It's taken me too long to get around to this, due to a combination of the two-day shipping needing five days, and a sudden illness on my part, but I've finally received and read through The Curse of the Statuettes. What follows is my take on it:
The Curse of the Statuettes calls itself an "adventure pack," and it's not hard to see why. Although it's entirely possible to get a Tails of Equestria game up and running with no more than what's in the main rulebook, this set contains both the accessories (i.e. a set of dice, a GM's screen, and a pad of character sheets) that are staples of an RPG session and a 48-page adventure. While the adventure is the main thrust of what's here, I want to cover the other aspects of the pack in turn.
I was quite pleased to see that Curse is a true boxed set. Contained in two slide-together pieces of high-grade cardboard, this is something that's become all too rare in contemporary RPGs. Rather oddly, the boxed set is just tall enough to be noticeable compared to others of its ilk; most (that I have, at least) are 9 inches by 11.5 inches or thereabouts. This one is 9 x 13 inches. That seems slightly unnecessary when you take into account that the interior has a supplementary piece of cardboard acting as a cradle for the book, pad of character sheets, and GM's screen. Wouldn't it have been easier just to make a shorter box?
The dice are a standard set of RPG polyhedrals, being a D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, and D20. Take note that there's no percentile-D10 here, since Tails of Equestria makes no use of one. While it's barely worth mentioning, the six dice are contained in a small ziplock bag, which might make it easier to store them for younger gamers who don't have their own dicebag yet. Amusingly enough, the dice are color-coded to match the listing of the different dice in the Tails of Equestria rulebook. This isn't a coincidence, as that book notes that River Horse Games (who made Tails of Equestria) color-codes the dice in ALL of their games, and is apparently given over to using that instead of the "D-number" notation that gamers prefer (e.g. they'll say "the blue die" instead of "d20"). The irony, of course, is that they DON'T do that in Tails of Equestria, saying "D20" instead. But I digress...
The GM's screen is a three-panel piece that's quite wide, but not very tall. The outer faces show the Mane Six (i.e. Twilight Sparkle and friends) standing in front of the magical map of Equestria in her castle. On the inside, the center panel reproduces the (current) official map of Equestria, whereas the left and right panels reprint salient information from the core rulebook. On the left you'll find the rules regarding test DCs, the rules for critical successes and fumbles, and the rules regarding tokens of friendship. The right panel has the equipment list and stats for generic earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns.
The pony character sheets are a single pad containing 40 sheets in total; five copies of eight different sheets. Calling them "different" needs an explanation. Most of the sheets have pre-drawn outlines of mare and stallion versions of each of the three pony types, which you can expand upon by coloring them in. There are also sheets whose character pictures have been left completely blank. Although it can be easy to overlook, each sheet is outlined in either blue or brown, with the former being for females and the latter being for males. That makes it rather awkward to have blank pictures for both males and females (i.e. there's a blue-outlined sheet with a blank picture, and a brown-outlined sheet with a blank picture), but there you are.
Finally, we come to the actual adventure for which the boxed set is named. The Curse of the Statuettes is, like the rest of the set, a fairly high-production item. Despite being only 48 pages in length, it's a perfect-bound booklet, and each page is laminated. This was probably a necessity due to the book being so art-heavy. While it doesn't quite live up to the core rulebook's having artwork on every single page, it comes close: this book is heavily illustrated (though, ironically, virtually none of these are deliberately designed to be shown to the players). Even the text is set against a sand-colored background.
Curse picks up where the core rulebook's intro-adventure, The Pet Predicament, left off: Spike has just rushed in to meet the PCs and begged them for help: the Mane Six, who were investigating a new threat to Equestria, have been captured! (I find it amusing that the Mane Six had stats given in the core rulebook, despite having almost no screen time in its adventure, whereas Spike appears in both adventures and receives stats in neither; it's just too apropos.) The PCs need to retrace their hoofsteps and figure out not only what happened to them, but how to solve the mystery that they were investigating.
The format of the adventure is meant to be very friendly to new GMs, to the point where it almost feels as if it's acting like an on-site coach. This isn't just due to the overview and preparation advice it gives, but in how it makes sure to use bold for things such as character names, tests and challenges, things that cause Stamina damage, etc. But the most notable aspect is the writing itself: most RPG adventures are written in a very "as-is" format, telling you what's there and leaving it at that, while others take a "if they do this, then this happens" approach. By contrast, whenever Curse presents a location or scenario, the writing comes across more like inspirational notes and salient reminders for an improv set. While it does talk about consequences to the PCs actions, the presentation is given in a way that is quite clearly trying to be evocative, inspiring the GM so that they'll in turn paint a vivid picture for the PCs. That's how I read it, at least.
The course of the adventure sits comfortably between a railroad and a sandbox. The setup presumes that the PCs grab the initial hook, after which they're largely expected to follow the trail of breadcrumbs that's laid out for them, though they have a middle segment where they can choose what order to follow them in. (To my delight, there was even a random encounter table at once point!) The book walks a tightrope with trying to tie itself into the source material without getting entangled by it, and does a good job as the PCs peel back the layers of the mystery. Most of the character tasks in this are focused around overcoming obstacles and challenges, with major threats being something you run away from rather than defeat (though there's at least one fight where you have to win, rather than escape). There are also a few scenes that have scripted endings regardless of what the PCs do, mostly with regards to the villain making early appearances as foreshadowing. Of course, the end of the adventure resolves the immediate threat, while still leaving a new mystery beckoning...
I have to take a moment to note the one thing this adventure doesn't do, which left me scratching my head. The entire idea of a "curse that turns you into a figurine at random times for random durations" was originally the idea of Tails of Equestria's lead designer (and editor for Curse), who always had - in whatever RPG he ran - that happen to the PCs at the start of a new campaign. The idea was that allowed for an in-game explanation for what happened when someone couldn't make it to game night. It's a creative idea, and it works very well here...except the book never once tells you to actually put that idea into practice! Obviously, you can connect the dots yourself, but I'm still surprised that it wasn't ever explicitly stated in the text.
Still, that aside, what's here is a very solid expansion pack for the Tails of Equestria RPG. Between the accessories and the adventure, this really helps to get a new game off the ground, and it as much of an introduction for the GM as it is for the players. It's a great product, and I'd definitely recommend it to fans of the game.