I've been following this story since it began at the start of 2014, and after nearly a full year I've become disillusioned with it. With the story arc as of this review being subpar, I stopped reading and thought back on the story. And, speaking as an early fan - it honestly isn't that good when you take a step back.
When the ponies and Pokemon are interacting is the best part. We see Celestia have an Aegislash devote itself to her, that's brilliant. Rarity gets an Aromatisse, Applejack's farm is invaded by Bug-types, Luna helps Darkrai learn to control his dream magic, all great ideas.
However, there's a lot of problems swarming those good ideas. The fic is not a continuous narrative, more a series of adventures with different characters doing different things at once. Except while other authors break up such things into different fics, this author crams it all into one, and it makes things very difficult to follow. This is especially true in the latest story arc as of November-December 2014, which focuses on romantic couples and thus is constantly shifting focus between different groups. This fic really has too many characters for its own good, and they come and go seemingly as the author decides he wants to write about them again, and then they're forgotten about for 10 chapters. Some of the subplots are interesting, but it's been 50 chapters and some of them don't seem to be going anywhere, or are going there too slowly to hold interest.
What really began to drag the fic down is its increasing focus on the Gene and Belle romance, and incorporating elements from tRecursive Fanfics. For the former, Gene is not an interesting protagonist in any regard, the only character trait I can pin down for him (besides generic heroism and bravery) is that he and Belle hump like rabbits. For the latter, the fic already has a lot of subplots going on. When the author expects readers to start looking at other stories by other authors to know what's going on, no.
There were some creative ideas worth exploring in this, but the execution is rather mediocre. This would work better as a series of interconnected fics, like the Lunaverse, but instead all the characters and plot elements are left fighting for screentime in one story, and the result is an uneven and sloppy mess. Once the novelty of the crossover wears off, there's not much to see here.
A Novel Idea That Lost Its Luster
I've been following this story since it began at the start of 2014, and after nearly a full year I've become disillusioned with it. With the story arc as of this review being subpar, I stopped reading and thought back on the story. And, speaking as an early fan - it honestly isn't that good when you take a step back.
When the ponies and Pokemon are interacting is the best part. We see Celestia have an Aegislash devote itself to her, that's brilliant. Rarity gets an Aromatisse, Applejack's farm is invaded by Bug-types, Luna helps Darkrai learn to control his dream magic, all great ideas.
However, there's a lot of problems swarming those good ideas. The fic is not a continuous narrative, more a series of adventures with different characters doing different things at once. Except while other authors break up such things into different fics, this author crams it all into one, and it makes things very difficult to follow. This is especially true in the latest story arc as of November-December 2014, which focuses on romantic couples and thus is constantly shifting focus between different groups. This fic really has too many characters for its own good, and they come and go seemingly as the author decides he wants to write about them again, and then they're forgotten about for 10 chapters. Some of the subplots are interesting, but it's been 50 chapters and some of them don't seem to be going anywhere, or are going there too slowly to hold interest.
What really began to drag the fic down is its increasing focus on the Gene and Belle romance, and incorporating elements from tRecursive Fanfics. For the former, Gene is not an interesting protagonist in any regard, the only character trait I can pin down for him (besides generic heroism and bravery) is that he and Belle hump like rabbits. For the latter, the fic already has a lot of subplots going on. When the author expects readers to start looking at other stories by other authors to know what's going on, no.
There were some creative ideas worth exploring in this, but the execution is rather mediocre. This would work better as a series of interconnected fics, like the Lunaverse, but instead all the characters and plot elements are left fighting for screentime in one story, and the result is an uneven and sloppy mess. Once the novelty of the crossover wears off, there's not much to see here.