baba_booey

Heads up: A listing for a Nintendo Switch version of this game was found up for pre-order on Target's website

Boast Busters for me. Like many have pointed out in the past, the way Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity act regarding a magic show comes off as being annoying, and Trixie is basically put in the wrong for it despite not even really doing anything until after they started acting out against her.

Considering I basically grew up watching the show online (didn't have cable TV for most of that time period, and even when I did, The Hub/Discovery Family wasn't part of the package), I don't think the ads would've been much of an issue.

For both the favorite and underrated categories, I'd probably go with The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone. It basically feels like it had everything I desired in a Gilda return episode (basically confirming my personal headcanons from S1, plus having a really solid redemption), I like Pinkie and Rainbow's characterizations, the humor is pretty good, and also it does set potential for Gilda returning in future episodes even if the show didn't really utilize that. Yet it's never really one I see people talking about and especially considering Gilda's redemption being hands down one of the show's better ones I really feel like it needs more attention and praise. Overrated I'm... not too sure, I like most of the episodes of the show (and honestly don't like the term 'overrated' regardless), but if I had to choose... maybe Slice of Life? I appreciate the amount of fun that the writers clearly had with the episode and what it represents as a thank you to the fanbase, but especially as someone who doesn't really care for a lot of the MLP fanon with the background characters, the overall plot feels too thin and "all over the place" to make this an episode I feel particularly motivated to go back to. I'd still say that I feel like The Simpsons' 22 Short Films About Springfield did this sort of concept a lot better. Hated, I gotta go with Newbie Dash. It basically just feels like a "haha rainbow dash is an idiot" type of episode with every major character in it feeling like an asshole, and the fact that it's a landmark episode representing Rainbow Dash's goal in the series actually makes it end up feeling worse.

IIRC in an interview MA Larson stated that Magical Mystery Cure was originally going to be a 2-parter and as such the plot would have been less rushed and more developed, with Twilight’s conflict in the episode being something that Celestia wasn’t able to solve, ergo making her ascension feel more ‘deserved’, for lack of a better word. (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/3crbhn/ma_larson_discusses_the_original_versionscript_of/csycz1l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)

To be honest, even if they went with the original finale plans when they were planning to end Season 3, I still feel there would've been a lot of loose ends, and when rewatching S1-3 now it's very clear that the characters and writing still had a lot of room to grow that was fulfilled by S4 onwards. It is kind of hard to say how I would've "felt" considering that if that was the case I wouldn't have the knowledge of how the show ended at Season 9 to compare it to, but at the very least it would've probably been disappointing for it to go so quickly.