+1 Up by GodOfBBQ
Posted on 5/3/15
Status: complete

Just by quickly glancing at it, I can see that this is probably going to be a SweetieMash story. Sweetie Belle tag and Romance tag, with a cover art of Button Mash? SweetieMash. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of these, but who knows? Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. *reads story*

So basically (really basically), Button Mash goes to the arcade and meets another pony who's also into gaming.

Well, the first thing I noticed while reading is that Sweetie Belle is pretty much not in it at all, save for a brief moment in the beginning where she say she can’t go to the arcade with Button Mash. Only 92 words are spent focused on a conversation between the two of them, yet she’s tagged as a main character. Um, why?

Not much happens in the story, and as the author says in the author’s notes, it’s an OC-driven story.

So… it’s not bad, but it’s not good, either. I guess it’s just meh.

One thing I did really like about it was this particular line:

‘What’s she doing? She’s just button mashing...’ Button thought to himself

I’m not sure why, but I thought it was really cute.

So now, rubric thingy.

Plot: 30/50
Storyline: 15/30 Not much happened, but I suppose it’s slice of life, although there’s really no point to it as a story besides introducing the OC. It’s not much of a story, to be honest.
Originality: 15/20 I can’t say it’s a particularly creative idea or anything, but at least there’s no SweetieMash or Button’s mom stuff going on.

Conventions: 21.5/25
Style: 8.5/10 Not a large variety of sentence structure and the paragraphing could use some work, but that’s more than could be said for a lot of stories on here.
Grammar/spelling: 13/15 There were errors, sure, but I doubt that the majority of the people reading the story would notice as many as I did. I’ve trained myself to catch every single error, so I can’t ignore errors even if I tried. It did seem as if you made an effort to use proper grammar and capitalization. Also, I didn’t find a single sentence that made me go “Huh? What the heck does this even mean?” So that’s pretty good. I’m grading more on effort here than for how many errors there are because I’d be going way too harsh on people if I did the latter.

Characters: 24/25
OCs : 9/10 Not very fleshed-out, but I suppose she’s okay. She has sass and she’s not a Mary Sue, so I’m okay with her. I can’t really find anything to complain about, so that’s that.
Characterization: 15/15 Pretty much how I’d expect Button Mash to act, even though the show has only given us a tiny glimpse of him. I’m basing this largely off of fan works.

Total Score: 75.5 /100

That’s a C, I guess. So… it’s meh, and it needs work. There’s too much happening in 1.3k words to introduce an OC, especially since the OC isn’t introduced right off the bat.

Sorry if I was a bit harsh; this is my first review.

~Panda

4352798 It wasn't harsh at all, I'd say you have a keen eye for detail. But, a "C" is a passing grade so that's fine by me. But, I'll let you in on a secret. I was originally going to add a scene where Button catches up with Sweetie at Sugarcube Corner. But, then I remember a line Button's mother says,

“Alright Button, but be back by supper. I know you’ll be able to stay there for an entire day if you could.”

So, it was a sacrifice to avoid a plot hole. Anyhow, I'll take these wise words into consideration for my next project! Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I am very humble and grateful.

Besides, I won't let this grade ruin me, in the words of Walt Disney,