Not sure how I'm meant to play this game?
Hey! Apologies if this sort of post isn't allowed, but I had some questions and figured this would be the best place to ask.
Someone recommended this game to me, and I've played it for a little under two hours now, and honestly not having a great time. But that stems, I think, from a question that I've had in my head for a while: how am I meant to play / see this game? It feels like it's trying to be two opposing things at once: on the one hand, it's a you-die-super-fast-and-try-again roguelike sort of game, but on the other hand, it's an open world RPG that asks you to spend time creating a character and caring / learning about the world and such.
If I'm meant to see this as a roguelike in which I'll die over and over again, why is the randomization / variety as lacking as it is at the start? And why is making a new game, character, and world a process as lengthy as it is? (Not super lengthy, of course, but much more involved than most roguelikes-- imagine if Dead Cells had you customize and name every iteration of the Beheaded)
And if I'm meant to see this as a world to explore and learn about, with a character that I care about and can see progress over the course of the game, then why is the game so unfriendly / designed with the intent of giving the player a whole lot of game-ending 'learning experiences'?
To be clear, I'm totally fine with a good BS game (one of my favorite games is Rain World). And honestly, I made this post mainly because I'm almost at the cutoff for getting a refund, but I've heard so many good things about the game and I think it would be right up my alley if I understood it. But there's just a bit of dissonance here, where it feels like I'm being told to expect two very different things.
