As someone whose favourite game has been Oblivion since I first played it back in 2006, I always said to myself "I'll get around to Morrowind at some point". Well, I finally had the opportunity to get around to it and decided to research the best way to play the game for the first time. It was recommended to play the game through OpenMW with a small mod list called 'I Heart Vanilla' that just added some nice quality of life changes and some polish here and there. Anyway, I have a lot I want to say but if you can't be bothered reading it all, just know I loved playing this with all my heart and soul. So, here we go.
Going into Morrowind, I wasn't really sure what to expect but I had heard nightmare stories about the combat and I was a little worried that being spoiled with fast travel in so many other open world games that I would struggle to get invested. Boy was I wrong, big time. Seyda Neen is an excellent introduction to Morrowind, giving you plenty of space to get your feet wet, learn the common systems of the game and get some easy quests under your belt. It's very similar to Goodsprings in New Vegas, another great introductory Tutorial Town, so to speak. And before I knew it, I was completely immersed in the world of Vvardenfell. I kept catching myself stopping in the early hours of my playthrough to admire the aesthetics of the foggy swamps, the lush Grasslands and barren Ashlands on my travels. The games visuals have seriously aged like a fine wine. I got completely enraptured by the world, that I found myself eventually exploring nearly every nook and cranny of it before really digging my teeth into the quests of the game. The map of Vvardenfell made me realise that a big problem Oblivion has, is that by letting the player fast travel to any major city right from the get-go, it completely removes the incentive to walk the world and explore it. And in turn, actually doing that in Oblivion is a lot less compelling than it is in Morrowind or Skyrim dare I say. Their worlds feel a lot more intentionally designed. Speaking of Skyrim, another thing that stuck out to me that I loved about Morrowind was that it does such a good job of making you feel like just another inhabitant of the world, like a character in a book, as opposed to the main character of a Hollywood movie. In Morrowind's story, when you arise to become the Nerevarine sure, but in Skyrim, within an hour you've slain a dragon and people are chanting "Dragonborn! Dragonborn!"
So actually getting to the meat and bones of the RPG, first of all, I will say that I genuinely prefer the combat of Morrowind over the happy-slap fighting of Oblivion or the cumbersome slogfest of Skyrim. Morrowind made me feel like I was actually improving at a skill, the more consistently I could hit my opponents, the better I was getting. And NPCs would say to me, "If you aren't good at something, get Training first, or you'll be wasting your time" which makes perfect sense to me. I also greatly prefer the Long Blade/Short Blade split as well as the Axe/Blunt split, I think these should make a return. Just because you're skilled with a dagger, doesn't mean you're skilled with a claymore as well, y'know? Now when it comes to the quests of the game, the amount of content available feels nearly endless, so to stop myself getting bogged down, I focused on the Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, one of the major House questlines and then the main story afterwards. The actual quests themselves in the game are never anything more than glorified fetch quests, which I think comes down to technical limitations more than anything. But what I loved most was talking to NPCs about anything and everything. As a huge nerd for the Elder Scrolls lore, the sheer amount of it here is breathtaking, I was loving it. Everything from the cultures, histories, belief systems and anything else in between, if you wanted to find it and learn about it, Morrowind would give it to you in spades. I have so much respect for RPGs letting you just stand there and talk with people for 20 minutes at a time, or read a book on a topic that interests you, we need more like it nowadays. And what can I even say about Vivec and Dagoth Ur? Absolutely fascinating characters. I was hanging off their every word in my encounters with them. Both very compelling, bewildering, frustrating and powerful beings. I'll be honest, as of the writing of this review, I have finished up the main questline in Mournhold and haven't even been to Solstheim yet! I decided to put the game down for a short while before tackling the second add-on so I don't completely burn myself out.
There's so much more I want to say but I have to cap it off somewhere and I'll end on the note that Morrowind is nothing short of a beautiful masterpiece that fully respects your time as a player. I was very unprepared for such an excellent RPG, it's hard to believe this is the same studio who made Skyrim and Fallout 4 honestly.
Going into Morrowind, I wasn't really sure what to expect but I had heard nightmare stories about the combat and I was a little worried that being spoiled with fast travel in so many other open world games that I would struggle to get invested. Boy was I wrong, big time. Seyda Neen is an excellent introduction to Morrowind, giving you plenty of space to get your feet wet, learn the common systems of the game and get some easy quests under your belt. It's very similar to Goodsprings in New Vegas, another great introductory Tutorial Town, so to speak. And before I knew it, I was completely immersed in the world of Vvardenfell. I kept catching myself stopping in the early hours of my playthrough to admire the aesthetics of the foggy swamps, the lush Grasslands and barren Ashlands on my travels. The games visuals have seriously aged like a fine wine. I got completely enraptured by the world, that I found myself eventually exploring nearly every nook and cranny of it before really digging my teeth into the quests of the game. The map of Vvardenfell made me realise that a big problem Oblivion has, is that by letting the player fast travel to any major city right from the get-go, it completely removes the incentive to walk the world and explore it. And in turn, actually doing that in Oblivion is a lot less compelling than it is in Morrowind or Skyrim dare I say. Their worlds feel a lot more intentionally designed. Speaking of Skyrim, another thing that stuck out to me that I loved about Morrowind was that it does such a good job of making you feel like just another inhabitant of the world, like a character in a book, as opposed to the main character of a Hollywood movie. In Morrowind's story, when you arise to become the Nerevarine sure, but in Skyrim, within an hour you've slain a dragon and people are chanting "Dragonborn! Dragonborn!"
So actually getting to the meat and bones of the RPG, first of all, I will say that I genuinely prefer the combat of Morrowind over the happy-slap fighting of Oblivion or the cumbersome slogfest of Skyrim. Morrowind made me feel like I was actually improving at a skill, the more consistently I could hit my opponents, the better I was getting. And NPCs would say to me, "If you aren't good at something, get Training first, or you'll be wasting your time" which makes perfect sense to me. I also greatly prefer the Long Blade/Short Blade split as well as the Axe/Blunt split, I think these should make a return. Just because you're skilled with a dagger, doesn't mean you're skilled with a claymore as well, y'know? Now when it comes to the quests of the game, the amount of content available feels nearly endless, so to stop myself getting bogged down, I focused on the Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, one of the major House questlines and then the main story afterwards. The actual quests themselves in the game are never anything more than glorified fetch quests, which I think comes down to technical limitations more than anything. But what I loved most was talking to NPCs about anything and everything. As a huge nerd for the Elder Scrolls lore, the sheer amount of it here is breathtaking, I was loving it. Everything from the cultures, histories, belief systems and anything else in between, if you wanted to find it and learn about it, Morrowind would give it to you in spades. I have so much respect for RPGs letting you just stand there and talk with people for 20 minutes at a time, or read a book on a topic that interests you, we need more like it nowadays. And what can I even say about Vivec and Dagoth Ur? Absolutely fascinating characters. I was hanging off their every word in my encounters with them. Both very compelling, bewildering, frustrating and powerful beings. I'll be honest, as of the writing of this review, I have finished up the main questline in Mournhold and haven't even been to Solstheim yet! I decided to put the game down for a short while before tackling the second add-on so I don't completely burn myself out.
There's so much more I want to say but I have to cap it off somewhere and I'll end on the note that Morrowind is nothing short of a beautiful masterpiece that fully respects your time as a player. I was very unprepared for such an excellent RPG, it's hard to believe this is the same studio who made Skyrim and Fallout 4 honestly.
Idk exactly when and how long I played this thing for.
All I know is that I did.
All I know is that I did.
The video essays have finally convinced me to give this one a shot,
It’s nice that my shitty old laptop runs it at 150 frames
Will keep you posted
It’s nice that my shitty old laptop runs it at 150 frames
Will keep you posted
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is an experience, one that I haven't found in too many other places. The mechanics are a bit janky, and the models aren't the fanciest around, but I can't bring myself to hate them. The game's got a charm to it, and all the possibilities that it brings to the table really help to accentuate that. It can be hard to overlook some of the larger bugs, but despite that I still had a great time with the game.
the only big downside of this is that majority of quests are just fetch quests like in the majority of bethesdaslop games
I wanted to try playing morrowind, but I died to a netch or bandit as soon as I stepped off the boat. maybe I'll give this another try if I get bored enough again
Probably has the best lore/writing in an Elder Scrolls game (so far). Obviously I despise the combat but if this game received a remake with better combat then it would be perfect! i love the world-building of Morrowind and especially the DLC, I made so many characters that I would roleplay as in this entry of the series just like Skyrim <3