Video Game Review 2: Equestriabound: This Game Stinks

Character Overview:
Dinky: Daughter of Derpy Hooves and the main character of the game she replaces Ness and is pretty much exactly the same as Ness. Really just there to be fan service for Derpy Fans.

Sweetie Bell: Rarity's Little sister and a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. For this game she is the replacement for Paula. Plays just like Paula. Pray was changed to Sing since Sweetie Bell wanted to sing. She's your magic user for most of the game with PK Freeze and Fire being your bread and butter early on.

Apple Bloom: Apple Bloom replaces Jeff and also just to mention if you die in the section where Apple Bloom is alone Jeff's sprite is in the death scene. She pretty much will be using bottle rockets and items most of the game. She receives some pretty good items that do loads of damage and are reusable. Repairs broken items found just like Jeff.  Can not use PSI/Magic

Scootaloo: Hey if it isn't Poo, well his replacement anyway she's the final member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She has low PP growth but some of the best PSI in the game. She gets the all powerful SonicRainboom. She also has some of the better support spells. Much like Poo she doesn't equip much. Does get her all powerful Scooter if you win an almost impossible optional battle.

Rating: 2.75/5 The sprites are nice, but could have been nicer if the characters were hacked further to differentiate more from the original game. That and they could have used Apple Bloom's cousin Bab Seed as the 4th character instead of Dinky.

Bosses: The bosses pretty much are all the villains and main characters from MLP. Well in the case of  the Mane 6 and Two Princesses you fight Changelings disguised as the characters. Battle sprites are nice and the bosses mostly provide a great challenge. Really the only battles that aren't winnable at normal levels are the optional battles. I personally only finished the  Luna and Macintosh optional battles as the other two seemed too tedious. Sapphire Shores pretty much was the status ailment boss that used status ailments on the whole party. Rainbow Dash spammed the Sonicrainboom attacks. Luna and Big Mac as optional bosses weren't too bad and normal strategies worked well. Outsdie of the optional bosses the h\challenge honestly weans near the end.The earlier sections to be honest probably produced the biggest challenge.  The sprite work for the bosses were very nicely done. Sadly some of the music missed the mark for bosses.
4/5

Story: Well the game Ponifies Earthbound including the story. The script had some gramatical errors at times. But overall I would say the choices for episodes were nicely done. I can't quite explain it but the references pulled in made me chuckle at times. Much like Earthbound  this is a lighthearted adventure.  Though it is quite funny DJ Pon replaces the whole Runaway 5. Much with the Final Fantasy review I will go easy on the story for being Earthbound.
4.75/5

Challenge: I personally found this harder than Earthbound most of the way through. However towards the end outside of optional bosses the difficulty seems to fall flat. Pretty much if you can finish the 8 Elements the rest is a breeze. Until that point there's plenty of challenge.  Then if you want to take on optional bosses there's a super challenge.
Rating 5/5

Music: I personally only liked one remix and that was the MLP Theme for Ponyville. Outside of that a lot of the music is screeching. It is overall bearable but just barely. Original Earthbound had great music, Equestriabound however had screeching ear bleeding music at times.
Rating 1.5/5 Saved by the excellent MLP theme the rest especially battle music was pretty bad.


Gameplay: The tried and true Dragon Quest display. Simple but very effective. I like the KISS method which is why DQ/EB's battle style is one of my favorites. So hey of course I'll give this a good score.
Rating: 5/5

Presentation: The graphics are excellent, the boss portraits are great. I know where the time was spent. Definitely in the graphics department.
Rating 5/5

Overall: This is fun hack overall, but you may want to play your own music or pull out that collection of Earthbound SPC's as it definitely had superior music. If the music wouldn't have been touched the game would have scored higher. Music is very important in an RPG. The presentation and beautiful sprites can't completely make up for the music, but they did a nice job. I did enjoy this hack and felt it had a very good challenge. I will say if you're an MLP fan you would probably enjoy this fan service. If you're an Earthbound fan you may wonder what happened to your beloved gem.


Overall score: 28/35 or for those who like the percentages 80%