Didn't really have a problem with memes or shout-outs or anything like that. The voice acting was good and the animation ranged from okay to excellent, with the musical queues highlighting things nicely. I greatly enjoyed the pinball gag, and the

Spoiler

murdering of the giant monster after he surrendered.

But the pacing was nonexistent. Long pauses in conversation, awkward shots to show as much expression as possible, it was all so jarring. I can understand being a school project you want to show off all you can do, but it was too much time spent with no actual content.

Actually, I feel the best parts were Twilight and Pinkie's little imagination spots. I thought they were funny and flowed really well compared to the rest.

 

I loved it, was thoroughly entertained for all of it and was never once bored or put off by anything. Sure, it wasn't flawless but for something fanmade, animation and voice acting were excellent and the story was enjoyable.

The memes and whatnot didn't disturb me a bit.

Overall, 9/10.

Spoiler

Was I the only one who felt really, really sorry for Derpy? D:

 

Season 4 is a go.

Pretty solid start if I do say so myself. Maybe not as good as Season 2's, but definitely better than Season 3's opening. Loved the world building in particular.

 

Spoilerless version: Definitely better than the last season's premiere.

Thoughts including spoilers:

Spoiler

Princess Twilight continues to annoy me. I still think if they wanted to promote Twilight and shift the show away from the friendship report thing, they could've done it without slapping a nonsense title on her and changing her species. Really, I didn't see anything in this episode that needed Twilight to have been an alicorn or a princess. For Zecora's retrocognition potion that supposedly needed alicorn magic, she seems to have used the black magic she used in the Season 3 premiere, which she used while she was a unicorn. And being left behind to save the day while Celestia and Luna were missing could've been done without her being a princess. I mean it's not like she hasn't done it before as a unicorn. The only thing being an alicorn brought to the table that couldn't have been done in another way are the flight gags.

I don't know -- I've yet to see a real justification for that decision beyond "every girl wants to be a princess!", an idea which I'm sure Lauren Faust would strongly object to.

As for the worldbuilding, it was interesting, but part of me feels that they shouldn't have shown us Nightmare Moon and Discord's first defeats so openly like that. I think there were certain preconceptions built around those events that were a lot grander in scale, and the episode just kind of made them feel, well, less grand. I think if they were going to show them they should've been portrayed differently -- more minimalist to let the audience fill in the blanks more.

Finally, no song. NO SONG. whyyyyy

Okay, what I did like: I did like the shift to adventure mode again. Those have always been my favorite part of the show. The story was neat and again better handled than the whole Crystal Kingdom thing. There's possibly a hook for a subplot for the rest of the season, and while I dislike the idea of Princess Twilight I think they did at least make an effort to develop it more. I thought the art and animation and whatnot looked good. There were seemingly no references to Equestria Girls, thank god. And each of the characters got a fair deal of things to do, so no one really fell into the background.

EDIT: Actually no on that last point. Pinkie Pie didn't. She just got to drool over frosting and fall down some stairs.

While I don't quite expect this season to live up to the first two, I do expect it to be better than the third.