Erebus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 4,769
The first time I played Arcanum, it didn't take me long to realize that you could solo the game with only two spells : Harm and Summon Ogre. Harm is cheap, never misses and deals a fair amount of damage. Summoned ogres are very powerful creatures ; two of them can win most fights by themselves, even late in the game.
However, you can certainly play the game and defeat your enemies without the help of those two spells.
After playing for a while, I realized that there was a spell I simply could not play the game without : Teleportation. It doesn't make the game at all easier, but saves the player from the tedious and time-wasting chore of travelling on the World Map. You need but two seconds to go from Tarant to Ashbury, Dernholm, Qintarra or Tulla, instead of long minutes (made even longer because of all the bears, giant spiders and wolves you'll have to fight). I'm pretty sure having Teleportation deduces at least one or two hours (if not more) from the time you need to complete the game.
It was only recently that I realized what the other essential spell was : Invisibility. Much like Teleportation spares you the time you would have wasted travelling on the World Map, Invisibility spares you the time you would have wasted fighting monsters in dungeons. And Arcanum's dungeons are pretty fucking horrible ! Most of them are the equivalent of a corridor, with the entrance at one end and your goal at the other. Between these two points are scores of monsters whose only purpose in life is to annoy you and a few chests offering cheap rewards. Aside from the godawful Pool of Radiance 2, I simply cannot think of a CRPG with worse dungeon designing than Arcanum.
So the two essential spells (and the two reasons I'll never try to play a technological character) in Arcanum are Teleportation and Invisibility. The fact that their use is mainly to spare you a lot of boredom says a lot about the highly flawed gem that is this game.
However, you can certainly play the game and defeat your enemies without the help of those two spells.
After playing for a while, I realized that there was a spell I simply could not play the game without : Teleportation. It doesn't make the game at all easier, but saves the player from the tedious and time-wasting chore of travelling on the World Map. You need but two seconds to go from Tarant to Ashbury, Dernholm, Qintarra or Tulla, instead of long minutes (made even longer because of all the bears, giant spiders and wolves you'll have to fight). I'm pretty sure having Teleportation deduces at least one or two hours (if not more) from the time you need to complete the game.
It was only recently that I realized what the other essential spell was : Invisibility. Much like Teleportation spares you the time you would have wasted travelling on the World Map, Invisibility spares you the time you would have wasted fighting monsters in dungeons. And Arcanum's dungeons are pretty fucking horrible ! Most of them are the equivalent of a corridor, with the entrance at one end and your goal at the other. Between these two points are scores of monsters whose only purpose in life is to annoy you and a few chests offering cheap rewards. Aside from the godawful Pool of Radiance 2, I simply cannot think of a CRPG with worse dungeon designing than Arcanum.
So the two essential spells (and the two reasons I'll never try to play a technological character) in Arcanum are Teleportation and Invisibility. The fact that their use is mainly to spare you a lot of boredom says a lot about the highly flawed gem that is this game.
