Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

My main gripe about this game, apart from the clunky interface, gameplay, and graphics, is the balance. Good luck getting beyond the starting town (Shrouded Hills) and making it to one of the other two towns that your quest log leads you to. You have to journey for several days across the wilderness, where you will have random encounters with wild animals that decimate your party in a few rounds, like a 5th level party up against a 15th level grizzly bear, or a group of 5 level 12 poison rats. Great fun. Should you make it to one of the other towns somehow, you will find that the NPCs are way higher level than your group and getting into combat with anyone will be fatal for you. There is no hand holding in this game and you generally have to find out things the hard way. The combat system uses a stupid fatigue system where being hit by enemies, attacking too many times during a round or casting a spell costs fatigue points. When your fatigue points reach zero, you collapse to the ground and just lie motionless while the enemies beat you to a pulp. At this point, it's game over unless any of your surviving followers can hopefully finish them off. There is no proper autosave option, no ability to swap weapons quickly and moving long distances across the world map or the area you are currently in involves scrolling jerkily to the edge of the screen, clicking there, then repeating the process. This game was released in 2001, about 3 years before Baldur's Gate, but seriously looks about 5 years older. The game engine looks like Tim Cain developed it in a week while drunk and working in his basement alone. On the plus side, the music is pretty good, the quests are interesting and the dialogue in the game adjusts for characters of low intelligence, resulting in some hilarious conversations and journal entries. I just don't understand why this game is revered so much. Rather play Baldur's Gate if you're looking for a good RPG from about 20 years back.

Whatever it is that makes people praise this game is beyond me. I still enjoy Wizardry 8, Baldur's Gate, Incewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Divine Divinity, etc. and play them all a few times a year. This game is just slow, and a total drudge. Impossible to complete for me, I can't recommend it. I have to suspect there's a lot of Fallout worship at work here, where the devs are admired and so the game earns praise it objectively does not deserve. Save your money.

I found this game way too confusing just at the start. The UI is sub-par even compared to other RPGs from that era (or earlier). The dialog is annoyingly long-winded. It'd be one thing if it was interesting, like Planescape Torment, but it's not. I can see why it didn't sell that well and has more of a cult following. If you're really into working hard for your fun, you'll probably enjoy it. If you don't feel like spending a day trying to start and get into the game, you might want to pass and try out say Planescape Torment for another viable RPG experience without all the hassle.

This game is just terrible. Garbage combat, aggravating combat, useless camera controls, and on and on. All these positive reviews seem to caused by either rose colored glasses so thick they could stop bullets or a retro games are beyond reproach zealousness. If there was any justice in the world GOG would drop this game and refund everyone who purchased it.

Yes the creators of this is certainly the same that co created Fallout. But they fall deep on this one. The start is awesome and the story is for sure fine, but where the nuke really hits home is the AWEFULL balancing of this game. Playing a gunslinger is next to impossible and any other combat than fist or hand to hand is a very painful experience since someone got that great idea that you get XP per hit?!?!?. And yes I am old enough to remember the orginial release and frustrations. Do not believe any who gives much praise to this game - it's rushed out the door to save a company that went broke quite fast after the release of the game. Have fun with many other games :)