When I play a game there is always a certain playstyle I gravitate towards.
I think all gamers can agree with me to some extent.
Some people just like being a damage dealer who has a lot of mobility in games. Kiting enemies to death.
Or others are made to be supports. They love the pressure of playing a pivotal role in managing fights and are often great leaders.
Me? I like solo play. I dislike playing with other people or having to rely on others to do things for me. This meant I played a lot of summoner roles. Because they have access to creatures that can fill various roles in a party.
It was not that different this time either.
I had been scrolling through some videos of new games to try when I suddenly came across an ad for a new dungeon crawler/action rpg looter.
I clicked on it and found myself looking through the videos of demo gameplay.
"The graphics aren't half bad and the amount of variety of spells is better than a lot of games. I'll try the free trial and see if it's worth buying."
I clicked download on the game, expecting it to take a while I was about to get up from my chair to grab a drink when the download was instantly finished and the loading screen for the game appeared on its own.
"Huh, I guess they only made me download the files for the trial? That makes sense though. Why make me download the whole game just to try out a small portion... Other games should start doing this too. I don't have a ton of space on my drive and I don't like deleting stuff."
Deciding to at least start my character creation before I got my drink I quickly started the game and navigated through the character creation screen quickly.
My default for character creation was always the same: handsome but not a flashy kind. I wanted my character's to be good looking for cinematics but I didn't want them to have that main characters vibe so I made them have common features like natural hair colors.
This one was average height, long black hair, black eyes, and was handsome while not looking like someone who would model as their main job.
Someone who could be offered some roles as an actor for his looks but wasn't one.
After that I was prompted to select a class and a background.
For my background I read through the options carefully.
This section oddly had a lot of options and they were all heavily balanced. There were clear positives with equally detrimental cons. I spent the better part of the next twenty minutes just reading through them all, before spending another 10 deciding on what background I wanted.
In the end I decided to be a war orphan. My character's parents were killed in the war and I was a child slave.
The negative was that I started the game in a prison instead of a cozy academy, but the rewards felt good to me.
The game trailers showed a lot of flashy spells and cool action scenes. However I payed closer attention to the parts where they talked about managing your sanity and that random events could cause severe trauma to your party.
War Orphans had the trait [Calm] at the start of the game. It made them better at handling stress and were much better at collecting themselves in a surprise attack. They were able to react quicker to sudden ambushes than others.
With all that decided I clicked onto the last part of the customization where I selected my class.
"Well, that's a no brainer."
I had quickly looked through the classes but only two were even up for debate for me.
The first was good but ended up being a no from me.
The Beast Tamer class was interesting because the whole idea was essentially a hunter character who tamed pets. You focused on ranged attacks and gathering buff skills for your pets. Taming stronger monsters to get stronger yourself.
It was interesting but I wasn't a huge fan of that playstyle.
I wanted a 'running simulator' class.
Being able to summon creatures and not having to attack at all myself was the dream for me. I liked collecting loot and doing other things. Combat was always just a means to an end.
I quickly selected the class and was ready to start when an unexpected screen appeared.
Slightly annoyed at how they clearly said I only had to do those few selections to start the game, but then getting slapped with ANOTHER screen felt slightly deceptive.
Nonetheless I quickly read the message while suppressing my rising annoyance.
[Would you like to receive a Curse?]
[You will lose the ability to directly attack enemies, but your summons will gain all the benefits you gain.]
[You will also be cursed with terrible Luck.]
"I lose the ability to cast spells to attack but my summons gain everything I gain? Is this a Rogue-Like element that makes every playthrough different?"
I tried to look through the game page for any information on this mechanic but I wasn't able to find anything.
The game was also released just recently so there was no wiki to consult for more information.
Deciding that this must be the case I just accepted it and clicked the [Yes] option on my screen.
The game started a loading screen so I quickly got up and grabbed a soda from the fridge before heading back to my room.
"Pahhhh! A cold soda always has a kick that just makes it taste better."
I gripped my doorknob and swung the door open while I took a step in.
I failed to notice that my room was pitch black although I had left my monitor on and the lights on before I left.
My foot, instead of hitting the solid floor of my room, fell straight through a veil of pure darkness and my body followed after it.
My body tumbled into the abyss but before I could react to the situation my vision went black.
[Starting Tutorial.]