Oblivion Reminiscing

Occasionally I go back to my old consoles and play games of yesteryear. I was considering doing just that with my PS2 and enjoying classics like God of War, Shadow Hearts, and so on. But lately I’ve been wondering about playing Oblivion.

Made by Bethesda in the good old days when paying for horse armour was laughable and games didn’t take over a decade to be released because studios were too busy dicking about with live service bullshit, Oblivion has a lot of points I remember really fondly. And one I loathed.

Skyrim’s got a more realistic world in terms of paths and mountains, but the infamous sideways mountain-hopping is far easier in Oblivion. What this means is you can go practically anywhere, which means the world’s a bit less realistic but players enjoy a lot more freedom. I’ve gone multiple different ways after leaving the starting dungeon, whereas Skyrim does more heavily lead you by the hand.

Another big plus is that the cities feel larger, and more distinct. The city size in Skyrim is significantly smaller than in Oblivion, and the cities tended to feel like they had their own identities more. Markarth is nice and different, but mostly the architecture and feel of Nordic cities is pretty similar. That’s not the case in Oblivion.

Quests are also better in the Elder Scrolls IV than the next instalment. I won’t spoil it, decade and a half old as it is, but the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion is orders of magnitude better than anything in Skyrim. If you haven’t played it, give it a look. It’s engaging, enjoyable, and compelling.

Creating your own spells is a nifty feature you gain if you join the Mages, but for some reason it was stripped out of Skyrim. Why? It’s cool being able to create your own spells, and the range of spells in Oblivion, even without making your own, is substantially more too. And you can cast them whilst having a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Plus the touch spells make being a battle mage a cool option.

Character creation obviously comes with inferior graphics, but against this you can alter the colour and length of your hair, and even fiddle cleverly to make your orc red (move the relevant slider all the way right, then left, then repeat until he’s red).

These are all things I like. So, what’s the thing I didn’t?

Levelling.

Now, maybe I’ll view things differently if I ever go back, but from memory the levelling system pissed me off. Enemies level as you do. Which can work. But if you don’t get your skills right then you become relatively weaker, making you less powerful as you level up. Which is insane.

I’m currently replaying Divinity Original Sin 2. Undecided if I’ll take a hiatus upon leaving Fort Joy or keep going, but it’s interesting to consider going back to Oblivion.

And the PS3 also has Dragon Age: Origins as well. Ah, happy days…

Thaddeus