Since my new consoles STILL aren't here, iv'e decided to dive into my steam library and review a few random titles before they get here, today I realized I hadn't reviewed one of the best games to grace us with it's presence in the modern era, everyone has played oblivion and the general consensus is that it's one of the best games ever created by Bethesda, so today we're going to go through some of the stories, gameplay and legacy of a truly amazing game.
So lets dive straight into it.
Welcome To Hell.
Setting and Story
Oblivion starts as your character has been jailed for a crime that's unknown, while you wait in your jail cell, suddenly 3 people burst in, one of them being the Emperor Uriel Septim VII, the ruler of Cyrodil, Assassins have just murdered his sons and are now coming from him, your jail cell happens to hold an escape route for them to use, the guards of the emperor, the blades, tell you to stand against a wall, but the Emperor in an unexpected move, pardons your of your crime and asks you to come with him, with no other recourse but to stay in the cell you follow him and the escorts into the dungeons below the jail.
It's there that a group of assassins attempt to kill the emperor, one blades member is killed, the emperor talks to your character and informs you that he has seen this in a dream and that he is destined to die today, he entrusts you with the amulet of kings and tells you to find a man named Jauffre, the grand master of the Blades, as he finishes giving you your orders an assassin appears from the shadows behind him and kills the Emperor, now with the Amulet of Kings you must escape the sewer and find your way to a place called Weynon Priory to seek help, but with the death of Uriel Septim and no heir to the throne, an ancient pact is broken, one that has kept the world safe from Oblivion for centuries.
With no king, the realm of Oblivion opens up into Cyrodil and with it the demons of Mehrunes Dagon, arriving at Weynon Priory, Jauffre informs you the only true way to close the gates of Oblivion is the find the next in line for the throne, so that the heir may relight the dragon fires with the Amulet of Kings, being the master of Blades Jauffre informs you of a bastard of Uriel Septim that still has the royal bloodline, he is a priest in the city of Kvatch and that he may be the only way to end the invasion, the hero sets forth to Kvatch only to find the entire city under invasion from portals to the demonic realms, with no other choice, the hero steps foot into the world of Oblivion to close the gate.
Once inside the hero realizes the scope of the realm, demons pour forth from everywhere as the realm of Mehrunes Dagon begins to bleed into Cyrodil, the hero fights his way to the top of a spire filled with demons before finally shutting down the portal and reappearing in Kvatch, entering the city it's apparent that the demonic invasion has killed most of the population and only a handful of survivors remain, heading to the church in search of Martin, the bastard heir, he helps to fight back the demons to reclaim the city, earning the player the title of "Hero Of Kvatch".
After reclaiming the city, the hero informs Martin what has happened and that he must come with him to Weynon Priory to restart the dragon fires and put an end to the invasion from the demonic realm, however as they arrive they find the bodies of the blades defending the Priory and realize it's under attack by assassins and that the Amulet of Kings has been stolen, fearing the worst Jauffre and Martin are escorted to Cloud Ruler Temple, the eternal home of the blades to begin the quest of finding the amulet and closing the rifts, Martin is sworn in as Emperor and given control of The Blades while the Hero returns to the world to hunt down the Assassins and put an end to the Invasion.
As usual, with a game as huge as Oblivion i'll be leaving the story here as, well I can't possibly review the entire storyline of a game that has hundreds of hours of content, but suffice it to say the story line of Oblivion is a very interesting experience with a lot of twists and turns and an amazing ending.
Game play
Oblivion is all about Game play, it's one of the primary reasons this is one of the most celebrated games of all time, there are 3 main ways to play the game, Melee, Ranged and Magical all with wildly different specializations, talents and classes and races, whatever way you decide to play you'll encounter unique challenges for each, Oblivion hosts a huge game world with multiple different cities and hundreds of quests, villages and NPC's, while you can follow the main quest to completion straight away, it pays to get out there and explore as you never know what is lurking around the massive map of Oblivion.
But i'm going to break down some of the mechanics of Oblivion as it has a lot of content to go through and content that can't be simply skimmed over, so lets take a look.
Class,Leveling and Quests.
One of Oblivions key mechanics is the Class and Leveling system, they are split into Major and Minor skills depending on how you want to play your character, at the beginning you will be given a choice of what way you want your character to go, as well as given birth signs and helpful tips on what to do, the most commonly played class in Oblivion is the Figher which resides in the warrior tree, minor skills are a bit different from most RPG's instead of leveling up in the traditional sense you have to use these skills to increase them while the attributes from the major skills/picked skills reinforce them.
For example, Acrobatics controls how high you jump and how well you control yourself in mid air, as such jumping will naturally increase the level of acrobatics you have and how well you can control yourself, likewise the Athletics skill increases how fast you can run and swim, it is leveled up by, you guessed it, running or swimming, these minor skills play a major role in the game as they compliment your major skills and can have some pretty awesome passive benefits from it.
Major Skills are leveled up by the talent tree, but unlike minor skills you have to pick them carefully as it's impossible to get to Master in all of them, for a Fighter class using two handed weapons you will want to pick the weapons you are going to be using such as Swords, Axes or Maces as they fall into different skills with swords being considered Blades and Maces and Axes being considered Blunt, likewise your armor will be affected by the talent tree as well as you will have to pick which type of armor you want to use and specialize into it for the later game, there are a few books in the world that give you free points towards these things but they are few and far between.
But the biggest part of leveling is the quest system, Oblivion is stacked with quests, they're literally everywhere and there's a chance every NPC can give you one, these can be as simple as gathering a few plants or to clearing a massive cave of enemies and some quests will even lead you to the Guilds of cyrodil which have very expansive quest lines for you to do, overall there's hundreds of hours of quest content in Oblivion that takes you all over the map and even to the hidden places not on the map.
The never ending quest for Loot.
One of the best things about Oblivion is the level of content and with it comes a myriad of items to find and create, starting off small you will probably find yourself with a short sword and some hardened leather, but the longer you play the more amazing your gear becomes, finding weapons and armor that completely decimate your enemies without much trouble and since the game is so big and there is so much choice there are numerous different items for you to find on your journeys.
One of my favorite places is in the Shivering Isles DLC, as I played a rogue through most of my playthroughs, the Dawnfang/Duskfang swords you can acquire become extremely powerful and can be enchanted and augmented to your desire, likewise the Amber Armor can be upgraded from lesser to perfect and can severely augment your stats and turn you into an unstoppable killing machine, but this is the end game, you have to get there first and luckily the game has an answer to that, enchantment and fortification can be applied to even the simplest of armor and weapons from the early game right up to the end game and comes in all different shapes and sizes.
Overall there are hundreds of items in the game for you to discover and use based on your class and specialization it shouldn't be but it is one of the biggest parts of the game and don't be surprised if you find yourself hunting loot just for the sake of it, I know I did and given how big the game is you can spend literally hundreds of hours seeking out the best loot possible for your specialization and even just getting items for the sake of selling them for gold, it's truly awesome and time consuming.
Oblivion at Large.
When it was first released, Oblivion received huge praise for it's massive open world, never ending content and amazing story development releasing in 2006, even today in 2018 it's still an amazing game to get and explore, the true test of a game is how long it can be since it's release and still be an amazing game and Oblivion is one of those rare titles that has this prestige, even it's graphics are still pretty decent over a decade later and personally i'd love to see THIS remastered than the 14th release of Skyrim that's inevitably coming sometime next year, but what exactly made Oblivion such a hit?
Well it's hard to explain since it's so far removed from it's first release, but at the time the biggest "open world" rpg was Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and Fallout 3 was still a couple of years away from being released, Oblivion did what others game had attempted to do, make a single player MMORPG in terms of content, the game world is huge and everything in it is huge as well, so much so that you could of released Oblivion as an MMORPG and no one would be the wiser since it was so big, Bethesda has made a name for themselves now on this type of game play but in 2006 it was really something amazing, add that to the sheer amount of quest, dialogue and story there was and its the reason why Oblivion is held in such high regard to two different generations of gamers.
Critical Review and Reception.
Like I said above, there are numerous things that went into making Oblivion such a giant success and still objectively their best creation in the Elder Scrolls series yet(don't jump on me skyrim/morrowind lovers) personally i'd love to see a return to this type of massive open world freedom in Elder Scrolls 6, if it ever comes out, but for now Oblivion has a special place in the gaming world as being a frontrunner to this type of mass scale open world for a single player game and did revolutionize a lot of game play we now take for granted.
Personally It's my favorite game in the series even with some minor bugs and maybe some...questionable enemy choices(some are really dumb and some are just overpowered) it still really stands out in this type of genre and the DLC for the game was amazing, especially the Shivering Isles DLC were you face off against Sheogorath, The Daedric Prince of Madness and see what is probably the most....stable? realm among the demon worlds.
Regardless of it's age, Oblivion is still one of the best PC games to ever come out, a game that you can pick up for the first time or the ninth time and enjoy for hundreds of hours no matter what you want to actually do in the game, there's something for everyone and the deeper you get into it, the more and more you play it, iv'e got almost 1600 hours in Oblivion and that doesn't count for when it wasn't on Steam.
So take it from me, if you haven't played Oblivion yet because you feel it might be a bit outdated, you're in for a real treat if you decide to finally play it.
This game was my life for about 3 years, I had one save with over 600 hours on it so all up I reckon I had about 2000 hours in total played on Oblivion, which is my most played game ever I think, other than maybe WoW.
After being addicted to Morrowind, Oblivion was the perfect step up, in playability and setting. perfect game!
I guess I'm the black sheep when it comes to this, but ... unpopular opinion... I got so bored at the start of this game, I just couldn't go on. I'm sure it was a great game, but it just couldn't hook me with that start :(
It's a bit different to other games of it's type, but once you get past the initial setup it's really interesting, especially going to different towns and finding out all the secrets and what's happening in the world, but again, personal choice haha.
I imagine it's not that different from Skyrim, which I liked. I didn't think it was the second coming of Jesus, like some hailed it as, but it was pretty cool. Maybe it's the clunky controls that Bethesda employs and the slow start andthe ugly graphics (I'm no graphics whore, but for some reason Oblivion just hurts my eyes).
Oblivion was one of the first games to massively employ HDR effects, and it made it very bright and colorful. If that's what hurt your eyes, you might just try deactivating HDR and see if you like it better :)
Thanks for the tips! But it's not really that, It just didn't age well, at least graphics wise. Maybe I will give it a shot sometime, I dunno... we'll see :)
First elder scrolls game that got me hooked on the series. Graphics are quite old which is why it took me a while to check it out. But the gameplay was mind blowing...so much freedom. Was practically a headless chicken flinging bombs everywhere. This was before Fallout 3 and Skyrim was a thing.
Hahaha I know what you mean, i ran around killing everything that moved and hoarding gear for no apparent reason til i figured out the objectives of the main game
I spent countless hours on Oblivion, but it was a heavily modded version, both in content and in mechanics.
I liked your review, it is fair and it highlights the good aspects of the game, but as a long-time player of the TES saga and a old school gamer in general, let me just say that Oblivion had more than one flaw. Most people found that the vanilla ( = non modded) version was quite boring and repetitive. I never really got bored of playing, I actually liked most aspects of the game.
What I found absolutely unforgivable was the mechanics of the leveling system, specifically the way it managed stats growth in relation to skill growth, and the enemy progression system. Let me explain.
The idea of skill growing with use is one of the most famous features of the TES saga, and it's one of those things that make you wonder "why doesn't everyone else follow their lead?". It's just so much more immersive to get better with something by doing that something. So I definitely have no complaint on that matter, and I actually like it a lot. The problem in this game was that stats only went up when you leveled up, and only did that in relation to every skill increase during that period of time. Let's say I need a boost in agility, I will need 10 increases in an agility-based skill BEFORE I level up in order to gain a +5 in agility. This means that, if I have a strength and endurance based melee warrior, I will probably have to STOP using most of my major skills and concentrate on every agility skill I have, and then I will have to try to level up only by using strength skills or endurance skills, or else I will have wasted precious stat points (i can only increase 2 stats per level up). This makes NO SENSE at all in my point of view. The entire philosophy behind TES is to get better at something by doing that something, and this system breaks that realism by forcing players to use skills in an unnatural way to maximize their stat gain. The result is that players used to create custom classes that made absolutely no sense from a roleplaying standpoint.
Second, I appreciate the world growing in some measure with the player, but this game was ridiculous. Bandits in full daedric armor with magical weapons makes no sense at all. Bandits are supposed to be bandits, rats are supposed to remain rats. Not every enemy encounter can be a question of life and death, you can't just force that on the player. It was boring as hell and made it all the more difficult to create an all-round character (you always had to use your best skills, so if you wanted to get better with a bow while you already were good with a blade, it was very hard to do so when you always met super-strong opponents).
Again, I loved the game world and I spent hundreds of hours exploring Cyrrodil, but I only did it once mods were available that substantially changed this two aspects of the game.
Such a great game! I was obsessed when I first got this game. Just was totally unlike anything I had ever played before at the time!