Originally begun as a forum discussion podcast by the cast and creators of the Audio Play The Heroic Tale of Heroically Heroic Heroes, The Heroic Review is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The group of the week get together to discuss a subject pertaining to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Originally, this only included notable fanfiction within the fandom but has since expanded to reviews of the show's episodes (starting with Season 4, as that was the most recent season as of the start of the podcast) and more recently the short subjects released for the upcoming sequel to My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
The show was birthed during a Skype chat between cast members of the audio play when someone innocently asked the question, "What's your favorite fanfic?" The opinions were varied, to say the least, and it sparked the idea to start up a forum discussion in which a single piece of work is examined by the group where they point out its strengths, weaknesses, and how it relates to tropes from the show and its fandom at large. Deadly Reg, voice actor for the character of Mr. Waddle, acts as the moderator for the chat, attempting to keep some semblance of order during the discussions, even though at times, it doesn't work out that well.
Being that it is a forum discussion show, and the cast of the audio play is quite large, the show will often not have the exact same cast of commentators for two episodes in a row. Even the size of the group changes quite a bit, with some episodes having as few as three people while others can have as many as nine. A few examples of the people who participate include:
- Deadly Reg
- Obab Scribbler
- PDK
- Goombasa
- Reverb Brony
- The Lost Narrator
- Swedely
- Webshoter
- Theatre Freak 7
- Cider Barrel
- Illya Leonov
- itsannachloem
- Brained By Saucepans
- Deft Funk
- IM Shadow 007
- Grey Ramos
- Greg
The first ever episode was released on October 10th, 2013, and can be viewed here.
Not to be confused with the audio play that helped spawn the project. That has its own page, with its own tropes.
The web video series provides examples of:
- The Artifact: The participants are asked to share the role that they play in The Heroic Tale of Heroically Heroic Heroes in their first appearance on an episode of Heroic Review, with subsequent appearances each participant just give a quick greeting before the discussion begins.
- Berserk Button: The Lost Narrator does not like Breezies. Not. One. Bit.
- Catchphrase: "Hello, and welcome to the Heroic Review! I am your moderator, Deadly Reg, and this week I am joined by..."
- PDK's Korean greeting and goodbye also counts.
- Disappointed in You: The general consensus the group has towards the Rainbow Rocks shorts, as the first got them very excited and interested, but as the shorts continue to come out, they become more and more disappointed until they begin outright scolding Hasbro for the decisions made with the Equestria Girls brand.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first episode was recorded via a Skype call, so the audio quality is a bit strange at times compared with later episodes that record using the program Mumble. It's also clear that some of the flow and formula that the other episodes adhere to hadn't been nailed down for the first episode.
- Ensemble Cast: As noted in the description above, due to the nature of the format, the cast is rarely the exact same from episode to episode. The size of the cast and who is present for each episode changes every time.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Their 'short' review of Pinkie On The One goes on for about twenty four minutes. At the halfway mark, they stop talking about the short itself to deliver a long speech about why the Equestria Girls spinoff is so at odds with G4 ponies in general and why Hasbro's handling of it could be seen as a very negative sign for the franchise. There's even a warning about the sudden shift in topic in the video's description.
- Guest Host: While Deadly Reg acts as the host for a majority of the reviews, he has been absent from a few, and during those, one of the other panelists take his place for the episode. These include:
- Swedely in the Maud Pie review
- Goombasa in the reviews of Daring Don't and Testing, Testing, 123
- Scribbler in the review of Hamstocalypse Now.
- The Idealist: Goombasa. He starts most reviews stating that he liked the thing in question and even when a flaw is brought up with the episode, he's pretty forgiving most of the time. This holds true for pretty much every Season 4 Episode Review that he takes part in. The Hasbro Studio shorts promoting My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks seem to be testing his optimism, however...
- Once an Episode: Aside from the Catchphrase mentioned above, another recurring theme that gets brought up in every episode review is the admiration for the animation of the show. In fact, it gets brought up so often that later episodes end up lampshading how often they praise it.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Inconsistently used for the more profane language. Inconsistent because sometimes an F-bomb is censored, sometimes it isn't.
- Squee: Swedely's reaction to Derpy's triumphant return in the Rainbow Falls review.
