HaroFreak's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Going Down to Newgrounds]

Truly worthy of being written into NG History.

Hello, good evening, this is HaroFreak! As always, writing reviews for animations!

This animation is quite the song indeed! Nice jumpy country music and a Pro-Newgrounds feel with it! Never have I thought such a combination can go so well, it's a brilliant song along with brilliant animations to go with it!

And now to get into the deeper analysis!

Your use of graphics are simple but well shaded and very effective for each part. From peeing on Stick Animation graves to setting homes on fire, the laughing and violence-dishing cat and mouse makes the entire set feel alive! Very well made.

The use of Country of Music is a perfect touch and a nice change from the usual heavy rock music heard a lot these days. Got to love the lyrics though, I never expected "peeing on sticks" to be one of several topics of the song. Catchy, clear, and very effective!

I can't say no to mocking Sticks and making fun of generic Madness tributes can't I? The animation goes very well with the song and its lyrics, especially catching some blams and especially the arson! You made fun of several Newgrounds' infamous "plagues", and that's one brilliant way of putting it!

All of the violence is done in style and it's a nice application for each too! Humourous Cartoon Violence mixed with cat & mouse Antics are ever so lovable even by today's standards!

In summary, a brilliant music video with Country Music mixed in with Cat & Mouse violence and finished off by making fun of some of the many buggers of Newgrounds. YEE HAW!

This is HaroFreak, signing off!

stoners-lunchbox responds:

Thanks for the extremely lengthy review, HeroFreak! This is quite the food for thought.

Let's see here... The lyrics over the "Rat peeing on stick graves" said "...and i don't give a damn!". I wanted to use a more original way of saying the phrase rather than simply making the lip-sync do the work. Guess it worked ;)

Humour... Let's just say that it has to make me laugh first before i can publish it. Else i reject the whole entire project and start it from scratch.

Either way, thanks for watching. Sorry i can't keep up with your same writing standards, but i hate english as a subject and writing is what it reminds me of (i'm italian so i'm not very good with it).

Peace out!

[KH: Cloud vs Sephiroth 2]

Pretty good, pretty good indeed...

Good evening DC5, I'm HaroFreak; part time and passing-by critic, here to review your work!

A brief summary of this animation would be the famous told story of the battle between the superpowers Cloud and Sephiroth of the popular Final Fantasy VII fame. This is second part of this long story, made for the lovers of action films everywhere!

Coming up; the in-depth analysis!

Your graphics are some of the better ones which I have seen regarding this genre. The characters are on the most part decently drawn, but I'm somewhat dissapointed at some of the face expressions on the characters. Sure some of it is funny, but most of it feels out of place to me. Perhaps review it further before submission of your next project?

Another thing which I find can be improved would be some of the magic attacks in the movie. Several of them lack that extra layer of effects to make it complete and overwhelming, especially the Omnislash which should consist of over 10 different sword moves but only shows one on loop. For the eyes, at least three different angles of sword moves could have worked just as well.
Still, it's pretty good nonetheless.

The music used in your movie would the famous "One Winged Angel", the theme of Sephiroth in the final battle. Like you said at the point this has been reviewed by me; the music went out of synch. I'm guessing this part, but you used "Event" on the BGM line didn't you? Switch it to "Stream" to synch it with the playback of the graphics instead.

The style and tasteful violence here is also some of the best of this Genre I have seen. Ranging from sword strikes, hand to hand combat and several magic spells at the two's disposal makes this possibly the best of the "Cloud VS Sephiroth" series of fan Flash movies on Newgrounds. Well done.

As a closing note; I thank you for putting on a good show and I wish you luck in your future Flash Projects. Oh, and I would appreciate a reply from you, if that's not too much to ask for.

HaroFreak, signing off!

DC5-bOi responds:

hey thanks alot for u review and comments. your advice is quite good and helpful, thanks again. but i feel like i could have done better and i'm positive that i have the skills now to do better. mebbe i can make a newer version with better scenes, camera angles, anything! i'm glad u liked it. gives me confidence and determination.

[Cloud VS Sephiroth (+)]

It's pretty good at that time, but even so...

Hello and Good Evening, it's HaroFreak, here to review your Movie!

Just a quick foreword for the Animator who made this, I have watched this animation many years ago, and keeping in mind that this was made using an older version of Flash which was comparingly user unfriendly to the ones we use today, I still think there is plenty of room for improvment. Anyway, back to the review.

An overview for this movie, if anything, consists of the ever-so-popular Final Fantasy VII rivals; Cloud and Sephiroth, battling it out on some plains far away from Civilisation. Well, this battle sure started pretty well, but as many people said, it ended really soon, despite it happening so in the game.

Anyway, onto the In-Depth Analysis:

Your graphics mostly consist of mouse-drawn images along with a slight hint of graidents used in the background and some effects. The frame-by-frame animation is somewhat decent, but I would really prefer more than one sword clash, one fireball and then a single finisher. As for special effects, I think you can put a "Text-Box" to show what each character is using instead of putting it right onto the stage? Asides from that, the graphics are so-so.

The music used for the battle is the well-known Boss Battle Theme "Those who Fight Further", straight from the Final Fantasy VII game. It's a nice theme, but what got to me is the absence of sound. I understand that it's rare to find anyone who can voice the two characters well, but Sound Effects are really dropping marks from my review. Try to mix in at least a clash of the blade or two should liven things up.

The style is what made many people turned away though, but keep in mind that I am not trying to tell you that your animation's horrible. But rather "It's too short". Cloud finishing Sephiroth off using his trademark Omnislash is quite a finisher, but it somewhat lacked in between. Perhaps Cloud performs some magic of his own?

Interactivity deserves nothing here, though I would have preferred to give it an "N/A" as your animation is so small in filesize that it should stream well even on a 56K Modem. But for presentation and the 14.4K User's sake, I strongly recommend adding a Pre-Loader if anything.

In summary, this animation could have been good, but it falls due to its short length. Better luck next time.

This is HaroFreak, signing out.

[Final Fantasy 7 Emperor]

Not bad, but it's lacking depth and style...

Hello and good evening, FD. I'm HaroFreak; here to review your movie!

A brief outline of your movie is a Final Fantasy VII piece of work of a story which so far seems to be about a retelling of Sephiroth's betrayal and the SOLDIERs' tale. Though it's no suprise that someone would retell the story in any way, but regardless...

ONTO THE IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS!

Your graphics were remade (Not Traced) out of the original frames and polygons (2D rendered as 3D) from the original game by Squaresoft (Now known as Square-Enix). It's decent, nice and smooth, especially the soldiers' running, but the absence of black outlines the characters you drew don't have depth to them. If you have some of the mon-connection points of the character frames a black outline, it would make them stick out more and give them more depth, graphics-wise.

I see that you have also used some official FF VII backgrounds as well as your own drawn ones. Though you used them well, the contrast between them is just too big. I don't advise using JPEGs for backgrounds as "Clean" ones take up too much space, whereas grainy ones are too ugly. Alternatively, no one could really shun you for tracing the backgrounds. After all, you ARE trying to express a place in the game as accurately as possible right?

The sound used in the animation starts with a nice calm tune with slight foreboding, then the tune switches to a rock beat as the soldiers deploy to arms. It's nice music, and it works well without sound, though adding a bit of sound doesn't do too much bad, no?

The style was not as good as I hoped after reading your preview text. The story in general is a bit generic and I don't really like how this plays out as an average "Antagonist among the protagonists' side"... It's a highly used feel which needs a longer storyline to maximise this effect. Perhaps providing a longer soliloquy for Sephiroth can increase the effect it has on your audience. It's still not too bad though, considering the pace of the movie you made by far.

There's something which i don't like about this movie; and that would be the bunched up subtitles and the lack of time the viewer is allowed to read it. There's just barely enough time to read it at an un-natural pace...

In summary, this movie has got good potential, unfortunately the user interface was poor due to the poorly structured subtitles and english. With some touch-ups with the character images, the background and perhaps more time for the user to read the subtitles at a suitable pace, this can become a good show.

Good luck with your next project, FD.

This is HaroFreak, signing off.

rowan-studios responds:

Erm.. prappy i wont take any of your words BECAUSE and here IS the part TRACING is ILLGEGALL YOU HEAR!!! Well for me it is and why so much text in a review? This animation was just a BETA though . Greetz Rowan

[Larry and Lucille EP#2]

Started nice, but it seemed to spiral downwards...

Well hello Wallpaperman, eet eez e-*Ahem* It is me; HaroFreak here to give another review.

This is the sequel to the Larry and Lucille cartoon starring two criminals on the run, fighting the law and being trigger happy. Unlike the first episode, the animator tried to give a Noir-feel to this episode which started pretty decently with the unknown hitman and the effect of the script. Sadly, the noir feel felt more and more ameteaurish as the plot progressed.

Well, now onto the in-depth review.

The graphics are very similar along the lines of the previous episode, however the flapping heads tend to be repedetive and it seemed rather odd when trying to mix serious and funny AT THE SAME TIME... Though many cartoons such as Naruto succeeded in doing so, I understand how difficult is setting such an event up and It didn't quite fit with your animation...

The sounds were decent for their uses, though I would prefer a multitude of sound effects per gun or per bullet type more like... The voices were so-so since the deep voice was not very clear. Perhaps going through the voices more or asking someone with a natural deep voice should improve the quality.

The style seems to be a mixed bag of sorts... Blood, violence, crime... It's not too difficult to make a plot out of it but it's still made as it is nonetheless.

The flapping heads were humourous, pre-loader, etc... Minor details which needs no going-through...

In summary, I somewhat enjoyed this episode for the beginning, but I prefer the first episode for the setup. Hopefully the next episode would have a stronger feel to it.

wallpaperman responds:

the noir feel in this only came into it when "el humungo" came in, don't know if anyone noticed =).

but yeah, the 3rd noir part is just greyscale really and i shoulda made it more "noirry"

but thanks for the (again awesome) review! =)

[=:Bad Day:=]

So this is your "Frame by Frame" experiment..

Hello and good evening. HaroFreak here again to give you a review of your works.

This little skit is a real short one involving a boy's bad day. From getting thrown around a room to getting beaten senseless with common house appliances. Makes me glad to be myself.

Well, let's get down to the serious work: In-Depth Analysis.

The graphics in majority are all done by frame-by-frame. Though it's a good attempt, it misses one major element when it comes to Frame-by-frame animation... the thickness of lines and dimensions alter too much and it looks less smooth. But putting the lack of smoothwork aside, It's a good attempt which takes a lot of patience to compile together. However... where're the speed lines I recommended... Hrm...

The voices are actually not bad itself... but the voices used were not expressive enough in terms of loudness and the way it fails to fit the emotions... even if it was designed to be a "Dummy" skit of some sort. However, the sound effects in general are decent overall. I recommend that you run your voice through some noise-reduction processes to remove that irritating hiss.

I particularily enjoyed it for the humour though. The voices were weak, but were funny to hear through along with the action happening. It's like a mix of those Looney-tunes throw-arounds when someone gets knocked on the head with pans, plates, etc... along with a so-so mix of the Japanese style of animation and graphical presentation. And the way you did it, it deserves humour marks.

As for everything else, they are rather minorities which need no discussion.

In summary, this little experiment is a start. The effort you put into this is what I focus om most. After all, Frame-by-frame animation is not the easiest thing to do, regardless of your level of professionalism (Heck, even they hire lots of people to do it).

As a last bit of advice... it would be great to see one of those "Grab and Swing body back and forth" events in a one-sided fight. Those are classical, REAL classical.

This is HaroFreak, signing off.

wallpaperman responds:

wow thanks for the awesome review. didn't need any of these other shitty reviews with this one XD

[Larry And Lucille]

A generic-yet-decent submission

Hello wallpaperman, it's HaroFreak reviewing yet another Flash Movie.

The overall setup of this cartoon involves two infamous runaway criminals who seem to be able to literally shoot holes through the defences of the law. The atmosphere involves a mix between a slight mix of Wild West shootout style and the typical Cops and Criminals feel.

Now onto the detailed analysis:

The graphics are for the mostpoint rather generic and it does not seem to have a lot going on, therefore it ended up a little bit plain and dull. Fortunately, the flatbase colours were distinct and fitting so the events are seen easily. I advise that you try to refine your graphics a bit more in the future. You can do better than that.

The sound was sub-par, though the music was okay (Though you forgot to credit Trigun Music). However, some voices seem to be too soft and does not contrast well with the other voices for no good reason whatsoever, so this part suffered a lot of marks. I suggest adding more bass (As in the sound frequency, not the fish) to the voices.

The style as mentioned before was rather generic and the plot-type is rather flat. Though it did distinct the climax of the show well starting off with an introduction, an interlude, the action, then the cliffhanger. Though it would be nice to know a bit more about the protagonists...

Violence and humour is rather so-so here. See some cops get shot, a gunfight, the typical finisher... Yeah... that's about all I can type for the analysis.

In summary, this movie is something which needs some work refining the aspects in general. I suggest focusing more on the human figure to make it more realistic and more suspenseful. And the climax flashed in rather soon didn't it? I suggest adding more time to focus on events such as some hiding and preparation since it catches the viewer's attention better.

Good luck with your next project.

This is HaroFreak signing off.

wallpaperman responds:

Wow awesome review, this review could count for all the advice i get from about 70 other reviews from NG users (literally). After reading this, there isn't much point in reading MOST users reviews. I wish i got more of these... now i'm gonna repay the favour... ;-)

[Final Fantasy A+]

Final Fantasy Origins at its finest.

Hello there, the name is HaroFreak, and reviewing this submission is why I'm here.

A brief summary of Final Fantasy A+: This movie is a play on Square's hit game Final Fantasy with a "School" twist added into the mix. As a result, attacks, enemies, weapons and as well as a few characters are all a composite of School and Final Fantasy. And a good composite it is indeed.

Ah, and without further ado... let's get to the point; Further detail.

The graphics are amazing. Though some are motion-tweened and some are done frame-by-frame, they blend so well that it's something worth extreme recognition. Never have I seen Motion Tweens so... natural it's not funny. Hats off to this, a perfect 10!

The sound and music is a mix of the Final Fantasy series Original Sound Track. Most of the sound effects and music synched into the animation perfectly. This deserves a great 9.

The style is magnificent. Never have I seen someone animate something so well in Flash (5, MX or MX 2004, it matters not) which looks exactly like the professional material on Japanese Television. A Fighter who needs help with fighting his homework, a Black Mage with great wits and intelligence, and a non-sterotypical White Mage (A Doctor, who would've thought of a reason to allow Male White Mages... Though character classes DO mean that there are both genders applicable).

The humour of putting Fantasy and Education together is such a rarity, and it does so well too. The funny victory poses and captions, the crazy teacher, use of backgrounds, exam puns, etc...

Though not laugh-out-loud funny, it's still a gem highly recommended to watch, for both Final Fantasy fans and non-Fans alike. This
animation truly is a masterpiece to have written its place in the history of Newgrounds.

This is HaroFreak, signing out.