FIMFiction Review #7 · 5:32pm Jun 8th, 2017
Hey there again, Guys! As per the usual, I’ve gone and done another review. However, this time it’s a little more close to home with one of my other stories. That being a Kingdom Hearts review. So let’s sit down and check out what this story has to offer.
Description
Dark beings have started popping up in Equestria and nopony that sees them can understand what they are, will our keyblade wielder be able to save this world with the help of the elements of harmony?
Concept
You know. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a concept overly done so much before. Then again. With it being fan-fiction I shouldn’t be too surprised. Anywho. It’s quite a simple premise. Sora winds up in Equestria by means of his trusty Gummi Ship. And as knight in shining armor he must ascend the tower in order to save the world from darkness. Not much to tell really. 
Plot
Same thing for plot. Sometimes some of these stories are too easy to read. This story begins with the arrival of Sora and his two friends, Donald and Goofy. Thus a comedic timed accident sends their Gummi ship spiraling down towards Equestria. What with Sora still believing he can fly a ship. And while they’re busy crashing and burning, Equestria and the entire world are busy dealing with the Heartless infestation.
Celestia insists to Luna that the Element Bearers stay out of this at the moment. But unfortunately for them, trouble seems to always find its way to our favorite girls. It begins with Fluttershy and Twilight who go and investigate a sudden crash landing of our hero, Sora. She tells Fluttershy to gather the rest of the girls. She finds Sora and tries carrying him back but is quickly attacked by Heartless. And then is immediately saved by Sora who then passes out after having saved Twilight.
Waking up again he ends up in Twilight’s library and interrupts the girls as they talk about their new guest. He believes that they should go see the princesses right away but doesn’t realize it is night and thus must sleep again. Meanwhile we got Discord who is brooding over his torturous stone prison before being released by Maleficent to cause havoc in Equestria while finding the world’s Keyhole.
Sometime later Sora and the girls wake up and are on their merry way before getting attacked by Heartless again. So after that bout they wind up fighting another round of Heartless, this time a boss one known as Stealth Sneak. It’s beaten back but not defeated. And before they get inside, it must be noted that Celestia and Luna were holding a meeting with some of the royalty of other countries. Namely the Griffon King, Diamond Dogs, Princess Cadance, and Queen Chrysalis.
Ain’t these guys an odd assortment of fellows. And while I don’t want to sound picky I have to agree with the butthole that is the griffon king for a moment. If Diamond Dogs sound like their nomadic in this world then why did Celestia and Luna pick them? Didn’t Grit, Durge, and Skid try and ponyknap Rarity once? And another thing. I get the context that Luna and Celestia were sending letters with Queen Chrysalis as she’s supposedly trying to get on the pony’s good side now.
(Rather fishy since we all know how that turns out in the future). It still confuses me as to why they suddenly invite her over. Besides this little notion they do get to see Sora kick some Heartless butt as he takes on the Stealth Sneak twice. And the girls unsuccessfully get in the way both times. He goes Valor form and proceeds to kick even more ass.
After that little side obstacle Discord decides to jump the party of royalty and says that he’s bringing Nightmare Moon back. Which Sora and crew than go to beat the shadow that used to be Nightmare Moon. But before that the girls end up gaining Keyblades thanks to Sora’s Keyblade and the Elements combining together. So Nightmare Moon is defeated and with a little twist, Discord turns Sora into his Anti-Form. Which he then proceeds to try and hurt the girls but slowly and surely gets turned back into our favorite hero.
And thus they find Discord having trapped the Princesses and as he is defeated once more by Sora and crew he gets consumed by Heartless and Sora takes him on as one final boss. That familiar pattern follows along as Sora does end up beating even the souped up version of Discord’s darkness and is promptly turned back to stone. Sora gets knighted the day after and finds the Keyhole that Maleficent was using Discord to find and seals it and thus must leave the world of Equestria.
Okay. With all of this I could have summed it up into a few sentences. It’s a story about Sora coming to Equestria. He saves it. Defeats the big baddie at the end of the day and leaves it to go world exploring once more. Was it just me or did I feel a little disappointed? Half of the time I knew exactly what was going to happen.
Even when Sora and his newly acquainted friends went up against the antagonists like Stealth Sneak and the shadow of Nightmare Moon, all I could think was, “Gee. I wonder when Sora’s going to pull so and so drive form to save the day.” How I noticed this trend was after he used it on the Stealth Sneak. And from then on, even when he did get help from Twilight and her friends, I.E, giving him some of their power to help finish off Discord. It still felt like, no matter what, he was going to come out on top at the end of the day.
I will give the story this. The effort put into it felt more realistic than some stories I’ve read. In short. Story was good but could have used more thought and not use Drive Forms as a clutch to push the story forward.
Setting
Much like a majority of stories on the site, they usually end up taking place in Equestria. Nothing much seemed to be so different about this one. It’s not a bad thing either. It’s just a statement that the trend seems to continue on and on. There are those that do follow their own paths. But it always feels nice to just be able to see good old Equestria every now and then.
Characters
Character wise. I have to say that all of the characters were on point. Still. It wasn’t exactly a spectacular display. They all reacted the way I saw them. Sora and every one of was their normal selves. However… I feel again like this might have been me. But was that same normal similarity odd to anyone else? They didn’t exactly feel bland. But at the same time they didn’t really stand out either.
Even Sora felt that way. Don’t really know how or why I felt this way but I did. And while we're on feeling weird about the characters. I thought Discord ended up being too… villainous? Not as in pure evil. But that same jokester like character I remember seemed a little childish here. And not throwing jokes or even performing is usual gags. Maybe that’s the writer portraying his more childish side a little too well. Either or. The character portrayals were good… but also not good.
Technicality
This story will be the first time I introduce this category. As this story brought out a need for it. This story’s writing style was… everywhere. During a short period of the first story it had a normal and nice structure where character dialogues were separated and easy to read paragraphs. Immediately as the second chapter begins, I am assaulted with walls of text. I literally got lost a few times just trying to read the darn thing. And this goes on from chapter two to chapter four before it is finally fixed.
Even then. I noticed a few misspelled words and some run-on sentences. Still. It wasn’t completely bad. Not as bad as some stories on this site.
Final Review & Score
And for this ending to another review. Here are my concluding thoughts. This story was… alright. I wasn’t exactly blown off my feet. Even then I did feel like my investment in the story started dropping right after Sora beat the Stealth Sneak with his Valor Form. Besides the plot being dragged around by predictable antagonist fights and an ending I could see coming from three miles away, that’s not also what dragged this story on its feet.
The concept felt like another one of the somewhat decent sized “Sora Insert” stories around here. Even other insert stories revolving around Kingdom Hearts share this setup in one form or another. It just doesn’t have to be a Sora Insert story to feel the same.
And the characters, while having a decent portrayal, didn’t exactly feel all there to me. I mean they were. But their responses didn’t wander outside the norm. I actually hoped that some conflict would happen. I mean, when they learned that Sora had lied to them. Twilight was about to call him out for this but it was interrupted as their fight with Nightmare began. And following this, it felt like this moment for great conflict was suddenly forgotten about. Everyone seemed to just... agree with each other. (Besides the royalty). I hardly felt like there was much else at stake except for the good of Equestria, as per the usual.
Discord too felt… oddly tame. He didn’t pull off enough shenanigans to totally convince me. And of course, he lost to Maleficent. Which even now, seems kind of odd that he lost. He is the God of Chaos after all. And that brings another thing. Why did he listen to Maleficent in the first place? Doesn’t he usually do his own thing? I know he held up his end of the bargain for Maleficent to free him. But wouldn’t he have gone back on his word the moment he got freed? I mean, what’s a Heartless to a guy who can literally make clouds rain chocolate?
All of this aside. This wasn’t a great story. Nor was it a terrible one. And keeping up with the numbers, here is the decision. I give My Little Kingdom a 6.7 out of 10. With all the mistakes and just the weird way the story worked, plus with the somewhat odd characters and easy to predict plot, I really didn’t expect much. I mean it did grab my attention here and there but didn’t hold it for long.
In fact at times I thought about other things while I was reading it. And that of course was distracting. Still. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read. So hey, I give props to the author for trying his best. Thanks again for reading and I hope to see you all again soon!
