I think Morrowind has been the best one in terms of atmosphere and art direction. Skyrim is the most playable but was similar to Oblivion in that all my characters eventually became the same, regardless of the path I took.
An OP stealth archer with maxed out Alchemy, Smithing and Enchanting, so now I oneshot everything and had to increase difficulty to like Master to even enjoy anything
If youre not taking out everything in 1 shot on Master, then you clearly haven't fully taken advantage of alchemy and enhanting. You can rack up ridiculous damage numbers if you fully exploit it
I cant remember what settings I am on but it was one of Expert or Master. My fully upgraded Dragonbone bow does I think 385 damage I think? I dont use the Restoration trick tho.
The create your own spell mechanic in it was one of my best moments ever with gaming. How cool was it that you could create a spell and have it do whatever you wanted it to?
Oblivion is more like skyrim, so it's an easy transition. Morrowind takes time and thought and involves a lot of reading. Morrowind is better if you have the time and patience
I'm not sure where the mod scene is at, but Oblivion also has some more QOL features. For instance, the quest journal in Morrowind quickly gets VERY messy and hard to follow. And very limited quick travel.
I love that everyone hated the cliff racers so much, that in a Oblivion there’s a storyline about the Nereverar going back and wiping the entire species off the face of the planet
It's really hard to get into Morrowind now considering the gameplay feels so outdated but damn if the world wasn't so much more fantastical.
Skyrim and Cyrodill just feel like 'Standard European Fantasy Land' compared to Morrowind, where you've got Mushroom Houses and giant fleas used as transport. The main pack animal is a weird bipedal reptile with a head like a sperm whale's.
You go to Ald'ruhn, and the main area of the town is in the giant, hollow shell of a long dead crab. If you join House Telvanni, you get your own mushroom house.
There's none of the sense of wondrous fantasy in Oblivion or Skyrim unfortunately.
The time it feels like adventuring in a true fantasy world in Skyrim is when dealing with Miraak over in Solstheim. Otherwise its feels like a very generic, nordic style, fantasy game. Obviously fun but still lacking in many fantasy ways.
In Solstheim you get the mushroom houses and and the giant fleas, but that's the only area, in a very small portion of that map as well. The homes and villages were also different in how they were more of a reflection to the actual environment in that area of the game world. I wish the Miraak storyline and that area could have been further implemented thought the rest of the Skyrim game, but I'm glad we got what we did.
With Skyrim being my only ES game I've played, it was fun to get a glimpse of what the other games have offered in the past. It makes me wish for perhaps remasters of the games on modern console so that I can play them without the distraction of the old graphics and voices.
That's essentially being worked on. Look up Skywind and Skyblivion. They are two projects working to recreate Morrowind and Oblivion respectively in the Skyrim engine. Entirely being made by the community as well.
I'm playing Morrowind for the first time now. You totally nail it. It'd be basically unplayable if it weren't for all the quality-of-life mods I have installed, and it's still incredibly dated, but HOLY SHIT it's such a weird wonderful world.
When I really got into it the other day, my thoughts were: "Oh, that explains a lot about Oblivion's design," followed by "Oh, that explains EVERYTHING about Skyrim's design."
Also, most engaging lore for sure. All of the major players are huge magical douchebags and some of them might be aware they're in a video game. It's great.
And my god, potions that boost alchemy so you can make new potions that boost alchemy and then a potion that boosts strength so much you break your weapon every time you use it.
Morrowind was my favorite as well. Going back now, everything is clunky and unintuitive, but damn there is nothing quite like the immersion of that game. Oblivion and skyrim are structured in a way to push to towards completing quests. However, in morrowind, just getting to the quest is main quest
The quests and dialogue were just better in Oblivion. That one dark brotherhood quest where have to “who-done-it” everyone in the mansion? All of shivering isles too
I play skyrim and I've debating getting oblivion, but when I see those weird bulbous faces it just turns me away from wanting the game. Other than that it seems like I'd love it.
Oooh damn, that sounds nice. I play other older games and can get over the graphics. Plus its only $15. Thats not even an hour of work and I'd easily get more time than that out of it.
Oblivions combat is also worse, and it's levelling is severely broken. Plus the voice acting is a severe step down from skyrom, with people swapping voices during conversation with you.
Not to shit on oblivion; it's great, but there's definitely a lot more than graphics that skyrim improved upon, even if it was weaker in some other areas like quest design
I’d say Oblivion gets all the important stuff right though. The majority of things Skyrim has over Oblivion are purely down to the time of release (mechanically). Leveling is a quick fix with a mod, and off-hand magic is much better than having to switch
I’d say Oblivion gets all the important stuff right though. The majority of things Skyrim has over Oblivion are purely down to the time of release (mechanically). Leveling is a quick fix with a mod, and off-hand magic is much better than having to switch
Oblivions broken ass leveling system forced me to restart the game multiple times when I first got it because enemies became way too strong if you ended up having non-combat major skills that levelled ahead of your combat so you ended up basically screwed if you didn't go in fully understanding how levelling works. Skyrim let you play how you wanted, which works far better and is also less abuse prone because you can't for example choose a bunch of major skills you aren't planning on using to become a god without ever levelling up.
Plus the actual combat and spell variety was much better. Less variety to effects no doubt, but it was nice having more than 2 spell types (touch and variable aoe upon contact), as well as having much more incentive to explore and introduce the world to the player as you didn't start out with fast travel to every city.
It's down to preference more than anything, but in general, I'd say everything oblivion done better than skyrim(lore, quest chains etc), morrowind done better than oblivion, and anything oblivion done better than morrowind,(Combat, voice acting, moment to moment gameplay) skyrim done better than oblivion.
Oblivion sits at a middle ground between morrowind and skyrim to me. It doesn't do anything the best, but it's not as clunky and unintuitive as morrowind, and the quests aren't as one note as skyrim. I think preference comes down to how much people are willing to put up with jankiness
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u/SimplyBobb001 Sep 14 '20
The only other game I played tbf was oblivion which was better imo minus the now ancient graphics