Just finished the game last night. There were still a series of bugs that kept creeping up, such as a bad lag that occurred through the later parts of the game that I attribute to the fact that there were more monsters in the later dungeons. In fact, the lag seemed to be reduced when I killed off enough monsters on a floor. Also, the game completely crashed during the end animation and I had to watch the ending off of somebody's youtube Let's Play. So here are some quick thoughts, which I'll probably expand to a retrospective review for the Codex in the next month or so.
+ The diversity of the cities was quite a surprise. I know a small bit of the history of the game, and how it was rushed into different states, so I wasn't expecting all that much. And the game has some mediocre buildings and stock lily white kings, queens and guards compared to the more varied dark elf, khajit (darker tones but not cat people yet), and so on. But there are little touches that stand out, such as a background volcano in one town, waterways in cities close to the water, brief descriptions when you enter a new city, and so on. There was much more effort put into changing things up than I expected in such a rushed and large game.
+ Even this primitive first effort is steep in lore. There are stories behind every dungeon and city. Most of the dungeon tales deal with past tragedies and wrongs needing righting. Again, I'm surprised at the level of effort here.
+ The artifact side quests are a nice diversion and the extra power you attain from them is a welcome plus, too.
+ Playing a spellcaster is a blast. I loved creating my own spells. The dungeons are huge, and later in the game when you have little incentive to explore each level in its entirety you can blow holes through walls, levitate over lava, use spells to make yourself immune to enemy melee and magical attacks, and just wreck terror and destruction against all before you. Once you are high enough level (level 20) and can cast a long lasting shield and spell absorption shell around yourself, nothing in the game can stop you.
+/- The character generation was more limited compared to Daggerfall and later games. You only select a character class (which defines your skills in a nonvisible manner) and ability scores. This has the advantage of forcing a character to choose a play style, but a lack of complexity as a disadvantage.
- Playing a non-spellcaster is a different experience. You have to fight through the hard way to find each passage down, while spellcasters can circumvent most obstacles. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue because you would want to collect experience points anyway. But by level 20 it becomes extremely difficult to increase levels further due to the amount of kills you have to collect, making XP farming a chore. Gold isn't much of a worry by mid-game, either, so there is no point in farming for items and money either. The only fun time I think a non-spellcaster would have is in collecting the artifact weapons and armor.
- Side quests (outside the artifact ones) were never worth it. Escort a person for 140 coins, when I can go into a respawning dungeon and collect that much in the first couple of rooms? It's quicker to get rich dungeon diving than in the side quests.
- The monsters are not all that varied in types or tactics. This makes killing en masse a breeze for a spellcaster, but agonizingly repetitious for a non-spellcaster who doesn't do massive damage in single attacks. I can't imagine playing a thief or a fighter/wizard hybrid in this game. The first time I saw a lich, I was a bit worried, until I killed her with three casting of a low cost attack spell I made. The lich was supposed to be the toughest monster in the game, but I never had one hurt me. They only charged up my mana due to my spell absorption shell.
- The villain isn't intimidating and I kind of feel sorry for him. He's throwing orcs at me when I am visiting a town after killing off a dungeon full of medusas and wraiths. He kept taunting me telling me I couldn't stop him despite killing off his minions, putting together the artifact pieces he hid everywhere, slaughtering all his guards in his final dungeon, and using an item he scolded me for being useless to usefully end him. This reminds me of something on the tropes website.
"I defeated his minions, and he cackled and said, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I discovered his secret fortress. 'Exactly as I planned.'
I breached his defenses, and still he said, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I slew him in single combat, and with his dying breath he gasped, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I stood over his grave and I said, 'You never really got the hang of planning, did you?'"
—
Jenna Moran,
Nobilis
- The dungeons and towns were interesting. The main story arc is somehow boring. A boring king needs saving from a boring villain. Meh.
All in all, I had a blast despite the negatives. But that's mostly because I had the in-game god mode on (self made shield spell, with self-made fire resistance spell, with self-made spell absorption spell, and self-made invisibility spell) and enjoyed breaking everything towards the final part of the game. I doubt I would have found the game as much fun as a non-spellcaster, but others on this thread seemed to have enjoyed playing a pure fighter with critical strike abilities once they collected all the artifacts.
So now I have completed three TES games, this one, Morrowind and Oblivion. Out of the three, Morrowind handily beats the other two games. But it's a tough choice between Arena and Oblivion. Oblivion has more responsive controls and is less apt to crash. It also has more to do, mostly through fan mods but also through a rare few quality side quests like the Whodunit Quest. But I'm going to give the nod to Arena, simply because the main quest of Oblivion is quite boring. If I could play either game, it would be Oblivion with fan mods. If I was forced to play one, but unmodded and only through the main quest line I would choose Arena. The first Oblivion gate is interesting initially because of how alien the terrain looks, but then every Oblivion gate looks and feels the same, compared to Arena where there went so much effort into changing the main quest dungeons up. Both suffer from limited beastiaries, but the main dungeon design is better in Arena. Morrowind > Arena > Oblivion.
Alright, I'll start drafting up a much better written and longer review, than it is off to try out Daggerfall.
to Mr. ArtInPinkerton for his efforts!
