Arcanum - Review

Ye Old Entertainment reviews Arcanum.

Arcanum review: How does it compare to heavy hitters like Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment?

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Well time to repeat myself… wish someone would remake or remaster the game in a new engine. As the game needs a facelift instead of the HD mod available to download.

It doesn't really compare to games like BG2 or PS:T. It's apples and oranges.

Great game though. The setting Troika created was amazing. I just wish the combat had been better. I'd love to see some kind of official enhanced edition with improved combat and balancing.

Troika didn't make bad games, full stop. Sure, they might have had few bugs, what game doesn't, yet they were awesome when released and most are just as good today as they were back then. Put me on the list to snag any and all of these, especially Arcanum, if a real remaster ever comes along!

I think in my online travels I've heard more good things said about Arcanum than any other RPG short of Baldur's Gate 2..
why not some sort of Kickstarter for this classic?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Well time to repeat myself… wish someone would remake or remaster the game in a new engine. As the game needs a facelift instead of the HD mod available to download.

I 100% agree. I've written beamdog (as I think they've done a good job on the BG enhanced editions) suggesting they pickup Arcanum and also ToEE, but never received a response.

Last I heard, the IP is owned by Activision who acquired it when Sierra went defunct. With that being the case, we probably shouldn't hold our breath for a rerelease anytime soon.

It's all in the records, indeed. Game & documents, then when Sierra changed name, and later when it was revived by Activision.

That's the drawback of IP protection.

I suggested this one to Beamdog in person on more than one occasion, I'd love to see the lads delve into this one!!

I wish I lived in a parallel dimension where Troika (instead of going bankrupt) acquired the Fallout IP instead of Bethesda and proceeded to release (good) Fallout 3 and 4, Arcanum 2: Journey to the Center of Arcanum, and perhaps another D&D game with ToEE combat but better quests & story…

In this dimension, I'd settle for a decent Arcanum spiritual successor.

Originally Posted by Warmark
I think in my online travels I've heard more good things said about Arcanum than any other RPG short of Baldur's Gate 2..
why not some sort of Kickstarter for this classic?

to do what?

You don't need Beamdog. You can already play Arcanum and there are high resolution patches for it.

Yeah those so called High resolution patches just stretch the screen. They don't update the engine, graphics, and font size. So don't settle when you can have better.

I'm not belittling the mod or the mod maker but it feels like putting lipstick on a pig.

Originally Posted by daveyd
I wish I lived in a parallel dimension where Troika (instead of going bankrupt) acquired the Fallout IP instead of Bethesda and proceeded to release (good) Fallout 3 and 4, Arcanum 2: Journey to the Center of Arcanum, and perhaps another D&D game with ToEE combat but better quests & story…

In this dimension, I'd settle for a decent Arcanum spiritual successor.

Amen to that. To bad Bloodlines flopped also, as that was the game that bankrupted the developer in the end. If I recall ToEE didn't sell well either. Only Arcanum sold well.

Anyway rumor is Inexile is working on a Steampunk RPG but it's not TB or isometric.

If you use the widescreen patch, which I think is included in the Unofficial Arcanum Patch, you can play at any resolution, and it looks fine.

The only problem is that everything gets really tiny if you go too high. When I played through it a few years back, I ended up just staying at 1024x768 or maybe even 800x600 because I got tired of straining my eyes at higher resolutions.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Yeah those so called High resolution patches just stretch the screen. They don't update the engine, graphics, and font size. So don't settle when you can have better.

That's just flat out untrue.

Originally Posted by JDR13
If you use the widescreen patch, which I think is included in the Unofficial Arcanum Patch, you can play at any resolution, and it looks fine.

The only problem is that everything gets really tiny if you go too high. When I played through it a few years back, I ended up just staying at 1024x768 or maybe even 800x600 because I got tired of straining my eyes at higher resolutions.

It's been too long since I last played Arcanum to remember what resolution I played at, but the screenshots on this page seem to me to look good and readable up through at least 1680x1050.

https://terra-arcanum.com/drog/highres.html#1680x1050

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
It's been too long since I last played Arcanum to remember what resolution I played at, but the screenshots on this page seem to me to look good and readable up through at least 1680x1050.

https://terra-arcanum.com/drog/highres.html#1680x1050

I can't access that link. Malwarebytes is blocking it and telling me there's a trojan there.

Anyways, I play on a 24" monitor and found anything higher than 1024x768 too zoomed out for my taste. It's a common issue with those older 2D games where the aspect ratio doesn't scale when you up the resolution.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I can't access that link. Malwarebytes is blocking it and telling me there's a trojan there.

Oh, sorry about that. I have Malwarebytes installed myself and don't get any warnings from that page.

To create a brand new game in the Arcanum universe, that's pretty basic in concept if not in practice…