Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

"Combining cannons with Elves."

Rarely will you see Ogres piloting Airplanes, or a Human using a gun to shoot an Elf, who is trying to fire magic at you. This sort of unique environment is what makes Arcanum so intriguing. Never before have I seen such an interesting world, and it makes me wonder how the world went on before the Industrial Revolution depicted in the game.

Graphics:
The Graphics, I must admit, are none too good. They are in the style of Diablo, but I wouldn't call them as good. The characters look poor, but I love the backgrounds, in general the cities, as I feel the "wilderness", as I like to call it, is very repetitive and bland. The caves can be pretty cool at times, but generally, I find the cities, and their mixture of slums, housing, and "upper class" to be more interesting. The character portraits I like, but your in-game character could have changed somewhat to reflect this. This is one of the poor points of the game, and it might initially turn your stomach and drive you away. BUT, don't give up hope yet.
6/10

Sound
The Sound, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. It was composed by Ben Hogue in the style of String Quartets; as such, the music will be a bit different from what you generally get in fantasy games. The battle music is insanely repetitive and will make you want to tear your eyes from their sockets, but the normal music is particularly nice, and varies depending on where you are. There isn't much music in the game, however, but they are soothing and good to listen to. The monster sounds, on the other hand, WILL get on your nerves. Especially annoying are the incredibly loud rumblings of elementals, and the screeches of Kite soldiers, which are amplified by the fact that they are weak and you will probably kill more than one in a single turn. The voice acting is great, at least in my opinion, and I felt myself admiring how the Dwarves voice differs from the average Humans. Of course, not everyone sports voice acting, but the ones that do sound beautiful. Another pro, is that the characters with voice acting still have detailed dialog. In fact, they generally have better dialog, and that is saying something, as I've found the random peasant in the street can have a more interesting life, despite being generic, than some main characters in other RPGs.
6/10

Story
I've found the story to be interesting, and, as said, the lore is incredible. The background is this; an Industrial Revolution in a World of Magic is occurring. Not only have I never seen anything like it before, but it's represented in-game too (If you use a lot of technology, spells have less effect on you, and vice versa), which adds to the depth. The characters I generally like, and while I haven't finished the game yet, I've found myself wanting to a lot. The beginning can get pretty dull, and it's only after you've adapted to this unique experience that you can find yourself really enjoying it. However, I have seen better. On the subject of the Magick vs Technology theme, you will find a LOT of philosophy and political ideologies in the background. There is a touch of Communism in Orc labourers vying for equality with their poor working conditions, Democracy in the form of the Unified Kingdoms attempting to incorporate all the other Kingdoms into their rule. But that's not all; the Elven philosophy is closely interlinked to Egalitarianism, the Dwarven philosophy of Stone & Shape to the teachings of Aristotle, the Dark Elves to the Eugenics and Superior Race idea which everyone in the modern world associates with Hitler. The amount of depth in this game is truly breath-taking, and the philosophy plays a major part in the background, particularly in how you perceive things. IF you pay any attention to the story, you may ifnd yourself learning quite a fair bit.
9/10

Character Creation
There are several races, including Ogres, Half Orcs, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings. Your standard repertoire of fantasy races. This game has a variety of stats, and they each affect their own area of your character. For example, Beauty will affect what NPCs initially think of your character, while Strength will increase your damage. Some will do more than others, however. For example, Dexterity is one of the main stats, no matter who you are, while Perception can seem pretty useless at times. Another cool thing, is that you can have backgrounds. This can pretty much be the reason as to why you were on the opening blimp in the first place. For example, the Frankenstein background explains that you were re-created by a mad doctor, but escaped, and found refuge on the blimp, which I found to be a great little aspect. Not only that, but if you can fire up the creative juices, there is an excellent guide here on GameFAQs which can help you put your own Backgrounds into the game, and add more replayability. You can also choose your portrait, but unfortunately, it doesn't reflect your in-game appearance. For example, you might have blond hair on your portrait, but black hair in-game. Another thing, is that for some races, there are no Females, despite there being females of them in the game. This is one thing I found lazy of the developers, but it only detracts a little from the game.
8/10

Gameplay
This is where the game shines. There are five basic styles of gameplay; the fighter, the magician, the persuader, the technician, and the thief. First off, the Fighter is ye olde knight, the guy who will cleave down the baddies with swords, and axes, and rake in more gold to spend on that ever so desirable sword that does two more points of damage. Second, the Magician. These are the guys who can cast spells, and are aligned against Technicians. As you become a more proficient Magician, you won't be able to use Technical items at all. Third, the Persuader. This is the guy who can talk his way out of anything. Arcanum is a beautiful game in that, if you really want to, you could talk your way out of 90% of the fighting in the game. Fourth, the Technician, who uses more modern day technology, and can craft items out of basic resources, making his own guns, bullets, and so on. As you become a more proficient Technician, you will be unable to cast magic. Fifth, the Thief. These are the guys who will steal, and generally try to sneak up on his opponents. They all have an element of being balanced. For example, as the Fighter, you can beat most things to a pulp, but generally, have to fight more, while a Technician can make things from nothing, and the Thief can steal 5000 odd gold coins to spend on items that another style of play wouldn't be able to get until much later in the game.

Second off, the Combat. There are two styles; Real Time, or Turn Based. Real Time is pretty much doing everything in real-time, and things are really over quickly. Honestly, I can't keep up with them, and I feel Turn-based to be better, as you can direct commands to everyone, and it makes Agility more useful. Next, you have followers. Depending on your stats and backgrounds, you can have so many followers, and you will find quite a lot in the game. However, deciding who to keep with you is a hard choice. For a fighter, you might want Virgil, the Magician, so he can heal you when you're hurt, but for a Technician, Virgil eventually becomes useless, as his spells won't do anything to you. These companions also add their own tidbits of dialog in at critical plot details, so some might be interested in reloading a game just to see what everyone would say. The Followers are also unique in that not all of them follow by the Character Creation laws that you do. You can have a Bedokaan follower; a type of large Lizard creature that is only found in one village in the game join your party, and you can even have a Dragon join your party. That is how diverse the followers are. There was one thing lacking, however, in terms of Followers, and that is you cannot teach your Followers schematics. This was frustrating, as some of the best equipment in the game for Technicians is from these learned Schematics, yet as a magick user, you can't make them.

Thirdly, there is Alignment and Aptitude. Alignment is whether you are Good or Evil; this will have a number of effects. For example, certain Followers will only join you if you are Evil, while people will trust you more if you are Good. Aptitutde is whether you are proficient in either magick or technology. As you get proficient in magick, Technology will fail around you, whereas if you are technologically proficient, magick becomes utterly useless against you. This was a nice touch, and helps immerse you in the background world.

Fourthly, there are Disciplines and Spell Colleges. These adhere directly to magickers (what the game calls magick users) and technologists (what the game calls technology users). When you level-up, you can put points into a Spell College or a Discipline, and this will unlock a new spell or a new item to create. Disciplines are, simply put, things that you can make. For example, you can create specialised guns, molotov cocktails, healing salves, specialised head-gear that increases your vision. There are five items per Discipline, and there are also five items per Spell Colleges. The Colleges for magick simply group the spells depending on what you do. For example, in the Phantasm college, you will find spells that manipulate perception and the senses, Fire will let you use and create fire, while Necromantic White gives you healing spells and poison cures. The great thing about this, is that the game forces you to specialise; if you attempt to hedge and try to master everything (you can't anyway; you can only master one Spell College), your character will be horribly gimped and you'll find yourself struggling to win battles. It is in this way that Followers play a crucial part. If you're a strong warrior, you'll find yourself pouring every point into melee skills, and so will need some healers and ranged warriors to help round out your party. Of course, you could always just go for a trio of brain-splitting Ogres, but what are you going to do when your weapons break? When your health gets low, or you desperately need to cure the poison that's been eating away at you for the last half-hour? It adds a new element of thinking when you cannot master everything, and the game does it well.
9/10

Replayability/Playability:
Arcanum is a great game, but one complaint I have, is the World Map is absolutely ENORMOUS. The environments are pretty repetitive, and the enemies are VERY sparsely placed, so you will be using the fast travel options a lot. Fortunately, you can still encounter enemies traveling to towns, so the fun isn't taken out of it. It can be a bit boring and slow initially, but once you get into it, you'll be clicking away to your hearts content. The Interface can be a bit touchy to get to grips with,

About the Replayability, Arcanum is one of those games that you can play over and over again. The world is filled to the brim with quests and interesting characters, and they will each have different dialog, and even quests depending on your race, and your skills/stats. The quests have their own separate rewards, and can be completed in a lot of different ways, which ups the replayability. Also, as mentioned earlier, there are five basic styles of gameplay, and each one varies significantly. Not only that, but I've played through a bit of the game again, just as a "stupid" person, to see how the dialog differs, and it can be quite humorous.
10/10

Overall:
Arcanum is an amazing RPG, and one you should definitely check out if you're into Western RPGs. It is open-ended, it is complex, and it is great. The game has its fair share of flaws, it has a plethora of glitches (none that I encountered were game-breaking, however), and it could certailny have been polished better, but this doesn't detract from the experience.
9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/07, Updated 12/30/08

Game Release: Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (US, 08/22/01)