Review RPG Codex Retrospective Review: The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994)

[ERYFKRAD]

Is it next-gen ?

Everything is next gen to the previous gen.

 

[Lord Azlan]

Arena was an obvious do you go Right or Left?

From that day I ditched the old traditional RPG games like BG, Pools of Radiance where you controlled a group and went my own way first person RPG action whatever. Daggerfall was just remarkable and would never be beaten until those mothers came out with Morrowind.

Even back then I really appreciated the work done into created a new lore from scratch.

Arena - first time I came across these special items of old such as Ebony Blade - Staff of Magnus. Necromancers Amulet. You guys know what I am talking about.

Those unique items were done very well.

Right or Left? Forge your own path or follow the path set by the developers. Thus began the phenomenon of completely ignoring the main quest and just exploring.

Magic post - good read.

 

[pakoito]

Staff of Magnus

The one you get in Skyrim after a 14 quest arch and it just sucks balls? It's what made me quit the game.

 

[Lord Azlan]

Staff of Magnus

The one you get in Skyrim after a 14 quest arch and it just sucks balls? It's what made me quit the game.

I am afraid once you were able to make or enchant/ create items that was superior to legendary artifacts from yonder - it became a problem in the Bethesda games.

Staves sucked in Skyrim.

I don't know if the relative crapiness of legendary items was due to the players becoming more skilled since Arena or Daggerfall in abusing the various systems. Or that the games were broken in that way.

 

[Average Manatee]

Daggerfall was such a huge leap forward in relation to Arena.
The bloody game is amazing. And it could be one of the best 3 CRPGs ever.
If it were not for those stupid random dungeons that generated new layouts every time you entered them again.
Those dungeons ruined the immersion and the game experience in my opinion. Sad.

Dungeons in Daggerfall are all pre-made, not randomized on entry. You can theoretically map out every one and they will be the same for every playthrough.

What it randomized is the stuff inside the dungeon. Items are level dependent and enemies are level-dependent with various constraints (e.g., crypts can have skeletons to liches, but no Daedra or Orcs).

 

[Apexeon]

My first and last Eldarscrolls game I have played.
Also played it once back in 1994 when it came out and finished it.
X2 CD rom drive ftw!

 

[Apexeon]

Is it next-gen ?

Next-gen is the next wave of retarded males creaming there pants over some graphics bling on a Xbone as they prove there man hood with
a COD season pass. After doing some homework on why buckets of cash gets thrown at these "brands" I worked it out.
****** mainstream bully males infected the gamming scene.

They use to just beat me up for my lunch money as I ran home to play "Eye of the Beholder".
Now the meat heads have taken that from me.

 

[karnak]

Daggerfall was such a huge leap forward in relation to Arena.
The bloody game is amazing. And it could be one of the best 3 CRPGs ever.
If it were not for those stupid random dungeons that generated new layouts every time you entered them again.
Those dungeons ruined the immersion and the game experience in my opinion. Sad.

Dungeons in Daggerfall are all pre-made, not randomized on entry. You can theoretically map out every one and they will be the same for every playthrough.

What it randomized is the stuff inside the dungeon. Items are level dependent and enemies are level-dependent with various constraints (e.g., crypts can have skeletons to liches, but no Daedra or Orcs).

Strange.
Maybe you're right (it's been almost 20 years since I played it... I don't remember well).
Then why did I got the idea that the layout/map of the dungeon changed as well? My senility is indeed getting the better of me.

 

[Average Manatee]

Dungeons in Daggerfall are all pre-made, not randomized on entry. You can theoretically map out every one and they will be the same for every playthrough.

What it randomized is the stuff inside the dungeon. Items are level dependent and enemies are level-dependent with various constraints (e.g., crypts can have skeletons to liches, but no Daedra or Orcs).

Strange.
Maybe you're right (it's been almost 20 years since I played it... I don't remember well).
Then why did I got the idea that the layout/map of the dungeon changed as well? My senility is indeed getting the better of me.

It shouldn't, though you always lose your map exploration progress since saving the explored extent of every area would massively bloat the save game. I'm pretty sure all traps/door/switches are reset too. But layout stays the same.

The way Daggerfall works is that every map is composed of blocks that are linked together. Bethesda had a randomization algorithm to link blocks together in various ways and create dungeons, but rather than run the randomization algorithm in-game they ran it once and saved the maps for all of the dungeons so that they are static. This way every dungeon can be saved as something like (made up block names):

A1 B2 C2
   D3 E5 C6 F4
   B2    E2

Which represents a whole dungeon in just a few bytes of data, allowing the (according to UESPwiki) 4232 dungeons and every other location in daggerfall to exist in a file only a few megabytes in size. This is also what creates the repetition in dungeons, because there is only a finite number of blocks that can be used.

 

[karnak]

Dungeons in Daggerfall are all pre-made, not randomized on entry. You can theoretically map out every one and they will be the same for every playthrough.

What it randomized is the stuff inside the dungeon. Items are level dependent and enemies are level-dependent with various constraints (e.g., crypts can have skeletons to liches, but no Daedra or Orcs).

Strange.
Maybe you're right (it's been almost 20 years since I played it... I don't remember well).
Then why did I got the idea that the layout/map of the dungeon changed as well? My senility is indeed getting the better of me.

It shouldn't, though you always lose your map exploration progress since saving the explored extent of every area would massively bloat the save game. I'm pretty sure all traps/door/switches are reset too. But layout stays the same.

That's it!
That's where my confusion came from.
I remember spending hours on a dungeon (generic quest ones) looking for item X. For some reason I became so battered that I had to leave the dungeon to heal and restock. When I returned... POOF - Back to zero.
The horror... the frustration.

 

[tindrli]

Maybe the people lock up for the night and leave the city to the orcs and goblins in order to allow these crude visitors to shop on the black market and proposition the local prostitutes. And then your puritan character, who can't do any of those things no matter what dialogue options you choose, shows up in town and interrupts these profitably nocturnal libertarian transactions, resulting in angered humanoids and non-interference from the townsfolk towards whom you have just caused a financial loss. If anybody has another theory on why the citizenry and monsters seem to get along while you are always jumped upon approach, I would love to hear it!


maybe its a BUG

 

[Clockwork Knight]

One thing I dearly missed in Skyrim was accessing the mage's guild and creating my own spells. They rolled all magic awesomeness on the shouts -.-

What really hurts is that the shouting system is practically set up to be spellcrafting 2.0, where you mix and match words to create unique shouts depending on what you like to use. Pertifying word + Force word = paralyze enemy and send it flying away, Whirlwind word + Fire word = rush ahead leaving a trail of fire to hurt anyone on the way, or use an Ice word to drain the stamina of an enemy and prevent it from chasing you, etc. It would even give you a reason to sort of study the dragon language a little. Finding a word wall would be cooler since it's a new component, you'd come out of the dungeon thinking of all the new ways you could incorporate it into your currently available shouts. Instead, they went the boring "more words = stronger shout" route which requires you to put zero thought into it since they are just evolving spells. You found the second word of Fire Breath, lucky you...what, you don't use Fire Breath? What a shame.

The box artwork is awesome. Such a stunning use of bikini armor. I remember being embarrassed when I brought the box up to the register to pay.

trivia - Oblivion uses a modified version in-game to promote the Arena in the Imperial City. Unfortunately, the girl underwent a ftM surgery and now uses full plate.

Spoiler

Some mods have attempted to fix this glaring mistake.

Spoiler

 

[karnak]

The box artwork is awesome. Such a stunning use of bikini armor. I remember being embarrassed when I brought the box up to the register to pay.

trivia - Oblivion uses a modified version in-game to promote the Arena in the Imperial City. Unfortunately, the girl underwent a ftM surgery and now uses full plate.

Spoiler

Good old Bethesda.
Always thinking of the innocent minds of the children.

 

[GlutenBurger]

Why couldn't they at least keep the same stances, and give the guy on the left the same weapon? As far as references go, I'm tempted to say this one better resembles a coincidence.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The characters were taken from the chargen screen, where you see pictures of each class. I imagine they came up with the poster idea later on, making necessary changes instead of coming up with a new image (2 much effort, lah). Like, the new Nightblade image shows him crouching down mixing a poison (even though he doesn't specialize in alchemy) so they used the mage.

By the way,

You begin in a rather simple dungeon which you have to escape. In this tutorial-like introduction, the game holds your hand by providing several safe areas where you can sleep to restore your hit points, and there's no time limit for you to escape your confines either. Because of this, you can easily explore the entire dungeon, discovering randomly generated equipment which can be quite powerful for your low level character.

Doesn't it get insanely hard for a level 1 character if you spend too much time in there? I think that was the reason the sorceress urges you to get out instead of lingering around.

 

[Luzur]

Maybe one day we will see a ArenaXL retrospect in here...

Maybe..

*sigh*

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Good stuff - the only Elder Scrolls game I haven't played and now I think I would like to.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I think the review gives people the false impression that Arena is playable.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Pfft, no dragons, no quest compass, no shouting FUS KUH CHA!!! and blowing everyone away with your fish paste breath.

0/MAJESTIC

 

[Electryon]

It's funny, because "Arena" has no business at all being a fun game to play, yet it is. It's obviously inspired 'Ultima Underworld" yet has exactly zero of that games depth, in place of a nearly endless world that means nothing outside of the main dungeons (Daggerfall would just take this to a greater extreme). But it just works for some reason, even though I'm not sure it's even an average game in the grand scheme of things.