39 sketches, 21 animators, no laughs

1/5

I like sprite movies. They're in a category of their own on NG.

Sprite movies can be hysterically funny, emotional, goofy and random, or (most of the time) plain stupid. This submission falls deep into the latter category. This is the most elaborately produced example of juvenile stupidity and lack of comedic understanding that I've ever seen on Newgrounds.

I know comedy is subjective, but when you have TWENTY-ONE animators collaborating you'd think something funny to me might slip through. Usually with something this random I'll find a few laughs here and there, but this time... nothing. A few of the sketches came close (the Frogger one, the Princess in the rocket for example) but didn't score. Most of them were painful to watch, especially knowing this would get a high score and get featured just because of the "sprite" factor. That's a problem with NG in general, so I won't go into it.

Sometimes nice animation can make up for a lackluster effort in the writing/comedy department, but it doesn't in this case. And the animation wasn't really that great, to be honest. The bar has been set pretty high in that regard. Aside from the rather cool "create your own sprite" preloader and the clean and simple menu screen, I wasn't really impressed by any of it.

The voice acting was mostly terrible. There's a Voice Acting Club out there that's a great resource for animators. I wish they had used it; instead it makes the whole production sound amateur. Music and sound effects were actually pretty well done on the whole, so no major complaints there. In fact, some of the sound choices were inspired.

Like I said, I do enjoy sprite movies. I like seeing animated video game characters and different people's twist on them. This unfortunately was just a chore to watch. I don't like writing negative reviews either but I made an exception in this case.

(Also, the file size is ridiculous, and I'm not even on dial-up.)

Simple, mellow and very creative

4/5

I've always liked your animations, and once again you've made something creative and unique. The simplicity of the animation perfectly matched the mellowness of the song. Most of all I enjoyed the message behind the animation. It's a breath of fresh air around here...

I only had a few issues: while the lip-sync on the tree was kind of cool and weird, it probably wasn't necessary. And it would have been nicer to have one long zoom back towards the end instead of all the short, halting zooms. You were probably trying to go along with the beat of the song but it didn't feel quite right to me. But really, those are minor issues in the grand scheme of things.

Please keep up the amazing work!

"I can explain!"

4/5

Ha! That was hilarious! It was short and to the point, and I loved the clean, crisp animation and sound. Keep it up! I really hope you make more of these.

Stuff like this is why I come to Newgrounds!

5/5

This is a fantastic little game. I'm a big fan of 2-D sidescrollers, puzzle games, and Metroid, in that order. So a game like this is right up my alley.

Graphically, it's deceptively simplistic, and I liked the look. The blurry, confusing opening really drew me in. If I could point out a downside, the game window is very small and some of the larger rooms (and especially the map window) are microscopic. And with no way to make the screen larger, it becomes a strain on the eyes after a while. Otherwise it looks great, particularly the movement of the entire screen as you move - as if you're being watched.

The storyline, at first, is a bit typical of these types of games. But the whole "Mother" element is really unusual and interesting, and worked surprisingly well. The dialogue was well-written, although a sound to indicate new dialogue would have been welcome. And during the final escape, it was difficult to go back and forth from running to reading as Mother kept berating me. But the story and the dialogue worked, it was very clever.

Now, the music really puts it over the top. While it doesn't quite match the cutesy pixelated visuals (a NES Metroid-type score would have been perfectly acceptable if unoriginal), it is so beautiful to listen to that it doesn't even matter. The final escape music fits in perfectly and really adds to the suspense. I could go on about how amazing the music is, but I'll just say go download it like I did! The sound effects match the visuals more closely, nothing too special.

As for challenge and replay value, I didn't find the game excessively difficult in that I beat it twice in 56 minutes. (Once without finding all the letters, then I went back to find the rest and escaped again.) And I got all the achievements without much effort. (The meaning of K.O.L.M. was cute.) I hope if you expand on this or make a sequel, you give players more hidden stuff and a reason to come back again and again.

The controls were smooth and responsive, if a bit slippery, but it gave me no trouble. Customizable controls are always a welcome feature, though.

To sum it up, this is a well-designed, cleverly written and beautiful sounding game. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Amazing and creative old-school game!

5/5

This is a great old-school game in the style of Metroid. A big open world, lots of exploration and backtracking and a really cool 8-bit visual style. The glitching (which is obviously intentional and part of the game!) is an effectively disconcerting effect that keeps things interesting. The only downsides would be the somewhat slippery control and the disappointing ending. Otherwise, it's a really solid game that I spent way too much time playing!

Clever, creative, challenging and fun!

5/5

I love these types of games! Very clever and creative. It wasn't overly challenging but the puzzles were pretty interesting and fun to figure out. (I beat the game in 8:44 and died 50 times, but most of those were just for the heck of it.) The only drawback would be the music which gets very repetitive. Otherwise, great game!

I instantly loved this.

9/10

This is a brilliant little piece of music. Great for setting a scene and mood. Not bad for 'playing around' with editing software. I really want to hear more from you!

Hmm...

I like the Dire, Dire Docks theme so much, I made my own remix of it too. It's a really beautiful piece of music, isn't it? While yours is technically well done, the techno flavor really clashes with the main piano melody. Maybe if you used something other than a piano for the melody, something more synth-y, it would blend in better.

Review speaks for itself.

It had a pretty catchy beat and the sound quality was good, but it was a little random and it needed a stronger melody to tie the whole thing together. Still, good work!