Arx Fatalis

Made by Arkane Studios, Arx Fatalis is a first person Western RPG that was intended as a Spiritual Successor to the Ultima Underworld series, and has become somewhat of a Cult Classic.

Your character wakes up in a prison with amnesia, and soon finds out (unless you watched the intro, then you alreddy know) he is in a world where the sun has burned out and various different races (through a rare moment of cooperation) have been forced to move into underground Dwarven tunnels and rebuild. After escaping, the Human player character heads for the now-underground Human Kingdom of Arx Fatalis in hope of finding his purpose.

The gameplay itself is very free-roaming after the initial tutorial sections, and many sections can be solved in different ways depending on the specialty skills the player has chosen. A notable feature is the magic system, which requires the player to cast spells by making various mouse gestures.


 * Advancing Boss of Doom:.
 * All Just a Dream:
 * Amnesiac Hero
 * Apocalypse How: A bit of a strange example as, while the sun burning out has caused somewhat of an apocalypse, most have survived it. Also.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Lightning Bolt and Slow Time.
 * Awesome Yet Practical: A Fireball and Speed spells.
 * Bad with the Bone. Guess what is Am Shaegar's first weapon.
 * Baleful Polymorph: Lord Inut.
 * Bandit Mook: Ratmen can steal your money diring a fight.
 * BFS:  A lessser one is Giant Slayer blade. They, however, require a great strength to use.
 * Bling Bling Bang. Nastily subverted.
 * Body Horror:
 * Bonus Boss: a hidden spell summons (which one depends on Random Number God) either a huge lightning-fast rat or a warrior demoness with BFS who has enemies' powers combined and is nearly impossible to kill.
 * Bonus Dungeon: The lowest parts of the crypts, although going there is essential to.
 * Boring but Practical: Harm, Poison cloud, Repel Undead, any weapon enchanted with Paralyse.
 * Breakable Weapons:  Evrything you hit will erode your weapon, and somewhere far from civilisation it may become an issue. You can repair it yourself (generally bad idea), pay to the blacksmith or enchant it with a special item to make it undesrtuctible.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Kultar, your fellow prisoner from the very beginning of the game, returns to save you near the end if you help him.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: At some of the lower levels, you can stay near lava safely as long as you don't touch it.
 * Deal with the Devil:
 * Deadpan Snarker: The dragon.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
 * Difficult but Awesome. Drawing runes with the mouse to cast spells requires practice (especially in combat), but looks magnificent.
 * Disc One Nuke.
 * Damsel in Distress: Alia, though only episodically, and Shany.
 * Drop in Nemesis.  Also, see Karmic Death below.
 * Dug Too Deep:
 * Eldritch Abomination:
 * Enemy Summoner: Iserbius loves summoning the demons, and Liches sometimes spawn zombies.
 * Energy Being:.
 * Everything Fades: Mostly averted but played straight with Ylsides, who explode after death so you can't loot their awesome armor.
 * Fake Skill / Fake Difficulty / Acceptable Breaks From Reality: Lampshaded beautifully and justified by the dragon, who goes on a speech about this being PC's powers and limitations due to him being a . According to dragon, what we see as Save Scumming is some Time Travel realted power which allows the  to foresee potentionally dangerous situations.
 * Feigning Intelligence: Goblins. All goblins, everytime. And it's charming.
 * Functional Magic: There's hints that magic is the main reason the races were able to continue surviving after the sun went out.
 * Good Bad Bugs: Some of the players experience a rather unusual bug where the protagonist's movement speed appears to depend on the framerate, which is not capped. On top of that, speed is the only thing affected in this manner. This makes fighting in narrow tunnels (and navigating them, which is one of the larger parts of the gameplay) less tedious than it generally is, although players with high-end rigs complain that sometimes they come close to breaking the sound barrier.
 * Good Is Not Nice: It isn't stated anywhere that a  can't rob a bank (howewer, it's owner and especially his fiancee can count as Asshole Victim). Or simply loot everything that isn't nailed down or on fire (and if it is, you have a pickaxe and Douse spell).
 * Guide Dang It: Some of the actions you must make to progress have incredibly vague hints, or almost none at all.
 * Grid Inventory / Inventory Management Puzzle
 * Implacable Man:
 * Infant Immortality: Averted if you fail a certain side quest.
 * Infinity+1 Sword:
 * Infinity-1 Sword:
 * Interface Screw: A Paralyse is a major one if casted on you. Even cursor is paralysed.
 * Item Crafting
 * Jump Physics: Really awkward, on the verge of Good Bad Bugs. You can somehow move twice faster by bunny-hopping and negate all falling damage by jumping off the ledge rather than walkking off it, but there is a dreaded jump-puzzle involving tiny platforms and lava...
 * Karl Marx Hates Your Guts. Subverted twice: At the beginning, goblins don't trade jewels because trolls, who do the mining work, went on strike. So, you can buy cheap "goblin mine" stock certificates, then improve the situation with mines yourself and sell them back at double cost as their prise rises. Later, if you bring a book about commerce and finance to a troll king, he'll screw the goblins and sale jewels himself, and you, as friend of trolls, will have a HUGE discount. Otherwise played stright. Also subverted if you have high Intuition, but it's complrtrly useless in any other situation.
 * Karmic Death:
 * Kill It with Fire: Fireball / Incinerate woks wonders with Ylsides, as well with everything else . Mummies are especially sensetive to fire.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Pretty much every tough enemy ( and player himself with Speed and the Ultimate Weapon). Ylside (well, at least until their Speed spell empties their mana bar), a dragon, summonable Demon Rat and Demoness Warrior and, the worst,
 * Magic Knight: Even playing a character with a heavy focus on melee and Rogue skills, magic is still frequently essential to solving puzzles and fighting certain enemies.
 * Mama Bear / Papa Wolf. The dragon, exact gender unknown. Subverted as it can sell one his egg to the PC. Double subverted as it knows it's nesessary for saving the world and at least wants a compensation for such a sacrifice.
 * Meaningful Name: Lord Inut, obsessed with chickens to the degree of insanity, and Falan Orbiplanax, the astronomer.
 * Mighty Glacier:
 * Multiple Endings: While the main ending is the same, a few sidequests have a major influence on the resolution of one of the central plot-lines of the game.
 * Nobody Poops: Averted. Alotar, the king of goblins, shouldn't drink wine, as his stomack can't hold it. So, in order to get him out of his locked trone room, you douse his dinner with wine, and Hilarity Ensues.
 * Another poor goblin apparently ate too much rotten fish today...
 * No Name Given: PC's (nick)name, Am Shaegar, literally means "the nameless one".
 * Pound of Flesh Twist:
 * Power Glows: Enchanted weapons.
 * Powered Armor: A magical example, strength-boosting Ylside armor.
 * Puzzle Boss:.
 * The Reveal:
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: Rats. And Ratmen. And, good god, the summonable demon rat.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: King Lunshire is skilled in diplomacy and managed to save the most of his (if not the worlds) people by convincing all races, even those who were mortal enemies, to join forces for common survival. His father, Poxsellis, was a great warrior who combined splitted domains (whose lords he defeated in Combat by Champion) into the kingdom of Arx.
 * Schmuck Bait: On 4th level you find a trail lined up of gold pieces. It leads you to a chest where goblin's voices can be heard. Of course, you open the chest, and three goblins attack you.
 * Shaky POV Cam:.
 * Shoulders of Doom: Ylside armor.
 * Significant Anagram:.
 * Slasher Smile:
 * Spontaneous Human Combustion: An Incinerate Spell works this way.
 * Stone Wall. An interesting case is that it can be played Up to Eleven. If you pump every point into defence, you will efficiently and very quickly become Nigh Invulnerable.
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Incinerate and Mass Incinerate spells.
 * Turned Against Their Masters: from all things you can summon, only the chicken won't attack you at first glance.
 * Ultimate Blacksmith: Dwarwes..
 * Underground Level: The entire game, for obvious reasons.
 * The Unintelligible: The Ratmen.
 * Useless Useful Spell: Life Drain. It will deplete your mana meter in seconds and works only in very small radius (roughly ONE step). You surely do not want to get that close to stronger enemies as they deal more damage than the spell heals, and weaker ones are pretty well killed without it.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * What the Hell, Hero?:  ghost is really and rightfully pissed at you for busting his grave and stealing his helmet.
 * Wizard Needs Food Badly: You have to eat occasionally to not starve, but there's more than enough food for it to not become an issue.
 * What the Hell, Hero?:  ghost is really and rightfully pissed at you for busting his grave and stealing his helmet.
 * Wizard Needs Food Badly: You have to eat occasionally to not starve, but there's more than enough food for it to not become an issue.
 * Wizard Needs Food Badly: You have to eat occasionally to not starve, but there's more than enough food for it to not become an issue.