If you’re familiar with the video game company Bethesda Softworks, subsidiary to Zenimax Media, you may be familiar with some of their more well-known titles released across the years. How could anybody ignore the effect that Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2 had on the western gaming market? The sheer impact that Delta V had on quality of writing and storytelling is comparable to the effect that Bladerunner had on Sci-Fi films. The smash hit multiplayer shooter Brink reached levels of depth that not even Team Fortress 2 could accomplish, to this very day retaining hundreds of thousands of players daily due to its perfectly executed integration of parkour, and sheer variety of gameplay. However, some of the more dedicated followers of this publisher may have played their open world adventure series The Elder Scrolls, home to the smash hit Elder Scrolls: Battlespire, which features Steve Buscemi as the voice of the player character.
Battlespire’s breakout success would inspire The Elder Scrolls to expand into Bethesda’s most successful series, prompting several titles which would redefine the world of western role playing games. Also Redguard. And the other ones. Guys I’m playing Oblivion on my phone, no really!
I don’t consider myself biased, but the Elder Scrolls series does hold a special place in my heart. The first time I played Oblivion, it was like I’d opened up a portal to a whole new world, full of generic European fantasy tropes and powdered deer penises. Sure, I’d played open world role RPG’s before, but I’d never played anything where I could take all my clothes off, walk 57 kilometers in one direction, go into a completely unique cave, and drop exactly 89 melons on the floor. It’s almost like real life! Except for the melon part.
I’m fairly sure I put more hours into Oblivion back then than I’ve put into anything productive I’ve ever done. And I’m fairly sure a good deal of that was just wandering around this huge, comprehensive world, talking to all these wacky characters, hawking Welkynd stones, and putting dead bodies into suggestive positions.
And even then I haven’t even gotten close to visiting every near identical, randomly generated dungeon, Ayleid ruin, cave, fort and Oblivion gate.
While I’m on the topic of strengths and weaknesses, I’ve always considered the series’ greatest asset its quests. For every few “go clear out this draugr infested cave and I’ll give you my iron boots of +2 rat stomping” quests, there’s always a “jump inside of this painting and use this turpentine to kill a bunch of crazy paint trolls to save my husband and I’ll give you my steel helmet of fortified plate balancing” quest.
Yes, you’ll find most of your enjoyment here looking for quests, talking to quest givers, going on quests, turning in quests, and using your earnings from all that questing to help you complete more quests more better. And there’s a lot of quests. Regardless of which game you’re playing, you’re going to encounter some pretty neat adventures, and you’re going to accrue a sizeable backlog of draugr cave infestation contracts. THE DRAGONBORN HAS MORE IMPORTANT SHIT TO DO THAN TO GO LOOKING FOR YOUR CAT IN AN ANCIENT RUIN, OLD LADY.
To thoroughly compare and contrast this series’ various installations in an attempt to explore what makes each title so great, and how the series could be improved in the future, we will be starting from the very beginning. Arena. Boot up your copy of MS-DOS, grab yourself some Crystal Pepsi and say goodbye to autosaves and health regeneration, we’re going back to 1994.
The ESRB has just been introduced, Sega has unknowingly sealed their fate with the release of the Sega Saturn, and a small, unsuspecting game company by the name of Bethesda Softworks has just taken their first timid step into the world of CRPGs with The Elder Scrolls: Arena. They are most likely a bit nervous, considering that their game has nothing to do with Arenas, but they’ve already printed up a bunch of marketing material with the name, adorned with art of this sexy warrior babe surrounded by her fighter pals about to take on these zombie guys in what could be mistaken for a colosseum. But hey, it’s all cool, it’s actually named Arena because the world of The Elder Scrolls is so ruthless and hardcore that it’s been given the nickname of The Arena, no really!
Up until this point, Bethesda had mostly stayed in their comfort zone of creating sports games, at one point even working under Electronic Arts to develop John Madden football, eventually suing EA at one point for mistreatment of their game Gridiron. Two years after moving their company to Maryland in 1990, Bethesda Softworks began development on an ambitious computer role playing game called Arena which would have the player travelling across the land with their team of gladiatorial fighters, competing in various arenas to become the “Grand Champion”. And at one point they thought you might get a bit bored with battle after battle, so they decided to put in some side quests. And to make room for the side quests, they decided to expand the playing area beyond the arenas, making the experience a bit more open and giving the player more freedom. But then the arena battles started getting in the way of the side quests, and so they got rid of the arenas altogether and oh look now it’s a full blown RPG whoops oh well.
After that they couldn’t be bothered to change the name, so they just made up the previously mentioned excuse for the title of Arena, and director Vijay Lakshman just pulled the name of “The Elder Scrolls” out of his ass. This name was also eventually retconned to mean something but originally Lakshman just thought it sounded cool or whatever.
Well, that’s enough background for now, I’ve stalled long enough. It’s been awhile, DOS. How ya been, old friend?
Aaand we finally got it working, and all it took was a quick download from Bethesda’s website, a few console commands and a clump or two of hair. Tada! Just listen to those sweet DOS tunes.
As you might have guessed, the game starts us out with a brief little exposition dump, complete with neat pictures of lizard monsters and naked guys. Basically, this guy named Jagar Tharn uses some crazy magic to send the emperor to a different dimension, planning to impersonate him, presumably by always keeping his hood up to conceal his face. This, of course, goes on without a hitch, and the only witness left, Jagar’s apprentice Ria Silmane, is promptly killed.
After that, you can select your class. If you’re stupid, you’ll pick the generate option, which asks you a bunch of questions, and, depending on your answers, locks you into a class you know nothing about. The other option isn’t much better, but at least you have the freedom to choose something really vanilla sounding like “Warrior” or “Knight”. After that you pick your name and province, you get your first look at your character. I like this face, paired with the background it looks like he’s saying “HOLY BALLS MY NIPPLES ARE FREEZING OFF”.
Whoa, cool, that chick that got killed earlier is a spooky ghost now, and she gives you what I assume to be some very important instructions. I wouldn’t know, I just skipped most of it and got by pretty well just stumbling through.
AGGHH WHAT ARE THESE GRAPHICS. OH MY GOD THESE CONTROLS AHH
Okay, so here’s the thing. You have two options, and you eventually decide which one makes you want to pound nails into your eyes less. You can control movement and everything using the mouse, clicking on the edges of the screen to move and all that good stuff. Or you can control your movement with the arrow keys, and everything else with the mouse. The mouse only option is nice, since it means that you can eat pasta while you play, but I generally found the latter to be more convenient for getting around.
And then we get to the combat. Good god. The combat in these early Elder Scrolls games is like trying to examine the prostate of a pissed off cassowary while having a stroke. It attempts to replicate the dice roll hit and miss combat of other RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and such, but this does not get along well with the first person perspective. Unless the stars align in your favor, your sword will pathetically whiff through the enemy. Instead of adding strategy and an element of chance, it just turns the entire combat system into a game of slap-fighting, the victor being whoever doesn’t die first. Fun.
And then we have this god awful interface. Come on guys, I know it was your first stab at this sort of thing and all, but really? What do any of these icons mean? You’ll find out through trial and error eventually, and good luck figuring out by yourself that right clicking on them provides alternate functions. Oh, you know, nothing too important, just stuff like ACCESSING THE WORLD MAP. And then you have this mess of an inventory screen. How come equipping a shield affects all my other stats? Why is my armor rating going down when I put armor on? WHAT IS THAT OUTFIT. WHAT ARE THOSE.
If you’re lucky, you’ll find your way out of the first dungeon within a few mind numbing hours of rats and goblins. This is when the world opens up. As you may imagine, going straight from crappy sewer corridors and rats to a completely open world bigger than Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim combined is quite the boost in player freedom, and it is awesome. Even though it’s mostly randomly generated, it’s still impressive. If you’re smart, you’ll start asking around for Fang Lair, since you will no doubt have no idea what the hell you’re supposed to be doing at this point, and at least that’s something. Someone will eventually let you know that you’re on the wrong side of the world, and you will eventually find yourself on the quest to retrieve all the pieces of some magical staff or some garbage, I don’t know. I honestly only played up to halfway through the first fetch quest, because Arena is pretty much just Daggerfall but worse.
So without further ado, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall! Like Arena, but better!
Jumping back into Daggerfall after suffering Arena’s control scheme was like jumping into a hot bath after being maimed by a cassowary. The interface is significantly less ass than Arena’s, with much better use of screen space and this strange device sitting in front of me called a keyboard.
You know what, maybe the mouse controls have improved since Arena. Maybe I’ve just been a fool for playing games with a keyboard my whole life, and this control scheme is way better!
Nevermind.
The beginning of Arena is somewhat akin to being lowered into a pool of blood by your ankles as a homeless man rants about the ending of Planet of the Apes. It’s confusing, painful and all around not a very enjoyable experience. But I was relieved to discover that the introduction to Daggerfall is more like being submerged into a pool of jello by Orson Welles, a much less traumatic and more comprehensive experience.
You get the usual boring intro movie, something about freeing some ghost dude and intercepting a naughty letter that the Emperor sent to the queen after he’d had too much Colovian Brandy. Afterwards, you’re eased into the experience by nice friendly text boxes, non-masochistic level design, and a much more thoughtfully designed interface. You’re gradually introduced to the gameplay mechanics, and this dungeon with challenging yet not unfair enemies lasts just long enough to teach you the basics without dragging on until you feel like you’re shoveling sawdust into your mouth. And when you get out and the first dungeon and the world opens up, it is glorious. Miles upon miles of randomly generated RPG goodness just waiting to be explored. If you have the patience.
If following the main quest of Morrowind is like grabbing the reins of a wild bull that speeds off, carrying you through the varied world and naturally introducing you to all the opportunities and adventures the game has to offer, following the main quest in Daggerfall is like grabbing the reins of a tired goat who just sort of meanders from place to place and goes off to chew some grass every now and then. At some points you’ll probably fall asleep, and the goat will have disappeared off to somewhere, leaving you confused and bored.
Metaphors aside, Daggerfall’s main quest is really damn boring. Reading the synopsis on the Elder Scrolls Wikia is actually more exciting than playing through it. If you had trouble installing it, you can just read the plot summary instead, and if you want to replicate the experience of playing the game just take a jog around your neighborhood every few words.
Daggerfall’s quest will have you traveling across the ridiculously enormous, no seriously like half the size of Great Britain, continents of High Rock and Hammerfell, punching rats in the face in a variety of crazy fantasy locations. If you play long enough, you’ll eventually find yourself fighting giant battle lizards and wielding lighting fire nunchucks, with hot werewolf babes clutching your ankles and laughing at all your one liners. But good luck getting to the good stuff, nerd, because as they say, the road to werewolf babes is paved with fetch quests where you have to travel across the world to some boring town you’ve never heard of so you can deliver a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid Volume 3 to Elfy Mc.Elf-Face the 20th, but all these houses look identical so lick my ass.
My hair had started falling out in clumps by the 3rd fetch quest, so I just looked up the ending on youtube. So after you finally collect the last chaos emerald, this skeleton guy wakes up and yells at you, then after some guy reads from a book you strip your character out of boredom because you didn’t just piss away 30 hours of your life to see some crappy CGI spook get out of bed.
In conclusion, if you’re in 1996 and you’ve got nothing to do, you’d honestly be better off playing outside or buying stocks in Google.
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