Feng Huo Zhan Ji

Overview:
The red star, a barren planet where Tianzhu Society Intelligence Base Commander Hayate and his sworn brother Spark are on a mission to defeat the Golden Army, a self governing military that overrun Chihua Town. One of humanity's last mining settlements has become the interest of external powers and the presence of an artifact causes several factions to collide and even cause Hayate and Spark to separate in the midst of conflict. In this planet, we don't know right from wrong or good from evil. Only time will tell when the true enemy is revealed.

Story & Characters:
Feng Huo Zhan Ji is a story that doesn't ... work in a linear format in the way typical stories would play out step by step. As a result, the beginning is very confusing and there aren't any explanations or elaborations on specific key story indicators that make it easier to understand what's going on. Even until the end there is are a lot of details missed out that could have been explained well. The Heavenly 'artifact' that is supposed to have almighty powers isn't fully revealed until the later half of the story yet the characters mention it several times in the earlier half which leaves the viewer in disarray to new details thrust into the mix. Although it did somewhat okay in its execution excluding certain details in order to create a mysterious plot line and characters, there's no point when it's so disconnected that it becomes difficult to understand the character's goals.

Character development could definitely be better. The characters felt 1 dimensional ever since the beginning it doesn't feel like they grow onto the viewer. In episode 1 when we're introduced to Hayate his character feels abruptly introduced so it is hard to view the series in his shoes despite him being the series lead. I think the aim for the characters were to be more like real life drama TV series and it does well at developing characters in that context but in an animation/anime/donghua context it leaves a lot to be desired.

Sound & Animation:
The quality of this donghua is crazy, the visuals are definitely high fidelity motion captured and it's noticeable a lot of effort was put in to make this series on the more realistic side. Some frames felt like a TV show especially how some mimic a handheld shot following characters like Hayate or Spark as while they are in action sequences. I really enjoyed the animation quality and colors of this donghua, they really showed the grit of combat well.

Sound is decent, it's discernable that the budget wasn't focused on sound effects since I noticed a few stock SFX like Grandpa Bai's grandson when his stomach rumbled. The sound FX was taken from a stock source and used without modification in the episode (I think it was around episode 11-14) The voice acting was fairly decent, the audio clarity was there but character emotions could be better portrayed especially in characters like Rain man and Meng Xuan who despite feel monotone could benefit with expressed VA.

Overall & Enjoyment:
The visuals made it worth the watch and in my opinion carried the lackluster story and characters. The ending definitely felt sour since there were so many internal conflict and arguments that it distracted from the climax between Pillar's elders and Hayate but also including characters like Sun and Spark.