Bubble Witch 2 Saga
Mobile
First thing's first. Is it Bubble Witch 2 Saga? Or is it Bubble Witch Saga 2? I've read it both ways. The part of me that's been a gamer my entire life is screaming that it should be Bubble Witch Saga 2. But the very website of the company that made the game has it listed as Bubble Witch 2 Saga... which drives me nuts, but I guess that is the way it has to be.
Bubble Witch 2 Saga was the second game that I started playing on my phone, the first being Candy Crush Saga. Everyone who knows me should know that I became extremely obsessed with Candy Crush. I played it quite often. If I had lives in the game to burn, I would be burning them. The game kept me glued to my phone, and turned me into one of "those people" who I had been so judgmental of for years and years.
With Candy Crush it often got to the point where I would use up all my lives and have to wait for them to replenish. Or I'd have to wait a few hours for the ticket I needed to advance in the game. How was I to spend my downtime? Just sit there twiddling my thumbs and staring at the clock? No, the answer was simple. I'd download another game to play in the meantime.
Why Bubble Witch 2, I have no idea. King has a pretty big library of games to choose from. Something about the presentation of the game's advertisements drew me in. It looked interesting. Normally I would never download a sequel of a game unless I had played the original iteration. But for Bubble Witch 2, I made an exception.
And it turned out to be a good decision on my part. I never quite became as obsessed with this game as I did Candy Crush, but it definitely became a suitable alternative.
The premise of the game is simple. Each game's stage is filled with different types of colored orbs. You start each stage with a certain number of turns. Each turn, you get a different colored orb of your own to fling at the other orbs. Match three or more of a color, and the orbs vanish.
It is the way you fling these orbs that drew me in when I began playing. It is not like Candy Crush where you simply move pieces around. No, this game requires precision aiming. When it is your turn to go, you must use your finger to pinpoint where it is you want your orb to go. A line shows you the trajectory of your orb, but if you bounce it off of a wall, you have to figure out the remaining trajectory yourself. So there is definitely a lot of skill involved here.
As you start clearing out orbs, the screen scrolls upwards to match your progress. Each stage has a different objective. Some stages you must clear out enough orbs to make it to the top of the screen. You then have to clear 6 pieces from the very top row of orbs. Other stages have you battling Morgana, the game's antagonist. Morgana jumps from bubble to bubble, each one a different color. You must hit her with the matching colored orb. Take out all of her forms, you pass the level.
The final level type revolves around freeing a ghost that has several orbs attached to him. Once you've cleared all the orbs away, he is free to go and you complete the stage.
The game throws a lot of obstacles your way. Expect to encounter black holes - pieces that get in your way and absorb any orbs you happen to fling at them. Hit a black hole three times and you clear it. There are also frogs, which are annoying as hell. Think of them as the equivalent to chocolate pieces in Candy Crush. If you don't take them out quickly they spawn new orbs which can completely block your path.
Other obstacles include rotating platforms that change the position of the stage's pieces each turn. There are clouds that hide the colors and make things a crapshoot. Vines that have a weak link you must take out to destroy. There are also bat pieces that are essentially orbs that don't go away when they lose their support and fall off the screen. Instead they fly off and reattach themselves somewhere else. So you have to take these bats out individually or they keep coming back.
Last but not least are the zombified orbs that multiply whenever your orb comes into contact with them. These can be a pain too. But when you make five touching zombie pieces they do go away in a puff of smoke. Sometimes you have no choice but to waste orbs on zombie pieces to spawn enough of them so that you can make five in a row and wipe them out to clear the path they are blocking.
The game offers rewards like an extra ten moves to finish a stage with, a fireball piece that destroys anything it comes into contact with, a rainbow orb that wipes out any color it contacts, and a fairy that gives you bonuses as you progress during the stage.
When I first started playing this game, there wasn't much you could do to earn extra things to help you out on your journey, but as the years (wow, I have been playing this for a lot longer than I thought) have gone by, King has introduced a lot of extra bonuses and side games to help you collect items. This has made the game a lot more fun for me, for sure.
My favorite addition is the ability to mix potions. There are 3 potions you can carry along as you play, but you can only use one at a time. One potion gives you 3 inventory slots to hold orbs, rather than 2. This potentially gives you a bigger variety of colors to choose from when making your turn. There is a potion that allows you to see the trajectory of a ricocheted wall shot, which is also very helpful. You will find that aiming and lining up bank shots is one of the toughest things about this game, so this ability is a good one to have. The last potion randomly launches a couple meteors at the beginning of the stage, which clears a certain number of orbs in your way. Sometimes this move is useless, sometimes it makes the stage infinitely more passable.
The game also has a bonus tower, which I rarely play on, which allows you to collect extra items.
The game is a big challenge, and it is fun too. The look and feel of the game is charming. I love the game's musical score. There are a lot of catchy tunes. I think the game's songs are much better than Candy Crush's.
Despite the fact that Bubble Witch 3 is already out, the game is still going strong with new levels coming out regularly. I wonder if they will keep this game going forever?
My interest in the title is waning, though. Which is why I figured I would write this review now before my enthusiasm for it had completely faded. Bubble Witch 3 is brighter, faster paced, and a lot more fun to play. As a result I haven't been playing this much at all lately.
But I have to give the game credit where it is due. Sure, its sequel makes it look slow and feeble in comparison. But I put a LOT of time into this game, and most of it was a lot of fun. The game can be a big challenge, which put me off at times. There were levels I would get stuck on for weeks on end. Some I thought I would never pass. But such is the nature of these types of mobile games.
It is not the perfect title out there, but it was always a go-to title in my mobile rotation. While its glory has faded a bit since its sequel has come out, I still hold fond memories of the game. Time will tell how long Bubble Witch 2 Saga will stick around in my portable rotation, but I can say that it was a great ride.
I downloaded it is a "we'll see" type of game that I could play whenever I was out of moves for Candy Crush. I had no expectations for it whatsoever. But it became so much more than just a side game.
Overall:
B+
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