Game-A-Week Episode 2.5....

Since I had an extra day left in the week, I decided to squeeze in one more game.

This week I played.....

Bubble Witch 3 Saga

Oh YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

This game is trash.

Itcame pre-installed on my computer when I upgraded to Windows 10 along with others like Minecraft and Age of Empires

It is literally a phone game ported to PC.

No, I'm not joking. I'm not just saying "It's so bad, it's a phone game". No, it is a literal phone game.

I mean just..

Look at this and tell me this isn't a phone game. The game doesn't even fit in the screen, its optimized for smartphone screens.

This is a game I play time to time when my internet is giving me trouble and I need to kill time while waiting for a webpage to load.

Would not play it under any other circumstances.

Like, if I had to choose between playing this and literally anything else, I would not choose this.

It is a time killer, nothing more. But just like any other brain stimulating, color exploding mobile games, it is designed to addict. So I guess it has that going for it even if it is ultimately a negative.

You know.

Like Candy Crush

Which, actually, I think is was also installed on my computer when I upgraded to Windows 10

Also, I keep calling it Bubble Witch Saga 3 in my head like any normal person would. But no, the game shows up in my program list as "Bubble Witch 3 Saga" That's the actual name.

I give Bubble Witch 3 Saga a 3/10. It's does its unintended job of killing time when my internet connection is giving me shit but I would never actually play it of my own free will. It is a time killer. Nothing more, possibly less.

Well, at least the main character is slightly kind of minorly cute.

Game-A-Week Episode 2: Everquest

So this week [citation needed], I played Everquest because it's kind of a classic. So how could I not? It predates World of Warcraft, after all.

This game was released in 1999 and has destroyed many people's lives by trapping them with a powerful enemy stand: addiction.

I can't believe I'm saying this but this game is a true classic and has actually given me that same indescribable feeling of wonder I had when playing Runescape for the first time. Despite never having played this game before, I felt oddly nostalgic while playing it.

However, to say the game wears its age on its sleeve is the understatement of the century.

Everquest is so archaic, it lacks many QoL features that are so second nature in modern games, you wouldn't even think of them as QoL features.

Well, someone had to be the pioneer to iron out those kinks.

The U.I. feels so unwieldy, it took me a while to figure out how to do incredibly basic things such as talking to NPCs. And hoo boy, if you thought Runescape's death penalty was bad, get a load of this: Not only can you lose items if you die in Everquest but experience points too and sometimes, even entire levels. One death can cost you thousands of hours of work and with every level you gain, the higher the penalty for death is. You do NOT want to die in this game. I'm a firm believer that the penalty for losing in any game should just be.... that you lost and have to try again. Like, damn, Everquest isn't fucking around. It's pretty excessive.

But, once I got the hang of things, I really started to like the game. Who knew, all I had to do was figure out HOW to play in order to enjoy it.

While there isn't much going on in terms of story (or so I've yet to encounter it), the game has some pretty interesting lore. The game is very charming though. Here are a few of my favorite loading screen messages: "Whacking Trolls with the ugly stick", "Kicking Gnolls off the couch (again), "Paper is fine, rock is overpowered" and my personal favorite "Making sure gnomes are still short"

In fact, a lot of the lore is familiar.

And when I say familiar I mean, World of Warcraft.

Except even though I am more familiar with Warcraft's lore. Obviously, Everquest did it first.

The gnomes in Warcraft for example, are copy-pasted directly from Everquest. Yes, the gnomes in Everquest are mechanical engineers. No, I don't believe its a coincidence that Warcraft just so happened to have the same outlandish approach to earth spirits from the 16th century.

And Trolls have higher health regeneration? Where have I heard that one before?

The game is primarily seen from the first person although you can zoom out into third person if you want. Personally, I feel first person is the way to go as that's the intended style of play and it is more immersive.

One thing to note is that in first person mode, your character's height will determine your line of sight. So short races end up looking at NPCs' knees a lot where as the taller races will have a little trouble seeing the NPCs

As a Froglok, I found myself eye level with most NPCs crotches. It was a.... Interesting experience.

Another thing worthy to note is the Test server.

The Test server does not have any limitations that free player accounts have on the live version, includes all expansion content and the only downside is there are less people on it.

But, since like I said in the last episode, my friends are trash so that doesn't mean much to me anyway.

The test server is by all means, a better way to play the game.... Except my live version character is level 16 and my test version character is level 10 so I might just stick with my higher level character on the live server anyway.

Also, there's one big issue I have with the game.

This has nothing to do with the game itself so it feels unfair but its big enough that I have to at least mention it.

The patching process was an absolute nightmare.

The launcher kept closing every 20 minutes so I had to keep opening it.

Obviously, I'm gifted with incredible persistence and it patched eventually but what should have taken one night took 4 days and that's the reason why this episode of Game-A-Week took way longer than one week.

I feel like I'm forgetting something but I think its about time to wrap this up.

The last thing I will mention is that the game does a pretty good job with roleplaying. There are good races(Barbarian, Human, Gnome, High Elf etc.), Evil races (Trolls, Ogres, Dark Elves, Iskar etc.), Neutral races (Drakkin, Frogloks, Furries etc), Good classes (Paladin, Cleric, Wizard etc.) and Evil races (Necromancer, Shadowknight etc.)

This determine the disposition many NPCs will have with you. An NPC that is aggressive toward a good player might be friendly to an evil player.

I thought this was all lore fluff until I walked into a bandit camp as a Froglok wizard and no one cared except for one Dark Elf member among them who openly attacked me.

The rest of the bandits were human so because me and the human bandits were good aligned, they didn't attack me. But the dark elf bandit who was evil aligned did.

So it seems this has gone on longer than I intended to I'll wrap this up for real now.

I give Everquest a 7/10. It's a fantastic game that is held back by a lack of quality of life features that... I really didn't think of as QoL until I played this game. Perhaps WoW Classic (2004) is the most ancient I can go with an MMO. But with that said, I will continue to play it because I genuiely like it and also so I never have to go through that absolutely nightmarish installation process ever again for when I DO get the urge to return