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.

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.

It's definitely an improvement over Arena, but I still hate the time limit in quests. This game's story missions for some reason are scrambled to the point where you can choose one of 3 quests but if you accidentally choose the one that is supposed to be the ending, RIP the other two and it was very frustrating. The story is just royal families drama for the most part, which I'm never a fan of. Nonetheless, I appreciate how the ending part of the game deviates from that and how the endings were acknowledged in later entries. Overall; it's ok. The gameplay is great and enjoyable once it clicks with you, but the story.. idk it never clicked with me lol

Do yourself a favor and play this with the Unity version because you CAN get softlocked due to random generation.

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.

An improvement over The Elder Scrolls: Arena in every way, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is an entertaining game, but not at all what I expected.

Before I played this game, I had heard how it boasted the largest video game map, equivalent to the size of the UK. I also heard how much possibility this game offered you in your playstyle, with a deep character system and a larger variety of content. However, I found this game to primarily be a dungeon crawler with HEAVY procedural generation, and it has very little in common with the games that popularized The Elder Scrolls, starting with Morrowind.

Although understandable for the age of the game and its ambitious scope, I found the procedural content, particularly the quests and the ridiculously large and complex dungeons, to be uninteresting and at times frustrating. Also, being an old game, there are a lot of difficult and straight up broken mechanics that necessitate cheating to get through it. And despite the game having quite a lot of complex systems for its time, a lot of it is not fully functional due to the amount of cut content, from what I've seen.

While the most talked-about aspects of the game didn't hit for me quite as hard as most other people, I still appreciate the heck out of this game. It's got a great vibe with its music and environments. It's got a surprising amount of interesting loot, from weapon types to magical artifacts. Most surprising of all, it has great lore that carries forward to the other Elder Scrolls games, such as characters and events that are still referenced in the series today. This is a very ambitious game for its time and it's impossible to not see that.

Like I said with Arena, Daggerfall is a must play for fans of The Elder Scrolls series who want to see how the series evolved over time. However, unless you have literally nothing else to play, I wouldn't recommend spending too much time with this game as most of it is procedural and lacks the handcrafted care that later titles are known for.

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.

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, released in 1996, was a groundbreaking RPG for its time, boasting a colossal open world that was revolutionary for its era. While it laid the foundation for the iconic Elder Scrolls series, it comes with both commendable strengths and notable weaknesses.

One of Daggerfall's most impressive aspects is the sheer scale of its game world. Covering a staggering 62,000 square miles, it offers an unparalleled sense of exploration and freedom. The procedural generation of cities and dungeons adds to the sense of vastness, ensuring that no two playthroughs are exactly alike. The scope of this ambitious undertaking is undoubtedly commendable.

The character creation and role-playing mechanics in Daggerfall are also noteworthy. Players have the freedom to shape their characters' backgrounds, selecting from a wide range of races, classes, and skills, providing countless possibilities for customizing the hero's journey.

Moreover, the depth of lore and world-building in Daggerfall is exemplary, with rich storytelling and immersive quests that keep players engaged for hours on end. The political intrigue, factions, and various storylines contribute to a captivating experience, especially for those who appreciate intricate narratives.

On the other hand, Daggerfall's vastness and procedural generation come at a price. The game's graphics, even by 1996 standards, are outdated and lack the polish seen in modern RPGs. The massive game world can also lead to a daunting and often confusing experience for new players, who may feel lost or overwhelmed without clear direction.

Furthermore, Daggerfall suffers from numerous bugs and technical issues that were prevalent in games of its time. Although understandable given the era's limitations, these technical shortcomings can hinder the overall enjoyment of the game.


TL;DR: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a pioneering RPG with an enormous open world, offering freedom and exploration. Customizable character creation and rich lore contribute to a captivating experience. However, outdated graphics, technical issues, and lack of guidance may deter some modern players. A classic gem for RPG enthusiasts interested in gaming history.

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.