Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

This game was and is the gold standard for small unit rpg. The fact that your stats matter out in the world in interactions is something that still hasn't been done to such a level decades later and that is a lose to the community. The only game in recent time that is any threat to this one is Kingmaker..and yes both have their bugs and poor decisions..and stil I, on of the harshest critics of gmaes over the years, rate them both highly. Why? Because, while they can and should be improved, what they did right is to go above and beyond in depth and feel. This genre is about exploration and it is about character development..games that do that poorly, whatever they do well, are failures to this genre. Few other games come close.

I played this game for the first time this year. I didn't grow up with old cRPGs but I eventually fell in love with the genre, after playing Fallout 1/2. This game is really old and outdated, it caused my computer (I7-10th gen and RTX 2070) to brick. I lost 2 save files and had to redo 10 hours of gameplay. You would think that this would make me quit, right? Nope replay it and still loved it, this game is a gem and in some aspects a masterpiece. The best parts about this game is the story and the world building, it may seem like a run of the mill fantasy game but there is a lot more than that here. The magic is really unique and the tech class is outright impressive for a 20 year old game. I only played in turned based mode and the game was much more balanced, to keep in mind which mode you should stick to, since real time is broken beyond measure. Overall, this game is probably my favorite cRPG and really goes to show that despite the bugs and bad combat, this game still shines. Wish we could get a remaster or something to fix the problems, but other than that I definitely would recommend this game as someone who isn't just blinded by nostalgia.

This is a remarkable game, and it is true that it has many a flaw. I highly recommend you seek out the fan patch, as it fixes a lot of these problems and lets you really enjoy the game for what it is. Troika's developers were responsible for some of the greatest RPGs ever made (Vampire bloodlines, Fallout New Vegas) and you can see a lot of those elements in Arcanum as well.

Ah, Arcanum sure is a weird one! So much to talk about ! To start, as a steampunk CRPG that allows you to choose both turn based or a real time system, Arcanum, with its clash between magic and steampunk technology, brings to the table an in-depth system that allows you to customize your character however you like : you can play a simple fighter, wizard (with TONS of spells at your disposal) a gambler, thief, a diplomat or an even inventor ( my favorite one and the truly unique feature : an enormous crafting system never seen in a CRPG, extremely well implemented) with no class restriction. On top of that, the amount of things to do is simply amazing : hinted sub-quests or secret places that you randomly discover are often great and fun. Sounds great, right? Actually, there are downside to it that almost made me rate this game with 3 star. First and foremost : the story : Victorian age inspired and sometimes it gets really dark. Actually, too much dark, there's even one particularly sub-quest almost get me to quit for how they handled certain themes, which one could call outrageous and really of bad tastes ( who played the game fully will surrey now what I'm referring about... Damn Gnomes). Speaking again of the main plot, funny thing : it is not really even bad ( a little pretentious), but there are clear sign that it wasn't nearly finished by the time they shipped the game ( it ends way sooner and without following any pace between start and ending). Indeed, near the end most stories that you ended up invested are abprutbly terminated, some of them are buggy as hell and most companions don't have any quest related to them. Second , as already said : start and ending. Unfortunately, the game starts great, with a new land to discover and lots of things to do, but more you spend time, the difficult starts to diminished (since there are no new enemies) and there are way fewer quest, bad designed too. So, worth it? Yes, but it's a game not for everyone's tastes.

Unlike the other well known CRPGs this one isn't loved just for it's story and dialogue and in spite of a "good enough" gameplay system. This is all about the gameplay. The lean story and biting dialogue are just there to keep the atmosphere up while you explore an amazing world with numerous and diverse mechanics. You have 16 skills with 5 levels and 3 expertises (aquireable abilities/bonuses that require a certain skill level) each. And only 4 or 5 of these are combat skills There's 16 schools of magic with 5 spells per, filled with useful cantrips and even the 3-4 combat focused ones have some oddball stuff like raising back any deaders to talk to them. Then there's also 8 tech trees with 7 schematics each and another 30-40 recepies in the wild. Recipies for practical contraptions, queer drugs, mechanicals. The game is real time and done properly so (though it also has a turn-based mode for old people). Got high dexterity and a fast weapon? You will attack very fast, visibly. You can throw anything you can hold. Items in your grid based inventory have both size and weight and big things are big, I mean fill your whole inventory big, and it's a big inventory. I sometimes open the game just to listen to the menu music. You have deep lore with continent spanning mistery quests and occasional tongue and cheek moments but it's mostly serious. The culture of the world is real. Real people who do real things. Who show self-interest and don't care about you. Who are sometimes cruel but never villainous. Who don't drown you in exposition just because you're the player, excluding Virgil but like all characters he can be ditched or killed and the story adapts. I find it hard to tolerate a lot CRPGs because they're mostly dialogue and combat. Options given to you, options thought out by someone else. But this one is different. In this one you can be yourself.