My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure

The Good
When you first gaze upon this game, you're greeted with some of the best textures, lighting, shadows, landscape and objects in an MLP game. Everywhere you go is so scenic and lush with believable atmosphere, it feels like a true adventure. Maretime Bay's layout has a mild resemblance to how it was in the movie, but otherwise has a practical setup allowing for easy navigation and backtracking. The smooth camera rotation and movement never compromises the view of Sunny Starscout's current position. And there's no way to get stuck or lost in the game, because of the magical trail guide provided to point you in the right direction.

Presentation in the game is well done with the bare minimum of HUD on the screen. In between cutscenes, you get those nice shaped iris outs and ins which are like added animated film effects to the game. The voice cast for the ponies are not the same actors from the 2021 movie, but are a reasonable likeness. Music is gentle and relaxing to theme of Maretime by the sea and becomes dramatic at the corresponding moments.

The controls are really easy to use. The light taps and presses of the buttons and D-pad demonstrate how responsive they are to the touch. Jumping across gaps and over obstacles requires some precision but otherwise works like it should. Collectibles are drawn towards you when you get close to them, so you don't need walk over them precisely, very much like the gems in Spyro the Dragon. And those tutorials don't miss a trick in the game's mechanics, you're guided as you need to be. The ability to collect clothes and accessories is very much in spirit of previous MLP titles and encourages replayability of the main game and the mini-games to earn some more.

The Bad
While all the objects in the game sport impressive graphic looks, the characters on the other hoof do not. The colours on the ponies' bodies look overly saturated and the CG effects make their body fur and mane hair look more like PVC plastic just like the brushable pony figures made by Hasbro. Even the animals don't look very fuzzy or cute. And to think the ponies in Tell Your Tale didn't look half as bad.

The storyline with Equestrian magic is pretty bad due to the "pony rivalry makes magic disappear" cliché, which makes a "unicycled" plot as opposed to a more unique one. There is the time when the magic fades away, but Sunny Starscout is still able to use her Earth magic. That doesn't even make any sense. Even so, this game could have used a full cast of secondary characters including Phyllis Cloverleaf, Posey, Alphabittle and Queen Haven. We don't really get to know any of the side characters that you interact with, just a bunch of stage actors whose only role is to keep the game going.

The game lacks long lasting replayability because each new game is easier than the last due to growing familiarity of the main game. You'll be taking the same path every time until you've memorised it. The game would have felt more complete if the order in which you uncover clues and identities for the vandalised billboards was randomised. The only way you can extend the game's length is talking to ponies. Good luck finding an Easter egg or allusion.

The Bottom Line
It's been a while since anyone has seen a proper full length My Little Pony title, with only Friendship is Magic mini-games all this time. The gamemakers really took the time to fit several elements of MLP Generation 5 inside this title. It's just a great shame that characters couldn't look as good as the rest of the game. There's no reason the pony graphics couldn't come before the other visuals. Apart from collectibles, the game does not offer too much overall. Regardless the game plays very well.

If you've got this game, it's worth sharing with a friend or two so you can get a feel of that friendship magic. In future it might be nice to actually make the other members of the Mane Five playable characters in their own expansion games that tie in with the main game. If you have a competitive streak for the mini-games, this one will not disappoint. If you're a brony or pony fan, grab your gamepad, settle down on the couch in front of your TV and let this one roll.