Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Tl;dr Arcanum has tons of great concepts but also quite a few shortcomings, which keep the game from being an actual masterpiece. Good: -Player choice: Easily the greatest strength of Arcanum, every single quest that I know of is able to be solved in a multitude of ways, depending on your playstyle. The game is also a truly open ended sandbox, meaning you can go anywhere you want from the very start of the game if you want to. -Character creation: I doubt you'll find a better character creation system in any other RPG to date. The customization options range from race, gender and an absurd number of diverse backgrounds, each of which grants you completely different bonuses, to your character's stats, skills, magical or technological abilities. Meh: -Visuals and soundtrack: Both lack in variety and don't fit the game's supposed steampunk setting. Get ready to hear nothing but strings, see a lot of grey, square houses and guys in chainmail. Bad: -Combat: Unbalanced and uninteresting. The most effective fighting style is a boring as hell melee fightan man with a big sword. Ranged weapons are absolutely pointless, since almost every enemy is a melee fighter anyway that can close the distance in the first round of combat. This includes casters who will maybe summon a minion and then proceed to move into melee range and punch you. -Story: Arcanum's premise is weak and gamey and the player has no real agency besides trying to stop people from killing him. You're trying to solve a mystery that, really, has nothing to do with you, the villain you only encounter at the very end is evil necromancer Edgelordicus The Boring, who wants to kill the world because that'll bring about world peace. This would have presented a good climax for a game, in which life and death were the main themes but Arcanum is about the conflict between magic(k) and technology. The main storyline, ultimately, is about nothing, let alone the PC. -Many smalls things cant list em Im out of space

Arcanum is one of the best RPGs i have ever played. Great story and characters. 10/10

played this game about 10 ,12 years ago a friend bout at k-mart around 12 dollars we played 6,8 months iliked it so much i talked him into selling for profit i payed 20 dollars for it. He looked for ever for one and could not find it any where.About 6 years ago i found on ebay but it was 55dollars plus shipping. That one got lost during our move when we relocated. This game has a different outcome with every discision you make even if some are the same as some others have been to the void about 20,25 times now. STILL PLAY STILL FIND SOMETHING NEW 7or8 charicters 16 skillsets 5 tech, disciplines 80 spell colleges THIS GAME ROCKS THEM ALL It takes awhileto get it all going to acomplish the main mission keep playing and, save,save,save, took me 8 months to get about half way through the first time easy, now i play difficult abou 2 games every week and half... thanks for the game james T

Arcanum gets off to a rather poor start, immediately spewing campy exposition with no build up, pretext, or even so much as a heads up and assumes that players will naturally give a crap. Then some guy starts blathering to you about stuff that wouldn't make any sense even if you *did* have the slightest clue what was going on. In that respect it serves as a rather solid introduction because that feeling of awkwardness pretty much prevails this adventure. About the most Arcanum has going for it is its extremely versatile skills based character progression which pretty much allows you to build whatever character you want without restriction. The interface is obtuse. It's not impossible but it is far from intuitive. Minor things like not being able to quick-slot items from the item transfer screen or not being able to quick slot more than one of the same item aren't headaches but still make life less than easy. I'm still not sure what all the loads of indicators that clutter the screen are for. Combat is lame. It could practically play itself but it does provide a variety of weapons, skills and spells to play with. Otherwise the game is huge, open and free-form with plenty of content, a unique fantasy universe and a solid premise. A good idea lacking in solid execution.

As with all games Arcanum may not click with everyone, but it's one of my favorite CRPG's of all time. It takes place in a unique fantasy-Victorian Era setting in which emergent wacky technology and magic are in conflict. This conflict is the very essence of the game, it effects the character builds, the itemization, the quests and everything else you can think of. The possibilities in character creation are endless. The game lets you roleplay without getting out of character, for the most part. If you're a suave thief you'll always be a suave thief without awkward dialogue options or actions that'll take you out of the mood. Same with all other archetypes. Most of your companions are interesting characters with their own complex backstories, with very few "fillers". The game also manages to surprise you whenever you attempt to break sequence with unusual/unexpected actions. If something makes sense to you in theory, go ahead and try it, there's a fair chance it will work! One thing I don't particularly like is the gameplay. The turn based combat system unfortunately lacks the tactical depth of many other CRPG's, and victory is usually as simple as clicking on the enemy until you're out of action points, whether your active skill is melee, firearms, or an offensive spell. The enemy AI is gullible, and there are very few enemy types that force you to get out of your comfort zone and use a different approach. If combat had a tad more tactical depth, Arcanum would probably be my all time favorite. All things considered though, combat's ease and simplicity takes very little away from the game as a whole, so it still gets 5 stars out of 5 from me. Don't forget to apply the fan fixes.