My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

I just watched another Jd G video, and I'm amazed at how bad the (NES version of the) first Metal Gear game was.

Also Platoon, where the game apparently dumps you into a huge maze where every screen looks identical. You don't even need to speak any French to understand that part. Just skip to 4:45 or so to see the maze in its full glory.

edited 5th Feb '16 7:16:11 PM by storyyeller

Old video games: Where developers could put in whatever the heck they felt like without any regard for decent game design or playability.

This might sound crazy but can I mention something pony related?

Sure

Not that I'm not thrilled to hear someone leveling that accusation at old games for once, but that isn't the exclusive territory of older games. Certainly, a lot of flubs made it out in those days, primarily due to the fact that Game Design was very much a burgeoning skillset, but there are plenty of games released these days that have very inept design in one way or another. Not Large releases, generally, but back in the day pretty much every company was Indie, so the Indie scene therefore becomes a good representative of the nature of the beast.

But I just want to reiterate that man is it ever refreshing to see someone calling out old games for Bad Design, and not harping on about "Games today" this and "Modern Gaming" that, like some time travelling geriatric who skipped the lineup to complain about new things before anyone else.

THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!

I FEEL ASLEEP.

Modern games definitely have their issues, but it seems like the problems are different now than they were then. Like in that video, a large, impossible to navigate maze like that wouldn't even make it out of the planning stages nowadays. But you look at the likes of Sonic '06 or Ride to Hell and you get shoddy design work and rampant glitches, but you can still at least see some semblance of effort was put into planning. Neither one is worse than the other and it's not concrete, but it's definitely a trend I noticed.

edited 5th Feb '16 7:37:22 PM by LordVatek

There's like an entire cottage industry of online reviewers complaining about terrible old games. Though I suppose a lot of them have suffered Network Decay.

@Vatek: Definitely. A lot, if not the majority, of issues with Modern Games come down to scope. Like, with the amount of things that get packed into modern games, it's incredibly difficult to efficiently teach every feature, necessitating clunky tutorial popups. That's a comparatively small issue to the bugs, though - which are also to do with Scope. I'm a tester myself, and I can tell you with almost complete certainty that those bugs were found, but the companies simply didn't have the time to fix them before the game went out the door.

CHANGE OF SUBJECT! *ahem*

When you first saw "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", how many of you thought the episode would focus exclusively be on the Cutie Mark Crusaders being campaign managers for the school election? Were you surprised that the election was over when the show got back from commercial break? Then again, it's hard not to notice the voting booth during the "Vote for Pip" song...

edited 5th Feb '16 7:45:45 PM by DS9guy

Definitely. The episode skipped through a lot of plots, each of which would make interesting episodes in their own right. I found it kind of similar to a Simpsons episode, actually - one conflict lead to another conflict which lead to a third conflict, and that lead to the actual subject of the episode. It was, strictly speaking, necessary to actually get to the point where the subject of the episode felt natural, but it's still strange. As much as I love that episode, the fact that it has like, three plots is a bit of a negative point in my opinion.

I was slightly surprised that the voting plot was over so quickly, but then I thought, Wow, this really is shaping up to be a second "Magical Mystery Cure". Should have seen that coming.

Mostly, I was just amused to see SS call out DT on the way she treated her best friend.

My enthusiasm for the episode was also tempered by the fact that, at the time, I was writing a redemption/shipping story for Silver Spoon. That took place two years after the show.

So I was like, "Shit, how do I justify them still being bullies two years later? Whatever, backsliding happens I guess".

I figured there was more to it. I expected the CM Cs to get their Cutie Marks due to the S5 character poster and the fact that this was the only CMC episode for the rest of the season and thought that the election which wasn't the right kind of plot for that. Once the election ended and the focus shifted to DT, I was able to figure it out from there. Though I was taken aback by how fast they flew through the plot.

edited 5th Feb '16 8:22:25 PM by LordVatek

I was completely surprised.

I'd heard something about DT getting fleshed out so I knew the election wasn't going to take the whole episode. Didn't expect the second plot shift, of course.

Did anyone notice how Diamond Tiara acted when she confronted Silver Spoon about not voting for her? She could have been all angry and saying things like "HOW DARE YOU VOTE FOR PIPSQUEAK!" Instead, she looks absolutely devastated. Her expression shows true feelings of sadness and betrayal.

Don't get me wrong. The verbal beat down by Silver Spoon was well deserved but it should also be seen as the beginning of DT's turn since her bad behavior has made her lose her best friend as well as the election and all she can do is scream in frustration and run off.

edited 5th Feb '16 8:36:47 PM by DS9guy

That's the problem with the musical episodes. It might have been better if it was an hour-long thing, but with like six songs that each fill multiple minutes of time, the plot has to go by fast.

My reaction was much the same as Meta's. I was surprised the first time I watched it, but once I figured out what it was doing it made sense. It really is basically "MMC for the CMC". It has the same "takes an interesting plot and sidelines it for the sake of a major plot development and is also a musical". I like the concept, but I do think the episode was a bit rushed and burned through a lot of potentially interesting content really quickly.

As for old games, I feel like they were just as flawed as new games, it's just that the flaws lie in different areas of development. Yeah, there are lots of crappy old games (E.T. comes to mind), but there are also quite a few of them that stand up today despite the technological limitations because they were so well designed.

In completely unrelated news, here's a picture of my two batches of cheese◊. The one in the bowl in the first batch. It's firmer because it was in the fridge for a few hours, so I broke it up a bit. The other one is fresher and is still being drained.

edited 5th Feb '16 8:50:17 PM by JapaneseTeeth

Speaking of old games, I just came across the TV Tropes articles about the 90's Jump Start games. Ah, the nostalgia.

I played the heck out of 3rd grade (beating the entire game once and getting three fifths of the way through another playthrough). I got it in a two pack with 4th grade, but that was way too scary for me.

I also played 5th grade a bit at school, but I didn't actually own the game, so I didn't get much opportunity to play it and didn't make it very far.

edited 5th Feb '16 9:32:41 PM by storyyeller

I played the crap out of the 4th and 5th grade ones. I was never really that scared by the 4th grade one; I though it was Creepy Awesome. That damn crossword puzzle from the 5th grade one drove me nuts, though.

And now I should go to bed.

I just got back from Kung Fu Panda 3. It was good, but I can't help but leave disappointed that my favorite person was little more than a background character this time around. Tigress's moments were what made the second movie for me, and I wanted more of them.

A lot of people thought that the CMC would get their marks in that episode because of the title, but I argued against it on the basis that the plot synopsis didn't seem to be setting them up for that. Then the episode aired and I was surprised how much they got through. I do think it's a good episode, but it's another case where these episodes aren't long enough.

Seriously, lets just start making these things hour long episodes from now on.

Aww, not enough Tigress? She's the best of the five.

edited 5th Feb '16 11:30:15 PM by Crowfall