Arx has a unique spell casting system that requires you to use mouse gestures, but the recognition script is poor and the gestures must be drawn very closely to the intended rune/gesture. This is near impossible to accomplish while in combat and will prove lethal to any mage character many times throughout the game. The game itself has many bugs and lacks of foresight that can prevent you from completing the storyline. Arx Fatalis also goes overboard with the concept of having the player figure out what to do on their own. The dialogue, story and quest log will constantly drop you off with only a fragment (or not) of an idea of what you are supposed to do next, thus leaving you to wander aimlessly around the game world's caverns trying to find a way to advance the plot. Quest items can also be sold, dropped, or easily missed; again forcing you to wander around aimlessly looking for an obsure item that you had missed , but have no idea what it is. If you do play this game be a melee character with a side of magic to get you through certain spots. I went 95% mage only to find out that spells are almost useless against the final boss and end game enemies, forcing me to use the end of game melee weapon to defeat it the boss. At least the programmers removed the strength requirement from the end-game (boss killing) weapon, but they forgot one thing; A mage has barely any HEALTH! The final boss can kill you in less than 2 seconds if you have a low max HP. Also, many runes are nowhere to be found, barring you from many spells. One rune can only be aquired with high thieving skills, but breaking into the storeroom turns plot critical NPC's hostile. The best combat spell is one of the first ones you learn, fireeball. nearly all other combat spells are useless. Take lightning projection for example. It is a hight level spell, does only medium damage and drains your mana bar with 1-2 uses. In my opinion Arx Fatalis is an ok game in itself, but the design flaws and bugs will ruin your day. If you must play this game I highly recommend using several save files and following a walkthrough. The walkthrough will not only help when you are wandering about aimlessly, It will also be a crucial tool in avoiding game breaking bugs and glitches. The multiple backup saves are also a must in case you accidentally do run into such a situation.
The game itself looks good but it is unplayable because of the bugs. I had bought this game and spent several hours playing it over the weekend; constantly reloading after crashes and save file corruptions. Even fully patched (and this even includes unofficial patches) the game will continuously Lock Up, Crash, Corrupt your save files, and a host of other nasty surprises. From minor to crippling, this is the buggiest game I have ever played. As fun as it may be, you will very likely suffer from an unrecoverable error early on.
I had bought this game due to it having one of the best user ratings on Good Old Games. I suppose it must have been a great game for it's time, but I personally did not enjoy playing it very much.
