Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura | Troika Games Retrospective 1/3
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- Опубліковано 5 лип 2024
- PART 2 ► • The Temple of Elementa...
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In the first of a 3-part Troika Games retrospective, I will take a look at Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Anderson and Tim Cain's RPG classic: Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magic Obscura. This series will cover all three games they developed, how they innovated, what didn't succeed and and attempt at the age-old question: "What happened to Troika Games?"
Episode one is an Arcanum review, where I cover the historical importance of the game, how it borrowed and innovated from its Fallout and Baldur's Gate roots, the planned but shelved sequel, and the many inspirational (and disappointing) elements of this beloved fantasy steampunk role-playing game.
0:00 - Introduction to Troika Games
2:36 - Revolutionizing the Fantasy Genre
7:19 - Of Mechanics Obscura
10:00 - The Dragony and the Ecstasy
15:36 - Beyond Arcanum
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MUSIC CREDITS
Arcanum soundtrack by Ben Houge
www.benhouge.com/
'Danse Macabre' by Kevin MacLeod
'Over Time' by Audionautix
'Despair and Triumph' by Kevin MacLeod
'The Driving Force' by Jingle Punks
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SOURCES
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_...
www.giantbomb.com/arcanum-of-...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanum...
arcanum.wikia.com/
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FOOTAGE CREDITS
Some Arcanum clips by Aeterna:
/ @xaeternax
Baldur's Gate clip from FirstPlaysHD:
/ @firstplayshd
Icewind Dale clip by DruidOfCormanthor:
/ druidofcormanthor
Planescape: Torment clip by Hendrin Mckay:
/ @gamingwithhendrin9923
Neverwinter Nights 2 clip from Hepzibah:
/ @hepzibah4573
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PATREON ► / indigogaming
TWITCH ► / indigogamingchannel
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FACEBOOK ► / indigogamingchannel
DISCORD ► / discord
#Arcanum #TroikaGames #Fallout - Ігри
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"Creator of broken masterpieces" perfectly describes Troika.
you NAILED it
Theres nothing broken about this game.
@@Nathan_H1gg3rzsaid no one ever
There is a murder mystery you can solve by casting raise dead on the victim's body and then just asking them who did it.
Yeah when I heard about reviving the dead's ghosts that blew my mind. The game was so ambitious on the roleplaying front.
wow i never knew, have to try it out, thanks!
@@Indigo_Gaming yes, but the obvious solution being mind blowing shows how horrendous most rpgs are.
I remember when I first roled a necro, my first thought was "how deep is this game?".
I revived the "gnomish man" hoping he'd just tell me who the ring belongs to
I wonder if there's necromancy options for a mad scientist build, that would be rad.
I still need to play Arcanum at some point. Great video my man, clear you put in a ton of effort into production!
Hey, Mandalore! Thanks very much, means a lot coming from you. I'm glad you enjoyed my work.
Hey hey hey people. Mandalore here.
Review this please. My favourite game
Oh, hell yes you do! I'm waiting anxiously for your review of my, in fact, favourite classic cRPG, save for Planescape: Torment.
@@Schizo_Souls Mandalore our praised African warlord
oh man. Everytime I hear Arcanums music and think about the game, I shed a tear. One of the most beatiful things I ever expierenced. I can't find the right words to describe how it feels to explore this changing world, which is haunted by the mistakes and lies of the past and seeing how it affects people, how they seek redemption and the game never really answers the question "Is it worth to be alive?" It is such an unique expierence to this day and a prime example why I love gaming.
Ahh Arcanum. One of the absolute best RPGs of all time. I'm absolutely awestruck by the sheer complexity of the choice and consequence which you alluded to with the different reactions based on race/stats. Really really hope Tim Cain get the chance to create such a masterpiece again, now that he is with like-minded people at Obsidian. Great video!
Unfortunately Blizzard owns the IP...
What would you say about fallout nv being a console boy it’s my only crpg and maybe morrowind if you count that?
@@ripyungbruh8157 try more crpgs. Like fallout 1, TToE, Icewind Dale, or even non-commercial ones! Have you heard of the NwN mod, Swordflight?
"What is it that you want of me?"
"what type of healing do you want?"
"what type of healing do you want?"
"I am finished"
Holy nostalgia. I play this game from start to finish atleast once every year. An absolute masterpiece.
It's absolutely brilliant. One of if not my favourite games ever.
I bought not long after it came out and I still find new little thing I had not seen before. Some how I ended up under the castle in caladon and ended up in this giant ventilation room. After all these years, never seen that before
@@JonGee420 kinda late reply but I have this game pretty much since release too and at least once a year I come back to it - finished at least 20 times (with different approaches) and not even trying to count how many times I've started another playthrough without finishing it:) Some time ago I thought that there's no more secrets for me to unravel. Imagine you can for example minmax your character that on highest difficulty, solo, in real time combat without stun grenade or disintegration cheese you're able to kill Stingy Pete and crew or even defy game mechanics ingame like not being constrained by the void and affecting game world on such a grand scale that basically you become a god yourself (without spoiling too much, don't know if the devs intended all those possibilities but either way it's damn much fun even for veteran). And while the game idea of combining both magic and technology seems appealing at first but quickly you become jack of all trades master of none (weak), after few playthroughs somehow you find the solution and it becomes a powerhouse capable of breaking the game. Or when you try to lvl up fast to catch up with enemies but after gaining some experience you discover that basically the longer you stay low lvl, the stronger you can become later (and some more fun contradictions). So yeah, pretty hardcore player here and I still learn new aspects (never thought of an idea of summoning the spirit of murdery victim mentioned in comments and asking directly who the killer is, neither did my close friend who also loves this game and playes almost exclusively a necromancer LOL). And you can make the multiplayer work too which is an experience on whole another lvl:) (you can even play main storyline with friends if you look for guide hard enough)
I still havent figured out where the cumbrias tax gold is. 10 years later this still haunts me.
@@MrSp0iler Pickpocket the mayor of blackroot.
Another sleepless night. Another video for your enjoyment. Worth it? Let me know in the comments!
Another great video, Indigo! Very professional! :)
Thank you for the cool video. Very good and looking forward to the next 2 videos
THIS what I opoen youtube for, what a quality video, more CRPG centric video would be grand! obsidian's games, jagged alliance, ultima series, gothic series.. man I love you today
you have a special place in my heart already
Ah, my sweet Arcanum. Hundreds of hours spent as a kid, exploring the world, buildcrafting my character, exploiting the mechanics and most importantly - uncovering the story. About a year ago I had a beautiful dream that left me sad when I woke up. I dreamt about our world with one small difference - in my dream it was Arcanum that was a major success instead of Fallout, and I dreamt about playing "Arcanum 4" instead of "Fallout 4", and boy, was it so much better.
But that was a dream, and I'm affraid that even if it was true and Arcanum would have its 3D sequels like today's Fallout has, it'd still be butchered by Bethesda just as they butchered Fallout (not to say it's a worthless game, but let's face it - it's not an RPG anymore. And no, sandbox doesn't equal RPG).
Yes. Thank you for this video. Arcanum deserves every good word mentioned. It is a masterpiece, with it's mistakes - granted, but I've never seen a more polished game from the world-building and mechanics standpoint of such game. In my honest opinion this is better than any crpg out there. Again thank you for the video.
A true masterpiece indeed!
One thing I love about the game is the low intelligence dialogue where even the journal is affected by low intelligence
They pushed that shit to another level with entire Malkavian dialogue in Bloodlines
If you use the Frankestein's Monster or Bride of Frankenstein backgrounds you'll be trapped in dumb dialog, while you're journal is unaffected.
Magnificent video, as is customary. :)
Arcanum, I think, shows the power and the peril of the low(ish) budget. Arcanum isn't an _indie_ release (it had a publisher and it could never get that scope on an indie budget) but it isn't a proper AAA release, either. It's an artifact of the now-dead middle market and what that allows is for vast complex games to exist which have premises and gameplay that no sane publisher would risk much money on.
There's only so many nutty RPG fans who'd give their eye teeth for a weird original RPG like Arcanum (present!), and we have only so much money to pay for the privilege.
As budgets balloon in the quest for photorealistic graphics (among other things), the games get safer and safer with the excess of cash not going to bold experimentation but to polish leading to the Blizzard Singularity: absolutely perfect, flawless games that bring nothing whatsoever new.
Just consider what Bioware's much-vaunted new IP turned out to be: Destiny Except... No Wait Just Destiny.
And, hey, if you are going to drop upwards of $100 000 000 on a game you can't help but be risk averse.
That said, with the middle market _maybe_ coming back to life (with stuff like, say, >observer_ which, incidentally, is simply _made_ for Cyberpunk Curated :) ) thinks might be looking up.
My abiding memory of Arcanum is the sheer _scale_ of the thing. I distinctly remember the feeling that the world is _vast._ Not so much because of the number of screens or hours of content or any such metric in vogue today but... the cheerfully throwaway nature of some of it. Like the (quite large) city of Dernholm you can _completely miss while playing_ (if I remember it clearly). I love the tendency of old games to let you miss stuff because it made exploration that much more satisfying.
Very good points raised here. I think we're seeing a rise of a middle market for RPGs with games like Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin and the like, but it's still small and nowhere what it could be. I'm also saddened to see how far BioWare has fallen as they were right along Black Isle Studios in the golden age of CRPGs.
I have played >Observer_ and am loving the atmosphere, and it would be a very good fit for Cyberpunk Curated if I can fit it into my schedule eventually.
We really need a middle market back.
Veljko Petrović I know, with all these awful games pretending to be RPGs and completely missing the point of what made them amazing.
I really want a sequel to this game. I'm hoping that Obsidian either makes a sequel or spiritual successor (the latter is probably more likely) anyway a bunch of the guys from Troika work at Obsidian.
FreyjaTheWarrior I am still waiting for another "Vampire: The Masquerade" video game.
Yeah!, let's have the team that gave us poe and tyranny develop Arcanum 2 !
Oh.....wait........no
Outer Worlds
@@HeatIIEXTEND both poe and tyranny are good games. PoE1 may be a bit to dated and focusing to much on satisfying the retro crowd, but damn if it isn't one of the best CRPG series in ages.
@@Cudgeon well now, I think that title might go to Larian with Divinity: OS and DOS2
To THIS DAY: my favorite CRPG blew my mind and I played this in my 20s. Even with the problems I loved every moment.
Man, this game... Tech Dwarf was so much fun to play!
I have so many fond memories: crafting my first revolver and tesla gun, negotiating treaties between nations and the music which was both sad and nostalgic. You could feel this world was changing, magic was slowly dying and capitalism was blooming...
Truly a masterpiece of storytelling in my book.
Still in my top 5 after all these years!
The soundtrack for Arcanum is beautiful.
The best! Listen to it till this day
Great work done here. Arcanum was the RPG love of my youth, thanks for bringing back the memories! As flawed and frustrating as it was sometimes, it was a true adventure to get through this game. I actually finished it back then after countless hours (completely squashed the final boss with the some absurdly overpowered pistol that I crafted), and I was never the same. Seeing how games like Fallout 4 claim to be "RPGs" really makes me sad.
Just the soundtrack alone tightens my chest. One of the best games I ever played as a young man. It's sad how few modern studios don't learn from older games that were wonderful.
I've played the game three times and never beat it. Once my level capped, I got bored. I think there is a mod or something to uncap the level.
I got chills when you mentioned a potential sequel. I hope they do that today.
You really sold me on this!
You may be becoming one of my favourite UA-camrs -- I've been articulating these sort of sentiments of years, but with no real platform through which to spread them this widely. Many thanks to you.
Thanks for watching! Glad you've enjoyed my work.
One of my favourite RPGs of all time. Played it more than 20 times!
**So much more could have been done with this world. Truly, this was one of the greatest games I have ever had the pleasure to experience.**
I played through it dozens of time, start to finish, with and without mods, as spellcaster, engineer, melee, bow, prowling, diplomacy etc... every quest has several ways to finish it and with various bonuses to your character via blessings and curses.
And the lore is just outstanding, if you really sink your teeth in it it is really dark and philosophical looking at it from a point of global industrialization and how it is killing the wildlife and rainforests (note, Morbihan Plains was a huge forest that is now a desert and it was like not long before the game takes place, like 30 years ago, it was bulldozed to fuel the steam engines in the city of Tarant).
The quest/story to get Torian-Kel as a follower and the whole story about the Derian-Ka is probably my favorite. They were undead warriors raised and used in wars for personal gain of the Molochean Hand and after their use has expired they were left to literally rot in the darkness of the Ancient Temple, waiting for their flesh to rot and fall off and finally for their bones to just decay into dust and for their souls forever to be bound to the mortal realm, forever in pain (note: in Arcanum lore, a soul while it is in the mortal realm, feels only pain when it is not connected to a body).
And it's freaky that Kerghans plan for mass genocide of all the humanoid races at times actually makes sense...in a Thanos "kill 50% of all living things" sort of way.
It saddens me that the world never got expanded upon.
I highly recommend people to at least try the game.
Thank you thank you THANK you. A game I adore that is such a gem. I will hold my experiences with it forever. Such a special piece of art.
Beautiful video. Arcanum's in my top 5 favorite games. The world just begs to be expanded on.
My favourite game. Highest replay-value I've ever expirienced. Thx for the video.
a wonderful restrospective begins ;) Love Troika's work, and Arcanum was one of the best setting ever written... imagine a modern version without all the technical limitation and rushed combat...
Indeed. The only things wrong with this game are mostly technical and polish related. Cleaner combat with better feedback and a better map-loading system could have made a huge difference.
I just recently installed Arcanum on my Windows XP laptop I use for retro gaming, and I love it. Any RPG can learn from this game, even Elder Scrolls 6 or the next Fallout game. I've almost never seen any game pull off being anybody you want, where your decisions matter in the world. Anyone who hasn't picked this game up needs to, it's amazing
I remember leveling up my sleigh of hand skill so much, I could pickpocket a full plate armor off of its wearer and leave them in their underpants XD
Great video IG! Wonderfully presented and the music... perfect.
Thank you!
Very nice job with this video, and I can't wait to watch part 2 of 3. As a person who has replayed Arcanum almost every year since its release, I feel as if you perfectly described the positives and negatives of the game. The one exception is that the string music never felt repetitive to me at any point during the game. Often times, I even put on the soundtrack while at work.
When I first played the game back in 2001, I recall using the "fast turn-based" combat system which I don't believe was covered in this video (apologies if I missed this). It was a mix of real time fighting, which as you described accurately was way too fast, and turn-based, which felt too slow for me. I was very happy they added this third option.
I had never heard of the plans to make Journey to the Center of Arcanum. It's a shame that was cancelled.
The soundtrack was amazing, but I think the lack of variety made a lot of areas sound similar. They even re-used 'The Wheel Clan' track for an area or two, as well as the singular combat track. Some of the tracks are pure magic, but you know what they say about too much of a good thing...
Thank you for making me remeber something I loved, despite it's broken state. A world which took the young me into a world I wished to explore with all my heart.
I love your videos, but this one cracked a genuine smile and a tear... A warm feeling. So thank you, for letting me relive a beautiful colorful memory. I truly appreciate it.
Interplay and Troika are part of my childhood. Thanks for the video man.
I love regularly revisiting your Troika videos as much as I enjoy revisiting the games themselves.
These sorts of videos with the fantastic editing and clear love for the subject matter is what really keeps me coming back.
I really loved being a gunslinger in Arcanum. Of course, going tech heavy, I had to abandon someone whom I place in my top ten of favorite NPCs of all time. Poor Virgil.
It's the worst when your Tech Alignment is so far over that all of his heals just bounce off of you. XD
@@Indigo_Gaming I remember finding out, how powerful grenades were and that you could find many of the base materials to craft them in trashbins. I started killing everything with grenades and later also built all sorts of mechanical and electric contraptions. It was fun, but I also felt bad for the World of magic(k) being pushed aside. It was the only game that ever really made me feel like questioning my own actions.
Probably the game I played to most.
I remember that I've beaten Arcanum in a single long night in one sitting (11 hours). My friend installed it and called me over to play. I sat down, made a halfling back stabber and I was on.
My friend was in a corner reading The Two Towers. By dawn I finished the game (main quest and some side quests) and he finished the book. One of my fondest geeky memories.
Then I bought my own version and decided to explore the rest of the world. Made a elven mage and the whole summer went by.
Not sure which is more impressive, beating Arcanum in one sitting or reading through The Two Towers in one!
Okay, I just binged all the videos on this channel and I have only one question... Why aren't there more subscribers here!? Jeez, such great content and high production value and only 16k subs? Come on people!
Thank you, glad you liked my content so much! It means a lot to me.
Fantastic video Ian. Your editing is absolutely inspirational. I've had this game sitting on my GOG shelf for a while, perhaps I should boot it up.
Its one of my favorite games of all time. Hope you try it out.
I remember my cousin giving me this game for my birthday back in 2005 and I fell in love with it. I played it almost everyday for a year. I recently found it and played through it again and I was so glad that it still holds up. One of the best games I’ve ever played.
Thanks for covering this one, it's a masterpiece in terms of storytelling in a game. Looking forward to your next video!
No problem, glad you enjoyed!
also... as soon as i hear that music i get chills. it's timeless
Arcanum was my childhood! It was the first crpg I ever played, and in high school I showed it to my gang of friends and we all played it during those years. Its soundtrack also fostered my appreciation for violin music (though I don't play it myself), along with my mother who always played the violin when I was little. Arcanum also introduced me to the steampunk genre, as well as mold my opinions on it.
Arcanum is a game I spent whole summer of 2003(year I got the game)on. It was something different...
I love arcanum - my favourite build was a Half-Ogre inventor, it was a perfect blend of overpowered stats and handicap. One of my favourite games by far, it wasn't without humour but didn't feel as forced as other games, Divinity original sin 1-2 spring to mind. I can't imagine playing real-time, but I know you could practically break the game with a dagger build with backstab or just spamming the first necromancy spell. I remember having the loading issue but I found a fix for that. I believe it was a memory leak.
Yeah, Arcanum was built in a time where devs didn't focus on balance and equalization. A lot of games had broken builds at the time.
After all these years and despite all its flaws, Arcanum is still one of the best games I have ever played in all the 30+ years I've been a gamer. It's a living, breathing world with very interesting inhabitants. Great video!
Fascinating, i was in the process of making a fantasy game with almost the same world setting as Arcanum without even knowing. great video, keep it up.
Awesome. Look forward to your new game. Good luck!
Arcanum holds a special place in my heart. I've played it when I was a kid and have played and finished it again as an adult. This game have a soul which is lacking in today's games.
Absolutely beautiful video - looking forward to more in the series!
I’ve been waiting for part two for almost 2 months now. I really enjoyed this so please continue!
I did part two a month ago: ua-cam.com/video/oSnKzCTAk14/v-deo.html
Part three is planned for tomorrow, fingers crossed.
I remember playing this when I was a child. It was awesome and hard . Never forgot it
The fact that Arcanum was released in broken state and never became a commercial success makes me wanna cry.
It is such a wonderful world. Such an atmospheric game...
You deserve way more subs, man. Amazing videos! Can't wait for part 2!
I own Arcanum but I haven't yet started up my playthrough of it. That being said as a HUGE fan of cRPGs and a diehard mega fan of their VTMB game I am really looking forward to starting it. I have already downloaded a better resolution mod and the unofficial patch so I should be good to go.
As someone who's been playing this game at least twice a year for the past decade or so, do not make the bland melee/dodging character, or harmspam mage. Those are the most boring and sadly most common ones people go for. Go for extremes, or non common builds. You have a lot of choice in the matter. You can play a pyromaniac dwarf that throws bombs around or a hippie elf mage using nature as his weapon against the tyranny of technology. The possibilities are limitless.
I'll definitely take that into consideration thanks!!
I love playing a technology character with proficiency in firearms. Building your own crazy guns and then shooting people (and non-people) with them is awesome :-D
And it is never too late to begin!
I actually envy you a bit, as the first time expetience is usially the brightest! And I've played through Arcanum quite a lot of times!
The people around saying that you should try some non-standard or crazy build of character are right of course, but only if you already have some experience with the game. So it would be best to try something rather standard, but workable, and then, in the next playthrough, try someting non-standard. For example, a mage with "only child" back ground, which gives you 15 of willpower at the very beginning, and allows you to go straight for 3rd level spells, with a fully mastered throwing skill (dont forget to steal Azram's Star from Clarissa Shalmo after completing her quest and becoming a Throwing master, use the fate point for critical sucess at pickpocketing, if you don't wish to kill her), will do just fine, or the technician with good Melee skill and a Pyrotechnic Axe (which is the only indestructible tecnological weapons - yeah, you can use bows as well, but they do too little damage, and even if PyroAxe is not very useful against Fire elementals, for example, it won't breake on them on the other hand.
Or if you are a mage using Melee, go for Arcane weapons - hard to find, but the only indestructible weapons against fiery or solid creatures.
And, with such weapons, you can easily smash down and crush any door, chest, lock without having to bother with constant repairs.
And always make your Dodge at maximum. Also opens an interesting and variative quest:)
Won't spoil it any more for you, just have fun playing Arcanum! You surely won't regret it!
great job selling it Indigo. I watched a few vids but you are just so good at highlighting the fascinating curious parts.
A very good retrospective. I look forward to the next instalment!
You are totally right. There seems to be a flavor to certain game designers so you will like most of their creations even if you dont know that they are behind the project.
So in that case I remember I liked all Troika Games but they felt always incomplete. What I didnt know that the guys from Black Isle Studios were behind all this! As the Black Isle Games are my most favorite games and I always felt that their influence on the legendary CRPGs was more important then Bioware.
And some of them including Tim Cain and Leonars Boyarsky are with Obsidian now
Absolute classic, practically wrote a book of notes for it at the time.
Really high quality content I'm so happy when I find a channel like this.
Thank you, really appreciate that.
Realy nice Video, Troika made 2 of my favorite RPGs, Arcanum and Vampire Bloodlines.
Vampire Bloodlines, oh I do look forward to sinking my fangs into that beautiful disaster of a game.
These videos are most excellent IG. Well done. Informed and to the point.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed! Part 3 is coming out very soon.
I never got to finish it and it still bothers me that I never got to see the ending. This was an incredible game with a unique atmosphere, I wish someone would bring it back.
Interesting to note: Many games that are "thought" to best to games of their era, actually sold poorly on release. On the other hand, many games that sold great numbers are mostly forgotten.
"Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" and "Arcanum OSMO" were amongst the best selling games ever. Fallout 1 and 2 did NOT sell well, but became famous after being discovered. I call these sleeper games. Sleeper games, once they are discovered, especially loooong after they were released originally, suddenly become games that EVERYONE seems to remember playing. And yes, I played both ARCANUM (3 years ago) and ALPHA CENTAURI (last year) many times. These are games that should be totally reworked on a new game engine and with modern graphics, so that the new generation of gamers can fully enjoy them.
Thank you for giving a fair and honest evaluation of the great games. Salute! Two thumbs up.
Arcanum was (and still is) one of the best RPG games!
Just found your channel and it's been nothing but a breathe of fresh air!
Glad you're enjoying my work! 👍
Arcanum for me was one of the rare games you play and it blows your mind. It may have had flaws but I was a kid when I played it originally and I wasn't picky.
You gave this beautiful game due justice.
I truly appreciated and miss this game.
There is a part of me that hopes Bethesda or obsidian will pick this up, reimagine it in a first person perspective and expand beyond what was already established
What an awesome game. One of my favorites. Nice video sir. Thanks for the nostalgia!
I've had this game for years, I really need to find the time to play it.
fantastic work here. Looking forward to the other parts.
This is an exceptional level of content. Keep up the good work!
After all these years, I still get goosebumps from the soundtracks of Arcanum. Truly a flawed gem, unfairly forgotten by the gaming community at large, in a genre that doesn't get the love it deserves. I also don't care that I stumbled upon this video 5 years too late.
Absolutely agree; I missed the first two Fallout games, but did catch Arcanum from the beginning. Arcanum was definitely one of my favorite games of all time.
I remember playing the living crap out of Arcanum as a wee child, but i dont think i ever finished it or got particularly far. It was a wonderfully good game, and i remember being in awe at some things. One thing i can remember was that i kept having trouble getting past some bandits. I couldnt talk them into letting me past, and i kept getting stomped when i fought. Until i found some dynamite hidden in a shop that i broke into, and killed the crap out of them with that and molotov cocktails. It was a hell of a fun time making characters too
ekşiciyi buldum :)
buying the key chain from the junk vendor for next to nothing, and having all your keys consolidated into one slot was genius, it inspired me to do so in real life
Brilliant video and excellent part 1. I have this game and i absolutely love it even though it does have flaws, then again what game doesn't. I never allow negatives about any game stop me from thoroughly enjoying playing it. Be well and keep safe, regards Gary.
DUUUUUUUUUDE. you're on the level man. instant subscribe!
I’ve played this game more times than I can remember. It’s still my favorite game to this date. I think I’m going to play it again.
i only ever finished the game as a mage - which is stupendously overpowered. Your spell damage scaled with your level, or something, as I recall, and the first level Necromantic Harm spell would nearly one-shot anything by mid-late game: for a casting cost of peanuts! Using magic also let you simply unload all of the various tech junk you found so my party was fabulously rich very early on.
Thanks for reminding me to find my discs...now to play a Dwarf for the first time ever.
Arcanum is fall. It feels like it, it sounds like it. I love it.
It's always a treat to hear what people think about Arcanum. What a flawed gem.
No matter how many times this Victorian-era England mixed with magic and steampunk setting is recreated, nobody did it like Troika. It's easily the best and most cohesive world in this style.
I've spent countless hours in this game, completing probably a dozen playthroughs. I've first discovered this game around 2003, and I can't help but come back to it time after time. A game from golden age of RPGs, and this was the pinnacle. It's a shame that technical issues led to this masterpiece falling into obscurity.
A world that we never experienced before... or again sadly :(
I played this game when it first came out and I loved it. One of the best RPG's I've ever played. A friend of mine had borrowed it, and he loved the game even more than I did, which is saying something.
Stumbled upon this great video again and remembered the sword surrounded by a wall puzzle I can't figure out for the life of me.
Arcanum and Temple of Elemental Evil were to of my favorite RPG experiences on the PC. The first for the amazing original world it created and the second for how faithfully it recreated a world I already loved.
They had their flaws, but delivered where it counted.
Map of Arcanum always reminded me the map of Treasure Island.
And what a tresure it was... Well, is.
I started Arcanum three or four times and always bounced of Black Mountain Clan mines. Some day I will get through them...
Arcanum is such a gem. It was my first RPG and like other things, the first never goes away.
One of my favorites from back in the day. The editor was awesome too.
Arcanum is one of the most advanced and deep mechanical dungeon master ever created. Personally I played as a gun toting part-time utility mage engineer, my gun only worked half of the time and it was glorious.
How the style and ideas behind this game are so amazing
I love your videos! I'm playing the game now 20 year's later... I did try it when it first came out, but i never got around to play it properly. Now i will :=)
There was this one in Arcanum time when I witnessed a bunny killing a werewolf after a successful stun attack. This in itself proves the whimsical hit or miss aspect of the combat system
15:28 "To bring us a living breathing world, we've never experienced before."
Well, kinda. Gothic came out a few months before Arcanum.
Have you tried some of the tweaks and mods for the game?
I loved Arcanum when it first came out. Can't bring myself to go back though. The graphics and gameplay aged terribly, but the writing is exceptional. It also has one of my favorite quests in videogames.
If I remember correctly you were supposed to find out if there's something to the rumors that halflings breed their half-orc bodyguards by kidnapping human women. After a long back and forth between several locations you find what seems to be a breeding factory, wiped clean.
You return to your quest giver, only to find a halfling in his stead. Basically telling you that you can't prove anything.
This was a great start. I can't wait for part 2.
I do have to give Gothic another whirl, I bought it back in the day but didn't get very far. Gothic was a lot more Dark Ages/traditional fantasy rather than Industrial Fantasy like Arcanum though, so they each had a unique setting.
Oh definitely!
Gothic managed to do something even it's original developer fail to recreate; actual growth.
You start off as a nobody barely able to kill a single scavenger. No one cares who you are. People bully you, rob you, beat you without breaking a sweat. They won't accept you until you begin doing some of the more mundane jobs, like farming or sweeping rooms.
You can't access certain parts of the map, because you get either killed by monsters or you haven't earned it. Try to enter the castle of one of the leaders without allowance; that's a paddlin'. Managed to get to the castle? Good luck entering the throne room without allowance. That's another paddlin'.
Once you join one of the factions you slowly start to become someone. You can access areas, talk to people of high rank and importance. You earn it all.
You should check out this video by RagnaRox if you're interested:
ua-cam.com/video/hVYrALStucs/v-deo.html
It's a fantastic analysis on the strength of the series.
Arthur Wild So this is the beginning of Gothic. ua-cam.com/video/ZXQR-cPXlmY/v-deo.html
I really loved this game. Great vid dude!
Thank you for this video, this is easily one of my favourite games of all time. Now I want to go back and play through it again lol, would love for a remake that fixes all the problems with this broken masterpiece. Maybe then it will do well enough to warrant a equal too!
I bought this game years ago and only now am I visiting it ,and others, for the first time. This has whetted my appetite even more.
Most excellent. I hope you enjoy the game!
This still remains one of my favorite RPG games of all time, and lore too. It is really too bad that the IP did not expand outward. I think it had potential to even develop into a tabletop RPG system too. This game will always have a place on my systems.