Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Let me start by saying that for me, Arcanum is in the TOP 5 list, if it is not THE most favourite game of my life. Despite this I will try to make this review fair. Let's start with things that were not as great. First thing was relatively low resolution for it's time and interface taking up large portion of the screen. For Fallout veterans not much of a problem, plus some of the unofficial patches can add higher resolution, but still... With this is connected another feature not so well made - waypoint system and pathfinding. If you've gotten to a larger location, camera restriction did not allow you to wander too far from your character, so you've had to use waypoints on area map your character then followed. Or did not... Sometimes he would get stuck which was getting rather frustrating, especially in Tarant. Combat system was sufficiently mastered for me, but I could see how others would gond confusin (in realtime mode) or slow and not as complex as it could be (turn based). You have option to choose to aim for head or limbs, but I wouldn't mind seeing more complexity there. But despite it's flaws, Arcanum found a soft spot in my heart and claimed it. Why? One of the reasons is music. Nowhere did I hear as perfect and atmospheric steampunk music as I did here. Each melody will stay in my memory and I'll be humming them whenever I'm in a mood. I have always thought that good music is important for a proper game atmosphere, and this proves me right. And the main reason to play this game is storyline and world that it's set in. This us probably the best portrait of Fantasy world being changed by industrial revolution. You can run around in tuxedo with magic sword in one hand and electric light in the other. Immersing yoursel into the world of Arcanum is absolutely worth of overcoming that few flaws this game has. Listen do Dwarf life philosophy, see the Ancient Elven forest cut for wood to feed technological progress and choose your own inclination...

First time player and just finished my first run. Arcanum is a masterclass in worldbuilding. Its fleshed-out world allows a compelling conflict between magic and technology. Expect familiar fantasy tropes, but because of its premise, there are aspects that are explored deeply such as race and class in transitioning times. Its strongest suit is the character building. You can choose either of the two routes and experiment with the vast possibilities character creation — and there's so much to tinker around with. You can go down a path of good or evil, or somewhere in between. All of these eventually affect your engagement with the people, the world, and the story. For the music, scoring helps build the immersion and experience of the gameplay, and Arcanum does this very well. Caladon, Tarant, and Dernholm are a delight to visit because of their beautiful BGM, while the eerie and dark ambient music really create the spookiness of caves and dungeons. Voice-acting is another area where Arcanum excels. Many followers and NPC have so much personality because of the excellent VO work. As an open-world RPG, Arcanum is immersive but has its limitations. There are areas that can be explored immediately but a lot have to be marked after completing a quest. Combat is its weakest point and, perhaps, its biggest flaw. It's a major slog even though you can switch from turn-based to real time. This can also easily throw off the game balance, from mind-numbingly easy to impossibly hard. Lastly, though it has a compelling story with its fair share of twists and turns, I can't deny that I was disappointed with the ending (or how it was presented, at least). It's not terrible but I wish it was done better. I had many issues running Arcanum (the Steam version didn't work in my PC and I only got to launch game with GoG). And as mentioned in other reviews, it's not for everyone. Despite its flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed it and, perhaps, even revisit it in the future.

I wanted to love this game. I'm a big fan of their other games, especially Fallout 1 & 2. I've played those through many times, and though those games have a few minor bugs, they are not bugs that ruin the game experience. If you could cut out the horrendous number of bugs in this game, this game could really be a great game. However, I've been playing this game for a few days now, probably put in about 20 hours of game play so far, and I'm not sure if I even want to finish it. I love RPG's and this is nothing against the actual base of the RPG itself. The leveling system and everything is interesting and the concept drew me in. The bugs started the very minute I started playing and continued growing throughout the gaming experience. For example, my character, being a mage, summons an orc champion to fight; after fighting, I decide to rest to recover my experience, and my orc champion disappears, but his icon remains in the upper left hand corner. No big deal, I think, a minor bug is all. Well, I continue playing and realize, not only will that icon never disappear, it affects my other characters. My NPC's will not fight, not even retaliate when being attacked. They would not walk with me, but would just magically appear by my side every few minutes. I could talk with them, whenever the computer decided. Later on, I manage to figure out that though invisible, I could still kill that orc champion spawned at the beginning of the game, which I do, and voila! My NPC's start working again! Ok, that's fine, I think, but even more bugs pop up, I put on a magical invisibility ring, and turn invisible; take it off again, and I remain invisible, unable to talk to any shop owners or finish my quests, because the people think it's a ghost! Some quests, when they become broken, remain in the journal, while other quests get marked as broken quests, correctly (Bring the ale quest, 1 example). Sometimes, when summoning a creature, my other NPC's get angry and start attacking me without provocation. There are tons of bugs like this. My character is a level 22, almost level 23, half-elf mage. He will probably stay that way, unless I can muster up the willpower to go in and suffer through till the end. My advice: If you haven't played the Fallout series, you're missing out. Go try that one instead.

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.