When an attempt at banishing him goes horribly wrong, Gilgamesh finds himself trapped in a land far from the original target. Stuck with a group of pastel-colored equines who seem to completely despise him, Gilgamesh fears that nothing in the gorgeous, almost-utopian world will be able to sate his infamous bloodlust and desire to prove just how amazing he really is. Despite this, he decides not to lose hope that he can escape, and finds himself slowly befriending the strange and colorful creatures as the days roll by.
But when several strange and disturbing events reveal connections to a grisly murder from several years in the past, Gilgamesh must join forces with the denizens of Equestria in order to bring the perpetrator to justice.
And that is before even getting into the matter of the mysterious monsters that constantly appear from nowhere, and seem completely intent on destroying everything that stands in their way…
A comedic crossover with Final Fantasy V that randomly becomes an Ace-Attorney-esque murder mystery halfway through.
This story is temporarily on hiatus. Updates will resume some time in the future. Until then, I will be working on editing this story.
Any criticism is very much appreciated, no matter how scathing it may seem to the one who posts it, as long as it is designed to allow the story to become improved.
Also, this takes place after Season 3, but prior to the beginning of Season 4, and takes place in a somewhat-episodic format, with each chapter being mostly self-contained. In addition to this, the "Human" tag is more of a formality than anything -- Gilgamesh is humanoid, but certainly not human.
I'm not a huge Final Fantasy fan but Gilgamesh is my fav. I'll read this in the near future.
'Gaudy,' he says. Hmph, says the... the... creature wearing full armor
she say
well ill have you armor is ALWAYS IN SEASON ON THE BATTLEFEILD where dresses change every 6 months
That is so like Gilgamesh he made me laugh in thge game
This is gold.
Dammit, i thought ut was gilgamesh from The epic of Gilgamesh
This review is brought to you by the group Authors Helping Authors.
Grammar Score: 9.5/10 (very VERY minor hiccups, otherwise perfect)
Pros:
1 - I love Gilgamesh. He's always been a hilarious character (except in FFVIII, but I love his attitude in V and XII and you've done such a great job of keeping him in-character so far. Everypony else seems to be adequately in-character too.
2 - I'm glad that you've made it so he feels quite uncomfortable in Equestria. I think it's "realistic" that he would have as great an appetite as you've written him to have. He is a pretty big bloke, after all.
3 - I WANT TO SEE GILGAMESH vs DISCORD IN ONE-ON-ONE FIGHTING... Um, please? In any case, I like that he can be hurt, or injured by the regular ponies and that he is far from invincible in a world one might call "unequipped" to handle him?
Cons:
1 - There's really not a lot that I can nitpick on. This is a pretty solid opening chapter for your story. If I have to mention anything though, it would be the "Look! A distraction!" line you pulled. I'm unsure what else you could write there, but I think it's just too cheesy for even Discord to fall for.
Notes: As a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, I am most pleased to find one of my favourite anti-heroes written so well. The grammar is practically flawless and Gilgamesh's attitude is perfectly believable. The only things I have any real concerns about are how the rest of the cast will accept him over more time, as well as the "thing" that has suddenly appeared to threaten Ponyville, as if Gilgamesh's appearance somehow triggered its own. Other than this, you're off to a very solid start!
Enjoy your review! Please aid me in my own writing endeavours by counter-reviewing either of my two stories: These Flowers Never Bloom, a complete, short tragedy, or Keeper of the Crystal Heart, a longer, on-going adventure.
Well, this is going to be fun.
This chapter made me laugh so hard! Especially the part where Twilight imagined Celestia revoking her right to be an alicorn and give it to Gilgamesh...
This fic gave me a real sense of nostalgia and made me pull out the ol' FFV copy from the game shelf again. I would prefer multiple segments with more regular updates, but it's your story so... anyway. Looking forward to seeing more of this!
Dang it. I was writing this same crossover. Same title to.
oh well no harm done.
Ok after reading through it i say your story is a lot better the one I was working on. You seem to have Gligamesh's character down to the T.
As for further chapters who a ham to ham combat with the Grate and Powerful Trixie.
Of course so much ham in one place might just be toxic to everponie's health
.
just like gilahamesh to cut dsomething in half with a blunted pitchfork
So maybe that thing was sent by Exdeath?
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Sorry that it's taking awhile to get you your review; my schedule has become very tight, although I promise that I'm trying.
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Well, just knowing that I've gotten someone to go back and play one of my favorite games (although, to be entirely honest, my favorite Final Fantasy is probably IV due to nostalgia) has already made writing this story worth the effort.
GILGAMESH VS CELESTIA IN A BEAR SUIT
Aw, for a moment I thought it would be about Gilgamesh Wulfenbach
Damn, Vinyl is good at that. Poor Gilgamesh. His Will Save score is negative.
I expected a link to the piano lessons of FF5 even since I read the description of the fic.
Well, I must say, I liked this chapter and the way FF magic interacts with Equestrian magic. I am now picturing Twilight trying to cast Missile.
What was the sword that he got?
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I have plans to go over that in a later chapter.
Great, now I feel like a complete idiot for not seeing how the Diamond Dogs' names are puns.
Gilgamesh in Equestria.... oh dear the amount of craziness.. I don't think you could get any more entertaining than this
A long night it will be for Gilgamesh.. but at least his piano skills leveled up
Now Gilgamesh has acquired "Broadsword" and Piano Skills leveled up
Gilgamesh is without a doubt, RIDICULOUSLY POWERFUL. As well as Tanky and agile. His only problem, is that he's a complete dipcheese.
Can't get enough of this!
Yep, I knew this was worth my attention when I reviewed it way back when. I'd like to feature this story on my weekly blog, Fiction Illumination, that I do for the Las Pegasus Tribune. You can PM me for more information if interested, or check out my user page, which has everything on it, including links to the LPT site and the official F.I. group.
It really does deserve more attention. Much more.
Hmm...interesting. Although I'm beginning to find it frustrating that Gilgamesh can't see that these are genuinely good, honorable creatures who are concerned about him, and that all the miscommunication and perceived insults and wrongdoings are due to the fact that their honor code is very different from what he's used to.
Still, liked the idea of using spells outside of combat.
THis...was...AWESOME!
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Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This is quite good. I find the fact that you actually PLAYED the game very refreshing, as I have read many stories written by people that played half the game/watched half the show that they were crossing over, and then use the wiki to get all of their information. So you actually knowing the information is a breath of fresh air. Using the wiki is okay, depending on it is not, and that is what I like about you as an author, that you know the source material. I must ask though, what is your opinion on FFVI?
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Honestly, Final Fantasy VI is probably my second favorite of the series, while IV is my absolute favorite due to it being the first one I played. I found it to be somewhat simple to play through after the halfway point (due to me being one of those people who grinds Ultima onto every character), but I loved the storyline, the characters, music, and I found the relic and esper systems to be really enjoyable to play around with.
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Yeah I'm biased towards VI for that same reason. I also grind more than any sane person should. I spent well over 100 hours into the game, and 80 of them was me grinding all my characters to level 99 with max hp and mp and all spells. Except for Umaro, i never used him. I maxed out Locke's stats and hp/mp, the i just ran right through the entire final dungeon because i gave Locke the Genji gloves and master scroll, so he did 8 attacks at 9999 damage each. It's awesome to see the bosses die so easily especially after you have so much trouble on a previous playthrough.
Wait, reading through the story again, did you make a Magic the Gathering reference?
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Yes I did! Good eye!
3717853 I knew something was up when I saw "A Gathering of Magic" by Wizardand knight Coast Guard.
Magic the Gathering by Wizards of the Coast
You sneaky devil. I probably wouldn't have gotten it if I didn't have like 3000 of them in a suitcase in my room.
So much for honesty huh applejack?
...Surely not... No way... Did you...?
Nah, Definitely not. Anyways, she's quite a character, huh? But I'm getting a strange feeling about her...
This statement is full of win
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I honestly didn't notice that for myself until long after I'd already posted the chapter. My reaction was almost exactly like you'd expect it to be.
Hey there, I’m Lord Sunder, and this is your WRITE review! Now, I felt a little apprehensive going into this, and when I saw the title, I was a little hopeful that you were referring to the Epic of Gilgamesh, but this Gilgamesh is still pretty good, right? Right. In any case, I should get on with it, before someone starts yelling Python quotes at me.
Your story description seems mostly fine, although the first paragraph has some serious pronoun problems. The character that ‘he/him/his’ refers to changes mid-sentence, which makes it a little confusing to read if one isn’t immediately familiar with FFV. I'd rephrase some of it to be less dependent on permutations of 'he' and more on the characters' names. Other than that, seems good.
Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation: seems mostly fine for now. Good job, no complaints.
Descriptions: simply put, not enough of them. If I had to pick anything that I found annoying about this story, it would be the fact that the scene is never set, relying entirely on my ability to call up shots of the show from memory, or possibly from the internet. The fight with the bug was particularly bothersome, as Twilight runs back to the library, and due to the lack of adequate description I skipped a line somewhere, then found myself going ‘wait, they’re in the library now? Since when?’ It was just incredibly jarring. The first chapter in particular is egregious for its lack of description, and it makes everything feel a bit… fake, honestly. For now, just look over your work and actually set the scene, because at times I felt the story had become submerged in the Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue. Very little description of characters besides Gilgamesh further adds to the atmosphere of vagueness. Preoccupation with the word ‘instantly’ makes for some very amateurish-sounding descriptions where they exist, particularly in chapter two, but notable throughout.
Flow/Pacing: there’s a massive difference in flow between episodes one and two, but the flow can be very temperamental in general. I think this feeds into the issues with descriptions, because the story is paced very fast in places where it really needs to slow down, and that may just be the story rushing in to fill the void left by the lack of descriptions. I think if you worked on the above, it would probably sort itself out, although there were a couple of very awkward sentences.
It’s things like this dangling ‘was’ that make me wince, because they stick out like a sore thumb.
Also, fight scenes. Your pacing for those seems quite suspect, and they often don’t feel… immediate enough. Here’s some links that really helped me with mine, but I think you just need to work on keeping your sentences short and eminently descriptive on a gut level. The reader needs to be able to picture a fight and follow it in a dynamic manner, so in a way it’s sort of like writing a sex scene, only with a bit less mushy emotions and a bit more mushy bodies.
Characterisation: now, for the most part this was really quite strong. Not the best, but good. I really liked Gilgamesh, even if he can be sort of annoying, and most of the ponies seemed to be pretty close to canon. That Gilgamesh felt intensely uncomfortable in Equestria is a trait that should be screamed from the rooftops to any HiE writer that will listen, honestly, because it’s actually a sensible reaction to being dumped in an alien world. Discord in particular was fun to read, and in fact I felt his and Fluttershy’s interactions were the saving grace of chapter one. Octavia and Vinyl were interesting enough, and the royal sisters were okay, if nothing to utterly rave about. My one complaint: Pinkie Pie.
Where she appears, she’s like a parody of someone with ADD. It’s grating in the extreme, and I sort of just wish she’d go die in a fire, because this isn’t the Pinkie I love to watch on MLP. That Pinkie is presumably stuffed in a closet somewhere with enough cake to distract her for a month or two. It’s that tired old ‘talk really fast about nonsense before being interrupted’ joke that Pinkie always gets dragged in to perform, and it burns. Please, make the bad Pinkie characterisation go away.
Plot: now, not to rag on it, but the description in chapter one highlighted an important problem in the early chapters. The story feels very barebones, because a lot of the time the characters are only doing what the plot demands, which makes some things seem contrived. In particular, Gilgamesh meeting the Elements one by one felt particularly artificial, and I think it was the only time I actually groaned aloud. Seriously, he didn’t meet anypony else worth interacting with? Twilight meeting them one by one in S1 was forgivable, since they weren’t important yet, but here it just seems like Gilgamesh has plot device detector in his codpiece.
I liked chapter two, but again, niggling details. It sort of felt like Twilight was holding an idiot ball the entire time by not noticing that a magic immune creature can still be affected by its surroundings, and we know Twilight can pick up improbably large objects with her telekinesis, so throwing things at it shouldn’t have been out of the question. And if not her, the Royal Guard are also holding the same idiot ball, making it feel more like an idiot plot. I know it was to set up the thing with Gilgamesh, but it still felt like a contrivance all the same. In that respect, you nailed the feel of the show, because they often do this sort of idiot plot too, so… not sure if well done?
That said, I’m digging the story past the first two chapters, where it really seems to pick up. You still need to work on your descriptions, and your ability to write fights could use some work, but it’s definitely readable. Just… read it back over and work on those awkward, dangling sentences. They’re a real moodkiller, because they flow so strangely that it ruins what you already have going.
~Lord Sunder, WRITE's Lurking Madman
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Thank you so much for all of this!
I can think of multiple cases in which all of these apply, but believe me when I say that the first episode of this story is something that even I find hard to like. It certainly doesn't help that, contrivances aside, Gilgamesh only speaks to each bearer for one-thousand words at most. Needless to say, I've plans to work on fixing it up, extending the length a bit, and adding more description to the story as a whole.
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the rest of what you've read, though. It certainly makes my job easier to know just what I have to fix. So thank you again, and thank you for spending your time to make give me your honest opinion on my story!
I know the creature was magic proof but couldn luna Oh I Dont Know THROW A BOULDER ON IT, OR MAYBE EVEN A MOUNTAIN!
I take it Quill has some kind of terminal disease and doesn't really care who he upsets given is imminent demise. I really do wonder what he and Celestia talked about though. Keep up the good work!
Oh, yes. Well done.
Sorry it took so long to read this. I've been... preoccupied with things. Anyway, Dr. Quill is an incredible character. I like a good anti-hero, they shake things up, keep them interesting.
Dreadnaught is a fitting name for your behemoth (pardon the pun) of a Police Chief.
I wonder what sort of creature could be the assassin. I love how you write, it really is a tragedy that you aren't more well-known.
I await future chapters with eagerness
Once I found this story and saw it had Gilgamesh from FFV, I knew I just had to read it. Now that I read all of it I am sad that there isn't more yet. Anyways, I am liking this story. I can imagine him having that personality for the most part and quite frankly Gilgamesh was my favorite from FFV. I hope that more people try this story, although its understandable since FFV is quite old, I only played it when I got it on my iPhone. However, I appreciate that you braved such a uncommon CO. I will now wait for the next chapter impatiently.
Gilgamesh's thoughts regarding and during the party really sold this chapter.
Also, I think there's a connection between the mystery killer and Glass' headaches.
Hmmm, Glass…. something is up with you.
4387722 he's the killer