My Little Mousehunters
By mathwiz617

Reviewed by Rinnaul

I get to review one of our own, today. That’s right, not even the commentators here escape me.

I need to find more opportunities for using that image.

Anyway, I’m skipping the point-by-point commentary because there’s actually very little that stands out in the details of the fic, at least as far as I read (19 chapters, or about 19,000 words). Instead, the issues here are more problems with the story in general.

mathwiz asks repeatedly why his story has had such poor reception, and, to quote Sword Art Online:

”There’s nothing as boring as watching someone else play an RPG.” — Kirihito

Was that a wholly unnecessary use of a quote tag? It was!

But more importantly, while this isn’t an RPG, or even a game at all (but instead a game-based crossover), it suffers from one major issue: lack of reader immersion.

The battles against the mice read exactly like the ponies are playing Mousehunt. That’s why I referenced SAO. Unless the mechanics of the game are of interest of me, these encounters are incredibly boring. I’m basically watching the ponies play through a video game tutorial level for the entire first chapter.

Things really don't improve in later chapters. All mouse encounters are essentially descriptions of gameplay with occasional character reactions added in, and just as uninteresting as the first chapter.

Also, I gather from the author’s comments that the game is somewhat satirical, and likes to intentionally break the fourth wall and wreck player immersion to make fun of game tropes. The thing is, games have another thing to hold player interest: the game itself. A story that repeatedly breaks immersion is just knocking the reader out of the story and losing their interest.

This kind of ties into another problem, too: the balance between the two sources when it comes to the story’s focus. There's far more Mousehunt material than MLP material. It doesn't feel like a My Little Pony fanfiction, it feels like a Mousehunt fanfiction with the MLP characters dropped in.

But back to the first point. For eighteen chapters, we see the Mane Six visit a location, trap some mice, talk about the mice and the loot they got for a minute, and then end there or discuss a trip back into town and end on that point. It’s very repetitive, and very easy to lose interest before the main plot is revealed. Further, this sort of pattern in a story tends to encourage poor pacing and telly narrative, both of which show up here.

Oh, and that major plot reveal? It’s given to us in a single massive infodump that takes up most of the wordcount of Chapter 19. Nothing was really done to hint towards this information up to this point, either, which really reinforces that “you’ve been in a tutorial level, now here’s the real game” feeling the story’s had so far.

There’s also some strange character usage and characterization. I can ignore the background ponies and minor antagonists serving as alternate parties and NPCs, though Gilda’s appearance seemed completely pointless, but there are two that stand out as questionable. First, Celestia. She seems far more distant and curt with Twilight than the warm, motherly figure from the show. She actually comes off as outright dismissive of Twilight’s concerns and discoveries in a few places. Second, Spike. His manner of inclusion felt forced and, frankly, bizarre. I honestly think the story would have been stronger for his absence, and this is from someone who always tries to include him or explain why he’s not around.

Finally, it’s kind of hard to tell where the AU aspects begin and end. It feels as though show canon is being followed when it’s convenient, and then dismissed whenever it would complicate matters. Things like it being stated that Twilight doesn’t know the others yet, but she still understands them well enough to predict how they’ll take to mouse hunting.

Try to emphasize the Pony side of things more. Right now, this is fine as a crossover fic for Mousehunt fans, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as a MLP fic.

This really needs more action and “characters fighting mice”, instead of “characters playing a mouse-fighting game”.

You need to be a lot more subtle about fourth wall breaks and trope parodies in writing than you do in a game.

The major plot needs to be introduced earlier, in hints and pieces. By the time I got to the infodump, I was too bored with it to continue. On that matter, spread out the infodump as best you can. As it stands, nobody’s going to care enough to read that wall of text after slogging through nearly twenty thousand words of repetition.

Solidify your setting a bit more, and make sure the story follows an internal logic consistent with it.

So, there you have it. While it wasn't bad enough for a downvote from me, it's easy to find it boring and repetitive, the main plot comes in far too late and far too suddenly, and it’s not really going to be pony enough for most readers on this site. That said, it’s technically competent and the characters are handled mostly well. It would need a major rewrite to improve its flaws, but it is possible.

Enjoyable.

Thanks for the review. I think the major problem with this story is that I started writing it before I really knew what I wanted to do with it. Thinking about it, that seems to be the problem with most of my stories. Yeah, the earlier chapters... well, even I think they suck. Should I ever go back and rewrite them, I'll take your tips to heart. That, and I'll take the endgame into consideration.