Does it hold up in the big '25?

First half of the game is great, or can be if you're in the right state of mind. The combat is wonky, some of the weapons are garbage, typical old game bugginess, but otherwise, very comfy until you get to the elves, where it kind of falls off a bit. Its mostly just because you get to a point where your character and your companions wreck everything and it loses a lot of the challenge... depending on your build though I suppose. Its worth a play if you like similar isometric games.

>>3771000
I'm doing a FO run and thinking about playing this next (already played FO2). Any builds I should steer clear from? I want charisma but don't want a massive army to roll the game, like I've heard you and others talk about

>>3771060
magic>>>>>>>>>>>tech
second major dungeon in this game is also a pure build filter where you fight level 30 golems when you are like level 10 because BALANCE so plan for it
>I want charisma
every interaction exept the final boss dialog is dependant on speech rather than cha, so don't for get to level that too else you fail every speech check even with max cha
it does influence how big your party size is (cha/4 rounded down) so aim for thresholds
>I'm doing a FO run
you will feel right at home, arcanum is basicaly original fallout exept with magic
>Any builds I should steer clear from?
you will have a bad time with tech, the crafting system is meh, you can buy all the items from shops anyway and on top of that, once you are spect too deep into tech all magic items INCLUDING potions won't work anymore, you also get huge magic resistance in general but that won't matter because there are like two enemies in the game that actualy use magic against you
if you want to use guns, just steal them with fait points and don't go too deep the magic path or else they malfunction
they are not great anyway, magic bows can legit outdamage them even without all the crazy buffs you can give yourself as mage
>more like arcanum:of hot air and magic overpowera

>>3771060
Mostly what the other anon said. I would throw in melee builds as well. Either up front swordsman or a backstabby rogue. Both can be very fun. You can do tech builds with it, but magic is a lot easier and probably more rewarding, there are a lot of magic items to find and use.
One of my favorite parties is running half ogre with high strength and then getting the half ogre companions.

>>3771263
yeah, max dex rouge backstabber with spees dagger is utterly broken, you can turn on turn based mode, go into a room, backstab everone within a nanosecond and go away before anyone can do anything

also you can tame a wild animal, bring it into the city, cast enrage so it attacks anyone and heal it till it killed a guy, compleatly guilt free

>>3770996 (OP)
It didn't hold up even on release.

>>3771060
Arcanum is one of the best rpgs ever made. All three of the games troika produced where stellar.

Spec into spellsword. It's op. You can fast travel easily so don't have to deal with the tedious world map travel. And the level 1 harm spell is ludicrously strong. You'll be using it the entire game to wreck shit. Play on active time not turn based. The turn based combat is slow and shitty. Active time is kinda janky but is much faster

Also don't kill that npc in dernholm because you want their kick ass sword. You'll miss out on a big quest line if you do.

>>3770996 (OP)
what are best companions and where to get them? no spoilers

>>3771258

tech is good and he can craft his own super OP potions for free

>>3771060
Nigger, FO is like 7 hours long, why are talking about it as if beating the game is a big achievement?

>>3772866
>talking about as if beating the game is a big achievement?
nta but he literally doesn't
you made that up and now you are malding over something that you've made up and is not real

>>3772898
>malding
I hope you don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

>>3770996 (OP)
>Does it hold up in the big '25?
It never did. You either accept all the problems it has to enjoy the good parts or you don't even play it.

>>3772904
>he hopes
in vain
using a word you dislike doesn't mean much
on the other hand being a retarded retard who is battling windmills he has mistaken for giants is just pathetic

Tbh turn based mode is serviceable, its slightly worse than F1/2 but not by much.

it's an extremely good game in a clunky engine.

I tried replaying it in ‘23 or ‘24, for the first time since it was new, and it did not hold up at well at all. Neither did fallout 1 and 2.

>>3770996 (OP)
Kill gnomes, roundhouse kick gnomes, crucify Warwick Davis.

i wanna play it but it doesn't have a achievements maybe if they remaster it

>>3773932
6/10 bait

>>3770996 (OP)
Play it yourself and then form your own opinion. Maybe even share that opinion afterwards.

>>3771258
Crafting is alright when you buy schematics and use books from the university. Electro plate armor and shield, pyro axe, machined gauntlets and play as half ogre or escaped lunatic and you can max out your damage resist and armor class. The main issue is that healing is a bitch compared to magic

Who world built this anyway?
Gunpowder is LITERALLY alchemy. Oh but not in Arcanum. In this game you either understand Chemistry and how gravity works OR you can drink a potion and it works.

I'm seeing this game getting shilled a lot recently, is it getting a remaster or something?

the fan patch/mod/whatever makes this game almost reach its potential

>>3771000
>you get to a point where your character and your companions wreck everything
Can confirm. Starting off any wild animal encounter was a life or death crisis. Near the endgame my guy and his party were a gang of anime heroes in their last season.

Arcanum was always mid

>>3771258
>>3771060
AFAIK FireAxs for tech build is fine. you just need to find the blueprints.
but before you get that, you might as be a brainless melee fighter.

tech pistols are crap though. might as well be a thrower for infinite "ammo", or magic archer for better damage.

>>3774268
>Electro plate armor

yeah, tech armor seems fine too. but not as easy as just hoarding money and buying randomy magic armor from a store... or stealing them.

Charisma > Magic & Tech

All you scrubs arguing about which is best while my gang of 10 motherfucker will pummel anything I meet in 5s of real time.

>>3774463
Isn't that how it is for any game?

>>3774286
Alchemy is a spiritual pursuit, anon. It has nothing to do with literal gunpowder.

>>3770996 (OP)
What's the spiritual successor

>>3770996 (OP)
No, the gameplay sucks ass. Would probably be more fun as a visual novel with fake dice rolls like Disco Elysium.

>>3771060
Charisma builds aren't really a thing like in Fallout 2. You basically just have the standard 10 dex build with small variations depending on what weapon type you want to use. Companions are a bonus rather than something that can carry you through every combat encounter.

>>3772564
There are a ton of companions in the game, and all of them can be good once leveled up. Just keep in mind that tech is weaker until end game. Magic based companions will do fine. Virgil is actually one of the best companions in the game and you get him right at the start. His healing magic is great to have, and he has some of the best story.

>>3772564
>>3774991
And actually, just to be specific, its guns that are weak until end game. There are actually a lot of really good tech melee weapons in the early game that will utterly faceroll the game, so it depends. Dwarf hit squad is almost as fun as ogre hit squad. The only downside is that dwarfs are so damn slow.

>>3770996 (OP)
The setting is cool. The gameplay is ass. It was bad on release and only got worse

>>3770996 (OP)
It had too many issues for me to get invested and time has mostly made that worse. It reminds me a lot of more modern games where it feels like the game actively wants me to not play it.

>>3770996 (OP)
Story/setting is really cool
(((Publishers))) ruined it by forcing real time combat in at the last minute... fucking gnomes.
I'd love to see an enhanced edition that rebalances it but I know that's not happening without massive censorship of certain aspects of the setting
Still worth playing if you can get over the combat being a bit of a mess. Maybe do a charisma playthrough and just steamroll through with an army and haste and high dex

>>3771274
This!

>>3770996 (OP)
Absolutely. UAP is required, but I also recommend the Arcanum Improved Descriptions mod which in addition to item descriptions actually adds a ton of useful character sheet descriptions and will save you having a bunch of wiki tabs on how each skill/spell etc, works. I actually think Arcanum is far superior version of the classic Fallout style of game and have been appreciating it more than ever on this recent playthrough

>>3770996 (OP)
Still better than most games released in the past 25 years.

>>3774779
>companions are a bonus rather than something that can carry you through every combat encounter.

you can kind of need 1 or 2 of them for healing, unless you learned magic healing yourself or learn crafting for more techy builds.