It is a much more cohesive game than Arena. I admire what it tried to do, with a world map that has still to be topped in size and its attempt at making a living, breathing fantasy world simulator. The problem is it's just not fun to play. The story is irrelevant. Even if you beat the main story, the game goes on like nothing happened. Nothing you do feels like it has consequence. And don't even get me started on those controls, which make System Shock 1's controls look efficient in comparison. If you can get past all the jank, there is a worthy game here. I just can't be asked to do it, especially when I have other games to play. Maybe the Unity remake fixes the problems I had.

Its only a good game depending on what u want.
The good:
- Cool character build creating system which allows for higher replay ability and customization.
- More polished combat, stats, and spells/spell making compared to arena (no bartering system/worse dungeons suck though for daggerfall)
- Solid role playing elements like the stats, classes, adv/dis created for ur character in creation, joinable guilds.
- Modding support.
- Ridiculously massive world, there is always something to do (though extremely repetitive so why wud u)

The bad:
- There is pretty much no tutorial and you need to do ur own research/read manual before making a character to not make an abysmal character.

- Ridiculously massive world that feels dead even though its filled with filler npcs that are only used to ask for directions. Way too big many of the cities/towns look exactly the same so not much substance there.

- The quests from npcs are quests mostly revolving dungeon crawling or delivering items to npcs around the world. I felt like a dog doing errands for nobles, scholars, and peasants. It is quite strange how everyone is ok giving u quests even if u have a "bad reputation" among locals. Like why are u trusting me to deliver this item to some random person who even has bad rep lol.

The gain from quests (like barely any money and some reputation) is very little compared to the time spent so it doesnt feel good doing quests. Quests are extremely repetitive and boring this mainly includes side and guild quests. Guilds seem only relevant in what they provide and u do the same 5 repeatable quests in random locations around the world to gain access to other services with reputation gain (even though u cant actually see ur reputation so u cant know what other specific quests/actions impact ur reputation).

Although I havent gotten very far in the main quest, it seems very difficult to get into/motivated to do due to the dungeons (getting to it) and due to how convoluted, time consuming, and downright confusing it is. So there isnt much direction u get regarding the MQ and quest descriptions arent very detailed. U have to wait multiple in game days at a time to receive letters not to mention reputation and level requirements as well as some quests not being available if u did MQ in a different order. When I was going through the story there wud be usually a large delay between quests and I'd pretty much forget all about the whole MQ and think why am I even doing this. Its very difficult to really follow the story and understand the confusing politics of the world that u r thrown in between of and it makes more sense as u go on I imagine but I honestly didnt care for the quests due to the dungeons and how confusing it all was. Apparently it becomes even more confusing with different quest paths and 7 potential endings?

- Dungeons are fucking awful. They are even worse than the first game (arena's) dungeons and as some redditor described "like exploring someone's lower intestines". They are randomly generated and even if not are extremely long even with short dungeon option enabled and just an overall horrible experience. Each dungeon can take u like 2-3 hours at a time so it feels so draining to even do them for ur quests and u are barely rewarded after. Each one is a labyrinth and extremely frustrating to do, u visit the same places multiple times and it is a MUST to have some key spells like water breathing and recall to even navigate through dungeons even if u want to role a character who doesnt use any magic.

Overall the game can be fun for a person who is interested in elder scrolls lore even though its likely quite different compared to any of the newer titles, a person interested in the role playing elements and those who enjoy creating/testing different game builds. However due to my issues with quests in general and dungeons that are the main aspects to the game, it is difficult to recommend this game especially to a newer audience.

Daggerfall: A maior prova de que o tempo leva tudo embora

Esses dias eu tava jogando umas partidas de Lol e de repente me veio uma enorme vontade em explorar RPGs antigos, e o primeiro que apareceu na minha cabeça foram os Elder Scrolls da era 2D, até pensei em começar pelo Arena, mas como vi que o jogo tava bem mais datado optei pelo Daggerfall já que com o Mod do Unity ele fica com um jeitinhos mais moderno e agradável pra se jogar (Não tente jogar a versão de DOS desse jogo pelo bem da sua vida.)

Enfim, tava la eu piriripompom animado começando minha primeira aventura em um RPG Old School, apesar de eu ja ter jogado Diablo 1 eu nunca dei tanta atenção pra esses RPGs da época de matusalém, então po eu tava hypadao e não vou mentir pra você não, me diverti MUITO nas primeiras horas desse jogo e a musiquinha das vilas e cidade dele ficou até na minha cabeça.

Só que o inferno começou quando eu entrei em uma dungeon.. com esse jogo eu descobri DEFINITIVAMENTE que eu não gosto de Dungeon Crawler, pelo amor de deus, é labirinto demais e chega até a dar uma certa dor de cabeça enquanto você caminha repetidamente pelo mesmo lugar em busca do objetivo da sua quest.

Até tem uns trambiques que você pode habilitar pra facilitar sua caminhada nas dungeons como por exemplo a opção ''Smaller Dungeons'' que como diz o nome, deixa elas mais curtinhas e fáceis de serem terminadas, e essa opção ajuda bastante.. o problema é que ela não funciona nas dungeons de quest principal que são ENORMES e complicadíssimas, papo de tu passar ai 8 horas do seu dia tentando terminar uma simples dungeon.

Pra mim esse é o maior problema do jogo, o seu resto eu gostei de tudo, ambientação é um tanto fraquinha mas pra um jogo de 96 até que da pro gasto, seus efeitos sonoros e trilha sonora são PICAS e fica muito na cabeça, as missões secundárias são mais ou menos mas da pra tirar umas coisas boas dali.

Enfim, vou engavetar esse aqui mas vou ser sincero que foi uma experiência maneira de se ter e me ensinou bastante sobre meu gosto pessoal a respeito de generos especificos. Relaxa Daggerfall, isso não é um adeus, é um até logo, um dia eu ainda vou resolver meu assunto com você.

Review EN/PTBR

Truly a game so far ahead of its time that the only thing that held it back was the limitations of technology.

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Realmente um jogo muito a frente de seu tempo que a única coisa que segurou ele foi a limitação da tecnologia da época.

Their ambition paid off with the even more systems-driven world of Daggerfall, a diligent update of Arena that revealed their knack for unusual quest scenarios. Visual upgrades (to towns, overworld, dungeons, menus, NPCs, etc.) match functional (movement and command shortcuts) and QoL upgrades (town maps, mounts, storage), while surrounding mechanics (from character creation to dialogue systems) evolve into far more sophisticated features. But its best evolution is perhaps the least visible one. Use-based EXP - that previously only refined spells, expands FFII's weapon-oriented approach to many aspects of gameplay (e.g. running, climbing, conversations, mercantile, and others beyond combat and magic). While prone to repetition & exploits, this is perhaps their most significant idea, a gradual leveling system that treats gameplay's habits like a muscle: The more you use it, the better it gets. Its effect was to instill a new, parallel sense of purpose to decisions. For example, Arena's overworld doubles as a training ground here, as its vacant, prop-y layout helps build movement skills while random encounters (on rest) hone others, adding impetus to open-world roaming that the original lacked. Dungeons also deserve mention for incorporating seamless staircases, monster closets, underwater sections, teleports and many other additions from the classics, while remaining lengthy, dense, maze-y networks.

Much like their debut, though, the main quest could benefit from some editing, although one admits that the side content (the collective moments and not the journey/destination) forms the lifeblood of the game this time. Incidentally, one feels a lot more 'immersed' in this land as a mercenary trying to make profit than as a venturing hero.

At it's best, Daggerfall is a creative and bottomless feeling little RPG that holds up better than it has any right to and feels closer to a modern indie game than an archaic AAA. At it's worst, Daggerfall heartless, soulless slog of a game where the endless pit of vapid procedurally generated content wears down any sense of meaning to anything you do.

Despite being a theoretically enormous and endlessly vast game, you've seen everything Daggerfall has to offer in the first five minutes. Hand-crafted dungeons are few and far between and the procedurally generated ones are often nonsensical and an absolute slog to navigate with the game's difficult to read auto-map, the path to complete the main quest without failing it or missing a timer feels completely arcane and basically demands a strategy guide.

When I stick to the towns and live out my fantasy of being a fantasy handy-woman and jack-of-all-trades doing little errands, reading the semi-randomly generated dialogue and wandering village to village and slowly levelling up I can have tons of fun. The second I try to play the game 'as intended' and delve into the dungeons I have a miserable time.

Daggerfall is wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle. It's a very interesting old game but it doesn't live up to the reputation it has garnered in recent years as a long lost gem.

I will say having tried it after finishing the original DOS version that the fan-made Daggerfall Unity version of the game does significantly improve the experience, especially if you use the hidden INI settings to improve dungeon generation and reduce the size of the pointlessly large and often empty random dungeons, but given this is a fan modification of the game it's unfair to judge the game as it was released based on these improvements.