What is the best "Elder scrolls" game out of "Morrowind" "Oblivion" and "Skyrim"

[samnoxid]

My favorite is Oblivion because it was my first edler scrolls and i had yet to play anything so huge. But in terms of which is the best i would definitely say Skyrim, as it plays much better and the world is more interesting.

Sadly i was put off by the aging combat of Morrowind so i can't comment on that.

 

[RatherDashing89]

Having played the last two, I personally think Skyrim>Oblivion. Oblivion's main quest seemed extremely generic to me, although I never finished it. Skyrim's main quest had a lot of variety to it, and aside from the Companions all the faction quests had really compelling storylines and settings (Okay, the Mage's Guild was pretty generic, but it let you do dungeon crawls, which is the highlight of Skyrim to me anyway). The setting of Skyrim was fantastic, and the music and even some of the voice acting was good. I still have no idea what people are saying when they say Skyrim's gameplay is dumbed down. The interface is better, but is that a bad thing? The talent trees are a great addition, not having to stay awake all the time to keep from leveling is nice (leveling should NOT be a bad thing--and while enemies still scale a little in Skyrim it's not as bad as Oblivion). To me, Skyrim is the ultimate *role-playing* RPG, and largely because so many choices don't have a consequence. If I choose the nice option when talking to a questgiver, it's because I want to be nice, not because I want my nice bar to go up. If I arrange the books on my shelf or display a hard-earned weapon on my weapon rack, it's not to generate a "Well-Decorated" buff that increases my stamina by 5%. It's because I like walking into a nice-looking house, and I like being able to see that cool looking weapon even if it's not the strongest I have anymore.

What is it that Skyrim took out or simplified from Oblivion that actually made for compelling gameplay or meaningful decisions? Bunnyhopping to level acrobatics? Stacking pennies on the run key and leaving your PC for a couple hours to level athletics?

 

[Vrach]

I have played all of them and feel that my favorite is still by far "Morrowind". Don't get me wrong i enjoyed "Skyrim" but feel it has been dumbed down and simplified for the masses and that if you made a mistake in "Morrowind" it had real consequence.

Yep, Morrowind. I loved the fact you had to actually navigate and explore and not just have a GPS marker handed to you.

 

[Collegeboy21]

I'm going to go against the grain a bit here and say that Skyrim was my favorite, even without mods. Oblivion just got a bit tedious for me and Morrowind, without mods, is a bit broken I think.

 

[MintberryCrunch]

I think Morrowind's ability to make you feel so unknowing is amazing; I started a short while back and the lack of a levelling world around you makes things so intense, walking into dungeons isn't a boring exercise in futility like in Oblivion or "How many healing potions do I have?" like in Skyrim, because you have no idea whether the next enemy you'll fight will be some level 40 Dremora thing.
I'd probably rate them in this order:
1- Morrowind
2- Skyrim
3- Oblivion

Stacking pennies on the run key and leaving your PC for a couple hours to level athletics?

You can just press Q on the keyboard (Auto-Run) in Oblivion to level Athletics, as long as you're walking into a wall in a city or something so you don't get mauled across the wilderness. It's also possible in both Oblivion and Skyrim to get 100 Sneak in the tutorial part of the game by pressing Ctrl then Q (or Ctrl then C in Skyrim) in certain parts of the levels.

 

[Smolderin]

Skyrim, only reason why Morrowind gets such overwhelming praise is because of nostalgia. It's a good game in it's own right but Skyrim for me is the better of the big 3.

 

[Hagi]

If you ask me:

1: Skyrim with mods.
2: Morrowind with mods.
3: Morrowind.
4: Skyrim.
5: Oblivion with mods.
6: Oblivion.

Yeah... I didn't like Oblivion all that much...

Skyrim with mods takes the top because you can remove all the dumbing down. There's mods that totally remove enemies leveling with you, fixing each at an appropriate level. You can remove the compass and all quest markers. You'd be amazed at how much of a difference those changes make to the overall atmosphere, it might not be quite as good as Morrowind but it's definitely up there. And with the vastly better combat and other gameplay it's the superior game if you ask me.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

1: Morrowind
2: Skyrim
3: Oblivion

However I love all of them.

 

[Blackdoom]

I have to go with Morrowind as the best of the three it was probably the most in depth game out of all of them. Skyrim to me just feels like a constant cycle of fetch quests and Draugr.

I also enjoy the comparison between exploiting Morrowind and Skyrim. In Morrowind you exploit alchemy to make some of your skills reach obscene levels where points no longer matter and you can create an endless army of Skeletons or make your damage reach such a high level that the game crashes when you hit Dagoth Ur leading to ultimate victory over the game. Compared to Skyrim where you grind making Iron Daggers to raise your smithing level quickly.

 

[Kyber]

Never played Morrowind, so i'm going with Oblivion, it's the game that got me into RPG's and made me love them, and it's also probably my favorite game of all time, i'm not claiming it's the greatest game that i have played, but it's my favorite. I love Skyrim too, but if i have to name one over the other, then that's how it goes.

 

[Kiyeri]

I'm currently playing Oblivion on the PS3 after having thoroughly enjoyed Skyrim (for the most part). So far, I'm liking Skyrim more. The skills seem simpler and have more tangible benefits to leveling them up, lock picking isn't evil, and combat has some weight to it. I'm not very far into Oblivion due to classes starting when I bought it, so it could be a game that gets better with time. Or mods. Mods would probably be nice.

 

[Pebkio]

While I enjoyed Oblivion's combat mechanics more, I gotta go with Morrowind. Because all of the towns were still open to the world, Morrowind felt more like it was based around a set of tools to help you get through an awesome story, while the later installments felt more like they were based around a combat mechanic designed to get you from one set piece to another.

In Morrowind, you could enter every town by leaping over the walls closest to where your guild was... or fly in to avoid those pesky guards so you could go pay off your fines. I remember several moments where I had to jump on top of the outer wall and leg it across the river to Thieves' Guild so I could avoid getting splattered.

Using the map to fast travel also removed a lot of the atmosphere from Oblivion and Skyrim. Sure, there was fast travel in Morrowind, but it had more of a role-playing feel: "And then the hero headed over to the town's Silt Strider, catching the next ride to Balmora to start his quest. The operator was pleased that his friend got assistance from Stan, so he gave a discount." Where-as Oblivion and Skryim had a feel of: "And then the hero went to the next town". They both work as a way to get the hero quickly to wherever they want to go, but Morrowind's setting added a lot more atmosphere.

Too bad Morrowind didn't age well...

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Morrowind is at the top of this particular pile. The depth of lore, uniqueness of the setting (as opposed to Skyrim's Nordic influences and Oblivion's Every-Single-Medieval-Fantasy-Setting-Ever influences), the interplay of factions which fought amongst one another forcing the player to decide on loyalties, the emphasis on exploration rather than just blind quest-marker following, the truly bizarre mythology (Sermons of Vivec, anyone?), the huge replay value ... I could go on and on.

Skyrim is bloody brilliant, but due to the painfully short faction quests will not have the replay value that Morrowind does. Skyrim does, however, manage to insert a 'streamlined' hack-and-slash character system into a traditional RPG with a success I wouldn't have credited it with if I hadn't played it. With an immersion level that is close to Morrowind it's still an incredibly fun game to play, but there is still too much reliance on quest markers and player hand-holding to make it as superb as it could have been. We got Dwemer ruins and werewolves back though, so that's all to the good.

The less said about Oblivion the better. Too much copy-pasted material from previous TES titles plastered over a cutesy renaissance fair depiction of medieval life, with awful combat and a lack-luster storyline. It did have the Shivering Isles though, so I suppose a grudging +1 to IV for that.

 

[PLightstar]

Morrowind was my fav for a long time, then Skyrim has recently overtaken it with all the mods. Enjoyed Oblivion but felt it a very closed game. Never got out of the first dungeon in Arena, though I keep thinking of going back to actually finish it one day. I never played Battlespire though I did have Daggerfall, but I could never get it to run right. May go back and reinstall it one day.

 

[=Doc=]

Morrowind. With or without expansions and/or mods.
A perfect game for action and adventure! And sightseeing!

And this:

In Morrowind you exploit alchemy to make some of your skills reach obscene levels where points no longer matter and you can create an endless army of Skeletons or make your damage reach such a high level that the game crashes when you hit Dagoth Ur leading to ultimate victory over the game. Compared to Skyrim where you grind making Iron Daggers to raise your smithing level quickly.

To me Morrowind feels a lot more epic than Skyrim or Oblivion because I have the freedom to do more excessive stuff. Like making that army of skeletons or trying to fireball an entire city from the sky or trying those scrolls of Icarian flight I got from that falling wizard..

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Personally, I play Elder Scrolls games mostly for the exploration aspect. So Morrowind is the winner by far. Simply put, it has the most varied, unique, and atmospheric areas that are a joy to explore, plus the relative lack of level scaling and the inclusion of hand placed artifacts make exploring feel worthwhile.

 

[miketehmage]

I haven't played Morrowind and I feel that if I did now, my opinion of it would be heavily obscured as I suffer from a condition known as "absolute graphics whore".

So, my favorite is Oblivion, though I do think alot of the gameplay was improved in Skyrim, I just preferred the setting of Oblivion. Probably because I played an evil character and the Imperial city was great fun to steal and murder in. There wasn't really anywhere like that in Skyrim.

Also the dark brotherhood was far better. Astrid can suck my nuts.

It infuriated me that after doing 1 quest for them I become the listener, AND THEN ontop of that, even the 400 year old vampire takes Astrid's orders over mine.

IM THE GODDAMN LISTENER DOES THE BLACK HAND MEAN NOTHING?


The black hand was the coolest part of Oblivion.



EDIT: And how did I forget the masterpiece that is The Shivering Isles?

 

[rutger5000]

Morrowind no competition. I get the graphics of Skyrim and oblivion are way way better and small games such a speechcraft and lockpicking are very clever. But these improvements fade into nothingness compared to the freedom Morrowind gives you in the development of your character. And I mean real development, not the color of your hat. It may be difficult to get into, but the complex and broad skill system of Morrowind is really fun. It allows you to play the game again and again, and still be unique and new. When you play as a barbarian you play a completly different game as when you play as a mage. And then there is the spell system which makes it so much fun to be a mage. Skyrim and Oblivion dumbed those concepts down, and changed what it means to be an Elders Scrolls game.

 

[lacktheknack]

But Daggerfall is best! ;__;

Of those, I prefer Skyrim, because two-handed spells.