Hard Reset is an exciting “choose your own adventure”-style experimental impressionist novel written in 2003 by the storyboard artists of TimeShift, Casablanca, and Duke Nukem Forever.

In this epic tale of epic proportions, you follow Dr. Twilight Stark on a quest to save Canterlot from an invasion by zombie changelings from outer space, led by an evil shape-shifting queen named Crystalis. Along her perilous journey, Nightlight learns many important things about life, such as how one should not judge at first glance, accept those that are different, and come to terms with their own mortality… all of this in-between sections where she casually bonks scrubs in the head with a club so hard that their torsos fly off and get a field goal. With exciting and educational content like this, what more could you even ask for?

Most ponies don’t appreciate that I deal with this kind of thing frequently in my line of work. “Oh, Twilight Sparkle lives in a library and spends all her time with a nose in a book,” they probably say. “She’s a spoiled rotten little Princess’ pet,” they probably say. “She couldn’t possibly know what pain is. Not like us, we like to run into things and smash our faces into walls. What could hurt more than that?”

Well guess what? Unless those ponies have channeled the raw energies of creation through their forehead, and had it blow up in their face? They don’t know what the buck they’re talking about.

PROTIP: Be sure to squeeze in plenty of lengthy monologues that give away your headcanon of a character’s personality as soon as you can. I mean, it’s not like we’ll spend the rest of the story with her and be able to work it out from what she does later on.

Now, I could go on about how beautifully original the story is and how much depth there is to every single detail and dialogue that takes place, but I must keep in mind that this is still a review, and aside from praise, I have to give the story criticism too. After all, this is a proper reviewing group, not a bunch of wimpy scrubs who run under the banner of “rage”. And for all the things that it does perfectly, Bard Preset as a whole still isn’t a perfect masterpiece, just a simple masterpiece.

For one thing, while the story is indeed very original, I still couldn’t help but notice how much it was influenced by that movie starring Tom Hanks and Elijah Wood:

And later, when Toilet Standard goes outside and starts playing hopscotch while the cockroach-ponies are attacking, I noticed something else that was really familiar: this plot has waaaay too many similarities with that wedding episode from the second season of My Little Brony: Friendship and Whatever. It has the same characters and the same villain and-- Oh! Luna actually shows up this time. Then again, she doesn’t do that much either… and that makes me sad, since the only truly pro and cool pony out there is Loompa because dark colors and night and black magic are all hardcore things.

Oh, Eakin… After all the effort you put into everything, why didn’t you make the story more original? Were you hoping that no one was going to notice? I’m sorry, but I must take off a few points from “plots” for the lack of creativity… and also for never giving me any panty shots so I can see the precious pony behinds…

I can’t answer right away, but I don’t have the luxury of time, either. Some of those changelings are getting pretty close. Everything about this is wrong. But that cold, logical, detached part of my mind tells me that he’s right. “I love you so much, Spike.” What else is there to say?

“I love you too, Twilight. Tell the others how much I love them too, OK? You know, in case I’m not done beating up changelings by the time they get here,” he says. I wish I could hug him, one more time, but those things would be on us in a moment if I did. I almost do anyway.

PROTIP: Dramatic moments only work if you slow the pacing to a crawl. Don’t ever let us feel that the characters need to either move or die since they’re surrounded by monsters. We might read too fast and miss all the drama.

But these are just minor problems. Besides, the way the story does its characters and fine details more than makes up for it all. Even if you’re not an experienced author -- that is: if you’re a scrub -- you’ll probably recognize it when a story gets things right. Even if all you ever did was look at a single piece of erotic fan-art of something for a few seconds, you’ll know whether a story shows it accurately or not.

You know, like how Telltale Sparkle’s first reaction to an ancient and potentially dangerous spell is to try it out with only her baby monkey by her side... instead of a safe and supervised place, like a lab or something? Or how dying repeatedly and brutally has absolutely no bad effects on her mind? Or how changelings moved up from “feasting on ponies’ love” to “re-enacting the execution scenes from Manhunt?” That last one is especially clever. After all, there’s no better way to get ponies to trust and love each other than to massacre an entire city full of them and spread replicas everywhere. It’s just like that time terrorists blew up things all over the world and nobody decided to even care, let alone make security at the airports more tough and annoying.

And in the midst of such hardcore content, it was such a pleasant surprise to find out that Hard Phallus has some amazing deep messages in between the lines. I never knew I could learn so much about the intricacies of pony mentality and friendship on one page, then watch a sex scene between Lunamoonbase and Twinkle Sporkle two pages later. They blend so seamlessly that I never even noticed it, and I could tell that Miss Hornhead made some amazing mental progress in philosophy and science while she exchanged body fluids with Princess Luser to the sounds of innocent ponies getting torn apart outside.

“Awful, Princess. I’ve died so many times and every one has been awful. Even when I believe in what I’m doing, the last moment before I slip away is always the same. I’m always alone, Princess. No matter what I do, or why I do it, or where I am in that last moment before I slip away I always feel completely alone. More alone than I’ve ever been.” I walk back up to her, and lean in close. “All my friends died alone.”

PROTIP: You’re a brony. I don’t think you have any friends. Enjoy your “dying alone”

Of course, by far the best thing about this story is the entire “loop” mechanic. Here’s how it works: Twilight Sparkplug is like a character from a video game. Not just any video game, but one of those where you have infinite lives, so you can just try as many times as you want and it doesn’t matter. You even get to keep all the skills and memories you picked up along the way. That’s how this little daring unicorn manages to beat the hardest level in her whole entire life: she throws herself at the wall as many times as she can, and eventually the wall breaks instead of her head. There’s some boring stuff about the Elements of Harmony blowing up, and Twilight needing her friends to win, and… she’s actually gay?

Whaaaat?

Anyway, you know what? This loopy mechanic was a really good choice by the author, because those are the best games ever! Why should there be any sense of tension when you can just have nothing at stake, and our hero can keep trying again and again as many times they want without any penalties? It’s almost like you can tell that this story will have a happy ending no matter what happens, just like when a rollercoaster ride ends after just taking you around in circles for a few minutes. What, were you expecting things to get derailed? Personally, I’m tired of reading stories where you spend the whole time gripping the edge of your seat because you never know if the heroes are going to make it, and it’s good to finally see villains that are as one-dimensional as you can make them. Why bother with depth? I mean, this isn’t a scuba-diving expedition...

“Aww... that’s a shame. I know how you see us, but I’ve always thought we would make a good team if we put aside our difference. Your magic and armies, our information gathering and subterfuge abilities, think of the possibilities. Griffin pride is almost as tasty as ponies’ love, and I know there’s no love lost between you and the Empire.[sic]

“As if I would ever agree to work with you, or your hive.”

“Is it the bug thing? If it’s a question of aesthetics we can be flexible on that point. Maybe you’d prefer this form?” There’s a flash of green magic and when it clears it’s Luna chained to the wall. “I’ll even let you call me little sister if you want to.”

PROTIP: This story has smart villains. Cunning negotiators always make every effort to anger the other side. That’s exactly how I got my court case for a misdemeanor end with a life sentence.

If you couldn’t tell already, this story is dripping hardcore from every single inch of its body. Queen Crysis is the most hardcore of them all, with her creepy mind-control and how she rips off heads like it ain’t no thang, maaan. I think the last time I saw villains this cool and clever was that big giant monster thingies that fought those guys in the colored suits…

As far as the text goes, this story is really good, but there are some mistakes here and there, and the language isn’t quite hardcore enough. While I never get tired of how Ted Turner Sparkle turns every single thought of hers into a mini-monologue, I’m still disappointed that there aren’t enough needlessly complex words and convoluted passages. That said, grammars and thesauruses both lose a good deal of points. It isn’t the most doorstop-est fic I ever read either. Though it’s longer than all those short fics that I can eat by the handfuls like popcorn, over 26 thousand words aren’t quite enough to quench that “pro-author thirst.” No story is good unless it is at least two-hundred thousand words long. I mean, how else am I going to link people more than fifty times to my PayPal at the end of every new chapter?

On the other hand, this story is by far the most hardcorest fic in existence! It has everything you could ever want from a good gorefest extravaganza, and getting to read some nice poetry, political essays, and cooking courses along the way is a bonus no one expected, let alone asked for, yet they all ended up loving it to death. With that said, I’ll conclude on a happy note: Hard ResCore may not be perfect, but it more than deserves the perfect score for ultimate hardcoreness.

Hmmm. I've never read this, but I do remember that this used to be the #1 fic on the site for a while. Or something like that.

Because I'm an idiot scrub who took me a while to get that you were being sarcastic the whole way through (and this is the first of your reviews that I read), what does the "thesaurus" rating indicate? The correct usage of words?

*And you're right about rage. I read a couple of their reviews and couldn't make heads or tails of the messages most of them where trying to get across.

4131324

only scrubz forget to use the reply feature

4131329
Guess I'm a scrub. I'll go make weird jokes with my black friend and get weirded out by that janitor that may or may not be a figment of my imagination.

4131263

Oh gods, please, no more! xD I can't breathe.

1/10, called Home Run "a club" :<

0/10 no mention of the weather vane. For shame, for shame.

The things you can do with edgy, cast-iron roof toppers! :O

4131263
Dude
Please excuse muh vulgarity, but fuckinhlg

Cupcakes was better tho...

~TOOWC