>review https://www.fimfiction.net/story/462871/prey
It’s no coincidence that all reviews of Prey (2017) come with spoiler warnings front and center, and Prey (2020) being a fairly faithful crossover, the same applies. The opening of that game is as good as the opening for this story is bad. I don't appreciate the replay of Starlight's scene from There and Back Again. The concepts of Ocellus fearing that she's not a person and the nightmare of reverting to her love-starved state are good, but the presentation is pretty hamfisted.

Fortunately, like Prey (2017), the beginning of Prey (2020) is just the beginning. Reading this story is a lot like playing the game, and the game is great, so I mostly had fun. Prey (2020) is packed with action, as Ocellus and her friends explore the derelict space station, I mean palace, getting jumpscared by monsters, I mean changelings and unraveling the mystery. It’s also packed with references to the gameplay, story, and worldbuilding of Prey (2017). Where the description says it's not a crossover, that's only because it's neither HiE nor PiE. The big question is: why are there changelings on the moon?

The three main problems of this story are a yak, the prose, and its lack of subtlety, in that order. Initially, it seems like the story would not have a severe yak problem, and that Yona would be discarded as just a somewhat avoidable evil in the initial setup. The main cast is initially comprised of Ocellus, Gallus, and Smolder together taking the role of Morgan and Luna that of January. These three of the nu-6 do a good job, Ocellus can carry a story on her own and Gallus is upgraded, benefiting from all of the character development the show could give him and more. Terribly, the chapter “bugfriend” reintroduces her and skipping all her scenes was a horrible chore. She fucks off eventually, but the damage is done.
Almost as bad as that pile of shit is the fact that the story is unnecessarily written in present tense. This is plenty annoying on its own, but the story also has extensive homophonic errors, especially in the latter half, and the punctuation is poor. Kkat uses "girl" too much for a FiMfic; I get that Luna is the only mare in the story but at least every instance of "dragon girl" should've been replaced with "dragoness." Leading right into the fic’s problem with subtlety is the formatting: italics, bold, and text size are all flagrantly abused.

To be continued...