Choose My Adventure: Aion Classic is nothing like I remember

I mentioned in last week’s Choose My Adventure column that OG Aion created no deep memories for me, even as I was around during some of its initial launch. I didn’t particularly hate the game by any means, but I also was really not that captivated and moved on after about maybe 10 or 12 levels.

Coming back to the game for this month – specifically to Aion Classic – has not only reaffirmed that held position but also kind of shown that the game didn’t stand the test of time very well in my view. In fact, I don’t recognize a damn thing about it.

I elected to choose an Asmodian character purely on a coin flip when I first started my trip through the MMO. I kind of remember playing both sides of the faction coin when the game first came out, and I remember feeling like the Elyos were a bit too twee for my tastes back in the day. I kind of suspected the Asmodians would be too edgy, but my tastes sort of lead me to them first.

I was also pretty sure I selected the Soldier class as my start, but apparently I selected Brawler by accident? I don’t know. In my defense, the coffee hadn’t really arrived to my bloodstream yet when I was pushing through character creation.

Despite this game being the Classic version, I remember literally nothing about the opening beats that I went through. My character was tossed into some interdimensional realm, reliving a bunch of apparently lost memories, all while my character was absolutely blasting past the levels and into what I can only presume are current events from a narrative standpoint.

Seriously, I have absolutely no recollection of any of the things that were presented in the story. I feel like I would remember investigating some sort of sinister factory and one of my academy instructors turning into a big demon?

While I moved through this confounding bit of fast-forwarding, I started to vaguely remember a few things about Aion’s combat – namely, that pretty much every skill is linked to one button. My combat rotation was literally just me smashing the “1” key, occasionally using a “2” key skill to heal myself by engaging a Jojo reference, all while my character said the same “Rrrruuuaaaah!” battle cry.

Look, I get it. This game comes from the days when it was just tab-target hotbar ability battling. That’s not really the problem. And I also don’t think that having multiple combo skills linked to a single button press is a bad thing, especially for those who have problems controlling dozens of hotbar buttons at a higher pace. But this was super boring even by those standards. I wasn’t expecting action combat, but I also wasn’t expecting this. But I don’t know; maybe this is a failing of the Brawler class than anything else.

After I got through the opening story such as it was, my character was tossed into the main city hub of Pandaemonium, decked out at level 20 with appropriate gear from head to toe and a pile of kinah to spend on the myriad skill books that I guess I had to get since that’s how skills seemed to work now. I was handed ability books previously, but now I had to go back to a class trainer for the next evolution in buttons.

I also was introduced to the stigma skill system, which… I guess was interesting? I don’t really know who thought having a series of skills that can be unlocked only by burning up a specific resource was interesting, but I sure don’t fall into that bucket. I have to assume this whole system is associated with grind. Or the cash shop. Possibly both.

Another system that I was kind of disappointed by was the fact that I could literally click a single button and teleport to quest NPCs every step of the way, provided I was in the right zone. I certainly could have ignored the use of this button, but the fact that it was there for my use, especially at a point when I really didn’t care about the narrative explanations or the quest step dialogue, was an unwelcome surprise. It made things feel too close to mobile game-like autoplay.

Also I started to hit a point when I had accidentally spent all of my money on skill books, meaning I was too broke to afford the teleport cost to go to the next level 20 quest area that I presumably was supposed to. So what I’ve been doing for the most part has been doing low-level quests, hoping for more kinah. Nothing has been handed over yet, though.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m really misremembering things. Or perhaps this game has evolved so far that I’ve been left way in the dust, even on a Classic server. Or maybe I shouldn’t have been a dumbass and tossed all of my kinah at the class teacher. It’s not like I was being engaged by the combat all that much.

But then again, I also recognize that it’s still kind of early moments anyway, even as I was tossed into level 20 at breakneck pace. So perhaps I need to stick it out; find a way to make money, or to travel to where I’m meant to go, or otherwise just give myself the time and grace required to get a hold of the ropes. Or maybe I just start fresh as one of those overly shiny Elyos.

Either way, I need to make a choice, particularly since February is a pretty short month. I appreciate that I’m basically asking the same question I asked last week, but I’m curious to know what you all think should be done. Also I recognize that I apparently didn’t put the last poll together right and it was read-only somehow. Sorry about that.

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Polling will wrap at the typical 1:00 p.m. EST time on Friday, February 21st. For real this time. I promise I checked my work. Until then, I’m going to… do something else. Something that doesn’t feel quite so uncomfortable.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.