justdaveisfine

I’ve been recently replaying the Elder Scrolls games and I actually found myself having a lot of mixed thoughts on this time around.

Now, I do still like them, but they all have their uniquely weird flaws.

Daggerfall - I actually like the effort DF went into making a ‘world’ first and then a game second, even if some of the ‘gameplay’ decisions suck for gameplay, they are a neat idea thematically. That being said, DF doesn’t have some of the more distinctive ES flavor the later games have (it feels more generic fantasy most of the time), and it honestly feels like there are just some pieces missing, which explains why some mechanics are really underbaked or outright near worthless.

At its best though, dungeon diving feels like a daring adventure with all sorts of dangers, traps, and secrets, and that’s good.

Battlespire - Did not like this one. It was like someone laser focused on the idea of dungeon diving from DF and threw a bunch of other stuff out, which ultimately made it very rough.

Redguard - Have not replayed this one as I can’t get it to run very well without crashing.

Morrowind - Similar to above, MW puts a lot of effort into the world building. That being said, I’m not a huge fan of the combat - Its sometimes very difficult to gauge how ‘difficult’ an enemy is and so you might get unexpectedly one-shot. Likewise, the DLC feels a little gimmicky where it throws enemies (Jinkblades, ugh) at you with a lot of cheap shots and it can make it a save/load slog.

Another thing I find frustrating about Morrowind is that its really easy to exploit, which can be ok and all, but it seems like you’re almost expected to do so at some point, and that doesn’t feel right. There are mods that ‘balance’ this and remove exploits but idk somehow this feels worse because then you’re expected to heavyily grind to become just ‘decent’.

Most of the quests don’t hit very hard either. A lot of the guild quests are not great, though there are a few memorable ones that kind of make up for it.

Oblivion (original, I did not play the remaster) - Oblivion has some of the best (at least most memorable) guild quests hands down. This one feels like it has a lot of glue between the edges because I recall so many oddball bugs or quirks or strange NPC reactions - Which in all honesty (at the time) worked in its favor because it was very distinctive. The DLC about the mad god felt like it leaned into this and it worked.

Skyrim - I think Skyrim is the most cohesive ES experience out of the bunch. I think its quests aren’t as memorable as Oblivion, and in fact, I think a lot of the main quests/faction’s writing is kind of weak (with some high notes). But the combat is pretty good most of the time, it has a lot to do in the world, and the world’s design is pretty fleshed out. There are parts that feel really chunky but its overall not too bad because it doesn’t usually hinder the game.

Blades - This one honestly felt like Skyrim but stripped for parts (with no overworld, only one “town”, etc) and its only purpose to me is to show that Skyrim without the world building experience and immersion makes for a terrible game.

ESO - I actually didn’t really like ESO. I did like being able to explore the whole world (even though some regions were a little lackluster), but it most didn’t feel very much like ES, it just feels like an MMO with a Skyrim paint job.