The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review

Assassinating Emperors since 2006!

Release Date: March 20, 2006

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, XBox 360

Genre: Action RPG

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, 2K Games

Following the success that was the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Bethesda immediately began work on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, back in 2002. Bethesda opted for tighter pacing in gameplay and greater plot focus with Oblivion, something that, to me, it looks like, they both succeeded and failed in at the same time. How did they do that, you ask? Well, grab some popcorn and I'll tell you about it.

I've ruled as Tamriel's Emperor for 65 years, but for all
these years, I've never been the ruler of my own
dreams.

The game opens with Emperor Uriel Septim VII (known within the Elder Scrolls fandom as Emperor 'Urethra Scrotum' and no, I'm not making that up) saying that he was born 87 years ago, and that he has ruled as the Emperor of Tamriel for 65 years give or take, and that for all those years, he's never been the ruler of his own dreams. He claims that his dreams show him that terrible things are happening in the plane of Oblivion and that a darkness is about to sweep the land. As he's saying this, you see a cutscene of a daedric siege engine about to exit through a portal, and a giant one at that, with thousands of daedra and dremora serving as its vanguard. The scene then shifts to a beautiful view of the Imperial City from afar, and the camera zooms around it, eventually finding a prison window where, as it happens, your character has been imprisoned for committing some unknown crime. After selecting your name, race, and gender, you get insulted by a Dark Elf in the cell opposite yours, and suddenly, several guards come guiding Emperor Uriel Septim VII through the prisons, where a secret escape route happens to be in YOUR cell! Lucky you! This whole prison escape thing is basically the tutorial for the game, and it's honestly not that bad a way to ease a player into the game. Of course, it does get pretty tedious after you've played through the forced tutorial for the umpteenth time, but it works. After getting seperated from the Emperor and his lackies, you then get thrust into a bit of a sideways part of the dungeon. Here, you can experiment with several things, including combat, spellcasting, stealth, and even ways to open locked doors. Anyways, you eventually meet back up with the Emperor and give him your birthsign, and as you reach a dead end, you find that guarding the Emperor was all for naught and that his death was scripted, like he's in some fantasy world or something. Oh, wait, he is in a fantasy world, my bad. Anyways, you then get to choose your class or create your own. I always choose to create my own, as that's just the way I roll, you know? No pun intended. Anyways, Baurus gives you his key to the Imperial City Sewers and you fight some rats and goblins and make it out into the wide world of Cyrodiil, which is a country, or rather, a province, and you can then do as you like, as your on your own from there, meaning you can pursue the main quest if you want to (i.e., do as you were told and deliver the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre at Weynon Priory) or postpone the main quest or even ignore it entirely, just like you could in the previous games.

They're not the best graphics around, but by God,
they were gorgeous when they first came out,
you know?

Exiting the sewers, you can see the majesty of Cyrodiil immediately, and you have two dungeons not that far from where you exit, or you can travel to one of the many main cities in the game to start doing some side quests or one of the Guild questlines. You also have an arena, where you can bet on matches that are weighted for or against you, depending on how high your Luck attribute is, or you could even enter into arena matches yourself, but if you do that, then you'd better be prepared, because in the arena, every fight is a fight to the death. The Arena basically functions as it's own little questline, similar to the guilds of fighters, mages, thieves, and what-have-you. It even has exactly one sidequest, which involves discovering the origins of the Arena's best fighter, an Orc (Half-Orc, according to himself) named Agronak Gro-Malog, who is so skilled that he's considered to be invincible.

The music was once again composed by Jeremy Soule, and his music is just as beautiful at setting the scenes and adding life to Cyrodiil in the same way that his music managed to do back in Morrowind.

You can actually ride horses in this game, although
most people say that they're utterly useless.

When you speak to people in Oblivion, they actually speak, as opposed to Morrowind, where they only spoke as you approached, no, here every single line in the game is voiced, meaning that now you don't have to read the text to know what you have to do, you can just listen to the person as they bob their head left and right, and move their eyes around as though they've committed some awful crime that, if anyone were to find out about, would land them in some very hot water. Speaking of, the guards in this game are hyper-determined to do their jobs. So much as pick up something that literally has no value to anyone but belongs to someone, be expecting to hear the infamous lines of "STOP! You violated the law! Pay the court a fine or serve your time in jail!" Oh, and regardless of whether you serve your time in jail or pay the fine, you lose all of the stolen goods you've stolen. Anyways, back to the dialogue system, it's similar to the one found in Morrowind, but again, the lines are all voiced, not just the greetings characters give as you approach them. You can also play a mini-game in the form of getting people to like you even more by selecting options in a small circle, with the effect being greater or smaller depending on how full the wedge is when you select that option, with four reactions, Love, Like, Dislike, Hate, and everyone has their own reactions to each option. That is to say, different people will like different things. Makes the game more realistic, you know?

A woman sleeping in her bed at night.

Another thing about making the game real is Oblivion's Radiant AI. This means that each and every person in Oblivion as a set schedule that they'll follow, such as waking up in the morning and going to breakfast, then opening up their shop, closing for a while and then going on a walk, then coming back to the shop and going to sleep, then lather, rinse, and repeat. Some people even have alternating schedules on different days, meaning that they might follow the above schedule one day, and then have a completely different one the next. Of course, this does lead to some problems, such as someone who is supposed to be at breakfast that one time not doing that and instead staying at home for a while and goofing off there instead of following something else, but the Radiant AI always follows a strict pattern. Oh well, at least it works for most people in the game, anyway.

The lockpicking mini-game.

You know, I actually forgot about the lockpicking mini-game. You have anywhere from one to five tumblers on a lock, and you have to get all five tumblers to stay up, and if you can get them to stay up and click the button fast enough, then you open the chest! However, I find it to be far too tedious, so I always just choose the auto attempt option at the bottom, as I have piss-poor reflexes and not enough time to improve on them, so yeah.

One last thing to mention (of the good bits of Oblivion, anyway) is the modding ability. Just like with Morrowind, the game's engine was shipped, meaning that the ability to mod this game is right at your fingertips, assuming you know how to mod the game. This means that, like Morrowind before it, again, there is limitless potential on how much and how many different ways you can play this game before it gets old.

I feel I should point out that leveling up in this game is, in a word, pointless. You see, unlike in Morrowind, Oblivion uses Level-scaling, that unforgivable of video game sins that nobody out there in their right minds like, as it defeats the purpose of leveling up entirely. Seriously, can someone please tell me why I should ever bother leveling up in an RPG if the enemies are all going to get stronger with me?

Another thing I dislike about this game is the Equipment Fragility™ system. Why should I bother fighting if my equipment gets damaged, especially when the equipment isn't made out of cardboard, spider webs, and/or chocolate? But hey, it's better than the crappy Armament Fragility™ system that was featured in the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, though, and you can actually repair your equipment in this game, unlike in Breath of the Wild.

I also don't like how a lot of the skills from Morrowind got cut, such as Spears, Staves being wielded like an actual staff, axes being merged into the Blunt weapons category with maces, clubs, and hammers.

Overall, this is an Elder Scrolls game, and being one of my favorite video game franchises of all time, I can recommend this one to people who liked, say, Morrowind, but want an easier version of that game. Even if the crappy level-scaling and removing of several skills are bad game design decisions.

I give this game a 6/10. Try it out and see if you like it!

This review, along with all text and screenshots, is © 2019 Jestan Diams. Jestan Diams, Jestan Diams' Magical Tome of Games, and all original characters are ™ and © Jestan Diams, as are the words "Equipment Fragility" and "Armament Fragility". The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion belongs to Bethesda Softworks, a Zenimax Media Company. All rights reserved.