Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

An enjoyable game made somewhat frustrating by the design mechanics and limitations of the era in which it was made. But if you can overlook that, it offers a fairly unique RPG experience. Pros: +An interesting story filled with twists and turns. +Many and varied side quests. +Robust character creation. One of the best I've ever seen, in fact. +Multiple ways to complete most quests. +The technology verses magic mechanic is more than just story filler or world building. It affects your character build greatly. +Many different NPC's to recruit. Or go it alone. It's up to you. +Lots of exploration. You can always find a back door or a window to climb through or some hidden hatch that will offer an alternative route. +Doesn't pigeon-hole you into a fixed role. Want to play as an evil character? Go right ahead. +Lots of hidden locations on the world map to find. +Lots of replayability. Without using a guide, you can probably play this game through 3 or 4 times and still not experience everything. Cons: -It doesn't do a good job of explaining certain gameplay mechanics to you. Definitely RTFM. -Can be quite buggy. The unofficial patch helps somewhat, but it's still not perfect. It's mostly small stuff though, like combat music that won't stop. -It's quite possible to build a weak, ineffective character. The game expects you to specialize to some extent and will punish you if you spread your character points too thin. Don't make a jack-of-all-trades character. -Ore Golems. These are enemies that when attacked with a melee weapon, cause that weapon to take damage. The problem is that the NPC's in your party aren't smart enough to figure that out and will happily smash their weapons against the ore golems until the weapon breaks. It can get frustrating at times and definitely shows its age. But it's also one of the most unique RPG games that I've played in years. If you can tolerate its old-school design, I highly recommend giving this one a go.

I do not know of another crpg that has orcs debating union laws. I do not know of another crpg that has gnomes flying blimps. I do not know of another crpg that has the same depth. There is a very large and uptodate mod/patch, called Arcanum Multiverse Edition. (can be found on the net)

Is a dead gnome. Also pretty good game, 10/10, love me some Steampunk Tolkien-esque fantasy setting.

A quick disclaimer: I never played Baldur's Gate type RPGs, so there was a bit of a learning curve for me. It took me three seperate attempts to really 'get' this game. But now that I have, there's some value to be had. PROS: -Highly detailed towns and cities with realistic layouts. -Loads of interesting characters and dialogue. -Lockpicking and the fact that you can steal everything the store sells (as opposed to magically disappearing at night). -The music. -The fact that you aren't nessicarily 'The Hero'--people can have very negative reactions to you depending on your character (I find this refreshing). -Fun side quests with multiple outcomes. CONS: -Aimless wandering for days and days and days with literally nothing of interest (not even wandering monsters) unless you know exactly where you're going. -Clunky movement aka click-scroll-click-scroll-click-scroll. I'd much prefer movement with the arrow keys or WASD and a screen that auto-scrolls with you. -Clunky controls especially in battle. Example: it can be a mess trying to click a healing potion and then trying to find yourself on screen because characters swarm around madly. It'd be nice if you could just right-click or something and it would know that you're the target. -Your NPCs are rather stupid. Most of my battles end up with me spamming F5 so they won't blindly aggro everything in sight. All in all I'm glad I purchased this game, and I enjoy the challenge. Once you get the hang of it, it can be pretty fun.

The first thing that immediately grabbed me in Arcanum was the SETTING itself. It seems pretty unique, because it’s a pretty standard fantasy world with the classic fantasy races – bearded, technologically minded dwarves, magical and nature-aligned elves, industrious gnomes and so on, but there’s a twist that builds upon this classic fantasy depiction, and the twist is that the world is currently undergoing an industrial revolution. Next point I loved about the game is the MUSIC. Not all pieces are remarkable, but the ones that are really, really stayed with me. It’s certainly a good decision by the game to put one of the most beautiful tracks right in the main menu. How about the STORY, then? I would lie if I said I thought it was boundlessly brilliant or anything like that, but for me it was definitely engaging and mostly competently done, interesting enough to keep me going through the 65 hours I spent in the game, and with a couple of highligts I’ll probably remember for a really long time. Finally, the GAMEPLAY. I didn’t find it’s gameplay to be anything overly fascinating, but that’s maybe because I never really entirely grasped it. Arcanum’s really one of those games that expect you actually READ the manual. And I never did. But one thing that really brings Arcanum down in my opinion is the significant amount of trash mobs that you have to kill and their sheer repetitiveness. There’s a LOT of travelling and only like 3 random encounters. I’m not even kidding. What do you think about my opinion? How do you remember Arcanum? If you’d be interested in checking out as someone who really values exploration, story and immersion goes through the game for the first time, you may check a BLIND playthrough on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWCNGo5_19I&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWW431baJHkNmF2KfucvTXB2