Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

The Good
If there was one RPG game that deserves an award in originality, story, concept, and everything else you can think of...this would be it.

I feel in love with the game almost instantly. It was odd, weird, unique, different, that was the feeling I got while the first cinematics played. It was unlike any game I've ever seen before...and I haven't even started playing yet. The music sank right in.

I must say I'm impressed by the Arcanum world. For some odd reason, no one really actually imagined a "modern" medieval world. It was either future or medieval. A world where they combined a world where technology and magic exists caught me off guard. I thought the concept was brilliant. Well, technically not that original, but it's worth the effort in my book!

I thought I was in love the first time around. Then I saw the character creation part. I don't remember the last time I felt this exited as far as RPG's go. Wow! They may have something going here. I always felt that the soul of RPG's is in either character creation or character development. They overdid themselves in the character creation department.

Ah, now we start playing. Oooh, stuff to pick up. Just like Ultima all over again. I'm really liking this game. Haha. They did a good job with the story line too. I felt almost like reading a book while I played the game. Well, close enough.

The Bad
Unfortunately, as much as I have respect for the game, as always, I must focus on the bad stuff that almost ruined the game in my perspective.

Well, the first thing mistake is mine. I have a habit of downloading patches before I play the game, and unfortunately I read a little to much information about the game than I should have. I knew the existence of the NPC's before I even played the game. This got me to a lot of thinking and planning. The problem is, when it comes to games, I'm a perfectionist. I MUST have it all. The though that there were NPC's that I couldn't bring a long was TOO much for my brain to handle. So I had to narrow it down to a few NPC's. It seemed that any NPC that had a voice was invaluable not to have. Then that stupid dwarf started complaining about the death knight as company, I started to get irritated. Oh well, restart game...let's try to be careful handling NPC's.

The more I learned about the game, the more I was a little put off. The fact that I found out there was a level limitation on my character kinda put me in the fits. This means I have to PLAN my character development. If I didn't browse the net, I wouldn't have known. Oh, well, restart game. Time to plan ahead.

Oh, it appears that having this ability at the start is much better than the other one. Oh, well, restart game.

Oh, it appears I should've solve the puzzle this way rather than that way. Oh, well, restart game.

Do you know that being a perfectionist is absolute TORTURE? Try restarting a game for 7-8 times, each lasts more than 10 hours long. You'll understand what I mean.

Then I realized something awful. I started comparing the game to Fallout 2. It started going waaay down hill after that. I discovered that combat was BORING. I had a hunch brushed aside, but I'll get to that later. I remember the extreme joy in Fallout 2, everytime combat initiated. The smell of blood, sounds of crushing bones and spilled guts. Hey, what happened? Suddenly combat was Ho-Hum. I actually resented that I had to fight. They took the fun out of combat. Must be the lack of sound or something. Whatever it was, it didn't feel the same.

Now comes to my hunch. Hmm...why are they making this game semi-real time/turned based. Why not either real-time or turned based why don't you. Why did you have to have both? Then it triggered another fishy hunch I had. Then a word popped up in my mind! Gasp! Diablo 2.

My god, is it me or is this a little similar with Diablo 2? Hey, Diablo's a great game, but honestly, as an RPG...welcome to pre-school. Diablo has incredible cinematics, but as an RPG...a kiddies game. My second fishy hunch was on character creation. They had an option for "quick" character creation. It bothered me to think that someone would actually play this game without going through the detailed character creation. Oh my god! It occured to me...they wanted non-serious gamers to also enjoy the game! NO! The shock was to much for me. Now I see it. That's what's wrong with the game...they bowed down to capitalist demands of the market! Well...not that I blame them, but they sure hell screwed up somewhere. Enough drama.

Then comes the bugs. Had to restart 3-4 times just because I found so many god dang bugs, that messed up my saved games. Well, eventually, all the stress said above and the bugs finally popped my rocker. I was so dang pissed. I really tried to play this game, but it wasn't easy. I finally retired the game, fearing my high blood pressure would get the better of me.

When you play this game, you'll know that is one of those games that comes once in a life time...but it didn't become the perfect masterpiece because they with-held it to become the masterpiece it could, should or would have been...for the sake of...well...the common folk.

Well, I tried. I really really tried.

The Bottom Line
As I said. Almost perfect. But unfortunately, I am sad to say that Fallout 2 is better. Maybe after my temper cools down, I'll pick up this game again...and finish it.

The Good
This review is long. I apologize; I didn’t intend to waffle. If you decide not to read this because of its length, I perfectly understand you, and probably would immediately join you for a beer. But for the sake of my favourite genre, role-playing games, I have to explain in detail the errors of Arcanum. Because they are legion, and because they are fundamental. And now that you’ve made it this far, you could actually go on and read the whole text.

The Bad
Know this then: Troika Games consists of the people who created Fallout. Fallout was, and is, one of the most perfect role-playing games ever designed.
It is important to know these two things to understand the scope of Arcanum’s failure. Because everything that Fallout did right, Arcanum does wrong. On the plane of consciousness on which the game was created, which is certainly not our own, this might even be some sort of achievement.

Arcanum is not a bad game. In a certain respect, I wish it were; you can feel pity for the cripple, but a bore moves no one. As it is, it is hard to understand how Troika could have the cheek to publish a game that is so obviously outdated without making absolutely, perfectly certain that there is a healthy body under the rags. Instead, the garb covers a slip of a game dragging itself along.

Enough grumbling already. Let’s hear the facts.

I will never tire of stressing the brilliance of the Fallout skill system; in my book, it can hardly be improved. Arcanum exemplifies this point nicely, as they tried. To be fair, Arcanum’s skill system is still its strongest point; the specialization works reasonably well (although the game not nearly enforces it well enough), and the tinkering with technology is great fun. However, Troika confused quantity for quality and bred confusion. The problem is really simple: you have so many choices that you cannot decide on one. This might be called freedom, if it wasn’t for the game’s lack of guidance. You can only guess which skills might be useful; in fact, many aren’t at all. Any master gamblers out there? More: Why is there one point for all talents? Fallout showed how a wise structuring of skill areas can greatly improve comprehensibility. Why must the basic skills be changeable? That makes your character a wobbly turncoat instead of a clearly defined specialist. Why do Arcanum characters level up so frequently? This greatly diminishes the overall importance of levelling. If you play Arcanum and understand why freedom is not always a boon, the game may have a purpose after all.

Arcanum is the Might & Magic of 2D role-playing games: lots of insignificant quests, almost insulting in their stupidity, piling up like trash along the main road. I have nothing against a variety of challenges, but I demand exactly that: variety and challenge. At best, I hope for side-quests that arise naturally out of the game world and are motivated through the plot. Look at Baldur’s Gate 2, for example, where the desperate need for ransom money forces you to do menial tasks, or where you are – brilliant idea! – unexpectedly offered quests that concern one of your party members. Disappointingly few of Arcanum’s quests are sensible in this way, even less are remotely interesting.

Even worse, this is also true for the dungeon mission, regardless whether they are plot elements or not. Sad highlight is the Tarant sewer, an endless maze of blue-grey tunnels in which the designers threw in monsters at random, but forgot to throw in some sense as well. Even the randomly created dungeons of Diablo are more varied (and a lot more thrilling) than the hand-made corridor deserts of Arcanum. Pinch me, maybe I’m ungrateful. Probably it’s asked too much that dungeons are exciting, and an extra dose of enemies always makes up for the lack of those other things, wosname… puzzles.

You might not have noticed, but you have companions. Yeah, the guys that join your group until the next fight, when they die. Party members can be a great utility to increase a game’s depth. Take a look at Baldur’s Gate 2 once again to see how gripping a cleverly designed party can be. But try and answer me this question: What good are the companions in Arcanum? Please, this is serious, think! My little brother has put it perfectly in one word: packhorses. They carry around extra stuff. That’s all. And that’s sad. Generally spoken, companions could, and should, serve two purposes: contribute useful additional abilities to broaden the choice of actions, and enrich the atmosphere. The second job is more important and generally paid less attention. The Arcanum companions serve neither purpose, as their talents are of little value (Virgil has not opened one single lock successfully for me, Magnus can build utilities that I don’t need, and so on), and they follow you around speechless like zombies, when they could enhance the atmosphere so much by commenting on each situation, quest or person -- a huge chance wasted. If a game feature is useless, then it should either be improved or removed.

Oh, the fights. I cannot help but think that Troika would have preferred doing without. The battle system of Arcanum is, well, functional. It serves it purposes, i.e. killing evil guys. Sorry to insist, but I have another question: Why do you fight in Arcanum? I believe there is an answer to this question on a general level, but it doesn’t apply to Arcanum or to many other games. Somewhere along the line of RPG creation, the purpose of battles must have been lost. Fights should first and foremost be challenges. Tactical challenges. A good RPG fight is always a matter of superior intelligence against superior strength. Only then can a battle be thrilling and rewarding. It doesn’t matter whether the strategy is correct use of weapons, spells, formation, action points, timing, you name it; what matters is that you can use it, and that you can win by using it correctly. The Fallout fights were tactical in their use of action points, weapon choice and targeting system; no surprise that they were refined into a full-fledged strategy game (Fallout Tactics). In Arcanum, battles serve only the two lesser purposes: as obstacles and delays (a use which sooner or later exhausts the players’ patience), and as a means of acquiring experience points. Hey, think hard, was there a memorable fight in Arcanum? On second thought, don’t strain your memory.

If you played Arcanum, you probably know that there is a skill cap at level 50. I find the necessity for caps dubious on principle, but in Arcanum it is actually understandable: Your hero simply grows too strong too fast. This is only one of the effects of bad balancing. There are many more. Take the plot, for example. Actually, the story of Arcanum could be quite interesting. Unfortunately, it is stretched so thin over the first half of the game (up to the Isle) that it hardly moves at all. Especially in the beginning of the game, a fast pace is essential to wake and bind the player’s interest. In short: things need to happen. In Arcanum, things happen very, very slowly, and those that do are not really thrilling (“Oh, you found me! Now search that mine”). So, the plot would have needed tightening. Also, as a friend of mine pointed out very rightfully, the program does nothing to encourage a decision for either magic or technology. Again, don’t mistake that for freedom. A strong, early opposition of forces would not only create dramatic tension, it would also increase the replayablity a great deal -- after all, you’d like to see the other side, too. But again, a chance had, a chance thrown away.

Lastly, and most importantly, there is the issue of technology. Mind you, I can live with Arcanum’s graphics, even though I feel that sting when I look at the other games on the store shelf and the 40 bucks in my hand. But what I cannot live with is the game’s speed. In fact, to publish a game that looks like a mid-90’s relic and jerks like a slide show on a PIII is an unbelievable impudence. I don’t know what technical challenges the programmers faced, and I don’t care; I expect a working product for my money. If a TV salesman told me “Did I say constant viewing? Well, it shows static every few seconds, of course”, he’d see static for more than a few seconds. This technical botch-up is not only unnerving, it is also a genuine mood-killer; if the screen is drawn once a second, I can no longer enjoy the illusion to explore the exiting city of Tarant, but I am constantly reminded that I’m sitting at my desk and staring at a computer.

Thank you for your patience. If you were clever, you scrolled down directly to this paragraph in expectation of a summary. Here it is: Arcanum is a mediocre game in every respect, as it disregards basic guidelines that every game, especially role-playing games, should follow: pace and flow, guidance and soft pressure, depth without confusion, atmosphere and credibility, and especially, meaning. Meaning in a computer game? Not in the philosophical sense, not necessarily. But in a down-to-earth, every-day sense: telling the player what he has to do, and why. If there is meaning, what follows is motivation.

The Bottom Line
A huge disappointment for RPG fans, Arcanum tries to fly to the stars with a wooden rocket. Compared to Fallout, Arcanum is not one step, but a fair afternoon walk backwards. How on earth this could happen is beyond me; if anybody knows and is willing to tell, he could restore a distressed man’s sleep.

The Good
The gimmick behind Arcanum is that it’s a fantasy role-playing game with technological elements. Thus, a steam-driven train might take you past the burial grounds of a dragon, halfling thieves might shoot at you, or you could fight a mechanized spider in a dungeon illuminated by electric lights. This does not mean that magick and technology work in concert however. One of the many storylines in this game deals with the struggle between magick and technology. This plays out in several ways regarding character development and means that as you progress towards either technology or magick, your ability to use the oppositional skills wanes. And it draws interesting parallels to the often antagonistic struggle between science and religion in our world.

So the question then, is how well does the gimmick work? Like the Fallout series, Arcanum presents a class-less role-playing system. As your character progresses you may specialize in thief-type skills, magic ones, etc. and through this create your class. Unlike Fallout, as a fantasy game you have your pick of races including human, elf, dwarf, and orc. These races have unique benefits and detriments and some close off gender options- Gnomish women, for example, are never seen. Arcanum does not make use of Fallout’s SPECIAL attribute system, but presents a similar one, which like Fallout, really affects game play. Most RPG’s don’t well integrated attribute systems, but every statistic in Arcanum really affects gameplay. Intelligence determines conversation options, Beauty affects how people react to you and Dexterity determines how fast you move. There are also statistics such as hit points and fatigue which are based on combinations of attributes and the level of your attributes determines how far you can advance in certain skills.

Which brings me to the skill section, which is the most complex system I’ve seen in any RPG. The skill set is broken down into three sets: character skills, magic skills and technological skills. These sets are then broken down into subsets such as combat, specific magic school or specific technological discipline. As you advance in level you apply points to these skills to increase your ability. You can also receive training in the character skills and advance from Apprentice to Expert to Master. Often training is purchased, but Master’s require special quests. Now you can also apply points to your attributes and you only receive one point per level. Therefore, deciding how to spend these precious points becomes strategic.

One final thing regarding the character: alignment. Your character begins the game with a neutral alignment. Depending on your actions (the quests you complete and your interaction with people) your alignment will shift towards good or evil. This is a dynamic system which does away with the complications of the traditional AD&D system and works very well within the game.

Actual game play resembles other RPGs, perhaps too much. You go on many mini-quests while uncovering the larger story. Talk to dozens (hundreds) of people and gain followers. Opinion of the usefulness of the followers seems to be mixed, but I felt like mine were great characters that did far more than carry heavy equipment. I was never able to make use of my dwarven technologist, but I think this was more my fault than his. They have wonderful conversations, fought very well, had interesting reactions between themselves and added to my enjoyment of the game.

There are many areas to explore and several major cities. Talking to the people in the cities results in useful information and interesting quests. During the game I played, I had to solve several murders, track down missing nobles and I found a fun X-Files themed conspiracy regarding half-orcs. There was seldom a time when I did not have at least one quest to work on and I usually had several on the backburner.

Graphically, this game is dated since it does not use 3D graphics, the graphics are good but result in some performance issues. Sound is wonderful. The string score is beautiful, voice work is consistently well above average and ambient noises are realistic and appropriate.

This is a very long game but highly replayable. As a non-thief character, I missed the extensive thieves’ underground, as a melee character I never got far into magic use and technology, and as a good character I didn’t touch on the dark side of Arcanum (however I did perform some evil acts for the greater good and some of my good acts resulted in bad outcomes). Finally, like the Fallout Series, at the end of the game, you get to see how your adventures affected the places you went traveled to.

The Bad
While the story in Arcanum was very good, it is unclear for most of the game. I think I prefer games where you know what points is from the get-go. Several major themes seem to disappear near the end of the game including the one with hero/villain technologist Gilbert Bates (Bill Gates?). Although, this could just be how I played the game. I also wished for more of the steam-punk, Victorian fantasy setting that the box seemed to advertise. While there was a mix of magick and technology in the game, most of the Arcanum world is entrenched in a pseudo-Tolkien setting. Pratchett’s Discworld books present a similar idea more convincingly.

The attribute/skill section I described above is very complex and since the game has a level cap it pays to plan ahead. I was very unhappy with the level cap because I wanted to do more with my character and if you can’t advance in level any more- why go on quests? I found myself very apathetic towards the end of the game, tired of the subquests and solely interested in the end of the game.

Of course one of the reasons for the level cap is the extremely poor balancing in the game. I was simply too powerful too soon. I was also very wealthy, so money oriented quests didn’t matter and I had all the items I wanted. While the ability to increase your attributes was fun, I was able to become almost superhuman. I think they needed to reconsider this element in favor of the traditional RPG feeling that attributes are carved in stone and only acts of God can change them.

While I mentioned some interesting quests, too many of them involved searching dungeons for a person/item. With all the dungeon crawling combat, you level up way too quickly. In short, elements of this game suffered from the Monty Haul syndrome discussed in AD&D books. RPGs have to be about more than who has the more points/gold, etc. By the time I got to the final battle, it was a joke. I was successful in a few minutes and never felt in any danger. The story and framework of Arcanum deserve more than a Cheaterz Diablo-type romp.

Finally, I mentioned that graphics were outdated. On my new system, I experienced several lock-ups because the game wasn’t making use of my 3D card. Characters weren’t particularly well animated, combat animations were minimalist, and the dungeons were visually unimpressive. There were some excellent rendered scenes, but they occur late in the game.

The Bottom Line
I played this voraciously and still don't know how I feel about this game. I definitely want to replay this game as a completely different type of character. As it stands now, I'd describe it as a failed masterpiece.