Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

-and its consequences have been a disaster for magick users. Thanks for the sale Mandy!

i m giving 5 stars mostly because game is absolutely worth playing level of minor bugs and funky glitches is insane frustrating quest design where you need to deliver inventory tax and if you don't have space it gets dropped on the floor... There is a lot of items that if you don't take advantage of private property for storage you will get lost Some of the backgrounds and pre-mades are quite useless and sometimes would just take bonus points instead Technological tree is weird, its overpowered by inventory in slots and useless by itself Having to reset shops 30 times to craft items you need in the endgame is a joke Magic gets completely flat-lined by Harm and summon ogre...there is a lot of wonderful spells to play with, but few insanely violent and strong spells dis-encourage people from trying cool things Fate point system is amazing - in exchange for resolving situations more or less as developers wants you, game provide you with points that can be used for minor cheat Karma/morality system is a joke, its nearly impossible to be evil unless you play as murderous-failure or take advantage of Amy's Blade -30 karma per hit... Game itself often see Evil as killing good... but if you are "better" than everybody else killing others is fine... Followers magically sense your karma... Game have neat in theory friendship system... in practice Friendship only goes down and once it gets there you need to bribe your friends unless you intentionally killing them to ressurect... Half of the spells and abilities are completely useless or insulting if you end up investing there Story is very good and World is insanely immersive if you like fallouts/adventure games/immersive sims/mass effect (story-choice side) this game might appeal to you A lot of quests have multiple solutions, Spells can be very creative and wonderful to play with You can make entire playthru around collecting newspaper volumes XD Community exist and i even made nexus mods for this game!PLAY IT!

This game has been produced by the same team as the first Fallout games, and it shows in many ways, good and bad. If you enjoyed these games, there is a good chance you will enjoy this one too, if you manage to pass the first ten levels. The steampunk universe of Arcanum is based on the opposition between magic and technology – each interfering with the working of the other. You can learn spells, and/or you can learn how to make technological items like weapons, guns, pharmaceuticals, traps and other electrical wonders, but the more you learn in one way, the less effective you will be the other way. The NPCs themselves will react to you according to past deeds, your magic/tech bias, and also to your race: that’s right, a good number of NPCs are complete bigoted racists, and you can play along if you don’t mind getting in fights with everybody (and getting evil in the process). Some of the social interactions are actually quite unsettling (like the Orcs and Ogres races being literally enslaved by humans and gnomes), hitting too close to home. But it’s OK: I don’t mind a game addressing real-life social topics, pushing me outside of my comfort zone. In short, there is a well-done steampunk background, quests for all tastes and plenty of NPCs to talk to, with an emphasis on realistic interactions. There seem to be a plethora of options for your character, from character build to ethical choices. All of these were why I bought this game. However, the game is quite difficult (even on Easy mode), the interface does its job but needs some time to get used to. Most importantly, the character level-up system is very, very frustrating, especially during the first levels, because you only get one point per level and you need it everywhere, and there is a level-up cap of 50, so it’s not as if you have a limitless supply – you have to plan well in advance. By level 15, your start getting more comfortable, but then you realized you will have to specialize in a single tech line, or in one or two spell schools, if you want to unlock one of the highest tech or spells. Or give up on both magic and tech altogether because you need these points in your basic skills. Frankly, if it was not for all the other positive reviews and the fact I paid for this game, I would have given up on it.

I discovered this game in my very early teens around 2005 and could not make heads or tails of it. But the world drew me in so much that I could not stop playing it and finally leared what's what. I come back to it every few years or so to remember how absolutely fun Arcanum is, and how infuriatingly broken it is. Buyer beware - even with Drog's unofficial patch it's still... janky. But if you're willing to give it a try and overcome the bugs when they pop up, you're in for an amazing adventure.

extremely enormous dialog for diverse situations. More complex than common DnD games.