DoomBeast Posted October 31, 2011 Report Share Posted October 31, 2011 [spoiler=Episode 1] It was a glorious spring day. The sun was shining, warming the air, birds were singing and the breeze was blowing. On this day two kids were leaving the Duel School, one was tall and fit with crimson hair, the other was shorter and somewhat muscular with dark blue hair. He wore the normal school outfit. As they left they walked down the stairs and into the rest of the city. The city was bustling with lots of vehicles crowding the roads and people spilling out various buildings and shops, making the sidewalk hard to walk through. As the two kids got to the corner, they had to part. So, saying goodbye to each other, they went their separate ways. The one with crimson hair, whose name was Alfeo, walked into the alley. As he reached the middle, a sudden blinding light appeared, causing Alfeo to stumble and crash to the ground. Out of this light stepped a bulky teen. He had orange, spiked back hair, an open, dark brown jacket and black pants with tears in them. He had a scar running across his nose, and his eyes were dark and emotionless. On his arm was a Duel Disk. “What the…” Alfeo asked, getting up and brushing his pants off. “You must be the one. Duel me.” was the reply. The man’s voice was low and reverberating. “What?” Alfeo asked, backing up. “Where do you think you’re going? I said duel me.” Abruptly Alfeo’s duel disk was engaged. Still he tried to flee but crashed straight into an invisible barrier. “Now that that’s done, I’ll go first.” The mysterious man said, as he drew. “I Set 1 face-down monster, 1 face-down card and end my turn.” “I guess I have no choice.” Alfeo muttered “My draw. I Summon Rescue Rabbit (300 ATK) to the field.” A small white rabbit with a miner’s helmet appeared. “And thanks to its effect I can Banish it and Summon 2 Normal monsters with the same name. So, I Summon 2 X-Saber Anu Piranhas (1800 ATK)! And because I have 2 X – Sabers on the field I can Summon out XX-Saber Faultroll (2400 ATK)!” Two blonde females with red armor and whip-like weapons appeared and an armored man wielding and giant sword appeared. “Now because I have 2 monsters with the same Level I can put them on top of each other and Summon an Xyz monster whose Rank is equal to their Levels. I overlay both X-Saber Anu Piranhas! With these two monsters, I create the overlay network! Descend! Armored Ninja Blade Heart (2200 ATK)!” A purple and gold armored monster wielding 2 swords appeared. As Alfeo stared at it, the memory of when he first got the card stirred in his mind. It was 3 years ago. Alfeo’s father had came home and surprised Alfeo, and his younger brother, with some new packs. As Alfeo opened his packs, he discovered the first card, Armored Ninja Blade Heart. This card was then added to his deck. He was happy, but his happiness was short-lived because that was the last day he saw his father. As the memory ended Alfeo couldn’t help but feel sad. Fighting back tears, he continued his turn. “Now by detaching 1 Xyz material from Armored Ninja Blade Heart, I can select 1 Ninja monster and allow it to attack twice. So I choose Armored Ninja Blade Heart. And guess what? Now I’m going to use XX-Saber Faultroll’s effect allowing me to Summon 1 X – Saber from my Graveyard. Come back X-Saber Anu Piranha! (1800 ATK)” The blonde females with red armor and the whip-like weapon appeared once again. “Now Armored Ninja Blade Heart attack!” The purple and gold armored warrior charged forwards, slashing down on the other monster. “Hold up” the other man said “I activate my face-down card, Nightmare Crush. Now by discarding any number of DARK monsters, I can destroy 1 card on the field for each discarded! So I discard 3 and destroy your XX – Saber Faultroll, X – Saber Anu Piranha and Armored Ninja Blade Heart! You fool!” “Crap!” Alfeo cursed “Then I’ll set 2 cards and end my turn.” “I draw and I activate Recurring Doom. This allows me to bring back 1 Steelswarm monster from my Graveyard, and use its effect, as long as I take damage equal to its attack. Come back Steelswarm Longhorn! (3000 ATK)” he declared A big, black, armored bug with long antennae standing upright on two legs appeared. LP: Alfeo: 4000 Man: 1000 “Now I’ll use this Spell Card, Dian Keto The Cure Master. This gives me 1000 Life Points.” He said as he slowly grin a sickening grin “And now I use Steelswarm Longhorn’s Effect, by paying 1000 Life Points I can destroy 1 card you control. I choose the card on the right.” The card flipped up revealing Mirror Force, before it was destroyed. “Hehehe. A Mirror Force? Really now?” the man gloated “Now Steelswarm Longhorn attack!” “Hold up! I activate the effect of XX – Saber Twinsoul! (1300 DEF) Now I can Special Summon it from my hand, if you attack me directly.” As he said this, a small warrior with silver partial armor appeared, just in time to be completely demolished by Steelswarm Longhorn. “You’re lucky.” “Oh yeah.” “I end my turn with a face-down.” “Now I draw and activate Heavy Storm! This card destroys all face-down Spell and Trap Cards.” Both Alfeo’s and the man’s face-downs were blown away. “Now because my Saber’s Gift was destroyed I’m allowed to bring back a Saber. Welcome back, XX – Saber Faultroll! Now I activate its effect, bringing back XX – Saber Twinsoul. Next I’ll Summon X – Saber Pashuul. (100 ATK)” The armored man, the small warrior and a small warrior with blue armor with yellow spikes materialized. “I Tune Level 2 X – Saber Pashuul with Level 6 XX – Saber Faultroll and Level 1 XX – Saber Twinsoul! Come Forth XX – Saber Gottoms! (3100 ATK) And finally I activate Axe of Despair, giving my XX – Saber Gottoms 1000 attack!” A very large warrior with grey and blue armor and a red cape and a huge sword emerged. “XX – Saber Gottoms attack and finish this!” The man just stood there, his face turned into a mask of sorrow, and watched his monster get decimated along with his Life Points. LP: Alfeo: 4000 Man: 0 As his Life Points dropped to 0, the mysterious man, with an expression of pure terror, slowly vanished, leaving no trace of him behind. Alfeo just stared; his face was one of pure shock and regret. Pondering over what just happened, he collapsed due to the pressure of the duel. [/spoiler] Comment/Review welcomed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut - Envoy of the End Posted November 1, 2011 Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 Ok, I'll be first to comment then. I will warn you up front, this could be a little brutal and I hope you read this knowing that everything I say is not me being mean for the sake of it; I'm being honest and trying to point out things that didn't work and why, so you know where it went wrong. Because a lot went wrong. I'll save the line-for-line analysis for someone like Dante as I prefer to give an overview, but I will pick up on some sections that I found most difficult to read. So starting off, I flick through the fanfic section and spot the title 'My YuGiOh Fanfic'. Bad first impression. Really didn't fill me with a lot of hope from the start to see the story untitled. Obviously we all want to find a fitting title and I've seen some horrible titles, but a decision should have been made on something. One of those rare times were anything is actually better than nothing, because try as I might it just immediately set me into 'oh here we go' mode. Having said that, having read the chapter I can see why the title was a struggle, because there's not a lot to go on. It all starts... casually enough... two guys walking home from school. The first few sentences are all a bit stage-direction like, just stating each individual action as it happens and describing things that are as you'd expect (a metaphor or similie here and there really makes description a bit more vivid, but at least you didn't go overkill with description like I occasionally do). Very quickly we get to the action (so quickly I had to stop and blink several times). A standard thug wants to duel a random victim. Except its hinted with the 'you must be the one' that it might not be that random. That was good... but it wasn't followed up on. The duel starts even more quickly, there's no real fight from Alfeo to get away from someone who probably wants to do him harm, it all comes about very readily, like two people facing off for fun than a criminal attacking someone. The duel, now I am going to start going line for line because it is so breakneck. Not the good rollercoaster ride kinda breakneck, I mean having words and information thrown at me faster than I can process it and appreciate whats going on kind. [quote]] “Now that that’s done, I’ll go first.” The mysterious man said, as he drew. “I Set 1 face-down monster, 1 face-down card and end my turn.” “My draw! I Summon Rescue Rabbit to the field.” A small white rabbit with a miner’s helmet appeared. “And use its effect to Banish it and Summon 2 X-Saber Anu Piranhas!” Two blonde females with red armor and whip-like weapons appeared. “And I Summon out XX-Saber Faultroll!” an armored man wielding and giant sword appeared. “And I overlay both X-Saber Anu Piranhas! Come forth! Armored Ninja Blade Heart!” A purple and gold armored monster wielding 2 swords appeared... “Now by detaching 1 Xyz material from Armored Ninja Blade Heart, I can select 1 Ninja monster and allow it to attack twice. So I choose Armored Ninja Blade Heart. And guess what? Now I’m going to use XX-Saber Faultroll’s effect. And bring back my X-Saber Anu Piranha!” The blonde females with red armor and the whip-like weapon appeared once again....[/quote] Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! I'm going to point out now that I've never played X-Sabers. I know absolutely nothing about them. Which is good for me in a way because I can get surprised by the action. Except nothing is explained. Look at XX-Saber Faultroll, it just gets summoned. How?! I had to go to the wikia to discover 'you can special summon this card when you control 2 X-Sabers'. Alfeo should have told me that, not me having to break from the story to look it up mid-duel. Same with Rescue Rabbit. Same with reviving Piranha. I know some people will know how X-Sabers work, but you don't know they know. You have to assume they don't now. You have to explain every move and effect and treat your readers as naive little children sometimes. Not as idiots but it makes things clearer, stops needless confusion like mine, and it takes the edge of. Having the attack of the summoned monsters in brackets when they appeared (ATK:1900) like they do in the anime would also not go amiss. However, having said all that and getting away from the way it was portrayed, the actual move here was really nice, a really powerful opening play. Same goes for using TwinSoul as a save from nowhere, using cards like that are always good. And I'll give you credit for using Xyz monsters, given how nobody has really jumped on that with new fics yet. [quote] “You’re lucky.” “Oh yeah.” [/quote] This was about the fullest extent of the interaction between the two duelists. There was no 'what the hell' from Alfeo. There was no sinister hints or gloating from the random thug. It was all just 'i play this and i play this and then this', the worst example of which is below... The duel did little to get me emotionally involved in any way becuase the characters weren't emotionally involved either, just blankly playing out their card game. [quote] “Now I draw and activate Heavy Storm! This card destroys all face-down Spell and Trap Cards.” Both Alfeo’s and the man’s face-downs were blown away. “And now I activate the effect of Saber’s Gift. Since it was destroyed, I can bring back a Saber. So welcome back, XX – Saber Faultroll!” The armored man appeared in front of Alfeo. “And now I activate its effect, bringing back XX – Saber Twinsoul.” The small warrior emerged next to the other one. “And I Summon X – Saber Pashuul.” A small warrior with blue armor with yellow spikes materialized. “And... “And... [/quote] Can't remember the technical term for this (its in one of the guides somewhere, a run along or something) but this is bad. It might have been disguised by breaking it up into different sentences with each monster getting summoned, but reading and and and is horrible. Also you don't have to describe what physically happens each time a card is activated and break up speech like that. It is much easier and fluent to read if Alfeo had said he was summoning TwinSoul and Pashuul in one block of speech, broke to describe them appearing in one block of description, then go back to speech for Gottoms. The end of the chapter was the worst thing though. Victim is defeated (with the old 'Nooooooooo!' thrown in, which is much more appropriate when saved for when the more major villians are thwarted) and runs off, before Alfeo shrugs his shoulders, walks the rest of the way home, and goes to bed, thinking and feeling nothing more about it. So if that's his reaction, why should I feel any different? He doesn't seem to care that someone's tried to mug him, so why should I care? To summarize then, its very easy to critise this. It's just reading a list of actions rather than a story. There's no real reason for any of it, no real mystery behind it, its just a duel. There were plus points that I've mentioned, but it all felt in the end a bit 'so what?' There was nothing that really grabbed my attention. It's a shame. I hope you can take what I've said and learn from it, and work to improve. Don't give up because I've knocked you as delicately as I could manage while giving you a review of this (by the way you did achieve something, because I've never reviewed anything this thoroughly ever before). Don't feel bad about a bad review, let it drive you to achieving a good review, ok? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoomBeast Posted November 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 I have now edited it and gave it a name. Thank you for your comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwinSeed Posted November 1, 2011 Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 Generic victim, scenario, and mind-controlled antagonist. Your descriptions, while doing their job as they should, don't stand out, and I can't remember what the short character looked like by the end. You also say "As they got to the 3rd alley...", but I have no clue where your setting even is; are they in a city (like 5Ds), an island (like GX), everywhere (like the original), or what? Okay, now they're dueling. I'm assuming that Longhorn has a 3000 attack, based on: [quote] “I draw and I activate Recurring Doom. This allows me to bring back 1 Steelswarm monster from my Graveyard, and use its effect, as long as I take damage equal to its attack. Come back Steelswarm Longhorn!” he declared A big, black, armored bug with long antennae standing upright on two legs appeared. LP: Alfeo: 4000 Man: 1000 [/quote] *looks up the card* Yes, it does. Now I know. You should incorporate things like that, as Verz stated. When you're Xyz summoning for the first time, you should make sure to explain what that is and use some kinda chant, like they almost always do in the series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoomBeast Posted November 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 Bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoomBeast Posted November 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 Bump Updated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crushcastles23 Posted November 5, 2011 Report Share Posted November 5, 2011 um 7/10 overall but thing is please keep LP tallies and on every attack please put values (ATK and if applicable DEF) it keeps the confusion down a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut - Envoy of the End Posted November 5, 2011 Report Share Posted November 5, 2011 A bit better, but still all a bit too generic and 'what the hell?' Random thug attacks random protagonist just isn't the strongest starting place for a story (although it is infinately more interesting than 'It was my first day at Duel Academy...') so its kind of on the back foot from the off. But in terms of improvement the cards were explained a bit better, and the post duel stuff was a more logical conclusion. Btw, if you ever wanted to pitch ideas, ask for reviews, bit of guidance, general chit-chat: http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/263702-writers-gathering-fan-fiction-writers-welcome-contest-details-posted/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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