You have been snatched from your homeworld by faceless, omnipotent beings whose only pleasure is the sport of blood. You find yourself in a strange arena facing horrible enemies, fighting for your life and for you freedom.
Every player starts with the same base character, who has the most basic items, one basic spell and one basic attack move.
The battle loop is fairly simple. You have the first move in the battle. You may select a move from the move menu. Some moves take AP (Ability Points) -- you have a finite amount of AP, so use them carefully. Your move (be it normal or ability-based) will do a certain amount of damage, based on a number of factors; alternatively, it might miss altogether! Your attack will take a certain amount of "Hit Points" off of your opponent's life. Should your opponents (or your) hitpoints reach zero, he/you will die.
After you have dealt your enemy a mighty blow (hopefully), he gets a chance (if he's still alive, that is). Based on his AI, your opponent choses a move (again, normal or ability-based), and executes it. He may hit or miss you, based on (again) a number of factors. If he has hit you, your hit points are decreased. Should you have no hit points left, the battle would end with you as the loser. The same sequence continues until you or your oppenent is dead (i.e., out of hit points).
Should the battle end with you the winner, you will gain Experience and Gold (which allow you to gain levels and magic, armor, and weapons, respectively). Should you find yourself defeated, the game ends, with you a failure. When you lose (or quit), you will receive a score based on how well you did.
After winning a battle, your experience is checked to see if you gain a level. When you are on a level n, you need 500n2 experience points to gain a level.
At each level progression, your character attributes increase appropriately (Strength, Speed, Endurance, Magic, Resistance, Hit Points, Action Points, Magic Points). Furthermore, each level gives you the option of learning one of two possible new attack moves. One possible attack move will have higher speed while the other will have higher strength. You may only choose one of these two moves.
Having gained gold from the recent victory, you can either save your money or spend it immediately on new magic spells and new items. All items and all spells are available for purchase at all times but they will cost proportionate to their strengths and speed. Being able to see all purchaseable options allows you to plan out and save for future purchases. You can only have one armor item and one weapon item and cannot sell back your old items. At the end of a victorious battle, you automatically gain back half of your HP and AP.
Every enemy haS a list of attack moves and spell moves that they can use. In addition, enemies, just as characters, have AP and MP that restrict which moves they can currently use. Every odd-numbered move they will choose randomly from the weaker half of moves. Every even-numbered action they will choose randomly from the stronger half of moves. The set of moves to split in half for choice is determined by the moves for which the enemy has enough AP or MP.
The game is a semi-linear progression through enemies of increasing difficulty. For each battle, an enemy of appropriate difficulty is chosen from the bestiary of monsters. The order of the enemies is always the same, unfortunately. If you defeat the final monster, you are the champion of the arena, thus having gained freedom from your cruel, omnipotent masters.