WCCC's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Newgrounds Redux: Metal Gear Awesome 3]

"Use your zappy gun to stop them!"

That is all.

[Yu-Gi-OH! Heart of my Cards]

Jesus christ. It's magnificent.

Also, holy shit, that sphere kuriboh and tragedy combo. Someone's been playing duel links.

[WHOOKOS [CONCEPT] - Episode: 2]

I think this is torn in consistency of quality, but absolutely, 100% keep making these. I wanna get into what I liked, what I feel could use work, and generally what kind of impression I got from this. I hope it can be constructive, but there's a lot of good going for this.

I kinda feel like the length of the production has severely damaged a lot of "getting everything just right" and perfectionism involved, in the spirit of just getting the damn thing made. To be honest, it's a tough call, but it's the right call to be made, if this is indeed what kinda went on. I subbed after the first episode 3 years ago, so when I saw WHOOKOS episide 2 I exclaimed "holy shit, took long enough" out loud... I feel bad that was my reaction in retrospect, because this is god damned 10 minutes of content. That's one hell of a lot of length for what we usually see in NG, and I love that on its own.

Things that I enjoyed about this:
-The way characters have unique color schemes, facial shapes, often voice actors, and so forth. I think it's very easy to get stuck to one style and struggle to add variety to how characters appear on canvas. As a character's role should stand out, so should this be reflected visually, literally adding visible difference between characters. In this regard, I admire the diversity greatly.
-I found myself entertained consistently, and curious as to what occurred within the frame, although not super deeply at one point in time. The story is a bit freeflow, which has its own tradeoffs just kinda being less cookie cutter and more a casual series of events.
-The diversity of angles and the work with backgrounds/environment. I know this falls under art once again, but there's a difference between being able to draw or present something in the first place, and being able to draw or present something in an immersive 3d space, and have it all work, despite changes in angles and perspective. I fucking suck ass at drawing at multiple angles, so you sir are already leagues above what my artistic ability may ever be. Personal props for that one.
-Solid voice acting delivery, and unique writing. The writing was nothing so exceptional as to make me demand you win awards for it, but the voice acting within the writing helped sell it greatly. I feel the chemistry was more vivid than most VA jobs, and the ways characters expressed their role in sound as well as the previously listed function and art really does complete the trinity of selling the protagonists, and even the she-antagonist later.

Stuff I'd consider working with:
-Fight Choreography. I found myself kinda in disbelief at some of this, to be honest. Choreography for action is no easy task. I've spoken with other animators about this, and I've seen many excellent products lack this bulletin point almost exclusively, being the only noticeable tarnish on a product. What is presented here has a distinct style and its own artistic "showmanship" with how the struggles play out. There's a soul in this, and that's undeniable, however, when I see a guy get punched in the back of the head (IRL, that's the kind of shit that could kill you or put you in a wheelchair) and just shrug it off, then elbow a dude and pwn him several times harder, I'm kinda bewildered. The only explanation is the guy who got hit is just that hard headed, and the protagonists are blatantly stronger than their enemies. That often is what they should be, but in a less overt way, for a truly satisfying back and forth. Equally, the back and forth between the pros and the chick was there much more so, she clearly not being such a throw away. However, I found the fight to be more about knockback and repetition, and less about actually producing an effect and feeling powerful. If the knockback is truly off the charts, it kind of desensitizes itself to "people just weigh nothing" in my mind, so for me this was a bit of a downside. And I KNOW that asking for a back and forth and more power in succession is evil, since it demands both more quantity and more time, care, and quality, respectively. I distinctly feel you learned a lot on this project and were pushing your skills greatly to produce the best rendition of what you imagined. That's how you do it. Challenge yourself, make what you did before look easy, and keep growing your skills, win or lose.
-Speaking of which, some strike angles during the action seemed too short or too awkward, mostly due to camera space and start pose vs end pose for the characters. Not much to say about this one, but while some weren't the best, most were plenty acceptable, so this is a relatively small issue, proportionally.
-This one's REALLY getting nitpicky, but having an all guy squad, followed by an evil she lady just feels weird. Concept of sexism irrelevant, it's odd to see the lady posed as A. the first non-sausage, B. a thing of beauty, and C. a thing of inexplicably high power all within a very short frame. If more women had existed, A would be off my list. If one of the guys hadn't hit on her first thing, B would be off my list, but TBH that made sense based on his character and deepened it, so this is far from a sin. And if the combat wasn't so numerically disproportionate, and as I got the vibe, "floaty", C would've been greatly mitigated. Any one or even two of these I could live with, but I feel it was a lot out of left field in how it painted several aspects all in one place. By comparison, the thug guys seemed even more mundane, although some mediocrity is obviously embedded into their character, for scaling with the fight with the lady. Tough calls all around.

I am not exceptionally entertained by this piece, but its role as art is undeniable, and its ability to grow more entertaining as your craft and experience both grow is thrilling. Whatever you do, don't stop doing what you love, and don't stop trying to push into new frontiers. I'm already seeing some great growth in the frame, and you have my interest locked in, without a doubt.

A good, fairly original product. Want to see more in the future.
7/10, 4/5, ~WCCC

[TANKMEN 2]

Shit. I just realized that 10 years later, I still stay "Let's make like a tree and get the fuck out of here." Some things stick with you forever, and tankmen is definitely one of them.

[Sweet Boy Beach - The Gloriously Crappy Adventures of Cuthbert & Dante]

I feel like I've been trolled, but at the same time I enjoyed the hell out of it. There is something so perfect about the style you operate within that makes narratives even as absurd as this magical.

[SHIFT5]

Pretty nifty, as always. Some of the script writing somewhat pisses me off, as a pet peeve. Lets instead let's, to instead of too, question-based sentences ended in periods...

But hey, other than that, lovely stuff and was very entertaining. Love this series to death.

[Space James]

Absolutely do a followup. The premise is great, the universe is pretty funny, and even the brief transcript of events got a couple good laughs out of me.

[Fefnir - Pilot]

I'll be brief, because I could praise this things for days before listing my only point of complaint. The characters are quite originally drawn and clearly incorporate lots of fresh ideas and new designs. The world has a lot of themes that the viewer learns about yet is kept guessing to some aspects, and the art quality is high and the renditions are very varied in angles, use of perspective and so forth.

You want to present a new, fantasy-actiony cartoon world to us, and you hit that shit out of the ballpark and clear into space.

My only single point of complaint does emanate from the design of the weapons. Throwing knife was fine, but one hostile used a giant slab sword that has questionable blade design and an okay hilt, but no pummels or proper guards or sheaths or anything.

Further, the protagonist's sword was basically a super sized gladius, with not too much to note about its design. I feel this piece was heavily inspired by berserk in a few senses, and if not, the similarities are a funny coincidence.

I would look into adding a bit more depth and feature to the various tools of the series. While not terrible, per say, they are unfortunately placed against the excellent standard for the rest of the world's design, and at least to me that's why they stick out as in need of expansion or spiffing up.

I'm always hesitant to watch new stuff on the front page these days. This did not disappoint in the slightest. You have my attention, sir.

9/10, 4/5 ~WCCC

FrameFreak2D responds:

Thanks for your feedback :D now that you mention it, it does seem like berserk, funny thing, from all our team, I'm the only one who has seen the series and I did it like 4 months ago xD and this was done in 2013 so yeah, something I've learned is that we're not that unique, and that if we have an "unique idea" there's probably many others who have that idea in the world xD

[Animation vs. Minecraft]

I'm somewhat torn on this bit, and I avoided watching it for nearly a whole day due to the base theme. While I've found the AVA series well animated, drawn, and somewhat entertaining, the theme has lost its creativity in my eyes via repetition.

Don't get me wrong, lots of people love repetition, myself included. I just also happen to love trying things and branching out into more original, bigger concepts much more, and that's what troubles me about the theme of this bit. A new concept was tried, but it was based off something that isn't particularly original in almost in any sense, and hasn't been so for several years now.

In fact, I would argue that minecraft's explosive, viral popularity and appealing underdog tale of dream-come-true is what drew quickly ran it into the floor by being present on the tips of everyone's tongues almost all the time. And I love minecraft myself, it's worth noting. Like many people, I've blown ethically questionable amounts of hours into the game, and even say it's largely been time well spent for many reasons.

What I'm trying to say more or less is that this is amazingly animated, fairly well drawn, it has excellent attention to detail, pantomime, and so so much more going for it. Even though the story set forth was a somewhat new twist on the casual minecraft story, the fact it was spent on something so many people are over and done with by this point in time... it just presents a field that feels like a small, yet critical degree of failure.

The more I want to love the work and attention that went into this piece, the more I find myself subtly resenting it for a good chunk of lost potential. I can't help but wonder what's next, and if it will deliver on the only area in which I feel this is majorly lacking.

Entertaining, well done, just not my taste.
4/5, 8/10 ~WCCC