Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Asaroki 02- Encouter]

Good in context.

I enjoyed this.

There were indeed a few problems - the proprtions and perspective is often wrong - the lead character's legs look inhumanly stumpy at the start and when cars are driving, it looks noticably like a picture zooming in, rather than us being able to 'believe' that it's a car. I think that's because of the perspective being subtly wrong for the way it's meant to be driving.

Her head when she wakes up or paints is far larger than it seems when we see her from nearby, in the head& shoulder shots. However, since you know it's not perfect, I won't bother going on. I look forward to seeing what your more recent animation looks like.

We're obviously still in the early stages of the story, this episode just introducing us to this character, reafirming that the little girl exists and bringing in some agency, in the form of the 'crow' right into the lead character's path.

Not terribly exciting, but after episode 1, I was engaged enough to sit it through. I just hope that the pay-off isn't a disappointment.

The length was near-perfect. Didn't feel like 5 minutes. We got a good amount of plot and it ended on a solid cliffhanger.

But if you're releasing these one a month, it's gonna be an agonising wait for fans.

ArtistGamerGal responds:

Thanks for the informative review. I think you're right, maybe I should try and post the other episodes sooner. Thanks for the advice! Please let me know what you think of future episodes!
-Laura<3

[Asaroki 01- The Outsider]

A great intro

The title screen has an awesome B&W pic, but the website link isn't very readable against the whiteness of his arm. I was about to point out that the straight-cornered font for 'play' looks a bit out of place, but I guess it works well, seeing as it's a button and so should jump out a bit...

The clouds and the trees' colouring on the opening shot is beautiful.

When we see the characters, their proporions keep chanding - when we see them up-close, their heads become smaller and they look older. Be careful about that.

The whole story is kinda hokey and predictable- specially after the boy heading into the bushes - but with your fast-yet-measured pacing, it became an enjoyable watch. I want to find out if this girl lives, who the 'crow' is...

I'm looking forward to seeing #2.

[Mushroom Mario]

Heh.

Good to see a sprite animation that uses original edits.

I liked the whole setup and got a chuckle out of the end.

Short and sweet!

[Cardboard City]

a lovely thing to watch

I love the mood and style here.

Coolio's game sets the tone perfectly, with his textures and simple-to-grasp mechanics. I started to become an expert, getting 7k just as the movie loaded.

I wasn't too keen on the 'rain' movie. The bright colours didn't really go well with the cardboard theme, the misspellings looked sloppy and the end was a bit unclear - I think the fan blew away the cloud, but am not sure. I'd have liked a clearer visualisation of that. It was a nice bonus though and like everything had lovely textures - just like in the main flash.

In the main flash, I felt you could have maybe had more pallette restrictions or provided a set number of textures for consistency. I felt that bright saturated colours worked against it as did some uncardboardy textures. Although, I guess if you try to impose too many rules, you get in the way of creativity...

Whilst watching the thing, I thought everyone had done their parts to the music. It ended up well paced.

My favourite parts were those involving the underground and the guitarist.

In the end, it was a lovely thing to watch - kind of like a trip into this city, watching a day unravel.

[like a duck (colour)]

Impeccable anim, but not chaotic or fast enough.

The graphics are wonderful, but I felt like they could have done more to express the fast, chaotic tempo.

Frankly, I'm mildly surprised this didn't get a daily award.

The morphings are a joy to behold as is the rotating rubber duck. The 'beak-synch' is similarly excellent. The transition from the pink dude to the robot's eye was specially astounding. Seriously, everything bar perhaps the sympathy for the beats was perfect.

I felt that when the harder beats came in (from maybe the explosion), you could have expressed that ridiculously 'full' sound better visually. Firstly, by having more elements on-screen, mirroring the ridiculous number of instruments we can hear, secondly by perhaps increasing the pace during those harder beats. The morphing/explosions looked great, but perhaps at 2x the rate, it would have better matched the mood - feeling like a chaotic rush of energy rather than the unfurling it currently is.

I loved the marching duck frame and the way the duck divided into elements throughout the piece was brilliant.

Looking forward to seeing more from you.

TheBoogley responds:

Thanks Bezman, it's great to get considered and critical reviews! :D
I'm not the greatest with music, I love it, but have very minimal understanding of it's mechanics. I'm going to try an collaborate with and get advise from musicians in the future to better interact between my visuals and their sound.

[The Food Collab]

ultimately underwhelming.

Loads of cool visual styles in this, from the wiggly line opening, to the retro solid shapes of the start, through various others...

The 'be an american' bit made me chuckle.

The game was horrible - why did you put the sights on the right of the pointer? That made it nearly unplayable for me. The actual mechanics were unoriginal and imperfectly executed, with a score I couldn't understand. (I shot targets but got 0 pts both times). If it's because of my low accuracy, maybe you could have just instilled some loading time between shots and had the score be #targets shot?

Not that the game matters much, but it felt like it would have been better to just cull it.

The quality varied immensely - as usual - and whilst the parts were connected thematically, the mood varied a bit. Generally humour-based, the tempo swung around.

After getting over the fact that the food is anthropomorphised, many of the jokes seem self-evident the first time, let alone the 2nd.

I loved your transitions and a few of the graphical styles brought a smile to my face with the textures, shape or motion. But by the end, I felt the standard had dropped slightly and felt underwhelemed.

TheBoogley responds:

Thanks for the thorough review, you're sounding like a "proper" art critic. :)

[Mega Pixel]

Kinda entertaining.

I love the title frame. In fact, that's probably my favourite screen, with the buildings in the distance and the blue semi-transparent lines reminding me of an old poster from the early 20th century.

The relationship between bobo and the boss was kinda interesting and the whole setup about the competition felt like it had limitless potential.

In the end though, I felt that your characters felt too much like cut-outs - I'd have liked to see more stuff happen to them rather than all the flashbacks and irellevant jokes. For me, concentrating on 'the present' and stuff directly related to the competition would have made it feel like more of a full story, rather than a bunch of jokes cobbled together.

It didn't really help that the jokes weren't vastly funny for me.

[How 2 Succeed on NG pt.2]

You rounded it off well.

I loved the intro and the T-shirt at the end had me chuckling away.

Also the ridiculously-breasted sailor moon chick made me smile, as did the entirety of the parody for that tip.

I was hoping for more visual gags - something the original had in abundance with your pastiches or as a visual metphor. This edition seemed to fall slightly short in that regard.

Still entertaining! Kudos.