In a futuristic Equestria where cybernetic implants are as common as jewelry, Celestia sends her student Twilight Sparkle to locate her five missing research aides during an outbreak of strange pony behavior in Ponyville. As Twilight tracks down the missing aides, it soon becomes apparent that a larger threat is behind their vanishing, and it seems that Ponyville is just the beginning. Can she stop this ancient evil from plunging Equestria into chaos? A crossover with the Mega Man series.
Many thanks to ChromeMyriad for being an awesome reviewer and helping me improve the fic's quality.
Chapters (15)
an interesting concept, not original sadly, but ur take is...unique
3711796 Thanks. I've seen a few bits of "Mega Mare" fanart and other fanfics too, but I'm not taking any inspiration from them, have almost pointedly not read them even to avoid concerns either way about ripping them off. The story that will unfold is all my work.
Hm, not bad at all. I'll follow this, my guess that the next one will have Rainbow Dash.
Ok, I was wrong, but still nice way of having the 'Master' talk to Twilight. My guess that the 'Master' is Discord but I can wait to find out. This is a wild guess, when Twilight beats Rainbow Dash, she get the Sonic Rainboom.
Rainbow Tornado huh? That will work. Now all is left is the master and I got a feeling it going to be three stages like the Mega Man games but that your choice. I wait for more.
Hello, good sir! This is ChromeMyriad here with you review courtesy of WRITE! Let's jump right in, shall we?
Mechanically speaking, this fic is fairly clean. However, there is a smattering of typos to take care of. A decent editor running through it should clear that up.
Take your audience into consideration when writing fiction. We already know what Celestia looks like, so you don’t need to tell us again. Also, it’s important to restrict yourself to epithets relevant to the story. You don’t need to describe everything and everyone; you only need to tell us what something looks like when it will be important later on. The description of Twilight Sparkle after this paragraph is more important because it lets us know Twilight has technologically modified her body. This will definitely be relevant later because she’s going to fight using these modifications.
Having said this, the descriptions here are very infodump-y. The technology is neat and all, but the story slows down to talk about it. Descriptions like these—if you must make them at all—need to be dispersed throughout the narrative to preserve immersion. If almost an entire paragraph is devoted to describing a character, it should probably be spread out a bit.
Another thing related to this is Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. LUS is when the author uses an epithet—a short description of the character—instead of their name when they speak or take actions. More specifically, LUS is when the author does this without a clear purpose or to the point of confusion. Referring to Celestia as the ‘leader of the republic’ or the ‘elder mare’ can be fine as long as it’s used sparingly. As a rule of thumb, don’t use epithets unless you want to draw attention to some aspect of the character.
For example, if you wanted to emphasize Celestia’s greater experience, it would be perfectly fine to refer to her as an ‘elder mare’ since age implies wisdom. Dropping epithets randomly just adds an extra step for the reader to visualize before moving on and can only hurt your story.
This is inefficient. Prose flow suffers from bloated sentences. Some useful resources for pruning unnecessary words are here and here. In this instance, a good revision would be, “Twilight hadn't been out of Canterlot save for accompanying Celestia on diplomatic missions.” It’s a significant time commitment to prune your writing, but it flows beautifully and looks professional afterward.
Moving on to characterization, Twilight feels underdeveloped. Most of the story’s time is taken up with combat and driving the plot. Not much time is devoted to character-building. Now, that’s not to say the characters never speak. In fact, Spike and Twilight interact fairly often. However, their dialogue is always centered on setting up the combat or moving the plot forward. They never get the chance to show their characters because they’re treating each other so professionally. Spike and Twilight have a bit of character-building in the first chapter when Spike’s personality is uploaded, but then their dialogue devolves straight into plot points. You don’t need to add in thousands of words of them shooting the breeze, but they do need to have a few comedic or frightened moments to make their flaws more apparent.
The excuse as to why Twilight—a reclusive and logical scholar—would choose not to ask for help in what is essentially a military situation feels contrived at best. It seems equally odd for Celestia—who values Twilight quite highly and has a small army of guards just sitting around—would let Twilight continue this venture with nothing but a quirky AI and a grappling hook. These are significant plotholes because it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief to ignore them. This story is sacrificing the MLP characters for the sake of being more like a Megaman game and suffering for it.
This fic also suffers from something called Beige Prose. The descriptions are samey and bland. Every attack from a unicorn is an ‘energy blast’. Every electronic body modification is a plate or a limb replacement with blinking lights. Explosions powerful enough to clear rock piles are left with the paltry sound of noisemakers. You need to be a bit more descriptive.
I’m not asking for elongated paragraphs where everything is described in detail, mind. What I’m looking for are unicorn beams that hiss as they fly by. I’m looking for explosions that leave Twilight deafened and woozy from the massive shockwave of displaced air. I’m looking for mechanical parts that whirr or buzz. What do things smell like? When Twilight is in the cavern with the multicolored shining crystals, do they form odd patterns on the walls? If they do, what do those patterns look like? When she’s in the forest, is it dark and overcast or is she walking along a sun-dappled path? The battles don’t really evolve much beyond ‘shoot thing and dodge attacks’. Some variation would be nice, particularly from the bosses. Why would Pinkie continue doing the same thing over and over when Twilight has found a way to disable it?
Keep in mind that these are just examples of things that would help develop your story. Right now this world just doesn’t feel very alive. A bit more thought needs to go into exactly how everything interacts and feels.
Let me give you a better example:
With a few more descriptive adjectives and some sprucing, this can become:
This description isn’t perfect, but it makes the Pinkie Cannon feel more powerful and helps the reader hold a picture of cyber-Twilight in their minds. The unmodified paragraph doesn’t do much to show us what is happening and that makes it harder for the reader to immerse themselves in the story’s world.
I realize this is a crossover, but this feels like playing Megaman with all of the creative robot sprites exchanged for ponies. Ponies from the show are made interesting by the character and culture attributed to them. Nothing from MLP is in this fic aside from a few visuals and names. I’m left wondering why the ponies still live in houses and use barns when they have technology capable of replacing most of their physiology. I’m left wondering how the introduction of mechanically autonomous beings changed the culture or lifestyle of the ponies. I’m left wondering how the rest of the species on the planet—dragons, especially—have used this technology or at least adapted to the cybernetic ponies.
This story’s main flaw is it takes the worst from both worlds. The MLP universe is interesting because of its diversity, characters, and fantasy themes. The Megaman universe is interesting because of its technological wonders and futuristic setting. Unfortunately, this fic takes the gameplay from Megaman—which doesn’t translate very well to writing—and the visuals from MLP. The mechanical bits don’t change a pony’s abilities at all. Where are the pegasi with jetpacks? Where are the unicorns’ arcane laser cannons? Why wouldn’t earth ponies augment themselves to move faster or be stronger using this tech? Aside from the Mane 6 themselves, the tech just feels painted on.
This fic’s mechanics are passable, but its stylistic problems kneecap it from the word ‘go’. The prose is weak and in desperate need of some decent descriptors. The plot is a no-surprises linear excuse to have Megaman gameplay in a pony-filled world. The characterization takes a back seat to everything else. The premise is let down by the decision to use pieces of the source material that don’t complement each other. I will say I didn't notice much telling in the story, so good job on that.
It’ll be a lot of work to bring this story up to speed. A few mechanical mistakes along the way don’t trip up the reader too much; one good run-through of the fic should clear up the few word usage typos.
Stylistically speaking, a good place to start would be to go through all of the character descriptions and ask, “What does this add to the story and do I need that in my story?” If the answer to that question is something other than, “This is absolutely necessary to the plot because it will help the audience understand what’s going on later,” removal should be seriously considered. Likewise, a good question to ask would be, “How do I make each encounter with enemies unique?” Too many battles feel like token engagements with no challenge to Twilight. These fights only slow the story down and irritate the reader. The enemies either need to be smarter or their tech needs to give them more options than ‘charge/shoot at enemy’.
Vivid descriptions play an important part in bringing your story to life. A good rule of thumb to use for this is ‘never use the same word twice’. Obviously, you’ll need to use some words multiple times, but you want to avoid it as much as possible. The actions taken also need some development so they feel more real to the reader. Don’t devote a ton of time to describing everything, but every once in a while you should ask yourself, “How does this look/smell/feel/taste/sound to my character?” This’ll help you recognize times when you could immerse your reader further by showing us how someone in this situation reacts.
Character dialogue should always do more than one thing. It’s important to move the plot forward, but it’s equally important for the characters to feel like themselves. To this end, a few lines of Spike and Twilight reacting to scenery, commenting on the situation, or asking each other questions should be inserted every so often; perhaps between every other fight. This will develop character and give the reader a chance to laugh or learn a little something about this futuristic world.
I hope this helps. If you have any questions or want to talk about this review, feel free to PM me or reply to this comment.
ChromeMyriad, WRITE's Nanite Construct
3967529 Thank you very much for your review and comments, I'll overlook my story heavily and revise it. Your comment concerning Spike and Twilight particularly got me thinking, I definitely want to expand on their interactions now.
The only point I note is that there is a definite reason Celestia lets Twilight handle it on her own. At first she assumes it's a minor threat and Twilight is safe on her own, when the danger becomes more dire, there's another reason she encourages Twilight to continue alone and to believe in herself to be able to do it. This reason is a major spoiler though, so I'll simply say that there *is* a reason for it.
3967635
Alright, well there's no reason to spoil the story, but I do think you should make that a little clearer. It might be a good idea to have Celestia come right out and tell Twilight this is something she needs to do alone. It wouldn't spoil your reason and would give it a bit of foreshadowing as well.
Anyway, I'm glad you liked the review! Please feel free to invite me back to give another opinion later on.
Thank to you cover I know who the three Shadow Ponies are. It will either Octavia or Trixie next. But I'll wait to see who come up.
EDIT: Now know the name.
*Squee*
This cat sure likes your story. Good mix between Megaman (good Gods, I LOVED them games!) and MlP. Seeing Derpy as an elite boss made my day, her butt-bomb allone made me giggle. Im looking forward how Octavia and Trixie will play out as enemies.
4001342 Well it wasn't meant to be a surprise. Heck, take a look at the character tags for another spoiler :p
4001485 Thank you, glad you enjoyed it :) I'm looking forward to writing Trixie, being Trixie and all, I of course plan to give her proper representation.
4001789 I can see, but why Luna? Why don't you make it Nightmare Moon? I mean it a little more senses in a way right?
And I know you next, it Trixie! Twilight better get well soon. Take your time, I get trouble writing down my stories too.
Ive been a fan of MegaMan for decades and i have to say that this story really does feel like the games. Good job.
You had Trixie copy Gemini Man from Mega Man 3 a little bit. I play and beat that game so many times I can easily go through it.
4224291 Yup. Initially she was more based on Zero from X2, but I fought the action lacking, and Gemini Man's gimmick seemed appropriate.
4224308 So wait... you were going to give her a kick ass sword?
4226441 No, from Zero she took her triple shot and the dash attack.
4226701 Ah okay.
Nice one that was some fight.
4232332 Thanks. I figured, it's Trixie, this has to be a brawl worthy of her.
Okay, I can check my Mega Sparkle X idea from the Idea Factory, since this qualifies as identical or similar. This shall be epic.
4373794 Idea Factory?
I'm intrigued
Can't wait to see what next. Question, are you going to have Twilight fight copies of the...err, mavericks? I don't know what else to call them.
4374025 Oh, I have something in mind for that.
4374033 Ok, I wait for it.
4373799 The mentioned factory. It's a great little idea dump tool.
HOLY BEAST CORE! This is, in the words of rainbow dash, 20% cooler than any previous mega man mlp crossovers. Dude I hope you can let me design a boss for the next instalment when discord comes round. Because it is going to get wild there!
4375961 Well, I have some ideas for a sequel, but no real plans to do one. If I did decide to though the main thing holding me back is that I'm not sure which 8 ponies to include next, so I'd be quite open to aid.
4375989 then here's my oc boss, he is known as wildcard and as you can guess he has a four card suits theme. She looks like a white unicorn with her multi tool being able to launch razor sharp playing card shuriken that is charged with magic to have varied effects. Depending on the card combo her attacks are randomly elemental that enchance her weapon's ability. Her mark is the four card suit symbols on a card with the joker symbol in the center.
Hmm. Sounds like Mega Man X2.
4376183 Yeah, that's the Shadow Hunters and their scene, but as a whole the story mixes a bit of everything from Classic and X.
4376191
Apple Claw - Mega Man 4.
Sunset Flamethrower - Flame Man.
Pinkie Cannon - ???
Derpy Thunder - Triad Thunder, X5, and Adaptor 2 from Mega Man 2.
Rare Shield - Skull Man.
Rainbow Tornado - Mega Man 8.
Flutter Stare - Flash Man.
Octave Wave - Mega Man 7.
Anything I missed? I probably got these wrong.
4383721 The Apple Whip is taken from X2, Wire Sponge. Sunset Shimmer is based on Burner Man with his wrist-mounted torch. The Pinkie Cannon is taken from the Napalm Bomb, but is obviously more based on the Party Cannon. Derpy Thunder is taken from Mega Man Battle Network's incarnation of Cloud Man, and Rainbow Dash as a whole is a near carbon copy of Storm Eagle.
So 4/8, not bad :)
When I finish the story I have a document to post as an author's note listing the precise inspirations for each weapon as well as each "boss" pony's behavior, so those unfamiliar with Mega Man can see too.
4383742
Apple Whip - Ah yes. Forgot about that.
Which game's Burner Man from again?
Pinkie Cannon - D'oh... Mega Man 5 and X5 are my two favourite games. Shoulda seen that coming...
Derpy Thunder - Oh, right. CloudMan.exe. I forgot that there might be some Battle Network crossover as well. My knowledge of those is relatively weak, since I've only played Battle Network 1 extensively, dropped 5 like a hot potato, and gave up on 3 because my copy was corrupted.
Rainbow Dash as Storm Eagle... okay, that one should have been painfully obvious.
In my defence, I don't pay much attention to Wire Sponge. I usually clobber Flame Stag first, and... well, Wire Sponge is nothing after that.
4383794 Burner Man is from Mega Man & Bass
4383801
And that is why I got that wrong. I only ever played that once, at my cousin's house.
Nice job, I wait for the next chapter. Boy Twilight had a hard time taking down that tank, good thing her new armor help her here.
I usually don't comment without finishing the full story so far, but... it was an interesting touch to have Fluttershy un-corrupted and instead brute-forced into service, as a callback to how Discord couldn't corrupt her the normal way in the show.
4510732 Yup, that was the intent,
I really couldn't imagine Fluttershy, even corrupted as an aggressive and hostile force, so I had the idea to do that to give The Master some more development and work around her unsuiting personality.
Few things are as frustrating as when you find a good story, spend hours reading it, and then end on a cliffhanger.
Looking forward to the thrilling conclusion. I hope Twilight's un-corrupted ex-opponents will see a return somehow.
I noted that earlier chapters were rife with comma splices, whereas later chapters avoided them. Very good. Editing is a little iffy, though; one prior chapter (think it was Octavia's, or maybe Trixie's) had a sentence repeating itself by accident. Might want to clean that up at some point.
This story needs more upvotes.
4512209 Yeah, this story's history is really where I actually started caring about the technical aspects of my writing. Telly-talk, bookisms, comma splices. The original version of the story was full of them and is almost unrecognizable. I've asked a user to proofread it for me now that it's almost done. If you notice any errors at all, please let me know and I'l correct them.
Thanks for reading and happy you enjoyed it.
When does the sequel come out?
4593547 When I have an idea worth doing one for.
4593564 Take your time. Although I can see King Sombra as a good replacement for Sigma.
*nudge nudge wink wink*
4593564 Well if you do come up with something, I would like to read it. This one was great!
Very good finale. Of course, as I've never played any of the Mega Man games at all, the technical details went over my head, but otherwise the story was executed well to me.