I hope you enjoy this look back at such a pivotal game (even if they didn't know it at the time). Thanks for watching, and thank you so much for your amazing support over the last year! There is 1 (one) stutter left in the final edit, extra points goes to those who can find it ;) (totally not left in by accident 🗿)
we all know it's a dungeon crawler but repetitio est mater studiorum :D great vid Jwlar thanks for all the immeasurable time and effort you invest in all these videos, thank you! love it!
I think I've been following you since your first Elder Scrolls video, and your content only keeps getting better! That's very impressive, considering your initial videos are already far higher quality than you'd expect from older, more established channels.
I was doing a permadeath run at some point, and I was poisoned by some rogue. After running around the town, trying to find a cure poison potion, I remembered that I found an enchanted item, then ran to the Mage's Guild to identify it, in a last ditch effort, and once it was identified, it was a Holy Tome that cured poison.
I love how with the retcons taken into account it means the protagonist in arena waltzed into the red mountain, didn’t see dagoth ur or the second Numidium, grabbed an ancient artifact that assumedly not even dagoth ur himself knew about and then just left
Maybe there was more than one cave in the mountain? Arena guy went into one which had the artifact, everything else was in another section, and the former collapsed sometime after and was left there ever since.
@@sambeckettcat right but it’s still funny because dagoth ur had already been in the mountain long enough for it to start bearing his name, and he didn’t notice the cave nor did he notice the person going inside
Actually kinda cool really. I mean, it's kind of implied that Dagoth Ur was formerly dormant in some way, in morrowind. Like he was just chilling or napping lol. It does certainly seem like all the sixth house/dreamer stuff is a pretty recent development. If not dormant, then he was at least ignoring his own followers.
It could have been that Dagoth allowed the EC to grab the artifact without interfering, he saw Tharn as a competitor to his plans/the artifact had nothing to do with his plans. If I am looking to dominate the world, do I give a single shit that some guy came into my area to steal a broken piece of a staff? Got bigger things on the plate.
Pretty neat that names from the first game persisted and developed more in other games. For instance: I love that there's Dagoth-Ur, the god, living in Dagoth-Ur, the building, which is located in Dagoth-Ur, the mountain.
Love how the character creation section ends every point with 'But a mage can just use a spell for that so they can ignore it'. Wish some of this utility was brought back in the series.
Would be cool if they brought back things you would use those utility things on as well. Pretty sure skyrim even removed the "open" spell which allowed you to bypass locks. Probably because keys are abundant and lockpicking is universally available... Roleplaying in general would be cool to bring back.
Being able to skip entire dungeons through the use of Destroy Wall and Open Lock was a highlight of the game for me. Another was... losing an entire character to getting the Plague and not being able to leave a dungeon. Always carry a Potion of Cure Disease, kids. Arena was a huge surprise to me. Sure, its old and clunky, but it oozes SOUL. The dialogue, the art, the freaking RIDDLES, its such a fun game. I really want to encourage that anyone with an interest in Arena tries it. There are maps and extra resources in UESP for those who need it, but Arena is way easier to get into than it seems.
That’s what’s always made the ES games so great: you can see ingenuity and soul being put into them throughout the series. Unfortunately, because nostalgia and improper contextual framing allows people to dismiss blatant issues in past games, while doing the opposite and downplaying great design and mechanics in newer ones, or vice-versa entirely, a lot of people deprive themselves of a fantastic experience with some of the greatest games ever made. Gaming criticism has a LOT of room for growth and it doesn’t help that video game-related media are often ingested by a young and media illiterate audience. What makes video games one of the most complex mediums is the large gap of understanding between those who make the art and those who consume it. Basically, imagine Alexander Pope or James Joyce being consumed and marketed entirely toward children and how bad the state of general literary criticism would be for those authors. Tis tragic. Gamers don’t see games as art, they see it as a service (for dopamine.)
I'm 35 and from DC - my dad and I actually went to the Bethesda building to pick the game up when it came out. I remember it being fairly popular in the area; I had a couple friends who played it, and we'd talk about it at school or pour over the strategy guide it came with, the Codex Scientia. I'm not really a huge Elder Scrolls fan, but I have very fond memories of Arena and Daggerfall, largely because my friends and I played them together, running out of the room shrieking when we heard scary monster sound effects. One thing we really loved to do was run around buildings and cast Passwall on walls, playing the game like it was Minecraft but 20 years earlier. Arena is only one thing, and that's a dungeon crawler. Every other element of the game exists to facilitate dungeon crawling; dungeon crawling is the only thing the game does, and in that regard it is probably the best in the series. The dungeons are huge, fun, mostly sensical, challenging. They also play somewhat differently depending on the kind of character you're using. They're not sprawling monstrosities like Daggerfall, tiny, interconnected rooms like Morrowind or linear corridors like Skyrim. They're simple, sometimes monotonous, but they offer real exploration. Later games in the series add a lot - guilds, quests, characters. It's fun to do guild quests or play dress up or do whatever in these games, but they don't fundamentally change or enhance the dungeons. So I guess, overall, Arena is my favorite game in the series. It doesn't overextend itself, it doesn't branch out into things that ultimately amount to very little, it doesn't distract you. It has dungeons, that's it, and it does them well. Oh, brief addendum. At 2:14:00, you say it doesn't matter what size room you get, but it actually does. If you're doing an escort quest and get a single bed, guys will try to break into your room and beat you up. No idea why. This idea stuck with me as a kid and made me think that hotels were some kind of lawless murder zone.
"Arena: mostly sensical dungeon-crawler with lots to do" is actually a great nugget description that absolutely nails what would appeal to the kind of fans the genre still has, at any resolution. Also that addendum made me simultaneously laugh & want to travel back in time to give Kid You an "anti-murderer nightlight". Kid Fears are SO REAL at the time, so I can't shake the empathy even when the fear is one of those funny innocent misapprehensions of the world from a child-sized view. Some essay I read ages ago refers to gaming/games/fiction as "practicing extreme states of emotion" & your comment makes me want to find that essay again or at least reflect on it more. Your comment was meaty & thoughtful. Thanks.
Im very excited for this one! I remember when I saw the Daggerfall retrospective. It had like only a few thousand views, and now its 4 million! It was nice watching your channel grow, keep it up!
@@metaleggman18 Ah yes, I once had that happen with a +12 rated PC game, so effing laughable considering ESRB ratings rated the Ratchet and clank series +7
I hope this one does as well as Daggerfall retrospective did; it was brilliant and listening it during work made it not only bearable but almost pleasant. Thank you for this!
I first played Arena on a PC so old it had a monochromatic screen, it was almost 6 months before i borrowed a color monitor from a friend and i was completely blown away by how amazing the graphics looked. I blame Area for my crippling addiction to cheesy video games.
Once in a while, you can run into a higher-level enemy during randomly generated quests. I somehow got a rescue quest somewhere between levels 5 and 10 that required me to go to a vampire's lair. The vampire was the only enemy in the dungeon, but, obviously, that's more than enough to deal with, especially at a low level. I eventually managed to kill it by using Passwall and bob-and-weaving around the corner I made while using Fire Dart over and over. It was definitely the hardest fight I've ever had in an Elder Scrolls game
Dragonstrike is one of the greatest things ever made. That was my introduction to D&D. I watched that VHS religiously as a kid. Ended up using it as a module for my homebrew D&D campaign, and no one (all my players are 10 years my senior) recognized what it was, hilariously enough, and they're all nerds.
Regarding the "Placeholder Names" you mentioned as existing the Elder Scrolls to this day, I've actually been working on something of a list of where the province names have been borrowed from: Summerset Isles: As you mentioned, borrowed from Summerset, England. Valenwood: I think this one is from "valenwood trees", giant trees that people built cities within in the Dragonlance campaign setting, present in the earliest modules. Elsweyr: Shares the name (down to the same spelling) with a far-off country mentioned in the Elric of Melnibone stories by Michael Moorcock. Morrowind: One of the most blatant, this comes from the Shannara series by Terry Brooks, where there is a volcanic island populated by elves named "Morrowindl". Bretony: Like the Summerset Isles, this one's also a real location. Argonia: Along with the name of the Argonian race, I suspect this might have come from the infamously bad novel "the Eye of Argon", based on the fact one of the early games that was planned (but never made) was to be titled "Eye of Argonia". The only wholly original province names appear to be: Skyrim, Hammerfell, High Rock, Black Marsh, and the Imperial Province. And three of those are incredibly generic anyways, and the alternate names for two are borrowed from elsewhere.
Melniboné (/ˌmɛlˈnɪboʊneɪ/ mel-NIB-o-nay), also known as the Dragon Isle, is an imaginary country, an island among the Young Kingdoms. Centuries before Elric's birth, Melniboné ruled its world through sorcerous might and sheer power. By the time of Elric's birth, it has slipped from its preeminent place, being one of many nations. The Melnibonéans are not wholly human. They are skilled with magic and beautiful, though psychologically similar to cats, with a callous nature. They are bound by many ancient customs. Sounds like this is the inspiration for Khajiit to me 🤷🏻♂️
This is also familiar: The Eternal Champion is a fictional character created by British author Michael Moorcock and is a recurrent feature in many of his speculative fiction works. -- The Eternal Champion, also known as Talin,[1] was a hero born in 3E 370.[2] He is best known for ending the Imperial Simulacrum by killing the impostor emperor Jagar Tharn in 3E 399 and rescuing the true emperor, Uriel Septim VII, and the general of the Imperial Legion, Warhaft,[nb 1] from a realm of Oblivion where they had been imprisoned for ten years. The hero was then given the title of "Eternal Champion" by the emperor himself. The Champion was also credited with obtaining several Aedric, Daedric, and mortal-made artifacts.[3]
Oh man seeing Todd Howard in that Photon laser tag helmet hit me with so much 80's nostalgia. I had that set and played with it constantly. I almost forgot what a scuzzball he is.
He's not really a scuzzball. Honestly the guy willingly takes the blame for all the mistakes the studio makes, regardless if it was him, or even a completely different studio under Zenimax than the one he actually oversees. Sounds like he's looking out for his workers.
He’s scuzzball for not remake Morrowind or Definition edition Morrowind.. I hate it when Skyrim has met 3 console generations.. just wow! 💀 Glad Todd decided to give oblivion a 2nd chance a Skyoblivion! ❤️💯
@@TooCool4You69 The day morrowind get more profit than skyrim you will get new morrowind versions. By becoming so popular the series stopped appealing to the 90's target.
The retrospective on Daggerfall was absolutely amazing and even taught me things I never noticed while playing it, and tbh after hearing you say that you were gonna do a video on arena it compelled me to revisit the game and its story since. I can't wait to see everything you've found and put in this masterpiece, love these vids its great to see the old elder scrolls getting attention!
Good job. I loved your Daggerfall video and this was just as good. I’ve suggested it to several content creators, but I think a video with this level of depth deconstructing The Elder Scrolls Online would be super interesting and doesn’t exist anywhere online to my knowledge. Just something to consider. Thank you for all of your hard work.
@@Jwlar I’ve always been super interested in it, just not interested enough to play it. I’m not a big fan of the MMO grind (although I did recently pick up the FFXIV free trial again for the first time since 2013) but I’ve always wondered what kind of story ESO is telling, what meaningful contributions it could add to the lore, and it’s implications on the future of the main TES series. There’s definitely enough there to extrapolate for a video about it, I just don’t make videos. As far as I can tell a video of the quality you or PatricianTV make doesn’t exist for ESO so it’s a pretty untapped market.
2:24:07 Iron Golems are one of the iconic D&D monsters, so it makes sense that they'd take it. Interestingly, they changed the thing Iron Golems are actually known for. in D&D, it's fire damage that they heal from. This is mainly notable because the signature big damage spell in D&D is fireball.
you made me start my TES anthology. Always had problems starting playing Arena, now I have 20h in. And I still have 5 pieces of the staff. this game is amazing
I'm in awe of the scale and leg-work/research you've put into this. I'm a Morrowboomer that has had a lot of trouble getting into Arena and Daggerfall, but it's nice to digest videos like this and your Daggerfall video to get a sense of the history and development of this series I love so much. Cheers friend.
hey it's a pfp from that one coming of age anime where a teen has a crush on a middle-aged man elegant taste, friend. Brought back good memories. I can't believe that was so long ago. I can't even remember the name.
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 I certainly didn't coin it, but I've come to accept my place as a Morrowboomer. I'm glad you like it because it certainly feels pertinent these days.
Thank you for the Rockville shout-out. I was born and raised there. It always seemed strange to see a building with the name of the wrong city on it (before I got in on oblivion).
I'm glad you mentioned the dungeons being unique and interesting. I found that, while most other parts were not very good, the dungeons were better designed than any of the other games. They really feel like a big dungeon you have to explore and find things within (unlike later games where they were just straight shots) which makes sense in the world why other people couldn't just grab what is within. They are varied as well and have their own flavor which later games basically abandoned too.
It’s funny, I remember my friend and his dad showing me Skyrim for the first time. They were in Whiterun, look up to at the Throat of the World and said you could climb the mountain if you wanted to. That the main quest even took you up this mountain in particular. Then they turned to then west, towards the mountains surrounding the Reach. “If you see it, you can explore it.” I had played Fallout 3 and New Vegas before this, but neither of them captured this feeling of…freedom? That’s not quite the right word but I can’t think of a better way to describe it
examsiveness, maybe. I feel like one can achieve the same feeling looking out at new vegas from goodsprings as they can seeing high hrothgar from whiterun hold
"If you can see it you can explore it", when it comes to Skyrim, is probably the biggest lie in gaming. Remember that the game puts invisible walls to prevent you from going to Cyrodiil, leaving a message that says "you cannot go that way".
@@SexyFace i know, but yet I can see the other side of the road and I still can't get there. So "if you see it you can go there" is objectively false wether you like it or not
Fantastic work. I played Arena in 2010 and it was both one of the most memorable as well as frustrating gaming experiences I've ever head. I never finished it, because AFAIR one of the keys necessary to progress through the main quest disappeared after I dropped it by accident. I think it was in The Halls of Colossus. Also, I picked a Khajit and a thief, so I appreciate your hindsight that I picked the worst build possible. I'm glad you mentioned the atmosphere and how the archaic sound and graphics stimulates the player's imagination. I felt the exact same way and it totally changed how I view video games as a medium.
Before your series I only had the LGR reviews of the elder scrolls to go off of. But thanks to you I’ve started playing daggerfall unity and I’m having a blast (and realizing why I gotta find a levitation mod for skyrim). Thank you for all your hard work!
Do you think after Uriel got out he was like "Fuck me, it took him ten years? If something this big happens again I need to make sure it's dealt with in a few months at most"? I think he did.
Thus why he hired the Agent from Daggerfall, the Nerevarine, and the Hero of Kvatch. He knew they'd get the job done. Wow, Skyrim really is the oddball of the main series. No Uriel Septim, no tabletop mechanics.
@@AayoRayo modded Skyrim is Skyrim for me. Playing skyrim without mods is like playing dishonored without powers, it's denying yourself the main attraction
Ça va bien? Don't know if you're originally from France, or what languages you've gamed in, or if you played Arena or other Elder Scrolls games, but if you or anyone else wants to share their experiences with the game-world's back-story --- I had no idea about the lore difference between the English + French translations & I'm so curious about French players' perceptions of the lore! I'm Canadian, so it also made me wonder if the same translation was used between France + Canada; our French localizations can be unique sometimes.
You know with Tharn... I kind of like the story implications as is that he just wanted to sit on the throne, hookers and blackjack, and basically hedonistically live it up with what he thought he deserved. Didn't need to be some deeper plot about Dagon's constant attempts to invade Tamriel or doomsday plotline in general. In fact it's honestly kind of refreshing in retrospect. As most of the other games do lean on those a bit too much. The idea that the original villain stands out because "He's some asshole who wanted power and all the trappings of it"... and not being revealed to be part of some millennia old conspiracy and apocalyptic cult and such? Yeah. That's nice.
@@gravesidepoet5405 No tear down intended there. Well unless you count attempts to retcon things to say Tharn was actually some long con pawn in Mehrune's Dagon's repeated attempts to destroy Tamriel. Which I feel is just unnecessary and the story works fine with him being jealous and desiring power.
@@Fullmetalnyuu0" Didn't need to be some deeper plot about Dagon's constant attempts to invade Tamriel or doomsday plotline in general. In fact it's honestly kind of refreshing in retrospect. As most of the other games do lean on those a bit too much." I guess thats what he meant as a takedown. Ironic.
I was really really hoping jwlar was gonna make this video but I wasn't sure if he was, doesn't seem like a game a ton of people enjoy but jwlar's passion makes them very enjoyable
44:20 It's funny to look back at in hindsight what with the decades of graphical advancements, but I do remember looking at the updated graphics between, say, the original six Tomb Raider games and thinking that things were getting mind-blowingly realistic and detailed. The way that from Tomb Raider 3 [?] her mouth actually starts moving when she talked, how from Tomb Raider 4 water dripped off her when she got out of a pool. Games of the time felt way more immersive at the time than they might do nowadays.
I played the game but what I remember most was the HOURS I spent on the original demo. There was no save and it was brutally difficult. I kept playing just trying to survive as long as possible. I loved loved the passwall spell, disintegrating dungeon walls to make shortcuts and escape enemies. If there was an actual end or exit to that dungeon I never made it that far.
One town in each province? Go to Dragonstar, then go to Sentinel. Or go to Riverwood, then to Winterhold. Dragonstar, and other Eastern Hammerfell towns are green and lush. In the western part of the province it's a brown desert. Likewise, in Southern portions of Skyrim are green Forest, and Northern parts snow even in summer. I didn't even notice this until recently. I just happened to spawn in Northwestern High Rock, and noticed it was snowing in early Autumn, went to Daggerfall and was green and warm. So I started testing different locations in places I knew had vastly different climates in lore. I forgot about comparing central Elsweyr to the southern coast. I think I'll check that now, actually.
20:48 the Beholder is one of the few D&D specific concepts that is under individual copyright. Like any fantasy game can use their version of halflings and orcs, character classes, D20s and Vancian casting etc, but a few SPECIFIC things are under (at the time TSR but now WotC) copyright and Beholders is one of them so I'm betting that would be why they had to remove it.
Its not copyright, that's a joke word like transphobe or antisemite. It's copy restriction. You have a god given right to copy, and these laws restrict that right.
@@johanloubser8138 semite refers to all arabs and some other groups in addition to jews. transphobe is very rarely used accurately, trans disliker is usually what they mean.
I started watching this video a few minutes after it launched, but I took some breaks and only just now finished this more ambitious sequel video about the preceding game to the preceding video about the more ambitious sequel. So excited for what's next! The Daggerfall video is something I especially love to rewatch, although the Alone In The Dark one I keep coming back to frequently as well.
1:01:10 In D&D, the balance to the game is that the Thief can perform functions like Open Locks, Find / Remove Traps, Move Silently, Hide In Shadows, Climb Walls, and Read Languages (all of which have a spell analogue) as often as he likes. Imagine a 3rd level Magic-User, with 5000 XP, vs. the Thief with the same XP at 4th level. Our first party has a Thief. The dungeon entrance is up a cliff face, which the Thief can climb with some effort (failure doesn't necessarily mean a fall to the death, just as far as your last piton). At the top, he pounds in a final piton and ties off his rope to it, allowing everyone to climb. The party comes upon a hallway with 3 locked doors spaced along its length. The Thief has about a 50% chance to pick each lock, depending on race and dexterity. He probably opens one, possibly all three, but unlikely to get none of them. He searches and might find a trap in the next room, disarming it, although only with a 40% chance of success so he might just set it off from a safe distance after finding it. Later he could sneak with a ~45% chance of success, and if doing so he could possibly get multiple free "surprise segments" of backstabs on the enemy before the party rushes in to battle. Now imagine a party with no Thief. The M-U has two 1st level spells and one 2nd level spell. If he knew Spider Climb, and had memorized it as a 1st level spell, he could have cast it to get to the top of the cliff. Then, Knock is a 2nd level spell, so if he knew it he could have used it in the hallway with locked doors to open just one of them. While the M-U can't learn Find Traps spell, as it's a 2nd level Cleric spell, the party's Cleric could have it - at the expense of not praying for some other spell in that slot. The M-U wouldn't be able to use Invisibility even if he knew it, because he cast Knock earlier, and he can only memorize one 2nd level spell at a time at this M-U level. By this point, the M-U probably wouldn't have any spells left to help in the fight. In the general melee that follows, the M-U has a worse Armor Class and is about 10% easier to hit because of it, compared to the Thief. The M-U has on average 7.5 Hit Points, while the Thief has 14. And the Thief can use better weapons, dealing 4.5 average damage on a hit with a longsword vs. the M-U's staff average of 3.5 (not including the difference in chance to hit vs. armor type because the staff sucks as a weapon and the longsword is pretty well optimized). Next, the Pick Pockets ability isn't something spellcasters get at all. Thieves can also speak and understand a secret language of thieves, called Thieves' Cant, which opens up some parleying possibilities the party would be without. Point is, the Thief is an excellent utility character that the spellcasters can technically replace if they use most of their spells doing it, but even then they can't really replace him in adventures with heavy use of his skills. They just can't match his repetition.
Recently, I finished my journey of playing through every TES game, and I mean all of them. Including spinoffs, and the mobile ones, Shadowkey, Dawnstar, Stormhold etc. I must say with arena, despite games like Skyrim dominating the series obviously, there's something very very cosy about it. The soundtrack is simple yet blissful, walking through Winterhold in the snow with that lovely theme playing. Crawling through every uniquely designed dungeon and being absolutely tacken back by the attention to detail at the time, and the overwhelming amount of rooms and hidden chambers to explore, seeing random paintings on the wall, finding secret chests, and having to actually tactically plan and retreat when fighting monsters. Then that sense of relief when you finally find the dungeon item after scrambling around 4 whole floors, and sprinting your way back to the entrance to get to an inn as soon as possible just to realised you were diseased. The immersion of having to repair your gear, buying drinks and renting rooms at inns, being able to explore each individual building in each individual town and being welcomed with flavor text each time, asking NPCs for directions etc. Like most I started out with Skyrim, but If you like the lore, it's so interesting going back and seeing early concepts of things you recognise in the later games. I always said I'd never try arena, but now I'm addicted and go back to it at least once a year, each time finding new things I hadn't known about before. I can't recommend it enough
Oh man, I haven't thought about "warez" groups in decades! Thank you for this trip down memory lane, friend. The rest of the video is incredible, of course, just like your Daggerfall epic, but this one might be even better. Cheers, mate!
4:10 That's actually good. It's like getting an A.I. to design the map: Pseudorandom generation. Really make things feel alive. 8:20 Holy shit, King Bubba of Skyrim. 😂 54:10 It's amazing to see the races of TES already being pretty well-established. 1:05:00 So be a High Elf Mage, put points into Int, Agi. Got it. 2:43:00 Again: Hearing that Auriel's Bow, Volendrung and the Ebony Blade are older than my brother is a hell of a head trip.
Appreciate all the time and work you put in to capturing the history of these games; I can still remember that Arena box just boldly standing out from everything else on the shelf.
I've seen enough comments on the box art on this page to want to encourage Jwlar to take a relatively easy Win on as a next vid, maybe a Short even, just about the box art.
Literally have been hunting for an in-depth look at Arena, so thank you for this absolute classic. Fantastic video and I'm sure ill be watching again soon
Honestly this comment section is a goldmine too. I love seeing peoples' reactions, recollections, & tips. It's an additional testament to the quality & craft & love Jwlar put into the video, that the comment section reflects it back in how much thoughtfulness, emotion, + memories Jwlar's vid evoked in so many different people.
My dad (massive guy) bought this for me as a teenager. When it came completely broken he was PISSED. The game was expensive. After 2 months of scrappy play and multiple emails he drove us to the head quarters in Rockville. We lived in Fairfax in the beltway. After raging and demanding his $back or a patch they sent a nervous programmer yo give us their unreleased patch on disk. It made the game barely playable but worth it.
Your dad sounds like an arena character himself. Just a barbarian who wants his son, the bard, to grow up knowing the twin thrills of persistence and adventure.
Agree whole-heartedly. We’ve got sseth and spoony for those, but with our man Diamond here, I can actually show friends what I love about classic crpgs without the ….. extra stuff.
Fantastic retrospective. I remember playing through as a spellsword and having some trouble at the start, but by the end when I got a firm grasp on the spellbuilder I laughed at how fast I took down Jagar Tharn, and since I had the shadow key I walked right in and finished. Anticlimactic, but deep down I loved the game.
I am so happy to see someone finally wanting to look at battlespire. I am not sure why but ever since I heard it's main theme I have been mildly obsessed but unable to get it to run properly
I absolutely love arena, thanks for giving it the best review it could have. Without it, a big stepping stone would be missing, daggerfall plays the same role, albeit a much larger scope.
Great video. Thx. I bought this game and played it a lot. I loved it. The atmosphere in the cities as the snow fell was amazing. The best part of the game was that you could write notes on your map. I wish more games would use that function. But in the end the game felt too big and I felt lost after some time. The game was massive but awesome.
Great video. I was pretty weary going in, but you more than exceeded my expectations. Having actually played it, you can only hear someone yelling "wtf, it's old!" for so long haha. Glad I gave this a chance
An excellent essay on one of the most important games ever made. I remember well buying it when it came out, having to uninstall games from my whopping 40MB hard drive in order to have room to install this one, then having to create a new boot floppy to reconfigure the RAM because the game required a RAM format different from my computer's default. But, it was most definitely worth it. Arena was a huge leap forward in RPGs, and that's speaking as a veteran of the Ultima's, Wizardry!'s, and SSI gold box games. Interesting side note, when EverQuest first came out, I had friends and co-workers trying to get me to play it. I resisted them for a few months until I happened to be at a friend's place while he was playing it. He turned in a quest and I heard the familiar Arena level up fanfare and suddenly I was interested. Bought EQ the next day. So, Arena is ultimately responsible for my longtime MMO addiction.
@@dontspikemydrink9382 Hi! Sorry, I must've missed them; I just replied to them. You were correct to point them out, and I only wish TH-cam still had an annotation system so that I could highlights these errors in the video itself after publishing.
I must admit that after it arrived on Steam I beat the game out of spite after enough of Jagars "You are a FOOL" rants. I used a guide ofc but it was a surprisingly fun adventure compared to my Daggerfall experience.
You put a lot of work in this video and it was obviously hard work because the video is good. I subscribed, anyone that takes that much time researching, recording and editing for a four hour video deserves some recognition.
I just binge watched both this video and Daggerfall and man this is so well made and quite the undertaking. I look forward to seeing any more of these deep dives and this really renewed my love for the elder scrolls and wanting to jump back into it despite its age, Arena does have its own charm for sure and it really can become whatever you want it to be. I thought the ideas behind the game even if slightly upscaled and presented today as an open world rogue like would become quite a cult classic in it's own right. All it needs is fun and a since of completion for every dungeon you come across. I find myself going around the wilderness and writing my own notes about locations dotted around that in-house generated terrain. Anyway, keep doing what you are doing man, you definitely have the gift of keeping the viewer's interest with how you display the information and how you pace and structure the whole thing.
It is pretty fascinating to see that The Elder Scrolls got its start from the fact that people would rather explore and do sidequests than follow the 'main' Attraction In that sense it makes sense why the series has become what it has today: people flocked to Oblivion and Skyrim not for the "Deep Story" or to immerse themselves in its Roleplaying, but for the Chance to explore a World, do Sidequests and mess around. Heck, it seems that Radiant Quests even had a common ancestor in those early ideas for computer generated Quests in Arena
Another amazing video Jwler! Your retrospectives are of exceedingly high quality, and your covering games like Daggerfall and Arena that are kinda' forgotten gems is really great, and important in that they are incredibly influential games. I personally just recently started playing Daggerfall Unity with a bunch of mod from your mod list, and I'm really enjoying it man. Keep up the great work.
Your videos are the reason that I checked out the older series. Thank you for making these ultimate videos for the video game. I don't think I could have gone through the tutorial of daggerfall without this video😅.
Here's to another sleepless night watching Jwlar talk about one of my favorite video game series! But seriously, love your work man. Great stuff. You've got a bright future ahead, I'm sure of it! Keep it up!
"live another life in another world", "be whoever you want and do whatever you want". and all what you can do in Tamriel - killing things. only in Oblivion was really good, really cool questline for thieves.
"Why this is on by default-" I presume because the pixelizaton effect was very astounding at the time. People used to think powerpoint transitions were zippy before most people just gave up on them because they're a waste of time.
Thank you for this. Arena is one of my favourites but it still comes behind Underworld. I played nearly every RPG back in the day. Knightmare is a very honourable mention also. So many great games with epic size quests and areas. Loved every other Elder scrolls from daggerfall (although dungeon maps a nightmare) and onwards also the MMO. Don't know how many times I have redone Skyrim. Check out the Nolvus 5 mod pack and auto mass mod updater to Skyrim. Yes I have started again. Love this video. TY again.
So crazy, I'm buying my first computer at the age of 29. Last night I was day dreaming about playing Oblivion and Marrowing. I was looking up Arena and Daggerfell. I didn't even know about Arena and I'm excited to see that it's free. Very serendipitous that i stumbled upon your video. 💞
As someone who couldn't play this game as how huge it is - Thank you for this Retrospective! It's incredible how quick those 4 1/2 hours flew by. I can't imagine the time this whole project took you, but thanks for taking your time and bringing us these intricate videos! You deserve my subscription and I am excited to see more!
arena was really fun to play. I only did a few radiant dungeons and focused on the main story dungeons. the combat is actually pretty sweet. I loved the mouse movement. Spell crafting is really broken. I created 2 spells that would max out all my stats for a really long time and it barely cost any mana. that's when I looked it up on the internet, thinking this was a bug lol.
I had the volcano board game. You had plastic marbles you'd knock down and if your dude was on that trail well bye bye buddy. Used to take those micro machine GI Joes out and have em use the 3D board as a play mat. Fudge, I forgot I had imagination.
Excellent research and wonderfully presented! Thank you for creating this enjoyable and informative overview of a flawed yet beautiful gem. It's not for everyone, but I absolutely love Arena!
Absolutely amazing video. Four hours of your voice talking about the details of an old game like Arena is amazing, you make a great narrator. Can't wait for your next big video!
I hope you enjoy this look back at such a pivotal game (even if they didn't know it at the time).
Thanks for watching, and thank you so much for your amazing support over the last year!
There is 1 (one) stutter left in the final edit, extra points goes to those who can find it ;)
(totally not left in by accident 🗿)
we all know it's a dungeon crawler but repetitio est mater studiorum :D
great vid Jwlar thanks for all the immeasurable time and effort you invest in all these videos, thank you! love it!
I think I've been following you since your first Elder Scrolls video, and your content only keeps getting better! That's very impressive, considering your initial videos are already far higher quality than you'd expect from older, more established channels.
4:03:37 (loved the vid btw)
@@Tanuvein Thank you!
Great work on the vid. Admittedly I'm not interested in Arena too much, but it still was a great watch/listen! 4 hours at work flew by 😄
I was doing a permadeath run at some point, and I was poisoned by some rogue. After running around the town, trying to find a cure poison potion, I remembered that I found an enchanted item, then ran to the Mage's Guild to identify it, in a last ditch effort, and once it was identified, it was a Holy Tome that cured poison.
Awesome gaming moment
That's really cool. That's definitely a tabletop infused moment.
Bro forgot about temples 💀
@@maccaswam Guess I did, didn't I?
That's so awesome!
I love how with the retcons taken into account it means the protagonist in arena waltzed into the red mountain, didn’t see dagoth ur or the second Numidium, grabbed an ancient artifact that assumedly not even dagoth ur himself knew about and then just left
Maybe there was more than one cave in the mountain?
Arena guy went into one which had the artifact, everything else was in another section, and the former collapsed sometime after and was left there ever since.
@@sambeckettcat right but it’s still funny because dagoth ur had already been in the mountain long enough for it to start bearing his name, and he didn’t notice the cave nor did he notice the person going inside
Actually kinda cool really. I mean, it's kind of implied that Dagoth Ur was formerly dormant in some way, in morrowind. Like he was just chilling or napping lol. It does certainly seem like all the sixth house/dreamer stuff is a pretty recent development. If not dormant, then he was at least ignoring his own followers.
@@EpslionBear may be
It could have been that Dagoth allowed the EC to grab the artifact without interfering, he saw Tharn as a competitor to his plans/the artifact had nothing to do with his plans. If I am looking to dominate the world, do I give a single shit that some guy came into my area to steal a broken piece of a staff? Got bigger things on the plate.
Pretty neat that names from the first game persisted and developed more in other games.
For instance: I love that there's Dagoth-Ur, the god, living in Dagoth-Ur, the building, which is located in Dagoth-Ur, the mountain.
It's like when a band, song and album all share a title.
@@joshjames582 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath)
reminds me of vegeta, son of vegeta, of planet vegeta
Like Bad Company the song by Bad Company off the album Bad Company
Some are terrible placeholders like Elsewhere
Love how the character creation section ends every point with 'But a mage can just use a spell for that so they can ignore it'. Wish some of this utility was brought back in the series.
;-;
Would be cool if they brought back things you would use those utility things on as well. Pretty sure skyrim even removed the "open" spell which allowed you to bypass locks. Probably because keys are abundant and lockpicking is universally available... Roleplaying in general would be cool to bring back.
@@Lilybun Anniversary Edition added it back. Fenrik’s Welcome.
@@Lilybun Reminds me of the time I made an aoe unlock spell in Morrowind.
That was... a very effective way to aggro an entire town.
@@tylercoon1791 Technically vanilla launch edition had it too it was the Tower stone's ability if you were attuned to that.
Being able to skip entire dungeons through the use of Destroy Wall and Open Lock was a highlight of the game for me. Another was... losing an entire character to getting the Plague and not being able to leave a dungeon. Always carry a Potion of Cure Disease, kids.
Arena was a huge surprise to me. Sure, its old and clunky, but it oozes SOUL. The dialogue, the art, the freaking RIDDLES, its such a fun game.
I really want to encourage that anyone with an interest in Arena tries it. There are maps and extra resources in UESP for those who need it, but Arena is way easier to get into than it seems.
Blasting through walls was a common feature in older blobbers. The Bard's Tale trilogy has a few instances where it's mandatory.
That’s what’s always made the ES games so great: you can see ingenuity and soul being put into them throughout the series. Unfortunately, because nostalgia and improper contextual framing allows people to dismiss blatant issues in past games, while doing the opposite and downplaying great design and mechanics in newer ones, or vice-versa entirely, a lot of people deprive themselves of a fantastic experience with some of the greatest games ever made.
Gaming criticism has a LOT of room for growth and it doesn’t help that video game-related media are often ingested by a young and media illiterate audience. What makes video games one of the most complex mediums is the large gap of understanding between those who make the art and those who consume it. Basically, imagine Alexander Pope or James Joyce being consumed and marketed entirely toward children and how bad the state of general literary criticism would be for those authors. Tis tragic. Gamers don’t see games as art, they see it as a service (for dopamine.)
It's the controls that ruin it for me. Hoping for an Arena Unity one of these days. It's what made me fall in love with Daggerfall
I'm 35 and from DC - my dad and I actually went to the Bethesda building to pick the game up when it came out. I remember it being fairly popular in the area; I had a couple friends who played it, and we'd talk about it at school or pour over the strategy guide it came with, the Codex Scientia. I'm not really a huge Elder Scrolls fan, but I have very fond memories of Arena and Daggerfall, largely because my friends and I played them together, running out of the room shrieking when we heard scary monster sound effects. One thing we really loved to do was run around buildings and cast Passwall on walls, playing the game like it was Minecraft but 20 years earlier.
Arena is only one thing, and that's a dungeon crawler. Every other element of the game exists to facilitate dungeon crawling; dungeon crawling is the only thing the game does, and in that regard it is probably the best in the series. The dungeons are huge, fun, mostly sensical, challenging. They also play somewhat differently depending on the kind of character you're using. They're not sprawling monstrosities like Daggerfall, tiny, interconnected rooms like Morrowind or linear corridors like Skyrim. They're simple, sometimes monotonous, but they offer real exploration. Later games in the series add a lot - guilds, quests, characters. It's fun to do guild quests or play dress up or do whatever in these games, but they don't fundamentally change or enhance the dungeons.
So I guess, overall, Arena is my favorite game in the series. It doesn't overextend itself, it doesn't branch out into things that ultimately amount to very little, it doesn't distract you. It has dungeons, that's it, and it does them well.
Oh, brief addendum. At 2:14:00, you say it doesn't matter what size room you get, but it actually does. If you're doing an escort quest and get a single bed, guys will try to break into your room and beat you up. No idea why. This idea stuck with me as a kid and made me think that hotels were some kind of lawless murder zone.
"Arena: mostly sensical dungeon-crawler with lots to do" is actually a great nugget description that absolutely nails what would appeal to the kind of fans the genre still has, at any resolution.
Also that addendum made me simultaneously laugh & want to travel back in time to give Kid You an "anti-murderer nightlight". Kid Fears are SO REAL at the time, so I can't shake the empathy even when the fear is one of those funny innocent misapprehensions of the world from a child-sized view. Some essay I read ages ago refers to gaming/games/fiction as "practicing extreme states of emotion" & your comment makes me want to find that essay again or at least reflect on it more. Your comment was meaty & thoughtful. Thanks.
You ever been to an extended stay? Yes they're murder zones.
Jesus christ man, do you still have the Codex Scientia???
@@adamcatley4784
_the scriptures_
Nono, that's Motels.
Hence the 1-bed rooms getting you whacked.
Im very excited for this one! I remember when I saw the Daggerfall retrospective. It had like only a few thousand views, and now its 4 million! It was nice watching your channel grow, keep it up!
Thank you :)
Lol i remember that video when it came out, along with that one 12 hour long morrowind by some other guy saw both those real early
@@donovanromanski fun to see em get some attention isn’t it? Always nice when long form analysis gets the attention it deserves
@@shanehenson315 he's got a really good 12 hr oblivion analysis and a skyrim one as well. I highly recommend.
@@shanehenson315 definitely patrician.
It's important to remember that at the time, the box art was so embarrassing that some of us couldn't ask our parents to buy it for us.
Tbf many teens couldn't get oblivion because a stupid skin texture netted it an M-rating from the ESRB.
@@metaleggman18 Ah yes, I once had that happen with a +12 rated PC game, so effing laughable considering ESRB ratings rated the Ratchet and clank series +7
Seriously? My parents couldn't care less.
@@metaleggman18it would probably be M either way, it’s centered around death and violence, as well as touching on mental illness and suicide
@Tacoman 736, and aren't there hanging bodies in dungeons and spicy dialog, too?😂
I hope this one does as well as Daggerfall retrospective did; it was brilliant and listening it during work made it not only bearable but almost pleasant. Thank you for this!
Man your compliments are shit
I first played Arena on a PC so old it had a monochromatic screen, it was almost 6 months before i borrowed a color monitor from a friend and i was completely blown away by how amazing the graphics looked. I blame Area for my crippling addiction to cheesy video games.
You are a legend my friend, so proud and happy for you that this behemoth is complete!!!
Once in a while, you can run into a higher-level enemy during randomly generated quests. I somehow got a rescue quest somewhere between levels 5 and 10 that required me to go to a vampire's lair. The vampire was the only enemy in the dungeon, but, obviously, that's more than enough to deal with, especially at a low level. I eventually managed to kill it by using Passwall and bob-and-weaving around the corner I made while using Fire Dart over and over. It was definitely the hardest fight I've ever had in an Elder Scrolls game
I remember gargoyles at level 3 once in Skyrim. Im curious how this compares.
@@jacobfaro9571 Arena is no joke, especially when you’re starting out and learning the controls
Fantastic work as always, thanks for all you do!
Thank you!
Dragonstrike is one of the greatest things ever made. That was my introduction to D&D. I watched that VHS religiously as a kid. Ended up using it as a module for my homebrew D&D campaign, and no one (all my players are 10 years my senior) recognized what it was, hilariously enough, and they're all nerds.
Man I love the style of Arena and Daggerfall, the pixelated dungeons and wilderness
Regarding the "Placeholder Names" you mentioned as existing the Elder Scrolls to this day, I've actually been working on something of a list of where the province names have been borrowed from:
Summerset Isles: As you mentioned, borrowed from Summerset, England.
Valenwood: I think this one is from "valenwood trees", giant trees that people built cities within in the Dragonlance campaign setting, present in the earliest modules.
Elsweyr: Shares the name (down to the same spelling) with a far-off country mentioned in the Elric of Melnibone stories by Michael Moorcock.
Morrowind: One of the most blatant, this comes from the Shannara series by Terry Brooks, where there is a volcanic island populated by elves named "Morrowindl".
Bretony: Like the Summerset Isles, this one's also a real location.
Argonia: Along with the name of the Argonian race, I suspect this might have come from the infamously bad novel "the Eye of Argon", based on the fact one of the early games that was planned (but never made) was to be titled "Eye of Argonia".
The only wholly original province names appear to be: Skyrim, Hammerfell, High Rock, Black Marsh, and the Imperial Province. And three of those are incredibly generic anyways, and the alternate names for two are borrowed from elsewhere.
Don’t forget about silt striders we’re lifted from the dark crystals land striders.
And the cliff racers are definitely inspired by skeksis
Melniboné (/ˌmɛlˈnɪboʊneɪ/ mel-NIB-o-nay), also known as the Dragon Isle, is an imaginary country, an island among the Young Kingdoms.
Centuries before Elric's birth, Melniboné ruled its world through sorcerous might and sheer power. By the time of Elric's birth, it has slipped from its preeminent place, being one of many nations. The Melnibonéans are not wholly human. They are skilled with magic and beautiful, though psychologically similar to cats, with a callous nature. They are bound by many ancient customs.
Sounds like this is the inspiration for Khajiit to me 🤷🏻♂️
This is also familiar:
The Eternal Champion is a fictional character created by British author Michael Moorcock and is a recurrent feature in many of his speculative fiction works.
--
The Eternal Champion, also known as Talin,[1] was a hero born in 3E 370.[2] He is best known for ending the Imperial Simulacrum by killing the impostor emperor Jagar Tharn in 3E 399 and rescuing the true emperor, Uriel Septim VII, and the general of the Imperial Legion, Warhaft,[nb 1] from a realm of Oblivion where they had been imprisoned for ten years. The hero was then given the title of "Eternal Champion" by the emperor himself. The Champion was also credited with obtaining several Aedric, Daedric, and mortal-made artifacts.[3]
Ted Peterson can correct you on the source for a few of those names: th-cam.com/video/N_YhxCkF09Y/w-d-xo.html
Just out of curiousity, how about Resdayne?
3:57:45 The Champion getting drunk off his ass before charging into the Imperial Palace sounds like an incredibly funny scenario.
Oh man seeing Todd Howard in that Photon laser tag helmet hit me with so much 80's nostalgia. I had that set and played with it constantly. I almost forgot what a scuzzball he is.
He's not really a scuzzball. Honestly the guy willingly takes the blame for all the mistakes the studio makes, regardless if it was him, or even a completely different studio under Zenimax than the one he actually oversees. Sounds like he's looking out for his workers.
He’s scuzzball for not remake Morrowind or Definition edition Morrowind.. I hate it when Skyrim has met 3 console generations.. just wow! 💀
Glad Todd decided to give oblivion a 2nd chance a Skyoblivion! ❤️💯
@@TooCool4You69 todd has nothing to do with Skyblivion.
Also Skywind is a similar mod for Morrowind also being worked on.
@@TooCool4You69 The day morrowind get more profit than skyrim you will get new morrowind versions. By becoming so popular the series stopped appealing to the 90's target.
@@TooCool4You69 Todd says the reason he doesn’t remake or remaster morrowind is because the game should be experienced in the current state that it is
Just like how Bethesda mastered immersion with The Elders Scrolls, Your videos have done the same for me. Very well done and presented!
The retrospective on Daggerfall was absolutely amazing and even taught me things I never noticed while playing it, and tbh after hearing you say that you were gonna do a video on arena it compelled me to revisit the game and its story since. I can't wait to see everything you've found and put in this masterpiece, love these vids its great to see the old elder scrolls getting attention!
Good job. I loved your Daggerfall video and this was just as good. I’ve suggested it to several content creators, but I think a video with this level of depth deconstructing The Elder Scrolls Online would be super interesting and doesn’t exist anywhere online to my knowledge. Just something to consider. Thank you for all of your hard work.
Thank you so much! I do plan on making an ESO analysis one day, but it is one hell of an undertaking, so it won’t be for a while haha
@@Jwlar I’ve always been super interested in it, just not interested enough to play it. I’m not a big fan of the MMO grind (although I did recently pick up the FFXIV free trial again for the first time since 2013) but I’ve always wondered what kind of story ESO is telling, what meaningful contributions it could add to the lore, and it’s implications on the future of the main TES series. There’s definitely enough there to extrapolate for a video about it, I just don’t make videos. As far as I can tell a video of the quality you or PatricianTV make doesn’t exist for ESO so it’s a pretty untapped market.
Thanks for donating! Thank to you great content is being made.
@@travisporter5222 👍
2:24:07 Iron Golems are one of the iconic D&D monsters, so it makes sense that they'd take it. Interestingly, they changed the thing Iron Golems are actually known for. in D&D, it's fire damage that they heal from. This is mainly notable because the signature big damage spell in D&D is fireball.
It also looks like a lot like a Warhammer 40k model, which makes sense considering they used them for reference.
No beholders?
@@haruhisuzumiya6650As he says in the video, they were considered and even had art made for them but ultimately got cut
you made me start my TES anthology. Always had problems starting playing Arena, now I have 20h in. And I still have 5 pieces of the staff. this game is amazing
I'm in awe of the scale and leg-work/research you've put into this. I'm a Morrowboomer that has had a lot of trouble getting into Arena and Daggerfall, but it's nice to digest videos like this and your Daggerfall video to get a sense of the history and development of this series I love so much. Cheers friend.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video 😊
hey it's a pfp from that one coming of age anime where a teen has a crush on a middle-aged man
elegant taste, friend. Brought back good memories. I can't believe that was so long ago. I can't even remember the name.
"Morrowboomer" should have an official dictionary status; fantastic term! Thanks for introducing me to it, &/or coining it.
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 I certainly didn't coin it, but I've come to accept my place as a Morrowboomer. I'm glad you like it because it certainly feels pertinent these days.
Thank you for the Rockville shout-out. I was born and raised there. It always seemed strange to see a building with the name of the wrong city on it (before I got in on oblivion).
You can't ask for much more than this, an extremely long, very high quality, well edited and well researched video. Keep up the great work
its criminal how unseen these videos are, they should have way more attention they're awesome!
I'm glad you mentioned the dungeons being unique and interesting. I found that, while most other parts were not very good, the dungeons were better designed than any of the other games. They really feel like a big dungeon you have to explore and find things within (unlike later games where they were just straight shots) which makes sense in the world why other people couldn't just grab what is within. They are varied as well and have their own flavor which later games basically abandoned too.
I wish they would bring the riddles back in the newer games.
Thanks! Still watching, slowly savoring and enjoying every second
Thank you so much!
It’s funny, I remember my friend and his dad showing me Skyrim for the first time. They were in Whiterun, look up to at the Throat of the World and said you could climb the mountain if you wanted to. That the main quest even took you up this mountain in particular. Then they turned to then west, towards the mountains surrounding the Reach. “If you see it, you can explore it.” I had played Fallout 3 and New Vegas before this, but neither of them captured this feeling of…freedom? That’s not quite the right word but I can’t think of a better way to describe it
I felt this same way when my friend let me play Skyrim for the first time on their Xbox, upon finding out you could take the clothing off of NPCs.
examsiveness, maybe. I feel like one can achieve the same feeling looking out at new vegas from goodsprings as they can seeing high hrothgar from whiterun hold
"If you can see it you can explore it", when it comes to Skyrim, is probably the biggest lie in gaming. Remember that the game puts invisible walls to prevent you from going to Cyrodiil, leaving a message that says "you cannot go that way".
@@tilofuder5182Lol it's called a border. The game isn't titled "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Cyrodiil"
@@SexyFace i know, but yet I can see the other side of the road and I still can't get there. So "if you see it you can go there" is objectively false wether you like it or not
Fantastic work. I played Arena in 2010 and it was both one of the most memorable as well as frustrating gaming experiences I've ever head. I never finished it, because AFAIR one of the keys necessary to progress through the main quest disappeared after I dropped it by accident. I think it was in The Halls of Colossus. Also, I picked a Khajit and a thief, so I appreciate your hindsight that I picked the worst build possible.
I'm glad you mentioned the atmosphere and how the archaic sound and graphics stimulates the player's imagination. I felt the exact same way and it totally changed how I view video games as a medium.
So dagoth ur has always existed. I can't believe they'd discard it after morrowind. Is this how they treat the 6th house unmourned?
What a grand and intoxicating innocence
@MumboChumbo come, moon and star, come, and look upon the heart of lorkhan, and wonder why so many nords are pretending they have any rights.
Before your series I only had the LGR reviews of the elder scrolls to go off of. But thanks to you I’ve started playing daggerfall unity and I’m having a blast (and realizing why I gotta find a levitation mod for skyrim). Thank you for all your hard work!
Do you think after Uriel got out he was like "Fuck me, it took him ten years? If something this big happens again I need to make sure it's dealt with in a few months at most"? I think he did.
Thus why he hired the Agent from Daggerfall, the Nerevarine, and the Hero of Kvatch. He knew they'd get the job done.
Wow, Skyrim really is the oddball of the main series. No Uriel Septim, no tabletop mechanics.
@@Mephilis78 also the best one. Interesting
@@HerohammerStudiosbest? Haha. In what way?
@@aetherkid pure cracklike mindless fun, ive got 2k hours for a reason.
also modability, people have turned skyrim into entirely different games.
@@AayoRayo modded Skyrim is Skyrim for me.
Playing skyrim without mods is like playing dishonored without powers, it's denying yourself the main attraction
The amount of work at each of your videos must be insane ! Your retrospective are the best ! Thanks from France !
Thank you! 😊
Ça va bien? Don't know if you're originally from France, or what languages you've gamed in, or if you played Arena or other Elder Scrolls games, but if you or anyone else wants to share their experiences with the game-world's back-story --- I had no idea about the lore difference between the English + French translations & I'm so curious about French players' perceptions of the lore!
I'm Canadian, so it also made me wonder if the same translation was used between France + Canada; our French localizations can be unique sometimes.
You know with Tharn... I kind of like the story implications as is that he just wanted to sit on the throne, hookers and blackjack, and basically hedonistically live it up with what he thought he deserved. Didn't need to be some deeper plot about Dagon's constant attempts to invade Tamriel or doomsday plotline in general. In fact it's honestly kind of refreshing in retrospect. As most of the other games do lean on those a bit too much. The idea that the original villain stands out because "He's some asshole who wanted power and all the trappings of it"... and not being revealed to be part of some millennia old conspiracy and apocalyptic cult and such? Yeah. That's nice.
People really can’t compliment something without bringing something else down can they
@@gravesidepoet5405 No tear down intended there. Well unless you count attempts to retcon things to say Tharn was actually some long con pawn in Mehrune's Dagon's repeated attempts to destroy Tamriel. Which I feel is just unnecessary and the story works fine with him being jealous and desiring power.
@@gravesidepoet5405How was anything in that comment a takedown?
@@Fullmetalnyuu0" Didn't need to be some deeper plot about Dagon's constant attempts to invade Tamriel or doomsday plotline in general. In fact it's honestly kind of refreshing in retrospect. As most of the other games do lean on those a bit too much." I guess thats what he meant as a takedown.
Ironic.
@@gravesidepoet5405 Someone saying they like thing A since it's different from thing B isn't the same as saying thing B is bad
3:29:48 lol the cheek of teasing the devs about "throbbing", then minutes later stumbling into "touching the jewel"
This is such a high quality and comprehensive video on Arena. Kudos and props to you Jwlar.
I was really really hoping jwlar was gonna make this video but I wasn't sure if he was, doesn't seem like a game a ton of people enjoy but jwlar's passion makes them very enjoyable
44:20 It's funny to look back at in hindsight what with the decades of graphical advancements, but I do remember looking at the updated graphics between, say, the original six Tomb Raider games and thinking that things were getting mind-blowingly realistic and detailed. The way that from Tomb Raider 3 [?] her mouth actually starts moving when she talked, how from Tomb Raider 4 water dripped off her when she got out of a pool. Games of the time felt way more immersive at the time than they might do nowadays.
I played the game but what I remember most was the HOURS I spent on the original demo. There was no save and it was brutally difficult. I kept playing just trying to survive as long as possible. I loved loved the passwall spell, disintegrating dungeon walls to make shortcuts and escape enemies. If there was an actual end or exit to that dungeon I never made it that far.
One town in each province? Go to Dragonstar, then go to Sentinel. Or go to Riverwood, then to Winterhold. Dragonstar, and other Eastern Hammerfell towns are green and lush. In the western part of the province it's a brown desert. Likewise, in Southern portions of Skyrim are green Forest, and Northern parts snow even in summer.
I didn't even notice this until recently. I just happened to spawn in Northwestern High Rock, and noticed it was snowing in early Autumn, went to Daggerfall and was green and warm. So I started testing different locations in places I knew had vastly different climates in lore. I forgot about comparing central Elsweyr to the southern coast. I think I'll check that now, actually.
What did you find
@@jackhazardous4008 kittens
20:48 the Beholder is one of the few D&D specific concepts that is under individual copyright. Like any fantasy game can use their version of halflings and orcs, character classes, D20s and Vancian casting etc, but a few SPECIFIC things are under (at the time TSR but now WotC) copyright and Beholders is one of them so I'm betting that would be why they had to remove it.
Yeah, Beholder and Githyanki are specifically D&D only, I think.
@@CaptainLekirk a p
Its not copyright, that's a joke word like transphobe or antisemite. It's copy restriction. You have a god given right to copy, and these laws restrict that right.
@@jiaan100and why are those other words jokes?
@@johanloubser8138 semite refers to all arabs and some other groups in addition to jews. transphobe is very rarely used accurately, trans disliker is usually what they mean.
I started watching this video a few minutes after it launched, but I took some breaks and only just now finished this more ambitious sequel video about the preceding game to the preceding video about the more ambitious sequel. So excited for what's next! The Daggerfall video is something I especially love to rewatch, although the Alone In The Dark one I keep coming back to frequently as well.
1:01:10 In D&D, the balance to the game is that the Thief can perform functions like Open Locks, Find / Remove Traps, Move Silently, Hide In Shadows, Climb Walls, and Read Languages (all of which have a spell analogue) as often as he likes. Imagine a 3rd level Magic-User, with 5000 XP, vs. the Thief with the same XP at 4th level.
Our first party has a Thief. The dungeon entrance is up a cliff face, which the Thief can climb with some effort (failure doesn't necessarily mean a fall to the death, just as far as your last piton). At the top, he pounds in a final piton and ties off his rope to it, allowing everyone to climb. The party comes upon a hallway with 3 locked doors spaced along its length. The Thief has about a 50% chance to pick each lock, depending on race and dexterity. He probably opens one, possibly all three, but unlikely to get none of them. He searches and might find a trap in the next room, disarming it, although only with a 40% chance of success so he might just set it off from a safe distance after finding it. Later he could sneak with a ~45% chance of success, and if doing so he could possibly get multiple free "surprise segments" of backstabs on the enemy before the party rushes in to battle.
Now imagine a party with no Thief. The M-U has two 1st level spells and one 2nd level spell. If he knew Spider Climb, and had memorized it as a 1st level spell, he could have cast it to get to the top of the cliff. Then, Knock is a 2nd level spell, so if he knew it he could have used it in the hallway with locked doors to open just one of them. While the M-U can't learn Find Traps spell, as it's a 2nd level Cleric spell, the party's Cleric could have it - at the expense of not praying for some other spell in that slot. The M-U wouldn't be able to use Invisibility even if he knew it, because he cast Knock earlier, and he can only memorize one 2nd level spell at a time at this M-U level. By this point, the M-U probably wouldn't have any spells left to help in the fight.
In the general melee that follows, the M-U has a worse Armor Class and is about 10% easier to hit because of it, compared to the Thief. The M-U has on average 7.5 Hit Points, while the Thief has 14. And the Thief can use better weapons, dealing 4.5 average damage on a hit with a longsword vs. the M-U's staff average of 3.5 (not including the difference in chance to hit vs. armor type because the staff sucks as a weapon and the longsword is pretty well optimized).
Next, the Pick Pockets ability isn't something spellcasters get at all. Thieves can also speak and understand a secret language of thieves, called Thieves' Cant, which opens up some parleying possibilities the party would be without.
Point is, the Thief is an excellent utility character that the spellcasters can technically replace if they use most of their spells doing it, but even then they can't really replace him in adventures with heavy use of his skills. They just can't match his repetition.
Recently, I finished my journey of playing through every TES game, and I mean all of them. Including spinoffs, and the mobile ones, Shadowkey, Dawnstar, Stormhold etc. I must say with arena, despite games like Skyrim dominating the series obviously, there's something very very cosy about it. The soundtrack is simple yet blissful, walking through Winterhold in the snow with that lovely theme playing. Crawling through every uniquely designed dungeon and being absolutely tacken back by the attention to detail at the time, and the overwhelming amount of rooms and hidden chambers to explore, seeing random paintings on the wall, finding secret chests, and having to actually tactically plan and retreat when fighting monsters. Then that sense of relief when you finally find the dungeon item after scrambling around 4 whole floors, and sprinting your way back to the entrance to get to an inn as soon as possible just to realised you were diseased. The immersion of having to repair your gear, buying drinks and renting rooms at inns, being able to explore each individual building in each individual town and being welcomed with flavor text each time, asking NPCs for directions etc.
Like most I started out with Skyrim, but If you like the lore, it's so interesting going back and seeing early concepts of things you recognise in the later games. I always said I'd never try arena, but now I'm addicted and go back to it at least once a year, each time finding new things I hadn't known about before. I can't recommend it enough
You can actually jump forward by jumping while moving forward, shift+j is for jumping forward from a standstill
Oh man, I haven't thought about "warez" groups in decades! Thank you for this trip down memory lane, friend. The rest of the video is incredible, of course, just like your Daggerfall epic, but this one might be even better. Cheers, mate!
Glad you enjoyed it! 😊
4:10 That's actually good. It's like getting an A.I. to design the map: Pseudorandom generation. Really make things feel alive.
8:20 Holy shit, King Bubba of Skyrim. 😂
54:10 It's amazing to see the races of TES already being pretty well-established.
1:05:00 So be a High Elf Mage, put points into Int, Agi. Got it.
2:43:00 Again: Hearing that Auriel's Bow, Volendrung and the Ebony Blade are older than my brother is a hell of a head trip.
1:00:56 This difference is even less important if you just grab the Oghma Infinium a few times to max out all your stats.
Not since 2012
@@JoshSweetvale Why?
@@IG7799-c4u They patched it
Finally...
I did it...
I did beat Elder Scrolls Arena.
the first ever Elder Scrolls Game I ever finished...
Daggerfall...
Here I come...
Appreciate all the time and work you put in to capturing the history of these games; I can still remember that Arena box just boldly standing out from everything else on the shelf.
I've seen enough comments on the box art on this page to want to encourage Jwlar to take a relatively easy Win on as a next vid, maybe a Short even, just about the box art.
Great video thank you, I’m playing on my steam deck and having a much better experience now than when I first tried, really enjoying it
This Vid was expected to be released at november 2022, but Bethesda push it forward to Q1 2023 due to Jwlar Quality concerns.
🤣🤣
He missed the christmas 2022 release and instead delayed it until March. Kind of fitting for an Arena video really.
@@vokery2590 lmao
3:19:34 it sounds more like vermina's realm, considering the sleeping and nightmares mentioned
Literally have been hunting for an in-depth look at Arena, so thank you for this absolute classic. Fantastic video and I'm sure ill be watching again soon
😊💜
4 and a half hours later and I now know everything about Arena. Incredible.
Honestly this comment section is a goldmine too. I love seeing peoples' reactions, recollections, & tips. It's an additional testament to the quality & craft & love Jwlar put into the video, that the comment section reflects it back in how much thoughtfulness, emotion, + memories Jwlar's vid evoked in so many different people.
For sure! This community is the best 💜
2:26:22
The skeleton key can open doors in main quest dungeons that can't be lockpicket or opened with spells and would need a key or riddle.
Great limitations encourage great creativity.
My dad (massive guy) bought this for me as a teenager. When it came completely broken he was PISSED. The game was expensive. After 2 months of scrappy play and multiple emails he drove us to the head quarters in Rockville. We lived in Fairfax in the beltway. After raging and demanding his $back or a patch they sent a nervous programmer yo give us their unreleased patch on disk. It made the game barely playable but worth it.
When you say nervous and young, was he also kinda small, maybe a little shifty looking, trying tonsell you something?
I’ll take things that never happened for 800 Alex
Your dad sounds like an arena character himself. Just a barbarian who wants his son, the bard, to grow up knowing the twin thrills of persistence and adventure.
I like your voice and commentary style. Not too quick and sped through, clearly pronounced but not feeling robotic. Looking forward to the video!
Honestly if you do a retrospective on Ultima or Might and Magic that would be amazing too.
Agree whole-heartedly. We’ve got sseth and spoony for those, but with our man Diamond here, I can actually show friends what I love about classic crpgs without the ….. extra stuff.
Fantastic retrospective. I remember playing through as a spellsword and having some trouble at the start, but by the end when I got a firm grasp on the spellbuilder I laughed at how fast I took down Jagar Tharn, and since I had the shadow key I walked right in and finished. Anticlimactic, but deep down I loved the game.
I am so happy to see someone finally wanting to look at battlespire. I am not sure why but ever since I heard it's main theme I have been mildly obsessed but unable to get it to run properly
Amazing video! I'm glad someone like you gives the old Elder Scrolls games the respect they deserve.
I absolutely love arena, thanks for giving it the best review it could have. Without it, a big stepping stone would be missing, daggerfall plays the same role, albeit a much larger scope.
this was a crazy effort on your behalf, mad props. i really enjoyed having this one while working on my own projects :) thank you!
Great video. Thx. I bought this game and played it a lot. I loved it. The atmosphere in the cities as the snow fell was amazing. The best part of the game was that you could write notes on your map. I wish more games would use that function. But in the end the game felt too big and I felt lost after some time. The game was massive but awesome.
Great video. I was pretty weary going in, but you more than exceeded my expectations. Having actually played it, you can only hear someone yelling "wtf, it's old!" for so long haha. Glad I gave this a chance
An excellent essay on one of the most important games ever made. I remember well buying it when it came out, having to uninstall games from my whopping 40MB hard drive in order to have room to install this one, then having to create a new boot floppy to reconfigure the RAM because the game required a RAM format different from my computer's default. But, it was most definitely worth it. Arena was a huge leap forward in RPGs, and that's speaking as a veteran of the Ultima's, Wizardry!'s, and SSI gold box games.
Interesting side note, when EverQuest first came out, I had friends and co-workers trying to get me to play it. I resisted them for a few months until I happened to be at a friend's place while he was playing it. He turned in a quest and I heard the familiar Arena level up fanfare and suddenly I was interested. Bought EQ the next day. So, Arena is ultimately responsible for my longtime MMO addiction.
Another video to slog through at the gym. Thank you, haven't finished the daggerfall one quite yet. _chef's kiss_
There is an incredible amount of detail in this retrospective. Rewatched it a good few times already, fantastic work!
Thank you. That means a lot, truly :)
@@Jwlar hi, have you checked my comments correcting some mistakes you have made in this video?
@@dontspikemydrink9382 Hi! Sorry, I must've missed them; I just replied to them.
You were correct to point them out, and I only wish TH-cam still had an annotation system so that I could highlights these errors in the video itself after publishing.
i am aware you replied to them ty
this is such perfect timing on your end, i just discovered your daggerfall retrospective and now we get 4 more hours of high quality analysis
I cant wait for another in depth analysis. You did a great job and are very talented on doing a critique/playthrough like perspective.
I would love to write something that Julian codes and produces. What a dream.
I must admit that after it arrived on Steam I beat the game out of spite after enough of Jagars "You are a FOOL" rants. I used a guide ofc but it was a surprisingly fun adventure compared to my Daggerfall experience.
You put a lot of work in this video and it was obviously hard work because the video is good. I subscribed, anyone that takes that much time researching, recording and editing for a four hour video deserves some recognition.
I just binge watched both this video and Daggerfall and man this is so well made and quite the undertaking. I look forward to seeing any more of these deep dives and this really renewed my love for the elder scrolls and wanting to jump back into it despite its age, Arena does have its own charm for sure and it really can become whatever you want it to be. I thought the ideas behind the game even if slightly upscaled and presented today as an open world rogue like would become quite a cult classic in it's own right. All it needs is fun and a since of completion for every dungeon you come across. I find myself going around the wilderness and writing my own notes about locations dotted around that in-house generated terrain. Anyway, keep doing what you are doing man, you definitely have the gift of keeping the viewer's interest with how you display the information and how you pace and structure the whole thing.
Thank you for watching and for your kind words! 😊💜
It is pretty fascinating to see that The Elder Scrolls got its start from the fact that people would rather explore and do sidequests than follow the 'main' Attraction
In that sense it makes sense why the series has become what it has today: people flocked to Oblivion and Skyrim not for the "Deep Story" or to immerse themselves in its Roleplaying, but for the Chance to explore a World, do Sidequests and mess around. Heck, it seems that Radiant Quests even had a common ancestor in those early ideas for computer generated Quests in Arena
Another amazing video Jwler!
Your retrospectives are of exceedingly high quality, and your covering games like Daggerfall and Arena that are kinda' forgotten gems is really great, and important in that they are incredibly influential games.
I personally just recently started playing Daggerfall Unity with a bunch of mod from your mod list, and I'm really enjoying it man. Keep up the great work.
Your videos are the reason that I checked out the older series. Thank you for making these ultimate videos for the video game. I don't think I could have gone through the tutorial of daggerfall without this video😅.
Glad you like them! 😊
Here's to another sleepless night watching Jwlar talk about one of my favorite video game series!
But seriously, love your work man. Great stuff. You've got a bright future ahead, I'm sure of it! Keep it up!
"live another life in another world", "be whoever you want and do whatever you want". and all what you can do in Tamriel - killing things. only in Oblivion was really good, really cool questline for thieves.
The static npcs do provide unique dialogue. You even show some of the thug right when you say that. The jesters have reams of unique dialogue.
Had a good time watching this while playing Daggerfall and Oblivion. great to brush up on the history of TES while experiencing it.
Please do Battlespire. I'm very curious to hear your take on it and the history
"Why this is on by default-"
I presume because the pixelizaton effect was very astounding at the time. People used to think powerpoint transitions were zippy before most people just gave up on them because they're a waste of time.
Thank you for this. Arena is one of my favourites but it still comes behind Underworld.
I played nearly every RPG back in the day. Knightmare is a very honourable mention also.
So many great games with epic size quests and areas. Loved every other Elder scrolls from daggerfall (although dungeon maps a nightmare) and onwards also the MMO.
Don't know how many times I have redone Skyrim. Check out the Nolvus 5 mod pack and auto mass mod updater to Skyrim. Yes I have started again.
Love this video. TY again.
Finally a legit retrospective of this gem thank u so much I can't wait for open tes arena
So crazy, I'm buying my first computer at the age of 29. Last night I was day dreaming about playing Oblivion and Marrowing. I was looking up Arena and Daggerfell. I didn't even know about Arena and I'm excited to see that it's free. Very serendipitous that i stumbled upon your video. 💞
As someone who couldn't play this game as how huge it is - Thank you for this Retrospective! It's incredible how quick those 4 1/2 hours flew by.
I can't imagine the time this whole project took you, but thanks for taking your time and bringing us these intricate videos! You deserve my subscription and I am excited to see more!
Thank you! 😊💜
This was a documentary! So in depth, I just loved everything about it. Would love to see one on Redguard!
1:06:14 That's a bug not a development change, they accidentially switched the redguard and wood elves bonuses.
arena was really fun to play. I only did a few radiant dungeons and focused on the main story dungeons. the combat is actually pretty sweet. I loved the mouse movement. Spell crafting is really broken. I created 2 spells that would max out all my stats for a really long time and it barely cost any mana. that's when I looked it up on the internet, thinking this was a bug lol.
Arena's smith is Tsun himself. Befitting as Lorkhans first showing.
binge watched the vid like a good old movie ! And the work is massive, congratulation to you !!
I had the volcano board game. You had plastic marbles you'd knock down and if your dude was on that trail well bye bye buddy. Used to take those micro machine GI Joes out and have em use the 3D board as a play mat. Fudge, I forgot I had imagination.
Excellent research and wonderfully presented! Thank you for creating this enjoyable and informative overview of a flawed yet beautiful gem. It's not for everyone, but I absolutely love Arena!
Glad you enjoyed it! 😊
Absolutely amazing video. Four hours of your voice talking about the details of an old game like Arena is amazing, you make a great narrator. Can't wait for your next big video!