Score: 6

"Could be funnier yet."

submission: FF: Mixed in Balamb2(1/3)

date: March 3, 2005

Yeah, of course there could be more jokes yet thrown in.

The constant references do provide interest if not necessarily always humour as well.

There are a good few jokes and I liked K. Didn't see that coming.

Once the story was established, you had a chance to play around a bit and hopefully this will be a taste of things to come.

Your graphics seem to improve over the course of the animation, perhaps an indication of your fast learning. I was torn between 6 and 7.

Off to watch part 2.

Score: 5

"Nice setup"

submission: FF: Mixed in Balamb

date: March 3, 2005

I'm far from the biggest FF fan, but this was fun to watch for the most part.

I thought the start was the best part with a few quick-fire personality-based jokes.

The DBZ reference was fair enough the first time, but it got a bit much the 2nd and 3rd I think.

The ending attempt at some excitement seemed a bit misplaced in such a madcap comedy.

The graphics weren't brilliant, with some ugly tweening, but it was generally clear who was who so I suppose it was good enough. Besides, you don't need great graphics for a comedy.

I hope to see the next installment have more of the earlier style of material.

Score: 7

"Great. But could be better yet..."

submission: Faust - Episode 2

date: March 3, 2005

Brilliant.

The story was obviously going to be great.

But the artwork does well to bring the story to life as does the music you've chosen.

From the start:

Again, I suggest you change the 'play' button to something a bit more in keeping with the rest of the typographical style seen.

Maybe a gothic 'PLAY' with an ornate design behind, then duplicated for a shadow effect.

The font you've chosen seems better than before but the italics seem more Italian than German.

I found it nice the way you started with the same scene and the artwork is excellent and stylish. Almost like a moody version of John Allison's work if you know him. (Creator of the comic 'Scary go Round'.)

Voices are excellent. Really great with nice accents suited to the characters and decent acting.

The teeth of the dog come at an excellent angle.

The animation isn't perfect, but none really grates.

The mouths are the one part I'd say you should maybe work on.

I really don't like the art of the dog-beast, with the gradients making the 'joins' of the arms too obvious. Also, when it sidappears, it's too obvious how you've skewed it.

Overall, it's looking like a great series.

Maybe it could still be refined further and I hope you continue to do so.

However, even at its current standard it's a great watch and I look forward to seeing the rest of the story pan out.

Score: 7

"A great introduction."

submission: Faust - Episode 1

date: March 3, 2005

So an adaptation of the story, then?

It took me a while to realise what was going on, and that the gothic dude was the devil.

However, after seeing it, I'm anxious to watch #2. This isn't a great movie in its own right - more of a prologue, a teaser for things to come.

From the start:

Nice fonts used, although the 'F' is quite a step away from the 'normal' gothic 'F' drawn by calligraphers. Also, the circle forming the lower horizontal line would never really be drawn with a calligraphy pen.

Just an observation.

I don't think the italic script works that well tbh, and the 'play' button should perhaps have been changed.

Ah, I spend too much time on the details... but someone's gotta tell you these things...

I like the lack of outlines on your graphics (or, with the characters, coloured outlines) as they distance your work and make it look far more 'grown up' than it otherwise would have. The sight of the boots running away from the camera doesn't look great. But that's one of the hardest things to do, so I'll forgive you. ;-)

In the side-one view of the devil grinning, he's leaning too far back.

But these are small criticism in what looks to be an excellent adaptation of the classic story. I must confess I haven't read it yet, but I heard of it and meant to...

Well, hopefully you'll do Goethe justice.

Off to watch #2! Yay!

Is the spoken German part of the original music, or is it excrepts from the original text?

Score: 6

"Fairly fast-paced humour"

submission: Evil Josh & Billy: Ep. 02

date: March 3, 2005

First of all, I think you need to put in play/replay buttons. Essential to all movies!

This episode seemed more amusing to me. The graphics were rather nice, with nice line variation and nice expressions and lip synching.

Also, I rather liked the way you had different coloured outlines for some objects, slightly misplaced.

JC as a character provided lots of humour potential and you used a good portion of it, if not all.

Also, there were a good few other jokes, most of which seemed fairly original and fast-paced.

Suggestions? Well, put in play/replay buttons for starters.

Great work overall.

Score: 7

"Funnier than #1"

submission: Final Fantasy Day Care 2

date: March 3, 2005

The shop-keeper's voice made me grin and chuckle as did his explanation of the 'Dark Koala Blade', with his odd explanations and unintelligable witterings.

I always like amusing observations about the stupid bits in games, so I liked the bit about not knowing what Gils look like.

I also rather liked the David Firth reference.

I suppose the jokes could have been thicker and faster. Also, the subject matter is a little overused and you could maybebe doing more to make it unique.

However, it was still a really enjoyable watch and I'm sure I'll enjoy the 3rd too.

Score: 5

"Act your lines - don't just say them!"

submission: Final Fantasy Day Care 1

date: March 3, 2005

I like the fact that you avoid using sprites, although the design seems to be quite a departure from the sprites the characters are based on, with realistic proportions in all instances.

I'm not sure if this is meant to have anything to do with FF theater at all, but if so, it seems a slight departure from their personality. Mainly as their voices didn't really seem to suit.

There was a FF-theater homage on NG (still is). Might want to check that out to get inspiration for the voices.

YOur voices just seem to lack any emphasis. You seem to just be saying the lines rather than actually acting properly is you see what I mean.

The art and animation's fairly nice.

There were a couple of amusing jokes.

I suppose overall it was mildly entertaining.

Still don't have a clue why you gave it that title though. Unless the day care is yet to be introduced.

I was expecting to see the characters try to deal with children and only succeed in corrupting them or someting like that.

Score: 8

"Lovely"

submission: Evolution -BK

date: March 3, 2005

The opening was beautiful and the dandelion seeds are all wonderfully drawn.

The way in which the text disappears works well in mirroring the dandelion seeds and keeping to the mood.

Graphics are very simple, but each stroke, each fade, each motion tween seems well considered.

Though the story was simple and rather slow, there was a nice sense of timing and a fair bit of visual interest throughout. The feathers during the transformation, the sparkes on the tear...

Furthermore, it seems to be open to so much interpretation. Personally, I see it as as metaphor for death.

The title seems a little obscure.

The font used is great and goes well with the general tone of the piece.

Lovely music.

Really, really lovely.

Score: 5

"Not bad."

submission: Fireworks are Fun!

date: March 3, 2005

The ending was a bit predictable and when the boy grips an object, it doesn't really look as if he's holding it.

In a similar vein, the firework falls a bit slowly.

The whole thing takes a little bit longer to pan out than I'd have liked for such a simple one-joke thing.

Lastly, you need an end screen.

However, it is nice to have a little bit of anticipation and the song choice for the end was almost witty.

Score: 6

"Rough around the edges"

submission: Element Saga ch 3 A

date: March 3, 2005

There's a lot of work put in here, but I'm not sure if it really pays off.

The 2 halves - the comic and the battles - don't seem to gel together that well and neither half seems that strong.

Come colour might have benefitted the comic and the plot doesn't seem all that strong. Crow's explanations seem more encumbered than necessary, the world within Jalapeno's mind unecessarily convoluted, with a lot of seemingly unecessary information to take in.

I'm all for flavour text, but this can't be excused so easily.

A few spelling/grammatical/word usage mistakes. Commas on the beginnings of a new line, 'bases' used instead of 'basis', 'your' used instead of 'you're', 'conciseness' used instead of 'consciousness', 'beaten' spelt 'beatan', missing question marks, lower case letters beginning sentences, and many others. Sure, maybe English isn't your first language. But maybe ask someone to look through the game, tell you what needs to be changed.

Ask for a proof-reader on the BBS. In fact, I'll make a thread for such a purpose.

The battles do have many moves, but the enemies don't seem to react to your moves, nor you to theirs. The only way to tell damage is being dealt seems to be to look at the status bars.

You should have them flinch or something when they take damage. Or if you think that makes it too easy, at least have them visibly flash.

Also, bear in mind that folk can hold down a button for the combo. Have it so that if they press the button too early, the combo is cancelled. That would make it a test of skill, as I understand you wanted.

Cheats aren't a bad idea, but having an item that diffuses all damage, then making it hard to unequip is.

You may as well have a cheat to just skip all the battles as any invincibility mode does seem to make them pointless.

Worst of all, I was really, really annoyed to find that when I tried to restart, the main menu's music kept going and wasn't stopped. (I restarted part 3)

This made that system rather pointless.

Overall, it's a nice idea with some real promise. It's nice to see people trying something a bit different and whilst it is essentially a simplified RPG, the presentation and intention of the combat system give it a flavour of its own. You're a great artist and both the pencil drawings and the simple coloured parts look excellent.

However, it could really use a few tweaks.