Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura Retrospective | A History of Isometric CRPGs (Episode 7)
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- Опубліковано 30 лип 2019
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura has obtained cult-classic status over the years due to some excellent worldbuilding and implementation of steampunk technology alongside traditional fantasy elements like elves and dwarves. I've been looking forward to playing this one for a while but didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. If you would like to know more about my series on isometric CRPGs then please check out this video: • UPDATE: New CRPG video...
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#Arcanum #TroikaGames #CRPGs - Ігри
Not to deliberately sour your mood after you've spent so many hours on walking through the cities, but... you can just use your map. Open the map while in the city, and from there you can set waypoints for your party to go to, and they will just go there. It's as simple as setting a path and clicking "go".
Also, great video! I love Arcanum to the core, but I tend to agree with many of your critic points.
All the hours he wasted....... boy this is gonna sting when he reads this........
Also the metro in Tarant, especially given that he went for a tech build (mages can use it initially, but as they level up their mystic energy messes with technology and therefore they are forbidden to use the subway).
The problem with setting waypoints is that if your character bumps into other people, or sometimes even a kerb on the sidewalks, he will come to a complete stop. You'll be forced into restarting his path manually.
You can also change how far you can move the camera away from the player in the widescreen config file. I recommend not disabling it or setting it too high because once you do you will not be able to find your character.
Is that in the Manual? Sometimes I wonder if complaints, such as the one you point out, would be easily remedied by reading the manual for the game.
Never clicked on a video so fast.
Arcanum is my top RPG of all time.
One of the best underrated RPG's out there and one of my favorites..thanks for the video! :D
Whenever I hear the soundtrack, I remember my childhood and smile.
Arcanum had the biggest plot twist ive ever seen in a game
Indeed
which one there's two?
@@megamike15 First one
Nah, not really comparable to KOTOR
Played this as a kid, I was hooked. It was nothing like what I ever played before. I felt like this game would never end. I love it and I wish there would be a newer version that would come out.
I don't believe that the character creation is a problem. It's deep, it's complex, and it's endlessly entertaining. It's more that the enemy encounters, don't really take advantage of half of what's on offer here. For example you can reflect wizards spells, which would be great except that every single enemy in the game just runs up and hit's you. But I think we can all agree, that this sort of boundless ambition is priceless today, when every game released is essentially, safe, samey, and sterile. The game functions better in towns, during story quests, rather then in dungeons.
It's deep, complex, endlessly entertaining...and you get five points to spare.
Arcanum's chargen screen is probably one of the most ambitious of all time. The range of options on offer are fantastic. If the game had an Ai and enemy encounter overhaul to avail of all the mechanics that are in the game, it'd easily be the greatest isometric rpg ever made. I agree with @Tiduidu about the 5 points though. At least you should have been allowed to minmax like in Fallout.
whenever someone uses the words 'boundless ambition' I picture the early 20th century film clip of a dude on a bike with flapping wings attached
"when every game released is essentially, safe, samey, and sterile."
Don't confuse games and AAA games
@@TidusplZUO To be fair 5 points is enough to invent a automated attack robot if you pick the right starting background. Not to mention you get to level up a whopping 50 times.
I love the pathos of this game. The feeling of a world slowly dying due to the march of industry and the existential nihilism that this evokes. At least that’s how I feel when playing this game and I think it’s great. Pity we never got to experience anything more from this world than the one game.
Your reviews of these old(or older) games are some of my favourites on youtube! Great to hear a First timer play these as I'm in the same situation with a bunch of them too, playing them the first time because I didn't know english well enough back in the day to play these old RPGs. These are some great fucking games, like the original Fallout1-2, Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Icewind Dale etc.
Very good job, keep it up!
Absolutely love your A History of Isometric CRPGs videos! Loved the fallout ones and love the other ones as well, looking forward to watch this video.
Arcanum would make for such a good TV series.
I'm always happy to see that you've continued with this ambitious history series. I haven't even played any of these games. I just love learning how they work and comparing their design priorities to modern games. For equal parts better and worse they really don't make games like they used to.
Pillars of eternity, divinity 2,
@@fergalkearney1603 Stop mentioning Pillars; it's trash. Pathfinder: Kingmaker needs to be mentioned more..
This game needs a remake by Obsidian. Troika masterfully crafted two amazing universes: Arcanum and Vampire The Masquerade.
Troika didnt craft the vampire the masquerade universe. V:TM is a part of the World of Darkness universe which was made by white wolf. Also Obsidian had a massive staff turnover after new vegas, while their games are still decent, theyre a shadow of their former selves
@@sernoddicusthegallant6986 That sucks to know. I really want to know what the original members of Black Isle are up to these days. They crafted some of the best RPG settings back in the day,
@@sernoddicusthegallant6986 I dunno, obsidian did the pillars of eternity games and I love them
@@tbone9474
You can clearly see from the writing of pillar of eternity games that most of the people responsible for the good stuff in the previous games are gone. Avellone's Role in PoE1 was minimal.
@@ToveriJuri still pillars is leagues better than most rpgs the days. I was a little disappointed in the story of pillars 2 but the first was good
I'm pretty sure that DND has used "higher AC is better" since third edition.
Yeah I can't believe he missed this point.
Which was released in 2000. I was really confused by this too, like is he talking thac0 days?
@@nirktheman-thingstab-cutter chris really does not know anything about basic dnd. all his info comes from the games and his ignorance is showing.
SmugLookingBarrel He must have gotten confused with Baldur’s Gate
Also Fallout, a game he apparently played.
I'm at 35 min and I'm blown away by your attention to detail.
Just finished. Well done, the use of that Tim Cain talk was a nice touch. I liked that in the Baldurs Gate video as well.
Deeply flawed game and yet one of my absolute favourites.
I bought it new back in the day and still finding new things
Describe pretty much all of Troika’s games.
My absolute favourite thing about Arcanum is that you can join the bad guy and kill every living being. Other awesome things include being able to summon a ghost of defeated enemies (most of them just scream in pain out of suffering but some are useful in quests or to get additional lore) and this one, completely obscure (and unbelievably annoying) riddle quest that's presented to you as a legend that once completed gives you 100 in hp and mp/stamina. And the disintegration spell, it's so awesomly OP. And you're not limited to casting it on enemies, you can eg 'open' locked doors with it (don't try it with locked chests though :P).
Have to say, Torika is my favourite pc developer. All their three games (they really like number three...) while technically terrible have something special in them. Arcanum all of the above, ToEE is the best D&D to video game adaptation, and VtM:B is actually my favourite western rpg overall. It's a shame they ended like that.
Btw. you say you are very keen on great stories in rpgs. Have you dabbled at all with older jrpgs? While they do give you a fully defined characters and as such you don't have any freedom (well you do in some instances, like Tactics Ogre, you have a couple of major decisions to make which dictate how the story unfolds) in deciding what and how you do stuff, they use this to strengthen their stories. I think that, storywise, you'd enjoy a few, Tactics Ogre and Final Fantatasy Tactics particulary come to mind. Of course, those two are battle heavy tactical rpgs. You basically go story events -> battle -> story events throughout the whole game so if you don't like turn based combat you might have problems with them. I do believe however that their stories would outweight any hate for combat...
3rd Edition DnD changed AC into what it is today - the higher the better
Arcanum came out after that. So I don't really know what the problem is here
came here to comment on this very thing - on top of that, arcanum was released AFTER 3rd edition, so it made sense for the time, too (though it's possible arcanum was being developed before they even knew about 3e's AC changes)
@@kat-po8vx Chris really shouldn't use the "everybody who ever played D&D knows this" argument, when he clearly hasn't played much (if any) D&D
@@Schabiq yeah it's more ; anyone that played the ie games should know.' as all his dnd knowledge comes from those.
@@Schabiq he makes an awful lot of mistakes. his most recent vid says at length that shadow run rebooted CRPGs when Wasteland 2 came out 2 years prior o_O
@@Jinx394 the kickstarter was in 2012
This game needs a remaster. It came out very buggy but got better. Very complex but very rewarding and amazing setting
One of the greatest cRPG's ever and a superb video! Thank you!
wow thank you for this, i just spent the last three hours browsing youtube videos and rolling around on my bed. no i finally have something good to watch :)
Have a good night :)
Great review. Thank you. I'm really enjoying your content :)
I love this playlist and looking forward to listening to your mass effect videos tomorrow at work. I’d love to hear your take on Pillars of Eternity. Many of these games I’ve only gotten to dabble in bc I’m too busy so I love to play them vicariously through your reviews. You’ve also encouraged me to pick back up Baldur’s Gate 2 since it’s on iPad now. I really appreciate your talent for presenting these games and holding my interest. You’re excellent at this.
Loved the bonus war and peace review 👌
I feel like you would like the game more if you knew about the way point system in the game. It always kinda sours a review when the reviewer misses something really big, kinda like when Noah Caldwell-Gervais
missed that there was more than one ending in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. To be fair it's not entirely clear and you'd probably have to read the manual or look up a guide online. Also there is a pretty good banana bread recipe in the manual.
Other than that it was a great review. This game was deeply flawed but had some amazing moments in it. I wish they fleshed out the technology side more because magic was really strong.
I bought that game when it came out and I still find new things with every playthrough
I love everything about this game, besides playing it.
You must have the patience of a saint to walk through the cities of Arcanum. I guessed that cites worked like the overworld map and that allowed me to not go insane.
Broooo you're giving me a reason to reminisce about this awesome game thank youuu
Love these videos, thank you very much!
Love to see you do Pillars of Eternity and its sequel. Thank you for doing these videos, they really take me back to when I played them for the first time.
I've been playing Arcanum since it first released, I would have been 16 at the time and had been playing the Baldur's Gate and Fallout series and recall how difficult it was for me to find anybody else who had even heard of the games outside of the store where I bought them. My family PCs in the 90's were always a bit behind the times and it was always a struggle to get the games to run well but somehow I managed, and filled my childhood with countless hours of midnight wasteland drifting and exploring every dialogue option possible.
I was only aware of Tim Cain from the credits on the original Fallout but I had not heard of Troika, but when I saw the game on the shelf I was immediately attracted to it and will never forget coming home and trying it out for the first time. I still revisit the game at least once or twice a year, although it has been a few years since I've actually completed it; restarting, as with Baldur's Gate, to build the 'perfect Living One' is as much fun as actually committing to one. I understand the complaints about the combat but it has never really bothered me, in fact I even rather enjoy it.
Playing it today with Drog's UAP, the High Res patch, and the Millennium Edition, with the modules and all of the bug fixes makes it an even more amazing experience. It is truly a shame that the sequel was never a possibility, the lore and locations that could have been further explored had this become a series could have been legendary. It makes me so happy that there is still something left of an active community fixing and adding to the game, and new players discovering it thanks to videos like this one.
cool video... I love the "Peep Show" character references btw XD
Just got snacks and a beer ready and i go on youtube to find a new entry in this series..
Im blessed
I love that you finally got to this! One of my favorite CRPG's, but I agree it is kind of a slog at times.
It's less of a slog than all of the Infinity games he praises to high heaven. At least combat is something you can get a grip on, and the side quests are actual stories instead of fetch quests.
thanks for bringing back those games
Made my day; thanks!
thank you for covering this game. I bought this game but couldn't get into it. I'll give it another go. and thank you for this series
Great series, thx.
Sadly the Tech path is the hard mode in Arcanum. You can also easily mod Arcanum's backgrounds to your own needs. The funny thing is most people have no idea that you can just run passed everything in this game on turn based combat. You can get the non-combat finish without CHA maxxed you just need a certain dialog before hand to get it with the boss.
Skyrim doesn't have any "randomly generated" dungeons.
this crpg series of yours has to be the most dedicated peep show tribute ever made
I love your videos on rpgs chris.
Amazing game, one of my all time faves.
New episode! Wooo!
This brings back memories. Although this game had its faults, it's my most favourite old game. I'd love if this game was remade and polished up
6 minute in and I can't bear watching you playing in realtime aaaaah X_x
As always another good video
Thought about the video a bit. I think you captured the game very well. Especially the lore part. Main appeal is being like a "detectiv" or historian and try to figure out what happen. The world building is really great while the music captures exactly the feeling of the game.
Great video and great game as well
I know I'm way late on this, but man, it's so nice that I don't have to control my companions in this game. I played a sword and board character with high charisma (going for a Jaime Lannister type) so my magic/tech scale was right in the middle the whole game. Virgil and Raven were both able to hit me with heals all game. And I didn't have to worry about what each character was doing during real time combat. Absolute breath of fresh air for me in the genre. And levelling up was just maxing out Dodge, Melee, Str, Dex, Chr, persuasion, and then putting the rest into Con and Willpower after like level 35/40. Absolutely loved this game
Please let me know if there are any other isometric CRPGs I should cover between Temple of Elemental Evil and Divinity Original Sin. I don't plan to cover the Neverwinter Nights games as part of this series (I may cover them separately) because I don't really consider them to be isometric CRPGs in the same way as the games I've already covered.
I'm curious to hear why you don't consider the Neverwinter Nights games to be in the same vein/school as BG and its spawn. I myself have have only played Mask of the Betrayer b/c it bears a stronger resemblance to Torment than any other infinity engine title.
Hmmm there's such a gap. There's the Shadowrun games, but they're nowhere near as in depth as the early classics. You could move towards indie with Spiderweb Software and titles like Avadon, Geneforge or Avernum. There's another indie title Serpent of the Staglands (decent tale too on that one). But really it kicks off again with Pillars of Eternity and then the kickstarter revivals - Torment Tides of Numenera, Tyranny and the rest.
If you just mean to cover only isomeric games at this point, then you should cover Pillars of Eternity, Numenara, Tyranny, and the HBS Shadowrun games as well. However, I think you are doing yourself a disservice by not covering at least NWN 2 and Mask of the Betrayer, Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, and Dragon Age: Origins. They really carried the torch for the genre during the mid-late 2000s when it was basically dead, even though they don't rely on isometric camera angles.
@@MrOrdinaryundone DAO is fantastic
You might want to give Age of Decadence a look. It's certainly not the greatest game in the genre, but it's quite unique in it's setting and gameplay. The story behind the creation of the game is quite interesting too...
1:02:11 I was playing again recently and I looked through Magnus's book and discovered a funny detail. The book Magnus relies on to know more about Dwarf culture was written by a human, who has never even spoken to a Dwarf, much less actually gotten to observe their culture.
While it's not classified to most as a traditional crpg and isn't from an isometric point of view, I'd love to hear your take on Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware developed it as sort of a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and I absolutely adore it. I think this also applies to Neverwinter Nights. Might be worth considering for a video in the future.
I'd also love to hear you talk about Diablo 1 and 2 since you've seemed to have spoken negatively about them in this video. Looking forward to the next video!
Totally agree, great game, absolutely a part of this lineage.
Great video, I remember playing this after playing baldurs gate expecting the same experience and was disappointed by the combat system but loved the lore, maybe one day ill go back to it...
I started this game quite a few times, still have the discs, never finished it, absolutely never will. The only person I know who actually did finish it was my friend who forces himself to finish any game he starts in a masochistic sort of fashion.
Man. I ADORED this game in my early 20s.
I've played Arcanum back in 2003-4 when I was around 10yrs old and now that I think of it, it's the first CRPG I've ever played and prolly the reason why I'm into MMORPGs this much
Still having my boxed Copy from back then...still playing it till this day....such a great, underrated RPG...patches and mods keep it alive...
Magnus has a big backstory - he is from the iron clan, where you can also get the best tech armor. Also, his reactions are great :)
This is my all time favorite game.
4:29 I think you meant transistor not capacitor. It was the transistor that started the miniaturization of electronics, and basic electronics requires capacitors.
40:40 That's an interesting point. Iv'e said myself a few times that Episode Seven/Eight/Nine should've taken place a thousand years in the future.
Never got around finishing it. Got stuck at the mines. Had a demon summoning, hand cannon weilding human mage :) no idea if this would have worked long term... I will have to try and revisit this game at some point. Thanks for the retrospective.
I loved this game. Amazing character development options. Tech gunsmith all the way!
Nice review. I know the novelty of such a great usage of multiple solutions to solve a single quest.
Will say you don’t have to micro manage map movement so much. Option 1) zone maps and world maps allow marking plot points your character will walk (up to 5 I think). Option 2) at least tarant, and maybe other areas, have a subway for cheap quick transport within the city.
The former method isn’t clearly shown though and would have been helped a lot from a tool tip.
Look out for the trick of using fast turn based combat in order to move fast when out of battle, if you ever get the itch to reconsider finishing your 2nd playthrough and possibly going for more.
Oh, and don't forget to leave int be if you need it only to use tech blue prints: buy int potions and/or tech books instead, and use them only when you need to craft your blueprinted gear, so that you can keep your character as dumb as possible. (LOL!)
Thanks for your wonderful retrospective series!
Thank you sir! Haven't had time to watch it yet, but here is my like, in advance!
Awesome.
oh goodie, now i know what i'll be watching tonight.
Favprite game of all time for me. I did multiple playthrough as multiple types and found that gunslinger was actually quite easy once you got past the constant need for bulets.
As far as I remember from my Gunslinger walkthrough, you don't really need to max your Gun Smith tree to get an end-game weapon. Blade Launcher chews through bullets 6 at a time (or something like this) so I completely skipped it. You can get a Looking Glass Rifle in Ashbury and you can easily finish the game with it, which I did. I admit it was a bit more powerful in earlier patches, when I played the game. Also, some gun schematics available from questing and exploration, not from the skill tree leveling, so you can find what you like without the need to max the tree.
Tbh, I found the most overpowered build to be a melee fighter with later investment in Temporal magic. You slow your enemies, while at the same times speeding yourself up. I killed the final boss in a single round with this build. :D
Temporal mastery makes pretty much any combat build OP. My favorite was temporal combined with throwing mastery. You get some really powerful unique returning throwing weapons in that game. When you throw haste and tempus fugit up, IIRC you triple your action points per round. While every enemy is halved. Also I don't think the xp is per hit like he said but per damage dealt, so big hits with slow guns still give a lot of xp. Also in my 6-10 playthroughs of the game, never have the end slides bugged out like his did.
There's a guy in Tarrant, I think he's a halfling, who is packing a Hand Cannon. I like to use a fate point to get a critical success on pickpocketing him.
Did you discover the waypoint system for navigating the larger maps? It helps a lot.
Also, Tarrant has a subway system*
Tarant has subway?! OMG... though, I will still be too busy to search every garbage bin instead.
@@dimas3829 you find some good stuff in the bins. Especially if you're going tech build.
Scrounging through bins and being able to assemble a pistol still amuses me.
Your review helped me deal with my CRPG issues. I can only deal with short games like Fallout before getting bored.
for me i just uses cheats or story mode to by pass alot of the combat in crpgs. i really only play rpgs for the story and the world and characters so i really don't care about the combat anyways.
loved this game
Oooh this game! THIS GAME!!!
This is the best of your retrospectives so far, maybe because I've never finished arcanum and so I'm not so biased, also it's been fairly educational. Don't think I'll ever replay arcanum but it's been a good reminiscence.
I'm hoping for a Pillars or D:OS review next. I have a place in my heart for NWN but honestly looking back its probably all nostalgia.
I think I accidentally built a really effective character when I played Arcanum. My main guy was primarily a sword and shield user, which let me deal pretty reliable damage, and I put enough points into charisma that, by the end of the game, I had five companions plus a dog following me around. Mikeoneus the half-elf and his band of merry men carved their way across the world with very little resistance. Hearing about the nightmarish tech and magic trees brings me out in a cold sweat, honestly.
Well it is not hard to make strong character. Like if you go to magic is side you just go around and one shot stuff and have heal. I found that going full tech is one of more fun way to go about playing.
One of my favourite games
One of my favorite character backgrounds is Idiot Savant. You get a good bonus to intelligence for techy classes, but you speak as if you have an INT of 2. It's glorious.
Things don't have to be perfect for us to love them.
Love Arcanum. But, I also agree with pretty much every piece of criticism you had.
Halfling time mage/swordsman is an absolute beast, especially with the filament sword.
Absolutely love this world. And I love the music. This really needs to be remade or have a sequel. Though, sadly it probably wouldn't sell any better than the first one. I just have to contend with the types of games I like aren't real popular anymore. But this video is spot on about the combat. Easily the weakest part of this game. But I do love all the character build options. Your video almost makes me want to re install it and try a throwing build LOL. I never tried things like molotov cocktails.
Ben Houge did an amazing job with the music, especially Isle of Despair. It's beautiful.
Great video, agree on every point you made regarding this (very) flawed gem. I'm just going to state a few observations to help the next person who's interested in playing Arcanum:
1- If you walk the technological path and see a schematic that needs a School in which you have not invested points you DO NOT need to spend your level up points! In Tarant, in a building next to the library, there is a Dwarf who sells disciplines books. These are expensive BUT they increase your proficiency in the discipline for each point in Intelligence (10 points in INT gives you 10 points in the discipline). What's even better is that they stack, so you can basically get to 100 points in a discipline without spending skill points, only money! Be aware that these are also heavy so be careful when journeying with them.
2- XP is gained by dealing damage to an enemy, not by hitting them. The difference is that a more powerful gun that would deal 50 HP on a single shot in a turn would reward you with more XP than 5 shots of a weaker gun that deals 4 HP. I think this also applies to instant death attacks like Disintegrate (Advanced Spell in Energy Mage School), since it deals 100% of the target HP then you would gain both full damage XP and the kill XP.
3- Magic is OP. You can get a staff the minute you walk into Tarant in one of the shops and most of the staves have Mana. Spells use up Mana from your items before spending your Stamina and recharge whenever you rest. In Tulla (a near end level) you have masters of the magic schools. If you have the final level of magic school you can undergo the Master Test from the respective Master Mage which will allow you to cast spells from that school at half the cost, it's basically your ascension to godhood.
4 - Whenever a Stat reaches 20 it gives you a perk. For Constitution your character becomes immune to poison, Charisma makes your allies 100% loyal regardless of your alignment and so on...
5 - There are altars for gods which require an offering. By making offerings you can get bonus to your stats depending on the God you chose to make an offering. You can only get one bonus from an altar at a time unless you follow the Circles of Gods quest
Aww, cute cat! :D
Saying the group didn't agree with the higher ups at Interplay is an understatement.
I wish we could get another game from this world
Oh man I love this game. Can be a bit of a slog, especially for a gunslinger. Started as a gunslinger, but it's like playing in super hard mode. Became much more enjoyable after changing to a melee guy. I also loved many of the characters.
Despite all of its flaws, i adore this game, spent hours with it and was deeply immersed, despite all the bullshit in its mechanics. Would love a remaster or a sequel!
I remember platyng this game junior year of high school, never beat it though.
I've watched this entire series and I only just realized that it has been Peep Show all the way down. I'm proud and disgusted of myself. Keep on.
I’m used to having a high armour class in d&d 5e. I can’t comment on the older editions though. Nice video by the way.
melissa smith yeah they changed that with 3rd edition
low ac only applies to 2nd ed which most of the ie games besides iwd 2 used.
@@megamike15 well 2nd... and first edition
On armor class WotC agreed and from 3rd edition onwards for D&D the higher the better too. You will see when you get to IceWind Dale 2 and Neverwinter Nights
Watching for the inspiration integrating steamworks into high fantasy for Shadow of the Demon Lord
The most depressing part of playing Arcanum for me was seeing glimpses of an amazing game peek through all the jank and bad design. I kept playing in hopes of that game coalescing eventually. But it never did...
Yeah the combat is really bad, also I really dislike the way you level up and how your party members only level when you do, makes getting your ideal party at the right level a pain. Music, the world and some of the dialogue is amazing, the dwarf king giving his opinion on human nature is just a great dialogue.
@@Donbd83 fallout 1 and 2's combat was not any better. to me alot of crpgs become more fun with cheats and become more playable.
"Finally there's Kurgan" who believed it was better to burn out than fade away?
Played arcanum forgot to raise stamina, 1 hit and i was dead ahahah, but this game atmosphere story and possibility to do whatever you want, is fantastic and never forgotten :D
This music depresses my life spirit...
A really wonderful review, but I must say I don't understand how anyone could criticise the UI so much. This is one of the most delightful character creation screens I've ever seen! A simple glance at the manual will instantly dispel any confusion.
It saddens me how simplistic and unimaginative modern games have become. There's no discovery involved anymore, no individuality, no eccentricity. Arcanum's UI will always be a joy to me.
One time, I made a character who used a bunch of electrical weapons. The shocking staff or whatever it's called is brutal, but you'd better be ready to craft assloads of batteries.
this game seems very interesting