Sceptic said:
For these elements, definitely. I never could get into dungeon crawling in Morrowind because the dungeons were just too damn small. They worked great as an extension of the overworld in terms of exploration, lore and cool goodies tucked away in hard to reach corners that you could still find if you payed attention to your surrounding. As pure dungeon crawls however they ended before the dungeon atmosphere had any chance to settle in (except for a few of the longer ones)
Yes, but there were some that were sized appropriately - See Urshilaku burial cavern and those rocked. Even some small ones often had interesting accents - a dead guy with a key and a note pointing to another tomb, items associated with the person's life lying next to or on top of the urn, etc. Plus, Morrowind's dungeons usually made some sense and felt like real locations, the larger ones displayed a sense of epicness through the use of z-axis - spacious caverns and imposing vertical structures - see Urshilaku burial, the forge of Hilbongard or the cavern at the end of first MQ dungeon.
Oblivion's dungeons, although more approprietly sized, mostly lacked sense of purpose and truly memorable accents, as well as any opportunities of exploration. They usually consisted of a single "track" looping over itself near the exit. The relative lack of themes, with plain "cave" somewhat aesthetic, if cliched, "elven ruin", and downright corny "EVUUUL plane of OBLIBIANS!!!1" doesn't exactly look impressive when compared with daedric shrines, Dwemer ruins, tombs, mines, 6-th house bases and ancient strongholds.
If we speak about dungeon themes, sense of purpose, exploration and epicness, Morrowind rapes Oblivion. If we speak about their sheer size, how convoluted they are, and dungeon crawling experience, Oblivion looks downright silly compared to Daggerfall. Either way, it fails.
otherwise yeah dungeon crawling in both Arena (MQ only) and Daggerfall beats Morrowind and Oblivion.
