Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Back in 2002 Arcanum was one of the games I wanted to buy but lacked the money. Fast forward to today I've been looking for a retro RPG experience and this game poped up. Having played the game for lots of hours I have the following observations: Story - This is where Arcanum shines. The story is well written, sub-quests never feel tedious and from the very first second you jump in the game the story and narrative gets you hooked. Gameplay - Too much travelling. Imbalanced enemy placement. There are areas where you enter as level 3 with a couple L1-3 enemies and suddendly there's a level 25 onewithout any context. This leads to revisiting multiple areas just to make a bit of a progress. Rinse and repeat. Companion AI - Good luck with that. Get them good equipment and they will steamroll regular random encounters. In crucial / challenging fights however all shortcomings appear. No healing when needed, no logic behind target prioritization random back and forth movement instead of attacking are a few of the most glaring issues I've observed. Combat - Turn based or Real time, combat in this game is bad. From the companion AI to enemy placement to terrible pathfinding when in combat this aspect of the game is hands down the worst. Overall. don't waste your money on this one. Try Fallout or Planescape Torment if you have that old school itch you need to scratch.

If you are in RP games because of 'RP' part - the possibility to create an unique character with any kind of background you like, to play it in the world that is rich in details and based on strong narrative, to embrace unique steam-punk atmosphere and *be* the one that came down in flames, you should buy and play Arcanum. If you hate so called rpg's where you can do quests only in the way creators thought of, and have no freedom to improvise, you should play Arcanum - because every quest can be done in more ways that you can imagine. Need a ship? Do a quest for dead pirate, or kill the dead pirate, or just buy it, or gamble for it, or steal it or... Get the picture? If you like strong narrative and unique quests that are written as well as any good book, by all means, get and go play Arcanum. On the other hand, if you live for next-gen graphics, just do the world a favor and go away from this excellent website :P

I like it's mix of technology and magic and some of the adventures. I find the game buggy and god forbid you actually find something before you are supposed to. The game won't let you complete the task.

Nuff said.

One of the best RPG's ever made. Simply fantastic!