SoulMaster71's Reviews

[NightmareCity:Catastrophe]

I don't mind that everything is a lie...

...as long as you love me forever!

I'm going to come right out and say it: this is, at the moment, my all-time favorite Flash animation. I don't know if I have the skill to review it properly, the in-depth knowledge of artistic criticism needed to properly describe how good this animation is. But if I don't try, I'll never know, right?

My usual "Pros/Cons" format won't work here. Why? Because there's nothing wrong with this Flash, at all. OK, maybe after watching it a few times in a row, I start to see the Uncanny Valley aspect of the pink cat just above the hero, the look of her would be slightly odd out of context. But taken in context, it took me like 30 views of this Flash to see anything "off" about it. Possibly more, I don't really know how many times I watched this one, but I only saw it recently. It's such a good animation that I was willing to watch it so many times, and that it took that long to see its one flaw. And don't get me wrong, that's about the closest thing to a "flaw" I could find in this movie. The fact that I'm even mentioning it comes across in my own mind as nitpicking.

As for everything I like about Nightmare City: Catastrophe? Everything else. Aside from that one moment, it looks great. Every single moment of it gives the perfect impression of a hero out to save the love of his life from a city of vice and violence, all set to 403 Forbiddena's song Northern Lights, which might I say fits it amazingly. The opening shots establishing the violent "gang war" of sorts in the city, our hero standing up and fighting, but beaten down, his lover sacrificing herself to save him from otherwise certain death, and that sacrifice giving him the power to transform himself into a man capable of defeating the enemy before him. Perhaps his girlfriend didn't escape the city as he wanted her to, but a part of her lives on in his heart and his memories. It works, and even better if you understand the original Nightmare City (which I should also get to reviewing one of these days).

Overall, well, best Flash movie ever in my opinion. Well-drawn except for maybe a few seconds, well-timed to great music, and telling a Hell of a story.
5/5, 10/10, Favorited.

[Mortal Kombat: TEOME]

'Bout average, really.

Not perfect, but not too bad. It's certainly got a good idea behind it, Noob and Smoke interrupting Sub-Zero vs. Scorpion, but there's a few missed moments and a few missteps in the animation (or apparently, coding) that hurt the final product.

PROS:
A fight between Sub-Zero and Scorpion, interrupted by Noob Saibot and Smoke. The backstory among those four characters is solid enough for someone to make a whole series of MK fan toons centering on them, with plenty of fights. I gotta give you props for the idea, if only as a longtime MK fan.

CONS:
Right off the bat, the text moves too slow. Maybe for your next animation, if you make another, you could do something where pressing a particular key on the keyboard could move the text along. I forget which high-profile artist did that, but I know one of them did. Maybe it was Alvin-Earthworm. Also, yeah, the fights moved way too fast. Slow 'em down a bit next time, there's gotta be a trick in AS to do that. Increasing the number of frames it takes, I guess.

OVERALL:
Could use some work, but it's a good enough idea to deserve the work.
2/5, 4/10.

[YGOAbridged Leather Pants]

You've done it.

You've succeeded in making Lady Gaga, whom I don't like, funny. I shouldn't have doubted it was possible, and I certainly shouldn't have doubted that it would be Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged that did it, but it's not something I saw coming. Interestingly, TV Tropes has a term for a villain whom the fangirls like a lot despite his unrelentingly evil status: Draco in Leather Pants. Don't know if LK is a Troper himself, or if he was considering it when he wrote it, or if there's some weird Internet hive-mind that he's drawing cues from, but the idea of a villain in leather pants taking the hero's power sounded a little too familiar to pass up the reference.

PROS:
You made Lady Gaga funny instead of just weird for the sake of weird. I'm in shock. Let me state again that I'm not a fan of Lady Gaga by any means, and yet you managed to make her/him/it funny. And then you kickstarted my aforementioned Troper memories. That's enough for a 10/10. I'd give you more, what with the 4kids logo (thankfully) over Marik's "Millennium Rod" and some other hilarious moments, but the system won't let me.

CONS:
Cons? What cons?

OVERALL:
Hi-fucking-larious. Really, I was just getting into Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged, so having this here is pretty good.

5/5, 10/10, Favorited.

[Kangoo vs Kangoo]

Meh.

To be honest, there's nothing special about this game. It's neither much good (by current standards, the situation might have been different in 2000), nor based on a unique premise.

PROS:
The art, the animation, and the controls aren't bad... For a game made in 2000.

CONS:
Where do I start... Should I start with the fact that there's no 1-player mode, for fighting the computer or whatever? Should I mention that a single keyboard is only meant for one person, not two, making this game unnecessarily cramped? Or maybe it's that Internet use is usually a solo activity for me and most others, making it hard to even find a P2. Then there's the problem of getting across the ring to the other player: it might have been responsive enough when it was released, but the players move a bit too slow.

OVERALL:
Not too bad, but not good. Might have looked better in 2000, but this being 2009 and me having been raised on far better games than this, I'm not impressed at all.
1/5, 3/10.

[Mega-Maze a-4]

Nothing new, original, or for that matter fun.

I hate to break it to ya, man, but there's probably 1000 games like this on Newgrounds. There's very little to make this one stand out from the crowd.

PROS:
Most of the games don't put that moving circle "obstacle" there, and even the early levels are a bit more complicated than a lot of other maze games get.

CONS:
Even though I praised you for its complication, it's still nothing new: there's plenty of maze games out there just as complicated as this, or sometimes even more involved. The idea is unoriginal, after all there's a whole mass of other similar games. Also your game has the same weakness as most of them: Click, hold the mouse button down while crossing the screen, and the game doesn't recognize you going right through the walls.

OVERALL:
Desperately needs not just work, but some new ideas as well. Still, I guess it's passable, if only because it actually works and has some difficult-yet-solvable mazes.
3/10, 2/5.

[Pico's School]

NG's oldest living mascot, now with medals!

I really should have reviewed this when I first played it, or on one of the two Pico Days that have happened since I came. But I didn't, for some odd reason, and I'm almost sorry for it. But then I read that you had updated it to work with the medal system, and I just couldn't resist coming and playing again. Maybe it doesn't measure up to certain modern games in graphical quality or complexity, but it's still fun, dammit!

PROS:
There's so much to do for such a relatively simple game... Kill Asian girls, psychics, ninja wannabes, and an evil transforming goth; get shit thrown at you; put out fires; and smoke some weed. Even if this game is kinda simple (can't move around freely or at all during boss fights, etc.), the variety is pretty good. And then there's violence, language, explosions, scat, and drugs. If you were just going for "Hey, let's put as much stuff in as possible to offend the soccer moms!", you succeeded big time, and I kinda like that. Also, the black dude with the afro at the end, wasn't he Tyrone from Teletubby Fun Land and FDA Megamix? Because he looked like Tyrone.

CONS:
The ninja. Seriously, I have no idea how to block or dodge his attacks, which is odd because with Alucard and Cassandra there's a way to protect yourself. I managed to beat him with like one life left, but then I died in a few shots fighting Cassandra. If Pico 2 ever happens (most likely using the Duke Nukem Forever engine converted into Flash), that sort of thing should be fixed.

OVERALL:
Heh, there's not much I could think of to improve on this one, except a way to block the ninja's attacks. And even that's not all that bad if you've got the weed to heal you after the battle.
5/5, 10/10.

[Flatline?]

Not too shabby...

Not too shabby at all. You certainly named it correctly: the "flatline" sound can be heard throughout this song, and in fact makes up the backbone of the song. The limits of this backbone, only a few possible "flatline" tones and such, make it hard to achieve much internal variation within the melody, but that's certainly not much of a problem. So overall it's not that bad a song, though by being limited in scope it loses a point.
5/5, 9/10
<Review Request Club>

CineGoryP responds:

Well, the limited amount of flatline tones wasn't too much of an issue since I could always just manually change the pitch... but there's a limited range where the sound is still recognizeable so yeah.

Thanks for the review :D

[Sonic 3 - cr0m Gadget (8bit)]

cr0mZX cr0mZX... You know the drill.

It's been a while since I've played Sonic 3, so I wouldn't quite remember this song, and the low-bit status really doesn't help me to remember it. However, I've gotta give you some credit: first of all, while it's not the best 8-bit song I've heard, it sure as hell isn't the worst. And second, how could I downvote anything that does homage to cr0m, even if only in the title? He's a legend, and from what little experience I have with him not that bad a guy. So overall I guess it's not all that bad, though you may need to make the beat a bit stronger and make it a little more faithful to the original.
4/5, 7/10.

MAYORMCHEESE responds:

It's a pretty obscure track from the game, it's one of the multiplayer levels. I'm sure even people who've played S3 recently would have trouble remembering it.

I know I said this two months ago, but yeah, I'll redo the song again sometime. It does need a stronger beat.

Thanks for the review.

[Stag Beetle Theme Song]

So... damn... cute...

I can't claim to know much about StagBeetle, except that he can make some very good Flash when he works on it (and yet for some reason he would rather make lower-quality movies most of the time), but this song is just too cute for me to not like. A bit short, but it's nice.
5/5, 10/10

[White Mage 2]

Heterochromia FTW!

I've always liked the look of girls with their eyes two different colors (yeah, desu desu desu), I have no idea why. The fact that the White Mage here looks cute enough to hug just makes this picture better.

PROS:
She's cute as can be, she has eyes of different colors (I have no idea why I like that!), and oh yeah, PANTY SHOT! And I usually don't go in for the big-breasted type either, but she pulls off the look quite well.

CONS:
Umm, uh... I can't think of anything bad to say about this.

OVERALL:
She's stunning. Absolutely stunning.
5/5, 10/10.

[INTUOS 4 I LOVE YOU]

Yay, Touhou!

You know, I've had these games on my mind a lot lately, what with playing them constantly and everything. So I come on NG, I decide to enter the Art Portal for some reason, and I see Cirno looking back at me! Now I know that despite the rain, this is going to be a good day/night. You've brightened up my day with this picture.

PROS:
Touhou. Need I say more? Cirno's a cute little fairy, and SHE IS STRONGEST.

CONS:
She's got stitches or something under her winking eye. Otherwise, no problem here.

OVERALL:
"Why does she look like she has stitches under her eye?", I wonder, but overall I like it.
5/5, (9)/10 for Cirno.