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This month’s items are the Four Horsemen and Magical Girl!
 Geez, I’ve been buying a lot of things today!
Normally, the days leading up to Valentine’s Day is when you start spending a lot of money for the month, but in my case, it’s been all day today. About 2,500 in gold on random items, mostly the new starter set, and $15 USD on Cash Shop items. And once again, I find out that I bought more than I needed for my ever growing collection. I also found out I’m 67 items away from my 1,000th inventory item! Yay me! I’m helping Gaia stay afloat because if you add in how many letters I bought, I just sent them $40 for their financial needs! Only they know how much that will help them. Anyway, on with the critique.
Apocalypse Ponies
You know, I could have always sworn that the Four Horsemen were Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death. Given those names, it makes sense, but apparently I’m wrong according to the Bible and various interpretations of the scriptures both on legitimate websites and on Wikipedia. Guess that means once someone has captured the entire world, that will be the first sign that all of known civilization is coming to an end. Oh, wait, didn’t the US do that after World War II? Anyway…
The default option of Four Horsemen is all four of them standing around you. Too bad we don’t have trumpets yet in Gaia, or else I’d recommend getting one. This option is pretty much your uber background option of the item. You can select each of the individual horses too so you can walk around as the Horsemen of War, for example. Both individually and as a group, the design of these steeds are beautiful. It is clear that the artist that worked on this also had a hand in the Grace of Eros/Aphrodite, as the aesthetic is very similar to those figures final option. With four very different options, finding one that matches your style won’t be that difficult.
You are also given the option of each of the Horsemen’s weapon of destruction. Let’s go in order.
The Horsemen of Conquest is said to have a bow and arrow that doesn’t have an arrowhead. It is to represent a non-violent way of coming into a high position of power. Much like democracy. Well, Gaia goofed, and not only does the arrow have an arrowhead on it, but the bow is armed with spikes of its own! So much for non-violence. The color is very “black and white” in tone and hue, so you may be hard press to match this effectively. That said, if you any of the Chess Set pieces, you now have a semi-neutral weapon for your outfit that isn’t a sword, lance, or scepter.
The Horsemen of War is the rider that bares a sword of fire. Don’t we have enough of these already? The design of this sword is blatantly based off of the crucifix, but then again, most broadswords are. Being the sword of war and destruction, any indication as to where the blade stops and the handle grip begins is pretty much rendered out of all visibility. But, then again, the sword is as big as your avatar is tall and is on fire. Not to mention it is the tool that is used to destroy entire cities in a blink of an eye.
The Horsemen of Pestilence, much like Libra and Anubis before him, lets us have access to the scale used to compare the cost of making bread to the capitalistic measurement we know as minimum wage. For those that don’t know and don’t want to do any research, this horsemen will make himself known when the cost of making bread is more than what you make at a day at work getting paid the least amount you can legally get. So for a lot of college students, this kind of thing is pretty normal for them. The artist designed the scales for Gaia a little differently. Instead of a sack of gold against a loaf of bread, we are given to flaming mace balls at either end of the scale. Instead of holding it, it rests on our back like a yoke. Strange, but if you load your hands up with hand-held items and bags, you can look like you're carrying a very large load in one sense.
The Horsemen of Death carries around a scythe made of bone. The design for this item couldn’t be any better, but you have several awkward holding positions that will probably make a few people scratch their head and post how they think it should be held over on Site Feedback. Compared to the Lunar Scythe, it’s really difficult to figure out which is better. Both of their designs are different in nearly every aspect from coloring to how the blade is held to even how much space it takes up on your avatar. My best suggestion is that if you held on to the Skeleton base sold in the Cash Store, you’ll use this scythe. If you don’t have the base but have last month’s Assassin, use the Lunar Scythe. Just don’t use both at once, because that just looks stupid.
Overall, the Four Horsemen are surprisingly very flexible in what they offer both as background elements to add that extra element of awe to your avatar and are designed rather nicely. Weapons fans will enjoy the offerings, while those that like backgrounds for their avatars now have something semi-religious but just ambiguous enough to use to accent what they are wearing. In short, I like it, and that’s what is surprising me.
You are the one called Sailor Moon!
Be it for sheer humor or because it is another anime cliché Gaia needs to pump out in order to be accepted, we now have something that makes cosplaying like Sailor Moon that much easier (or lazier, depending on how you look at it). For cross-dressers on Gaia, this item has a lot of the same humor in it that real Sailor Scout cross-gender cosplayers evoking.
The default option is the wand. The artist did a very good job of trying to keep it as generic to the Magical Girl genre of anime as possible, but there are clear influences from Sailor Moon in it, which is a shame. I would like to see some of Card Captor Sakura in it. You can duel equip it, but I don’t see the point in doing so.
The Pink Wig option is next. It does a very nice job of staying in the realm of generic Magical Girl, but you can clearly see influences from Sailor Moon in the shape. Design-wise, it is a mix of Bubbles from the anime Powerpuff Girls Z and Chibi-Sailor Moon/Rini. The ponytail clips are shaped like hearts, which is timely given the month but keeps implies another Sailor Moon influence as a warrior of love. Again, I would have settled for a Sakura bow, which thankfully you can add if you held on to the CN Scarf.
Super-Long Bow Train is the next option, and it is very flexible outside of the Magical Girl genre of aesthetics. As the name implies, you are given a bow on our back-side that has a ribbon train flowing from it. Both Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura use this in one design or another, but girls can use it to accent that kimono or even the recently added Urban Girl Starter Set. I don’t know how guys are going to use it, outside of humorous cross-dressing.
Magical Lovely Aura gives your avatar that obnoxious heart-and-bubble-filled background commonly used in any Magical Girl transformation sequence. Thankfully, the discotheque music is absent from the avatar. And I’d like to keep it that way, seeing how Neopets added sound to the items you can use to dress up your pets over on their site. As far s the design goes, it looks really cheap and something that was probably thrown together in the middle of the project. Kind of looks like a bunch of Labu Necklaces blew up, to be honest. Be very careful in how you use this option, as it could easily kill your avatar.
The next option is a big bow placed on your avatar’s chest. It’s titled Source of Magical Power, which leads me to believe it is another Sailor Moon influenced item. In the center of the big red bow is a gold compact with the Gaia G engraved in it. There also appears to be a drop pearl hanging off it. A bow tie this definitely doesn’t make. Unless you’re a clown.
The Magical Uniform takes all the guess work out of what outfit from the stores to buy as a base for your Sailor Moon outfit. You’re given a white top, a red skirt, and even that Gold Heart Belt that wasn’t released in the Valentine’s Day event after the Silver Heart Belt! Sorry, boys, no up-skirting available on either gender. While the top may look awkward without the big bow, it is left blank so you can experiment with other items that could work with it, mostly jackets and pins from what my inventory has been able to offer. Even then, however, you’ll be playing a game of trial and error, as the layering of this outfit is rather confusing. Some jackets will not layer over it, some will, and there are even a few pins and neck accessories that layer under it instead of over it.
Every Magical Girl needs a cute and marketable side-kick, and Phee-Chan is just that! This cute little creature looks strangely like the creature from the Hermes Moon, only with Gaia Wings for ears. Disappointingly, as of this typing, he is only available in one option, at your side ready to cheer you on for the duration of the battle. The promotional art implied that he was going to be a member of the On You Head club, but I guess his membership application got lost in the shuffle. Expect to see him as a plushie in the future you can purchase from the Gaia Store for your next convention costume.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that this is a multi-quip in which you need all seven of the options offered to have the complete set. As a set, it makes cosplaying as a Sailor Scount way too easy. Your only problem will be finding a pair of gloves and boots that match. If you are girl avatar, this is an easy task. Cross-dressing guys will have a more difficult time, as there are not that many white gloves we can use. The Snow Witch gloves work to a point, and we now have some good red boots we can wear thanks to the unisexification of the new Starter sets, but they don’t look all that aesthetically appealing.
Overall, this item is not that flexible or designed very well. It borrows way too much from Sailor Moon and doesn’t even acknowledge other Magical Girl shows that fall into the same category like Card Captor Sakura and Powerpuff Girls Z. Seriously, a Magical Girl item without a 2-ton mallet that only she can carry?! What the hell?! Much like the G-Blade, this item is strictly for fans of Magical Girl genre. Everyone else should skip this.
Destruction and Love
It seems a bit harsh to say that one is a success while the other one sucks without being gender bias. Both items appeal to me in one fashion or another, but the fact that one is more flexible than the other does tend to justify the notion that the Four Horsemen is better than the Magical Girl. Still, it’s early in the year, and both items are not something to write home about. I say get whichever one you like the most and then sit on it. With new users signing up every day, you’ll make a good profit off of it in a few months, which is essentially all the items released so far are only good for.
 Zeek Slider · Fri Feb 15, 2008 @ 11:11pm · 2 Comments |
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