//------------------------------// // Episode 1: Doctor and Derpy's Excellent Adventure on the NES // Story: The Adorable/Awesome Video Game Colt // by Matthais Unidostres //------------------------------// The Adorable Video Game Colt Episode 1: Doctor and Derpy's Excellent Adventure on the NES The camera turned on, revealing Button Mash standing right in front of it. He backed away, making sure the camera was straight. He smiled, then he walked to the left. "Alright, Sweetie Belle! Sing the song!" he shouted. Sweetie Belle peeked into the camera's line of sight, then gasped and backed off quickly. "NO! I can't do it!" "Aw, come on, don't be shy!" "I can't! I just can't!" "*sigh* Okay, how about this. You sing off camera, and just peek in from time to time. Okay?" "O. . .kay." "Good. Cue music!" There was the sound of a cassette player being turned on, and guitar music started to play. Button Mash jumped in front of the camera and hit buttons on the NES controller as Sweetie Belle sang. He's gonna play some video games He's gonna play them all night an day Sweetie Belle stepped out behind Button and sang a bit. He's chocolate brown, He's eight years old, He's got a brother, a mom, and a dad. Sweetie Belle jumped away quickly, and the camera changed to a shot of Button's mother snatching a hoof-held out of Button's hooves, much to Button's dismay. The camera changed back to Sweetie Belle singing while half hiding behind Button. His hair's light brown, He drinks from boxes, The camera changed again to Button drinking from a juice box, but then doing a spit-take at the game screen. And his model trains burst into flames. Button stared at his parents' old video game machine in confusion. It switched back to Sweetie Belle and Button. He's the adorablest gamer in the world He's the adorable Nintendo colt Button threw his controller down angrily and jumped up and down on it. He's the adorable Atari/SEGA colt He's The Adorable Video Game Colt Sweetie Belle finished singing and quickly ran off screen. Button Mash held a cardboard NES Game Cartridge box in his hooves. It depicted Doctor Whooves and Derpy Hooves standing on top of a blue phone booth as it flew through space. "What happens when you take two random ponies like Mr. Turner and Miss Whooves, and put them in an NES game?" Button asked, "Time Turner, or Doctor Whooves in this game, has a magical phone booth that can travel through time, and he and Miss Hooves go on adventures through time, and they meet famous historical figures. It's weird, but it sounds cool, and it seemed like a good idea. It had fun characters, time travel, and adventure. So how could you mess it up?" Button's smile disappeared. "You want to know?" he asked. Button moved his hoof and revealed the FRI logo, and pointed to it. The three letters were stamped over a sack of money. "That's how," Button said with a frown. Button put the game into his NES and turned it on. It showed Doctor Whooves and Derpy standing in front of a the phone booth. A Pegasus guard flew over to them and told them about a gang of evil Time Rebels. "Yeah, this game was made by FRI, Filthy Rich Industries. The masters of horribleness; the unholy money bag stamp of death. The plot of the game is that rebels have gone back in time, taken famous historical figures, and put them in different time periods. The goal is to find them all and put them back in their correct time periods." Button blinked and coked his head in confusion, "Who are these time rebels, and why do they want to do this? Well, guess what. They're never referred to again. Yeah, they're just for your imagination." Button looked up, and his propeller hat spun twice as fast. A thought bubble of the time rebels appeared over his head. It was a group of three dragons, hanging around what looked like the Everfree Forest. Red Dragon: "Man, wouldn't it be funny if we put Smart Cookie in Ancient Egypt?" Purple Dragon: "How about Galineigho in the Jurassic period?" The dragons all chuckled as a brown dragon shoveled gems into his mouth. Purple Dragon: "We're jerks!" Button grinned as the thought bubble faded, "Well, the reason you're trying to return these historical figures to their proper times is to prevent history from being altered. Specifically, to make sure muffins are invented." Button suddenly face hooved, "Really? That's...the whole big deal? Not to prevent some major catastrophe, but instead, a naked cupcake?" On the game screen, a book appeared. "The first thing that happens when you start the game, you're given a phone book with numbers for the historical ponies. If you try calling any of these ponies, nothing happens. Not that any of these ponies would have phone numbers anyway! There's no in-game instructions. No. You're left on your own to figure this out. Like, 'good luck, sucker!'." Button stopped on a page with Chancellor Puddinghead on it and pointed, "Oh look, there's a blinking red number under the number. I guess I'm supposed to call that. Alright, well thanks for making me flip through all those stupid pages!" The screen changed to the phone booth flying over a black background with a bunch of lines and numbers. "Next thing, you're in what they call a 'time circuit' where you have to shoot the phone booth across all the digits of the phone number you're trying to call. You'd think they overthought this a little? How about just a cutscene showing the phone booth spiraling into a time warp? Again, there's no instructions. I guess I gotta hit all the digits in order, and that pink ring is to help...guide the phone booth? I'm just guessing here." Button sighed as he pressed on the D-pad on his controller as the phone booth flew around and made beeping noises. "What's the point of this?!" Button shouted impatiently, "Why can't ya just start the game? Couldn't you just dial the number and go straight to the stage? And speaking of that, what's the point of dialing the number? How about just, select the page with the pony you're trying to get to? But that doesn't matter either because Puddinghead's always the first one it lets you call! Why couldn't it be like the Mega Mare games, where you can play whatever stage you want? Here, everything has to be done in the order the game wants you to! So all this page turning, dialing, and time circuit stuff is just boring and it's not even fun!" Button soon noticed that as he was talking, the phone booth had started moving through the circuits on its own. Button's eyes widened, "Wait...it's automatic?" Button put his controlled down and stared, "You just...do nothing?" "Yeah. If you wait long enough, the phone booth will go through the circuits on its own. The drawback: if you let it do that, it costs coins. If you run out of coins, Game Over. So you obviously want to save as many as possible. That's the only advantage to blasting yourself outside the circuits: free time travel. In the later stages, the time circuits get harder. You have to avoid the skulls because they take your coins. And..." Button noticed that the time circuit had stopped short, "Where's the rest of the circuits, by the way? Isn't there supposed to be one more digit?! Where is it?! The phone booth flew to the far right and off the circuits where two more pink skulls appeared. Button's jaw dropped. "You've GOT to be kidding me! It's all the way out there?! Who would know to do that?!" "And if that's not crazy enough, you have to hit one of the pink skulls! One of them takes your coins, the other one makes the last digit appear! So it's a 50 percent chance you'll get the right one! That...is some supreme cheating!" The screen changed to Doctor Whooves walking in a grassy field with dirt paths. "Once you finally get to the real game, you'll realize how bad this game really is. But first, the basics. As you noticed, they attempted a three-dimensional world. On the NES? Wow! But you're still stuck to moving at 90-degree angles." "You play as either Doctor or Derpy. They don't interact on-screen together. That's not fair." "So, we're looking for Chancellor Puddinghead. And you know what? They could've made this game educational. I mean, I like video games, but I like school too! I actually thought the Sunday before the first day of school was the first day of school. True story. Ask my mom. I like learning about stuff." "Anyway, back to the game. It didn't have to go overboard - it could have still been an action adventure game, with a few facts thrown in. It's all about finding the historical pony, but after you find them, how come you don't get to return them to where they belong! Wouldn't it be nice if they at least had a little description there to tell you who Puddinghead is, instead of just her fake phone number?!" "And all these time periods are so vague. They're mostly just graphical redesigns of the same stage over and over again! They don't tell where or when any of this is supposed to be." Button frowned, "There's games that are educational, but stink as a game, but this game... just stinks both ways!" The in-game music suddenly stopped. "Where'd the music go?" Button asked curiously. He tapped the side of the TV, and then frowned, "I kid you not, every time you start the game, the music lasts for 30 seconds, then stops. I'm not complaining too much, because the music's terrible, but why? They didn't know how to program it to loop? The rest of the sound effects sound like Atari 2600. There's just two sounds: jumping, and falling on your flank. Get used to those two sound effects; that's most of what you'll ever hear." "Back to the controls: You can never see where you're going because you're always waiting for the screen to catch up. AW man, I hate that! And instead of giving you freedom to walk around, you have to follow the path. Apparently, Derpy can't walk on grass! You can't even get near the side of the path. If you cut the corner too sharp, you get stuck. And it takes you on the most indirect route possible!" The game character walked along the winding path, which kept turning left and right over and over again. Button groaned, and swore in Humgonian in frustration, "Denkalith!" The character jumped and landed on the grass. It tried to jump up, but it didn't seem to move very far. "If you jump into the green, you're as stuck as gum on Snips and Snail's bum. You have to keep hopping until you get out. It's like trying to get out of a sand trap on a golf course!" Button mashed the button, trying to get the character out. "Come on! Come on! Ugh! Denkalith!" "This is among the most annoying things in video gaming history! This is like the bombs in Dr. Sparkle and Miss. Shine, the narrow jumps in Ninja Tortoises, the snipers in Buck Tracy, the stairs in Ghostgigglers, the pits in Skylan-..." Button Mash shuddered at the thought of Skylanders, giving a quick look at the Spyro figurine on his desk, "Ugh!" The character began walking on a grassy field. Button smaked his forehead, "Oh, but sometimes it lets you walk on the green! Yeah, sometimes! It's one of those games that keeps changing the rules." The character jumped outside of the screen, falls and disappears. Button blinked, "What happened here? Where'd I go? I found some kind of glitch!" The character reappeared and ran away from a bunch of Earth Pony guards. "The enemies are just random ponies; some of them take your coins and some of them take you to the dungeon." Button tried to outrun an enemy. "Come on, come co, come on..." The character fell on the grass. "No! UNNGH!" Button shouted as the enemy caught him. "The ponies who stand still help you out: they give you coins or, better yet, weapons." Button threw a weapon, and it flies far over the enemy in an arc. The enemy then caught him. Button's left eye twitched, "I - uh - alright?" "All the weapons have the same range: they just fly about ten miles away! There's no straight attack! How about a crossbow or something? No, you know what you're using? You know what this weapon is? It's a textbook." Button looked wide eyed at the screen, "A textbook that explodes!" "By the way, this won't change history at all. Let's go around, blowing ponies up. Let's kill some ancestors. That's real great. As long as it doesn't affect the invention of muffins! When they come back to the present, it's going to be some kind of Planet of the Timberwolves stuff. They're going to be served muffins by intelligent chickens!" "Another item you can get is an audio cassette. I love how the guard casually says, 'Derpy asked me to give you this audio cassette,' as if he would have any idea what that is! What does it do? It plays music and makes everybody dance. It's real helpful, especially since you don't even need a cassette player; just throw the cassette on the ground!" Button held up a cassette. "Hey! Want to listen to some tunes?" Button asked. He threw the cassette away so that it lands on the floor. The cassette starts playing, and Button starts dancing to it. Button picked up the controller again, "Okay, so where is Puddinghead? You can explore this whole land, but you won't find her anywhere. That's because you need to lure her out, with bait! " Button blinked, "I don't get it." "The bait can be any random object. There's four of them hidden on each stage; one of them will make Puddinghead appear in one of the random houses. How do you find this bait? You want to know? Guess what? By jumping into things!" The character jumps into a tree, and falls. Button frowned, "This game treats you like an idiot! Like, 'Hey kids, you want to play a game? Well, here you go! Go jumping around into bushes and fences! That'll keep you busy! Have fun'! This is worse than that weird line, dot, thingy mom gave me!" "This is so stupid! You have to roam the entire stage jumping into everything, and I mean everything! There's ponies who give you clues. Sometimes it's as simple as going up and talking to them; other times, you have to select your own responses! The right answer will lead to another thing you have to respond to, and then, another thing - and you just get stuck in this whole dialogue tree! I hate this! I want to play a video game, not talk to a screen! Also, you have to use A to switch through responses and B to select the response you want. How about just left or right, and then the button to select because, the first time playing, you'll never know if it's A or B so you'll always end up selecting something that you don't want! It's trial and error, and it feels like a mean joke." "When you do get a clue, it's always something vague like 'Look for something strange in a tree' or 'Look near the crossroads'. That really helps. Near the crossroads? Which crossroads?! This is like Palacevania II and Faust II! And I love it when they use directions like north and south." Button placed his face close to the screen and shouted, "The game is slanted at a 45-degree angle! Which way is south?! How about a compass? How about a map? How about anything?" Button jumped into a tree, and falls. "Oh, that's nice! I'm stuck! Is this where the scenery runs out?" Button complained. "Then there's all these open doors that you can't go in. That's another peeve of mine. If you can't go in the door, don't have a door there! At least make the door closed! It's like those mean 'You could be a winner' stickers on boxes of juice. I hate games that do that!" "Forget this, I'm going to get the Power! Nintendo Power!" Button got up and jumped into his desk. "Uaagh!" Button said as he hit the ground, "Ugh! Wasn't there..." Button got up and walked over to a shelf full of magazines. He jumped up again, with hooves up. "Ow!" Button shouted as he hit the shelf, dislodging a magazine. "Ugh..." Button said as noticed the magazine. He smiled as he picked it up. He opened it up to a map of the stage. "Well, it helps to visualize the layout of the stage, but where's the starting point? I'd like to know where I am. You know what? That's because the game always starts you somewhere different. You can control where it starts you; when the time circuit finishes, you're supposed to hold up, or down, or something - I don't know, it gives me a headache. Owie..." "Then there's certain doors that act as warp zones and transport you somewhere else. The magazine doesn't tell me that, either. It doesn't even tell me where the historical dudes are. I know they appear in random houses, but there's probably a few different designated spots! For the bait, it just gives you a circle, showing the vague area where they are, not the exact bush or fence." Button sighed as he closed the magazine and put it back on the shelf. "Wow... Nintendo Power just didn't bother. I guess the game was just too junky." Button smiled again and jumped up happily, "Well, at least I have an idea where to look now!" The game character found a stage prop. "Nice! I found something!" Button said. "By looking at the magazine, you may call that cheating, but the game doesn't even play by its own rules! This game is one big cheat!" Button stopped and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I wonder. . . If this happened in real life, and I could bring a historical figure from the past to History class, would Cheerilee give me an automatic A, or say, 'Yeah, that's pretty amazing you brought Private Pansy here...but you've still got to pass the test.'" Button had the character walk into a house. "Look! There she is! I finally found Puddinghead. And for one dialogue box, you have to hit B instead of A, again changing the rules around. You have to choose which item to give her. There's only one correct choice. Let's say I give her the skull. That's the wrong one, so I have to start over. The correct item is supposed to be something that would belong to this historical figure. And here's where the game could have been somewhat educational...but instead, it's a joke!" "For example, for Clover the Clever, you're supposed to give her a four leaf clover - hur hur hur! For Starswirl the Bearded, you're supposed to give him the Element of Magic. Yeah. Let's not change history, by the way. For Princess Platinum, a credit card! For Princess Luna, a Nightmare Night decoration! Yeah, here you go, Luna! Here's a Nightmare Night symbol! You're gonna turn evil! For Princess Celestia, the Holy Oat Pail .Yeah. Entire stories have been written about finding the Holy Oat Pail; you're gonna find it by casually slamming into a bush or fence! Just a little side quest. For King Sombra, the Crystal Heart. WHAT?! You're gonna give King Sombra the Crystal Heart? You're going to give an evil unicorn tyrant the item he needs in order to take over the Crystal Empire! Yeah, just help him out! Might as well give, I don't know, Lord Tirek, the Rainbow of Light?!" "Anyway, I give Puddinghead the Party Cannon, and she says, 'Let's party!' Yeah, That's exactly what she'd say. She also mentions that she'll pay for the call." Button shrugged, "Of course, here's some coins for our phone booth time machine from the future." The character went back into the phone booth, and the screen went back to the time circuits. "And now, we have to go through the time circuits again," Button groaned. The phone booth ran into a pink skull and ran out of coins. Button blinked in shock, "My coins ran out. . . Didn't the mushy chancellor say she was gonna pay?!" The stage restarted. "Aw, great! I have to roam around this stage again, looking for coins?!" Buttons threw down the controller and turned the game off, "I've had enough!" Buttons, while drinking his juice box, approaches his NES game shelf. "I don't understand. . .Was there...any quality control here - you know, that, that, um, Seal of Quality - did that mean anything?! Who was stupid enough to but the seal on a rotten game like this? I wonder how many of these games are worthless too?! All the FRI ones, I can tell you that!" Button pouted, and he reached out and touched a few of the games, "But there are good games here, there are. Faust, Mareio, Maretroid, Cloudtra, Palacevania, Mega Mare, but then, Filthy Rich happened! A greedy guy with a mean little bully girl and a pile of bits that he uses to make horrible games! FRI!" Button narrowed his eyes and gained a darker appearance, "And Doctor & Derpy...might even be...THE WORST FRI GAME ON THE NES! It doesn't just have some 'flaws', there's no good and bad, this game is ALL BAD! Like, I'm impressed! How did they do it?! How did they make it so bad? 'Bad' doesn't even describe it! It's the worst NES game, period!" "It's trash. It's garbage! And that's it. Goodbye." Button left for 2 seconds and then returned. "Oh, I forgot to mention: as a matter of fact, it also sucks Changeling slime and it's a worthless pitiful pile of Orc droppings rotting outside the Village of Combai. This game makes all the sense of a train bursting into flames after pushing it 6 feet away from you. I just. . ." Button shook his head sadly, "I can't describe it. I'm done - for real this time." Button walked out again, only to return 7 seconds later, this time screaming at the top of his lungs. "DEINIE ICHT, THUNKT UNDT*! IT'S TERRIBLE! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!" Button's eyes widened knowingly, "I know...they weren't thinking!" THE END This was a parody of the Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure on the NES. The Doctor Whooves and Derpy Hooves plot was created by Bald Dumbo Rat on Youtube The character of Button Mash, as well as the Humgolian language, was created by JanAnimation for the fan made animated series "Button's Adventures" My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic belongs to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. *Humgolian for: "I will slay you, Filthy One"