Well, Ummm...
The Art Was Great For An Early Submission, However The Animation Was Iff-y, And The Wagoon Sound Almost Drove Me To Suicide. But The Plot Was Good And I Did Sorta' Like It...
However I'd Like To Know Where Exactly You Used MY Song: 70's Disco ?
Well, its in the Secret Keybutton...
U will get the secret after the Credit
Good try
I liked that it had a story, but it sounded like a bunch of ten year olds, and that got on my nerves after a little while. Also, the wagon sound could use a little revising. It was a great concept, but the audio is mostly what killed it. Also, some of the animations didn't look fluid enough, like with the bear, it just fell, animate in a wound on the bear to make it look real. And, the horses moved a little, well, I don't know how to put it, stiff? The knees didn't move on the horses either.
Things to fix:
-Voices that sound like adults.
-More fluid movement on the animations.
Things done well:
-Story
-Character depth
Intro too long, run cycles too poor
The intro threw me off -- the writing didn't grab my attention, and it really went on for too long. I needed superior animation to draw me back in, but I didn't get it. At least work on the run cycles so that they look acceptable. Flash movies on Newgrounds are short and abundant, so you really need to captivate your audience as quickly as possible if you're going to have a successful animation.
I'm mainly commenting because of your attitude, though. In one of your replies below, you basically said 'you shouldn't criticise someone's work unless you can do better.' That's a load of shit. If that were true, there would be no movie-critics, or art-critics, or anything-critics.
So how about you stop shitting all over peoples' criticisms, appreciate that someone took the time to view your movie at all, and listen to what they have to say? That's the only way you're going to improve.
Well, I do appreciate the ppl who REVIEW my flash...
Im asking for their time to spent it on COMMENTING my work NOT ABUSE it, kay?
The saying of Voice Actors quality r bad, that kinda lot of u so called Shit too, know?
I know my work r'nt perfect cuz I dint get any lesson of it...
But it doesnt deserve 3/10 OR 4/10, right?
3 or 4/10 is a blamming material.. and I want a review on my lfash, not a review for my "response"
Appreciate ur time, hope u'll spent it wisely. :)
Outcast...
I reviewed the second movie first because I wanted to see if it improved from this one before I reviewed this one.
There should be some quiet background music when the "storyteller" reads the opening story. The recording should have less base and more treble. The quality is not terrible for the voice, the ambient sound is excellent with the exception of the carriage. There was no need to have it last so long either, that is irritating.
I won't comment on the graphics since they have already improved in the sequel, Battle at Prouk.
I admire the ambition here...
.. but I'm afraid the actual animation chops just weren't there to make the story compelling and real. Also the voice actors pretty well blew, but I won't focus in on that.
The breakdown:
The art, though decent, was far too bland and uninspired to match a fantasy universe. You've obviously put a whole lot of thuoght into this project, and thoroughly stretched your imagination to its limits. So if you're going to ride the ways of high fantasy and make something extravagant in plot and idea, the art and direction should match. What I saw was some browns and greens making vague shapes. Really get in their and design unique and interesting characters who are distinct and relfect your own flavour and match the universe they live in. Whatever you do though, don't pull a Jazza and make the most generic fantasy characters ever.
The animation was tweenfilled, which is fine I guess as a beginner, but if you're going to take animation seriously I reccomend going out and grabbing The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams. It's a fantastic book that goes into great detail outlining the principles of tradition and frame-by-frame animation. If you start learning from the classical formats you'll pick up how to make gravity and weight and balance feel truly real in your animations. Then you can learn the tricks and gizmos of Flash such as easing and shape tweens and you'll be able to really grasp tweens as their own art form. As is you have a few symbols getting dragged around in motions that barely resemble the actions they represent.
The direction was the biggest problem for me. You angles were just flat on and didn't really ever change. We never get close ups, or tracking shots, or any such things. Try and really mix things up and give up some shots that aren't pedestrian and textbook. As is this looks like a bad John Singleton attempt at directing. The "camera work" fails to generate any interest and just leaves the viewer staring blankly and a couple of side-scrolling characters from a distance where you can hardly learn anything about them at all. I know you aren't Rtil, but take a look at his work, especially GUM if you want to see a great example of how you can use simple view angles to really spice up your work.
Keep at it, and massive kudos for the effort you put into this. Great to see that even if this isn't the best, at least your producing unique and original content. Work hard and you'll go far!
I making my own sprites, so ppl in NG somehow do their own, rather than take some Nintendo sprite & get the credit from other ppl work!
I know its not perfect, but at least make it fair, 4/10 is too shitty for this project, dude!
How bout next time, review more postively like the bonus features & NOT advertise some book.