Morrowind, with its complexity and alien nature is one of my favourite games of all time. It's a truly alien environment, with amazing worldbuilding; an interesting, layered main quest, and a half-naked, drugged up questgiver to set you on your way.
Oblivion has none of that. No, this is the alien-pretending-to-be-normal-human turned into a video game. Its janky conversations, weird physics, awful difficulty balancing and strange quests leave little to be desired, if what you're after is a fever dream of barely-epic proportions.
But, it was my first Elder Scrolls. I picked it up in 2012 on my trip to America, for my region-free, slim as can be, Playstation 3. I had no clue what I was doing. I'd played RPGs before, but they were usually much more linear, much more Japanese, and much more Pokemon-filled.
This was something new, even in 2012. The world was beautiful. That bloom was blooming. The soundtrack was, and still is, utterly unique. Dungeons sucked.
I ran around, found a bunch of priests praying at an altar in the woods, and was amazed that the game let me hunt them down. The world is truly your oyster. A rather generic-looking oyster, to be clear.
I think people going back and playing it for the first time now will find little to be impressed by. To them I say, you had to be there, somewhere between 2006 and 2012.
But huzzah! You can be there again! Oblivion: New Paint Edition, somehow running with both Unreal and Creation engine at the same time. Less, and more bugs. 16 times the particle effects.
After hundreds of hours, experiencing it again was truly magical, at first. Opening the most iconic sewer grate in gaming, I breathed that 45FPS air like it was new.
After finishing the game, completing all the achievements (they're all quest related, very easy to do), I can now say it's 95% the same game. And I can go on to say, I was rather burnt out by the end of it.
The fidelity is fun, but that doesn't really do all that much for me. Again: I play Morrowind.
Every time I replay this game, I realise this is the start of the road into mediocrity that Bethesda took us down for now almost two decades. Almost everything in their games that I wish they'd scrap, you can find the origin in this game, usually in a half-baked state.
Full dialogue limited the scope of conversations at the time. Skills are streamlined. Clothing is far less customisable (let me wear enchanted robes over my armour!). Immediate fast travel and a compass/mini-map make the world far less immersive. Scaled difficulty and loot to an annoying extent. More console friendly UI, making it worse overall. Essential NPCs that can only be knocked out do remove a sense of freedom that Morrowind had. If you want to break a quest, by all means do so. The game warns you enough.
All these changes do dumb the game down. Granted, there are improvements from Morrowind. I for one, do like the scheduling system. The NPCs actually moving around, eating and sleeping, sounds simple but does a lot for making the world feel lived in. And I'll give them points for trying to have conversations with other people, but that's because I want acknowledgement when I do it too. It's hard out there on the pavement these days.
Also turning weapon hits into physical hits rather than calculations is a blessing, even if it cost us spears.
So would I recommend this game to a newcomer? Yeah, I think so. The visuals are fantastic with this newer version, and they did address some of the leveling problems (late game bandits that are supposed to be poor will still have top tier armour though). It does maintain some of the quirkiness that made Elder Scrolls stand out in the first place. Perhaps not in the environments, but the characters are pretty fun to talk to, even if they mostly have one or two lines each. The guild quests as well are the best in the series, don't miss out on the Dark Brotherhood experience.
It was my first Bethesda game, and I believe the first Western RPG I played. It'll always have a special place in my heart, I just wish it was a bit deeper so I could find something new, after all these years.
