Prologue: Character Creation
So much had happened, Twilight Sparkle couldn't help but think. It was strange for her to think back and realize that she and the other Pillars of Harmony had been friends for no more than four years. So much had happened in so short a time, and the sheer quantity, not to mention absurdity of activity that had become her life since that fateful night, that of the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration was almost mind-numbing to think about.
Despite that, and all the difficulties she...no; they, faced, she found that her heart would ache at the slightest thought of 'what if none of it ever happened'. Knowing what she went through...what they all went through, it was worth it. Her friendships were so worth it that Twilight adamantly told herself that if she had remained a reclusive scholar, and then learned a few years down the road what could have been, that her heart would undoubtedly have broken.
So much, and it had apparently all been leading up to one moment. One endgame, if she were to think in chess terms. A fitting lens to look through, Princess Sparkle mentally declared, given the distinctly hooves-off methods that her mentor, Princess Celestia favored. It was incredible, thinking back, everything Twilight had experienced since she was sent to Ponyville to begin to follow her destiny.
All that, and never would she have guessed what her destiny would have turned out to be. Here she was, among her friends; her fellow Pillars of Harmony, seated in an arrangement of thrones not unlike the set up in the Palace of Friendship. To her, the strangest thing by far about the situation was that Celestia and Luna, the long-standing rulers of the land, were prostrated before them.
"Princess Twilight. This has been a long time coming." Celestia told Twilight. "Just as my sister and I were but temporary wielders of the Elements of Harmony, so too was our reign only ever meant to be a means to prevent a power vacuum and the anarchy that would undoubtedly follow, until the Elements manifested a physical state. As you've no doubt come to realize Princess, you and your friends were always more than mere wielders of the Elements. You six are the Elements of Harmony.”
Luna eyed her sister briefly, then smiled at the six before picking up where Celestia left off. “Harmony has long been the central ideal of Equestrian society, and that goes deeper than any theological belief. It's a concept deeply rooted in who we are, and so it only makes sense that Harmony would be at the top of the Equestrian Hierarchy. Now...Princess Apple, Princess Shy, Princess Pie, Princess Belle, Princess Dash, and Princess Sparkle. It is time for you all...to fulfill your destinies. I know you will do your friends, your families, and your home a great justice in your collective reign. It is time, Your Highnesses." Suddenly, from deep within each of Twilight's friends there was a bright glow of magic that grew until it was a pillar of brilliant light. Orange, Pink, Blue, Indigo, Red.
The pillars of light grew in intensity until the entire room was consumed by a light so white that it erased all traces of shadows. Through the brightness, Twilight caught glimpses of five familiar silhouettes. Rough forms that, together with her formed a circle. Her friends. But there was something different about them. They were all taller, fuller, and each had a clearly defined horn and pair of wings. At this revelation, Twilight shed tears freely. Her emotions were twofold; happiness for herself, that she would never be without her friends, but sadness for them, who had just had their chance to follow their families into Elysium pulled away from them by the schemes of fate.
Even in her whited out vision, Twilight felt like the light was getting more and more fully white. She thought she'd go blind in a minute or so, and then the overbearing light shifted; in but an instant, to an equally oppressive darkness. She was alone in this darkness, she could tell. There was no sense of scale to her surroundings. There was no magic in the air for her to sense. As the Element of Magic, her innate ability to sense the aether was so refined it was like a form of radar. Her magic sense was failing her now, and that frightened her.
Without any warning or preamble, giant letters appeared before her. She jumped back with a yelp and instinctively flared her wings to remain in the air. It was a very...pegasus instinct. Twilight looked at the letters and was completely puzzled by what she saw. They read 'Congratulations'. Before she could really puzzle over this, a...she could only call it a window appeared in front of her. It had letters on...in...it as well.
The End.
Save Clear Data?
Yes/No
Below that, there were more details.
If you choose to save Clear Data, your save file will be a new game. It is strongly advised that you save Clear Data on a new file to prevent loss of data. Upon loading saved Clear Data you will be in New Game+. You will have access to additional Perks during Character Customization, depending on your Merits from previous playthroughs.
"Wh-what in Equestria is all this?" Twilight asked aloud. Was this some kind of elaborate joke? What would be the point? Twilight had never had any personal interest in gaming, though she wouldn't deny joining her nerdy BBBFF for a round or two of O&O, if only to see what the fuss was about. It never piqued her interest past the initial curiosity, but at least she can say that if this little situation turned out to be real, it wouldn't have been a totat waste. After all, why have an interface like she'd seen in passing every now any then on game screens while walking by Ponyville's outdoor arcade, if nothing else was going to work like a game?
Regardless, it was no secret that she had no interest in gaming, so this wasn't a prank...at least not one meant for her. Could she have set off a prank spell not meant for her? She didn't know the odds of that, given the fact that everypony had been stationary. So it wasn't a preset trap spell; and there were no spells being cast other than whatever had been happening to her friends, which was likely related to Harmony given that she briefly saw they all had ascended.
So...was this...real? Had her life been a game? It sounded even more ridiculous when she thought of it specifically as a possibility. Then again, if it was, how would she ever have known the difference. Really the only way to find out more was to play along, right? ‘Okay Twilight. Stay calm. If it's a prank, it shouldn't be hard to find the responsible party.
‘If it's real, then I'm apparently going to relive the events I just went through, but with advance knowledge. Is that cheating? No, of course not. it’s normal for ponies to go back to a medium of entertainment they’ve found particularly engaging more than once. Any advantage I might have through past knowledge is just like a gamer pony replaying a game they’ve finished.’ As if sensing that Twilight had finished reading that, a window opened off to her left, headed with the word ‘Character’.
Character Stats (Endgame)
Name: Twilight Sparkle
Race: Alicorn
Class: Archmage
Job Title: Princess
Level: 15
HP: 1340
MP: 3250
ATK: 112
DEF: 78
STR: 22
END: 56
SPD: 48
AGI: 37
INT: 120
WIS: 40
CLV: 15
RES: 90
COMBAT MG: 44
CRYSTAL MG: 112
TIME MG: 96
ILLUSION MG: 74
ARCANE MG: 240
HEART MG: 80
SOUL MG: 30
DARK MG: 180
‘...Okay, some of these are more obvious than others. HP is health pool, MP is magic pool, ATK is Attack, DEF is defense. I imagine STR is strength and END is endurance? Still, assuming SPD is speed and AGI is agility, how are they not the same?’ Apparently seeking to answer the questions dominating her thoughts, the window filled with more information.
STR
Strength is a measure of your ability to ability to externally use your body’s physical potential. In ponies, it’s most prominent in the Earth Pony. For scale; the Earth Pony Maud Pie had 250 STR the last time you saw her, and she’s never used more than half of her potential output.
END
Endurance is a measure of your ability to use your body’s physical potential to resist forces enacted upon you In ponies, it’s most prominent in the Earth Pony. For scale, the Earth Pony Applejack had 200 END the last time you saw her, but she could do all her work on her farm in the same easy manner even with half that.
SPD
Speed is a measure of your movement speed. In ponies, it’s most prominent in the Pegasus. For scale, the Pegasus Rainbow Dash had 200 SPD the last time you saw her, and her Sonic Rainboom applies a factor of 3 to that.
AGI
Agility is a measure of your reaction speed. In ponies, it’s most prominent in the Pegasus For scale, the Pegasus Rainbow Dash had 170 AGI the last time you saw her, and her Sonic Rainboom applies a factor of 4 to that.
INT
Intelligence is a measure of your knowledge. In ponies, it’s most prominent in the Unicorn. For scale, the Unicorn Starlight Glimmer had 200 INT the last time you saw her, nearly twice your own.
WIS
Wisdom is a measure of your ability to employ your knowledge in a practical way. In ponies, it’s most prominent in the Unicorn. For scale, the Unicorn Rarity had 250 WIS the last time you saw her, and she put it all to work in her business with her large-scale finely-honed
multi-target levitation.
CLV
Cleverness is a measure of your ability to find unorthodox solutions to problems and otherwise test the limits of what you can do. There is no greater example of cleverness than Discord, who tops out at 1000 CLV. You’ve never seen Discord try to make anyone uncomfortable.
RES
Resistance is a measure of your ability to withstand the effects of magic. All creatures have it. All creatures call upon it unconsciously. There is no exceptional example of RES except the Nullstone throne Chrysalis used to defend her hive, but given the properties of Nullstone it’s hard to actually call that high RES.
MG
The eight core fields of magic. They are Combat, Crystal, Time, Illusion, Arcane, Heart, Soul, and Dark Magic.
COMBAT MG
Combat magic includes any spell designed specifically for use in a real fight. Though currently banned in duels, this was not always the case. It has always been said that no combat magic could be used in duels, but there was not originally any true enforcement power in that rule as an honor system was considered enough...until it wasn’t. A classic example of combat magic is the Arcane Lance, which is notoriously deceptive in its similar appearance to the comparatively harmless Magic Missile. For scale, you had a COMBAT MG score of 700 when you fought Tirek, and the last spell you used against him, the one that matched his massive arcane blast, was an Arcane Lance. If it had hit Tirek instead of his magic, it’s unlikely he would have emerged unscathed, even with him holding all non-Alicorn magic in equestria.
CRYSTAL MG
Crystal magic covers a few sub fields. Any spell that generates light or color that doesn’t qualify as an illusion is crystal magic, as is crystal manipulation, ice magic, and defensive spells. For scale, the shield used by Shining Armor in the defense of Canterlot during the wedding invasion was a feat requiring a CRYSTAL MG score of at least 300, given its size and resistance to physical attack.
TIME MG
Time magic explains itself. Any spell that alters the flow of time. The area of effect of Time magic is called a ‘Temporal Distortion’. Spells that alter one’s perception of time are not true time spells, and instead are filed under Illusion magic. One noteworthy case of Time magic that was never understood as Time magic is the speed spell Accelero. It has always been erroneously classified as an Arcane equivalent to the Time spell Haste. Accelero is an advanced haste, where the distortion is more of a film than a bubble. The speed effect of haste is achieved without the consequence of faster aging within the distortion. For scale, the level of alteration employed by the changes Starlight made to Starswirl’s famous ‘back in time’ spell would normally have required a TIME MG score of at least 2000. Starlight was only able to cast it by hacking the Cutie Map and thus getting a boost from the Tree of Harmony.
ILLUSION MG
Illusion magic explains itself. Any spell that alters the way the target perceived something. For scale, to imitate a Changeling’s disguise would be a feat requiring an ILLUSION MG score of at least 600.
ARCANE MG
Arcane magic is the broadest field, as it’s essentially the catch all for any spell that doesn’t fit into one of the other fields. For scale, you had a COMBAT MG score of 700 when you fought Tirek, and the spells you were using to pulverize rubble were Magic Missiles.
HEART MG
Heart magic is the field least known about. Many will hear ‘heart magic’ and think ‘Oh! Cadance’s love spell!’ They’d be wrong. Cadance’s love spell, while deliberately shortlived, is technically classified as Dark Magic as it is a manipulation spell. Heart magic has often been mistakenly called Dispel magic, but as a whole it’s any magic that affects other magic. Any spell designed to hinder or bolster another is Heart magic.
For scale, the spell Cadance used to bolster the fading embers of Shining Armor’s shield so it could repel the Changelings was a spell requiring a HEART MG score of at least 800, given the empowered state of Chrysalis.
SOUL MG
Soul magic is mistakenly referred to as Chaos magic, being the bread and butter of Discord, the Lord of Chaos. Soul magic is an extremely versatile field of magic that involves impressing your thoughts on the world around you. Only a true master of Soul magic can make permanent changes by impressing his/her will on his/her surroundings. The essence of Soul magic is nudging the world around you with ideas, beckoning your surroundings to allow them to set in. It’s a very subtle art. For scale, Discord’s greatest feat of Soul magic was when he convinced the Sun and the Moon to take the day off and play hide and seek with each other. Successfully influencing such forces of nature with Soul magic is a feat requiring a Soul magic score of at least 1600.
DARK MG
Dark magic has a largely well-deserved bad rep. As a whole it’s very hard to do good things with Dark magic, as the essence of Dark magic is domination . Manipulation of a target’s mind and body and imposing your will on your surroundings are two commonly used examples of why Dark magic is so bad. It’s the hammer to the needle and thread of Soul magic. For scale, the Dark Magic Crystal used by Sombra to destroy the Tree of Harmony would have required a DARK MG score of at least 1200, given the force it was opposing.
It was a lot to take in, but it was good to know Though it was scary to realize that she’d never seen Discord try. Really try. Letting an uncomfortable shudder run through her form as she absorbed that little nugget, Twilight confirmed her understanding, and the process moved on. The next window was headed by the words 'Merits' and ‘Perks', with a backslash between them indicating a simple format. The 'Merits' were that she apparently accomplished important events in her 'playthrough' while 'underleveled' if she remembers Button's gamer lingo right. The 'Perks' were apparently a kind of reward acquired by meeting the conditions for the merits, though these rewards were only available during the 'New Game+' customization.
Twilight studied the information in the boxes carefully. The...she assumed they were abbreviations that preceded the numbers that directly followed her name, 'race', 'title', and 'class' made no sense to her. She assumed it was some kind of gamer lingo. She'd look into it later. When she really looked at her list of 'perks' that she got from her 'merits', looking them over closely she felt that if anything, those were cheats. She took a deep breath, then focused intently on the affirmative answer to the initial question.
Her...interface changed then, displaying a number of light gray horizontal bars with slightly darker gray borders lined up vertically, each numbered consecutively with the top one being numbered '01'. The bar numbered '01' was also the only one that wasn't otherwise blank except for a big [EMPTY]. It had a mugshot and a basic overview of her character sheet.
Remembering the warning from before, she focused on '02', and the specified bar changed. It didn't change much; it was still almost as blank as before. The only difference was that instead of the big [EMPTY], there was now a big [NEW GAME+]. Also, the bar was a light gold instead of gray, with an appropriately darker gold border.
That 'save' interface vanished, and was replaced with almost an exact copy of that interface, except that the 'save' was now 'load'. Twilight focused on '02', and the interface changed again. This was the Character Customization screen, based on the interface header. Her 'Character Name' was filled in as 'Twilight Sparkle', and it was faded to show that it was preset. Everything else was blank. She focused on the 'race' field, and a drop down menu formed. Sure enough, right at the top was the race specified as a reward for a certain merit.
The Alicorn option beckoned her with its appeal; almost taunting her with its mere presence. It would be interesting to see what would happen if she was reborn to her parents Twilight Velvet and Night Light as an Alicorn foal. She couldn't help giggling in an uncharacteristically mischievous way as she ultimately gave in and selected Alicorn.
When she made her selection, a second 'title' field appeared next to the one that remained blank, being occupied by the 'Princess' title, grayed out like her name. The blank 'title' field was understandably unable to be interacted with. But it was interesting to know that starting as an Alicorn resulted in a default Princess title, but that it was secondary to any title earned in the ‘game’.
‘Selecting’ the 'class' field opened a drop down menu, but the options were pretty generic in name. Likely some standard names for basic classes. The options that stood out to her were mage, fighter, brawler, rogue, archer, and ranger. So, magic user, hoof-held weapon user, hoof-to-hoof combatant, silver-tongued sneak, ranged weapon user, and...maybe jack of all trades? There were other classes, but they seemed strangely oriented to what Shining Armor would call NPCs. The names of said ‘classes’ painted a picture of laborers in various forms. Twilight found it odd that such choices would be available to somepony chosen to be a Main Character role.
Twilight selected ranger out of curiosity, then remembered the perk of starting with Archmage. Sure enough, there was a tick box next to the 'class' field labeled 'Archmage?'. She focused on it and it ticked itself, the class field changing to choice/Archmage.
She then focused on the 'confirm' button, and the interface changed. Now there was a selection between Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty, with a series of tick boxes below that, on close inspection, were clearly the perks for inherent magic mastery, and inheritance of inventory and magic proficiency.
Again, feeling mischievous, she ticked all the boxes, then in an attempt to offset how utterly broken she was going to be, using a term she overheard Button use once or twice, she selected Hard Mode. She got through the equivalent of the standard ‘Confirm selections’ window, and then she was shown a character sheet much like what she saw before making any of these decisions. When she saw her level was 1, she expected her stats to be lower. Sweet Celestia!.
Character Stats
Name: Twilight Sparkle
Race: Alicorn
Class: Ranger/Archmage
Job Title: ---/Princess
Level: 1
HP: 7500
MP: 8250
ATK: 500
DEF: 500
STR: 250
END: 250
SPD: 250
AGI: 250
INT: 250
WIS: 250
CLV: 250
RES: 250
COMBAT MG: 500
CRYSTAL MG: 500
TIME MG: 500
ILLUSION MG: 500
ARCANE MG: 500
HEART MG: 500
SOUL MG: 500
DARK MG: 500
She noticed this was also where she could use her stat points mentioned in the Perks list. Then she realized what made the ‘big’ points special. Each stat point was worth a +1 to any stat other than HP, MP, ATK, DEF, or the MGs. The ‘big’ points were worth +5 each. From her merits she had a whopping 30 of each.
With a sheepish smile and eyes darting about, as though someone was there to chastise her for 'cheating', she applied three normal and ‘big’ points to each of the eight compatible stats, then put one more of each into STR, POW, INT, WIS, CLV, and RES after experimentally putting one on each stat to see any other stats were affected. Once her points were set, her sheet was updated. With a heavy blush showing through her cheek fur, she made her final confirmation. Then, everything went black.
Character Stats (Finalized)
Name: Twilight Sparkle
Race: Alicorn
Class: Ranger/Archmage
Job Title: ---/Princess
Level: 1
HP: 8220
MP: 8970
ATK: 548
DEF: 548
STR: 274
END: 274
SPD: 274
AGI: 268
INT: 274
WIS: 274
CLV: 268
RES: 274
COMBAT MG: 548
CRYSTAL MG: 548
TIME MG: 548
ILLUSION MG: 536
ARCANE MG: 548
HEART MG: 548
SOUL MG: 536
DARK MG: 548
...As color was suddenly returned to Twilight's world, she heard through her young ears a surprised shout of "Do we tell the Princess?" Followed by a frenzied shout of 'I don't know!' in reply. She knew those voices! The first was the head nursemare at Canterlot General Hospital’s natal wing. The response was from a mare she had been introduced to as a filly. She learned in that meeting that this mare was the midwife who delivered her. She, Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn foal, was silent and attentive. After all, with her intelligence and wisdom at almost 300 each, she was a lot smarter than most adult ponies.
Clearly the mares who delivered her just made their decision and sent someone to notify Celestia, judging by the ‘pop’ and aetheric buzz that followed; intrinsic signs of teleportation.. Despite being a newborn, Twilight’s high mental stats granted her enough sense of self to not give into the instincts that might make other newborns cry with all the various stimuli around. The interface had been real. Her life was a game. How...interesting. Now, how to broach to her parents that she was completely self-aware despite her age. 'You know what? To Tartarus with overthinking! That was my first life! ...Wait, did I actually think that? I can't reveal myself like that! Newborn ponies don't talk, and certainly not like that!' Twilight had decided she was going to try to enjoy herself, and not be so particular. However, there was still a need for some degree of procedure.
She'd gone through her entire customization following one whim after another, but now she was actually 'playing'. There was no need, nor cause to jeopardize her perfectly normal starting position in her family by being blatant or careless. 'Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!' She thought, though she made sure what came from her mouth was an accurate emulation of a baby's babbling. She saw the look of joy on her parents' faces, and the looks of helplessness on the nurses'. She was going to act like a normal baby, but she couldn't hide that she was an Alicorn baby.
Twilight's efforts would keep the impact minimal by comparison, but there was no way the baby Alicorn sired by a minor noble family would be a secret for long. She'd be front page news before her first birthday. Oh, someone ‘pop-bzzt’d back in! Hi Celestia! "Bap-bababa-bpppht!" The babbling got the attention of the ponies around Twilight, but only in that theyreacted to how cute they thought it was.
How much would change in Twilight's life from her being born a genius by adult standards, despite her decision to keep it to herself for now? How much more would it have changed if she'd given into impulse and revealed herself? She didn't know, but one thing that would change a lot down the line was that she wouldn't let herself develop the kind of anxiety she had before. She now knew her life was a game, but that was no excuse to go completely hog wild. Still, there's no reason she couldn't testt the limits every now and then, right?
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Let's see how this goes. A little technical and iffy to follow at first, perhaps you could have a link to a stat sheet that can be updated over the course of the story.
I know that feeling! New game+ is fun but rarely as enjoyable as the first game.
Game on, Twilight!
Ought to be interesting :) not enough gamer fics! One thing to point out is how would she know that her stats were higher than an average adult? Is she just assuming that maybe a base number of 100 is average?
9567472
Well it will be fun for Twilight as well the "NPCs" in her life have full ability to react outside normal parameters when she acts weird. Also she did ramp up the difficulty so even with her crazy stats boosts the second play won't be a cake walk, enemies are scaled up.
Always liked games with robust New Game +. Disgaea for example during your first run there is an unwinnable fight in about the 5th chapter, replaying battle and just obliterating the "super boss" you couldn't even hurt the first time was fun. Best new game + have the extra difficult bonus areas(which often your not allowed into during first play) or enemy difficulty than scales to the player.
ok let see how far this story goes since ever single one I have found go for like 3 chapter then dies
9567456
even post the sheet of herself at the end of ever chapter in author notes would be usefully
it make me wonder though what if the other mane 6 are all in the same boat?
I will observe and follow this. Cheers.
9567545
She doesn’t know the baseline, but if there’s one thing Twilight prides herself on it’s her capacity to perform magic, and one of the things she learned through her setting of stat points just prior to her New Game+ birth is that her intelligence stat affects the Arcane Magic mastery, or ARCANE MG stat. She now knows what her intelligence was in a quantifiable form; a number.
With her having been such an exceptional mage in her first life, and knowing that there is a growth link between intelligence and Arcane Magic mastery, the pieces fit together in her mind pretty well that even her intelligence at the end of her first life was high by pony standards. Call her conceited if you wish, but she’s her own only solid reference. Technically speaking, she should be her baseline, but she feels confidant from how much praise she always got from her skill in magic that she broke the mold with intelligence at least.
oh dis gunna be good im picturing her getting bored eventualy and just singing this after a while
Just here making sure certain things don’t confuse. MG is short for magic, and the MG stats in the linked data sheet represent a degree of understanding of the corresponding magics. Also, it was very briefly mentioned in the prologue chapter that Twilight experimented with the stat points. She was observing all the numbers as she applied the points one at a time, and discovered that there are a lot of invisible connections between the numbers.
For example, each of the eight stats that sit between DEF and the first MG stat (let’s call them core stats) are linked to one of the MG stats. They line up in the same order for our convenience, and each MG stat is twice the value of its corresponding core stat. Also, Twilight’s ATK and DEF are her STR plus her POW, and twice her POW respectively. Her HP is ten times the sum of her STR and twice her POW, and her MP is ten times the sum of her INT, WIS, and RES.
What Twilight doesn’t know about the core stats is that their linked growth with the MG stats goes both ways, though the way growth in her core stats is affected by her understanding of magic is not so clear cut. Achieving further understanding in a field of magic through study and application will not boost her physical stats. That would be silly, even for a video game. Instead, as her MGs increase, her understanding in that field will lead to greater growths in the linked stat. It’s an ever-increasing upward spiral that honestly all but begs to be abused by those who understand.
That’s not to say the process of reaching further magic understanding itself wouldn’t yield any fruit in her core stats. The effort may well increase her INT, or Intelligence, if the magic growth is achieved through study. If it’s done with practical application, it would increase her WIS, or Wisdon is she’s following the rules like a good schoolfilly would, and it’d increase her CLV, or cleverness, if she instead tests those rules and explores the limits of what the inherent physical, metaphysical, and aetheric laws of magic let her get away with. Also, if she gets hit by her own spell, or is affected by any kind of backlash, her RES, or Resistance will increase if she takes damage.
Speaking of magic laws, the focus of this story is going to be on a form of Alicorn Twilight who will be constantly at her ‘vs. Tirek’ level; that level of power is what I’m calling ‘hyperdrive’, though with her now being born that way it of course doesn’t come at the expense of the other princesses. So with her now in a constant ‘hyperdrive’ state (she didn’t know what it was when she selected it, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have), and with her decision to have fun within reason this time around, she won’t be inhibited by her own anxiety. That in mind, should I take time to define the laws of magic I briefly mentioned earlier? Does anyone feel like it would add to the story if I did?
As a final note, her MGs were all 500 when she saw her new starting stats before applying points. That is not the max. That is the absolute low end of what the game logic considers mastery. Also, her core stats were all listed as 250. This was not done to emulate any kind of programming necessity. Her core stats are not 250 now in order to enable the MG stats to be 500. The mastery buffs had no effect on her core stats. The core stat buffs are the result of ‘hyperdrive’. Unlike the mastery buffs though, the ‘Hyperdrive’ buffs do boost the mastery stats...or they will. Once the Rainboom occurs, her Hyperdrive-buffed stats will incur their mastery boost, which will stack on top of her mastery buffs and whatever increases she’s incurred before then. A filly with four digit magical understanding across the board. Oh boy.
The question I have is, who are her parents? For sure, if they are the same as before, her family never rated being PERSONAL friends with Princess Celestia. And certainly were never close enough to have her present during Twi’s birth.
That she is an alicorn, is, of course, noteworthy. But that would still take more than a little time to fetch her from court.
9567882
Thank you for that. I made some additions to the hospital scene that followed the character creation that should clear up how Celestia got there so suddenly. I meant to do it before, but I didn’t realize I had forgot to state that anyone had even decided to notify Celestia. I’m also guessing based on your comment that you thought that first little interaction was between Twilight’s parents? I specified now that it was hospital staff overseeing the delivery.
Great job on the prologue. Yeah, this definitely looks like it could be a downright fun story. ESPECIALLY with the implication that at least A LITTLE of Pinkie has rubbed off on Twilight (enough for her to want to have fun with her second "playthrough"). And, yeah, great touch having the "replay" take place AFTER a possible finale to the current/last season. Of course, with Twi basically being a smarter Flurry Heart in the new playthrough, the comic possibilities are quite high. Hopefully, though, she will ALSO take the opportunity to treat Spike as closer to an equal partner than an overworked underappreciated assistant AND show the ponies in her study group (Moondancer in particular) a lot more regard. And, yeah, it might be great to see her not just helping out Sunburst while he is at Celestia's school, but also convince him to maintain contact with Starlight. Okay, okay, sorry about that. Didn't mean to get off on a ramble.
Anyway, the story definitely has potential and I will very certainly be looking forward to more of this. However, I will ALSO respect the fact that you have your own life and real world priorities have to take top spot.
9567882
To be fair, there HAVE been a fair number of fics that suggested that Night Light was a former member of Celestia's guard and Velvet was one of Celestia's students before either her daughter or even Sunset. It's just a reasonably popular fan theory though.
Dis gonna be good hehehe, watch twilight being the troll of the group now XD.
*grin widens*
Ooooh..This is gonna be FUN.
It comes from this manhwa (Korean comic).
Sooo...Is there Save\Load system?
Oh, Discord is gonna love this.
Most of the "gameplay" in Twilight's previous life was just interacting with other ponies, with a few major battles here and there. What if changing to HARD difficulty only made it incredibly difficult to make friends and interact with ponies?
This was made once, but instead of Twilight winning, she died during the changeling invasion, also it was a kingdom hearts crossover, so there was that.
Here's the titular webcomic in case you ever get the urge. But basically, The Gamer (the power) is one of the unique abilities bestowed by Gaia to certain people in the world. The user is impervious to dramatic shifts in emotional states, their body doesn't get damaged normally (it only comes in the form of the health bar lowering), can affect their stat point distribution upon level up, the things they can do on a day-to-day basis are "skills" that can improve as long as they use them often, they can learn techniques or information by absorbing skill books, can see other people's levels/status/life-story-summary, and allow people to join their party so they can see all the stuff you can and share inventory and such.
That's basically the gist of it.
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Yyyaaaassss. Love the series and can't wait for more.
Okay - constructive critism time. Standard disclaimer (because some fanfic writers do not take even well-meaning critism well - doesn't sound like you are one of those, but): this is intended to be helpful, so please do consider it in that light and not me just bein' mean or something. (Bear in mind, I don't know even if you are a native English speaker!)
Watch your tenses. About the time Twilight reached the race selection, you started mixing present and past tense, sometimes even in the same sentence, which is incredibly jarring (and for me personally, I'm so sorry, I had to abort). The rule is, you never write in both tenses; you do it all in one or the other (and past tense is often best unless there is a very specific reason to add the extra immediacy for present tense. (Personally, I find huge swaths of present tense to be difficult to read, but that's not really the point here.))
Examples:
That should be "were," keeping it all in the same tense.
That should be either "she ticks all the boxes" if you are doing present tense to match the following sentence; but as you started the story in past tense, it ought to maintain that, so "ticked" should stay and it ought to read "offset how utterly broken she was going to be" and "she selected."
Hopefully, that was helpful for you.
Not a bad start to a fic like this. I'm glad you seperated the "New Game Interface" information. Most fics that don't are usually never even back at that screen by the time they stop updating, so it's not very important. I hope you last longer than all the other "Character X is starting their life as a game" stories. I've always been interested in the concept, but I've yet to see a even close to some sort of 'done' state story of this type.
This does bring to mind a question though. What if Flurry Heart actually does this in canon? New game plus, starting as a powerful alicorn. Who knows?
*Cackle.* My first remort fic! This is pretty awesome - and thank you, like others said, for going through the interface screen to start, it really adds the flavor to the fic!
If you can, please do keep this going, even like looper fics, if you can! I'd love to see how she remorts into the villain, the day laborer, etc :D
The concept was started, I believe, by an old Korean webcomic that starred a fairly normal guy. Normal, right up until a stat screen popped up in front of his face. The whole thing about the comic is that some people have the power to use a special ability, each ability being unique to the person and, I think, based on their personalities. This poor schmuck was a gamer, and also wholly ignorant to this part of the world, when it happened to him.
Reality Marbles? This ought to be good.
I apologize in retrospect that this wasn’t clear, but this is my head canon explanation for the wonky behavior of the sun and moon during the season 2 premiere.
Those aren't backslashes, those are normal slashes.
A backslash is \.
Seeing people get that wrong is the #1 cause of heart disease in computer programmers
Huh...
Something to note: When my sister was born, she came out looking, not crying. The doctors had to spank her to get her to cry.
Yeah, you read that right. They want the baby to cry- it helps clear their lungs of the fluid bath they were just born out of. It's a minor detail Twilight is no doubt aware of; she could probably get away with a cross between what my sister did and the typical baby: Crying just long enough, before getting over it and becoming the curious baby. It'd probably take some care to pull it off- but no doubt she'd get some first impression points on her parents for it, too.
Aren't you a bit narcissistic here, Twilight? How would you know that you the main character?
Besides, here is no MC in games actually. Maximum Player.
I would remind you that in New game+ enemies usually proportionally stronger too.
Good thing you not exposing her now. Even alicorn, Celestia would know it's not alright. She would actually most likely think of possession or something. Previous variant was destroying childhood entirely, if not making her parents fear her.
Woh... Way more serious than I thought Oo
Starlight the hacker heh
was this not inherently understood? Discord never once went all out. if he had it would have killed somepony and to quote Discord: "It's no fun poking a dead pony." Discord was all about his own amusement
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hah. i see what you did there. unless this was unintentional in which case nice.
"Save Clear Data"? What's that?
Do you mean character data?
"Will" Magic?
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Some RPGs (like this one) have special benefits for having a finished save file. When that's the case, said files are usually referred to as Clear Data. This is especially true when the old file isn't meant to be overwritten in order to enact NG+.
The concept drew me in, but I don't think I'm really liking this. Admittedly, part of that might be me projecting my bias onto a story with a comedy tag, but I can't quite get into this.
A ton of stats-sheets and lore are dropped in the first chapter, most of which I'm suspecting is still at least 10 chapters away from being relevant. That's not a deal-breaker, or even necessarily a problem, but it does highlight the part of the story that this chapter is missing; namely, a realistic (as much as it can be in this scenario) reaction from Twilight. She reacts to the idea that her life has been erased (and/or never existed to begin with) with little more than a shrug. I'm not expecting 30 pages of existential dread and depression, but her cold-blooded acceptance that everything she knew and loved is gone is off-putting to me.
Again, I recognize that this is a comedy, but I don't think this aspect is, or was supposed to be, funny. And I can't really get past it.
Just one small issue I have with this set-up. Namely, the fact that - if it's real - then Twilight Sparkle is locked away in a predetermined procession of events that she gets to replay over and over... but whan then? There is no "after", unless you count the endgame screen...
Might make one go insane, you know...
Might get... interesting, down the playthroughs...
Raise your hand, TES players, if you've never done shit you wouldn't in a million years do, when you were bored with the game...
The console is your friend - inciting guards to fight against each other is actually fun!
(for like 10 minutes...)