huh?
the animation was alittle shaky, work on you technique alittle more. Plus... the movie was so short I didn't really get what was going on...
Reviews for "Koden X Prologue Part 1"
Nothing New
The name of the characters as well as the town's name were cheesy. The animation could use some more quality to it, however it was very smooth and the environment wasn't that bad.
Main character was too typical and nothing special, he reminded me of another Cloud Strife an emotional protagonist possessing hidden powers. The part where he meets the girl who rescued him was pretty damn cliche. As was the scene with the flower petal that fell from the pink flower.
I liked the voice acting for the main character and the girl. Perhaps you should emphasize on the background a little bit more because it seemed too plain at some points. There was a good use of 3D effects throughout the move.
I hope my review of your movie can help you improve the weak spots. Overall I would have to say I didn't enjoy the movie much but I give you kudos for making a higher quality animation than most of NewGround animations.
I look forward for seeing the next episode of your movie. Keep up the good work.
Winzra responds:
Oh Wow! Awesome review! As for the characters first of all, my personal friend who saw it said the main character acted a bit like Cloud Strife as well! If I think about the character altogether and who he is, i'd say he is far from that! I could understand though how you see that now, it's kind of a duh thing. All I can say is, you'd have to understand what he went through (which will be revealed in a later time) and then you'd think, well just about any "normal" teenager in his position would act like that! But I totally see where you come from. Also, I can't say we work terribly too much on the names, in fact, all of the names (even Winzra which I came up with when I was play Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles when it came out...lol) were pretty much thought up of rather quickly (something we should work on!). Your honest review makes me really happy on things we should work on.
As for the petal scene, all I can do is laugh about that! When Chase did that part of the film, he asked me "Is this cheesy", to which I replied "Yeah, pretty much". We were conflicted though, I suppose symbolically it worked, but in the end it was still cheesy. We just decided to leave it, no harm no foul right?
Overall, I think you should consider continuing watching as they come out; at first glance it would seem like a lot of cliches and nothing really new. But this story has honestly been through a lot of refining and I think overall it is a fairly original piece of work. Either way, I look forward to reading your reviews on anything we submit, I like it!
Thanks again!! ^___^
Didn't earn loose
The visuals are loose and unpolished, but that's fine. I am of the mind that as long as you have a good story and the visuals are enough to tell what's going on, it's all good.
Unfortunately the story was either unclear, or generic. Sorry man. Either improve the visuals or the story to get a good score out of me.
Well...
Here's what I have a problem with:
Animation: Sometimes it just felt rough, it seemed either too vectored or just too rushed. Also the lip syncing wasn't up to par with what it seems you're going for. What I've noticed animators do is create several images of different mouth motions and then try to tie them into the scene. Meaning pre-fab the mouths and then add them in later with the audio.
Acting/Characters: I'm sorry but your characters screamed cliché at me. You have this dude with a DBZ hair-do who is tough and has powers he doesn't understand/completely control bringing up the whole "walking-weapon" deal that seems to be all over fiction these days. For an engaging character push the envelope a little bit, but not too much to the point the audience has no idea who they are. Meaning add something more to the agon with power rather than just control vs. chaos, it's been done to death. Also the token anime girl who is very friendly and dresses and acts like any other character. Conversely I hope you don't jump to the other extreme and have a total asshole girl who just likes to make people suffer for really lame reasons. Balance your characters between the extreme clichés and you might end up with a more unique cast.
Also to help your actors: tell them the emotions, have them get into their characters more before recording. Maybe have them act the scene with each other so that they can insert themselves into the part more and get your 'stage' direction as well as you do.
Plot Flow: It was really abrupt when the characters who the audience just began to attach themselves to after a few scenes got wasted (for all we know). It felt like a waste of time because all of a sudden you introduce another character WHILE creating the plot pitch WHILE removing the others ( maybe for a while I suppose). Slow the story down a bit, the world won't end tomorrow. The last thing you want to do is blast through what could be a neat story by cramming the plot too close together. If you do intend to keep the others alive somehow, it really would have helped to make a hint at that at the end, otherwise the movie feels incomplete. I know it looks like a series but each episode still needs a sense of unity of whatever magnitude. Unify you plot slightly (on a smaller scale) and you should be good.
This seems like it's your baby. I can relate I have one too. Which is why I don't want you guys to sabotage your potential by cutting corners. You really could make this better, but for the sake of a review, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Oh and PLEASE don't get the idea that I'm obsessed with originality, I'm not. I enjoy a nice diaspora of entertainment, artsy and simple alike. I just feel that you guys could be heading for a wall eventually and that you could make this flash series stand out more.
What I did like were the backgrounds, at one point I was reminded of the guy who made Waterlolies, so in that regard: good job!
Needs less salt
I watched this twice. Once normally and once on mute with no subtitles, like i do most animations that get alot of praise just to double check on something i might've missed. Now i could spend alot of time criticizing and point out the staggering amount of flaws that were in this flash OR i could hand out suggestions. I'll do both but make the former quick. Stiff animation, LOOOOONNNGGG talking scenes, sleepy depressing music and emotionless setting.
Now as far as my suggestions go, stop writing and use storyboards. Writing kills animation. Watch cartoon network right now and find one of those god awful shows they have on right now. They all have writers. After that go watch ren and stimpy or some of the old looney tunes cartoons. They had storyboards. See the difference?
Now for the animation itself, 2 things. #1, why does every single anime have the same looking people? I can see where the influences are coming from (easily noted are dbz and avatar) for both style and look, but really its tiring to see the same people and the same movement all the damn time! And #2, make it an steady flow because its speed is slower than a turtle takin a poo in a shoebox. I understand that this is supposed to be a serious anime flash but most animes fade out because of that flow (or budget). One anime that i saw (if i could pronounce it or even spell it, i'll get back to you on the name) had alot of action in its first episode and got cancelled the next episode. Why? It went from good paced action to very very very SLOW paced drama. Not cause of drama but because it was SLOW.
Now for the big one...the voice acting. It made me glad i have a mute button on my computer sometimes because of situations like this. No offense to the voice actors.....actually, scratch that, with much offense because thats how you get people motivated to do better, when their balls have been busted and bleeded out. Voice is one of those things that will instantly kill any movie or any performance and this is one of those cases. My suggestions is to go watch Pride and Glory or Gran Torino or The Punisher (2004) and watch the emotion that is on display. It's not enough just to show seriousness but to know WHY you're serious. It's just like the blues, it's not enough just to go on stage and blow on a harmonica, you need to know why the blues need to be played.
One Last suggestion, get some better music cause holy crap THAT was one of the reasons it was so hard for me to sit through the first 2 minutes alone from the rest of it.
5/10 For style and effort.