Arcanum Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, the real Fallout 3. This extraordinary game was created by many of the same devs who created Fallout and worked at Interplay. Set in a world that was once ruled by magick, that was run and controlled by magick, is now being opposed and replaced by technology and industrialization. Technology and Magick are polar opposites in this world, so greatly so, that people that become greatly attuned to one, become entirely separated and even allergic to the other. This creates a major rift in society on Arcanum with some cities being ruled by technology, others by Magick. This also has a major effect on the player and in the gameplay mechanics as well. For if you are too Technology attuned, then spells will not affect you, neither can you cast them yourself. You even can not enter a Magick equipment selling shop, as the shop keeper will yell at you to get out, because your Technology attunement is interfering with their magickal equipment. The opposite of all of this is true for a Magickally attuned character when interacting with Technology as well of course.
This also adds an extra layer to the character creation process, by having to decide if you want to be highly Magick aligned, Technology aligned, or stay in the middle. This attunement will change over the course of the game depending on your choices on your character sheet. If you want to learn a new spell, that will shift you toward Magick, you want to learn a new skill like crafting or lockpicking, that will shift you toward technology. While you can stay in the middle and use both types of attunement, it is advised to stick with one, because the power of your skills in either Technology or Magick, scales with your level of aptitude. So if you have low Magick, your spells won't be as effective, for example.
The world building and lore of Arcanum is also outstanding and very fun to read. Unlike some games, you aren’t given lore dumps or massive walls of text from NPCs unless you specifically ask about it, and even then I found it incredibly rare. Most of the worldbuilding is told to you organically as you talk to people and complete quests. You'll get involved with political struggles, and talk to rulers and kings, hear gossip and rumors on the streets. You can see the varying architecture from each city and location. This will all convey the background and lore to you in an interesting way that feels natural and doesn’t bog down the pacing. There are also plenty of books, altars, and other literature to read that give you much more in depth writings on the history of Arcanum that you can read if you are interested. The story as well, while a little tropey, is really good because of all the interesting characters you meet, and locations you’ll go to, and just the way you interact with the story based on the character you build, and the choices you make. I don’t want to go into spoilers, but I found it very enjoyable and much better than some other RPGs like Pillars of Eternity 2, or Fallout 2.

The game however, is not all perfect. Arcanum released in a very buggy state so you will probably have to install the unofficial patch which will fix most of the bugs. I played with the unofficial patch and didn’t run into any bugs personally. Then there is the combat. It is split between two different modes, real-time and turn-based, that you can switch between when you want with the space bar. It is best to stay in turn-based mode most of the time however, because the combat can get very fast and chaotic. It is clear that the game was designed around turn-based, and real-time was added after because the balance becomes broken in real-time mode. For example if you play as a mage, you can cast spells as fast as you can click the mouse button with no cool down or anything to stop you other than your fatigue which really trivializes combat encounters. I do appreciate being able to switch between the two modes, however, because there can be a lot of trash mob fights such as when you're traveling the world map or just in general, so being able to switch over to real-time and quickly clear out the enemies is nice. A better solution however, would be to only have turn-based combat, and add an option to speed up the animations so each turn goes by quicker. That way you don’t break the balancing of the game and can also speed through fights. The combat itself however, even in turn based mode is not as fun as it could be. For perspective, I played as a mage type character. So I only used spells in combat and had a party of 5 companions with me, 6 by the end, to keep the enemies away from me and to dish out most of the damage. The combat as a mage, really just boiled down to casting the harm spell over and over because the damage it does scales up really high with your magickal aptitude and remains powerful all the way to the end of the game. There are a lot of other utility and buffing spells to use as well but aside from the occasional healing spell, I didn’t have to do anything else in combat really. I played on the moderate difficulty setting and found that after a certain point, when my companions had decent gear and my magickal aptitude reached about the halfway point, the game really wasn't a challenge anymore. The only thing stopping my mage from ultimate destruction was my fatigue, which despite it reaching around 160 by the end, still managed to drain fast in combat. Fatigue is one of the most important resources in combat. Fatigue is used to cast spells, attack enemies, and is sometimes drained when enemies hit you. If your fatigue reaches zero or below, then you pass out. It is an interesting mechanic and I wouldn’t mind it, however the one annoyance I have is the only way to regain fatigue is to either use a consumable, rest, or stand there and wait for it to slowly refill. So if your in the middle of a long dungeon, and you run out of fatigue, and you don’t have any consumables, then you either stand there and wait for like 5 mins or you trek all the way back out of the dungeon so you can rest, then make your way all the way back to where you left off in the dungeon, to continue on. It does get a little annoying, however if you are playing as a Technology attuned character that can craft fatigue refilling consumables then you probably won’t run into this problem. As a mage character however, it happens frequently.
Despite these problems, Arcanum is still an outstanding game and one of the best RPGs. The level of depth that the character creation has and the choices that you can make that will dramatically affect your playthrough is matched by almost no other, except for Troika’s Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. The world of Arcanum they made is so fascinating and there is so much more to explore, it's a shame there will never be an Arcanum 2. Still this game is an amazing experience that feels like a proper continuation to Fallout in gameplay systems, progression, choice, and rich world building.

A great CRPG. While it lets you play the hero and save Arcanum, you're reminded at times there are things you really can't fix. The only complaint I'd have is the abundance of bugs you can run into and at times the dungeons feels a bit too large.

peak, yes