The game's official "box art".
An EarthBound (1994) ROM hack, similar to how Pony Fantasy VI is one of Final Fantasy VI. In the continuity of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, it seems to take place sometime mid-Season 3, as stuff like King Sombra is referenced but other things such as the Elements of Harmony still being a thing at this point and Twilight Sparkle still being a unicorn instead of an alicorn, and Discord still being a villain are present and treated as normal.
The plot kicks off when a meteor crash lands one night near Dinky Hooves' house. Setting out to figure out what's going on not unlike how Ness did in the original, she eventually goes through similar events where Diamond Tiara knocks on her door and asks her to find Silver Spoon, not unlike Pokey/Porky did to find his younger brother Picky in the original, and eventually encounters Princess Luna (who use the last of her magic to transform herself into a fly to escape from the evil threatening the future) who comes from the future where the evil spirit that possessed her has returned and took over Twilight Sparkle's body as its host to render the elements useless, eventually reducing the Element of Magic itself to a husk, with the others likely destroyed.
Originally attempting to go to Twilight herself with Dinky guiding her, at the "persuasion" of Tiara and Silver Spoon, Dinky drops them off at their house first, where (much like Buzz Buzz in the original) Luna gets swatted down by their mother. Distraught that all her efforts were in vain, she is about to give up hope until she gets an idea: after seeing how Dinky handled herself in battle, and theorizing that she may one day be able to use the husk element as her own, gives the remaining husk of the element of Magic to her, and tells her to go see Twilight. Upon doing so, Twilight, although a bit skeptical at first, tells her the elements from their current time should be able to restore it, at which point it can hopefully purge the spirit controlling her future self.
Things won't be that simple, though. After Discord and Chrysalis managed to get ahold of the Elements of Harmony before they could use it against them, they scattered them amongst the lands of Equestria and only they are aware of where they're at, with Twilight herself teleporting her element to a random location that even she's not sure where it is (which she admits was a stupid move in hindsight).
In hopes that she can restore the element back to its normal self and stop the Bad Future from happening, Dinky sets out on an adventure, having to work with the main cast in hopes of finding where they hid their Elements, hopefully restore the future Element of Magic back to its former glory, and stop the spirit of Nightmare Moon once and for all. She is not alone, however, as she is soon accompanied by the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who are more than willing to help a fellow filly out (especially if it gets them their "World Saviors" cutie mark in the process).
While the plot of the game itself is essentially EarthBound with a Friendship is Magic makeover, that doesn't mean it doesn't have any interest for those who don't just want to replay EarthBound but with ponies.
While some areas remain the same like Onett being renamed Ponyville, other areas have been completely reskinned based on locations from the show, and while some enemies may be EarthBound enemies by another name (the Parasprites being Spiteful Crows, for example) it also adds in a whole new slew of bosses, original enemies, and does quite a few minor tweaking to some aspects that were in EarthBound. Additionally, while there's still lines from the original game present, there's also a lot of new, humorous dialogue added as well. The difficulty is also notably increased in comparison to EarthBound. Not to Kaizo insanity lengths, but enough that it'll make you actually consider using certain PSI and items you normally wouldn't in the original - Paralysis, Flash, Shields, and even stuff like the Neutralizer and Secret Herbs.
Overall, while it starts off slow it eventually finds its own wings, and is at least worth a look if you're normally not into these kinds of things.
The patch can be found here
, though as per-Wiki policy you'll have to find an EarthBound ROM on your own.
This hack contains examples of:
- Adaptation Personality Change: In addition to Characterization Marches On below, certain characters have had personality changes that are either the result of FiM characters replacing EarthBound characters or vice-versa.
- With the Minch family being replaced with Tiara's family, they're a lot nicer and rather polite to Dinky and friends when talking to them. Diamond Tiara is still a jerk, though, and her mother still thinks she deserves a swift hoof sometimes, and does end up accidentally killing future(!) Princess Luna.
- The Diamond Dogs note are also far more nicer to Dinky and Co. than they were to the mane cast on the show, thanks to replacing the excavation team in the desert. Could be handwaved due to the fact that Dinky and friends do help them out with their dig, but even beforehand they're willing to let them rest at their site with no problems.
- Adaptational Villainy: While a lot of them are jerks in the show, much like Giygas in the original game Nightmare Moon is able to influence beings from the past to do her bidding, all of whom have a grudge against Equestria or the mane cast for some reason (such as Trixie and Gilda). It even extends to some non-jerkish characters as well, such as Lyra.
- Adapted Out: The Bubble Monkey and his later wife are completely absent from this hack, and don't even get replacements for their roles.
- Amazon Brigade: Unlike EarthBound which operated on The Smurfette Principle in terms of party members, all the members you get as your main party are female.
- Anti-Frustration Feature: The game notably has a few tweaks to it that deal with some of the minor complaints EarthBound gets.
- You can see any possible stat boost a piece of equipment gives a character from the equip screen rather than having to go into the status screen afterwards.
- Dinky appears to get homesickness far less than Ness does. It's possible to go the entire game and have Dinky get homesickness only once throughout the entirety of it.
- Due to the larger hitboxes on pony sprites, certain areas have been made a bit larger or had certain things removed to keep you from getting stuck.
- You also get some items and equipment earlier than normal to help you get past some of the more annoying areas in the game.
- Certain items like the HP Sucker, sprays, and Shield Killers have been buffed to be a bit more useful.
- Upon talking to one of the bosses that guards an Element of Harmony, you're given the option to back out in case you don't feel like you're ready for it yet.
- Anachronism Stew:
- While the show has shown that ponies are more technologically advanced than one might think, they have never shown anything like cars and vans in it. As such, with some areas like Onett only getting a rename and some mild aesthetic changes (like renaming the Onett sign to Ponyville) this results in things like paved roadways and ponies driving around in cars, which has never been in the show itself.
- Also as a result, a lot of the houses look more modern than the ones that appear in the show, or at least for the ones in Ponyville.
- Interestingly, this makes this Ponyville resemble the one in My Little Pony Tales.
- Apathetic Citizens: Despite the fact that they're just fillies and a few of them are sisters to one of the mane cast, the mane cast seems to have no problem letting Dinky and the Crusaders journey around Equestria while they sit around twiddling their hooves.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to Jet Set (who replaces Monotoli) the reasons he acted the way he did were because his business was collapsing, his wife left him, and he missed lunch.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: A dragon blocks the root to Saddle Arabia instead of the Kraken. While the Kraken could qualify for this trope, it was barely a bit bigger than the ship. The dragon, however, definitely qualifies due to being five to six times larger than the airship on the map!
- Bait-and-Switch: A lot of humor in this hack seems to come from playing with what you'd expect in regards to the original game's plot. For example, when you're attempting to get the Bad Key Machine like Jeff did in the original, Apple Bloom's teacher doesn't appear to be nearly as good at technology as Jeff's is, as when he gives it to you it quickly catches on fire, much to his shock. As a result, he ends up giving you a simple lockpick set instead.
- Big Damn Heroes: Like in the original where the Runaway Five stopped the Clumsy Robot, Vinyl Scratch shows up to help stop it in this hack. However, unlike the Runaway Five, she doesn't hit the off switch - she blasts it with her Bass Cannon and does over six digits worth of damage to it!
- Big Fancy Castle: The Canterlot Royal castle, naturally. Like with Cloudsdale, it's one of the new areas added in with this hack.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce:
- The "Hotsauce Cupcake" Pinkie Pie (standing in for Apple Kid) made. It's apparently hotsauce upon hotsauce that's baked directly into the cupcake that causes the pony (or anyone, really) who eats it to breathe fire shortly after. A good thing, too, since wooden cupcakes replace the iron pencils from the original.
- And if that wasn't enough, she created a machine that can infuse anything with the rainbows created from Cloudsdale. Considering what we saw when she tried it in the show...
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Like on the show, Pinkie is prone to this. When you have to give her some food to advance the plot..."Oooh! Oooh! What'll you give me? Is it Ice Cream? No, wait, that's not in this game. How about a cookie? No, those were turned into muffins. So, what is it?"
- Call-Back:
- During the Dungeon Man / Human Museum, while listing off fun facts about the human body, one of the billboards says "Did you know the punishment for trying to summon humans is 200 hours of community service?". Take a wild guess what happens early on in the game, and who that punishment is dealt to.
- The game also has one, surprisingly, to EarthBound Beginnings. In order to defeat Nightmare Moon, you need to use Sweetie Belle's sing command to sing the song the Elements of Harmony played when Dinky collected them, like how Ninten and friends had to do with Giegue after collecting all eight melodies.
- Characterization Marches On: This game was made sometime around early Season 4, and thus uses some common fandom interperations of characters at the time. Characters that would eventually reappear in later episodes of the show ended up having some rather different characterizations than what fans thought, ranging from minor differences to being all but the complete opposite of what the fandom thought about them, so as a result some characterization here may seem wildly different from the show, even considering it supposedly takes place sometime during Season 3.
- One of the notable examples is Gilda. In this game, she's hell bent on revenge against Rainbow Dash and the others and has no problems enslaving the Mr. Saturns and tormenting them for fun. Then she returned in a Season 5 episode that showed that deep down she was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and one of the few griffons to care about others, albeit without letting on. The episode ends with her and Rainbow Dash making up and becoming friends again, too, which doesn't help.
- Vinyl was also confirmed to be The Voiceless in the episode focusing on the popular background ponies, yet has no problems speaking in this game. Granted, not as bad as some of the other characterizations that got debunked, since many people often take liberties with The Voiceless characters in fanworks note , but still notable.
- Depending on who you ask, Lyra's human obsession and the entire human cult mini-arc is either now this thanks to the events of "Slice of Life", or was simply not given focus in the episode.
- Diamond Tiara's mom (known as "High Style" in this hack) is portrayed as a parent who feels that her husband, Filthy Rich, is far too lenient with Diamond Tiara's behavior, and states that Tiara deserves a good hoof smack for her behavior. Considering what her canon counterpart, Spoiled Rich, ended up being like, this puts this comment, and a few of her other comments, in a very different light...
- Similarly, this puts Diamond Tiara herself here. In the game, she's portrayed as a straight-up Jerkass with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and delights in taunting the Crusaders every chance she gets, albeit partly due to taking up Porky's role from the original. Then the above episode aired, and it now puts her characterization in this game in an equally
different light. - The game stays true to the portrayal of the Changelings as a malevolent species of shapeshifters led by Queen Chrysalis since their debut in the Season 2 finale. Unfortunately, this long-established characterization has become obsolete in the following wake of Season 6.
- Character Name Limits: Like EarthBound, there's a limited amount of space available to name the main characters. However, the game manages to get around this slightly by having you name one part for characters who have two-part names. For example, Sweetie Belle will always have "Sweetie" at the start of her name, so if you rename the "Belle" part with something else, it'll be "Sweetie X".
- Coming of Age Story: In a sense. While the Crusaders don't change too much over the course of the game, Dinky does get her cutie mark over the adventure. None of the other Crusaders do, mind you, and it's a fact they're rather annoyed by, but they consider "one out of four" isn't so bad. Which is mildly Heartwarming in Hindsight since it was eventually confirmed that helping others find their special talent is their special talent.
- Composite Character:
- An odd case where it happens to a town, both Onett and Twoson are treated as being two parts of Ponyville in this hack instead of being two separate towns.
- Character-wise, Lyra ends up filling the roles of both Mr. Carpainter and Dungeon Man. Both of these end up changing the goals from "blue-themed cult" and "wants to make the best dungeon" to "human-themed cult that wants to summon humans to Equestria" and "wants to make the best human-themed museum" respectively.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef:
- Pinkie is mentioned to be a good baker like on the show. However, some NPCs make mention that some of her original creations tend to be rather... weird. One NPC makes mention of how when she tried one of her original creations, it ended up turning her plaid for a short while.
- In addition, she makes a cupcake that's so spicy it causes those who eat it to breath fire, dragon dentures so ponies can eat gems like dragons (even though it tastes like rocks to them), and a cobble that somehow tastes better the closer it is to Changelings. The last of which is needed for locating the game's Superbosses.
- Creator Cameo: Not the creator of the hack itself, but rather Lauren Faust's Author Avatar replaces the hint guy from the original.
- Chainsaw Good: Apple Bloom's ultimate weapon is simply a chainsaw.
- Demonic Possession: The spirit of Nightmare Moon is back, and realizing that she can't beat Twilight and friends in a direct confrontation, she decides that, if you can't beat 'em, possess 'em.
- Demoted Boss: Played With when you get to Fire Spring. They're not the bosses you faced specifically, but rather the true forms of the Changelings that were disguising themselves as the mane cast at each sanctuary.
- Department of Redundancy Department: When naming Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo at the beginning of the game, one of the possible "Don't Care" options for each of them is "Sweet", "Apple", and "Loo", respectively. Due to the way naming them works in this game, this results in them being respectively named "Sweetie Sweet", "Apple Apple", and "Looaloo".
- Didn't Think This Through: In-Universe, Twilight herself lampshades that teleporting her Element to a random location that even she isn't sure of where it went in hopes no future Big Bads would steal it before they could get to it was, admittedly, a stupid move in hindsight. Turns out to be an even bigger dumb move than she thought, since said location is the Changeling Hive!
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
- Subverted then played straight. The Celestia and Luna you fight guarding their birthplaces are actually Changelings in disguise. However, you do get to fight the actual Princess Luna as a Superboss for Dinky's Infinity +1 Sword, and of course you also eventually punch out Nightmare Moon at the end of the game.
- Of course, Dinky and Apple Bloom also punch out Discord.
- Disco Dan: Among the many enemies you can encounter in the second part of Ponyville, Disco Ponies are one of them.
- Early Game Hell: Zig-Zagged. In certain aspects, it's easier than in the instance of this in EarthBound (1994), but in other aspects it's harder. Dinky can't get Smash Attacks with her weapons, and the Changeling disguised as Pinkie Pie is also a notable step up from the Titanic Ant, which that alone should tell you something. However, you don't fight five Onett police officers in a row and then Officer Strong. Instead, you just fight Tom, who doesn't have anywhere near as devastating attacks as Strong did. Certain replacement enemies also don't seem to hit as hard or use their hard-hitting attacks as often, such as the Trixie fanboys in comparison to the Sharks.
- Enlightenment Superpowers: Upon getting all the elements, like Ness in the original, Dinky gets a massive boost to all her stats. She also gets her cutie mark in the process.
- Expy: While the game sticks true to the canon characterization to the characters, albeit fit into the roles of characters from EarthBound, gameplay wise, the playable characters are mostly this to the chosen four in EarthBound, albeit with a few minor tweaks. Specifically;
- Failure Is the Only Option: Even after going on a grand adventure and single hoof-edly saving Equestria, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo still fail to get a cutie mark out of the deal, a fact they're rather annoyed by. Dinky does, which is enough for the Crusaders to consider the whole thing not so bad.
- Floating Continent: Like in the show, Cloudsdale. You eventually get to go there, and it's a stand-in for the original game's similar floating continent Dalaam.
- Friend to All Living Things: As per usual, Fluttershy. In the hack, she is busy taking care of the Underground Monkeys.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Though the hack creator does his best to patch out any and all bugs, there are still a few really annoying ones that will hinder you, even in the later updates.
- In the 1.6 update, certain NPCs like the Canterlot Royal Guard will walk into the head party character if you stand in the wrong place while talking to them and triggering an event flag, causing them to get stuck and forcing you to restart the game. Hope you saved beforehand...
- Also in the 1.6 update, sometimes the save points in Cloudsdale won't register you've saved with them, bumping you back to the last save you made when you restart the game. Hope you didn't do a lot of things before saving there. Also makes Cloudsdale an unintentional Marathon Level, especially when you're going for the Sanctuary location.
- During the cutscene in Cloudsdale where Scootaloo completes her final flight exam, it's possible for her to get stuck in a loop of flying to the target cloud but never reaching it, thus requiring a restart.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Unlike in the original game, where Onett's famous police force blocked off the road to Twoson, the road here is instead blocked off by a bunch of boulders from the meteor strike. After getting the Element of Laughter, Applejack volunteers to help clean it up. Upon going there and talking to her, however, she notes something is weird about the boulders... At which point you are promptly attacked by Tom. Yes, that Tom. The rock Rarity thought was a giant gem.
- Hide Your Lesbians:
- Notably, in the original game, there was a moment where in a tree house full of kids, one of boys slips a line that makes it sound like he has an implied crush on Ness. In this game, while the line is still there and most male characters either get Gender Flipped or replaced with a background pony from the show, the filly that delivers it in this game looks notably a lot more masculine than feminine...
- Averted in regards to a certain someone in the original. Even though Tony has been replaced with Twist in the hack, she still has his rather interesting subtext dialogue in regards to Apple Bloom.
- Also averted in that despite the fact that the entire party is made up of girls, Sweetie still holds to Paula's original role in that she's implied to have deeper feelings for Dinky at the end of the game.
- Improbable Accessory Effect: Like in EarthBound, weapons and armor don't just increase your offense and defense. Instead, they can provide a variety of different stat buffs to magic, guts, defense, and so on. However, the game actually shows you what stats can be boosted by any possibly accessory, instead of just showing attack and defense like in EarthBound.
- Improbable Weapon User: While the group has equipment based on their personality (Apple Bloom using stuff like power tools, Scootaloo using different kinds of weather-based attacks) Dinky stands out in that she uses old mail as her main weapon.
- Incoming Ham: Much like the show, Luna's first line of dialog in the game is in All Caps.
- Infinity -1 Sword: Dinky's "future mail". It actually has a higher attack stat than the Cardboard Tube, but doesn't give the guts boost the latter has or the ability to get Smash Attacks.
- Insane Troll Logic: Diamond Tiara sends a message taunting Dinky at the end of the game, calling her a "blank flank" despite Dinky having earned her cutie mark by now. She does so on the grounds that she thinks Dinky's cutie mark is stupid, so as far as she's concerned, Dinky might as well not have one.
- Lethal Joke Weapon: Dinky's ultimate weapon is a cardboard tube. Despite what it sounds like, it gives her a big attack boost, the second-highest in the game, in addition to giving her a massive boost to her guts stat and finally letting her get Smash Attacks like the rest of the group.
- Look What I Can Do Now!: Like Poo with PSI Starstorm in the original, the first thing Scootaloo does after returning from her training is use the Sonic Rainboom to punch out the returned Gilda.
- The Magnificent: As per usual, Trixie refers to herself as "the great and powerful". Upon defeating her and her Robo-Ursa, she'll start referring to Dinky as "The Great and Powerful Dinky".
- The Mentor: Rainbow Dash decided to become this to Scootaloo. After she managed to prove herself rather capable in her own right in several aspects, she considered her worthy enough to teach her the Sonic Rainboom (the game's equivalent to PSI Starstorm in the original).
- Mirror Boss: Nightmare Dinky. Unlike Ness' Nightmare, she has her own unique sprite, in addition to having every ability in Dinky's arsenal. This includes lifeup and shields. She can also use the Omega version of Dinky's main attack. Hope you stocked up on Magic Puddings. This battle's going to take a while...
- Motor Mouth: Like in the show, Pinkie often ends up going on tangents about anything and everything. Notably, her text often ends up scrolling without you ever pressing a key.
- Museum of the Strange and Unusual: Lyra creates a Humongous Mecha Human Museum called Getter Human Z.
- Musical Assassin: Sweetie Belle mainly fights through using different microphones and using Magic Music.
- Musical Nod: Some of the battle themes and other themes have been changed to fit the music from the show. For example...
- The northern part of Ponyville (the equivalent to Onett) plays a more mellow remix of the show's main theme. The southern part (the Twoson equivalent) plays "The Smile Song".
- Every battle against an opponent that in EarthBound played the track "Battle Against a Weak Opponent" - such as against the Parasprites (who replace Spiteful Crows) or Runaway Dogs - plays the theme Pinkie used to get the Parasprites out of Ponyville.
- The hotel theme is the song Fluttershy sings the Crusaders when she first babysat for them (at least the mellow parts of it, anyways...).
- San Palomino Desert's theme is "You gotta share, you gotta care".
- Manehattan's theme is "Babs Seed, just a bad seed" even though Babs Seed doesn't appear in the game. (One of Apple Bloom's default names is "Babs", though.)
- Canterlot's theme is "The Failure Song". The Royal Castle, meanwhile, plays "Celestia's Ballad".
- Cloudsdale's theme is "Hearts as Strong as Horses".
- Deep Darkness' theme is "Stop the Bats".
- Dinky's Magicant, rather fittingly considering the context, plays an absolutely amazing EarthBound-style remix of "A true, true friend". The Sea of Eden's theme is "I've Got to Find a Way".
- The end credits music is a Credits Medley of several of the tunes from the show. During the cast roll, the music playing is a medley of "Love is in Bloom" and "Raise This Barn", while the actual credits feature songs like "Morning in Ponyville" (and "Life in Equestria"), "Art of the Dress", "Winter Wrap-Up", "This Day Aria", and "Apples to the Core".
- Mythology Gag: Sea Ponies replace the Tendas from Tenda Village. Quite a few also quite big Jerkasses.
- The Night That Never Ends: Considering who the Big Bad is, was it really a surprise that it was one of her goals? She already pulled it off in the Bad Future, and now hopes to do so rather earlier... or later... or again... in the past... You get the idea.
- Not as You Know Them: Each area where an Element of Harmony is located is guarded by the respective holder of said element. Even though they know you need the Elements to stop the Bad Future from happening, they won't let you in unless you fight them. This is because they're Changelings disguised as a member of the mane cast, who are being controlled by Nightmare Moon to stop them from getting the Elements.
- Read the Fine Print: Vinyl Scratch replaces the Runaway Five in this hack. While the Runaway Five were suckered into the role by the manager, Vinyl ended up in the role because she's terrible at reading contracts, mentioning how she usually nods off a quarter of the way through. Later, when she preforms in the theater at Manehattan, it turns out to be a Subversion. Yes, she's stuck there, but not because of a contract. Rather, she racked up a million bits in room service.
- Remixed Level: Several areas from the original game have been given new coats of paint to resemble areas from the show, but otherwise are basically the same when it comes to the layout.
- For example, Cloudsdale takes place on clouds and has a new building design there, but otherwise its layout is basically the same as Dalaam in the original.
- Canterlot is similar: the beach has been turned into an overlook on top of a cliff face, but otherwise it's still Summers in all but name. Even the buildings there are mostly unedited.
- According to the hack creator, this is the result of a combination of the game graphically freaking out whenever he attempted a major overhaul, many event flags needing to be changed to keep the overall plot of the game intact if he were to massively overhaul the maps and/or causing many Game Breaking Bugs as a result.
- Revenge:
- Part of the reason Gilda is working for Nightmare Moon is to get revenge against Rainbow Dash, despite her hatred of ponies.
- Trixie originally returned to Ponyville in order get revenge on Twilight. After Dinky manages to beat her and the Robo-Ursa, she appears to have mellowed out and accepted defeat this time.
- Sanity Slippage: Nightmare Moon slowly starts losing her coherent thought process shortly after transforming into her pure nightmare form. Fitting, considering who she's replacing...
- Sequel Hook: Like EarthBound, the game ends with Diamond Tiara daring Dinky to chase after her. Considering there's no real way to hack Mother 3 yet outside of stuff like fan translations, only time will tell if this is ever followed upon... Of course, the hack creator has said he hopes to make another FiM RPG using its own custom game engine. Whether or not it follows on this, though...
- Shout-Out:
- Among the many default naming options for Dinky, Nyx is one of them, as well as Bloo. Meanwhile, one of Sweetie's default names is Bot.
- The description for the cupcake items makes mention that it's "100% not made with anything questionable."
- Considering Doctor Whooves replaces Dr. Andonuts in this hack, you can expect a ton of Doctor Who references.
- One of the enemies is called "The Trotting Dead".
- One of the ponies in the desert calls Lyra's Giant Mecha "Getter Human Z".
- One of the cultists in the Human Human Village challenges you to a fight using lines from Macbeth, specifically the titular character's final speech. When defeated, the cultist says "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar."
- Signature Move: The Sonic Rainboom for Rainbow Dash, naturally. After Scootaloo manages to prove herself rather capable too, Rainbow Dash considers her worthy enough to teach it to her.
- Superboss: The game has four superbosses which give out the playable cast's Infinity Plus One Swords. According to the hack creator, they were added specifically so there could be a set drop for them, so as to prevent any Sword of Kings situations. In order to locate them, you need to use the Changeling Cobbler near a pony who's acting strange, with a few hints from NPCs in the area pointing you in the right direction. Note, though, that attempting to fight these bosses as soon as you get the Changeling Cobbler is not recommended unless you really know how to use the original game's battle mechanics.
- The first Changeling is disguised as Big Mac. Besides using Super Bombs, his charge attack, while not technically a One-Hit Kill, can very well one-shot a party member even with Power Shields up unless you're really high-leveled. He also takes four Roman Candles to the face note before going down. Beating him gets you Apple Bloom's ultimate weapon, a chainsaw.
- The second Changeling is disguised as Sapphire Shores, located in Manehattan. She has a wide variety of status inducers which range from paralysis to feeling strange, but thankfully her attacks will only likely one-shot Scootaloo. She's immune to Roman Candles, and has a Power Shield to reflect against magic attacks, so make sure to have the Neutralizer on Apple Bloom if you attempt to fight her. Beating her, naturally, gets Sweetie Belle's ultimate mic, which while it's actually weaker than what she likely has equipped by that point damage-wise, increases her Guts stat to an insane degree.
- The third Changeling is disguised as Rainbow Dash. Like Sapphire, she has a power shield to reflect magic, and this time doesn't telegraph when she's about to use the Sonic Rainboom, in addition to having several crowd hitting attacks that slam the entire party, essentially being the Kraken on steroids. Life UP Omega is pretty much needed if you don't want a Total Party Kill, and expect to be casting it every turn. Beating her gets you Scootaloo's scooter, the game's equivalent to the Sword of Kings.
- Surprisingly, the superboss that gives Dinky her ultimate weapon isn't a Changeling. Rather, you end up fighting the real Princess Luna in Canterlot Royal Palace after you beat her Changeling counterpart guarding her original birthplace. Ironically, despite being able to nuke the group with Friend Omega, she's arguably the easiest of the superbosses. Defeating her gets you the Cardboard Tube, which not only increases attack, but also gives a massive Guts boost in addition to letting Dinky finally get Smash Attacks.
- This Is a Drill: One of the many weapon types Apple Bloom can equip.
- Took a Level in Kindness: The Diamond Dogs are notably a lot nicer here, from treating the ponies with something resembling respect to even helping the group out later on. Granted, the latter was because they see gold as Worthless Yellow Rocks, but still.
- Useless Useful Spell:
- Averted. While it was also averted to a degree in EarthBound, quite a few bosses also have their own weaknesses added based on their personality from the show. In addition, some of them will make you use stuff like shields and stat boosts, which is often glossed over in EarthBound. For example, the Changeling disguised as Rainbow Dash is weak to sleep due to Rainbow Dash being rather lazy when she isn't training for possibly joining the Wonderbolts, and her Rainboom Attack will Total Party Kill your group if you don't get Sweetie Belle's magic shields up on everyone.
- This even extends to averting things such as items. Almost nobody uses stuff like Secret Herbs or the Shield Killer or Neutralizer, mostly because PSI Healing easily covers the former and the latter is so rare and not particularly dangerous enough to be worth having on-hand. In this hack, you will need the former thanks to certain statuses appearing far earlier than EarthBound, which includes up to diamondizing appearing mid-game when it normally doesn't until late-game, and the latter is useful since several bosses have shields they didn't in the original. The Neutralizer in particular is going to be needed for some of the Superbosses in the game, as all but one of them have psychic shields to reflect your magic back at you.
- Vague Age: Dinky and the Crusaders look no older than they do on the show, but certain things, such as Apple Bloom apparently being old enough to go to a boarding school for mechanics by herself, and the fact that most of the Crusaders' sisters don't seem all that worried about them wandering around Equestria by themselves, seems to suggest that they may be Older Than They Look in this hack.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The Starmen in the game have been replaced with enslaved ponies, all of whom have sad looks about them like they're only reluctantly fighting you because they have no choice. As in the original, one of them can possibly drop Scoots' ultimate weapon, but you wouldn't go around knocking them out when they likely don't want to fight in the first place... would you?
- Wake-Up Call Boss:
- The Changeling disguised as Pinkie Pie. Though Trixie does have a few new techniques that Frank didn't in the original (such as magic attacks and being able to put up shields), she isn't that much more difficult than he was in the original game. The Changeling disguised as Pinkie, however, is a notable step up from the Titanic Ant from the original - it has more devastating attacks (the party cannon can take out a third of your HP even if you're a bit over leveled than you'd normally be in EarthBound) in addition to being able to inflict immobilization. You'll likely have to end up doing some level grinding to get Dinky's shield spell if you were expecting a usual Titanic Ant run...
- The Changeling disguised as Rainbow Dash is another one. While the above is a notable showing that the bosses are much harder in this hack, the bosses that come between the above and this one either don't change too much from EarthBound or share weakness from bosses from EarthBound. The Changeling disguised as Rainbow, however, serves as a wake-up call that some bosses in this hack will require some form of strategy to beat. Namely, for her at least, casting hypnosis at the right moments to avoid her ultimate attack then getting shield up to reflect it. Why is this important? Because she uses the Sonic Rainboom, and in this hack, the Sonic Rainboom is the equivalent to PSI Starstorm in the original. It will result in a Total Party Kill if you don't know how to spot its tell and prepare for it. Once you know how to prepare for it, it isn't too hard a battle, but knowing how to counter it is key to winning.
- Warp Whistle: Like Ness, Dinky learns teleportation. Unlike Ness, she doesn't learn it from the Underground Monkeys. Rather, she has to traverse all the way back to Ponyville and learn it from Twilight upon reaching that point in the story.
- Weather Manipulation: Scootaloo, being a Pegasus, uses this as her variation of PSI attacks.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The main thing that makes it this instead of a simple texture swap like Pony Fantasy VI is that it doesn't follow the EarthBound plot to an exact letter. In addition to the characters remaining faithful to the FiM roots, the plot is again, similar, but not exact. Some minor differences and such do pop up, in addition to the new areas added to the game.
- World of Chaos: Moonhattan, the Moonside counterpart to Manehattan. Unsurprisingly, it's Discord's doing.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The Diamond Dogs replace the excavator in Dusty Dunes Desert. Unfortunately, they weren't able to find a gem like the excavator. All they found were worthless yellow rocks, which is conveniently enough yellow rocks to pay off the massive room service bill Vinyl racked up. Still, it wasn't a gem, so they give it to Dinky and friends anyways.
- Wrench Whack: Unlike Jeff in the original who used Ray Guns, Apple Bloom's main weapons are wrenches. This means, unlike Jeff, she can get Smash Attacks with them.
