I've played probably like 100 hours of Bethesda games but I've never beaten one proper until this one, but now that I've seen what it all led up to I'm comfortable with not needing to ever complete the main quest in any of these games again lol.
"Oblivion is a Bethesda game" is about all you need to know--this was the clear beginning of the formula they've run with mostly unmodified for the better part of two decades, and once you get into it, it plays nearly identical to any of the others. Much ink has been spilled about the "loot loop" and from what I've seen so far, this was really the first Bethesda game that cared more about the loot loop than the role-playing. Morrowind is a deeply thought out world with tons of moving parts and stuff to get invested in, Oblivion is a video game (emphasis on "game") where you grind caves or gates or dungeons for gear/money with a mostly standard high fantasy skin with some demons from a Doom game thrown in sometimes.
That isn't to say Oblivion is a bad game--far from it--but man, does it wash over you. I feel like I played 35 hours of Subway Surfers. The story is not even a draw in the slightest--go get this item, ok now go get this item, ok now go seal these oblivion gates, remember this is to Preserve The Royal Bloodline!! It's not offensive or bad (except that (apparently optional, whoops) part where you have to close like 8 incredibly repetitive Oblivion gates in a row), but, like, it's giving Nothing. Generic at every step. There's never a point where you actually care about what you're doing past it being something to do.
But this is the formula. Unlike Morrowind or New Vegas, you can be all things to all people. You can join every faction and do basically every quest, but in removing these barriers, Oblivion disincentivizes roleplay and instead incentivizes dispassionate interaction with the world, incentivizes clicking through text boxes so they give you a waypoint that you can go to and kill some things and get an item and come back, just to do it again. This is the eternal problem of basically every post-Morrowind Bethesda game, but playing Oblivion to completion is where it finally clicked what puts me off about these games. Like many big-budget AAA games, they are made to be toys to play with and little else--the world is only there for set dressing. Even the ending reflects this--after Saving The World (and being shown a short cinematic), you are immediately dumped back in so you can continue doing more quests, forever, turning any sense of victory or accomplishment into something much more hollow.
When playing it, it's fine, it's entertaining, it's better than scrolling social media or whatever other means of wasting time. But when I closed it, especially as I grew closer to the end, I was struck by how much it was just A Thing To Do and how little it was a Work that I Engaged With. Which probably is to be expected out of a Bethesda game, but it's still lame.
"Oblivion is a Bethesda game" is about all you need to know--this was the clear beginning of the formula they've run with mostly unmodified for the better part of two decades, and once you get into it, it plays nearly identical to any of the others. Much ink has been spilled about the "loot loop" and from what I've seen so far, this was really the first Bethesda game that cared more about the loot loop than the role-playing. Morrowind is a deeply thought out world with tons of moving parts and stuff to get invested in, Oblivion is a video game (emphasis on "game") where you grind caves or gates or dungeons for gear/money with a mostly standard high fantasy skin with some demons from a Doom game thrown in sometimes.
That isn't to say Oblivion is a bad game--far from it--but man, does it wash over you. I feel like I played 35 hours of Subway Surfers. The story is not even a draw in the slightest--go get this item, ok now go get this item, ok now go seal these oblivion gates, remember this is to Preserve The Royal Bloodline!! It's not offensive or bad (except that (apparently optional, whoops) part where you have to close like 8 incredibly repetitive Oblivion gates in a row), but, like, it's giving Nothing. Generic at every step. There's never a point where you actually care about what you're doing past it being something to do.
But this is the formula. Unlike Morrowind or New Vegas, you can be all things to all people. You can join every faction and do basically every quest, but in removing these barriers, Oblivion disincentivizes roleplay and instead incentivizes dispassionate interaction with the world, incentivizes clicking through text boxes so they give you a waypoint that you can go to and kill some things and get an item and come back, just to do it again. This is the eternal problem of basically every post-Morrowind Bethesda game, but playing Oblivion to completion is where it finally clicked what puts me off about these games. Like many big-budget AAA games, they are made to be toys to play with and little else--the world is only there for set dressing. Even the ending reflects this--after Saving The World (and being shown a short cinematic), you are immediately dumped back in so you can continue doing more quests, forever, turning any sense of victory or accomplishment into something much more hollow.
When playing it, it's fine, it's entertaining, it's better than scrolling social media or whatever other means of wasting time. But when I closed it, especially as I grew closer to the end, I was struck by how much it was just A Thing To Do and how little it was a Work that I Engaged With. Which probably is to be expected out of a Bethesda game, but it's still lame.