While probably few people following my VN-related writing know that, for quite a long time I had a peculiar relationship with the brony fandom. Being brought into the community by my RL friend, a popular fan-artist working under the pseudonym Pony-Berserker, I’ve written a few dozens of My Little Pony comic scripts and, more importantly, based my master’s thesis on researching the fandom – more specifically, exploring the bizarre world of MLP fan erotica. While my current involvement with Bronies is minor at best, I’ve decided to commemorate both my previous and current hobbies by reviewing the humble catalogue of My Little Pony visual novels – in this post, and the one two weeks from now, I will go through pretty much all VN-style fan games made by bronies that are currently available in English, which is just around a dozen titles, including large demos and trials. So, if you have the courage, please join me in this bizarre adventure through the world of shipping, bad fanfiction and, maybe, some genuinely interesting, imaginative VN project within the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic universe!
The MLP visual novel scene seems to be a hell of demos, dropped projects and never-ending development limbos. Some of the most notable games in this niche suffered from perpetual delays or straight-up died halfway through the production cycle, and Welcome to Ponyville might be the best-known among the latter. After releasing a substantial demo in mid-2012, the team behind quickly started becoming more and more silent, and after two years with no meaningful updates, the chances of the project being finished were clearly gone. The already available first episode, however, is still quite an interesting piece of content that is arguably worth experiencing on its own. Telling the story of a pony arriving to Ponyville to settle within the town (you can choose the protagonist’s gender and the breed of pony they represent), it showcases some of the most notable achievements of the brony fandom: art that very closely resembles that of the show, both in style and quality, and full voice acting that faithfully mimics the original voice cast of Friendship is Magic.
The 1,5h-long demo is mostly composed of casual, amusing SoL scenes in which the protagonist organizes his stay in Ponyville and takes odd jobs, while meeting the Mane 6 (brony term for the 6 main characters of the show: Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Fluttershy), along with various other inhabitants of the town. At the same time, the game introduces Silent Hill-like, disturbing dream sequences, suggesting there’s something sinister hiding underneath the fluffy surface… While we’ll never know in which direction this project would go exactly and I would normally not recommend wasting time on approaching unfinished games, Welcome to Ponyville shows the creativity of the MLP fandom at its finest and give a taste of what we could’ve got if more of its energy went into projects of this kind.
Part Time Job is a pretty well-known horror game, very much in the same spirit as famous “shock fics” such as Cupcakes or Sweet Apple Massacre. Sadly, I think it has more in common in the latter rather than the former – for those not familiar with MLP fan fiction, the story of Cupcakes used the well-established tropes and parts of the setting, twisting the inherent unpredictability and borderline-insanity of Pinkie Pie into a homicidal obsession. What made it fun to read (obviously, if you enjoy this kind of macabre) was exactly the way it played on actual MLP lore, twisting it, but not completely ignoring the most important elements of the setting. Sweet Apple Massacre, on the other hand, made Big Mac, one of the most gentle and loyal characters in the show, into a psychopathic murderer, which was simply completely disconnected from the original character and for that reason, not particularly interesting. The game we’re talking about now suffers from a similar problem, not really getting what makes this kind of transformation or parody work.
Part Time Job features an original character, a failed artist named Pastel Sketch, looking for a job after going broke due to no one buying her work. After going through a few heavily-foreshadowing offers, she decides to answer the one about becoming an aid at a local hospital. To her surprise, the hospital turns out to be a mental institution, run by none other than Fluttershy, and soon after she accepts for the job various disturbing things start to happen. To not spoil too much, while the game plays on most obvious characteristics of the MLP cast and well-known parts of the brony fanon, it’s all pretty shallow and inconsistent. With Mane 6 treating each other like strangers, villain’s behaviour and motivations making no sense, Part Time Job’s main entertainment value lies in its over-the-top silliness and grotesque moments. Those are good enough to make the 1-hour time investment reasonable (that’s how much you need to pretty much 100% the game), but not to actually make it good. With production quality and writing being similarly basic, it’s somewhat worth it for the fans, but just barely. Although, I guess considering how few MLP VNs there are, beggars can’t be choosers…
My Little Investigations is one of a few Ace Attorney-inspired MLP fan projects, but definitely the most technically impressive and ambitious one. Following closely the formula of Miles Edgeworth Investigations games, the demo offers one impressively-crafted case, well-embedded in show’s lore and aesthetic. What surprised me the most though was the quality of voice-acting – the fans mimicking voices of both the main cast and the supporting characters were for the most part brilliant, to the point it would be very easy to convince me that I’m looking at an official product licensed by Hasbro (only some jokes and dialogue lines breaking the illusion, not because of their low quality, but by referencing the MLP fanon in a way no official release ever would). The general quality of the gameplay, animation and writing don’t fall far behind, making for a genuinely impressive package.
Of course, we are talking about an MLP fan game, so it won’t surprise anyone that the game will quite likely forever stay at its introductory chapter, with the team behind it going silent over a year ago. If it gets finished, however, it has all the necessary elements to become a genuinely great game, that would be worth looking at not only for the hardcore fans of the show, while the first case, even though in large parts a tutorial level, is still quite a compelling piece of content. Whether we'll ever ger more, only time will tell…
Final Rating: Highly Recommended
Shipping is undeniably one of the primary pastimes for bronies and this, above all, involves fans making pairings between the members of the main cast (which are, quite obviously, all females/mares). Of the MLP fanfiction archives, you’ll find pretty much an unlimited mass of work involving such scenarios, pretty much in all possible configurations and levels of explicity. And while I was never that much of a fan of the practice itself (and especially making pairing out of friends from the canon felt pretty dull), many MLP pairings, if they’re not taken into the uncomfortable, R34 territories, have a bit of a similar charm that I enjoy in more traditional yuri – they can be extremely cute and heartwarming.
The Difference Between Us, a short slice of life VN involving a relationship between Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, have all of those qualities, coupled with surprisingly solid writing and a lot of variety in choices and endings. It’s visually crude and falls victim to some of the issues typical of shipping fan fiction (if the pair the story focuses on is a couple, everyone’s a couple – why limit yourself to just one ship when you can sail an armada?), but still manages to tell a lovely, mild romantic story, while mostly staying true to the original characters and never going into truly creepy territories. It’s the kind of VN which allows the reader to forget about the inherent weirdness of the MLP setting and immerse themselves fully in the pleasant narrative. While definitely not for those that find lesbian horse romance a bit too extreme of a concept, it’s a small and rather charming experience that I can quite confidently recommend.
Final Rating: Recommended
How could this list be truly complete without some bizarre piece of self-insert, crossover fanfiction VN? While it might not be the Sonic’s Ultimate Harem or any other, similar masterpiece, J5’s debut in visual novels combines well-known anime characters (alongside his own anime-style OCs) with MLP – a mix that really makes my disgusting, brony/weeb-hybrid heart grow fonder. Putting my edgy commentary aside for a moment, the actual content of this VN (based on an extremely-obscure webtoon by the same name) is not as universally horrible as I’ve expected, having a few borderline funny moments and amusing interpretations of the “borrowed” characters. The production quality is, however, quite abysmal, both in visuals and writing (I guess president Trump doesn’t have a monopoly on random capitalizations and alternative grammar). Also, the aforementioned aspects of self-insert power fantasy, coupled with the weird romantic plot, are pretty uncomfortable to watch.
So if you ever felt like playing a humanized version of Sonic the Hedgehog who’s close friends with Pinkie Pie and gets caught in a love triangle between Haruhi Suzumiya and author’s anime OC, I guess this game got you covered. It’s probably also worth mentioning that this is one of two VNs I’ve found that featured fully-humanized versions of MLP ponies, although sadly, this time it’s a very minor bonus at best...
Final Rating: Not Recommended
Making a dating game in which you can romance various character from the source medium is one of the more obvious ways to approach fan-fiction VN and Pony Amnesia is maybe the most straightforward attempt by brony creators at doing just that. A pony protagonist without memories, only with slight hints at originally being a human, is dumped by the outskirts of Ponyville and soon starts interacting with the Mane 6. With an upcoming festival, he gets many occasions to mingle with the residents (including mild flirting), earns favours by helping them out, and settles in, while more clues about his lost identity arrive over time. All this is portrayed with slightly off-looking, but serviceable art and decent writing, and a promise of romance routes not only for the main characters from the show, but also supporting ones such as Trixie or Big Mac. Also, the full version means to include a protagonist gender choice, which, in the case you play as a female, would make it mostly a yuri VN (and that always makes my heart grow fonder).
That’s, at least, what was promised over five years ago, at the time of demo’s release. In the meantime, the project went through multiple deaths and revivals, but seems to be alive and steadily progressing for the past year or so. While the curse of MLP visual novel development never truly relents, there’s a decent chance that we’ll see the final version of this game in 2019 – and while there’s little reason to think it’ll be a masterpiece, it might be a fairly satisfying SoL/mystery VN for the fans of the show and the demo is interesting enough to be worth taking a look at – that is, if the self-insert romantic stories with ponies don’t freak you out.
Final Rating: Recommended
The world of MLP VNs is not only a mess of long-forgot and unfinished projects, but it’s also surprisingly poorly documented and archived. While doing research for this post, it took me quite a lot of time and help from others to both catalogue everything I'm writing about, and to get my hand on copies of some of these games. The final result was, however, much more varied and interesting than I actually expected and I'd consider at least some of the titles I'ver written about today as pleasant surprises. Two weeks from now, I’ll have another six reviews for you all and despite what I believed earlier, it seems there are still notable MLP VN projects being worked on, with a decent chance of at least two coming out this year. While the brony fandom itself is definitely losing steam (especially now, since the announcement of the end of Friendship is Magic TV show), the creativity that once brought me into it is still not completely gone and maybe, one day, I’ll be able to make a meaningful follow-up to this series. For now, I hope you enjoyed this little trip into the bizarre world of pony fan fiction and that I’ll see you again in two weeks, on the second half of my coverage. Have a lovely weekend everyone!
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