Thoughts & Things

Comparing The Elder Scrolls

Anyone who has been following my blog for awhile (assuming such a person exists), has probably realised by now that my favourite video game is Morrowind. That said, I am a big fan of The Elder Scrolls series, which offer up everything I like about fantasy RPGs. I thought I would offer up a comparison of the three most recent games in the series.

I have excluded the first two, Arena and Daggerfall, because they are so drastically different from the subsequent games in the series that they are difficult to compare. I am also less fond of them because of the massive difference in gameplay, as the games truly just feel their age to me. That said, anyone interested in the series should still consider giving them a try. They are available legally and free via the Bethesda website, and the stories they offer are still really interesting.

Morrowind
As I already mentioned, Morrowind is my favourite of the series, and my favourite game in general. The main story of the game has some incredible twists and turns that mix together the world's religion, politics, culture, and more. The faction quests can lead you down some interesting paths, including inter-faction disputes, becoming an in-game Robin Hood, and solving some of the world's most secret mysteries. The side quests bring you into contact with no less than three naked barbarians, numerous vampire factions, mysterious ruins, slaves to free, and endless other opportunities. The expansion packs offer huge amounts that are almost additional games in their own rights. Everything you do in this game has the chance to be rewarding in some way. Gaining friends, money, skills, equipment, or progress of some sort. The main quest itself is incredibly rewarding, leaving you with incredible reputation, abilities, skills, and equipment by the time you have completed it. The landscape of Morrowind itself is incredibly diverse. You start the game in a very swampy sort of area, but you can move on to woodlands, prairies, deserts, barren rocks, cliffs, an coasts. Even the cityscapes vary dependent upon which group of people own the land there. The races of people inhabiting the world have different appearances and cultures behind them. The creatures that you might battle are endless, with huge variety among them, despite very few of them existing in real life. Despite the graphics being very dated at this point, the artistic flair leaves the game still looking impressive today. The character building at the beginning of the game feels immersive, despite the game not opening on action, and it gives a lot of opportunity to play the game in different ways. Some of the gameplay is a little finicky or awkward, and it does have definite glitches, but ultimately it's still well worth the time to play.

Oblivion
Oblivion has some pretty fantastic improvements from Morrowind, as well as some glaring drawbacks. The game opens on action, but still gives some really great character creation options during this process. The characters actually speak aloud rather than you having to read a block of text. This also gives the opportunity for some cool guest voice actors, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean. The graphics are a definite step up, giving the game a whole new feel. The faction quests are a lot more intricate for the most part, and really give you significantly more to work with than Morrowind did. Oblivion brings in the first instance of fast travel, which is a mixed bag. In Morrowind, there was no option to click a place and travel there, but you could use actual transportation methods in the game that made everything feel much more real. While it is nice to be able to click a button to travel to a new place, I only wish that you couldn't instantly travel to any new place, which takes away from the on foot travel that exposes you to so much more. That said, it feels like there isn't really much more to see. Oblivion has very little variety in landscape or cityscape. Cities look very similar. Almost all of the province of Cyrodil is woodland or rolling hills, with very little else to break this up (snowy mountains to the far north, swampy wetlands to the far south). While one of the expansion packs is large and immersive, the other is basically just a bonus quest with cool rewards. The main quest is honestly the big let down for me in Oblivion. While in theory it should be cool (political assassinations, cults, demons unleashing their powers onto the world, a magical bloodline keeping everyone safe), it actually ends up being a bit underwhelming. I feel like the story makes for almost a better movie than a game. It's mostly that despite all of the hard work you put into it, you end up with a fraction of the abilities, skills, equipment, etc that the other games offer up throughout the main quest. Ultimately you are not even the hero of your own story, and in subsequent games, it is not the player who makes the history books (like in Morrowind or Skyrim), but the emperor's son. It's still a lot of fun to play, and I adore it, but it was a definite step down from Morrowind for me.

Skyrim
I actually rank Skyrim between Morrowind and Oblivion. SKyrim obviously has the edge on game graphics, given that it is so much newer. It adds similar artistic elements as Morrowind that make it more of a visual stand out. The political climate in the game is intricate and interesting, with a lot of new stuff brought to the table since it is set two hundred years later. Dragons return to the land, which brings a drastically new opponent to the table. The faction stories advance once again, so that each faction has such a distinctive story that they could be games in their own right. The main story brings back the honour and glory of Morrowind, where it feels incredibly rewarding to participate in and complete. I do feel like the dragon aspect does give it more of that "typical fantasy" vibe that the previous games didn't have as much, which isn't preferable, but they do manage to make it work. While it does offer actual methods of transportation within the game, as well as fast travel immediately available to previously accessed locations, it avoids the pitfalls that the Oblivion system has. The expansion packs are grand quest lines that bring forward such fresh material, that it adds a great deal more to the game. One of the expansions even returns to Solstheim, an island lying between Morrowind and Skyrim, where Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion is set. While the game still has its glitches (this is the part where we give a polite nod of the head to Bethesda), it still has the most palatable game mechanics in the series. Skyrim is probably the easiest of the series to pick up and start playing, without feeling too easy for those familiar with the series. The character creation aspect is my biggest complaint in the game. While the visual portion of creating the game is an absolute stand out, creating the character isn't the same as it used to be, and I don't think it changed for the better. I feel like Skyrim made it easier to fall into the same gameplay style, and continue playing the game the same way over and over, making it not always the best to replay--not to say I haven't replayed it, or would recommend against it.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Twenty. One day of leave taken total.)