Video Game / Mega Pony

The game's imaginary box art.

"Fight, MegaPony! For everlasting harmony!"

Mega Pony is a fanmade game for the PC created by Khao Mortadios in Game Maker 8. It crosses over Mega Man gameplay and overall style with characters and several other elements from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

The game has had two different demo releases in 2012 and 2013, labeled as 'episodes'. The final version was released in November 2013. Each new episode contains all content from the previous one, so there's no need to start from an older release.

The story is set sometime around the second season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic after the defeat of Discord, who returns as the main villain. Discord manages to break out of his stone prison, and he captures and hypnotizes the ponies that hold the Elements of Harmony, which are the only artifacts capable of defeating him, and uses them to spread chaos across Equestria. In a desperate attempt to save the land, Princess Celestia builds a powerful fighting robot to regain the elements and put an end to Discord's wily schemes. The robot, of course, is Mega Pony, the playable character in the game, which as the name implies, is a pony version of Mega Man.

The game is also in the style of Mega Man (Classic) games, with a retro 8-bit look matching the NES games, and shares the same gameplay and progression as them, with six 'robot masters' that give you new weapons after being defeated, followed by the final stages in Discord's Fortress.

The official trailer with a download link can be found here.

Boss Characters:

• Magic Mare: Formerly known as Twilight Sparkle, gives you Magic Wave. Weak to The Stare
• Loyal Mare: Formerly known as Rainbow Dash, gives you Sonic Rainboom. Weak to Gem Seeker
• Laugh Mare: Formerly known as Pinkie Pie, gives you Party Cannon. Weak to Sonic Rainboom
• Kind Mare: Formerly known as Fluttershy, gives you The Stare. Weak to Party Cannon
• Honest Mare: Formerly known as Applejack, gives you Apple Bucker. Weak to Magic Wave
• Generous Mare: Formerly known as Rarity, gives you Gem Seeker. Weak to Apple Bucker

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Mega Pony contains examples of:

• Abnormal Ammo: All over the place.
  • Honest Mare attacks by shooting apples you, and the weapon you receive from her, the Apple Bucker, does the same.
  • The Party Cannon, and by extension Laugh Mare, shoot balloons.
  • The Sweetie Bot tank shoots horn missiles, while Apple Bot shoots horseshoes and Scoota Bot throws her wings like a boomerang.
  • Generous Mare throws around gems to attack.
• Actually a Doombot: The one piloting the Discord Machine is actually just a robot replica of the real Discord.
• A.I. Breaker:
  • Poor Kind Mare. She seems to have caught a bad case of Toadmanitus. Her general strategy involves moving away from you, jumping occasionally and tossing out critters that trigger her attack if you shoot them. If you shoot her up close, she'll attempt to jump over you after being hit while throwing her attack rabbits at you, an attack that's easy to avoid. Keep this pattern up and she'll be almost practically helpless, until the flying squirrels come into play which can mess up your pattern. This being Fluttershy, it makes sense she would be deathly afraid of actually fighting you up close.
  • Loyal Mare can be a pain at first because of her seemingly erratic and quick movements, but once you realize if you shoot her while at a medium distance away she'll jump over you and try to stomp you, an attack that's easy to avoid both being trampled and hit with the resounding lightning, it becomes rather easy to lock her into that pattern. Becomes quickly averted though on the second phase of the fight, where she copies the Wonderbolts A.I. pattern up to eleven.
    • Loyal Mare can be broken even harder by just staying in a corner. She will then only use Sonic Rainboom, which is very easy to avoid when you know it's coming. Just make sure to shoot her when she is far away, since being shot causes her to jump, which can make Sonic Rainboom harder to dodge. Again, her second phase negates this trick.
  • The Windigo in the second fortress stage could easily be That One Boss, but it can be broken quite hard by staying in the center of the screen and jumping over its charge attack, so as to always be a long distance away from it. That will lock it into spamming the relatively easy to avoid charge attack instead of the nightmarish ice spikes.
  • Some projectiles used by enemies that persist after damaging the player can be destroyed by various means; doing this to the Scoota Bot’s wing projectile in the third fortress stage renders it all but completely harmless, because it needs to return to its place to be used again; at that point, the only way you’re losing a life is contact damage, which is usually trivial to avoid with these minibosses.
  • You can use the Sonic Rainboom during the final boss fight against Discord to get behind him safely, allowing you to get past his barrier and avoid almost all his attacks. On a Mane Six run, this also works with Pegasus flight and Twilight's teleports.
• Always Accurate Attack: The Stare hits every enemy on-screen save for those immune to it.
• Animal Mecha: Most enemies in the game are robots based on different animals.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Compared to the source games, at least. For instance, it is possible here to save between Fortress stages, so you don't need to beat them all in one go, and it is also possible to buy a Charge Shot from the store, even though Mega Man 2, which the game is mostly based on, had no such thing. Spike Guards and Emergency Wings (protecting you from One-Hit Kill spikes and pits respectively) also serve this function.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Apple Bucker can damage guarding enemies like the shield ponies and Mettools.
• Background Boss: The combined mecha of the Cutie Mark Crusaders looms out of the background stomping you with its hooves.
• Badass Finger Snap: Courtesy of Discord, naturally; this is how he summons his projectiles.
• Barrier Warrior: Generous Mare and Discord's final form.
• Bottomless Pits: Found throughout the entire game.
• Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Emergency Wings can save you from bottomless pits.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: After defeating Discord in his tank, he interrupts the credits with chocolate milk rain and cotton candy clouds, and taunts that this isn't the end. You didn't really even fight him, just a few wily robots, and there's one more stage to go for that.
• The Cameo: Celestia, Luna, and the actual Cutie Mark Crusaders appear at the end of the credits.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Sweetie Bot is fought as a boss in Generous Mare's stage, then reappears in the third Discord stage with tanks based on Apple Bloom and Scootaloo also appearing. Then you fight a combined form of them as the stage boss.
• Close-Range Combatant: Loyal Mare seems to prefer hit-and-run maneuvers, but almost all of the actual attacks are melee attacks, some of which seem to be inspired by Rainbow Dash's My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic moveset. The playable Rainbow Dash has a very similar moveset, only this time the projectiles are completely gone.
• Collision Damage: Used by every enemy and boss. Some enemies don't even really try to attack you, they just try to touch you to death.
• Combined Energy Attack: When Discord is defeated in the final battle, the restored Mane Six appear and power up the Elements of Harmony, then channel their energy into Mega Pony for a final rainbow-colored blast.
• Combo Platter Powers:
  • Mega Pony himself, courtesy of Power Copying.
  • Final Boss Discord's canon Reality Warping translates to Confusion Fu and More Dakka here.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Stare renders Magic Mare completely helpless; all that stops her from being a Zero-Effort Boss is that The Stare runs out of energy before she does. And then if you brought a weapon tank to the fight, she becomes just that, able to be beaten in about ten seconds without ever getting to attack once.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Meta example — despite the very odd mash-up of concepts, the game is very fun and a good homage to both franchises.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Unlike most Mega Man games, switching weapons and using items requires you to hit the jump key instead of just hovering over what you want and hitting the start key. This can lead to some rather unflattering deaths if you're trying to use an E-Tank when you're about to die, or if you're trying to switch from a different weapon like the Sonic Rainboom...
• Dash Attack: Rainbow Dash (no pun intended) gives you the Sonic Rainboom, which is this. Honest Mare attacks by dashing at you and punching with her machine.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Wouldn't be a Mega Man game without this trope. Interestingly enough, the type path seems to be based on both Logical Weakness and the dynamics of the group. The playable versions of the bosses seem to retain their weaknesses, taking more damage from the boss they're weak to than Mega Pony would.
  • Applejack's Apple Bucker being strong against Rarity because Rarity does not like dirty farm work.
  • Rarity's Gem Seeker working on Rainbow Dash because Dash is a tomboy and doesn't like "girly" things (and possibly also because hitting flying things with rocks tends to result in a lot of pain, if the expression "two birds with one stone" has taught us anything).
  • It's a little more iffy why Sonic Rainboom is strong against Pinkie, but given some evidence that she and Rainbow Dash are particularly close, or at least like to chill just the two of them, it could be distress at her best friend's attack being used against her. Or just the bright colors distract her. With Pinkie, either is a valid interpretation.
  • Party Cannon deals extra damage to Fluttershy because she hates loud noises, commotion and the kind of hard partying Pinkie loves so much. Additionally it can also harmlessly carry away Fluttershy's animals without triggering The Stare.
  • The Stare deals severe damage to Twilight Sparkle and interrupts her magical attacks by breaking her intense concentration needed to cast spells.
  • Applejack is weak to Magic Wave because she is the most obvious Earth Pony-like of the group, and as such is at a disadvantage against unicorn magic.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders' combined mecha has three weaknesses pertaining to each head. Sweetie and Apple Bloom's heads are weak to Gem Seeker and Apple Bucker, respectively, since they are the attacks of their older sisters, while Scootaloo's is weak to Sonic Rainboom since Rainbow Dash is her idol and big sister-figure.
• Excuse Plot: The story is basically an excuse to put Mega Man and My Little Pony in a blender.
• Fighting Your Friend: The only reason you fight these ponies is because they've been brainwashed, otherwise, they'd be on your side. Hilarity Ensues, however, when you're fighting one of the Six while playing as that character
• Fission Mailed: Near the end of the final stage, there's one area that, when landed on, plays Mega Pony's death sound and exploding orbs animation. It's fake and does no harm to you.
• Flash of Pain: Both on small enemies, bosses, and Mega Pony himself.
• Fusion Dance: After beating the Cutie Mark Crusaders individually, they merge together for the final boss of the stage.
• Gemstone Assault: Generous Mare's attack.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: While it made sense for her to be in Generous Mare's stage, the reappearance of Sweetie Bot in the third Discord stage, along with sudden appearance from Apple Bot and Scoota Bot, is very surprising. Then the three of them take the trope even further by reappearing as the boss of the stage combined into a giant Gamma-esque robot.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: The playable Rainbow Dash fights unarmed. Combined with great mobility and generous invulnerability on her attacks, she's quite effective.
• Hitbox Dissonance: The unlockable Mega Man classic skin has Mega Man's ever iconic 8-bit self but still keeps his Mega Pony hitbox, which is decidely larger than his usual in-game hitbox. This can lead to some nasty bits of Damn You, Muscle Memory! in regards to those more used to normal Mega Man hitboxes.
• Humongous Mecha: Sweetie Bot in Generous Mare's stage. She also appears in the third Dr. Discord stage, followed by Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Then the three merge into the biggest boss of the game.
• Invincible Minor Minion: The Mets are back, completely unchanged from any classic Mega Man title. This is also one of the games they're in which have an Armor-Piercing Attack that can destroy them through their helmets. Or completely bypass their helmets, in the case of the Party Cannon.
• Invulnerable Attack: The Sonic Rainboom makes you invulnerable when charging. Useful for getting past tight corridors with enemies, as well as getting behind Discord. All of the playable Rainbow Dash's attacks, including Sonic Rainboom, are like this, by necessity due to her status as an unarmed Close-Range Combatant.
• Leitmotif: Each of the stage music themes uses instruments and style from a Mega Man 2 stage theme, but with the melody of a Friendship is Magic song that's sang by the character the stage belongs to; for example, Honest Mare's stage theme is Metal Man styled, and uses the melody of Raise This Barn, sung by Applejack.
• Logical Weakness: In addition to the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors of the six first bosses, the fortress bosses have their own weaknesses too:
  • The Mecha Red Dragon is weak to The Stare (anyone who has seen Dragonshy will figure this one out).
  • The Windigo is weak to Magic Wave (the magic of friendship is what hurts them the most).
  • Each head of the Omega Crusader is weak to the attack of its respective sister.
  • However, none of Discord's forms have any weaknesses.
• Magic Is Mental: Using The Stare on Magic Mare during her teleport-homing orb combo will make her fall down to the ground and destroy her projectiles, presumably by breaking the intense concentration needed to cast her spells. It can even interrupt her normally invulnerable charge shot.
• Magic Versus Science: Presumably why Honest Mare (in her Mini-Mecha) is weak to Magic Mare's Magic Wave.
• Magitek: Presumably in effect, considering the powers Mega Pony gains from defeating the bosses are often magical in nature, like the Magic Wave or Sonic Rainboom.
• Medium Awareness: Normally when you select a stage, the boss appeared in a blue field going across the screen like in Mega Man. Laugh Mare, however, pokes her head up from behind the field and looks around. During the fight with her, she sees Mega Pony, panics, and dashes off-screen to retrieve her Party Cannon, and she continues to dash off-screen and back on during the fight.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: The player version of Rainbow Dash is the only playable character that has an emphasis on close-range combat, in a way sort of like Zero in his playable appearances post-X3. Unlike Zero, however, Rainbow Dash carries no weapons, so her entire body has some measure of invulnerability during her attacks.
• Mini-Mecha: Honest Mare fights in a vaguely Ride Armor-esque mecha that can shoot apples at her foes. The machine itself cannot be damaged; the exposed Honest Mare herself, on the other hand, can.
• Minus World: Invoked for The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. You're forgiven for thinking your game actually glitched up, but no, that's what the level actually looks like.
• Musical Nod: The entire game soundtrack^note With few exceptions; the "Get A Weapon" post-boss music is lifted directly from Mega Man 3 is composed of remixes of stage music from Mega Man 2, and songs from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, all done with 8-bit sounds.
• Mythology Gag: Naturally, the game is full of jokes from the cartoon.
  • Honest Mare's stage is full of fruit bats that drop apples on you.
  • Magic Mare's stage has owl enemies, and a large owl as a miniboss that could be presumed as Owlowiscious.
  • Loyal Mare's stage has rainbow waterfalls and the Wonderbolts as enemies.
  • Laugh Mare's stage has enemies based on the giant snakes from Mega Man 3, only based on Gummy in appearance.
  • Kind Mare "attacks" by throwing animals at you, most commonly a rabbit. If you kill one of her animal friends, she gets angry and uses her signature Stare at you to freeze you in place.
  • Generous Mare's stage is a shout out to the "A Dog and a Pony Show" episode, with Mega Pony and Spike being pulled through the stage by a fishing rod, and the stage being an underground mine with the Diamond Dogs as the enemies.
  • If you defeat a manticore with The Stare, it holds out its paw to show a thorn stuck in it; touching it removes the thorn and "kills" the manticore, letting you pass as it smiles at you. Timber wolf enemies, meanwhile, fall apart and the pieces crawl away.
  • In the first Discord stage, the boss is a mechanical dragon based on the dragon from "Dragonshy". Naturally, it is weak to The Stare, and as an attack belches smoke that covers the screen, making you have to remember where the platforms are.
  • The boss of the second Discord stage is a Windigo, who uses wind and ice-themed attacks.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders in the third Discord stage are weak to the weapons used by their sisters (or surrogate sister, for Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash).
  • Upon his defeat, Discord is petrified by the Elements of Harmony.
  • During the credits, each of the bosses is assigned a number. They're numbered in the same order they introduced themselves in the first episode of the series — Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie.
    • Also, they are shown in the order each pony received their cutie mark back in A True, True Friend (Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie). Appropriate, given that a remix of that song is playing throughout the credits.
  • All the music, in fact, is taken from the show, but combined with songs from Mega Man 2. For example, Laugh Mare's stage music is a combination of "Giggle At The Ghosties" and Crash Man's theme, and Honest Mare combines "Raise This Barn" with Metal Man. The only two songs that aren't a combination are Zecora's shop ("Evil Enchantress") and the credits ("A True, True Friend"), though they instead use the instruments of the shop themes from Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, and the credits of Mega Man 1 respectively.
• Nintendo Hard: Hardly surprising considering it plays like a NES Mega Man game, it contains deathspikes, tricky platforming, hordes of enemies that can knock you into pits, and basically everything that made classic Mega Man difficult.
• Ocular Gushers: Using The Stare on a Met causes them to suffer Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises, then reduces them to Pinkie Pie-esque tears. It's rather comical to see cartoony waterfalls twice as wide as the Met itself erupting from them.
• Orbiting Particle Shield: Holding Fire when using Gem Seeker produces several gems that circle Mega Pony until they block a hit or are fired out.
• Power Copying: Just like Mega Man, Mega Pony can copy the abilities of his opponents using his take on the iconic Variable Weapon System. Instead of copying the abilities of Robot Masters, however, he's fighting the actual Mane Six, who are all organic lifeforms. Don't think about it too hard.
• Secret Character: Buying the Mega Man Adaptor in the shop allows you to play as the Blue Bomber himself. After beating the game, a Mane Six run is opened, which allows you to control any of the Mane Six, much like Mega Man Powered Up allowed you to control the bosses.
• Shock and Awe: In addition to the Sonic Rainboom, Loyal Mare can blast you with lightning. The normal Wonderbolt enemies can also do this.
• Shout-Out: As a crossover, the game is full of references to Mega Man, and some other media.
  • The intro of the game is nearly identical to the one from Mega Man 2.
  • Sweetie Bot, a mini-boss in Generous Mare's stage, is a reference to the Guts-Dozer boss from Mega Man 2, as well as the character from the abridged series Friendship is Witchcraft.
  • The Windigo in one of Discord's stages has an intro that recalls Ridley from Super Metroid.
  • Discord does the Wily entrance from Mega Man 2, complete with eyebrow wiggle, at the start of the fortress stages. When the Discord Machine is defeated, Discord falls out and does the Wily beg from the same game.
  • In the final battle, Discord mimics Sigma's cape throwing from Mega Man X.
  • In the credits, the Mane Six are each assigned a "MLP" Number, just as Dr. Wily's robots have a Wily Number.
  • The credits sequence overall is similar to the credits sequence in Mega Man 1. The stage select screen is also somewhat reminiscent of the first Mega Man game's stage select, as both games had 6 main bosses – the background music to the stage select in this game even uses the same instruments as the Mega Man 1 stage select music.
  • The Discord Machine's first phase has a near-identical attack pattern to the first Wily Machine's second phase.
• Smart Bomb: The Stare fits the bill, as it instantly and permanently incapacitates all enemies on screen (in often hilarious ways), but each usage takes a lot of energy. True to form, it's much less effective on bosses, but it can help whittle down the last few hit points of a hard-to-hit boss. However, a few enemies (Wonderbolts, Mecha-Gummies) and some bosses, like the Discord Machines and Discord himself are immune.
• Solid Clouds: The floor in Loyal Mare's Stage.
• Spikes of Doom: Nearly every stage uses this in one form or another.
• Spread Shot: Magic Wave shoots three purple blasts that move up and down in a wide arc.
• Taking the Bullet: When playing as Fluttershy, if you throw her rabbits at just the right moment, you can use them to block attacks directed at her while simultaneously charging The Stare (by dying to said attacks instead).
• Tank Goodness: The Cutie Mark Crusaders and the Discord Machine.
• Teleporters and Transporters: Magic Mare's stage is filled with teleporters that have to be used with careful timing. Magic Mare herself also teleports around liberally to attack Mega from all angles. On a Mane Six run as Twilight Sparkle, she can also teleport a short distance in any direction to avoid attacks and bypass obstacles.
• Temporary Platform: Little blocks in Loyal Mare's stage fall down shortly after you step on them. Curiously absent are the infamous Mega Man Classic staples, the "yoku blocks". On a Mane Six run, Rarity's "utility move" can be used to create a short-lived platform underneath her, made of diamonds, no less!
• The Beast Master: Kind Mare's main attack is throwing robot bunnies or bats at foes.
• Trap Master: Generous Mare creates gemstones embedded in the floor that explode to damage you when you walk over them.
• Unblockable Attack: The Apple Bucker can break some enemy guards.
  • The Stare can't be blocked by most enemies, going through the guards of Sniper Joes and Metools.
  • Party Cannon can destroy Metools even when they're under their helmets, as it attacks them from below.
• Underground Level: Generous Mare's stage, and to a lesser degree Kind Mare's, both happen almost entirely on an underground cave.
• Utility Weapon: The Sonic Rainboom can be used in mid-air to reach far-away platforms.
• Victory Fakeout: After you defeat Discord's machine, he begs like Dr. Wily and Mega Man 2's ending starts...then the panel splits in half, and Discord states that you didn't really fight him. Cue the real final level.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: When using Fluttershy, ironically enough. She throws woodland animals as projectiles, and to gain energy to use The Stare, she needs to either take damage, or let said animals get killed by projectiles. The best way to refill energy is thus to let Fluttershy throw animals at bullets and watch them die.
• Villain Teleportation: Magic Mare/Twilight Sparkle teleports all around the screen to shoot from different angles in her boss battle.
• Walk, Don't Swim: Just like Mega Man, Mega Pony slowly sinks to the bottom of water zones, and can't swim.
• Winged Unicorn: Mega Pony becomes this temporarily when using the Emergency Wings. With the Mega Man Adaptor equipped, Mega Man himself becomes a Winged Humanoid instead when this happens.
• Year X: Used in the game's intro, which is a reference to Mega Man 2.