MLP Make Your Mark: Nightmare on Mane Street Review

It's the spooky season, fillies and gents, and that means it's time for our favorite G5 ponies to celebrate the best way Equestrians know how...with a good ol' Nightmare Night celebration! But, there are certain questions I have surrounding this entire thing. Those will be addressed posthaste, but for now, let's dive into the meat of this particular grinder.

Plot: It's Nightmare Night time in Maretime Bay and everypony is excited to try and make it absolutely perfect. Hitch wants to do so by cramming as many events down everyone's throats as possible while Sunny, Pipp, and the rest of the gang turn the Crystal Bright House into the Crystal Fright House. Everypony pitches in and lends a hoof, and their shared residence becomes the be-all, end-all of ghouls, monsters, and various other creepy things. Sunny, with Misty's somewhat muted help, also whips up a smorgasbord of Nightmare Night all-time favorites...which, for one reason or another, all have to do with apples. Anyway, the Fright House opens and ponies pack the place. Unfortunately, everyone is so caught up in trying to live up to the holiday's various traditions that things turn into an actual nightmare. It takes some quick thinking on Sunny's part, a re-vamping of the Fright House, and some old fashioned friendship to realize that holidays are as much about making new memories as they are about dwelling on those of the past. Meanwhile, Opaline finds a way into Maretime Bay via the Together Trees' magical network...and she steals her first cutie mark.

This was a solid way to end the "chapter," though I find Mane Smelody to be the slightly stronger of these two more lighthearted installments. The comedy in this one isn't quite as sharp, although it is fun to watch Pipp attempt to scare the mane off of Misty. The various elements of the Fright House are somewhat entertaining and the different costumes the ponies wear are absolutely adorable. I will say that the writing in this "chapter" has been leaps and bounds better than in previous chapters. The pacing issues are almost all gone, with some rather simplistic, yet firmly entrenched transitory spots laced throughout it all. I got nervous with the first episode, but as things have progressed, they've returned to a much more aligned, vibrant form of storytelling without pressing in a vain attempt to keep their target audiences' collective patience.

I do have some questions, though. My main one is...how do these ponies know about Nightmare Night? Maybe I'm still living in an FIM buzz, but, canonically speaking, Nightmare Night was established around the legend of Nightmare Moon. These ponies had no idea what an Alicorn was before Sunny turned into one, so...how did they know about Nightmare Moon or Nightmare Night? What's more, how do they know of Nightmare Night but have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what Hearth's Warming Eve is? Then you start getting into what they know of Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Twilight and the entire world starts to fall apart. But, again, maybe I'm just living in an FIM fog. I don't know...logically, it just doesn't make sense to me.

But, those questions do nothing to impede what is another rather strong installment. I can't wait to see what they do with Opaline and the dragons, and how they answer some of these questions (another one I have is how the hay the ponies wound up with cellphone and laptop technology.)

A 4...out of 5