Thursday 27 October 2016

Text Review Roundup: "To Where and Back Again"

Starlight Glimmer and freaking-out Trixie
We could have done with that spell back in "Boast Busters" and "Magic Duel"...
This will be the last episode TRR for a while, though there'll be one for Legend of Everfree, which I'll try to get up before too long. The Season Six finale went down very well among people I talked to, although the manner of the changeling reformation wasn't universally adored. Here's what the text-based reviewers made of the episode. We have the biggest range of opinions I've ever seen, though it was pretty easy to predict where the lowest scores would come from.

Sadly, Articles of Destroyer and Batbrony Reviews have not updated to cover the finale – indeed, AoD hasn't posted anything since "Where the Apple Lies" – but I've added Mercury-Ami to the mix. (Adit: and Analysis is Magic, too.)

Analysis is Magic – largely positive ("To suggest that the Changelings are 'ruined' ... is, I think, to misunderstand the central themes of the show")

ArthurCrane – very positive ("this episode kicks all the butts")

Derpy News – extremely positive (graded A; "something different and amazing")

Louder Yay – very positive (four stars; "in the upper echelons of S6")

Mercury-Ami – wildly positive (graded A+; "the show's best episode since Twilight's Kingdom")

MLEEP Reviews – wildly positive (rated 10/10; "knocks it out of the park")

The Railfan Brony Blog – spectacularly negative (rated minus 10/10; "the smoking crater of MLP's drop in quality")

The Super Mario Brony Blog – spectacularly negative (rated minus five stars; "this atrocity of a season finale")

Super Recaps – mixed (great first half but "payoff just didn’t come together")

TheDragonWarlock – fairly positive (graded B; "nowhere near the awesomeness of Twilight’s Kingdom, but it is a step up from the last season finale")

Thrond Media Pony Corner – positive (rated 83%; "solid characterization ... well-written dialogue ... a really enjoyable episode")

10 comments:

  1. Look like The Raifan and Super Mario are friends or something, their opinions about Starlight related episode are identical :D, i just see one of them and can predict the others. Their blogs have wierd background colors hurt my eyes so much, i cant read their blog for over 1 minute :D.
    Are they same person? LOL. I can predict their score rating for any Starlight-related episode in the future, a zero, but this time is negative 5 ? even more ridiculous. I can confirm they are Starlight haters, not a reviewer, not at all...

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    1. Honestly, I did ask myself whether to continue including those guys in TRR, since they're basically never going to like any Starlight episode ever. In the end, I decided to continue to include them, since I don't want to give the impression of ignoring reviews I don't agree with. It is getting a bit boring, though, like if I always gave every Fluttershy episode ever five stars.

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    2. Nah, I see many worse than those guys, like Digibro's Twilight Kingdom, MrEnter's Cutie Remark, Voice of Reason's Do Princess Dream of Magic Sheep, Lily Peet's Crusader of the Lost Mark, those guys are nothing compare to THESE GUYS LOL :D. Negativity make me strong...

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    3. It's just their opinions. I'm sure they've tried to give Starlight a chance, that doesn't mean they're "not a reviewer." I mean, I've tried to give Starlight a chance but with every chance I still haven't liked her, does that automatically make me a "hater?"

      How would you like it if you hated one of my favorite characters and I tried to claim you weren't a reviewer or something?

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    4. I'm the Super Mario Brony here and the Railfan Brony and I are NOT the same person. If we were, both blogs would say Baby Cakes is awful, or Crusaders of the Lost Mark and The Cutie Mark Chronicles are still good. So no. We're not the same person. And yes, we've given Starlight every chance, but she just can't do it. Sure A Hearth's Warming Tail is okay, but she really needs to be redeveloped and become another Discord instead of Sunset.

      Seriously though, Zack and I are doing a collab post soon on what NOT to do when writing an episode.

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    5. And hey, it's not our problem you don't like or agree with our opinion. It's your own!

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    6. Hey, I'm okay with it. I have various unpopular opinions of my own (eg that "A Bird in the Hoof" is massively underrated) so I know what it's like. I doubt I'll ever actually agree with you about Starlight, but as people often say -- if we all had the same opinions, there'd be no point in reviews anyway!

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  2. I know Mercury-Ami. They once compared the way some characters in the new Sailor Moon anime seemed like Starlight (when she was evil) controlled them, as in that anime they had no personalities.

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    1. Well, I have almost zero knowledge of anime, so I'll miss that sort of reference, but never mind. :P

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