The Indie Informer

There are plenty of games I love that harken back to an earlier era of gaming, though these mostly use their specific time period as a veneer coating controls catered to modern sensibilities.

EverQuest Legends is not that and you need to be prepared. It is the closest I’ve come in a very long time to actually jumping back into gaming time. Happily, the developers have kept their promise that even a player who fell off EverQuest in their early days, like me, can wrap their mind around the adventure without getting overwhelmed. That is, you know, after reorienting myself to 1999.

There’s very little to rival the magic of rolling up your own character. The possibilities are as open as the skies. The chance for intrigue combinations feels infinite. The first choice, though, was locked in almost from the start. I had to be a froglok. But what kind? In this early stage, I could pick two different classes, and while I was looking, I heard the lilting melody of dark magics swirling in the air. So, I landed on a necromancer bard.

My froggy shoulders laden with an instrument and undead sorcery, I jumped into my first session. This is the moment to take a beat, look around, and remember that you’re in the nineties. Quests don’t pop up on a HUD, and characters won’t bark orders at you to help guide you on. It’s all you and what you notice.

My eye caught on the chat window at the bottom of the screen. With other players chatting, I had to really look for the text pertaining to my NPC interactions, because it would be swept away after too long. I noticed a few other windows that I could move, minimize, and set to my preferences. My health information, I put in the top left. How’s that for conditioning?

That important task complete, I discovered my moveset and inventory. I hovered over each of my little baby spells and, to my delight, realized I could summon a pet skeleton. I named him, which I later found out was like naming a pet chicken you intend to eat. I didn’t make that mistake again.

My inventory was really the key to figuring out what I should be doing. A note tucked away in a corner urged me to seek out a necromantic master for training. The name on the sheep just so happened to match the NPC standing just a few feet from me – lovely!

Decision-making, however, is the worst, and I didn’t want to narrow down my options before getting a sense of the world. It may have been ill-advised, but I stomped out of the unsettlingly decorated area guarded by the undead to see what the world had to offer. Turns out, it was death.

Wrapped up in my beginner’s confidence, I strode forward to boldly take on a humanoid mushroom figure. My pet skeleton lasted seconds with me following soon after. However, I was pleased with the encounter because I had figured out how to do everything, even if I wasn’t nearly strong enough to challenge a real enemy yet.

I respawned in a village bustling with people and their undead summons. So, I figured I was in friendly territory, though I wasn’t sure exactly where. The map pinpointed every named NPCs and several merchants I couldn’t afford yet. It was a lovely place to poke around. In my exploration, I stumbled across a water mocassin just waiting to be attacked. Excitedly, I summoned my new skeleton friend and sent spells its way. This time, the (admittedly less epic) battle went my way.

Having a better sense of what to expect, I wanted to go back to the starting line. I located and clicked on the training master on my map. Suddenly, a greenish glowing trail wound out before me. It looped around oddly in some places and went entirely too directly (over some mountains) in others, but got me back to my beginning point. You can imagine a training montage here as I took up some new skills.

And while this is where I ended my adventure, there’s still so much to explore in EverQuest Legends.