Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Ah, Arcanum sure is a weird one! So much to talk about ! To start, as a steampunk CRPG that allows you to choose both turn based or a real time system, Arcanum, with its clash between magic and steampunk technology, brings to the table an in-depth system that allows you to customize your character however you like : you can play a simple fighter, wizard (with TONS of spells at your disposal) a gambler, thief, a diplomat or an even inventor ( my favorite one and the truly unique feature : an enormous crafting system never seen in a CRPG, extremely well implemented) with no class restriction. On top of that, the amount of things to do is simply amazing : hinted sub-quests or secret places that you randomly discover are often great and fun. Sounds great, right? Actually, there are downside to it that almost made me rate this game with 3 star. First and foremost : the story : Victorian age inspired and sometimes it gets really dark. Actually, too much dark, there's even one particularly sub-quest almost get me to quit for how they handled certain themes, which one could call outrageous and really of bad tastes ( who played the game fully will surrey now what I'm referring about... Damn Gnomes). Speaking again of the main plot, funny thing : it is not really even bad ( a little pretentious), but there are clear sign that it wasn't nearly finished by the time they shipped the game ( it ends way sooner and without following any pace between start and ending). Indeed, near the end most stories that you ended up invested are abprutbly terminated, some of them are buggy as hell and most companions don't have any quest related to them. Second , as already said : start and ending. Unfortunately, the game starts great, with a new land to discover and lots of things to do, but more you spend time, the difficult starts to diminished (since there are no new enemies) and there are way fewer quest, bad designed too. So, worth it? Yes, but it's a game not for everyone's tastes.

Arcanum is, in many ways, the archetypal Troika game: Brilliantly conceived but sloppily executed. Bugs, combat that vacillates between tolerable and awful, unbalanced gameplay and an at times obtuse plot mar the experience. Still, the fact that Arcanum is among the finest RPGs ever created speaks volumes to the creative clout wielded by the now-defunct Troika. The game's weakest point is the combat. It is unbalanced, boring, repetitive, illogical (monsters are a mishmash of fantasy tropes that frequently have little or nothing to do with their respective environments) and is most often merely used as a barrier to player progress. The last point in particular is frustrating to me. In good game design, combat should enhance story progression, not hinder it. I don't want every combat area to merely be a grinding slog between plot points. The game's strongest point is the character creation and realization. You really can create and play a huge variety of characters (though the viability of characters varies wildly due to balance issues). Even if a technologist with an allergy to magicka is at a huge disadvantage compared to a pure mage, you can still play one consistently throughout--and the game will recognize and respond to your choices. That is not true with a great many RPGs that funnel different characters into one path or don't respond to unique character builds. Arcanum knows the difference between a suave human swashbuckler, a haughty elven mage, a brilliant dwarven tecnologist, a nimble halfling thief, and a half-ogre with a stunted IQ but an overgrown fist, and will respond accordingly. That, in and of itself, is probably worth the purchase price at $6. In conclusion, this is an outstanding game that could have been truly remarkable if only the flaws had been ironed out before release. If you like story-driven games with deep character choices and real role playing, there are few games before or since that are better. If you like great combat and high production values, however, you will likely be disappointed.

Unlike the other well known CRPGs this one isn't loved just for it's story and dialogue and in spite of a "good enough" gameplay system. This is all about the gameplay. The lean story and biting dialogue are just there to keep the atmosphere up while you explore an amazing world with numerous and diverse mechanics. You have 16 skills with 5 levels and 3 expertises (aquireable abilities/bonuses that require a certain skill level) each. And only 4 or 5 of these are combat skills There's 16 schools of magic with 5 spells per, filled with useful cantrips and even the 3-4 combat focused ones have some oddball stuff like raising back any deaders to talk to them. Then there's also 8 tech trees with 7 schematics each and another 30-40 recepies in the wild. Recipies for practical contraptions, queer drugs, mechanicals. The game is real time and done properly so (though it also has a turn-based mode for old people). Got high dexterity and a fast weapon? You will attack very fast, visibly. You can throw anything you can hold. Items in your grid based inventory have both size and weight and big things are big, I mean fill your whole inventory big, and it's a big inventory. I sometimes open the game just to listen to the menu music. You have deep lore with continent spanning mistery quests and occasional tongue and cheek moments but it's mostly serious. The culture of the world is real. Real people who do real things. Who show self-interest and don't care about you. Who are sometimes cruel but never villainous. Who don't drown you in exposition just because you're the player, excluding Virgil but like all characters he can be ditched or killed and the story adapts. I find it hard to tolerate a lot CRPGs because they're mostly dialogue and combat. Options given to you, options thought out by someone else. But this one is different. In this one you can be yourself.

Obscura: Not clearly expressed or easily understood. (Oxford Dictionary.) George Lucas once said a motion picture is never finished, it just escapes or words similar. This could also apply to games and could be fairly suppositioned that Arcanum must have escaped well prior to completion. A huge vast portmanteau sandbox of a game with no tutorials, this is no “my first cRPG”. Perhaps prescribe “three-wheeler” Fall Out 1 for non-RPG playing friends and family as a fun trainer and introduction to the world of role-playing. Patience is a virtue, a virtue much needed if you are to get into this RPG. If, up to now, your main supply of fun in gaming was strategy or adventure or shooters, run, run away now! This is an RPGer’s RPG of the save frequently, die frequently variety. Unlike most RPGs you start out as an individual protagonist on your own and gradually build up your collection of NPC followers. Be warned, accumulation of NPCs can take a while with the possible exception of the first. One of the more innovative features provides opportunity for evolution thru out the game of Good and Evil alignments depending on your actions (as in real life). Voice “acting” is mercifully sparse, as are game options regarding graphics, sound etc. If you enjoy running back and forth fetching items and executing various tasks for strangers and getting killed frequently (save, die, reload, die, reload etc) then Arcanum is your game. If you like wolves, wolves and more wolves and killing rats as big as overfed chihuahuas you’re gonna love it. If you like having to talk to every single character met to get info that should just be readily available, like locations on a map for example, you’re gonna love it! Tedious chores are something you can find in 9/10 typical fields of employment so why oh why would anyone want to play a game filled with tedious chores? And yet paradoxically, altho this game has a long list of defects, this does not stop Arcanum from being loads of fun! Rating: 60%

The game has rough graphics and unsettling soundtrack, but I guess the latter is by design. I like it, but not everyone does. Also the game seems a little imbalanced, but it boils down to "you need also a skill to make money", which is unusuall. You wont be showered with prizes for quests, little loot, you need to know how to steal, gamble or you'll end up cleaning trash (random cheap stuff appears there every day) just to buy potions/bullets to your gun/cash to repair your armor. And stealing is cool. You can steal everything from every shop, but they are heavily guarded and getting in, opening a stash and getting out alive is tricky. Much more rewarding than "max the skill and click". Now to the story and world: Story is AMAZING. There's multiple unforseen pivots, where everything you thought becomes something else than you thought. There's several Sherlock Holmes investigations you conduct, several Indiana Jones-like legends. The amount of content is even bigger than in Fallout 2, like 10x more than in modern games (maybe except Witcher 3). If you have enough imagination to suffer ancient graphics, this is a feast for an RPG fan.