Your review is more than fair, Kelsey, and there are many that will relate to what you’re saying, ESPECIALLY those lacking the dexterity and patience that pinball can require. However, everyone gets better at things by practicing. The time spent doing leisure activities should always be fun, and each person will have to make the decision as to whether practicing a pinball table equates to fun.

Regardless, I definitely feel that those rpg lovers who may never have looked twice in the direction of a pinball table should at least TRY Epic Quest with an open mind, and see how they feel through subsequent games. Then they will truly know if this genre might be of interest.

But there are an awful lot of people who aren’t like me, and I suspect your perspective better represents the view many of them would have on the board. Especially for such a low price, there’s a ton of great pinball on this table, and I love the innovation.

Part of pinball IS the dexterity involved, but to this table’s credit, they placed the challenges well. I have played a LOT of pinball in my time, from the machines in arcades and bars to the many video varieties (starting way back with video pinball on the Atari 2600, and Pinball on NES which guest starred Mario and the princess…even Dragon’s Fury on Genesis), and of ALL those tables, none of the ramps are as easy to hit as the sword and shield ramps in epic quest, which are the ones most important to combat. Sure, you may not hit them EVERY time, but with practice you should hit these ramps at least 80 – 90% of the time you try to hit them.

Also, hitting the cave hole, which equips gear or enters dungeons out of combat, will actually make you drink a health potion inside combat, so you will not be equipping or selling anything while fighting the monsters.

Speaking of these monsters, they may start fairly similar to each other, but as you adventure and face harder creatures, the each have specific strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to take advantage with spell scrolls or enchanted equipment, while avoiding things from which the baddies are well defended.

At the end of the day, this is a well-designed and fun pinball table with an rpg theme and elements, but a pinball table nonetheless. Granted, not everyone likes pinball, but if someone likes either the pinball or rpg genre, I would recommend trying the Epic Quest table. If a person likes both the rpg AND pinball genres, purchasing this well-crafted table is an absolute no-brainer.

That said, the variety of gadgets focused on allowing players to move in varied ways makes the game more chaotic than Team Fortress 2 or the military shooters. This seems like a game which could really use a turret-deploying gadget to help players who prefer a more static, cerebral experience control the pace of change a bit. It’s hard to fault a game for going wholeheartedly for what it does best, though, and the whole premise of GCI emphasizes manic tomfoolery.

Freemium stuff generally strikes me as much like ads on TV–they’re generally annoying, but I can almost be resigned to them. That’s pretty much how I feel here; the pace of unlocks is almost high enough to make them seem unappealing, and I like being able to get up on my high horse about earning my options, rather than buying them. One of my many character flaws.

Does. Not. Compute.

I was expecting there to be something this far after Christmas, but the shortage goes on. Hopefully one month in the distant future I’ll see some figure somewhere but I imagine most people are like me… they’ll buy the first thing they see because so far there has been nothing to be seen so the shortage will continue.

Kinda stinks to have a game that’s only 3/8ths playable. Who knows if they’ll ever produce enough figures to reach the common joe.