TES IV: Oblivion Appreciation Thread

[DishonoredElderSouls]

Criticism and mocking of the fourth main installment in the Elder Scrolls series has been rampant since the release of Skyrim- a breed of hatred that I have never really been able to understand. In full honesty, it's my favourite game of the bunch, largely thanks to the tangible atmosphere that so many others claim to be non-existent, and the glorious sprawling dungeons that so many others claim to be repetitive and bland.

I think what makes Oblivion so wonderful for me is how organic and emergent it is. The schedule-based AI and blooming landscape feel much more alive than the (albeit also wonderful) Morrowind, and infinitely more vibrant than the drab, faded Skyrim snow and dying trees. At the very least, it took risks with the way the environment and NPCs interact, and provided a lighter fantasy portrayal of the Elder Scrolls setting. The game is the best of the modern TES games in establishing a variety of different moods; you can be exploring a brisk springtime environment one minute and then stumble upon a dank, disturbing fort full of gory bodies and vampires. There is a warmth to log cabins, and a frigid air to the Nordic mountains they occupy.

A major part of what makes the game work is the soundtrack. Morrowind's score was never something to write home about, in my opinion, and though Skyrim's score was utterly outstanding, it didn't capture a variety of moods and a sense of exploration quite the way Oblivion's score did. "Through the Valleys" is easily my favourite video game song of all time- it brings forth a sweeping set of strings that suit Tamriel's grassy nolls and lakes with utter perfection, making the beauty of exploration all the more emotionally intense. "Sunrise of Flutes" is a supreme tune to match reemergence from an eerie cave, and "Auriel's Ascension" is a gorgeously somber match for foggy or rainy days. Akin to Morrowind but very much unlike Skyrim, the environment in Oblivion is more of a main character than you are. Everything seems to revolve around its many crags, corners and hills, which brings forth an air of the unknowable every time one plays.

Yes, there are flaws- the PC version is noticeably improved through leveling and UI mods- but these have always felt far less glaring for me than they have others who play the game. I would love to hear other opinions on this game. Though I don't intend to create a one-sided discussion, I would prefer not to have too many posts about the superiority of Skyrim & Morrowind over Oblivion, as those are in large supply as it is.

 

[Barbas]

My only real gripe against it for years after I played it was the setting - it was relatively mundane compared to the other I had seen. I still loved it for what it was and my other concerns simply melted away whenever I re-entered the lands of Cyrodiil or the Shivering Isles. The soundtrack, as you've already pointed out, was grand. It took the simpler but effective themes established earlier in the series and expanded upon them to great atmospheric effect. Looking back on some tracks now, they seem to have only gotten better over time:

Spoiler: Bloody Blades.

...Or maybe this one, which played when I first started a new game in the Imperial City prison:

Spoiler: Ancient Sorrow.

You knew when you were creeping through an ancient fort inhabited by the undead when that played.

 

[spartandude]

I'm sorry but i cant stand Vanilla Oblivion. I used to love it but when i truly realised how bad the level scaling was i couldnt play it anymore, and it took me years to see it. However with just a few mods thats gone and it becomes a truly amazing game.

However most of my praise is for The Shivering Isles. This was easily the best expansion/dlc I have ever played. Well written, gorgeous and amazing to explore with very interesting characters.

 

[endtherapture]

A major part of what makes the game work is the soundtrack. Morrowind's score was never something to write home about, in my opinion, and though Skyrim's score was utterly outstanding, it didn't capture a variety of moods and a sense of exploration quite the way Oblivion's score did. "Through the Valleys" is easily my favourite video game song of all time- it brings forth a sweeping set of strings that suit Tamriel's grassy nolls and lakes with utter perfection, making the beauty of exploration all the more emotionally intense. "Sunrise of Flutes" is a supreme tune to match reemergence from an eerie cave, and "Auriel's Ascension" is a gorgeously somber match for foggy or rainy days. Akin to Morrowind but very much unlike Skyrim, the environment in Oblivion is more of a main character than you are. Everything seems to revolve around its many crags, corners and hills, which brings forth an air of the unknowable every time one plays.

I totally agree here - nothing kills the mood in Morrowind when you're wandering round a dungeon full of undead and then this soundtrack comes on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPFS46DBR7g&list=PL3BCE01906737B73D&feature=share&index=13

 

[Elfgore]

Oblivion was, what I consider, the first Elder Scrolls game that could attract more casual gamers to the series. The addition of fast travel, waypoints, voice acting, and non-dice roll combat brought many more casual gamers into the fold. I played Morrowind once before Oblivion and found it boring and to challenging, I was quite young at the time. I picked up Oblivion and fell in love instantly.

The thieves guild is ten times better in Oblivion than in Skyrim, as stealth is actually needed for more than one mission. And it also has the best quest in Elder Scrolls history. Everyone who's played it should know, but it involves a mansion and several assassination targets.

Edit: I also forgot to mention the soundtrack is simply the best of the series.

 

[Evonisia]

Oblivion has issues with handling music in my opinion. For example you get the inn music (that very, very, ear warming harp music) even if you're on a pirate ship trying to go unnoticed. Oblivion has issues all round, including the buggy gameplay, potato face models, shockingly bad acting and syncing with a limited amount of voice actors and the ridiculous difficulty curve.

But still, I love it. Morrowind I felt had the better world and Skyrim has the better looking world, but Oblivion is the champion overall for me. Oblivion makes me smack my gob just by looking at it, copy pasting aside I can still just run through the forests smiling with glee. Also, the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild are just incredible with interesting missions. That mansion mission, the Elder Scroll mission, the prison infiltration, all good stuff. The limited amount of voice actors also gives me the impression that it must've been fun to record Bill Swifthands the local hero of the land and then Joe Nocoins from Chorrol with the same voice.

The Shivering Isles is just a fantastic expansion as well, definitely worth picking up.

The thing I love about the modern The Elder Scrolls games is that there is equal hatred for all three. Morrowind gets shot at because of the dated graphics and the combat, Oblivion for it's sameyness and horrendous NPCs and Skyrim for it's buggyness, shitty PS3 port and repetition.

...

Ok, some more love for Oblivion. Duh duh dun, duh duh dun, duh duh dun duh dun dun and so on.

 

[Barbas]

...However most of my praise is for The Shivering Isles. This was easily the best expansion/dlc I have ever played. Well written, gorgeous and amazing to explore with very interesting characters.

Ah, yes. Brilliance from the moment it began, a welcome departure from the more inoffensive surroundings of Cyrodiil. I remember the first time the room dissolved and the bipolar nature of the landscape. Amazing.

...The thieves guild is ten times better in Oblivion than in Skyrim, as stealth is actually needed for more than one mission. And it also has the best quest in Elder Scrolls history. Everyone who's played it should know, but it involves a mansion and several assassination targets.

No...you have committed a terrible crime against the Brotherhood!

Spoiler: The colour of night.

OT: I did love the last quest of the Thieves' Guild, though. Hot damn, it was fun. The Brotherhood had the better quests overall, though, I think.

 

[Glongpre]

I think the biggest problem with Oblivion was the leveling and how it interacted with everything. Running into a clannfear with crap combat skills was a pain in the ass. That can kill your opinion of the game.

I think the music in all three is fantastic, they each have some great tracks.

Each game had it's own problem. Morrowind had the combat, Oblivion had the leveling, and Skyrim does not have a spell creator (also some pretty poor major questlines). Seriously though, it was so fun being a mage in Oblivion

I think everyone should attach some music so that people can listen while they explore the thread.

Spoiler: Oblivion

Spoiler: Skyrim

My favourite from Skyrim for sure

 

[scorptatious]

I remember absolutely loving Oblivion when I first got it. It was the first game I played that allowed me to just ignore the main quest and made the world my oyster from the get go. I liked the crime system, the amount of guilds to join, the different kinds of characters I can play, and how hilarious the game ends up being sometime. I remember making a character tailor made to piss people off. He was really ugly, ran around in nothing but his underwear, and hit random people and got chased around by them. I had practically the entire town of Chorrol chasing after me at one point. I then finally decided to turn myself in and got locked up for a year in game time. Which was the same amount of time it took for me to clear both the fighter's guild and main quest lines with my first character, along with a bunch of side quests.

Looking back, graphically, it hasn't aged all that well, and I've played games that I personally felt did what Oblivion did but better. Plus the game had things that never made sense to me even back then. How is it that you could be the leader of the Fighter's Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild AND Dark Brotherhood without anyone noticing?

But I'll always remember my time in Cyrodill with fondness.

 

[Drummodino]

Oblivion was okay. I played it, had fun doing the thieves guild and DB, wandered around a bit, then left it. I enjoyed my time with it, but it didn't suck me into the world like Skyrim did.

In Skyrim, I was always searching for new locations, quests, items, shouts and many more. I wanted to explore this rich environment and see everything there was to see. Hunting down Daedric artifacts, fighting dragons, slaughtering the Thalmor - I was far more invested in the game.

Skyrim has its own problems without a doubt, but it absorbed me in a way Oblivion never could.

 

[RJ 17]

One thing's for certain: the guild quests in Oblivion were far better than the ones in Skyrim, particularly the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves' Guild quests. Hell, even the Mage Guild quest was better than the one in Skyrim.

That and I much preferred the frickin' awesome DLC lairs and bases that you could get in Oblivion...much better than the "build your own homestead" tripe from Skyrim. That vampire-assassin lair was great. The pirate hideout was fun, and the wizard tower was absolutely amazing.

And yeah, Oblivion had Shivering Isles. No DLC expansion comes close to equaling how great that one was, not in Skyrim, not in any other game. Working for Sheogorath was just too much fun.

 

[Xdeser2]

No, your not allowed to like Oblivion 'cause Morrowind had mushrooms, Levitation and pauldrons!

But in all seriousness, Oblivion has to me my favorite in the series too. it's magic system was far more robust than Skyrim's or Morrowind's, the Music was fantastic, the world was beautiful, it was just awesome all around. I've dumped an INSANE amount of hours into the 360 version, and the Shivering isles just makes it even better.

Yeah, it has some problems, but as long as you can get over bad facial models, you're fine.

 

[JET1971]

Adding mods to Oblivion is always fun. The mods were more fun in nature than the majority of Skyrims.

Spoiler

 

[Jingle Fett]

Frankly I liked Oblivion better than Skyrim largely because of the environment. Oblivion is bright and colorful whereas Skyrim felt...bland. All gray and brown and desaturated and foggy. Even when it's sunny, it still feels kind of meh. I mean on a technical level, Skyrim is by far superior to Oblivion, but I just didn't enjoy it as much for some reason.

 

[3ntropy775]

I honestly preferred Oblivion over Skyrim. Oblivion was leaps and bounds better than Morrowind in the gampeplay/mechanics and graphical department, but was a step backward regarding the story. Skyrim made minor improvements from Oblivion. The biggest being graphical, simplification of RPG mechanics ie Stats(No better or worse IMO) and tweaking the combat. NPC's are as lifeless and uninteresting as ever, quests took a step backwards actually, guilds also took a step backwards, the world is as static as ever without any consequences of decisions throughout the game(Except if you count guards changing due to the civil war as a major change). Oblivion at least attempted giving people a schedule and proper idle behaviour. Those random dialogues between NPC's might have been laughibly bad, but they made the attempt at least.

I'm not really a TES overall so to me it doesn't matter where they go with the series. Skyrim just had so much potential, but they didn't really address many of Oblivions issues. To me personally it was a step backwards actually. I also liked the colour Oblivion had.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

Jingle Fett (I can't directly quote for some odd reason): That's how I feel as well. In terms of "generic fantasy world" I would say that Skyrim is perhaps even more simplistic in its presentation, whereas Oblivion at least had its art style to give a sense of distinction. Skyrim is certainly better on a technical level, and it's definitely better at providing landmarks to make exploration less same-y, but even that superiority feels somewhat minor. Unlike Skyrim, every region of Oblivion was exciting to explore because of how unique it was- the golden Colovian grasses are totally different from the swamps around Bravil, for instance.

When it comes to recent Bethesda video games, however, I would say that none of them provide a variety of distinct locales quite like Fallout 3 does...aside from the sewers and metro stations, that is. Though I don't enjoy it nearly as much as Oblivion or Obsidian's New Vegas.

 

[Alhazred]

It's not just the guild quests that have Skyrim beaten; the unaffiliated city quests are also really cool. In Skyrim, the cities typically have one major quest, and that usually involves invading a dungeon and killing a load of Draugr, at least thats how it felt to me. But in Oblivion, you get some really memorable ones, for example:

.Helping a paranoid nut-case by spying on the people he believes are plotting against him.

.Diving Inception-style into a mage's mind and completing his nightmarish mental obstacle course to return him to consciousness.

.Purchasing a suspiciously cheap house only to find it haunted, then attempting to exorcise said haunting.

.Following clues to discover the long-lost Akavir fortress at Pale Pass.

.Entering the world inside a painting to retrieve the magical paintbrush that created it from a theif.

.A seriously creepy visit to a remote village called Hackdirt for one of Besthesda's many Lovecraft homages.

 

[Dandark]

I only ever played Oblivion on the consoles so I never experienced it with mods but it was still one of my favorite games. It was my introduction to the elder scrolls series and the first game I played where I had such a huge amount of freedom.

It was when I started a new game and realized that rather than continue on with the main quest right after escaping the prison, I could instead stay in the imperial city and fight in the arena eventually becoming an elite and famous fighter or that I could try and survive by stealing from houses until eventually being recruited into the thieves guild.
It was this that made it one of my favorite games, I still haven't been able to enjoy this sense of freedom with Skyrim as much as I did with Oblivion.

It also had some great quests, the faction quests in particular far outclassed Skyrim. I loved the dark brotherhood and thieves guild questlines, they were some of the best I have played in an RPG.

 

[Tono Makt]

It's taken me over 30 hours of gameplay to get to actually like Oblivion. There are parts of it that I utterly despise (Mercantile, 75% of the character skins being babyfat cherubs, lockpicking, Character Creation.[footnote]Seriously, if you need a guide to figure out what you're making because the game won't tell you, you're doing it wrong. And when that's one of the first things you run into, it's no wonder that Oblivion gets so much criticism. I barely got past it the first time I played Oblivion about 6 years ago, then I just got fed up with it and put the game into the back of the shelf for the next 6 years. It wasn't until after playing about 300 hours of Skyrim that I decided to give Oblivion another chance. I'm glad I did, but still.[/footnote]), there are parts I have learned to live with (Acrobatics/Athetics, Levelling. the Alchemy system, the randomness of Stealth, magic) and there are some parts I am now ambivalent toward (Personality Wheel, 50+lb weapons, 75% of the voice acting) and there are some parts I actually quite like (the variety of the various races - Orcs, Argonians and Khajit are far more diverse as character in Oblivion than they are in Skyrim. To the point where I wonder, sometimes, if the people who wrote for these races in Skyrim ever played Oblivion. The difference in sizes between the races; I'm playing a male Bosmer and Mrs. Makt is always amused because every time I interact with a female NPC, I'm looking right up through her cleavage to see her face. And some of the storylines so far have been quite enjoyable. Like curing Vampirism.)

But overall I like Skyrim better. I don't hate Oblivion anymore, I don't call it a terrible game like I used to, and like I said I actually am enjoying playing it now, but it's always going to be second fiddle to Skyrim.

 

[Nimzabaat]

How is it that you could be the leader of the Fighter's Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild AND Dark Brotherhood without anyone noticing?

You've never worked in a big company have you? How can someone be the head of the health and safety committee, the head of the spirit committee (we have one of those, fucked if I know what they do though, I believe necromancy is involved), and the team leader for production? By being "that guy" who says "i'll do that". In Oblivion, you're "that guy"

Happens in real life all the time.

On topic: I loved Oblivion. It blew me away that it was a launch title for the Xbox 360 and there were other companies complaining about not having enough time with the hardware to put out a decent game. The Dark Brotherhood quests were my favourite (except for the one time I killed I guy I was supposed to be faking the death of when I had to kill one random to get in the DB and ended up failing that quest without understanding why). I'm not sure what people are complaining about with level scaling... that makes no sense to me. I did find that the Oblivion gates got really repetitive though.