There is no way in hell Oblivion is better than Skyrim. That's how bad Oblivion is.
I can see WHY people hate Oblivion. And I also understand WHY it's very bad.
But, despite being mostly gutted, Oblivion has at least a hint of RPG systems still left over from Morrowind. The skills mean something, the quests often have multiple endings or non-combat solutions, and it's possible to build different characters of different styles.
Skyrim doing away with everything and boiling it all down to Perks was a horrible decision. And most of Skyrims quests are basically just "go here and kill this thing". Skyrim offers nothing but relatively lackluster dungeon crawling through the same 7 Draugr Ruins. Oblivion suffers the same problem with it's locations but I would at least argue there's something resembling a game despite that.
Everyone complains about Oblivions horrid levelling system, which is an absolutely fair complaint, but Combat is also far less important in Oblivion than it is in Skyrim. I wouldn't exactly say Oblivion is mature and adult, but it's at least interested in doing some more mature things with it's writing, like giving you troll quests designed to kill you, having some things like the thieves guild be semi-hidden, etc. Some minor things an intelligent player might actually get something enjoyable out of. Skyrim offers nothing outside of it's lackluster combat system. All the quests are rote and boring, and there's no thought required at any point while playing.
Don't get me wrong, Oblivion is a fucking AWFUL videogame. But it's at least possible to have fun in Oblivion because there's at least things to do outside of visiting the same 5 dungeons over and over again.
I genuinely can't see how anyone can see Oblivion as being worse than Skyrim. I understand if it's more disappointing, because it was hyped quite a bit and was a very bad follow up to Morrowind, but when it comes to actual quality, I would describe Oblivion as a role-playing videogame (even if it is a bad one), Skyrim not so much. I guess Skyrim is more of an autobattler where you press mouse 1 occasionally.
What are the worst parts of each game in the series and spin-off? Anyone have a detailed list and maybe explanation? And I mean vanilla but maybe patched. Hell, original release then current or best patch. Just no mods.
The quick version is:
- Arena/Daggerfall: Can't comment as I haven't played them.
- Morrowind: Some mechanics/systems are extremely badly designed - poor race/class/starsign balance, front-loaded endurance health multiplier, exploitable NPC bartering, enchanted item auto recharging, etc (I should shill the
Comprehensive Rebalance mod, which fixes a lot of these issues) - but it's biggest issues are technical. The world is puny and many NPCs have exactly the same text blurb, which can take you out of the experience. I know people decry "voiced" dialog ruining everything, but Morrowind has the opposite problem, to the point where NPCs feel like dialogue vending machines or wikipedia pages sometimes. You can go to the big "trading hub" in Vivek and it's like 4 people standing around some tables, a lot of areas of the world just feel tiny and pathetic if you actually look at them too closely, mostly due to technical limitations of the time. The best way to enjoy Morrowind's world is to let it all wash over you without looking at it too closely, it certainly feels grand when you're doing pilgrimages and adventuring or reading books about ancient beings or hunting down ancient necromancers for a guild, it only really falls apart when you look at the details and notice just how small and pathetic most settlements are. Despite it's issues, Morrowind is still the best game in the series by far, as the rest are all FAR more broken.
- Oblivion: Horrendous NPC scaling. Was extremely overhyped and a very poor follow up to Morrowind. Most of the writing, graphics, UI, etc reek of the mid 2000s Xbox era. Everything is big, janky, and dumb.
- Skyrim: Definitely the smoothest, most accessible game in the series. But it's completely braindead. You can play through the entire game without activating a single neuron. Not only is it pathetically easy, it basically makes every character good at everything, and most of the good perks are no brainers. TES has always had bad RPG mechanics, but this barely even qualifies. Skyrim is the epitome of game sludge. A boring, non-toxic, grey mixture of goo with perfect consistency and no excitement to be had.
The worst part is, Skyrim is still orders of magnitude better than Fallout 4, which is orders of magnitude better than Fallout 76 and Starfield. Bethesda keeps getting worse, and they keep getting rewarded every time they get worse.
