Clan of Champions hints at a much deeper mythos than you’ll ever see in the game. There’s a lengthy block of text at the beginning and vague descriptions accompanying each mission, but there isn’t much story other than you’re one of three characters – human, elf, or orc – and you’re beating the hell out of people in what amounts to a single-player Horde Mode.

Though the initial concept sounds like something you’ll quickly tire of, gameplay manages to find a nice sweet spot. It is simple enough that it staves off being overly complicated, but still manages to pack in enough depth and reward to keep you hooked. I know I was surprised by the amount of time I spent playing, especially considering the bare bones character creation and presentation.

Character creation options are as limited as they come without assigning you a preset character. Races are gender-locked, so if you want to play a female, you have to be an elf. You have a little more choice when it comes to hair and face styles/ colors, but even then, you’re forced to make do with what you’re given. Once you start unlocking gear, you can start to separate your character’s look from every other character, though even then the options are light.

Arenas are mostly just bland, stone-textured rooms. Textures change the deeper you get into the mission tree, though even then, you’re really just another variation of stone. Audio follows suit; multiple variations of the same thing. Really, the game just falls flat on presentation, but looks are just one piece of the whole.

Back to that "hinted at" story, as far as I can tell, two nations are at war. Problem is, both nations’ militaries are composed of mercenaries. Years of war have left both nations with few resources, so when a lost city full of weapons is found, both sides are quick to send their remaining mercenary armies in to loot, hopefully tipping the war in their favor.

You are one of these mercenaries, though your missions through the city aren’t as exciting as the premise might suggest. Missions typically involve you and two randomly-generated companions fighting off groups of rivals. Clan of Champions is an all-out brawler, so if you’re into that sort of game, this will sate your appetite. Missions rarely go on for longer than ten minutes and replay is encouraged by nearly every game system.

While unlocking new missions is your main goal, you’re also attempting to arm yourself. You begin with just the clothes on your back and a sword, but as you go through missions, you’ll recover new weapons and armor from enemies. The catch is, even though you can pick up weapons, you’re only allowed to use them during that match. If you want to keep anything, you have to claim it by purchasing it. Otherwise, it will disappear when you exit the mission.

Like nearly every system in Clan of Champions, claiming weapons is confusing and incredibly jarring. Yet, once you figure out what the game is – at least as far as I can tell – doing, it makes more sense. Gold is limited, so you can’t buy everything, which is the game’s not-so-subtle way of getting you to replay missions. I wasn’t a fan early on, but once you start to see enemies enter the arena with cool weapons and armor, its hard to not feel the old Diablo loot everything itch. It also helps that battles are fun and combat requires more than button-mashing.

Outside the arena, you’ll navigate through a cumbersome, confusing menu system to either select new missions (which is easy) or sell older gear at the shop (which is hard to find). While in the shop menu, you can also improve your gear, learn/ assign new skills to your champion. Both are needed to progress through harder missions, though the game does a sub-par job explaining anything, so you’re generally left to figure things out by yourself.

Not that doing so isn’t easy, particularly if you’re at all familiar with RPGs, but it is indicative of Clan of Champions larger problems. The core systems are great, but everything else comes up incredibly flat. Options you’d expect to see aren’t included, and little attention is paid to the actual user experience. There’s a brief combat tutorial, but that’s one of the easier things to learn. It’s the other systems – mission selection, purchasing and upgrading items, character creation – that require more explanation. You’ll have a lot of fun once you figure out what’s happening, though you have to commit to working through a couple of bum purchases, poor upgrade choices and learning the systems.

Difficulty can be set for each mission on an individual basis. It is recommended you start off at lower difficulties, but you’ll want to select harder settings on following plays. Harder missions toss better-equipped enemies at you, offering a wider selection of weapons/ armor. You’ll also earn more money, which means you can claim more items as well.

Combat, and its handful of related mechanics, are where Clan of Champions really shines. I actually wouldn’t be completely surprised if another developer with deeper pockets were to copy the system for another game. It’s that good and that entertaining.

The actual act of fighting isn’t that impressive; you have three attack buttons that you can combo into a variety of attacks. You can also use special attacks to augment your normal attacks. The cool part is you can’t blindly button-mash your way through fights. You’ll have success doing so in early missions, but once you bump up the difficulty, you’ll realize you have to think through every attack and target individual pieces of armor, not the entire enemy. When armor takes enough damage, it falls off. Your enemy will be easier to kill, but you can also equip it yourself. Enemies can do the same, which is where combat gets its unique flair. Battles are constantly shifting, so even if you have an enemy on the ropes, he could pick up a shield or a better weapon and become a threat. At the same time, an enemy could knock away your armor/ weapon, putting you at a disadvantage until you can re-arm.

Another neat aspect is stances. Depending on how you arm yourself, you will either enter one of a handful of combat stances. For example, arming two weapons puts you in a dual-wield stance, causing your attack rating to rise at the cost of a lower defense rating. You can switch stances at any time during battle, though you’ll want to stick to one or two. The longer you fight in a stance, the more experience you gain, unlocking new combat abilities. I mostly stuck with dual-wield, but ended up gaining some skill with barehanded fighting in the event I was disarmed.

I ended up liking Clan of Champions way more than I originally figured I would. It is not much to look at and many of its systems are clunky to use. But, once you delve into the combat systems, it is much easier to overlook the game’s blemishes. For the price, fans of brawlers with a lot of patience will want to check out Clan of Champions.