Hello All, since Trainer Eying this SubReddit I've noticed not an Ton of FunFuns Vidya Gaming Opinions. Thusly I Volunteered as Tribute Summon ta hear from you all. I wanna hear what you think about my Vidya Opinions that'd Start Fights. And what are your's? These are Titles that are Universally Praised or I know that are scored Perfectly that I just disagree or find later entries better:
Super Mario 64, I vastly prefer Super Mario 3D World. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Ternina did it better Legend of Zelda: Oracles of Ages is much better than Legend of Zelda: An Link to the Past( adore Legend of Zelda: An Link Between Worlds though) Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 3 blows it out Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime II: Echoes is cooler Kanto, Johto, Hoenn are just fine yet.Sinnoh dominates and Unova styles all over them. Alola too is so much cooler. Super Smash Bros..Melee, Brawl and Smash 4 just have better Content and Nostalgia Factors (Smash 4 better GamePlay Brawl with the SoundTracks and course Story Mode) Final Fantasy VII is Booty, the stupidest entry ever right next ta Final Fantasy X. The Blessest ones be the Nintendo Original (evidence with Nobuo Uematsu creating Final Fantasy IX) Final Fantasy VIII was much better than it. And Final Fantasy IX is the Greatest Sony one they had a long with Final Fantasy Tactics. Final Fantasy XII is as amazing now with Zodiac Age as it were when it first Launched.
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Only liked The Second Smash as an Child. When Brawl came out I Played every Weekend till Smash 4 Launched. Double for Smash 4 dated someone whom even got ta obsessively Play Teams Battle with. Kanto is Trash. Johto is Barren. Hoenn is mad fun but you are silly if you think it olds an Litwick ta Sinnoh or Unova Perfection and the insanity that was Alola. Grew up with Super Mario64, I hated it. I vastly preferred Banjo-Kazooie and Crash Bandicoot. None of them held ta Bomberman though. I have just as many Wins on Super Mario World as I do Super Mario Bros. 3, the PowerUps do it Plus I like that Multi-Player better with the 1-Up Exchanges. And Super Mario Bros. 3 gave the Blessest Sequels ever and the Controversy from that Animal Rights Group. Same for Unova too. But serious note, Dinosaur Land was mad fun but I liked Mushroom Kingdom the Play better. Tanooki Suit over Cape Feather. All the Suits over the conventional PowerUps. Both pale ta Super Mario Galaxy however. Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is the Greatest. Nothing the previous did tops. It might've had less Dungeons but the Time Limit Shenanigans made them go into the Zone with crafting Termina.
Broke into Two Parts. I had way more.but Reddit is acting up. I'll post in Comments if ya'll wanna Read.
B
Indi’s MLP exploration is the honest account of a first-time watch of the MLP series, initially initiated by curiousness towards the enthusiastic adult fan culture, and continued because of pure enjoyment of the series and the awesome community. Oh hi! I’m back!
As some of you noticed I was gone from the fandom for a few months, due to non-related things. But here I am, and jumping right into season 3.
Well, to be exact, I did jump into it earlier already, as I watched these first few episodes right after season 2 and wrote the review of Crystal Empire before my hiatus, and just now rewatched the next episodes to properly write those reviews. I’ll probably be speeding up my pace here, which will mean shorter reviews, at least for uninteresting episodes. Hopefully the reviews still remain at least mildly enjoyable. I’m perhaps aiming to catch up with the series before season 5 airs, so hey, this is a perfect opportunity for you to join me in rewatching S3 and S4 before the new episodes start arriving! All aboard the rewatch train! Yey!
S03E01 The Crystal Empire, part 1 Heeere we go! Season 3, opening with a two-parter bearing an impressive title! I wonder when in the season we get back to Cadance and... huh. Well that was fast.
We open right away with some impressive royal fantasy foreboding about “it” returning, which, after another adorable Twilight geekout, turns out to be The Crystal Empire. So over thousand years ago an evil unicorn, King Sombrero or somesuch, took over the Crystal Empire but was banished to the ice of arctic north (by properly the properly awesome sister duo Tia and Luna, it seems), but before that he managed to make the place disappear. But now it's back, for some mysterious reason, and suddenly Equestria is apparently somehow very dependent on what sort of power takes hold in there. Which is quite weird, but then again, it's a good idea not to let evil retake the place anyway, whether it matters to Equestria or not, so whatever then. And this is all properly epic!
Only, Celestia gets a sudden god-complex (perhaps she feel a need to assert her power after the failure at the wedding) and makes it Twilight's mission to reclaim the place for hope and love. Even calls it a "test", and stresses that Twilight must be the one and only to fix it, not anyone else! Which is weird, to put it mildly, considering Equestria seems to be on the line (well, according to Celestia, anyway). At least Luna seems to have a shard of common sense left, and objects to this, wanting to assist Twilight, but no, Celestia will not have any of it. Though this dissent does makes it easier on my disbelief suspension, it also makes it even more weird since it establishes it is even canonically a strange thing to do from Celestia. This is no longer a problem of the world, it becomes a problem of Celestia’s character, which is worse, in my opinion.
If indeed, it is a problem at all. So, What in Equestria is Celestia up to, here? Something strange is going on... and then I get it. This is really a reverse test on Twilight, whether she will ignore the rules of the test to save Equestria! But... in that case it would also make Celestia an immediate failure of the same test, putting her own rule before the safety of Equestria and Crystal Empire. So, this hopefully means, there must be something else going on in here. We’ll see.
And another empire! With, I assume, foreign customs and attitudes! Yes, yes, let’s explore, yes!
But it seems Twilight wasn’t prepared for this. Well, true, she wasn’t, practically speaking. But come on, she totally is! Has she even watched the show? Oh well, I’ll allow for her quest angst, it suits her character and it is after all rather natural reaction. Only it is just kind of hard to relate to, even with the song, which incidentally also makes the song fall a bit emotionally flat.
Things get properly intensified as the questing party only barely escapes the shadowy forces of King Sombre. The ominous feeling of a cold threat looming just outside the force field provides a very epic setting indeed. We then get to Rarity’s shiny daydream that is the Crystal Empire, which really turns out to be more like the Crystal City, but um, I guess an Empire sure sounds cooler, right? Also, it’s awfully quiet. The only one actually here seems to be poor Cadance, who's all worn out! Well, it seems her magic has to be quite powerful, though, since this time she’s the one keeping up the force field, as Shiny’s overpowered force field magic is was (kind of clumsily) nerfed to take him out of the picture. Of course, it’s said to be some soft of a love and light thing, not protection spell, but it sure looks a lot like the exact one her husband used to protect Canterlot. Alas, there’s not much time! Onwards, we must make haste!
Then, we enter crpg/adventure game mode. Which isn’t really what I enjoy in my non-interactive fiction. And this seems to be a badly written game, even. The dazed Crystal NPC’s provide only standard background information, don’t have proper personalities, and the questing just progresses steadily from one stage to another. Crystal ponies provide a clue to the library, which in turn provides the clue to the Cystal Faire. The show tries to make it all fun with the different creative approaches of the six, but the humor isn’t enough to fix the boring progression of the plot. We get yet another song that feels a bit off, and onward we go to yet another part of the quest, recreating the celebration, which then in turn provides the next quest of obtaining the Crystal Heart.
Luckily there’s a sudden difference now, as the stakes become higher as Cadance finally runs out of strength, and the king of shadows begins his full attack on the Crystal City! Yes, this changes things!
S03E02 The Crystal Empire, part 2 ... only, not. Well, that was the most stupid cliffhanger ever, then. Ok, well sure, a part of Mr. Shadowy Shadow did get in, but still.
Twilight continues on her questing while everyone else tries to use silly tricks to keep the crystal ponies away from the fake main attraction.
And then, after rejecting the help she was offered, Twilight finds herself opening a door that leads to... Canterlot! What? And there’s Celestia... and she’s not pleased. Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Now I understand! This indeed was all a test to Twilight! There is no Crystal Empire, it was an illusion created by Celestia to test if Twilight will do the right thing and rely on her friends even against the rules... and she failed! This is why it all felt like a bad adventure game, because it indeed was a game created by Celestia!
But what is she... oh, that’s just mean! Right... so it’s not Celestia obviously. Ok, so that was just the illusion of a good episode passing by. Twilight is in some sort of “your worst fear”-trap instead, Spike to the rescue.
And then Cadance finally fails, for real this time, and Sombra returns and Twilight finally does have to give up her pride in order to save the empire. And all is good and crystaley and sparkly again.
Oh, no, wait! But did she pass Celestia’s test? Because that’s what’s really important here, right? Right?
Well she did, of course.
Oh whatever.
S03E03 Too Many Pinkie Pies Well, this fun little episode sure is... well, fun.
Pinkie sure likes her fun. Enough to dare access to a funny funfun cloning pond, filled with what I expect to be Phlebotnium, soon to be forgotten by the gods of continuity. But I don’t actually mind that, since I can mentally separate a one-off fun creation from a proper continuity plot device.
Absolutely love the continuity nod at Dash still enjoying Daring Do books! Also the very short crazyface of a doomed duplicate Pinkie was an awesome reference too! And of course, lampshading how Pinkie always sends reality out to lunch is simply enjoyable. There’s a nice theme of having your cake and eating it and all that, and it doesn’t even come off too preachy. Sure, pouring more fun into an episode by filling it with more Pinkies seemed like a stupid idea at first, but hey, it works!
At the end the way the real Pinkie is dug up is of course quite a mess. It works in itself, but seriously, these aren’t supposed to be stupid ponies, and it is from the start rather obvious that the real Pinkie knows stuff the others don’t. They could just ask. And there would’ve been some serious emotional strings dangling around to be pulled, too! I mean, Pinkie getting all mopey was rather adorable, and if the way of discovery would’ve used that in some way, as in, only the real Pinkie gets so sad and distressed because of never seeing her friends, well, throw in a tiny reference to Pinkamena and tears would’ve been guaranteed. Oh well, the ending still manages to be cute.
S03E04 One Bad Apple An educational story about bullying. Uh. Yeah.
It’s rather obvious. The Crusaders go overboard with their expectations, only to see them crumble. They then proceed to become bullies themselves in retribution, becoming themselves what they despise. Sigh. I guess it’s sort of a valid lesson, but it oversimplifies a complex thing. Also, in reality (and in good fiction) bullies usually have some reason to be bullies, they’re not just random mean outsiders like Babs... I mean, it’s just not interesting storytelling to have these random characters like Babs to be just empty facades, even throwaways should be invested in to make the audience relate to the character dynamics instead of a oversimplified us versus them mentality of... um, what was that you said AJ? What do you mean Babs... Oh!
Ok, well, so Babs actually manages to be a mildly interesting character by the end of it, and it’s yet again nice to see the Crusaders doing something else than cutiehunting. And discounting the Babs reveal, the story still is actually interesting enough to follow, even if it manages to, at times, seep of some overripe educationalness. Also, the nice surprise song is indeed a nice surprise. The Crusaders do have fun songs!
Additionally, and perhaps especially after the previous episode, it’s good to get the six cast again in the grownup frame of reference.That’s the best thing about the Crusaders, they provide an interesting alternate context for the six. Well, ok, Pinkie was still lettucing a bit instead of being very grownuppey. But then again I guess she always is, and I guess we love her for it.
Questions for the Herd - Did you feel like the Crystal Empire was annoyingly distant and separate, and sort-of clumsily glued in?
- Did the plot progression of the Crystal Empire feel unusually dull to you?
- Were there too many Pinkies? How many is too many? How many were there? Can there ever be too many Pinkies? Or is even one Pinkie too many Pinkies? How about half-a-Pinkie? Which half?
- Did you expect Babs to be just a random meanie before the reveal at the end? (That is, I hope I’m not the only one who didn’t notice the, in retrospect, rather obvious clues that Babs had more depth to her character...)
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