S03:E12 - Games Ponies Play

[Thrond 3,257]

I wonder if the jokes would be a little less irritating were the audio on Netflix better. Delivery does matter. But they're really not good jokes, and a lot of this derives humour simply from the fact that, yup, they've got all this wrong. The whole claustrophobia thing is unpleasant - this poor pony is being trapped in these uncomfortable situations just because nobody bothered to ask her name. The whole situation feels contrived, and the jokes here are mostly just lazy and strained. Did they seriously have Pinkie shout "NOOOOOO" dramatically just because? Even the ending is absurdly convenient. Of course Cadance and Harshwhinny and the other pony are all in the same place at just the right time. Ludicrous. And why wouldn't Harshwhinny hold the fact that they welcomed the wrong pony against the Empire? Ugh. 

I like the brief references at the start and the end to "Just for Sidekicks," Rainbow trying to vicariously compensate for her own disappointment is a decent idea on paper, and this has a nice thread about Twilight successfully avoiding stress, all of which makes it slightly less unbearable than my previous viewing, but mostly this plays to me as perversely inept. And what even is the moral here supposed to be? That this kind of absurd mistake, which is entirely the mane six's own fault, is totally acceptable? Nah. 

Score:

Entertainment: 2/10

Characters: 4/10

Themes: 3/10

Story: 1/10

Overall: 25/100

Edited February 26, 2018 by AlexanderThrond

[bigbertha 410]

This episode feels almost too simple and cliche. Nothing about this episode really stands out and it's one of the most filler feeling episodes of the show. Despite this, I think it's just amusing enough for me call it decent, though if you didn't like it, I could see why.

Score: 6/10

[Meushell 52]

I think the previous episode should have come after this one. The tease of “What are Spike and the others doing on the train?” would have been fun. With the other way around, well, I didn’t really wonder what the Mane 6 were off doing.

Why was Harshwhinny angry, then not angry? It seems like the mistake should have been obvious to her at that point. Otherwise, why would someone else get the exact greeting she should have gotten?

It would have been better if the same mix up happened, but Harshwhinny still gets a great welcome. It’s less than she thought, but it turns out the crystal ponies just treat every newcomer with a big welcome. The kindness of the city itself sways her over.

[Senko 459]

39 minutes ago, Meushell said:

I think the previous episode should have come after this one. The tease of “What are Spike and the others doing on the train?” would have been fun. With the other way around, well, I didn’t really wonder what the Mane 6 were off doing.

Why was Harshwhinny angry, then not angry? It seems like the mistake should have been obvious to her at that point. Otherwise, why would someone else get the exact greeting she should have gotten?

It would have been better if the same mix up happened, but Harshwhinny still gets a great welcome. It’s less than she thought, but it turns out the crystal ponies just treat every newcomer with a big welcome. The kindness of the city itself sways her over.

I agree the episodes might have worked better seeing the mane 6 at the station is less of a "why?" situation than noticing spike under the seats would be. Epsecially if they were hidden so you follow the cyrstal empire ark then the pet sitting one maybe even make it less obvious that they're there. Just the "My dogs are barking" woof to draw your attention to the fact Spike and the pets are under the seats.

I think Miss Harshwhinny is a professional who understands things can go wrong and is used to people pulling out all the stops to impress her. So her not getting a personal welcome doesn't bother her too much since she know's the welcome was arranged there was just a mix up. However the pony who did receive it was able to give her an everypony view of how visitors would receive that welcome from the crystal empire so she was prepared to put aside her personal annoyance at a bad day and approve the empire based on the evidence it cuold handle welcoming visitors.

[Meushell 52]

On 7/25/2018 at 12:42 AM, Senko said:

I think Miss Harshwhinny is a professional who understands things can go wrong and is used to people pulling out all the stops to impress her. So her not getting a personal welcome doesn't bother her too much since she know's the welcome was arranged there was just a mix up. However the pony who did receive it was able to give her an everypony view of how visitors would receive that welcome from the crystal empire so she was prepared to put aside her personal annoyance at a bad day and approve the empire based on the evidence it cuold handle welcoming visitors.

I just feel she should have figured out the mix up, and it’s kind of strange that her judgment on the Crystal Empire has nothing to do with the crystal ponies.

[qwerE 95]

The audio quality for this episode on Netflix was so bad... it had weird echos and I thought there were something wrong with my earphones.

Wasn't boring to watch, so that was nice, but what's the moral? A moral isn't something that is necessary in every episode, but combined with not having a decent plot makes this episode feel unnecessary and unworthy of watching.

[bigbertha 410]

I like this episode. The story is very contrived and not good, but I find this episode to be incredibly charming and pretty funny. Pinkie screaming no isn't funny and the reprise of that joke later on isn't funny either, but those are the only jokes that fell flat for me. There's nothing special here, but it's charming and fun. That's really all I ask for in an episode.

Score: 7/10

[bigbertha 410]

It's still a good episode. Story problems are only really bad if the episode doesn't have anything to make up for it and this episode has things to make up for it. As contrived as everything is, I still really like most of the jokes here. The tourist pony has enough of a gimmick to get some good humor out of it and the cringe comedy that comes from it is pretty funny. I also like Dash's little thread about trying her hardest to get The Crystal Empire the games. And Twilight's little thing with controlling her anxiety is nice to see. 

Score: 7/10

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

Funny that the episode where they tried to win the Equestria Games for the Crystal Empire had more to do with the Equestria Games than the freaking Equestria Games episode.  I'm always gonna be a little sour that the Equestria Games episode featured so little of the actual games. 

Anyway, this was very good.  Me like.  Ms. Harshwinny is one of the greatest names on the whole show.  And this episode introduced one of Twilight's most adorable recurring catch-phrases:

Spoiler

 

Am I the only one who thinks that the way she says that is just heart-exploding? 

*EDIT December 2020*

I've been doing a rewatch-a-thon of the entire FIM multiverse in chronological order, and I just finished this episode, and I noticed something rather funny that I never caught before.  Remember the line when Shining Armor tells the fake Harshwinny that he'd think that in her line of work she'd meet princes all the time?  What princes?

No, seriously.  What princes?!  Who the hell is he talking about?!  There are no other princes.  Shining Armor is the one and only prince in Equestria!

Let's back up a sec and just think about this: there are two kinds of "princess" in this world: the appointed leader variety, and the daughter of a king.  Now, we all know that the only reason that they called the appointed leaders "princesses" is for the girl toy market appeal, and they felt that a term like "guardian" would be too alienating and strange to their target audience.  (Incidentally, "guardian" is exactly what the Sisters wanted to be called in The Journal of the Two Sisters.)  So, we have the appointed leaders, and the actual royal offspring.  As far as anyone is aware, the last real princess was Platinum--the daughter of the unicorn king.  Equestria has never had a king or queen.  That practice died out with integrating of the three tribes.  There are no offspring of kings or queens in Equestria today.  We just have the three alicorn princesses (i.e. guardians, and yes, it was 3 at this time).

Now, we can assume it would be the same story for princes--there could be an appointed alicorn prince leader (i.e. guardian), or the son of a king.  One can also marry into it, i.e. one can become a prince/princess by marrying a princess/prince.  Okay, well, we know that there are no alicorn princes in the world today, and there aren't any sons of kings, either.  Luna and Celestia certainly aren't married.  That's it.  There's  no one else.  So who the buck was Shining Armor talking about??!!

Ohhh.... nuts... forgot about Blue Blood.  Riiiight.  But that one always annoyed me.  Who the hell was he, anyway?  They said he was Celestia's nephew.  What the f*ck?!  What nephew?  The f*ck are you talkin' about?!  Nephew means son of sister or brother.  Well, he sure as sh*t ain't Luna's son.  The Sisters don't have any brothers.  So who the hell's son is he?  How is he a prince?!  I always assumed they just meant adopted nephew, though I don't know how that would work, either.  Why/how could a person adopt a nephew/niece?  You adopt a son/daughter.  You don't adopt someone that you pretend is your imaginary sibling's child.  The hell?  I mean, maybe his parents died and Celestia adopted... oh...but see, then he would be her adopted son.  Again, nephew makes no sense.  And even if he was her adopted son, to my knowledge, offspring of princess/prince ≠ princess/prince.  Whatever.  It's bullsh*t.  Blue Blood is lore-breaking bullsh*t.  They only created him to give Rarity an object of infatuation for the whole anti-Cinderella story.

I still say that Shining Armor's comment was funny and made no sense.  Even if you smuggle in Blue Blood, they still made it sound like Equestria is teeming with princes, which it clearly isn't.

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by Justin_Case001
Head-a-splode.

[Props Valroa 25,977]

I personally really like it. The pony with the green hair was hilarious, I love the set up of the plot, it is so cute and adorable with Ms Harsh whinny and her at the spa. It was a really cute simple episode. 

[Astralshy 23,452]

What I really loved here was the connection between this and the previous episode. To have two episodes  which are occuring at he same time is something I wouldn't have guessed a show like MLP FiM would do. One of those times, this show has impressed me. They did this again, I think it was in season 5.

The episode itself is quite funny. We see the Crystal Empire and Cadence and Twilight brother again. With this episode they also set up a plotlines which appears again in multiple (I think two) episodes in season 4. Having a more plotlines which goes over multiple episodes is also something I like.

I think it's a good episode which is connected to multiple episodes.

[Cash In 21,492]

I have a confession to make. I really like this episode.

The plot is revolved around the mistaken identity trope, but I felt that this episode handled it quite well. I loved seeing the Mane 6 use their wits to work their way through the situation. I did also like Ms Peachbottom. :3

I loved all the gags here. Also, something about Twilight saying "Hello There" just makes me so happy.

I do think it was pretty neat that this was connected to the previous episode. That said, I find it a bit silly that this is placed after it in the official episode order. It would've made way more sense to swap them around.

Overall, loved it. I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I always have a lot of fun with this episode.

[Props Valroa 25,977]

I really like this episode, it was well done and I love Peach Bottom and HarshWhinny. I also love how it was connected to the previous episode as well. I loved it so much and I love Peach Bottom and HarshWhinny!

[Hadrien 937]

Aaaaaah, the good ol' misunderstanding episode that ends well because you took care of a random stranger. It's alright, I quite like Ms. Peachbottom, she's very wholesome and fun to watch. Ms. Harshwhinny on the other hand, I cannot handle. I would've suplexed her back into the train and off to Yakyakistan. Karen looking mare, with an attitude to boot. At least she made friend with the good mare, and ended up giving the Crystal Empire what they deserved.

I like seeing Cadence and Shining Armor really grow into their role of semi-autonomous monarch of the Crystal Empire. It's a nice little nod to what's to come for them in the future.

6.5/10, better than the last episode, but not by much.