*scratches head* That's it? Really? Maybe it's just that I'm used to plots that lasted a few months, but this one just seemed really short to me.
Did any
actual Neopets players ever find the "real" Space Faerie token? I hope they did. Because if not...well, I'm having a hard time finding the words to describe what I think of that. Cheated, maybe. I mean, the chances are astronomical (heh) that any one team would actually find the real token, but just imagine for minute that it happened, and you were on that team. Wouldn't that be awesome? To have beaten the odds with a rag-tag group of your fellow PPTers or other Neopets players or what have you - you may not get any actual physical rewards for finding it aside from a temporary spike in popularity, but still!
But by just giving us all a few days (weekdays, at that!!) and then just having the comic characters find it, well, that just kinda robs us of that little thrill. Sure, yes, there's something to be said for just doing the group work too, that's its own positive feeling. Some pretty smart and understanding Neopets players came out of the woodwork, and I had fun working alongside them. But taking away the whole point of the group testing and even the individual activities (rod forging, acid making, singularity gathering), not only makes it that less fun, but makes me personally feel like we didn't really matter a whole lot, as far as the plot went. If that's how they were going to do it, well, it wouldn't really matter if hundreds of thousands of players did the activities, or just one person! That...just doesn't sit well with me, and is probably my biggest gripe about this plot.
My second biggest gripe is that, for being the most notorious Neopets villain, Dr. Sloth turned out to be one of the most boring, imho. (Or maybe I'm just spoiled on
fun and interesting villains because I'm a rabid One Piece fan.)
Aaaaaanyhow...it's a shame, because I liked pretty much everything else about the plot. The Battledome opponents were at about the right level of difficulty, as were the puzzles. The art in the comics was, for the most part, consistently great. And even though I still think writing is one of the areas where Neopets is weakest, this storyline was much better than usual. I was pleasantly surprised when Ylana actually said, "I have a better idea. How about the loser...dies?" I didn't expect them to flat-out use the word "die", even though, in that case, it was the perfect one to use. And the little secret comic at the end with the epilogue made me chuckle. Commander Gormos actually was (is?) listed in the Gallery of Heroes, but there's no easy way to get to it and I always forget to bookmark the stupid thing. Gorix and Cylara were in there as well - it would've been nice to have had links to those provided in the news or something, but perhaps the information about them no longer fit the plot or something? (btw, The Gallery of Evil is also "lost" now too, isn't it?)
And yay for no more ugly orange spots on Purple pets! Sorry, but I never was a fan of them. Plus it just bugged me that for one, Purple was the only color with another color stuck onto it, and two, why bother with that anyway when we had a Split color that was purple and orange?