You play as Cyrus, a Redguard in search for his sister, and a mercenary pirate. After receiving a letter from your old friend and Nord captain Tobias about your sister's disappearance, you sail to Stros M'kai, your sister's home, and site of the final clash between the Redguard Crowns and the Empire. The game begins when you arrive at the port.
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Cool game if it didn't crash all the time or explained things better. I could not get to the isle of n'gasta for the second time without an infinite loading screen before realising the gog version was the better one to use. Dialogue is cool and while dungeoning has tedious controls, there are cool ideas. The puzzles also have cool ideas but are so unexplained that even if you were willing to trial and error them, the engine makes it far too slow to feel good about it. This game would be pretty hype on unity and a modern take on this kind of thing would be great but atm, no. Cannot stress enough the neat lore and dialogue stuff. NEAT BUT TOO JANK
While held back by cumbersome poorly aged controls and clunky hard to decipher combat, along with a fair dose of Adventure Game Logic, Redguard is far too charming an adventure to skip entirely and should be experienced at least in some way by any Elder Scrolls fan.
That said, should you play it yourself? The depends. If you've got an actual machine of the era laying around, or you're very well versed in either running old games in virtual machines or manually configuring different DOSBox forks and dgVoodoo to get it running properly in Glide mode, then definitely! But if you're not familiar with troubleshooting and getting old Windows 3.1 games to run on modern computers then I'd say not much is lost by watching a playthrough on YouTube rather than playing it yourself, the game as it's packaged on Steam and GoG comes in a pretty sorry state out of the box.
That said, should you play it yourself? The depends. If you've got an actual machine of the era laying around, or you're very well versed in either running old games in virtual machines or manually configuring different DOSBox forks and dgVoodoo to get it running properly in Glide mode, then definitely! But if you're not familiar with troubleshooting and getting old Windows 3.1 games to run on modern computers then I'd say not much is lost by watching a playthrough on YouTube rather than playing it yourself, the game as it's packaged on Steam and GoG comes in a pretty sorry state out of the box.
Great story, world design, voice acting (mostly) and music, but horrible gameplay. Glad I had atleast played once but will never play this game ever again. Most people are better off watching a lets play, unless you have a lot of patients and are a huge Elder Scrolls fan.
Played GOG version.
Played GOG version.
Had a fun time. The game is super stiff, and the story is ok enough.
Unlike previous entries, Redguard is not an RPG, its an action-adventure game inspired by the likes of Tomb Raider, so before you even consider playing this entry in the Elder Scrolls series you need to swallow that pill.
This genre switch up means key aspects of the Elder Scrolls series are gone, in this adventure you play as Cyrus, not a self insert. The story and characters in this game are the best thing this game has to offer. Tons of dialogue and great characters, and a much smaller but now more intimate world that you live in, unlike other Elder Scrolls titles I can actually remember a majority of the NPCs despite only playing this game once, but that is ofcourse because there is so little compared to other titles.
This is also the best looking Elder Scrolls game so far, its fully 3D! Look at those sexy polygons. The soundtrack is also decent, although not much selection and some of the loops and intensity of this adventure styled heroic soundtrack can cause it to get quite annoying when doing dungeons or activities that force you to listen to the same over the top tune for extended periods of time.
Unfortunately, past its charm, Redguard has very little to offer in terms of fun gameplay. Its action/adventure style dungeons are a slog, with tank style control, arch jump platforming segments abound. The combat is a joke, and since this isnt an RPG there is little reason to even engage in it, as this isnt an RPG, you gain no exp or are given any reason to ever fight anything.
And despite this NOT being an RPG, since its an elder scrolls game, it sort of, pretends to be, with a small world for you to explore and a somewhat non linear quest structure. But dear lord, travelling around Stros M'Kai beyond the main city is a nightmare, agonisingly slow walks sometimes interrupted by a guard trying to stab you and nothing else interesting or exciting.
The story itself is entertaining enough, but most of it is told by you just simply standing, talking to an NPC for forever, some key characters you only talk to one time, but theyre still key characters since that one conversation can last longer than an entire dungeon. Infact, I would say talking to people probably takes up the majority of this game, the dungeons are extremely sparce in this game, most of your time will just be spent walking around and talking to folk.
Overall, this game is not good. Thankfully I became quite attached to the characters and enjoyed listening to them blabber on for forever, but if the characters don't grab you, the gameplay certainly won't.
This genre switch up means key aspects of the Elder Scrolls series are gone, in this adventure you play as Cyrus, not a self insert. The story and characters in this game are the best thing this game has to offer. Tons of dialogue and great characters, and a much smaller but now more intimate world that you live in, unlike other Elder Scrolls titles I can actually remember a majority of the NPCs despite only playing this game once, but that is ofcourse because there is so little compared to other titles.
This is also the best looking Elder Scrolls game so far, its fully 3D! Look at those sexy polygons. The soundtrack is also decent, although not much selection and some of the loops and intensity of this adventure styled heroic soundtrack can cause it to get quite annoying when doing dungeons or activities that force you to listen to the same over the top tune for extended periods of time.
Unfortunately, past its charm, Redguard has very little to offer in terms of fun gameplay. Its action/adventure style dungeons are a slog, with tank style control, arch jump platforming segments abound. The combat is a joke, and since this isnt an RPG there is little reason to even engage in it, as this isnt an RPG, you gain no exp or are given any reason to ever fight anything.
And despite this NOT being an RPG, since its an elder scrolls game, it sort of, pretends to be, with a small world for you to explore and a somewhat non linear quest structure. But dear lord, travelling around Stros M'Kai beyond the main city is a nightmare, agonisingly slow walks sometimes interrupted by a guard trying to stab you and nothing else interesting or exciting.
The story itself is entertaining enough, but most of it is told by you just simply standing, talking to an NPC for forever, some key characters you only talk to one time, but theyre still key characters since that one conversation can last longer than an entire dungeon. Infact, I would say talking to people probably takes up the majority of this game, the dungeons are extremely sparce in this game, most of your time will just be spent walking around and talking to folk.
Overall, this game is not good. Thankfully I became quite attached to the characters and enjoyed listening to them blabber on for forever, but if the characters don't grab you, the gameplay certainly won't.
Writing Maoism into the Elder Scrolls cosmology in the first series entry that can really said to have one is an accomplishment in itself. Strong adventure game puzzle design and Star Trek dialogue, inscrutable swordfighting mechanics, good performance by Michael Mack.