Arx’s physical combat may be nothing special due to its similarities to many older PC titles and the great Morrowind, however the spell casting system within Arx is rather unique. To begin with players must find runes scattered throughout the Arx Fatalis world. Once they find particular runes, they will learn spells which require the use of the directional combos etched within the runes. When bringing up the inventory menu, players can examine the runes. Once a spell is discovered it will take the combination of the proper runes to pull this off. In order to do this players will press X then enter the combinations quickly. Once a rune combination is entered it will appear in the top right corner of the screen. After all the runes are entered correctly, players can either cast the spell, or set it to “precast” for later use. While the system is definitely tedious, fans of the magical fantasy aspects of gaming will appreciate the control they have over their spell casting. Not being a huge fan of the magical side of fantasy games, I found this rather enjoyable, and after getting combinations down, it wasn’t much of a bother at all.