They can control the weather... and fly. No fear of adventure

[poniesforfun 716]

So I guess I might be blaming this mostly on the pegasus, but anyone feel like any adventure elements in this series is just not there? If you have pegasus that can fly around there's no immersion with any of the challenges on the ground. And if they can change the weather constantly there would be hardly any biotic challenges. If they were caught under the rain Rainbow Dash could just fly up and kick the clouds away...

 

And when I think up of a possible MLP platformer game I would just see Rainbow Dash just sailing through it all not breaking a sweat (kind of random but whatever).

Edited November 29, 2012 by poniesforfun

[Marceline 187]

This has plenty of exceptions, though.

For instance, if they were in a closed area where flying wouldn't really make a difference, due to the area being so small or so . . . empty (until they solved something, probably).  And if they are in the Everfree Forest, the weather there controls itself.  I'm guessing Dash wouldn't be able to do anything about it.  And I say Dash because we know Fluttershy is not a very strong flyer, and that she often needs to have something significant happen for her to have one of her aggressive moments.

[Tiaaaaa 176]

There are plenty of adventure series in which ALL the main characters can fly. Take for instance, Touhou. All the characters can fly but rather than detracting from the sense of adventure or acheivement in the series it's used as a tool. Given it's a series of bullet-hells and fighting games but the point still stands that flying doesn't necesarrily remove all adventure or even all challenges. You're still up against other obstacles and in many cases situations where you could just fly through like a cave or some sort of dungeon.

 

And then there's the idea of limiting factors. Maybe Rainbow can't fly for some reason. Broken wing? Dark magic? Gale-force winds? This is handled in a lot of series by simply limiting when/how long a character can fly. Heck, Gargoyles went completely around the issue by making it gliding instead of flying.

 

But more importantly you have the fact that four of the mane 6 can't fly and one of them prefers not to if she can avoid it. Sure, Rainbow and Fluttershy can carry a pony if they both work together but that's still only one pony with the other three left to walk. Not to mention the fact that they're slowed down immensely by carrying another pony.

 

As far as the weather goes, though, it's a bit of a moot point. Aside from choatic places like the everfree forest the weather doesn't change without pegasi doing something and they make sure to keep a good cycle of weather going to keep the land healthy and ponies happy. Sometimes they even get behind schedule and have to make a huge thunder storm or the like to make up for it. As for running into something somewhere like the everfree forest it's never really been explained how that works. Maybe the weather CAN'T be effected by ponies for some reason or another.

 

But I could say the same a lot more for unicorns with their magic and what not. Sure it's limited somewhat by their cutie marks but when you can make anything do anything you want with the power of your mind it kinda hampers obstacles put in your way. Still, the way it's handled I really don't feel like unicorns are too OP either.

 

tl;dr: Nah, not really.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Tiaaaaa