember, fellas. This is VIDEO GAME EXILES.

Multiverse is FULL of VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS. We have a LOOOONG way to go before this tale is done and we pretty much have decided who's gonna be in it.

Soooooooooo......who's to say you WON'T see them?? Who's to say you WILL?? Who's to say they'll be in a sprite fight or just be used for background filler??

*---written whilst curling my mustache like a classic Disney villain--ha-HAH!