Was Oblivion as good as I remember? - My analysis after an 8 year hiatus

I've recently wondered about Skyrim's longevity in the gaming scene. It's an old joke at this point, but here we are in 2018 and Skyrim is still something I see popping up on my various feeds quite frequently. It's pretty strange to me considering that. Every time a new, better version of Skyrim is announced, all I hear and see are memes, jokes, and general complaints about the decision to release another adaptation of everyone's favorite masterpiece from 2011. It got to the point where I found myself Thinking about the game that was. released before Skyrim, not that one, no, almost there, that's the one that's pretty close, yeah, I forget, although it's not my first Elder Scrolls game, it's definitely the one I spent the most time on and the one I

remember

most fondly Seeing the amount of love Skyrim is coming from Bethesda, which may or may not be due to the money it makes, made me wonder if I've been holding Oblivion on a higher pedestal out of nostalgia or if it really was as

good

as I later

remember

ed it. of everything.

The time I actually played Oblivion was about eight

year

s ago, before Skyrim's first release, so I downloaded Oblivion in its unmodified state and started playing the game with a new perspective. I realized it's a twelve

year

old game now, so I'm really not. I'm going to talk too much about its various bugs or graphics, but I'll base my

analysis

on how much fun I have overall with the game and its quest lines and present my evaluation based on my own feelings and standards of how things should or shouldn't be. It will not develop. I won't include the Shivering Isles because my script is already 12 pages long without it, just know that the Shivering Isles are a lot of fun and a welcome addition to the game.

Let's take it from the top, you have no idea how much. this Sol excites me anyway, it's starting to sell out because every Elder Scrolls game needs you to be a prisoner except Daggerfall Emperor needs to use the secret escape tunnel that's hidden in your cell for some reason and then he realizes that you're great, you're the one. of my dreams, so you make your way through the sewers and end up doing your class after watching the Emperor submerge before your very eyes. Even for its time, this is a pretty easy start as far as beginnings go, but Creating the class is actually where my interest in the game started to rise again.

I love this type of character creation and miss it in many modern action RPGs. It's an old school pencil and paper type creation where I can make something semi-unique while still doing it. being able to train and raid and all the other skills on the list. I will say that, in my opinion, it is not perfect. I think not getting XP for leveling minor skills is not a

good

mechanic, but I also think if minor skills gave XP. then seven main skills would be too many, the problem here is that it takes 10 increases in any main skill to level up and I could go on with this system for a long time, so let's just move on after crawling into the sewers and being bombarded with a thousand missions, now you are free to go wherever you want.

I started by trying to make my way to the swords. This entire part of the questline was never memorable to me. I vaguely remembered the part about Marten being the king's son, but I did remember kibosh quite well, after all, it's where the first gate to

oblivion

is located. These hell portals still do an incredible job of scaring me in ways I wasn't expecting. It's really a testament to how well the concept of forgetting works. The doors were made in this game when I expected the door to be there and it still gives me chills. It is an extremely well done experience.

I mean, think about it, these doors could have easily been shrines or pedestals that have no weather or sound effects, you touch them and then you come back, you take them to hell and that's the experience, instead you're traveling through the Dell Series and of suddenly the sky goes away and this huge red portal looms in the middle of the forest and you were just looking for a bear cave for your bear hunt and now you're wondering how it all went wrong. This type of experience is something extraordinarily unique in

oblivion

and I loved the emotion that the outside of these portals evokes, the inside of them is different. story, yes, entering your first portal is an incredible experience, the contrast between the hellish deserts of oblivion is a tremendous leap from the rolling hills of Syrtos and the flowing rivers, but the actual gameplay experience is at best mediocre once you get past the change in the Gates of Oblivion scenario.

It becomes one of the most stale and boring challenges in the entire game. The randomly appearing doors come in seven different variations, but they all have the same flavor of giving you the evasion treatment while you do your best to reach the sigil stone and close it. The portal here is a breakdown of one of the doors I cleared. Well, start with these three towers to choose one of the closed ones per labo, so choose one of the other two. They are both wrong. Come in and admire the burning fire and body rain. go up the stairs fighting several roaming gangs of Darth Maul until you reach this bridge that makes it easier to get to the ground recharge your save, go back inside and go up more stairs until you reach the blood, then wait an hour denying the Utility of the fountain of blood: go up more winding ramps until you reach the top where you will meet the toughest enemy in the entire game, this Triceratops, then you pull this lever and wonder where the other lever is, alert the other tower to May you continue your path. backtrack through a world trade center and cross over to its twin hoping the lever is for some reason at the entrance, it's not, it's just another loading chuck and it's patentable to jump in the air and clap your hands 3/ 4 of your health.

Continue climbing and discover that a German engineer is tied to this tower with bouncing Betties and continue matching T in hopes that the enemies are not nearby. Climb up this tower. Pull the lever. Go out the door. in time to see the bridge retract and wonder if you did all this wrong, tell yourself you didn't to feel better and then jump to the new tower, buy more demons, finally defeat this guy and take the dark sign from the altar . You immediately regret being too close to the erupting volcano, this time secure the dark matter and return to a safe distance of three meters from the sunbeam.

He cries softly when you realize that you must do this seven more times if you want to complete the Allies for Bruma quest. I realize they tend to exaggerate things, but I really don't know how else to emphasize that I spent about 40 minutes doing the same thing multiple times. I don't care if I spend 40 minutes doing something that's unique and good and keeps my interest, I care when I finish a mission and look at the clock and say "wow, I spent a lot of time on that, it sucks because on the one hand I enjoy it." the idea that all hell is literally breaking loose, but that joy turns sour when I remember what it's like to walk through one of many doors.

It's Bethesda's patented quantity over quality maneuver that was later echoed in Skyrim and the consequences of its radiants. quest systems. I would have loved it if there were nine oblivious gates representative of the nine circles of hell or something similar to that feeling, but the trade-off would be the lack of gates, which would make the world feel much less invaded, but let's move away. of that, let's talk about guilds, guilds and Oblivion, where my absolute favorite part of the game when I played it before, so naturally, when I started playing again, it wasn't long before I got sidetracked from the main questline to start delving into the various guilds I encountered in the series from my first guild.

My choice was the sand, which I honestly didn't have high expectations for. I remember it was a big fighting pit and that's it after they told me I was going to die in twenty different ways, what you're fine, it's your funeral, when you're ready to be gutted just walk up the ramp into the arena . I started moving up the ranks and, surprisingly, I was having a lot of fun. The intimidating and almost creepy blood-soaked hallway leading from the Red Room was something I had. I didn't appreciate it before and although the crowds were sparse due to graphical limitations, I loved it and didn't realize it right away, but I eventually remembered that sand was usually something I didn't mess with until I was much more prepared.

Going into this with a lower level in a small Arsenal made the arena much more difficult to approach than I remembered. It got to the point where I was drinking potions and backtracking a lot to try to win, but when I did, I really felt like I had accomplished something and plus the stats I was leveling up were a nice bonus after I had progressed quite a bit in the arena. I went to the Thieves Guild. This was another guild that I had very fond memories of and was very excited about. about starting it to initiate yourself into the guild, although you have to bribe or persuade to gain the favor of a beggar.

This is where the persuasion minigame comes into play. I remembered that the minigame existed, but I didn't remember the whole thing. degree of its frequency until I started doing Thieves Guild quests if you want information persuasion if you want to convince someone to believe you persuasion if you want better prices for the things you steal you guessed it persuasion the minigame isn't inherently horrible, but it gets tedious when each person requires persuading, it's something I'm glad is removed in Skyrim after you get initiated into the guild, your doyon tells you to steal things, that's it and it's wonderful that you do your own kleptomaniac quests involving the places to the ones you want to go around waiting until nightfall and stealing everyone's wealth in the shopping district.

I had a lot of fun with this and easily made over a thousand gold overnight. It was so easy that the special mission left me a little disappointed. The requirements you see to advance in the guild you have to do quests that are only unlocked after you have collected a certain amount of items worth of gold. The first quest requires 50, the second is a hundred and then the increments increase by a hundred at a time excluding 900 until you reach the final Thieves Guild quest which requires a thousand gold items in fenced items. I understand that I can continue robbing places as I see fit, but it really takes the wind out of me when I go through it. the entirety of the special quest requirements after going to two stores in the same night is a minor complaint, but I feel like it's worth pointing out now, as far as the actual Thieves Guild special quests go, I had a bit of fun with them, but not so much.

As much as I remembered doing it when I first played, I enjoyed planting evidence on a traitor in the guild and breaking into the arcane university to manipulate them into helping, but I kept waiting for more one-off efforts to emerge during the first two-thirds of the game. These missions involve playing pranks on Hieronymus Lex and getting random items for people. This is outrageous. The gray fox had something to do with this. I know after all these years. Finally it is one. After a while, you finally meet the man in charge. Now I played this game when I was much younger and I remember that the gray fox was a cool and mysterious vigilante that I really liked as a character, but when I finally found him, he was a little more disappointing than I remembered and yes I'm going to be completely honest. , the mask looks a little ridiculous, but either way he proceeds to give you a quest to retrieve a particular stone in a temple.

The blind monks in the catacombs guard the stone. Okay, I'll show you, but just because you're my dear friend, please be discreet and don't bother the other monks, which leads to a sprawling underground cave, let's take some time to talk about the cave systems in this game. , they are not good, they are boring, they are not inspired. They make me sigh and move as fast as I can to finish them off. I understand that they are necessary in games like these. Not only do I not like caves. I don't like Oblivion games. Every cave in this game strikes me as something of a generic copy-paste design of mediocrity and the only thing separating these caves from me is how much I invest in whatever quest I'm on.

This guy wants me to retrieve a ruby ​​dagger that slowly drains my life and causes my vision to turn black and white because the ghost of a famous vampire is haunting him after he desecrated his grave. Show me the cave. I am doing this with great pleasure. A peasant wants him to save his pregnant daughter in the center of a cave. I'll pay you for a new daughter because I really don't want to go into that boring cave. All that said, the last few missions for the Thieves Guild were a lot more thought out. First I had to retrieve an arrow from a grotto that housed a giant underwater boss and led to a wizard tower.

At first I was a little angry when I saw the hidden entrance and a castle that led to a cave system, but it was actually pretty funsneak away and explore next. to retrieve some boots that were in a cave, but it was a small cave so no big deal, Jack's spring-heeled boots were actually one of my favorite missions so far just because of the misdirection he gave to an earl who is supposed to be a descendant of Jack in springy heels, who then directs you to a cave under the house and once you find the coffin, there is only a diary.

After flipping through it you discover that the man who wrote it was a vampire who lived for decades and decades when you finally get to the end and discover that the earl you shook is Springhill Jack, that's the kind of caveman narrative I can finally get behind. they gave your final mission to go through a catacomb system and solve some mysteries and stuff. Don't know. I found this mission really disappointing. Your task was to steal an Elder Scroll, which is an incredible heist to pull off and while in the catacombs. It felt a little more unique design-wise when they also felt very similar: you're inside a dark gray dungeon with the same aesthetic and type of undead enemies.

In fact, I had a lot more fun sneaking around the Imperial Palace in the library where the scroll was located than I did the catacombs. I know I tend to complain a lot about small things, but I really felt that the quest involving the safety of an ancient scroll, which precedes these games, should have been something really unique and inspired. I'm talking about a gigantic, sprawling library with moving shelves and patrolling automated Knights. I'm talking about trapped rooms that players have to get around or discover beforehand through clues, things like that. You know, maybe I'm too picky, but anyway later.

You steal the scroll and escape, returning to the gray fox, who pats you on the back and asks you for one last favor. I don't want to go into an extraordinary amount of detail, but the mission ends when you become the gray one. fox, but the magic of the Elderscrolls is used to lift the curse that comes with the hood of the title. It's a great ending to the Thieves Guild story, but I definitely feel like it could have been executed a little better. The story is too convenient for me. Like and overlook quite a few things either way, it's hard not to feel a sense of accomplishment when you retreat to the guild hall and look at the things you helped accomplish after my excursion through the Thieves' Guild.

I made the executive decision to kill an innocent man. person, which is a surprising requirement to be contacted by a representative of the Dark Brotherhood, Rufio, kill him and your initiation into the Dark Brotherhood will be complete after this contact occurs. My series of intricate murders began. This was the only guild in the game where I could. I can't help but do mission after mission, one could argue that the missions are nothing more than the usual objectives of the game, but it is the flavor of these missions that really captivated me. Murder a guy and make it look like an accident pretend to kill someone with a poison sword and administer the antidote after a murder party in a mansion where you try to kill everyone else without the other guests realizing that these missions bring a lot of life to the game for me and the way they are handled is as good as I am. you can ask about a game, especially one from 2006, get some sense, Kumar, after completing a set number of Brotherhood missions and becoming familiar with your new family, your recruiter immediately orders you to exterminate all members of the Brotherhood. your Brotherhood sect, it's a moment. which I haven't forgotten since I first played Oblivion and I loved revisiting it.

At the end of this purification, you are promoted to a member of the Black Hand and given several dead-end delivery missions that you must take care of and direct you on. . notes that are hidden supervisor Adelle At first I thought I wasn't going to enjoy this part as much, but the deadlocks actually simplified the game very efficiently and the mission didn't stop and the creative ways to kill people, the first one involves a Necromancer in a cave, which sounds super generic until I stumble upon his research. This investigation details that he is currently in the process of transferring his life force into an object in the hopes of becoming a Lynch and that if the object is lost, he will die. and in case you thought the black can might be doing good things for once, your next assassination target is a whole family of people you were told to exterminate one by one, thanks again and have a wonderful stay .

I felt like a total monster and I loved every second of it, the sheer amount of fun I got from this quest line made me really start taking my time and savoring these quests. I no longer rushed into things, but started playing roles alongside the creative. ways to kill people kill a master of hand-to-hand combat with my fists break into a merchant's house to replace all his food and drink with what he is allergic to and poisoned apples I was even starting to look around my victims for houses to see if I can get some kind of information on why they were being attacked the way they were, all my targets started to become more paranoid over time, many of them were expecting fights, many of them attacked on sight.

He had found some black robes and a locked barrel in a victim's house, but he still couldn't figure it out. Oh no, I thought I could get here in time, I thought I could stop them. They have been systematically killing all Black Hand members, everything finally fell into place. I had been killing my own comrades without knowing it and now it was time for revenge, so you tracked this traitor to a lighthouse on the outskirts of the city and it is absolutely horrible that in the basement you find bodies of dogs. a sheep body, human bodies and body parts scattered everywhere and a head on a plate simply called a mother's head.

In fact, I cringed in disgust at this and read every page of the diary that was left behind. This is the only time I've skimmed through it completely. Every page of a book in this game or any Elder Scrolls game is the diary of an absolute lunatic who saw that Lucy and LaChance had cut off his mother's when he was a child, so he seeks revenge by framing Lucien and killing the night. mother and therefore the dark brotherhood this is so well done that every page reads like a horror movie with the psycho whizzing on and on and rhyming rants and nonsense.

I half expected him to be behind me when I finished reading it after reading this carefully. diary, it's time to formulate a plan with Lucian and extinguish the traitorous member of the Black Hand, huh, but it turns out you're a bit slow. This part of the story made me realize that I'm the idiot who would scream and not look. I have the diary here, it wasn't him because that was my exact reaction and I was waiting for the dialogue option to appear after thinking about it, although it makes a lot more sense to first try to determine who the traitor is and if I would have done it.

I tried to report someone at that time, most likely everyone would turn on me. It really says a lot about how good a story can be in a game like this when you look at Lucy's gruesome body hanging on display and feel remorse and disgust. Realistically, this body is just a zombie model that can be found in various places in the game, but when you attach a good story to it, it doesn't need to be a different model to make you feel a genuine emotion towards it that you didn't feel before. feels before the dark brotherhood concludes with all the members of the black head gathered at the tomb of the mother of the night, after her invocation, she points out that the traitor is still among the black hand to which she reveals herself and begins to attack everyone after being killed.

You are recognized for the work you have done and how dedicated you have been to the black hand becoming the new listener of the guild. It's really hard not to get excited about this guild questline and I know I've been a lot into this. From start to finish, I am in love with every part and I must say that this shining example is not followed by any other part of this game or by most other Bethesda games in general. It's a rare example of everything that happens. So in a game like this, I'm glad I somehow forgot some of the main plot points because replaying and rediscovering these missions has been an absolute pleasure and I hate that a major part of this game is so monotonous in comparison with you.

Look at everything this quest line does so well and you wonder why the game is more like this. I really can't emphasize this enough and I feel like this is the epitome of what a game like this should be. There are very, very few shortcomings. The Dark Brotherhood, if there is one, the reason I have included it so early in the list of guilds I talk about instead of saving the best for last is to present to everyone my notion of what I believe to be the gold standard of this game. It should be downright difficult to play the other parts of this game and not complain after experiencing the questline, speaking of complaining let's move on to the last few guilds here we go and Mesa this helps us all the mage guild forgetting is really where everything The experience of entering a guild without the proper knowledge or qualifications is because, as long as you are not a wanted criminal, there is a place for you in the guild.

This is something that is also relatively mocked in Skyrim and takes a bit of your immersion when you're playing. I went into a mage guild chapter with 38 restoration and about shit at all the other magic schools. I realized this and started training my Meek Destruction Scale from five after receiving my first task. but overall this is something that I think Morrowind did very well, that in its sequel not many people hated the restrictions placed on the player when they told you that you needed to have a certain amount of magical knowledge to continue with the guild, but Honestly, it had more made sense to me from a lore and immersion perspective when it was handled that way, but I digress, the first seven quests in the mage guild in Oblivion were a hodgepodge of minor tasks that almost anyone can do.

The recurring thing was that you're usually supposed to perform tasks that show how amazing you are in whatever magic school that particular branch of the magician's guild specializes in. This would have actually been a really cool concept if each branch had you show a bit of proficiency at each school and if you had taken a test or task based on that knowledge, for example, the illusion could have been a test to see how well You may as well go through a maze of enemies by charming them. Our spell could have had enough knowledge to summon three different ones. familiars and then being able to defeat them as well, instead you will find each branch telling you that their respective worlds are on fire and that no one can do anything about it and that you are the only one who can handle the very grim and overall, a boring barrage of tasks, he even stole his wizard's staff, maybe he thinks it's funny, please, I desperately need help and I think you're the only one I can turn to.

I literally just walked through the door. I am a stranger. to this person and she says oh by the way, one of the young wizards stole the wizard's staff, there is nothing we can do about it, you are our only hope, are you kidding me, why am I here?, actually there is a point in these missions. where you are tasked with recovering a dangerous book from someone who used to be part of the wizards guild. When you report this information, you are told to return the book to the Mage Guild. Instead, I chose to give it to the former member with the idea that she would steal it again, thus doubling the reward.

I'll be on the gray mare until I finish my work, but please don't bother me and hello, haven't you seen my son? Did they go to the forest? I did this and instead of having the option to lie my only option was to tell the truth, the guy gets rightfully angry but then I give him the book back anyway and he says "Okay cool" here's your recommendation, you will get the book back immediately, what do you have? you, Rick, I'll finally see you as soon as I said, hey, yeah, I gave the book away, so it should have arrived, it should have been like this, it should have been the end of the quest line, you know, real.

Oh, to save or something or give me. the option to lie, in which case you would have to have some kind of lying personality system like Fallout. It's a shame really because the Mage Guild is set up to be something really exciting. It could have been a real Harry Potter experience within a game. and instead wasted his own design by having the players do something that the local Squire with no magical experience could do at the end of the day, but in any case, after getting approval from each sect, you head to the mage 101 campus. and they tell you that you have to buy a wand at Ollivanders so that you too can be a realmagician.

This could have again been a unique and fun experience choosing what type of wood you wanted for your staff, perhaps even to the point of being questioned. about your motives and aspirations as a promising mage in the guild, which then affects the properties of your staff, the quest giver even tells you that you have to choose carefully, as if you are presented with several options from either of the two providers of wood instead of the The game ruins it again because once you finish fighting in the harsh wasteland of mud crabs and Timberwolves, you are greeted with the friendly faces of about 400 necromancers in a cave, after fighting your way through the Zul army, you get the last piece. of wooden balls from this glow stick infused coffin and then you go back to the chamber of sages so the old man can tell you that those punk necromancer kids have gone too far and then you can answer some questions about what you want your staff and this guy carves a different smiley face depending on the route you want to take, your stick will give you power on the ice.

I think what really stands out to me about the main scale of this game is how condescending it seems. be and if the way I interpreted the missions was done intentionally, then I definitely have to give Bethesda credit for evoking this kind of response from me, but every mission from the beginning to the middle feels like you're nothing more than a guy from the errands in this. from the guild to access the first few quests, everything is set up in a way where you feel like you're someone who has an internship at a big office. I think, honestly, that's how important it is for everything to be presented to you, since it always seems like only you can handle the problem.

Your second quest after getting your staff to be a full member of the Mage's Guild involves the council lying to you and using your ignoramuses to extract. vampire account information we will continue to monitor the situation but I assure you that we will make no further attempts to deceive you then you will be rewarded for your efforts with an advancement in rank oh, we are sorry for lying to you about the dangerous situation we put you in, but here you go a nice gift for being a good boy. Plus, I'm pretty sure you could use a rest after all that scary stuff, so we're sending you to these ruins so you can help, it's absurdly difficult. to know whether or not the writers of these missions wanted it to feel so fake to the player, but it's all I felt when I was progressing through them.

The quests in the Mage's Guild from this point onward tend to drag on and on, you're always in There's some chance that the necromancer threat will do everything they can to get information and thwart them. There are a few missions that almost break this formula, like retrieving an artifact from alien ruins, but even that fails in terms of unique fun, it just seems incredibly stupid. that none of these experienced members can solve the most mind-boggling and least simple tasks. This one with the runes involves you translating ancient inscriptions with a journal and then using four different spells from a chest, all of which are on site in the ruins.

The older ones are sitting here trying to push the triangular blocks into the square holes and wondering why it doesn't work. It's magic. We know it's better to play it safe. There is no complex magic, no basic spells with a single effect. What a waste of my talents. Get me wrong when you finally manage to somehow solve the dark souls of the puzzle rooms, you can explore the ruins full of undead and traps as a reward. I have to admit that I really enjoyed the trap part of the dungeon, but I'm tired. From underground cellars full of undead, you continue through several layers of, go here, report again quests, all of which tend to have some sort of cave-like exploration.

This is probably my biggest complaint about how these missions are structured. It's like Bethesda decided that she was okay, guys, the necromancer will be the enemy, where did the necromancer caves reside? boom vampire cave demon game No, as I continued moving up the ranks I realized another problem I had with the wizard guild story, it wasn't just the blooming caves they sent me to, it was the path to the guild. of wise men and the council are painted over and over again. These people who are supposed to be some of the wisest and most intelligent citizens of Cyrodiil are constantly surprised, fooled and bewildered by some of the silliest or most predictable events.

Initially I felt like they were being disingenuous, but as it went on I felt like they were just naive. I think the penultimate quest perfectly sums up how simple everything is in this guild. Move either with the ax you want close to the door or far away. I cast a good range magic spell you want. here Oh, there it's fine, but that distances me further from the group. These options are as complex as deciding to drink when you are thirsty. I know I'm reading too much into a questline, but I really feel that way. things could have worked out better you are finally tasked with facing the HNIC who is the main necromancer in charge.

This part is really cool because the old Archmage actually gives himself the blowjob so you can resist the cunning charms of the sexiest necromancer in the series. Dill, you will be immune to his attempts to sign you up. I think if that guy knew how easy it was to get the Archmage to sacrifice himself like that, he would have sent an undercover guy a long time ago. I mean, realistically, I passed through apprenticeship. Archmage in about a week, but either way, you run through the final cave and fight the most disappointing hooded guy you've ever seen, then you come back and forget to take off your gray fox mask, you're the gray fox.

Oh friend. and think about autosaves before you travel. I will say that the final reward for doing all of this is really cool because you get to design your own spells and Archmage rooms. I was finally able to design my man 65 a restoration spell. so I can clear my mana bar every time I heal once and there you have it, a suitable Archmage for the mage guild. I have the key and I will die offending him. My play through Oblivion's guild system concluded with what I thought I was going to like the least is that the fighters guild in the first half to three quarters of this guild quest gives you roughly the same motivation and sense of depth than Skyrim's radian quest system; the only redeeming quality during these initial missions are the somewhat amusing scenarios that pop up from time to time I Hate My Life like helping a woman protect her pet rats even though it sounded like the rats were the problem or helping Melvin protect his chastity maybe I should talk to my mother first, many of the characters you meet are the saving grace of this guild, oh god I insist, but the actual objectives of the contract feel about as interesting as Preston Garvey's Homestead Safari.

It's good to see that you are working hard. Another deal has been a job where they need our help above anything the fighters guild tends to do. take all the basic builds in the game and upgrade them in a more complex but overall less satisfying way. It has what I like to call advanced caves, meaning caves with more traps and winding corridors. They were interesting for about three minutes, but I actually felt like they belonged more to the Thieves Guild quest line, plus they didn't have a ton of variants and made me feel like I was browsing a discount sense fortress for most of the time.

While, beyond the advanced caves, the fighters guild also likes to make you do some advanced exploration. Exploration consists of normal exploration, but with the addition of an NPC who will slowly guide you through Cyrodiil as your tour guide, because if there's one thing every game needs, its unskippable escort quests and the fighters meets that effort, okay, in the name of Oblivion, all that. I said that my interest began to perk up a little when it came time to start doing something with the Blackwood company. Rival mercenaries were famous for turning guild members into fighters and stealing their contracts, as well as having a reputation for doing anything to complete a contract.

In one of them you are sent to a mine to find out what happened to the son of the guild master who was sent to clean the mine of trolls. When you arrive you are met with body after body of the members of the fighters guild and one The members of the Blackwood company consider it a chilling scene and it is actually one of the few caves that I have to give credit to in terms of design . You see, if you are not paying attention to the map, your instinct is to go further and further in a straight line, thus discovering more corpses along the way, when you reach the dead end, you realize that there is a sharp curve that is very easy overlook as you pass through it and it leads to the rest of the cave.

It's a mission that I really enjoyed a lot and the ending. In it, you flip through a journal detailing the rival guild's invasion and nearly every member of the fighters guild being killed. Cold and dying, the guild master's son writes down his last words as the trolls close in on his location. I love this narrative and it made me want more interesting missions like this. In fact, I would have loved to have been able to choose between these two rival factions. On one hand, you have the brilliant and virtuous mercenaries trying to stay high and top.

On the other hand, there are the insidious and sleazy ones who are willing to get their hands dirty because the good versus evil narrative could have been really fun and I think this type of decision making is something that Oblivion really lacks in almost all of them. the movies. In their quest lines, there's never really a good or bad choice, it's just one or the other and you follow it without question either way when you finally become a champion of the fighters guild and outrank your former bosses in the process that you must finish. the Blackwood company once and for all, these are probably my second favorite quests in the game, right behind the Dark Brotherhood, they actually almost make up for all the filler in the fighters guild.

You are tasked with infiltrating the Blackwood Company to see how it operates upon being initiated, you are told to drink the sap of a story that has been smuggled from Marwin. They tell you that everyone in the company drinks this SAP before missions, so you drink it and regain consciousness in a small village where the goblins have taken over. you executed everything, you start killing the goblins who die in one hit, then you are told to check all the houses for more that are hiding after clearing the village, you faint again and wake up in your former companions house guild, then they tell you to go check the village just in case and, surprise, surprise, you've brutally murdered the entire village, more or less.

It's an incredibly chilling story that portrays the members of Blackwood as either sinister addicts or naively manipulated mercenaries who are simply content with any kind of work. entire town, I realize you must be disgusted with yourself as you walk to the company guild hall for the final confrontation, it feels perfect and your quest for revenge and justice makes the fight feel fueled with a very palpable emotion after taking down member after member and these two Native Americans. Then you blocked the machine that keeps the story alive with large pipes that destroy the machinery of a game with very few cinematics.

This definitely felt like a scene. It was a spectacular ending for the guild that made me want more. I know I'm devastated. The fighters fight quite a bit at first, but can you blame me? It's really a case of less is more for me because a lot of the Guild's quest felt like filler. On the one hand, there were some pretty funny moments to fill in the gaps, but on the other hand. the other moments were interspersed between caves and dungeons and I was en masse getting used to being secluded, you can see how good my painting is getting with the guilds out of the way.

I felt pretty obligated to finish the main story at this point, so your first order of business is to retrieve the Amulet of Kings. To do this, you need information about the cult that is facing you, which requires you to recover books. Then my hero Boris will take you on a tour of the sewers. I'm not sure. Why does this game seem to have been created with the idea that people love going around mazes, but it's definitely a trend I've had a big disagreement with? Anyway, the books give you information about where your next clue is and you follow the route trail. to a cave full of cultists, you introduce yourself as a new initiative, follow their orders or not, and take them all down.

I chose both and then you get another book but this one is better, you return the book to Martin who takes care ofdecipher it. Meanwhile, you're sent to deal with some spies after Martin deciphers part of the book and tells you that you need to bring back a Daedric artifact. This was actually a pretty interesting way to handle a mission because it literally asks you for anything. Daedric Artifact, the quest tells you where you can find one, but if you wanted, you could walk to any shrine around the map, extract its artifact, and bring it to Martin after this, it's everyone's favorite time again, closing time door of oblivion it is time to close the door of oblivion.

Guide the broom guard through the gate that opens outside their city, at least if you want to take 30 minutes to fight everything you can guide them through it, if you want to be a complete badass you can go through everything in 4 minutes while The Bird waits through the lava outside the main quest and then splits into two different quests that must be completed, one is to bring Martin an ancient armor derived from a god and the other is to gather the other cities in the thoughtful Bruma, the armored is the equivalent of ordering a Coke and getting a Pepsi with glass shards instead of ice cubes.

I think if I had done the main quest from the beginning I wouldn't have cared as much, but my god, these undead catacombs at least the whole Dead Blades thing was nice. cool Oh anyway, remember when I said you had to do the whole Oblivion gate thing eight more times, well that's what the other quest is or at least most of them are involved in it, it's optional, but I decided to do it just to show how. They are tedious and because apparently I hate myself with an open door of oblivion I cannot do without any soldier I do not have enough men I cannot do without any soldier I need all my soldiers here with an abyss congratulations bravo lair capstan Aten coral hole safe for the moment I will help you too.

Now I can send a rumor with pleasure. I hate this mission. It's boring. It's monotonous. It's the same thing over and over again. With a fresh coat of red paint every time you finish each city, it allows you to realize it in its entirety. of their defense for them, they agree to lend you men for the big showdown that, let's be honest, you just closed seven doors by yourself. Do you really need these men? Basically, they make the Great Oblivion Gate much more manageable after you go looking for the Welkin Stone. in the goblins vs. zombies cave, you hand it to Martin and he informs you that the final piece of the puzzle will come from allowing the cultists to open the biggest, sturdiest door this side of Cyrodiil.

This is one of the only times. I really wish the game was created more recently. This whole fight is really cool to watch, don't get me wrong, it's a little disappointing combat wise, but it's the same old thing, but seeing different Oblivion Gates appear followed by this huge one. It is a truly impressive sight. This is the only time to do the quest in the game, which makes it particularly stressful to do it the right way, yes, but after overcoming the tremendous siege engine that is heading towards the gate entrance at a fast pace. dizzying, you may be surprised to discover that it is, in fact, another door to oblivion that does this.

It looks familiar, that's because I'm playing old footage. I'm kidding. This door has the same damn Tower that I've climbed eight times. After grabbing the largest siege stone, you defeat the largest siege engine at the largest gate and then move. We go to paradise, which is great, the change of scenery is welcome, and it's some of the most interesting level design and voice acting in the game aside from Shivering Isles. I actually had a lot of fun with the caves here and the contrast between The Outside of Paradise and its inner workings filled with tortured souls is a lot of fun.

You finally meet the man in charge and after hearing his motives you begin your fight. It's nothing super epic or grand, but the before and after make up for it. The paradise that that man Cameron built himself crumbles with his body upon your return. You begin the final leg of your journey to light the dragon fires and stop Mehrunes Dagon from invading Tamriel once and for all. This plan is immediately stopped when he arrives along with this anyway. Hell Army, this is a really cool part of the game that marked the beginning of its end, seeing the sky read over the Imperial City and the Daedra entering it is quite an imposing sight.

I have to have a bit of a problem with the convenience of the larger one. The demon boy crosses literally minutes before the dragon fires are lit, but it is what it is, once you finally make your way through the city, you take Martin Septim to the temple where he crushes the amulet of the Kings, which turns them into a. big meat and light dragon, then fight mehrunes dagon while you hang out and watch them. It's a disappointing ending in terms of gameplay, but it's a cool battle to watch with an ending that leaves Mehrunes destroyed and Martin petrified as a monument to a. sacrifice, you are acclaimed, you are the champion of Cyrodiil and you were given custom-made armor to commemorate your exploits.

I actually felt a bit of pride in this honorific, it's strange because I've complained a lot about Sammy's stuff. that's in this game which also spans the main questline, but I feel like after going through all those escapes from hell and saving everyone's butts multiple times, that recognition is quite welcome, it's not necessarily the greatest exaltation, but there might be easily been a You did it right and walked away as if nothing had happened. I initially started the initial concept of this video as a comparison between Skyrim and Oblivion, but as I compiled the enormous amount of Oblivion material I realized that by trying to narrow down my exact impressions and feelings into a video that didn't take an hour and a half would not be a fair assessment.

I initially stopped my progression in the Dark Brotherhood after killing the other family members and stopped the fighters guild questline after becoming a save-only defender. time and make a hasty comparison between the guilds in each game and if I had done that I would have missed some of my favorite quests at the end of our game Overall I would say that Oblivion is a game worth visiting or revisiting, would you? is that so? Honestly it's not, there were many times where it was much better than I remembered but most of the time it was worse, doesn't mean it's not worth playing, but even if it wasn't. aged as horribly as some people might say, it has definitely aged compared to the newer games of this decade, many missions, maps and characters are very lazy when copying and pasting and obviously the filler, the training system is a bit flighty and the NPC banter is just plain weird.

I don't have time I don't have time for you Hello, welcome to Castle Carl, the Oblivion gate system as a whole is a tremendous waste of potential, many tasks are tedious and boring and overall satisfying, but in the end it's still a game of Elder Scrolls and I'm still a solid 50 hours in while doing this review. Did I want to stop after 30? I'd be lying if I said no, but in the end I still like this game and I will always appreciate it for what it is, thanks for watching my 45 minute rant about a game from 11 years ago, because with all my videos, this one took way too long time to do and doesn't match any other content on the channel that I'll probably move on to.

Next up, another video of bugs and glitches, like my Sid Meier's Civilization 1. Until then, I'll be streaming on Twitch semi-occasionally. I'm going on vacation until mid-June, thanks again.