Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

This is one of the most conceptually original RPGs ever made, and I wish its ideas had had a bigger impact on subsequent developers. However, a lot of design errors ranging from bugs to major game balance issues prevent the game from rising to its full potential. Well worth the GOG.com price, but more for an appreciation of what it could have been than for the game itself.

I love and hate this game at the same time. It has amazing story, interesting quests and complex worldbuilding and that means a lot in roleplaying game. Unfortuantely it has many, many problems. First is the combat - it is real time or turn based. Real time combat is too chaotic and difficult to manage (e.g. archers are firing their bows like mashine guns), turn based is slow (sometimes too slow) but managable. I REALLY recommend using turn based for whole game. Game is also really unbalanced, using magic is much easier compared to making technologist. Last thing I must mention is a lot of padding in the end, we need to travel a lot in the end, but if you endrued to this point you won't complain about it too much. In the end Arcanum is dirt cheap and if you endure begginig hours you'll be rewared whit amazing experience.

This game was rushed in its final days. If you dig through the original files, you'll find a text document named "Eh" which simply reads "well, that's that then" hinting at the frustrations of the developers. That said, in its heyday, it garnered some acclaim as the most replayable game of all time. There are tons of alternative endings and endless permutations of characters. Want to be a dwarf with a machine gun and power armor? Or maybe a snobbish elf with a degree in necromancy? Arcanum can do it. I've played this for hundreds of hours and may yet do so again. I love the music, and the lore. The technology and crafting is fun, if not exactly effective, while the magic system is endlessly entertaining. I've spent hours and hours just dabbling. Pro-tip, if you cast a magic reflection shield onto a mechanical arachnid then target it with a polymorph spell, then deactivate the spider, you'll be transformed permanently into a sheep. I've never found a game with such open ended shennanigans. It's unique and probably not to everyone's tastes, but if you like it then you'll love it to bits.

It's based on a modified D&D system. Primary statistics are expanded Wisdom is split into Willpower and Perception which makes more sense and Charisma into Charisma (mental/social) and Beauty (pysical). Skills have have levels and require training using skill/advancement points. You still have levels and xp but every time you level up to gain 1 skill/advancement point that you can buy things with. Backgrounds are a great tool for roleplaying as well and add lots of replayability. Overall I find Arcanum better than og. Only minor weakness for me is that the whole tech/magick mechanic feels a bit uncooked. Many or most guns seem underwhelming and magic system needs needs a re-design. Fun game with great story, world design and a huge map to explore. Look for unofficial arcanum patch UAP 2.0 which restores cut content, adds dark elves and orcs as playable races, high resolution patch, graphics fixes, bug fixes... Improves the game experience quite a lot while keeping it vanilla.

It breaks my heart that this game does not enjoy the recognition it deserves, a lot of people are put of by the apparent lack of polish as was I on my first couple of unfinished playthroughs but thankfully deep down I knew it was going to be something quite special and I kept going back to it to experience it in full. Steampunk genre sadly does not have nearly enough representatives in video games and this one has to be one of the leading examples. Possibly the main thing that put me off was the apparent skew of power between magic and technology - I despised the fact that I might need to play as a magick user only to make the game not as torturous but it was never ment to be. I simply had to play as a technologist and I'm happy to report that the game makes you want to be more involved into becoming propper, it does not do it in an artificial way. It seems an easy path to simply choose healing spells, magick potions and magick items but in my estimation it's a lot more rewarding going the tech route; for every magickal conundrum there is a tech answer. So fret not my technologist comrades and be on your way to explore the depths of Arcanum!