by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Often times, we are extremely critical of Blizzard and its games. We are no strangers to blunt statements such as my claim that the Hearthstone client is unacceptable for high end competitive play, or the calls of many for the ladder system to be reworked. I’ve flat out said that The Grand Tournament sucked, and some people even claimed that this whole shift to a set-rotation model with the new standard format is just a way for Blizzard to make more money.

Despite all of the critique, Hearthstone does have a lot of big positives, and we often times seem to take them for granted. Personally, I consider myself a fair reviewer, and I will sing the praises of Blizzard when I feel they deserve it. I’ve stated multiple times that League of Explorers is perhaps one of the best things that Blizzard has ever done, and I’ve even looked at the positives of the current ladder system.

But there is one huge feature of Hearthstone that is very easy to take for granted, and perhaps we could be a bit more appreciative of it, at least actively. Despite being very vocal about the flaws of the Hearthstone game client, its strengths are probably an important factor that has helped build Hearthstone’s immense popularity.

Online Card Games

When you look at collectible strategic card games, you can’t help but to talk about Magic: The Gathering (MTG). Magic is a 23-year old card game that despite carrying-over outdated and overly complicated mechanics reminiscent of the old-school tabletop RPG scene, still manages to remain very popular to this day. While Hearthstone did some serious improvement over game mechanics, especially when it comes to resource management, combat phase, and its overall simplicity and fluidity; the biggest edge that Hearthstone has over MTG Online is its user-friendliness, its superior aesthetics, and  its well-thought free-to-play model. Art Direction and the UI Team have made sure that Hearthstone is an enjoyable, simple and, immersive experience; this is something that’s pretty easy to overlook.

I’ve played a lot of different card games both online and offline, but when it comes to the online games I’ve noticed that having a solid client is a huge factor when it comes to enjoying a game and wanting to invest both time and money on it. Take for example Solforge, which is probably one of the most interesting card games I’ve played as of late, the mechanics of Solforge were very appealing to me, but I thought their game client was absolutely trash and made the entire game almost unplayable. Don’t even let me get started on how bad its collection manager and deck builder was. Now to be fair, I haven’t played that game in a while, and they probably knew they needed to fix their client, and they appear to have been working on it quite a bit. The Game-Client for Spellweaver was a bit better, but still felt pretty subpar, and it quickly led to me deciding not to play that game.

The Faerian Lightbulb

But I didn’t really understood how important the Hearthstone client is, until I started playing Faeria. Faeria is an incredible game developed by Abrakam Entertainment, a game company based in Liège, Belgium. Their game has been in development for a long while, and has been through plenty of iterations. Its latest incarnation is currently an early access game on steam, and it really appears to have learned a lot from Hearthstone, both from its strengths and weaknesses. I was instantly hooked on this game; mechanically, it really felt like Hearthstone 2.0. Additionally, Faeria seems to have borrowed A LOT from Hearthstone; navigating the interface feels very intuitive for someone who’s accustomed to Blizzard’s CCG, and this really helped make the transition from one game to another be as seamless as possible. Faeria also has cool aesthetics and a solid UI, to the point where I’d consider it to be an objectively good game.

When I compared the game clients of some of the other previously mentioned online card games to Hearthstone, it was painfully obvious that were highly inferior. When something is really bad (like those game clients were), pretty much everything is better. But when I ran into Faeria’s very solid in-game client, it was like somebody turned on a light-bulb inside my head. Despite Abrakam developing an enjoyable user interface, and some strong art, it still doesn’t begin to compare to what Hearthstone brings to the table.

I was so used to Online Card Game Interfaces sucking, that I dismissed Hearthstone as being merely not bad, or average. It took me running into a decent-to-good game client such as the one boasted by Faeria before I realized how truly top-notch the product that Blizzard is offering is.

Faeria’s game mechanics make me feel like I’m playing an improved version of Hearthstone, but even if the overall game client is solid and nothing to complain about, it really feels like a poor man’s Hearthstone. Making a strong game experience like Faeria’s feel underwhelming in comparison speaks volumes about the great work that the Hearthstone UI Team has done, and when you mix in all the high quality audiovisuals, Hearthstone really is an untouchable card slinging experience.

I’ll probably still be very critical of Hearthstone, but now I know I’ll never underestimate the strengths of Hearthstone UI and artwork. What about you? Have you been taking Hearthstone for granted? Let me know using the comment section below.