Child of Malkav
Erudite
I know, I'm a bit late to the party, but damn it my love of immersive sims just couldn't let me pass this one up.
I got the GOG version plus Arx Libertatis.
So, my thoughts: pretty good game. However, to say that it aged poorly is a massive understatement.
Anyway, on to...
The good: interesting story and setting, interaction between environment and items is really cool, switching from navigation to inventory and interaction mode is awesome (probably my favorite part, you don't go through a bazillion menus, it just opens up a small window at the bottom and can interact with the items really easy, wish more games implemented this), the spell casting system where you draw the symbols (however this is also a negative), you can pull some cool stuff with spells, use telekinesis through the bars to activate levers, steal one of the eggs, levitate let's you fly around, you can turn invisible (really helps with pickpocketing or just speedrunning through some areas), you can destroy some doors, steal merchant inventory, especially runes etc. And various other combos. Typical immersive sim stuff.
And now on to ...
The bad: Since I played a mage I'm going to start with the spell casting (the combat is really bad, going for mage is kind of natural). It's cool, interesting at first but it has issues. When I had to draw the G rune (forgot it's name), or the 2 rune (needed for telekinesis) or Taar rune (needed for projectiles) it just wouldn't register. Regarding Taar it was a nightmare, it either registered as movis or something else no matter how well I drew them (and I did draw them a lot). A workaround for this was just save and quit and re-enter the game. That seemed to solve the issue. The combination of spells can be found in the spell book and I wished I could just cast them from there, maybe at a higher cost or something. It really becomes tiring near the end of the game especially when encountering tougher enemies.
Overall the system I cool, I got what they tried to do but honestly, if a system like this isn't working flawlessly I hope I won't see it in a future title. It's too frustrating when it doesn't work as intended.
Fireball and Harm really are the best damage spells. I invested only in the Mental stat, went for casting at 100, object knowledge at 80 and technical at 100. Finished at level 8. Probably could have gotten to 9. Ylsides went down with 1 fireball at close range, demon went down to a stack of 4 Harms as well as the final boss.
Regarding the story, I payed attention to every cutscene, read, stole every note and book and I still had to consult 2 walkthroughs because I sequence broke some stuff. For example, I got in the storage of level 6 Sisters and they attacked me. So I killed them. All of them. Explored the thingy, got one of the rings, found out I really wasn't supposed to do that (killing them that is). Later on, when I needed to speak with them I couldn't since they were dead. I also couldn't inform the chick back at the castle of this heroic deed so that maybe she could tell me where to go next. Eventually I got taken by the rebels, explored their area, couldn't get out, went to explore some highly protected zone, went invisible, found the other ring, went back out, everyone and their mother wanted to kill me so I just harmed my way out of it. Eventually found a key that I could use to get out. There was something about a shield that I was supposed to find. Then I found out that I shouldn't have killed the rebels (extra xp and stuff). Got a feeling of deja-vu. Went to the king, couldn't tell him the rebels were dead. I thought he hated them. Whatever, explored levels 7 and 8, ran from the beast, went down a ladder in a cavernous room and the creature followed me down there, did some Benny Hill levels of trolling, climbed the ladder and beast couldn't and it remained there with me free to explore the rest of the level.
Didn't know what to do with the Akbaa stones, I remembered the Ylside Outpost, went there to a room with 5 pedestals, I figured that they would fit and they did, however I still needed one more, searched the whole place, consulted the walkthrough and it said that the priest who attacks you before entering the Outpost has it. Wtf? Most of the time those priests didn't have anything of note on them so I stopped checking their corpses only to find out the last important item on one of them.
And others. Obscure as fuck.
Puzzles in general weren't tough. In the Sisters Outpost where you look through the globe and see a lever, it basically shows you the order in which to pull them but they all look the same so I just dropped items in front of each lever and everytime I looked through the globe I saw the item there and yeah, easy.
What I liked the most though was the premise. The Sun died, humans went underground. Maybe Arx 2 could be about humans returning to the surface in small numbers, setting up villages, cities, in a Fallout like wasteland. Anyway, a lot of potential.
Started a new playthrough to experiment with some other stuff.
I got the GOG version plus Arx Libertatis.
So, my thoughts: pretty good game. However, to say that it aged poorly is a massive understatement.
Anyway, on to...
The good: interesting story and setting, interaction between environment and items is really cool, switching from navigation to inventory and interaction mode is awesome (probably my favorite part, you don't go through a bazillion menus, it just opens up a small window at the bottom and can interact with the items really easy, wish more games implemented this), the spell casting system where you draw the symbols (however this is also a negative), you can pull some cool stuff with spells, use telekinesis through the bars to activate levers, steal one of the eggs, levitate let's you fly around, you can turn invisible (really helps with pickpocketing or just speedrunning through some areas), you can destroy some doors, steal merchant inventory, especially runes etc. And various other combos. Typical immersive sim stuff.
And now on to ...
The bad: Since I played a mage I'm going to start with the spell casting (the combat is really bad, going for mage is kind of natural). It's cool, interesting at first but it has issues. When I had to draw the G rune (forgot it's name), or the 2 rune (needed for telekinesis) or Taar rune (needed for projectiles) it just wouldn't register. Regarding Taar it was a nightmare, it either registered as movis or something else no matter how well I drew them (and I did draw them a lot). A workaround for this was just save and quit and re-enter the game. That seemed to solve the issue. The combination of spells can be found in the spell book and I wished I could just cast them from there, maybe at a higher cost or something. It really becomes tiring near the end of the game especially when encountering tougher enemies.
Overall the system I cool, I got what they tried to do but honestly, if a system like this isn't working flawlessly I hope I won't see it in a future title. It's too frustrating when it doesn't work as intended.
Fireball and Harm really are the best damage spells. I invested only in the Mental stat, went for casting at 100, object knowledge at 80 and technical at 100. Finished at level 8. Probably could have gotten to 9. Ylsides went down with 1 fireball at close range, demon went down to a stack of 4 Harms as well as the final boss.
Regarding the story, I payed attention to every cutscene, read, stole every note and book and I still had to consult 2 walkthroughs because I sequence broke some stuff. For example, I got in the storage of level 6 Sisters and they attacked me. So I killed them. All of them. Explored the thingy, got one of the rings, found out I really wasn't supposed to do that (killing them that is). Later on, when I needed to speak with them I couldn't since they were dead. I also couldn't inform the chick back at the castle of this heroic deed so that maybe she could tell me where to go next. Eventually I got taken by the rebels, explored their area, couldn't get out, went to explore some highly protected zone, went invisible, found the other ring, went back out, everyone and their mother wanted to kill me so I just harmed my way out of it. Eventually found a key that I could use to get out. There was something about a shield that I was supposed to find. Then I found out that I shouldn't have killed the rebels (extra xp and stuff). Got a feeling of deja-vu. Went to the king, couldn't tell him the rebels were dead. I thought he hated them. Whatever, explored levels 7 and 8, ran from the beast, went down a ladder in a cavernous room and the creature followed me down there, did some Benny Hill levels of trolling, climbed the ladder and beast couldn't and it remained there with me free to explore the rest of the level.
Didn't know what to do with the Akbaa stones, I remembered the Ylside Outpost, went there to a room with 5 pedestals, I figured that they would fit and they did, however I still needed one more, searched the whole place, consulted the walkthrough and it said that the priest who attacks you before entering the Outpost has it. Wtf? Most of the time those priests didn't have anything of note on them so I stopped checking their corpses only to find out the last important item on one of them.
And others. Obscure as fuck.
Puzzles in general weren't tough. In the Sisters Outpost where you look through the globe and see a lever, it basically shows you the order in which to pull them but they all look the same so I just dropped items in front of each lever and everytime I looked through the globe I saw the item there and yeah, easy.
What I liked the most though was the premise. The Sun died, humans went underground. Maybe Arx 2 could be about humans returning to the surface in small numbers, setting up villages, cities, in a Fallout like wasteland. Anyway, a lot of potential.
Started a new playthrough to experiment with some other stuff.