Jasede
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2005
- Messages
- 24,793
It just feels so odd.
After constantly being conditioned to dislike Bethesda games - and for good reason, up to a point, with Oblivion - I can't help but see all the good bits in this. Yes, there are many problems. This game is massive, any game would have many problems. Look at our old favorites: Daggerfall? Buggy, so buggy! Arcanum? The combat really needed work, and for better or worse, the game has no balance at all. And it was quite buggy, too.
Even the things I thought I should end up hating I don't even mind. Sure, the dungeons aren't the big, impressive Daggerfall affairs- but they are their own thing. They're beautifully hand-crafted gems of fair enough length. Thought I would hate the shortcuts back to the entrance- turns out, in this day and age, I feel like I don't have the time to backtrack all the way to the entrance, and welcome them.
Yes, the combat is real-time. Well, so what? It's very satisfying, a huge upgrade to Morrowind. It feels visceral, there is a real sense of feedback. The interface is bad? Well... I honestly can't tell. I liked Gothic 1's interface and likewise have no problem at all with this one; I really don't see what's that wrong with it.
But the things I really loved, truly cherished about Morrowind, are all here: there's plenty of lore, the same old (and new) books we have all come to enjoy, the world is beautiful and really worth exploring, if only to see the sights, there is always something to do thanks to the almost Daggerfall-style random quests and the game, at least for me, runs stable right out of the box.
There are a couple of flaws, and they are pretty big, but nothing that'd make this game flat-out bad. Yes, the writing isn't always top-notch, even though there are parts of it that really shine. Yes, the voice-acting isn't all that, but it's an improvement over Oblivion and it's good in parts - and since when did we really care about Voice Acting anyway? Most of is just speed-read the dialogue anyway and click ahead!
There isn't as much to do for the guilds, and that is a real shame and honestly my least favorite part of the game, but other than that, I find I can sink a lot of time into this before I get bored. And let's say I do get bored after 60, 80 hours- tell me, what other games can provide that kind of value in this day and age? Not many!
A lot of the games we loved or love have broken mechanics in part, or overpowered things.
In Fallout 1 you can get the best weapon and armor maybe 15 minutes in, and faster in 2. In Arcanum, many skills are brokenly powerful compared to others. In Torment, to really enjoy most of the game, you are almost pigeon-holed into being Magic User with high WIS/INT/CHA. In ToEE you could easily trivialize the game by picking optimal character builds, and that is true for most older RPGs that I grew up with, except for Wizardry 7 because that game hates you and everything you stand for. And yet you can "break" that too, if you want, by making everyone every class at one point. This is not that different from the crafting being an "exploit".
I know it's not perfect, but so many games we love have things like that. I don't want to sound like a moron, but honestly, this game really makes me curious to see some more mysterious, cool area of TES lore in action with its fancy graphics and vast, sprawling map. Can you imagine how cool it'd be to go to Blackmarsh or Elsweyr? I can, and await them with cautious optimism.
After constantly being conditioned to dislike Bethesda games - and for good reason, up to a point, with Oblivion - I can't help but see all the good bits in this. Yes, there are many problems. This game is massive, any game would have many problems. Look at our old favorites: Daggerfall? Buggy, so buggy! Arcanum? The combat really needed work, and for better or worse, the game has no balance at all. And it was quite buggy, too.
Even the things I thought I should end up hating I don't even mind. Sure, the dungeons aren't the big, impressive Daggerfall affairs- but they are their own thing. They're beautifully hand-crafted gems of fair enough length. Thought I would hate the shortcuts back to the entrance- turns out, in this day and age, I feel like I don't have the time to backtrack all the way to the entrance, and welcome them.
Yes, the combat is real-time. Well, so what? It's very satisfying, a huge upgrade to Morrowind. It feels visceral, there is a real sense of feedback. The interface is bad? Well... I honestly can't tell. I liked Gothic 1's interface and likewise have no problem at all with this one; I really don't see what's that wrong with it.
But the things I really loved, truly cherished about Morrowind, are all here: there's plenty of lore, the same old (and new) books we have all come to enjoy, the world is beautiful and really worth exploring, if only to see the sights, there is always something to do thanks to the almost Daggerfall-style random quests and the game, at least for me, runs stable right out of the box.
There are a couple of flaws, and they are pretty big, but nothing that'd make this game flat-out bad. Yes, the writing isn't always top-notch, even though there are parts of it that really shine. Yes, the voice-acting isn't all that, but it's an improvement over Oblivion and it's good in parts - and since when did we really care about Voice Acting anyway? Most of is just speed-read the dialogue anyway and click ahead!
There isn't as much to do for the guilds, and that is a real shame and honestly my least favorite part of the game, but other than that, I find I can sink a lot of time into this before I get bored. And let's say I do get bored after 60, 80 hours- tell me, what other games can provide that kind of value in this day and age? Not many!
A lot of the games we loved or love have broken mechanics in part, or overpowered things.
In Fallout 1 you can get the best weapon and armor maybe 15 minutes in, and faster in 2. In Arcanum, many skills are brokenly powerful compared to others. In Torment, to really enjoy most of the game, you are almost pigeon-holed into being Magic User with high WIS/INT/CHA. In ToEE you could easily trivialize the game by picking optimal character builds, and that is true for most older RPGs that I grew up with, except for Wizardry 7 because that game hates you and everything you stand for. And yet you can "break" that too, if you want, by making everyone every class at one point. This is not that different from the crafting being an "exploit".
I know it's not perfect, but so many games we love have things like that. I don't want to sound like a moron, but honestly, this game really makes me curious to see some more mysterious, cool area of TES lore in action with its fancy graphics and vast, sprawling map. Can you imagine how cool it'd be to go to Blackmarsh or Elsweyr? I can, and await them with cautious optimism.