Throughout the years, I have been an avid fan of Newgrounds as far back as the fateful day back in 1995.
Hell, back then when the website was devoted to killing pop-icons & other celebrities, alot of the early ones were done in HTML!
It was set up like you had to click the image for it to progress.
Practically all it was was links and images, until Tom had gotten ahold of flash.
And well, the rest is history.
When the portal opened up to the public, is when the site really began to develop what I still consider the golden years.
Everyone had to provide their own graphics as well as scrounge up the few sources everyone had at the time.
And yet, one thing they all had in common was that dark gritty nature, as well as original moused in graphics.
Now in comparison, the average movie back then was roughly 300-500 kb and that took a while to load.
As nowdays its roughly 5 mb minimum, with daily features capping as much as 15 megabytes every single day.
Artistically, the movies have gotten better.
Even though they are done with so many programs I don't even consider them to be 'flash' movies/games any longer.
Adobe Photoshop this, After Effects CS-whatever that..
Heres a handful of some of the first portal entries I have ever seen back then...
Scorpio Mercenary Group
Pac-Man Gets Wasted
Yoda, Drunk on the Set
29 Cents In Life
Quake III Wazzup?!?
boy
Resident Evil-Mon
And so on and so forth..
Overall I would say the one that stuck with me the most was, Scorpio Group.
As at the time I hadn't quite seen anything like it, as the characters in it were not only original, but they were memorable.
Sure they had plenty of shit back then, but once in a while, it was actually worth seeing.
Nowdays there are so many things , alot of which are probaly worth seeing, but I just don't care anymore.
Like I might look if its on the frontpage and if the name/thumbnail looks interesting enough , but I rarely search up for a movie.
Things just haven't been the same.
Maybe someday i'll resume this rant.
And gentlemen, as of today that rant continues... now.
Regarding sprite based movies.
In my ealier years I was an active spriter of older video game based sprite movies.
As early as December 2001 in fact.
Back then there were no real standards for the video game flashes aside from Clark Lybeck, Randy Solemn and SplashKhat.
Hell, I remember when this was one the coolest thing I had seen.
Although I personally preferred this one simply due to it's mas selection of objects & music loops.
I was more or less a spectator back then, so I never had anything of my own to contribute.
Always had hopes of doing so one day.
Though little did I know how anything about manipulating Macromedia Flash.
Always though doing things with sprites was a trip.
Years later to this day my thoughts have not changed.
All though... Along the way, something was amiss.
And admittedly, when I first submitted a project to newgrounds, it was no biggy.
Even though my skills were quite lacking, it didn't take me too long to learn.
In the recent years, spriting has generally only consisted of just absurd humor, or mostly fighting.
Not to say that fighting is always a bad thing, especially with Rebaz the Double Dragon sprite master.
Hell, fighting scenes are always a kick as they have been since Final Fantasy Gaiden.
Though back then the movies didn't always involve fighting and they were generally a long drawn out random adventure.
Or perhaps a movie with such stupidity you couldn't help but love it anyway.
Admittedly, 2003 was a very productive year for me as well as many great sprite artists.
Though 2004 came...
Thats when the sprite movies began to take a decline from what I have seen.
People stopped being original.
As then it just... degraded into some sort of trivial rivalry.
With authors attacking each other in their movies.
Now while this can be funny as hell, I just don't see the point of all this.
We shouldn't be thrashing each other, hell we should all be out there putting together awesome shit!
If theres one thing we don't need.
Is bad or boring retellings of video game plots.
Such as 'Oh noes, Lavos/Kefka has Returned!'
No. Its not amusing, its boring.
WHY would we want to see that, rather than watching Ben from Mystic Quest came out of the closet?
Its not a hard formula to follow really, just entertainment!
Yes, 2004 was officially the most dissapointing year I have ever seen in sprite animators.
I mean hell, even an inconsistent oldie of a sprite film is more entertaining than most of the shit that happened in 04!
Remember the time Kirby went to Egypt?
Out of all the places i'd never thought i'd see that pink piece o shit, Egypt is one of them...
Perhaps one of the only examples of good things that came out of 04 was Hell Fire's Sprite Survivor!
All though it looks familiar to something else , but it doesn't really matter because their all quite entertaining.
Even though the FF Survivor Series was never finished, it still lives on in our sweet memories.
Oh rest in peace sweet sweet flash...
While I understand not all of the parts are on newgrounds, I do however own all of the released movies, so if anyone wants to see them just send a note to my inbox.
Damn shame they never released the finale though.
Speaking of things that go incomplete, whatever happened to Final Fighting Fantasy?
Its gone!
Why has Splashkat forsaken the spriters in their hour of need???
Even though it involves so much fighting.
Fact is its still a hell of alot more original than what goes on these days.
People used to have such originality!
Such weird yet totally awesome visions.
Even in the early days, the quality standard hadn't been achieved yet, though that didn't stop people from trying at least.
Hell they had attitude!
What if it was the priest whom wanted to assasinate Link so he could be the next hero of Hyrule?
Or how about that time Link was home alone???
People can come preaching the gospel to me about that sprite films aren't as stale as I say but you know what?
My opinion isn't changing.
The sprite movies have gotten stale.
The animators need to open up their creativity network and get animating for some new classics!
I mean hell, theres just no excuse for this.
Good god, even this is more entertaining than most shit i've seen nowadays!
Even though its been a cruel few years for spriters ,I think its really because the sprite movies just haven't been worth watching because they are so stale!
For the good classics such as Link's Quest For Ass , Parovadius or this that or the other thing.
I've chosen my path in the sprite film ,and I want the days of the classical random adventures to resume.
Don't make me come down there.
This rant may yet again be resumed when I think of another chapter of rants to rant about.
