Kwing's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Final Fantasy Last Mages]

Pretty good, Phil. You've got a great eye for cinematics (especially landscaping and angles). The spells look great, the combat is fair, but of course where this animation really shines is the particle effects you use throughout the animation, which look incredibly natural. The shields also looked really nice, especially with the polygonal look you gave them.

However, I feel that the spells used somewhat lacked variety. In particular, trademark spells such as Poison, Quake, Stun, Cure, Float, Invisible, and Mini were not used at all, while ice and fire-based magic were somewhat overused. All in all, most of the spells (aside from Doom, Meteor, and the ending summon) were things we've already seen in the original Final Fantasy; spells that are over a quarter century old! Of course, they look much better fully fleshed out in animation, but it could have used a bit more variety. You overworked yourself animating the same thing just a little too much.

Ultimately this is a pretty unique addition to the thousands of stick animations on Newgrounds, but it had a lot of potential that it never delivered on, unfortunately.

[Salad Fingers Episode 9]

A little stale, I think. I've gone through all the Salad Fingers episodes in the past few days and have grown re-attached to the series, but at a certain point (somewhere between episode 4 and 7) it seemed to get stale. Back when we could never predict Salad Fingers' behavior, the animations were fresh and intriguing. Now, the complete lack of coherence has become a norm and it downgrades these animations from artwork into a novelty.

The biggest problem here stems from the lack of characters. Although Salad Fingers runs a pretty good one-man show, he can only entertain (or scare) you for so long. You've introduced a couple characters in the series, but most seem to be the result of Salad Fingers' delusions, and the rest simply have no speaking role. Incorporating a new major character would give the series a bit of a boost; you could write in character interactions and make something of a plot. Alternatively, you might also have recurring events lead somewhere to suggest an overall plotline. Madness Combat did this quite well, starting with mindless violence and slowly evolving into a pantomimed story without losing the charm that made it popular. It's time for Salad Fingers to make the same evolutionary jump.

[The LiveSwif Tutorial]

Not bad. As a Flash designer, I've always wondered what LiveSwif was like, and found this tutorial searching for examples of what the interface looked like.

Given that this looks like it was made in LiveSwif itself, it's not bad. Thankfully you made it look a lot more professional than some tutorials I've seen, and it looks like you put care into avoiding typos and making the instructions fairly high-quality.

So what needs improvement? First off, the background is pure white. All games I've seen made in LiveSwif feature this, not sure if it's something you're stuck with but it's annoying. You could have at least added a square on a lower layer to make a colored background. But white is a little too bright for me.

Second, the images you put in are a little low quality. Flash automatically compresses images you put in, but allows you to change them back to full quality. Not positive, but my guess is LiveSwif allows this too. It would have made text much more legible. In fact, having the interface of the program as a giant background would have been really nice.

Third, some things that should be explained aren't. For instance, the two trash cans, one of which you insist is better to use than the other. Why? What's the other one do? This is a tutorial, you're supposed to explain this kind of stuff.

Last, the tutorial could use a lot more interactivity. You call this the LiveSwif tutorial but only cover preloaders and buttons. Perhaps a tutorial that has an extensive branching menu would have been better; allow players to click through only the features they need help working on so they can get their help easily.

[Salad Fingers Episode 2]

Great work! The background and music really create an excellent atmosphere, and subtle things like text color and flickering effects help too. Salad Fingers is eerily unpredictable, and unlike any other series I've watched. Though I could see the series to become formulaic in its lack of coherence, for the time being it's refreshing, especially compared to the 'same old shit' shows we see on YouTube and TV.

[Salad Fingers]

I haven't really given Salad Fingers a serious look in a long time. I knew it came from Newgrounds, I knew it went viral, and I knew a lot of its popularity bloomed on YouTube, but I really didn't remember a whole lot about the series.

So... What to say? Given that this was released in 2004, the graphics aren't bad at all. The lack of brush smoothing, the poor audio quality, the disembodied voice acting, and the static all add to the atmosphere of what would have otherwise been a sub-par submission. Stylistically, Salad Fingers is a class all on its own. Unpredictable, thought provoking, and much less forgettable than all of the fighting animations we get on the site. Salad Fingers takes full advantage of what independent short films and series can accomplish when no audience demands that they be objective or to the point. That being said, this animation feels somehow incomplete.

[Shock More]

Wow! Can't believe I didn't know about this for so long. This is a really excellent tribute, and the syncing is done flawlessly on top of it! Very smooth animation, creative fighting, and overall awesome job!

I guess my main complaints would be that Mr. Red didn't use his powers very much, and the terrain they fought on was rather boring. Even at the end with the giant stair pyramid, there weren't enough platforms stuck to the sides of things to make things interesting. However, I feel you did a decent job compensating for this by making the ground highly destructible, as seen when characters are blasted through the ceilings or floors.

One other thing that bothered me were some slower parts of the animation, which seemed a little unnatural. I had a lot of trouble placing what it was, but it looks like you're botching up a couple really small things. For instance, one tiny shot I saw showed that you were anchoring the characters' feet in spot a lot more than necessary; when people walk, there's usually a little bit of sliding going on, especially if their center of balance is shifting a lot. Tiny, tiny things like that took away from the animation a little, but the fighting definitely made up for it. Really loved the 3D effects, too.

[The Obnoxious Orange]

I REALLY don't get it. Shadling's alternate image of the orange was great, but the rest was a flop. The voices were way overdone, and as a parody, it really wasn't any different from the original series... Which changes it from a parody into a blatant ripoff. This animation is criminally unfunny. As I watched, I kept expecting it to get better, but it only degenerated further before coming to a premature end.

psychicpebbles responds:

i kno u didnt lik this but keep up at the stik figure fights!!

[.:Cupcakes:.]

Decent video. The animation was a little choppy, but it wasn't bad. The art style was a little inconsistent, but worked. The music synced perfectly, which helped make it a bit easier to sit through. That being said, anyone who has read cupcakes may find this somewhat sped-up version to be kind of boring, given that the shots are largely the same, and many of the looped clips are shown for too long.

[Shinobi Noir- Chapt 2]

Interesting, to say the least. The graphics are well done and the animation is decent, though it's hindered by the fact that this is more tweened than frame-by-frame. The dialogue seemed really cliche to me and was quite obnoxious, and the plot seemed pretty boring as well. This really would have been better as an animation showreel than an anime.