Reviews from someone with absolutely no power. Here’s what I think. I apologize in advance for any offense these reviews or my entry might do to those who read it, should that be the case. In any case. It does appear that only veterans wrote for this time, soooooooooooo well, there is somewhat of a lack of people who probably actually need my input on anything since most here was top-notch anyway, but here it is regardless! XD

[hider=A Clash of Archers and Busters]Alright! Firstly, I’ll state that the only franchise of these I know is Madoka. All the other references, except the Michael Bay one, is totally beyond me. Also, Nicholas is alive? Could have fooled me, his name isn’t anywhere in the story. Unless specifically told to be a sequel, I’ll always assume anything is its own stand-alone story. And this… was quite vague. Haha.

Two people in a world I barely got explained to me suddenly used their fantastic power to battle it out due to their diverging intentions. I’ll have to say, you get the mystic part straight-on. If we were supposed to be intrigued while not understanding anything, then you did it really well. I’m a little worried I’ll find all entries being a direct clash between two now that take place in exactly the same way. Pretty well pulled off, it just flowed well in some really odd way and I barely understood anything while simultaneously understanding everything. This is a very odd combo, and I applaud you for achieving it. Hahaha.

I’m a little bit confused on one point, though, completely besides being confused by everything in the entire setting. The Challenge has us either leaving our allies behind and succeeding, or failing to do so and having them claim it instead. As far as I can see, he intends to leave his ally behind, and… fails? Did he hesitate somewhere which brought his loss? Oh, well. Maybe Terminal reads some other version than I did. Regardless, fantastically written. And I mean fantastically such as magical. Haha.[/hider]

[hider=The Treasure Hunt]… Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii’d… question the lack of vices in this character, but eh. XD

It’s rather nicely written. I do feel that the world is quite very much a mystery to me, but suppose I learned as much as I needed. While most of the entry was rather dull in itself, the treasure hunt itself and the way he needed a musician to get there and the way only one was simply allowed to go on and how quickly he discarded his friend felt a bit customized to fit the challenge rather than customized to fit the story. Oh, yeah, you were the one who argued to me that the goal was to clear the labour and I could therefore go with a boring story, eh? I clearly see how you were thinking. XD

Though the twist was by far the most interesting part of this. I was positively surprised. The way the character suddenly rose to the challenge, becoming interested solely due to the way she was seeking is very interesting to me, and it fit so well with that there in fact could only be one person who could claim the price. It made sense, and I always love it when things make sense. The entire labour made sense in this ending, and I love when that happens. I’d honestly have been interested in, for example, seeing an anime where this was the first episode and the rest is just the two of them trying each other out, both bored before they found someone of a similar mindset in games and learn more about each other and such. Hahahaha. … So, I liked it because of the potential for development? Sure, I can go with that. I liked the finish, which leaves me with a positive impact overall for this entry. Nicely done![/hider]

[hider=Upgrade]… Ooooooooooooh. So an Iron CAN pick up a Silver bracelet, but that means he becomes Silver himself and can therefore no longer consider himself an ally of all Irons. That… that’s interesting. I like it. It’s a temptation, which definitely gets stronger the closer to the end they might come. And in fact, if they don’t take the Silver bracelet, another Silver might come along and claim it from the dead body that the Irons killed. Hah. I get it. … Ooooh. I just read through The Challenge again. Unable to kill a Silver by himself, but after that only one can claim the Silver band, and then must leave his allies behind…

It feels new. This obviously isn’t the whole story, but know that I like it. Well done. Now we’ll see what Terminal thinks.[/hider]

[hider=The Cintamani Stone]Alright, the longest by far. Now let’s see what I thought of it.

Wonderfully written. The fact that you’re actually having this be a recounting of the events that is written down by someone obviously immediately lifts any requirements for perfect tense and such, but regardless of how clever I thought that was you wouldn’t need such a thing for that, anyway, would you? Haha. Furthermore, the fact that you could use information in the real world for something like this… I might be reading way too little real information, I can only marvel at those who use their knowledge for things like this while all my writing comes from the plethora of fictional stories I’ve read, so I might be lacking in real knowledge and could never write such a thing. You, though, seem to pull it off quite well, here. Nicely done.

I am curious, though. Where in the story did Cole have an opportunity to leave his allies behind? Was it when he was offered to help Roerich? I mean, yeah, the item was obviously picked up by someone that wasn’t him, so that would mean by the definition of the labour that his ally got it. But, that should only happen if the main character failed to leave his ally behind… um… Did I look at the rules too intensely or did I just miss something? Oh, well. It is a really nicely written entry regardless. While I didn’t get particularly excited by the story, nor very attached to the characters probably partly due to how the story was told from the perspective of someone writing it down after it had all had already happened, it was really interesting and I can say I like it. Thanks for the effort. Haha.[/hider]