Marika_CZ
Well-Known Member
Hiya! MMM prize review, coming up!
Sorry for taking so long too. I was supposed to read your story earlier this week, but my job is brutal lately to the point I barely have energy to turn on my desktop after coming back home.
Anyways, before I begin - my usual disclaimer: I have only read Chapter 1 so take my review with a pinch of salt. This is just a beginning of your story, so my first impressions might be incorrect or you could be setting up stuff for later payoff that I don't get because I didn't read far yet. Also I will focus on plot, characters and setting ...and less on grammar and style (I am not native speaker).
So first, overall this was pretty standard by-the-book formulaic PMD. So far I don't think anything original has happened, but that can very well change right in Ch2 for all I know. We got a teenage boy who plays Pokemon game and gets sucked into Pokemon world, turning into Pokemon in the process. The event was caused by unknown supernatural-like entity, who want them to save the world. That is always what happens, right from the very first PMD game.
Now the good thing is you spice it up a bit by including some humor. Was that intentional btw.? It was so funny reading about Takumi's realization and his clumsy efforts to get into grips with the new reality. I was grinning half the time thinking, Yup, if this happened to me I would probably act this silly too, trying to wake myself up from this "dream" and having to learn how to walk. Only in my case I would be probably unlucky enough to be turned into Snorlax instead...
This applies to our first adventure too: The protagonist bumps into a half asleep Bewear who wants to... HUG HIM! I admit I didn't expect that but it was funny and well in line with the tone of the story so far.
Moving on, we meet two new characters who have marks of main characters who will accompany Takumi from this point on. Good choice (and good work) with them, there is this dynamic of siblings who always disagree on everything. So naturally one of them is immediately frinedly with Takumi while the other is wary of him. I smell some potential for either personal drama and conflicts or funny dialogue as a result of conflicting personalities. Looks very promising!
I think the success of your story will depend a lot on what you do with those character interactions from now on. You cleverly set up a character dynamic with lots of possibilities here, so hopefully you will have some payoff to this in following chapters.
One technicality though, but it is rather minor thing. Rowlet and Poplio cannot be siblings afaik. The new born Pokemon is always the stage 1 of the same species as its mother, so Pokemon siblings are always born as the same species. However Poplio and Rowlet could be cousins.
Now for plot, I can't say much (as usual when reviewing Ch1 of a story) because things barely started off. We will have to wait if the entity Takumi talked to in a dream was genuinely trying to save the world, or if they have their own agenda and use Takumi as a pawn (yeah yeah I am a pessimist; I love stories with twists and surprises so naturally I don't trust everything characters say on-screen).
As for characters, so far so good. Takumi seems like the typical nice kid who will be the hero of the story and indeed will save the world; and his new friends are quirky bunch to serve as Reason vs. Ideals foils for him (kinda like Kirk/Spock/Bones). I noticed you spend a lot of time discribing apperances by he way. I think with Pokemon it is almost redundant, because most people know how Litten or Poplio or Bewar look like. And with humans, I don't usually care what they wear or how how they look unless it is plot relevant. Their personalities and dialogue are much more interesting to me, so I would rather get more of that!
All in all, it was fun read. Thanks for sharing the story and good luck!
Sorry for taking so long too. I was supposed to read your story earlier this week, but my job is brutal lately to the point I barely have energy to turn on my desktop after coming back home.
Anyways, before I begin - my usual disclaimer: I have only read Chapter 1 so take my review with a pinch of salt. This is just a beginning of your story, so my first impressions might be incorrect or you could be setting up stuff for later payoff that I don't get because I didn't read far yet. Also I will focus on plot, characters and setting ...and less on grammar and style (I am not native speaker).
So first, overall this was pretty standard by-the-book formulaic PMD. So far I don't think anything original has happened, but that can very well change right in Ch2 for all I know. We got a teenage boy who plays Pokemon game and gets sucked into Pokemon world, turning into Pokemon in the process. The event was caused by unknown supernatural-like entity, who want them to save the world. That is always what happens, right from the very first PMD game.
Now the good thing is you spice it up a bit by including some humor. Was that intentional btw.? It was so funny reading about Takumi's realization and his clumsy efforts to get into grips with the new reality. I was grinning half the time thinking, Yup, if this happened to me I would probably act this silly too, trying to wake myself up from this "dream" and having to learn how to walk. Only in my case I would be probably unlucky enough to be turned into Snorlax instead...
This applies to our first adventure too: The protagonist bumps into a half asleep Bewear who wants to... HUG HIM! I admit I didn't expect that but it was funny and well in line with the tone of the story so far.
Moving on, we meet two new characters who have marks of main characters who will accompany Takumi from this point on. Good choice (and good work) with them, there is this dynamic of siblings who always disagree on everything. So naturally one of them is immediately frinedly with Takumi while the other is wary of him. I smell some potential for either personal drama and conflicts or funny dialogue as a result of conflicting personalities. Looks very promising!
I think the success of your story will depend a lot on what you do with those character interactions from now on. You cleverly set up a character dynamic with lots of possibilities here, so hopefully you will have some payoff to this in following chapters.
One technicality though, but it is rather minor thing. Rowlet and Poplio cannot be siblings afaik. The new born Pokemon is always the stage 1 of the same species as its mother, so Pokemon siblings are always born as the same species. However Poplio and Rowlet could be cousins.
Now for plot, I can't say much (as usual when reviewing Ch1 of a story) because things barely started off. We will have to wait if the entity Takumi talked to in a dream was genuinely trying to save the world, or if they have their own agenda and use Takumi as a pawn (yeah yeah I am a pessimist; I love stories with twists and surprises so naturally I don't trust everything characters say on-screen).
As for characters, so far so good. Takumi seems like the typical nice kid who will be the hero of the story and indeed will save the world; and his new friends are quirky bunch to serve as Reason vs. Ideals foils for him (kinda like Kirk/Spock/Bones). I noticed you spend a lot of time discribing apperances by he way. I think with Pokemon it is almost redundant, because most people know how Litten or Poplio or Bewar look like. And with humans, I don't usually care what they wear or how how they look unless it is plot relevant. Their personalities and dialogue are much more interesting to me, so I would rather get more of that!
All in all, it was fun read. Thanks for sharing the story and good luck!
