With Steam Next Fest taking place this past week, I’m sure we’ve all picked out a game or two that we want to try out. Of course, there are so many demos to watch during this event with limited time. As you recall, before Next Fest started, we shared a list of some free-to-play games that would be offering demos. I decided to try one of these games, Crystalfall. It’s been a while since I last played an ARPG, so I thought it would be a good idea to give it a try.

I played through the entire demo available, which consisted of the first zone of the game. According to Steam, that’s around 12 hours of playtime. But I’m sure at some point I left to get a drink or something. Let’s just say it probably took me about 10 hours to complete the available storyline.

At the start of the game you have three classes to choose from: Technomancer, Rogue and Knight. The first is a wizard class. The second is a ranged DPS that uses weapons of different types. The latter is for those of us who enjoy hitting things in the face with sharp (or heavy) weapons. Interestingly, these class choices also determine your race and gender, at least for now. Technomancer is a female birdman, Rogue is a female fox, and the knight is a male lion.

Using an extensive skill tree, players can slowly customize their character’s class a bit. When I finished the demo, I only managed to unlock about 13 nodes in the tree. None of them were ones I could put a glyph socket in – although I got pretty close.

I chose the melee class. There were immediately many options for weapons. The melee fighter can wield both one-handed and two-handed weapons. Swords, shields, axes, maces and the like are available. Each class also has two weapon configurations that they can switch between on the fly.

Each weapon type has its own abilities. Some of these will overlap. Say you have an ax for your two-handed weapon and a sword and shield as your other equipment. They only use some of the same abilities, others only work with one type of weapon. This means players should be very careful when setting up their hotbar – especially because there are five spots to work with.

As with many APRGs of this type, your adventure begins with your character’s imprisonment. In this case, you are in an arena and are forced to fight. At least for your captors, the plan is not to win your freedom. It’s simply up to you to fight until you die. Of course, that’s not your idea of ​​fun and you’ll fight until you can escape – to an island full of armed machines, rat people and overpowered spiders. You know. The usual.

You make your way to the port to find a way off the island and are first given a few tasks to complete to compensate for the journey. Last but not least, it involves rescuing someone from prison, a task that requires completing several other tasks (and acquiring multiple levels and equipment) to complete.

Oh. Yes. And a lot of back and forth to the main hub to clear out your inventory, repair equipment, and the like.

Speaking of equipment, I’m afraid I didn’t get to play with it that much. I managed to reach level 16 near the end of the story and had only received one piece of equipment that allowed you to embed stat increasing items. I can say that I never felt like my equipment was holding me back. But – at least this early in the game – it didn’t make things too easy either.

However, I’m one of those players who clears entire areas before moving on to the next one. That’s why I was able to level up pretty well until the last part, where I was just trying to get off the island to play this piece. When I started doing this, I started dying more often. Complete negligence on my part.

The game features an easy-to-understand crafting and fusion system. So once players reach a point in the game where this is actually necessary, it shouldn’t be a problem anymore – especially for those who play these types of games regularly. Just about anything can be changed or, if not needed, broken down into more useful elements. This includes both skills and equipment. Of course, since everything has its own system, there are many different items to fill the player’s inventory and supply.

At the beginning, players have exactly one tab to work with. The inventory has 54 slots and the supply has 126. Since the shop was obviously not available in the demo, I can’t say for sure what getting more tabs looks like. But I’m sure at least some will be acquired this way. A free-to-play game has to make money somehow. I also assume that players will be able to gain an additional tab or two through gameplay.

All in all, as you can probably tell from this article, Crystalfall doesn’t push the boundaries of the ARPG realm. Still, I don’t think that’s necessary. People who like this genre want to play this genre. And unlike many games out there that carry a long list of descriptions, Crystfall seems to know exactly what it’s about.

It’s not fast-paced, at least at first. I imagine players will be able to do some crazy things as they progress, unlocking more talents in the talent tree and maxing out their builds. That’s what these loot-driven hack-and-slash ARPGs are all about.

As for the “RPG” part of “ARPG.” I can’t really confirm this as I’ve only experienced the first island. It’s very obvious that there is a story there. But since this is more or less the tutorial section, you won’t get it yet.

For those just getting into the genre, Crystalfall could be a good fit. With very few exceptions, almost everything is straightforward at the beginning. Honestly, the only thing that confused me was figuring out how to get the overlay map to display.

Did I like it? I wouldn’t spend 10 hours playing a game I didn’t enjoy.