Znowcicle
Chimera~
I wasn't sure whether to put this thread in the Oblivion section or this section since I'll be discussing both games. If this is the incorrect place to post this then please let a mod know so they can have it moved. Also, there are spoilers in this thread in case you're just starting either of the games.
Now that that is out of the way, I'd like to ask which Elder Scrolls game is closer to your heart: Oblivion or Skyrim?
Personally, I prefer Oblivion, and I will go on to state why. I could be a bit bias in saying that though because Oblivion was the very first RPG I played, but I have many other reasons why the fourth edition is my favorite as opposed to the fifth.
First of all (and to me most importantly) the story to Skyrim failed to enthrall me. I feel like it was very poorly done and instead the makers of the game focused way too much on how large the world was. Yes, the graphics are better (that's to be expected of a game that was made later on with advances in technology and system memory), but I don't feel like a game that's better graphically can make up for lacking a good story. The whole opening sort of put me off to the game. Automatically you are made to make choices that you don't understand and no one after Helgen really explains them to you. You get bits and pieces all over the world (even in factions). It funnels you into the main quest (which is confusing, really, because the story pushes two things at you at one time: the civil war and the whole Dragonborn thing), and should you choose to pursue the civil war side first you're making a choice based on little to no info besides a comment here or there about how so-and-so is horrible.
This brings me to another thing about Skyrim that kind of irks me. The NPCs talk about the impeding civil war as though it could erupt at any moment, but all of sudden you being the Dragonborn is way more important than an entire nation pulling itself apart. You go from prisoner about to get your head lopped off to national legend in just a few days (depending on how quickly you went from Riverwood to Whiterun). Skyrim just seemed a little off in its priorities to me.
The story to Oblivion was much more palatable for me. No confusing choices right off the bat. It was simple when it started and gave you background information as you went through the tutorial, so you could better understand what you were getting into when you finally got out into that daylight. The tutorial not only let you fully explore the controls, but it set up the story in a way that seemed believable (if not a little cliche, but what isn't cliche these days?). Though there were things about Oblivion's story that bothered me as well (such as Kvatch never getting rebuilt) there were significantly less things that did.
Second, the factions were so poorly done in Skyrim as compared to Oblivion. It makes me not even want to pursue one on my Skyrim character now (since I was forced to restart for the up-teenth time). The Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood were the most disappointing for me. All of the factions were pretty disappointing, but those two pretty much ruined factions for me in the Skyrim world.
The rules didn't matter in the Thieves Guild (probably because it was corrupt due to Mercer, but I don't feel that was enough since Mercer was taken care of pretty early on (early on I say because there wasn't a whole lot to the Thieves Guild) in the Thieves Guild story line). After the leader of the Thieves Guild was taken care of it took for-ev-er to become the new leader even with literally everyone in the Guild saying that you would be the best candidate. That aside, there was too much murder and not enough sneaky-sneak in my opinion.
Now, the Dark Brotherhood was disappointing on another level entirely. You didn't really get to know your Guild members like you did in Oblivion, and there was not enough emphasis on how you single-handedly murdered the emperor...besides that, the whole Astrid thing just annoyed me. Cicero was annoying (I mean he's a unique character but he really was annoying). The Night Mother was just creepy which would have been fine if it was in a cool way but Cicero just made it weird. The missions weren't even fun to me.
I honestly never completed the Companions because I didn't want to be forced into becoming a werewolf. The NPC clearly said that the choice was up to me, so I decided that I didn't want the taint and left the area only to find out that you could go no farther in the Companions unless you took the taint. It was just another example of how much of the "choices" are made for you in Skyrim. Just imagine if in Oblivion the vampire had forced you to accept his curse in order to continue playing through the Dark Brotherhood missions. It wouldn't have been very fun since every time you stepped outside you would have been burning and most everyone would either avoid you or attack you on sight. :/
As for the College of Winterhold (AKA the Mages Guild), I don't really remember a whole lot to the story besides finding some books and this big magical eye thing. I do remember how stupid easy it was to gain access to the College of Winterhold though. Really, "prove to me your worth" *uses a staff, shouts, or uses a scroll which take no skill at all* "All right, you've proved your magical skill." Really?
In Oblivion I think the most disappointing faction was the Fighter's Guild (in my opinion). I really enjoyed the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. I remember each very fondly actually and thought that they had a pretty high replay value simply because they were fun. At the end it actually felt like you earned something after everything that you did. I actually felt personally conflicted towards the end of the Dark Brotherhood story line and felt that the twists were well done.
I enjoyed gaining entry into the Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Mages Guild (the latter of which I felt was the hardest to gain access to, and by hardest I mean it took the most effort/was the most time consuming).
Thirdly, yes they added dual-wielding to Skyrim, but is it really worth losing all the cool special items (like the blade you got when you were taken hostage aboard that boat inn in Oblivion)? All the special weapons in Skyrim you can enchant yourself which takes aware the novelty to me. The magic isn't really neat. It's more accurate I suppose since you can just cast a constant line instead of a single fireball...I'm still really upset that a sneak attack with an arrow to the face doesn't always kill the target. In fact, head shots do next to nothing. I guess the shouts were given the most attention, but I wasn't really thrilled with them either. Adding in the dual-wielding didn't really make the combat system better. It just made it different. Now assassin type characters could use two blades instead of one, but role-playing isn't really a big focal point in the games anymore it seems.
I can keep going about other things, but I'll stop here and let you add your input. More can always be said later. My whole point is, Oblivion was more story/rp based and Skyrim just seems like a game pandering to people who don't want to put effort into their characters or those who just want to go around killing things (which you could just as easily satisfy with a FPS :/ ).
What do you think?
Just a note: I could probably do all TES games, but I haven't played all of them and these two are the most recent additions in the last few years apart from TESO. For simplicities sake we will only be discussing Oblivion and Skyrim, but I don't mind if you note a difference between Morrowind and Oblivion since Morrowind was its predecessor.
EDIT: Since so many people are mentioning Morrowind, why not add it to the list. Just ignore the bit I said in the note. ^
Now that that is out of the way, I'd like to ask which Elder Scrolls game is closer to your heart: Oblivion or Skyrim?
Personally, I prefer Oblivion, and I will go on to state why. I could be a bit bias in saying that though because Oblivion was the very first RPG I played, but I have many other reasons why the fourth edition is my favorite as opposed to the fifth.
First of all (and to me most importantly) the story to Skyrim failed to enthrall me. I feel like it was very poorly done and instead the makers of the game focused way too much on how large the world was. Yes, the graphics are better (that's to be expected of a game that was made later on with advances in technology and system memory), but I don't feel like a game that's better graphically can make up for lacking a good story. The whole opening sort of put me off to the game. Automatically you are made to make choices that you don't understand and no one after Helgen really explains them to you. You get bits and pieces all over the world (even in factions). It funnels you into the main quest (which is confusing, really, because the story pushes two things at you at one time: the civil war and the whole Dragonborn thing), and should you choose to pursue the civil war side first you're making a choice based on little to no info besides a comment here or there about how so-and-so is horrible.
This brings me to another thing about Skyrim that kind of irks me. The NPCs talk about the impeding civil war as though it could erupt at any moment, but all of sudden you being the Dragonborn is way more important than an entire nation pulling itself apart. You go from prisoner about to get your head lopped off to national legend in just a few days (depending on how quickly you went from Riverwood to Whiterun). Skyrim just seemed a little off in its priorities to me.
The story to Oblivion was much more palatable for me. No confusing choices right off the bat. It was simple when it started and gave you background information as you went through the tutorial, so you could better understand what you were getting into when you finally got out into that daylight. The tutorial not only let you fully explore the controls, but it set up the story in a way that seemed believable (if not a little cliche, but what isn't cliche these days?). Though there were things about Oblivion's story that bothered me as well (such as Kvatch never getting rebuilt) there were significantly less things that did.
Second, the factions were so poorly done in Skyrim as compared to Oblivion. It makes me not even want to pursue one on my Skyrim character now (since I was forced to restart for the up-teenth time). The Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood were the most disappointing for me. All of the factions were pretty disappointing, but those two pretty much ruined factions for me in the Skyrim world.
The rules didn't matter in the Thieves Guild (probably because it was corrupt due to Mercer, but I don't feel that was enough since Mercer was taken care of pretty early on (early on I say because there wasn't a whole lot to the Thieves Guild) in the Thieves Guild story line). After the leader of the Thieves Guild was taken care of it took for-ev-er to become the new leader even with literally everyone in the Guild saying that you would be the best candidate. That aside, there was too much murder and not enough sneaky-sneak in my opinion.
Now, the Dark Brotherhood was disappointing on another level entirely. You didn't really get to know your Guild members like you did in Oblivion, and there was not enough emphasis on how you single-handedly murdered the emperor...besides that, the whole Astrid thing just annoyed me. Cicero was annoying (I mean he's a unique character but he really was annoying). The Night Mother was just creepy which would have been fine if it was in a cool way but Cicero just made it weird. The missions weren't even fun to me.
I honestly never completed the Companions because I didn't want to be forced into becoming a werewolf. The NPC clearly said that the choice was up to me, so I decided that I didn't want the taint and left the area only to find out that you could go no farther in the Companions unless you took the taint. It was just another example of how much of the "choices" are made for you in Skyrim. Just imagine if in Oblivion the vampire had forced you to accept his curse in order to continue playing through the Dark Brotherhood missions. It wouldn't have been very fun since every time you stepped outside you would have been burning and most everyone would either avoid you or attack you on sight. :/
As for the College of Winterhold (AKA the Mages Guild), I don't really remember a whole lot to the story besides finding some books and this big magical eye thing. I do remember how stupid easy it was to gain access to the College of Winterhold though. Really, "prove to me your worth" *uses a staff, shouts, or uses a scroll which take no skill at all* "All right, you've proved your magical skill." Really?
In Oblivion I think the most disappointing faction was the Fighter's Guild (in my opinion). I really enjoyed the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. I remember each very fondly actually and thought that they had a pretty high replay value simply because they were fun. At the end it actually felt like you earned something after everything that you did. I actually felt personally conflicted towards the end of the Dark Brotherhood story line and felt that the twists were well done.
I enjoyed gaining entry into the Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Mages Guild (the latter of which I felt was the hardest to gain access to, and by hardest I mean it took the most effort/was the most time consuming).
Thirdly, yes they added dual-wielding to Skyrim, but is it really worth losing all the cool special items (like the blade you got when you were taken hostage aboard that boat inn in Oblivion)? All the special weapons in Skyrim you can enchant yourself which takes aware the novelty to me. The magic isn't really neat. It's more accurate I suppose since you can just cast a constant line instead of a single fireball...I'm still really upset that a sneak attack with an arrow to the face doesn't always kill the target. In fact, head shots do next to nothing. I guess the shouts were given the most attention, but I wasn't really thrilled with them either. Adding in the dual-wielding didn't really make the combat system better. It just made it different. Now assassin type characters could use two blades instead of one, but role-playing isn't really a big focal point in the games anymore it seems.
I can keep going about other things, but I'll stop here and let you add your input. More can always be said later. My whole point is, Oblivion was more story/rp based and Skyrim just seems like a game pandering to people who don't want to put effort into their characters or those who just want to go around killing things (which you could just as easily satisfy with a FPS :/ ).
What do you think?
Just a note: I could probably do all TES games, but I haven't played all of them and these two are the most recent additions in the last few years apart from TESO. For simplicities sake we will only be discussing Oblivion and Skyrim, but I don't mind if you note a difference between Morrowind and Oblivion since Morrowind was its predecessor.
EDIT: Since so many people are mentioning Morrowind, why not add it to the list. Just ignore the bit I said in the note. ^
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