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Twaggazine n°1: Red's Tournament



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Gender: Male
Points: 2320
Reviews: 40
Mon Jan 15, 2018 12:27 pm
TinkerTwaggy says...



...That is a stupid topic title, and a very childish pun. chuckle PERFECT.

Hello, random readers! The name's Tortwag - I'm just another writer hanging around both here and the rest of the virtual world, and since I sometimes see things that I enjoy, I figured I might as well share them with you fine folks. So! With that out of the way, Let's get started... With energetic music, that is!

Spoiler! :
Don't worry if it gets repetitive: it'll get replaced soon enough :3
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Plot:

In the realm of Pixtopia, powerful warriors have gathered to participate in a Martial Arts tournament organized by Red, legendary warrior of their world. Red sought for powerful competitors to test his strength against. And so, to fulfill his goal, he organized two tournaments.

Unfortunately, although Red did find competitors worthy of his challenge, things did not go as smoothly as anticipated. Indeed, a series of strange events unfolding during his tournaments would plunge Pixtopia in an era of danger and chaos, which would also be the era during which, guided by Red, the Heroes of Pixtopia would rise in order to save the realm that had seen them evolve as courageous battlers.



Summary:

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LSW stands for "Legendary Super Warriors", AKA the type of sprites/2-d graphics used in this series.


The first tournament is nothing compared to what happens after it, but it does introduce us to TheRedHeadHenry's unexpected development gimmick in a simple yet effective way. Since it's a tournament between a bunch of random fighters, we simply expect said fighters to battle until the champion is revealed.
The end.

Well, Red (Note that I'll always refer as the sprite character by his three letters nickname) does not seem to like organizing a tournament and stay out of it, which is why he decides to fight the champion himself.

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Dude fights blindfolded. 'Nuff said.


After an amazing battle, Red leaves and we're left wondering when the next tournament's going to happen. And some months later, it is finally organized.

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And this, m'dears, is where things start to get interesting. As a new gathering of Pixtopians unfolds, Red seems to be away from his tournament, as he is determined to deal with a much different threat than before.

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Awesome Baldness, that is.


An evil monk only known by the name Erk is looking for pieces of Rah's Sword of Command in order to summon a “Neo-Pixel Army” to, you guessed it, take over the world!

So obviously, Red's not gonna let him do that, which means that while the Pixtopians are fighting in Red's tournament, Red himself goes in a wild chase to find Erk and stop him before he carries out his plan. Unfortunately, Erk manages to not only gather all the pieces of the sword, but he also summons his army, and the first place he decides to take over is the tournament stadium. By the time Erk arrives, the tournament's already finished, but the participants, guided by Red, still have to deal with the mad monk and his army or Neo-Pixels, which will lead to a chaotic war I the stadium grounds.

And gosh is it enjoyable to watch.

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A blazing battle unfolds, Pixtopians vs Neo-Pixels, while Red fights against Erk. The struggle lasts for quite a long time, too, and when the mad monk unleashes his true power, Red and the Pixtopians repel it with all their might in an epic finale made of willpower, colored auras and good old beam struggles.

After these events, an unknown scientist named Dr.Groxel calls for the strongest warriors of Pixtopia to gather yet again, though this time in a team battle challenge, during which the champions will be able to battle against his “Bots”, whom he claims are stronger than Red himself and could become the new protectors of the world. Answering the call, new and old faces gather to participate in the tournament, determined to show off their skills and eventually prove Dr.Groxel wrong.


Atmosphere:

Spoiler! :
Let's have something more relaxing now, shall we?
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The atmosphere is really something that TheRedHeadHenry nails. Not only does he manages to masterfully animate any of the sprite sheets he's given for his tournaments, but he also manages to give them custom-made aura and beam effects, coupled with various sounds and edited fields that effectively create a world with his mark on it.

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Now, the Red's Tournament series is different from many sprite animations in various ways. With custom sounds and effects – as I already mentioned – but also with the fact that subtitles are not needed to understand what's happening. There are no dialogues during the tournaments, and yet we can still understand the actions of the characters. Everything is showed instead of told, which really gives the whole series a style that others lack, as far as I've seen.

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Why waste a few “have a good match” lines when you can animate a brofist?



Personal Observations:

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I like how the custom effects are like a the efforts TheRedHeadHenry takes in order to build up a world. Sure, like many other sprite series, he takes his inspiration from Dragon Ball Z, and his other works show it even more than this one. But despite that, I really liked the fact that he tries to make characters stand on their own.

Take Red, for example. Several hints show that this specific character is inspired by Trainer Red from the Pokemon series: by his name, his tremendous power, his calm yet confident behavior and the fact that whenever he's around, remixes of Pokemon music play as he fights. And speaking of music, TheRedHeadHenry also shows that he uses music only when the situation deems it necessary, which means never during tournament, but always when an external, unforeseen event unfolds (Red's first appearance, the side-story with Erk, etc). In my opinion, this makes the soundtrack used during the videos much more memorable, especially during the big moments.


Sooo there you have it! That's Red's Tournaments. As we speak, the 4th and final Tournament is currently being held (right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04xb5jSWKIs), and as usual, the quality has improved quite a lot since last time.

Oh, and if you want a sample of what it looks like, here's one!

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(You can skip to 0:39 for the actual match, the rest is a parody of Dragon Ball Z)

That being said, I hope this was enjoyable! See you around, m'dears!
"Is there a limit to how much living I can live with my life? How will I know if I've gone too far?
And why did I spend my life savings on sunglasses for a whale?
I shall find the answers... to these questions."
  








Everything’s edible if you’re immortal.
— Feltrix