SourJovis's Reviews

[Geno: The Star Road Warrior]

I also wish to see more of Geno. Super Mario RPG was such a great game.

Cool animation. Very good colours and lighting. The movements are very fluent. The camera perspectives with the 3d background make it look very cinematic. The song is also nice. Looking forward to see more work by you.

BERALAI responds:

Thanks a ton for noticing the work! I really strive to make things stellar on different levels. Even in the 3D, its cringy when people use it as an excuse to to less work rather than to make even cooler effects! The all in one shot, rotating camera scene at the end was my favorite scene to animate.

As far as the song, I wrote it so its not ANOTHER metal geno song. Geno deserved more than just another beware the mushrooms tribute. It was a nod at geno, the fans, and a complete feeling song to jam to!

Can't wait to offer another tasty vid!

[Valley of the Sky Castle - Pixel Day 2022]

Oh right! I remember that game Valley of the Sky Castle. It was that 90s Ghibli game for the snes. Very well made animation. I love Ghibli films like Howl's moving castle, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Laputa Castle in the Sky, Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind. The Ni no Kuni games are also very good. I get the Ghibli vibes from this animation. The music is great. Sounds like something Joe Hisaishi could've made. The composition is excellent. The sounds as well, though somewhat dry and computerish if you know what I mean. Could've processed the sound slightly with some virtual analogue tape or moving reverb to liven up the samples a little. Or go in the other direction and make it sound like it was played on an snes with chipsynth SFC or something, to better match the pixel art. Fantastic job! Wish this was an actual game.

[The transforming to tank-Robot(Robotday2022)]

Very good! Made me laugh!

[Robo-butcher]

Cool game. Addictive. Very gritty 90's look and feel. I like the design of the robots.

[Cross Strike]

Great game! I like the pixel art, light effects and retro game music. The controls feel very well.

Yword responds:

Thank you very much! :)

[Shitstorm]

Great game! I love the humor. It's much better than you would expect from the artwork alone. At first glance it looks like any ordinary troll game, but it's actually very polished, and the gameplay is great. I also like how you put a lot of effort in making this game cinematic. The jokes wouldn't work any other way. I truly enjoyed playing this.

OOGIDIBA responds:

Thanks! I spent way too much time on the cut scenes haha. It's good to hear people are making it to them!

[Welcome to the Real World]

Great song. The instruments work well together. I like the synths that are really front and center, but the drums, bass and guitars fit very well too. They form a solid foundation for the synth parts but are interesting enough to stand out at the right moments. Interesting drum fills, guitar solo's and bass licks. Good job making such a full mix sound transparant and not too muddy. Very pleasing to the ear. FM is the bomb yeah. Congrats on winning the NGTreasureHunt23 and the well deserved FrontPage 10 years after the upload. I didn't know about you back then, but you've got a new fan now.

[Nowhere Land]

Nice. I like chiptune. It reminds me of Final Fantasy VII. Maybe because of the midi-ish sound and the banjo that is used on some of the songs in that game as well. Like for the chocobo farms.

The bell synth is cool as a lead instrument. Very light and happy. It sounds a bit like a toy piano. Maybe an actual toy piano sample would be even better. I already like this sound well enough though.

The saw wave I like least. It stands out too much and drowns out the other instruments with its sharp overtones. It doesn't fit a country folk song and isn't light enough for this song. Maybe a fiddle/violin or cello sample instead would've been better. If you need it at all. I don't know what melodic information that instrument gives that the other's don't but you would know better than I.

The distorted electric guitar is okay. I think I see where you're going, but it could be excecuted better. It doesn't sound quite like a country guitar and might just as well be a rock guitar. Too thin and harsh on the top. I know it's chiptune and you're limited in how to make the instruments sound, but maybe a little less distortion and more body would be nice. Like an hollow body Archtop guitar without a distortion/fuzz pedal driven into the pre-amp to get the overdrive from the amp itself, then down-sampled and played back on an snes sound-chip or whatever you use to make it chiptune.

The bass and the drum pattern are good they make it sound very country. Especially the tambourine on top.

It would be cool if the song looped. Like most chiptune/video game songs. That may to make sense for an end credit song, but I think it sounds more like a town theme or happy intermission kind of theme anyway.
The song drags on a little too much for it to loop nicely though. It's a constant variation on of the same themes. I think it could do with a break that's significantly different from the rest but still fits the country theme, where you introduce a new melody and rhythm to keep the listeners on their toes. That creates more variation and makes it more bearable to listen to it for longer periods of time.

Thetageist responds:

The whole point of the song’s instrument choices is to be incongruous and have a “huh?” factor - the best way I can describe the sound is like an electronic artist adding MIDI tracks to a recording of a rock ballad, that was itself playing over an older recording of a country guitar. It’s almost a little cheesy, and that’s on purpose.

But I definitely agree that mixing and EQ could be done better here (if I did them at all - I think this is before I knew how to change the EQ), and that GarageBand’s guitars suck, hehe. I’m supposed to be collaborating with an actual guitarist right now - do you think I should try revisiting this with him?

[March]

Very atmospheric experimental song. I can imagine this playing in a retro game. Although it also reminds me of Star Wars somehow.

It's very hard to grasp at first. The notes seem random, but after a few listens you start to notice a pattern. The recurring motifs grow on you. The counter melodies are interesting. This song has many layers. All kinds of different instruments complementing each other.

The instrumentation is really good. I don't know what all of that is, but it sounds electronic yet organic at the same time. Like a mechanical orchestra but with more exotic instruments. The melody is very outlandish as well. Like it's in a dessert on another planet. The lofi sound is really cool. I'm obsessed with vintage synthesizers and other instruments, that have an old worn out sound that makes them sound alive. That's why I enjoy this so much.

I'm picturing old dusty robots marching through a desert on a distant planet. I guess that's why I'm thinking of Star Wars. But also because of the melodies that sound classical and exotic at the same time. Just like in Star Wars although they dind't use synthesizers for that. I heard George Lucas originally wanted an electronic ssound, but in the end chose an orchestral score to make it sound more epic. Old synths playing original classical sounding compositions sound pretty epic to me though. I saw you even wrote things out as sheet music. Such thought that went into it all. I think you're really underrated, that's why I've scouted you. Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Maybe it sounds a little too soft, lofi and dim. That makes it even harder to tell what's going on and difficult to get into. I know the worn out sound is what it's all about. You don't want to lose that, but maybe clean the mix up a bit more with some effects like EQ, put a bit compression on the tracks so you get a more transparent and louder song so the listener can discern the different layers, better hear what's going on, so it becomes easier to enjoy.

[Rat King spin kick for TMNT: Shredder's Revenge]

Shredder's Revenge is a cool game. I still play it when friends come over. Thank you for your contribution. This is also a good animation. Too bad it didn't make it into the game, but at least your other work did.

[c64 - San Mateo Hill]

Good pixel art. Good luck with the album. Looking forward to it.

UltimoGames responds:

Thankyou, we will announce it on the Newgrounds news page when it is out! Still a lot of music & art to be made though.

[Spike's Archipelago]

Looks real cool. I imagine this would be a great game if it existed back in the 90s. Would definitely want to play it in those days... I guess I still would.

SuperPhil64 responds:

Thanks! I wish I had been more of a programmer so I could have made more game projects into reality. At least I can make visual representations of them. ^_^'