NekoMika's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[MUSS Cause]

This was interesting to say the least. Really reminded me of a quirky demo for a Playstation game. At least the sound and everything makes me think of that anyways.

The graphics were nice I think. They were in 3D which makes this neat. However, I noticed at one point, it seemed the lady falling was in a default 3D model position and had only had their arms moved up slightly to give the illusion of falling down.

Another thing is after the intro logos, the small dungeon maze part reminded me of the Windows 98 maze screensaver that would appear after the computer was inactive for so long. I noticed the patterns on the floor repeated theirselves often too. I think you could make the pattern tiles bigger so it looks less cut and pasted, would also make the floors look neater too.

The music itself seemed very simple. It made me think of demos for Playstation or Dreamcast games back when I used to enjoy playing those things when I was young. It went along with the graphics quite well. However, instead of the music used, I think a softer and more mellow song would have fit here instead.

I say this since the music playing seems like if would be more fitting if there was more action in this advertisement clip. Instead a softer sound, and no drums could have given a good atmosphere for this. It would have made me feel like I was interested in exploring what is being advertised when the movie comes out.

The voices at the end kind of ruined it for me. If the music had kept playing and the guy woke up gasping, it would have made it interesting, not the voices spoil what might happen in the movie... makes it seem interesting at least.

Overall, from what was shown here, not bad for a start with a 3D movie, but there is room for potential if you decide to go back and try to be even better with the graphics. Best of luck in getting the movie finished!

Review Request Club

Ciullo-Corporation responds:

Thank you... actually she was almost at T-position, you know, we had just finished the models and animation was still poor. And this also explains the "lack of action"... you could come on my homesite and check the second trailer (this is the fourth).

That dungeon exists since the very first MUSS Cause trailer back on january 2012, we worked hard since then (also trying to coordinate different things like work, university, etc.) and we procastinated the shipping date of the movie to when we had something really cool...

We though to end the trailer with a bit of humor, with MUSS Marine saying "Get out of my head" and the mind-reader answering "What's the problem, it's empty", but we didn't really acted as for a final version.

Hope you'll come to check when we will submit the Launch Trailer.

[Pikmin Tree]

I thought this was funny.

The animation has most certainly improved over time as this piece proves. The way things just seem more animated in the background and as Olimar is going about his day on the Pikmin's planet was good. Although I feel adding shadows under the ships would have been nice, same goes for the Tree Pikmin (do you encounter those in the game?).

The plot was good. I thought it was funny how they planted a tree and turned out to be a giant Pikmin. Long story short, it decides to follow Olimar as the red Pikmin are doing and ends up crushing (possibly killing) Olimar by accident. Could have been funny if you added in what the Tree Pikmin's response was in my opinion.

The audio was nice, nothing too original as everything but the credit music came from the Pikmin games. The credit music was pretty and sounded nice.

Overall, improving and looking good.

Review Request Club

artistunknown responds:

I'm still a bit hesitant with adding shading in my animations, since the process takes a bit of time, but looking back, shadows under the ships and pikmin would have greatly improved this and it wouldn't have taken much more time. And no, you don't encounter any Tree Pikmin, that was just my own little idea to have a punny title.
I'm glad the plot was good. This was my first non-dialog-driven animation, and it was really experimental. I know it could have been a bit funnier, but I wasn't really trying to make it funny to begin with :3.
And the credits music wasn't original either, though an original arrangement of a song from another game, heh.
Thank you for the review, I'll keep on improving with each new animation!

[FrogMan the Series Episode 5]

I think this is slowly improving.

The animation looked nice. The style is slowly getting better with time as I see it. I also liked how there was a background event at the store, very small, but noticeable. That car parking in the distance with the person walking in. Would say it was the old psycho lady but her car is white and already parked.

Also, as time goes along, getting the coloring for your characters worked out would be good. As in shading in where the light would not be during the scenes will be good practice for improving your animation skills.

The story was entertaining in my opinion. Having to make money for eggs then getting held hostage by a psycho before remembering he had superpowers was funny. Then having to work to make three dollars to pay for eggs was humorous, seems he can't catch a break eh? Then Wise Frog and Tony chilling out at the hotel was also good. The clerk's reaction at the end remember who was in 22B was nice.

The credits however could be fixed a bit. Having the titles for each person playing a role centered then the person's name to the left seems a bit messy.

The audio will also improve with time I hope. I can accept the radio having background noise. However, the rest could get some noise filtering, as in making a noise profile in Audacity when recording or simply trying to find a quieter and more closed space to record voices and sounds.

Overall, improving but I think you can do better.

Review Request Club

artistunknown responds:

I can definitely do better nowadays, and this really makes me want to continue with episode 6 now :3.
I like putting in little details like the car parking and other stuff, just to see if people notice them, throwing in little eastereggs like that is always fun. I honestly can't remember if I had in mind who was driving the car though.
I'll try to work on my coloring and shading for the next episode and future animations. From what I have of the next episode, I think I did a better job coloring.
I'm glad the story was entertaining, this is part 1 of a 3 part story-arc, so the story continues in episode 6. Maybe I'll actually have the time and motivation to get it out next year.
I see what you mean with the credits. They actually look a lot better on the video version (which is on youtube :/) and the credits here was my poor attempt at replicating that flash, and clearly it didn't turn out well, flash even decided to not show a lot of text I had written in them. I have managed to fix this problem since though, so my credits look a lot nicer now.
The quality of the voice acting, recording, and my sound management, has greatly improved over time. We even have a good, sound proof place to record lines now, so hopefully that will be an improvement. Typically there isn't a problem with noise in the recordings, but I'll keep the noise profile thing in mind. And the noise for the radio was actually intentional, to make it sound more like it was coming from a cheap radio ;).
Thank you for the review, it really helps, and I hope that when episode six is finally complete, it does not disappoint.

[Savlonic : Computer Guy]

Always something wonderful to enjoy. The animation is superb as per usual.

[FrogMan the Series Episode 4]

This was funny.

I found the animation to be decent. I feel you can improve in time with more practice. I noticed one part that stood out was when the cop was arresting the old frog after the race. It stood out because of the lines that kept appearing above the wall for no reason. Was this an animation error you were unable to fix? Or did you just do that on accident?

I also noticed that most of the story line was well written and humorous, at least to me anyways. The fact that the characters kept breaking the fourth wall and episode three played a part in this episode was good. I found it funny how the race was just a revenge plot for Cerebral (spelled it correctly?) on Frogman for not being in the previous episode.

The audio was good. However, I feel the voice actor and yourself (if you did do voices) could have been better. Finding a quiet place to record would have helped. Making a Noise Profile in Audacity when recording helps a lot in that it filters out almost any background sound that could be picked up on mic and gives a cleaner sounding voice.

Overall, aside from the slight voice issues and the lines when the old frog and cop were on scene, the rest of this turned out to be pretty good.

Review Request Club

artistunknown responds:

I think I've improved quite a bit since this, it is almost 3 years old after all, heh. I felt there was always a gradual improvement between episodes of FMTS, and there is quite a bit of improvement between this episode and the next, and then there's even more improvement between episode 5 and 6, but alas, episode 6 hasn't been worked on for almost a year now :/ I might continue the series some day, but I always seem to run into technical things that completely halt production. Episode 5 was in production for almost a year because of my computer dying.
Anways, I never noticed those lines, though now I do. That's probably an error that happened because I converted a video to a flash, and that's never a good thing to do, but it was the only way I could get this up on newgrounds at the time.
I always try to make the storylines as humorous and engaging as they can be before I consider the script finished. And I like fourth wall jokes; there will be a lot more of them throughout the series. And since it's a series, I find it necessary that episodes need to have a flowing structure. There is always the bigger storyarch, even if the plot in one episode is completely irrelevant, I'll still try to make reference to the previous episode or past episodes. I'm glad you found the race just being a revenge plot funny. I always tried to make the villains' schemes be really lame, but overly complicated. And his name is (the) Terrible Toad, though it does kinda sound like Cerebral, lol. Their names are kinda lame because I'm using characters I made when I was 9. Lots of fun to be had with them though.
Yeah, I do the majority of the voices (usually). I think we got a little better this episode, and if I remember correctly we actually tried with the voice acting in episode 5. We weren't really the best back then, but we've gotten pretty good now. We actually did turn a room in my house into a sound studio, just for this episode. I don't know why the audio ended up how it did, probably a mix of bad export settings from flash and then the video to flash conversion. Audio quality is a lot better in episode 5 though.
Thank you for the review, I really appreciate it. It kinda makes me want to continue the series when I have time. I always hated this episode for some reason, but I'm starting to like it more and more when people talk about it or I rewatch it.
Again, thanks for the review, and I hope you'll be reviewing episode 5 as well. It's definitely a lot better than this one, in all aspects of the animation.

[William, I'm Coming Home]

I think this was quite well. However the only continuity error I seemed to notice is that if he made his son the king in #42, why does he still have the crown? Does he have spare crowns laying around just for various occasions?

The animation was very pleasant. There was little to no errors in regards to how the art was drawn. Also liked how Drake was shown at times as well.

The story itself is mostly about King William returning home. However it seems Drake is almost done training and ready for the tournament then returning home seeing as he is also sad to be gone and away from his best friends.

Also might not hurt to credit everyone from the credits in the credits to the left on this page unless they did not wish to be credited on this page.

Overall, looks great and a calming and happy piece showing King William may have changed a bit.

Review Request Club

MistyE responds:

Thank you for the in-depth review. With regards to the continuity error, King William does have a line in #42 where he says he's taking the crown with him. The advisor threw a toy crown at his son. The reason why Exedor, who storyboarded half of this episode, isn't credited, is because he specifically requested not to be credited. Everybody else is credited on this episode.

[Adrellia Village #43: SE]

This just seemed like filler. Not in a bad way but I feel you could have saved this and combined it with #44.

The animation was alright although I feel you could have added a filter to the backgrounds for King William, there is a black and white filter but maybe a second filter where it fades out on each clip would have also worked out well for there. Sad to see King William looks rather down in this one.

The story seems to show Drake let the fighting and possible fame in the World of Destiny go to his head. Then they ask him to come back and he has to wonder if he needs to go back or he should stay around. Then again the prize for winning has not been revealed either. The Kingdom Hearts music makes those parts lighthearted and more of a breather part of the episode where the viewer can relax a bit seeing as Drake just seems to want to live his life a little.

The audio is nice as per usual. However the lip syncing in this episode seemed just a bit off. Maybe spend more time checking to make sure that the voices and lips line up in the future?

Overall, kind of a toss up between a filler and breather episode. Keep up the good work.

Review Request Club

MistyE responds:

Thank you for the in-depth review. I originally was going to combine this with episode 44, though one of my collaborators strongly advised against the idea since he believed episode 44 was stronger on its own, and I agreed with that.

I'm really glad you were able to follow the story - that was a major problem with reviewers. I guess an "In the previous episodes..." recap could've helped a lot. The prize for winning is actually revealed in episode 45, but I understand what you're saying.

The mouth loops are being phased out. From episode 46 and on, everything will be lip-synced manually. Thanks again.

[Adrellia Village #42: SE]

The preloader screen looked great, kudos to Mabelma on that one. Also, may want to change the description a bit as King William is not in the woods until the very end of this episode.

The animation was great. However, I did find a couple of problems here and there. I am guessing that the reason the "on the last episode" clip was a little grainy was to make room for the rest of the episode. The only other problems I saw in animation from time to time was that there was a bit of white on the side of the screen at times and looking closeup at the chair later in the episode, it looks like the bucket tool was used.

While that may be a good idea at times, it is better to use the brush tool as the bucket tool does not fill in the color for the whole area where it is being used. Could also erase excess lines at times when it becomes an issue to make the animation much smoother.

The voice acting was great. Drake's voice still has a slight static in the air from the voice acting. Then the only other person I noticed that had this issue was the voice of King William's girlfriend. Aside from that, the rest of the voices were great and sounded really nice.

As for the credits song, instead of putting it as "Song", why not upload it to the Audio Portal and link to it from there instead? The rest of the music used was nice. Kind of funny how that Beatles song played when William wanted a Beatles song to cheer him up.

The story itself is still progressing along nicely I see. Like to see how Drake is still trying to do his best for his kingdom. However it was quite sad that when King William increased the taxes far too high he felt he was crap; but it kind of makes since given sometimes a person can be unreasonable and when people do not like them for it then they feel like no one wants them around. Looking forward to seeing how future episodes are.

Also found it quite humorous how Guy tried to cheer William up by first mocking him, then making a book showing a ruler being straightened out which I thought was funny. Then a little more humorous in that William revealed he had a son the whole time but never said anything about him seeing as he just seemed to leave him alone all the time.

Overall, great episode, some of the backgrounds need to be colored in a bit from time to time and excess lines erased, but aside from that, another great episode.

Review Request Club

MistyE responds:

Thank you for the in-depth review! I'd upload the credits song to the Audio Portal, though I just don't think it's good enough since it's very short and repetitive.

I'm glad you liked the writing, and I will follow your advice on using the brush tool when necessary.

[A Real Hero]

This was quite entertaining. It was also funny how it seemed to assume the chubby guy (the viewer I am guessing) was no hero and anything he did to imitate Ryan Gosling only ended up making him look foolish or terrifying people.

Seeing as there was a lack of a background, it seems as though where the events occurring in this short are more or less left up the imagination of the viewer themselves. As for the person having their face stomped in, I could imagine that happening in an alleyway or someplace similar.

Funny how Ryan does it and gets him all the ladies, whereas the chubby guy doing the same only terrified and scared away the ladies. I guess it goes to say that sometimes it is a better idea to try not imitating what you see on the big screen.

The voice acting was quite smooth and sounds much like someone possibly doing a voice over for a film trailer. The music playing at the end was an extra dose of irony saying Ryan was a real hero whereas the chubby guy was just wanting to be a hero but only doing everything wrong.

Overall, aside from a lack of a background, I found this to be quite entertaining and very well done. Great job!

Review Request Club

[Portal Turret AMV]

This was different and quite entertaining. The intro reminded me a lot of the ending to Portal 2 where the outside of Aperture Science just looked like a boring shed. Then the rest of the way is a never ending trip back to the start (?).

The art style was the same as always which is good. The penguin itself was quite different along with the fact that Aperture happened to have some axes and AK-47s sitting around read to be used. The rainbow blood from the doppelganger was quite surprising since I was expecting it to simply fade away and out of existence when it got chopped in half by the portals.

As for the story, I thought it was good. I do think however that a few faulty turrets being added in could have made this humorous allowing the penguin to question why GLaDOS sent one that can't shoot. However, I felt disappointed with how the penguin finished off GLaDOS that easily. I would have imagined that she at least slipped up by trying to put a turret by the penguin with the penguin tricking the turret into shooting at GLaDOS to finish her (in reference to that glitch that can be done in the game).

The song itself was really nice to listen to and had an adventure vibe to it. The sounds used were in sync every moment of the way too.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting change, but I feel that adding in a few more things as I stated above could have made this even more humorous than it already was.