The thing about Morrowind for me was that it was so completely alien. It wasn’t just more sword and sorcery in the British countryside but instead unleashed ridiculous magic where people lived in giant shells/mushrooms and the fauna was like nothing I had ever seen. To say nothing of the mechanics which I found more engrossing than the follow on games.
And then you get to Oblivion and Skyrim and they’re Britain and Norway. Cool.
I’ve been slowly working through Morrowind, and while some of the mechanics and gameplay feel dated, there’s so much to love about it.
Aside from the world building, and the storyline where you have to earn your prophetic self instead of being handed it like in TESV… having to actually listen to people in the game and work out the details of quests feels so rewarding when it gets accomplished.
Also, the game gives such a guilty feeling that when you’re looting ancestral tombs, making sure the players know they’re grave robbing from families and their heritage …
Morrowind really brought out the fantastic in 'fantasy RPG'.
Imagine if Blivs gave us the original conception of Tamriel, the Roman rainforest
As someone from tropical country, it's magical.
No cliff racers is a good thing, though.
Morrowind was the essential piece of media that actually taught me about the "unreliable narrator" and how awesome it can be used.
Praise Saint Jiub the Eradicator
Morrowind is a good story wrapped in terrible game mechanics. Skyrim is a moderate story wrapped in pretty good game mechanics. I do miss levitation though, even if it negated as many things as it helped.
Morrowind has excellent game mechanics. It's just that combat is not one of those excellent mechanics.
Y'know everyone really snarls at Morrowind's game mechanics, and I can see why they don't have mass appeal but...idk, I built a character that had a combat proficiency as a major skill, and didn't try to fight things when my fatigue was near zero, and I found myself enjoying it for what it was.
When you kinda see it as a sometimes jank simulation that abstracts all the crazy in-depth combat the devs WISH they could include at the time, like a tabletop game does, it feels more fun to accept (and eventually break lol).
Yeah, the combat in Skyrim is boring and uninspired, but that's still a step up from Morrowind's combat.
Skyrim added some cool lore. Not as much as morrowind sure but the Thalmor, the dragon priests, and the vampire stuff was all awesome in my opinion.
Skyrim does at least raise a very good question that has stuck with me. Having to kill paarthurnax is always hated on by fans but I like it. What if your neighbor was hitler but he has reformed and was now living life as a good person? Would you turn him in? Why not paarthurnax? He committed unspeakable atrocities against humankind.
Paarthunax is an immortal being, he actually can impact enough lives positively to potentially balance out to being at least neutral in the grand scheme of things
Plus, magic and other ancient power he uses for good actually having the capability to improve life beyond the horrors he did, no irl human has that kind of capability
I'm literally just realizing they redid this exact same story beat for Far Harbour in fallout 4 with Dima
I've watched multi hour video essays that have failed to make this point so well. Morrowind truly was where the series peaked.
Just finished a playtrough with Openmw and some graphical mods. The only thing i felt lacking was the quest log. Stellar game with a nice story.
Sure, increasing the base walk speed would be nice.
The only thing i felt lacking was the quest log.
What do you mean? Press the J key.
I'm glad people are finally coming around to this. There is still fun to be had in Skyrim, but it released around the same time as Dark Souls, Witcher 2, Risen 2 and Fable 3 among others. Not all of them are better games, however Skyrim most certainly isn't the best one.
Perhaps not, but I think we can safely say Fable 3 was the worst!
