My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, seasons 1 and 2

 

The My Little Pony intellectual property has been going on for 40 years, it's first generation coming out while I was a child.  Because of my childhood familiarity, I was well inclined to try out My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, when it launched in 2010.  It was VERY visually appealing to me, with the cute small ponies with enormous eyes that came in many colors.

The show was worth every bit of hype it got.  The first two episodes were an epic two part story about how everything began.  The following episodes were sweet one shots.  The characters were each well written, distinct, and relatable.  And the finale of season 1 wrapped up things that happened in earlier episodes for a fantastic musical finale.

Season 2 opened with a big two part story as well, introducing what became a fan favorite villain.  The episodes in between continued to build characters and flesh out the world of Equestria, and it ended with one of my favorite two part stories, A Canterlot Wedding.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic is another MMO I spent a great deal of time on.  It first launched in 2011, and my husband and I joined shortly after.  It was the first MMO we tried to replace WoW with.  It's also the only Sci-Fi MMO I reached end game in.

It's a good solid game, with lots of old Bioware polish and storytelling, complete with NPC romance options for every class.

Character design options were pretty decent.  Humans, human cyborgs, and some alien races, but no androids.  There were 2 genders, 4 body types for each gender, and racial details were focused on the heads.  I was particularly pleased that you could be a plus sized man or woman, although the plus sized woman wasn't THAT overweight, but it was better than being a twig.

My main character, that I leveled to 50 (the cap at launch) was a cyborg trooper named Jouselle.  I was very pleased with her, she was beautiful, powerful, and got the guy in the end.

Winged Cloud, the Sakura Visual Novels

 

Winged Cloud is a developer and publisher of the Sakura visual novel series.  They've been releasing hentai visual novels since 2014.  They usually cost $10 and take about 4 hours to read.  Most of the older ones are one-shots like Sakura Cupid and Sakura Angels, but a few stories have multiple sequels, like Sakura Succubus, which never seems to end. They've explored other genres, with Sakura Clicker and Sakura Dungeon, which are a clicker and a dungeon respectively, but most of them are tasty little lewd short stories that end in a happy threesome if you choose the right options.

I'm not reviewing them all individually because in 8 years they've published 41 titles to Steam, and they're all for the most part the same in concept.  You're in a scenario with 2 girls, and you end up with one, the other, or both!  They're all pretty harmless, trashy and fun!  Definitely not for kids.  You only see the sex if you add the free 18+ patch, but the art is lewd regardless.  I'd share a screenshot, but no.  Just trust me, or go on Steam and see for yourself.

I understand some Sakura visual novels are showing up on the Nintendo E-Shop.  I am not going to repurchase VNs I already own to see if they're any different there, but it's safe to assume they're not appropriate for children there either.  But if you're an adult who wants some lewd, romantic trash, enjoy!

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn through Stormblood

Final Fantasy XIV, my current MMO.  I have devoted years of my life to the MMORPG genre, a decade in World of Warcraft, a few years to Aura Kingdom, but this THIS!  This is possibly the best MMO of our time.  It is the highest quality MMO available on the market right now.  I know, it's not free, it has a monthly subscription, but I've played a "free" MMO and spent a LOT more than that on it.  "Free to play" is a lie, and I will gladly pay my sub to keep Final Fantasy going.  This game actually had a rough start.  Version 1.0 was notoriously bad.  I wasn't around for that one, I was still trapped in WoW at the time, but it was bad, people tell me it was bad and I believe it.  So bad, that they took it down, and rebuilt from the ground up.

NekoPara: Volumes 0 through 4, and the Anime

 

NekoPara is an IP that started as a visual novel series, blew up with merchandise, and eventually got an anime adaptation.  I've been following NekoPara for years.  It is incredibly rare for a hentai series to become this popular, but the cast of characters is incredibly lovable.

Pinkie Pie's Party for Nintendo DS

I played Pinkie Pie's Party for Nintendo DS.  I am a My Little Pony fangirl.  However, this game is primarily for small children.   There are several minigames, some that utilize tools exclusive to the Nintendo DS and related consoles, like the microphone to blow up balloons.  So I don't see this working well as a port or a rom.  But you're not missing much.  A small child could be engrossed with this, but I'm like... Okay?  After you complete story mode, you can go back and play the minigames all you want, but there's no high scores or anything.  Nicely animated 2d graphics though.

Lucky Star (anime)

Lucky Star started out as a comic strip manga my Kagomi Yoshimizu in 2003, and was adapted to an anime in 2007, which was released in the West by Bandai Entertainment, then again by Funimation.  More mangas and light novels are still being written in this series to this day, but I'm reviewing the 24 episode anime that was released in 2007.

Lucky Star was groundbreaking in showing how incredibly entertaining the mundane could be.  There is no epic saga, just anime schoolgirls doing schoolgirl things.  They go to school, do homework, watch anime, get sick, get better, argue, go on vacation, all the little things we took for granted before the Pandemic.

This anime set the stage for dozens of moe, slice of life anime for years to come.  It it thanks to Lucky Star that we have hundreds of other anime showcasing the day to day lives of schoolgirls, office workers, monsters, mermaids, all sorts of people.  It's fascinating, and comforting, and relatable.