Reviews for Koden X Prologue Part 1

[Blud-Shot]

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!! ^___^

[Galazor]

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!

[Chazz]

Not bad, but by no means good.

The opening appeared mildly promising, had some decent snow effects and a beautiful flash environment.

Unfortunately, no plot development, character likeness, bad character animation and generally sloppy voice acting really made this a bit shit..

Good luck on the next one.

Winzra responds:

As for plot and character "likeness", try to think of it in terms of the opening of a movie. We kind of wanted it to be a little surprising and vague to begin with, but also understand that this originally is suppose to be watched with all 4 parts combined. As for character animation and sloppy voice acting; I can honestly say we tried as best as we could with the voices, and animation always grows with everything you do so.

Bottom line, there is always room to grow!!! :D

Thanks for the review!

[YummyGrounds]

Rating: Bad

Film Type: Prologue
Story: Good
Dialogue: OK
Animation: Great
Audio: Good
Voice: OK
Music: Kinda Gay
Comments: A prologue for a new animae that quite works for some people
For the Maker: Look I understand you worked hard but just because you work hard on something doesn't mean it's gonna be good for example: The 3rd Matrix Movie! Let me start by saying great job on the animation that was cool, but the main character seemed well not good. When people use the letter X they mainly try to exagerate to make something seem cool.......and you realy over-exagerated. Don't think I'm just being an ass you got some fans out there! Just know that some things worked and some things didn't that you need to change.

[Balladeer]

More of the below

There was some beautiful animation, and the music was wonderful throughout, although there were some odd moments - the characters coming through the smoke looked as if they were cut-outs bobbing up and down. I thought the introduction, with the snowy mountain and the bandits, was very atmospheric.

The main problem is, as Crash says, the storytelling. It resembles a thoroughly generic anime so far - lone character from outer space, mysterious past, antisocial, rescued by happy bubbly girl, evidently in love with him, both of whom have silly names. Try making Winzra a bit different to your generic anime emo - make him gay, for example, or give him a passion for chocolate. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the rest of his people (save a few survivors) have died. The humour wasn't great, either. The hunchback was obviously meant to be the 'funny guy', but he didn't do anything for me. That's probably a matter of taste.

My last quibble is the voice acting. Apart from the unoriginality of the script, the voices themselves make me cringe. This may just be me, though - I hate watching dubbed anime, far preferring the subtitled versions, and there's not much you can do about it anyway.

Please, please, try and do something different. If you have to take inspiration from an anime, try something quirky with a sense of humour, like Cowboy Bebop (which would seem to tie in quite well with the whole bandit thing).

Winzra responds:

Thank you for your review! And to be honest, with all these reviews talking about story and "generic" stuff, if in the end I felt Koden was like that, I would talk about not making it anymore right this moment. But because none of which most people are saying are actually true (the main char isn't in fact emo, or some hardcore silent type killer cool guy; girl does not really fall in love with him [falling in love that quick??? wowsers she just rescued the guy that's all...] and lastly there is hopefully going to be better humour hahaha). I guess all I can suggest is continue watching the rest. BUT don't get the idea that im not paying attetion to these kinds of reviews. I literally right down these kind of long reviews to work on things so bottom line, THANK YOU!!