It is not an inherently terrible video game, it's just better described as a poor man's version of [i]Grim Dawn[/i], which is a poor man's version of old-school [i]Diablo[/i] and [i]Path of Exile[/i]. In essence, it's for people who want to play one of those aforementioned video games but perhaps lack a PC capable of meeting hardware requirements and so they settle with this title instead, or because they have a scratch that needs itching and have played every other ARPG title and want something new to conquer.
The developers of the video game seem fairly knowledgeable and competent enough in the ARPG sphere and what makes it so. Instead of trying to redefine the entire genre and creating a video game that doesn't make any sense for what it is supposed to be, they keep it simple even as far as the graphical design goes with it being entirely pixelated, and it's pretty easy to understand and play if you're a beginner to the genre. There always needs to be a "baby's first" and this is perhaps one of those entry level games that is a suitable introduction to ARPGs.
I don't know if the 2D pixel art style does the game any favors, though, as it adds more niche to an already rather niche genre of video game and one common side effect of isometric pixelated video gaming is visual clutter when you have so many different types of flashy particle effects, especially during the intense endgame combat. It can get very messy and looks ugly more than it does beautiful or unique, with the general environment being repetitive in its texturing and overall design, although perhaps there's also the positive here where the maps are easy to navigate and so you won't really get lost too often. You can deduce quickly how the map layout generates and where the end goal is going to be every time you enter into a new area. Graphically, what I found very lame and unforgivable is that your character's appearance does not change when you equip new gear. You remain as the same boring sprite from beginning to conclusion, the only options for customization is in some generic color palette swapping where you can go from wearing red clothing to blue clothing or something. As is the usual case, classes are gender-locked as well which is something I never really understood with this genre.
The UI is also bad in its design, mostly because you have to manually resize it from how it seems to be by default as boxes that you need a microscope to see otherwise. I had to go into the game's settings and adjust a few different sliders to resize panels like my inventory and health bar because it was smaller than a gnat crawling across my monitor screen after it filled up from my leftover Taco Bell burrito forgotten in the corner of my bedroom. There's even sliders for things like speech dialog boxes, which also need to be adjusted. Aside from that, I didn't really have any issues navigating the menus otherwise or discerning what is what after I did expand the size of everything.
As is important for this type of game, theorycrafting does exist and can be very satisfying with the game offering build diversity through interconnected skill trees with hundreds of nodes in total. There aren't any restrictions which allows you to freely mix and match elements, active skills, and passive nodes. Legendary items are game-changing as it should be where it provides more than just a massive stat boost, it can also alter how certain skills will behave and so it can transform your entire playstyle. Legendary items won't appear in the loot pool until after level ten, though, but reaching level ten isn't too difficult or time consuming even if the game does have a major flaw in how slow it is to start. In fact, there is a pacing discrepancy where the early game is a sloggy slugfest at snail pace with generic enemies, especially bosses, being damage sponges while you lack sufficient DPS, only for the game to flip upside down with a rather rushed endgame experience that is hyper-fast that the weight and precision you built with individual skills almost felt stripped away. Up to the endgame phase, I don't think death was ever a concern because even your character will be its own damage sponge and this, overall, made combat rather repetitive and sometimes boring as the gameplay loop revolved around spamming the same ability while you slowly designed your character. The skill trees, while expansive, could feel homogenized in that many of them are very identical in how it functions, differentiated only by color or damage type. There's also a "mastery" system that will allow you to continue ascending beyond the level cap so that you can spend your points into more granular stats for those who like to min-max these games. Once you do finalize your character, however; the game becomes more of that power fantasy that the ARPG genre needs to prioritize where you can clear entire screens of generic mobs in a burst of color and speed.
I also think the game does well to respect the player and their time. The developers understand that the average gamer doesn't have all day to just sit and play the video game, and so there's some important quality of life features like the loot filter, inventory auto sorting, and auto looting mechanics for gold and crafting components to minimize upon tedious downtime in the game's hub area. Respec'ing your character is something that seems to be handled differently by every ARPG developer, where universally it really should be free and instant to use, and [i]Chronicon[/i] allows you to do exactly that from the very beginning of the game. We don't need to be charged a fortune just to try another build or need to spend X amount of hours playing the game to unlock it as a basic feature to the ARPG genre.
Drop rates for items is also very generous, and even for legendary items, it's not so abysmally low in drop chance that you'll never find anything. I was probably finding at least a few legendary items within every five levels, and that's an exciting dopamine hit as we all love legendary loot, although the low drop rate for loot in general does mean that you can find yourself quickly overwhelmed if you refuse to utilize the in-game loot filtering system, and for those players who feel compelled to loot everything regardless of its benefits to you, as the game will drop gear that is restricted to another class of character and not always relevant to your current character, you'll find your inventory cluttered quickly with junk even with maximum upgrades to its slots, creating the downtime of needing to teleport back to the hub to sell it or stash what you think you might want for any other character you've created. Most of my gold acquired was spent in the hub came from using the gambling NPC to roll for better loot.
As for the story, it's about what you can expect from an ARPG. This genre of game has never been known for a thrilling or compelling storyline or plot. It's more of that "hero rises up to save the world" trope, with some tidbits here and there that you can click on throughout the multiple acts if you are curious about some random character whose name you don't even recognize to begin with.
While I don't have any local friend(s) to enjoy the game with, I can imagine it's much better as a sort of couch cooperative experience. Unlike other games, like [i]Path of Exile[/i], it's a fully offline experience and so you don't have to worry about servers needing maintenance or there being lag from a bad connection to said servers, nor do you have people spamming the world chat with obnoxious memes and trying to be humorous instead of just playing the game.
The game being as cheap as it is for the price-to-content ratio, I'd say it is worth the full price, even more so when discounted. This is a true passion project coming from two developers who yet again prove that 300 developers amassing into one large studio should be doing way more than they are.
