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Oblivion Is Still Excellent 15 Years Later

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


Should you play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2021? Jake Dekker revisits Bethesda's classic to see how it holds up 15 years later.

You don’t have to look hard to find Oblivion’s blemishes, but if you can look past them there is an imaginative, ambitious fantasy adventure that, in many ways, Bethesda hasn’t been able to replicate since. The Elder Scrolls has been around since 1994. However, it didn’t stake its claim in the console space until 2002 with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Morrowind had a lot of firsts for the series. Most notably, it was the first fully 3D mainline Elder Scrolls game.

Morrowind laid the groundwork for Oblivion, and eventually Skyrim. In this video, Jake revisits Oblivion for its 15th anniversary in order to see what made it so special. From the awkward voice acting to the incredible quests, Oblivion had is still a memorable experience.

Oblivion originally came out for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC back in 2006, but it’s currently available on Xbox Game Pass for subscribers.
 

Aesius

Member
Oblivion is only worthwhile nowadays with mods, particularly for leveling. But once a few (fairly major) issues are sorted out with said mods, the game holds up.

I have a soft spot for it, though. Ever since GTA 3 came out, I wanted an open-world RPG. And sure, there were others before Oblivion, but it was the first to be mainstream (moreso than Morrowind). And it was beautiful at release (and the aesthetic is still nice and much better than Skyrim).
 
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Kev Kev

Member
it was amazing for the time. i put hundreds of hours into it and explored every inch.

however, i tried it out again a few years ago and it did not age well. the movement, battle, animations, VA and so much more just did not hold up well.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs


Should you play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2021? Jake Dekker revisits Bethesda's classic to see how it holds up 15 years later.

You don’t have to look hard to find Oblivion’s blemishes, but if you can look past them there is an imaginative, ambitious fantasy adventure that, in many ways, Bethesda hasn’t been able to replicate since. The Elder Scrolls has been around since 1994. However, it didn’t stake its claim in the console space until 2002 with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Morrowind had a lot of firsts for the series. Most notably, it was the first fully 3D mainline Elder Scrolls game.

Morrowind laid the groundwork for Oblivion, and eventually Skyrim. In this video, Jake revisits Oblivion for its 15th anniversary in order to see what made it so special. From the awkward voice acting to the incredible quests, Oblivion had is still a memorable experience.

Oblivion originally came out for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC back in 2006, but it’s currently available on Xbox Game Pass for subscribers.

Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall was fully 3D so not sure where you get that Morrowind was the first 3D mainline ES game.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Yes but fully 3D. Think Doom. Just cause it uses sprites doesn't mean it's not 3D. The world was open world with shops you could go into and full 3D dungeons with a fully 3D map. A lot of the open world was generated but it was huge.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Didn't Daggerfall use sprites?
Yes but fully first-person 3D. Think Doom. Just cause it uses sprites doesn't mean it's not 3D. The world was open world with shops you could go into and full 3D dungeons with a fully 3D map. A lot of the open world was generated but it was huge.
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
It was awesome when I was 14 and couldn't afford a PC that could run it.

There's sort of a soft spot in my heart for it, but I've got no intention of replaying it. Same with Skyrim, though.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Both Arena and Battlespire were also "3D" using sprites like Doom. Redguard was the first TES game to be fully 3D with polygons, TES III Morrowind was the first mainline one.
Whether sprites or polygons they are 3D. I don't think you all know what 3D is.

"Daggerfall was initially developed with an updated 2.5D raycast engine, like the Doom engine, but it was eventually dropped in favor of XnGine, one of the first truly 3D engines. ... According to Julian LeFay, "The whole idea with Daggerfall was that, like a pen-and-paper role-playing game, you could play for years."

Daggerfall
 
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I was playing this last month. To me it's sort of the middle child of the ES games. Morrowind is a bit more obtuse, but has arguably the most charm and atmosphere. Skyrim is a bit more mainstream, but it fixes the broken leveling system from Oblivion and improved the graphics and animations immensely. Morrowind and Skyrim are generally fun to explore in, but the shitty leveled enemies and copy paste dungeons of Oblivion always have be B-lining through Questline locations.

The thing I'll say about Oblivion is I feel it has the best quests of the three 3D games, but worse everything else.
 

Loke

Member
Loved it back in the days but tried to play it again a few years ago and the combat has aged horribly.
 
I tried it on the Xbox One X a year ago maybe, and to me it was unplayable. I really wanted to give it a chance and like it but ehhhh no. Everything about it was just too shitty. The combat, graphics, animations etc.. 😬Yikes
 

TLZ

Banned
Never played it. I only started Morrowind days ago on SX. Now I'm playing Skyrim in 60fps. I honestly didn't expect to enjoy it, but I'm super hooked and already cleared a few random places before starting main quests! As I always do with RPG open world games 😁
 

Retinoid

Member
It's not a good game mechanically, graphically, or narratively. The level scaling in the game is still one of the most baffling, ridiculous design decisions ever to grace an "RPG". Same goes for the broken level up system.

Yet, it still has this weird alluring charm to it that Bethesda haven't been able to emulate since. I think a lot of this comes down to the rather quirky dialogue and the manner in which they are delivered by the VAs - you could tell everyone was having a blast voicing their roles and it gives the game a lot more character than it has any right to do.
 
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ZehDon

Member
Oblivion is probably still my favourite of the series. It's a mixed bag in some aspects, but the good greatly out-weighs any bad. It was insanely ambitious for its time, and represented an absolute monster leap forward in terms of the audio visual immersion games could provide. The jump from Morrowind to Oblivion is really quite something. Wondering the forests of Cyrodiil is a hell of an experience, and the more traditional fantasy world of white towers, green grass, and blue waters is elevated by the presentation. Of course, all that ambition has a price: the world can feel borderline empty at times, with some cities housing a dozen NPCs or less. Its shift for more accessibility doesn't do it any favours once the allure of its work its world has worn off, and the fact that player can see and do everything without ever really making meaningful choices is definitely a minus in my book - the level scaling is still indefensible, though. But, playing it again via BC on the XSX, it's still pretty darn good and I'd still recommend it.
 

EDMIX

Member
Is a fire RPG. I love playing it from time to time. I think I own like 4 copies of this game lol

PC normal version, normal PS3 version, GOTY version on PC and PS3.

Would buy a remaster and or remake day 1
 
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