And that something completely different, you may ask?
A review.
That's right, I'm going there today.
Because I'm righting the utter injustice that is little me being unable to figure out how to play Story of the Blanks for years and thinking it got scarier than it does because that's how everyone billed the game back then.
The best creepy MLP game you'd ever find.
Or at least better than whatever the hell Luna Game was doing, in the corner picking its nose and generally being the weirdo in the room that we'd rather not talk about.
Hell, EQGaming has a very favourable review - it won their creepypasta game contest (which it was created as a submission for)
So why am I talking about it like it sucks?
Because, no offense... it kind of does, when you play it.
So what the hell is the game?
You start off playing as Applebloom, following Twilight Sparkle into the Everfree Forest as she runs some errand for Zecora. As you two leave, she warns you about hurrying back to Ponyville, the night is untrustworthy... yadda yadda... and some trees fall. Twilight goes to clear them... and this is when the game starts for real. Waiting around for her to clear the trees won't work - so you walk away, spotting a pony. This is Ruby - she's important later. For right now, though - you just chase her, into a town called "Sunny Town", where you are greeted by a stallion named Grey Hoof.
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| there's only one screenshot because that's what i snagged for discord |
You talk to ponies, there's this guy, Roneo, who wants to give this chick, Starlet, a gift, so you find it for him, and after that pointless quest (i'm serious they're just there for a cute quest to... leave you unsuspecting of anything, I guess.), there's more chasing down Ruby, and you wind up at her house... with a locked door and a shiny something in a well. There's a puzzle, just one, in an open house - there's two things at the end, a crank handle (for the well) and a pony you can talk to. She says something about how "it's not right, the same thing over and over again". Anyways, so you trek back to Ruby's place, get the shiny something from the well (it's a key), unlock her door, and... there's nothing inside. You go interact with the only interactable object in the room, a fireplace - and the fire goes out. First sign this town isn't what it seems, a creature dialogue box pops up. No text. Applebloom goes "no no no no!" in a panic as something presumably draws near - there's no audio save for a dragging sound.
Nothing attacks you if you wait, though, so don't worry.
So, leaving the house and getting back into Sunny Town, it's dark. Dark, and more of those creatures from the text box are there. They're chasing you now. Grey Hoof yells that he "had to, she was going to spoil the party". Three Leaf appears from the ground, tells you that a "curse had befallen her" - curse in question being Ruby's cutie mark. Simple little maze, made harder by two creatures - Gladstone, and this unnamed one that I think is supposed to be Grey Hoof? who goes really fast. You're gonna get caught by him a few times if you don't know what you're doing. That stops being scary after like the second catch.
Anyways, you run through the maze that is now Sunny Town, meet Mita or whatever her name was at the exit, who gives you some shtick about how "even in death, they never learn" - implying that I guess these are ponies who died as fillies and colts in the forest, who never earned their cutie marks but live on as ghost adults, and they view cutie marks as bad, probably out of jealousy or something - also it was their fate to be trapped or something. She tells you to run for your life.
So you run through Everfree (with creatures spawning), it's pretty easy - then you meet up with Ruby. Turns out she's good at finding things and got a cutie mark. She tells you about that, then is all "and i will find you a way out of this!" - did I mention the two of you are surrounded by creatures? Then Twilight-goddamned-motherfucking-plot-device-for-an-anticlimactic-ending-Sparkle comes to light up the forest and save the day - Ruby and the creatures are gone.
She leaves the forest with you, and just as you walk offscreen with her, it pans up to the entrance to Everfree, with Ruby saying "goodbye, friends.".
So what the hell is the problem with this game?
Well, for starters - it's boring as fuck. You follow a chick, get to a cute town, do one quest, and then scary shit happens. Or something. It's basic as fuck - even the first Super Mario Bros. has more to do and that was an actual NES game. But I could excuse that if the game's story didn't have that shitty sappy ending all creepypastas seem to have. Maybe I'm biased, spoiled off of whatever shitty r/nosleep offerings, but the "day is saved, ruby sends you off with a smile" ending is stupid. Have the nerve to pull a Luna Game and kill your protagonist with a jumpscare - sure, it'd be cheesy, but that'd be scarier than the entirety of the second half of this fucking game.
The problem with that second half and that ending is that, as stated at the beginning of this post, I remember this game being billed as far scarier when I was younger, but... it isn't. It's not half as scary as loser neckbeards on the internet would have had you think back then.
The first chase segment, within Sunny Town, is a little nerve-wracking at first, when you get to the end with the one who moves super fast, and you're like "wtf is that?!", but after you're caught a couple times it gets a little meh... plus it's really easy to get through the chase scene once you're in the rest of Everfree, just keep moving, don't wait for them to finish their spawning animation. Didn't get caught once when I was in there.
However, I think this game's main issue is trying to be different from other creepypasta-style games. That, and having a full soundtrack through everything - it just feels like a regular game and not like a spooky haunted game when you have music throughout everything.
If the chase sequence had the music cut out when it began and had nothing save for the sound of the creatures walking (or had the initial Sunny Town music playing throughout, completely unfitting of the actual scene in front of you, hell even a distorted version of Sunny Town's song would be passable) then I think it'd be scarier - but as it stands? This just feels like a short fanmade RPG with no battles and a scary/intense sequence at the end.
And like, I get that creepy games having no music (or music that cuts out) is a cliche, and back then, even more so, but... this is one of those times when something would benefit from having a cliche. make it more obvious that things aren't right when the scary stuff starts up - if you can cut the music in Ruby's house for creepy sounds to play, you can sure as hell do that once you hit the meat of the game and things start chasing you as well. And I get that they were going for a proper story rather than just "Oh, My Little Pony NES game! Oh, scary stuff is happening!" but maybe not every story has to have happy ending? Nor an ambiguous one.
And the death screen should have been a little scarier, but that's a minor nitpick.
So yeah. That's it. That's what I'm doing differently here on my blog. I'm reviewing an ancient flash game that nobody gives a fucking shit about.
Feel free to smash your keyboards and froth at me having the wrong opinion on your favourite fangame involving those little technicolour horsies, I guess.
I can take it.
After all, I've already experienced far, far worse.
Well, that's it for this one.
See you guys next year, hope things finally start working out again in this hell world.
Or something like that.
-Lance Eridian Nirhari Gardenia.
