Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Arcanum is a very fun and admirable, close to great, isometric RPG filled with choice and consequence, however some serious flaws detract it from reaching the high levels of classics such as Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate 2 and Fallout 1-2. The steam punk setting is really great and unique, I very much enjoyed the idea of advanced technical progress happening to a medieval-style world and reading about it in the game's dialogues and books. Travelling and exploring the world map is a lot of fun, the idea of coordinates for locations is something I whish more CRPGs would adopt. Character creation here is awesome, you can create so many interesting builds. Crafting was pretty good too and increases the replayability fun factor. The biggest flaw of the game is the combat. A significant part of the game is combat and many encounters are mandatory, which would have been absolutely fine unless it had been so boring to play. The turn based combat system in this game is poorly implemented compared to e.g. Fallout 1-2. Combined with the fact that many of the encounter locations and dungeons being quite uninspiring, it falls flat on its face. There's also a real time mode which is even worse. The second big flaw is that many aspects of the game seem hastily designed and implemented - it's unbalanced, some things in the game world don't seem quite finished, and the final third of the game was not as rich an experience for me the early game was. If the game had been in development for another 12 months it would likely have ended up a masterpiece. It aspires to be a "ultimate CRPG" but would have needed more fun combat and polish to reach there. Recommended to: - CRPG fans in general who likes the idea of a game with lots of choice & consequence and who likes to mess around with different character builds in a very unique and memorable steampunk setting. - Fans of the "old school" style of isometric CRPGs (P:T, Fallout, Temple of Elemental Evil, Baldur's Gate).

The best part about Arcanum is that you can do well with any build you dream up, as long as you play to that build's strengths. That idea should be central to any ROLE PLAYING game, but it's usually lost in favor of a few OP'ed combat skills, or buffing intelligence to pick one of two dialogue options. Or, instead of a few obviously more important skills, you have a game where any build works but you'll be a game breaking demi-God by the tenth level... I'm thinking of Bethesda games where you don't have to abide by your thief build constraints, because you can out-magic or out-melee anything anyway, completely ignoring your thiefly abilities for most of the game. Not here. Pick a diplomatic character, talk your way out of most things, and when you can't, have your party of allies fight it out for you. Or be an incredibly evil mage that everyone hates and just blow up all of your obstacles. You get the idea. Your character choices will also impact your experience of the game. There aren't any stupid mini-games or percentile chances of succeeding with a skill you haven't developed... you simply won't be able to do it. The story is a clever twist on the chosen one angle. The side quests and optional stuff usually feels just as well developed as the main plot, although there are some plain fetch quests and such. Now the bad: the stupid, horrible, lame level cap! There is a mod to remove it, but I wanted the vanilla experience, so I ended up hitting the level cap a third of the way into the game, and from that point on, I rushed through to the end. I ignored all side quests at that point, there was no need to do them. I was as rich and as powerful as I needed to be, many times over in fact. I was indestructible until the very end, where I was mildly challenged again. There's no universal loot chests, so you have to store everything in some random cabinet. Also, merchants don't all sell or accept every item. This makes sense logically, but it can be frustrating.

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