My god... playing Oblivion for the first time when I was a kid were some of the best days of my life, not only did it introduce me to the RPG genre in general, but it helped me learn English from a very young age, I was amazed really.. looking forward to the review video
Yeah. For me, Oblivion and Divinity 2 were my kind of games when growing up. When lighting and graphics were starting to change, but not there yet. It's a very specific vibe to the 2000s.
The combination of bizarre Radiant AI conversations, the goofy faces and Bethesda hiring about three people to do 99% of the V/A frequently make Oblivion seem like a fever dream... Truely a timeless classic.
I remember someone saying Oblivion is like a stain glass window. At its base level, it is fundamentally broken, but taken as whole it is a work of art. lol
The NPC's are glorious. Bethesda tried systemizing human conversations, which ended up making NPC's operate on this insane dream logic. The dreamy music in the background adds to the charm and the fact that all the characters look goofy is the cherry on top.
Loved oblivion for trying to do so much with the ai. Having ai with a schedule, needs, modifiers like lawfulness and bravery and watching it go haywire was so fun. Randomly you'd run across a dead body then realize that they tried to steal something or got into a fight and killed by guards lol
@@greenbrickbox3392 It's fun to joke around about Oblivion, but Bethesda took a big swing with the NPC's and I won't hold that against them (I like Skyrim too but there isn't really any dialogue system in that game at all so I wouldn't say that is necessarily a better solution). Plus I still think it's a good game anyway.
This is the only game I've ever played in my 50+ years where I had to create a spreadsheet in order to play it efficiently without losing my sanity. I've been tempted to dust off the spreadsheet and play it again, but given the rumor about a rerelease, I'll wait. It's still easily one of my favorite games of all time and I still think "well met" while greeting people.
My biggest gripes with Oblivion was the level scaling and random loot. When you play a grand adventure like this you want to feel like you are becoming stronger, and i never got that. I love finding areas with harder than hell monster, getting beat down, and coming back later after i have traveled the land and gotten stronger. I also did not like random loot in chests. I was great finding a cave with an awesome weapon or armor and marking the location on your physical map for your next play through. Everything in Oblivion felt like chance. I remember opening a chest, finding a great sword, forgot to save and died. When i went back to the chest it was full of garbage.
The game is easier when you are low level, because sneak attacks can kill. Thats the difference. However you can be very strong in Oblivion as a high level character, because of crafting.
Oblivion is still Bethesda's best game. I know most people might not like the enemies scaling but I loved that. It prevented the game from becoming too easy as you leveled like all their other games since do.
For those interested, the "All Attributes +5" mod makes it so any attribute with at least 1 skill increase can get the +5 upon level up. It fixes pretty much every problem with the wonky leveling and allows you to play how you want your character to be played. I highly recommend it.
@@EgoJCs21 no. It ruins the free for all no classes each individual class as strengths and weaknesses. It ruins the replayabliity. The game is better off with out that shit.
So glad you brought up the level scaling problem. Back when I played I kept a leveling notebook. It contained a list of all possible skills grouped by their governing attribute and every time I gained a point in one I’d make a little notch so I knew how close or far I was from leveling and how many attribute points I was on track to get so I could go jump off a tall rock or something if I needed more attribute points to make a level I was on track to get worth it. I just kept my notebook out on the coffee table in the two bedroom apartment I shared with my friend and didn’t think much of it until I had some friends from work over one day. One of them opened it up and was like “what the hell is all this?” and as I started explaining why I had about 15 pages of this and various other leveling notes I realized how ludicrous this whole system was and how insane I sounded lol. Good times.
I remember playing this as a kid and not knowing what over encumbered meant so ended up making a new character whenever it happened before figuring it out
I remember bringing new English words to school and the teacher often didn't know what the word meant. I distinctly remember asking about both "ore" and "ogre" but she only knew "oar".
I remember as a kid i didnt pay attention properly when i became a vampire, rested in thr middle of town and died. I think my last save was ages ago and the game autosaved to me dying in the sun so i restarteda
@@willywitchdoctor this reminds me of when final fantasy 9 came out, I was in middle school and a word had come up in the game that I didn't know, so the next day I asked my home room teacher about it. The word was "impudent", and she looked at me, disgusted, asked where I heard it and she said it was lewd. That didn't fit the context of the game though, and eventually I remembered to look it up and it was basically a fancy way to call someone rude 😂
Oblivion experience was surreal to me. I was mostly into shooters and my friend gave me this. I installed it with no clue, what kind of game it was. 2 weeks later, I realized I spent every ounce of time playing this game. I remember that somehow after escaping the sewers, I looped around the lake without even noticing the Imperial City and ended up in Skingrad, which quickly became my favourite city. But after Skyrim, it was difficult to get back to it. I've been thinking about it for a while, maybe 2024 is a good year to try it out again.
@@Hero-of-Midgar Anvil was my go-to when it came to housing, since it was very cheap and spacious and the quest was a minor inconvenience. A pity that there wasn't a real house in Imperial City, only the shack...
I feel you, the combat scaling is what makes it hard to get back into consistently, like the quests are great and the world is great but that puts a huge damper on playing the game
I understood the scaling system was broken, but I didn't realize all the implications you mentioned here. Thanks for the new information, it's always fun to learn new things about games you love!
Morrowind was my gateway Elder Scrolls, so when Oblivion was announced I was soooo hyped. I followed the development, pre ordered it, even made a custom dvd cover to keep my preorder receipt in. The day came and I picked up one of the last Collectors Editions (for some reason everyone who pre-ordered qualified for a Collectors Edition, and it was first come first served, so I got lucky). Installed it aaanndd... it ran like crap on my PC. It was unplayable.. I was so sad. The next day my dad takes me into town to a PC shop, he ask me to explain the problem, tells them what computer we have and asks them to solve it. He buys me a new graphics card and we go home, install it and it works out. I play through the sewer and when I get out the graphics look so good to me, I stop and run to get my dad to come see it. It's weird. My dad was never a gamer. Never really knew that much about gaming or how to connect with that stuff. But that gesture, understanding that this was so important to me and putting in the effort and money to fix it for me... That's why I will always think of my dad when I see this game.
I have a lot of memories of Oblivion. I was in the Army when it came out and was the only one in my unit who owned it (and on PC) but everyone wanted to play it. I remember there not being multiple slave slots or something like that, so everyone had their own save file in some random folder that we would copy and paste into the actual game folder and then they could play their own save. It led to many people overwriting each other's saves when they'd forget to move the other person's save out of the folder lol. I spent so many hours on CQ and such playing this. Such a PITA but good times. I honestly didn't even know about the level scaling issue, but then again it's been so many years since I played it.
Mort it’s the new year and just wanted to say I for myself definitely appreciate you consideration. Without going to hard on the compliments, you and your content stand out. I’m sure everyone who follows you have or would echo the same sentiments.
I love Oblivion's world building. Just looking at the architecture tells you which city you're in (my personal favourite is Cheydinhal), and harvesting alchemy ingredients in the West Weald is a joy. Apart from the trolls. And the Spriggans.
For me it was Morrowind. It was one of the first single player games that was more complex than the usual and I had to sit and learn its intricacies, like sitting and reading what things do, which set the stage for the way I play games; unlike a lot of people I know that just try things, see what they do and go with it. I remember the first time I played it I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Oblivion on the other hand unfortunately came at a time when I did not have a good enough pc to run it, even though I wanted to play it to death, so I kinda missed playing it when it was meant to be played. It also marks the last game Bethesda has made that was good and not just mediocre or average like the rest of their entries going forward.
I was completely unaware of the levelling issues when I played this as a kid on Xbox 360 when it came out. I absolutely rinsed this game and maxed all my skills and never noticed any issues so I must have levelled up very luckily. I do remember making my character nearly invincible with around 90% reflect damage so maybe child me got round all the problems by making the enemies kill themselves for me. Good times absolutely loved this game.
Damn, man. This explanation of efficient leveling and scaling was something I didn't know I needed. Ages ago, I got screwed by this without knowing it. I didn't know about the concept of escalation at the time, but I knew something was wrong. I took the warrior class and thought I was doing everything right and even though I didn't play on a high difficulty, the end of the game was practically impossible to complete in the conditions I was in, with each enemy taking several minutes to die. Protecting the guy was a revolting thing to ask. I simply assumed that everyone broke the game using enchantments to get "balanced" play. Something I didn't want to do. The funny thing is that recently I was thinking about taking a look at Oblivion again, using mods precisely to resolve this issue. Now I think you've unlocked the game for me. Thank you very much.
I've been playing this game since the 4th grade lol I'm 25 now. What I did on a recent playthrough was I used some console commands to give myself lots of Magicka. Then I went through the mages guild and started creating my own spells. One spell I made absorbs life from enemies and also paralyzes them. I think that the spell requires a higher level of restoration which in my opinion is a super underrated school of magic in the elder scrolls. Acrobatics is also really fun to mess around with. Just jump everywhere you go and eventually you'll be able to jump super super high which makes traveling a lot faster. Happy to see you're playing one of my favorite games hope you have fun!
I love Oblivion. I played it a year ago with a custom modpack of my own. I can really recommend The Last Seed Wabbajack modlist as it is done really well and close to vanilla.
I always look to fill up the endurance first, the other stuff can be fixed retroactively, but endurance sets your health leveling, and it ruins you if you don't max it out in the beginning
Its definitely a case where ignorance is bliss. I'm not sure i can go back to vanilla oblivion without consciously being aware of how many major/minor skills im increasing each level. And to have a spreadsheet open to do "efficient leveling" would rob so much enjoyment from just relaxing and getting lost in the game.
My overarching memory of this game is how I never completed the main story. I levelled too high doing everything else, and was then faced with an invincible army of daedra, and allies made of glass, during the Oblivion Gate missions. I would be interested in playing a remake/remaster with levelling more akin to Skyrim in future, but I could never forgive that levelling system as it was made.
Oblivion is one of my favourite games of all time. My childhood was changed forever by the Elder Scrolls IV because it marked the first time I upgraded my graphics card, the first time I really got sucked into a proper RPG (had played Morrowind and Daggerfall prior and didn't like either one - love both now) and the beginning of my journey with PC gaming in general. Will always hold a special place in my heart.
come on mate the level scaling is not broken, you just have to select as primary and secondary the skills you DON'T plan on using so you can control the leveling and the modifiers, how is that convoluted and broken and not intuitive? :P
You should definitely gave Morrowind a shot. I feel like it was the last true RPG of Bethesda studio, while Oblivion and onward became Action games with some RPG elements.
@fenrir2033 I have only played a bit of it but it's good. Do recommend some mods mostly for bug fixes and maybe some graphical updates if you want but it's interesting in that everything is divided down to a specific skill. Magic crafting is super cool too, combat isn't great but is a little better than skyrim imo, though everything is based on success/hit chance
If he didn't enjoy the level scaling in Oblivion, he's really not going to like it in Morrowind. That Bethesda thought it was acceptable design to replace all of the low level enemies like goblins and mudcrabs with daedric warriors if you got high enough was... interesting... design.
lol am literally writing about this game for a couple days now and this pops up. My fav game of all time probably so I’m awfully excited to see what you’ve got to sau
I first played this on 360 using the RF cable, I couldn't read the text properly or make out much detail, but I must have sunk about 200 hours into it before I started going after the Oblivion gates because there was so much to do. Then I got my first HD TV and I was amazed at how much detail was now obvious. Then I got access to the internet and lost all of my 850 gamer score and my save corrupted. I managed to get through another run to actually complete it and the Shivering Isles. Very unhappy with all of that, but definitely on of the best value games out there and I would pick it over Skyrim hands down.
Oblivion is my favorite game of all time. What I love about Oblivion is the sense of wonder and adventure. Everything in Oblivion from the character model to the quest, voice acting are exaggerated. It's like being invited into a fantasy cartoon. The quests are one of the best quest in any game ever, especially the side quests. Shivering Isles was the perfect expansion for Oblivion because it heightens up the wacky charm of Oblivion even more. I've played plenty of GOTY 10/10 games throughout the years and I'd say they are technically better games, but I still love Oblivion more than any of them. Just because Bethesda is on the naughty list nowadays, people tend to give their older game unfair criticism. They forget this game came out in 2006 not 2020 I really hope Bethesda stop their obsession on realism and learn something from their success in Oblivion.
Have you seen Skyblivion? th-cam.com/video/wgkkXyxklRE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=vrSFyUxQwT-6MB0N They are modding the entierty of Oblivion in Skyrim. Its so insane in its ambition that I thought they wouldnt finish. But they are! If you check their page they have a video from the same time as this trailer where they very transperently show which areas of the game are done. 2025 release. I cant wait!
Great vid, Mort! Oblivion is thegame of my childhood, the game I spent countless hours playing, exploring, modding, cheating with console commands and having fun. My fav part of the game is music tho, but thats a whole different topic. Speaking of the game problems - leveling system never actually bothered me, but at some point you just starting to feel like every single high-level enemy like Daedroths reflect most of your damage back to you, or if you visit Shivering Isles at level 20 even random Hunger can beat your ass. The thing is - you can cheese this game to the ground too. But anyways, it's always (well, almost) good to have a throwback to the original game. In fact, my last 100% playthrough (including filling excel tab, marking quests complete) I did in 2020, during covid lockdown. Same thing I did with Skyrim right after!
I remember reading the OXM/Gameinformer magazine previews about Oblivion and just imagining how much fun I was going to have. I started playing Oblivion at the same time I picked up reading the Forgotten Realms and Frizzy novels so my mind already adored those kinds of settings and stories.
Skyrim is great but Oblivion is charming. It's like playing D&D or Pathfinder for the first time and getting sucked into a living, breathing fantasy world. The NPCs all have their own little lives, the voice acting is campy but comfy, and the music. I literally listen to the music everyday. I'm legit in Jeremy Soule's top .5% listeners on Spotify lol.
Oblivions levelling is one of two things id say are just impossible to defend with this game. The other being the scaling which is directly tied to levelling. I still play those things vanilla and enjoy them because i know them too well. Everything else about oblivion in my mind can be justified as “oblivion charm”. The game is an awkward, uncomfortable mess, but to me is dripping with charm and character. From the landscape of Cyrodil, the wackiness of almost every npc and how they all sound the same, the bugs, the ‘daily routines’, some of these things are flaws but they made oblivion feel heartfelt and magical in a way i think not many Bethesda games have shown since.
Oblivion is a game that in my opinion is better than the sum of its parts. Taking oblivion literally or looking at it objectively in a lot of ways it is a very poor game, but its more than its terrible levelling system and horse armor dlc. Oblivion feels like it was made with real passion and care. It has alot to do with nostalgia, but any game that can evoke emotions like that in so many people must have something going for it. I think that is what is so great about oblivion.
This was the first modern RPG I played, I was still playing all Genesis, NES and 80s PC games until my cousin moved in with this on his Xbox, it literally opened up new worlds for me and it's my favorite of the Elder Scrolls to this day.
I remember playging Oblivion back in 2006 and it was overwhelming for me at first, especially the language barrier since I was a teenager and didn't had the best english to follow along, even so I remember having a blast running around and exploring that huge map. Time went by and in 2013 I got the game on steam, doing a proper playthrough, to this day no other game could match the side quests of Oblivion for me, and I played all the big AAA RPGs that came out since then, Oblivion writing and design for the sidequests was something else, I saw a glimpse of it on Skyrim but at end there's no comparison.
Me and my buddy got a 360 for this game. We were playing in his room when his dad came in and asked us what we were watching. Kinda cliche, but man, this game is so nostalgic, and the graphics were incredible for the time. Just the fact you could pick up arrows blew my mind, unlike Morrowind where they would disappear on you.
What I did playing this game back in the day was install Obscuros mod (I think that's what it's called) which cancels level scaling altogether and replaces it with fixed levels for all enemies. This does mean of course you can't just go wherever you want any time you want, and it also means you can get mugged by a L25 bandit on the road at L3 if you're not careful (personally I considered that possibility a plus, YMMV), but it did play a lot better than the awful level scaling. It also takes the heat off the insane level up system since you can basically out-level the enemies through the game if you need to so there is less need to hit +5 every time.
I loved this game; the only downer was that having closed so many Oblivion gates, I was fed up with them, only to discover that the end game meant closing another 8 (I think). That was a really downer.
This is so bizarre, I played this game to death back in the day, and never encountered, or realised that I encountered the leveling issues that you explained.
Unless you get to lv 30+ or just make an exceptionally poor build most people probably wouldnt notice it. It's not really a problem until lv 26 when every level after that leveled enemies continue to gain health while your damage potential has hit a plateau making them all into damage sponges that dont even pose a threat.
Aw man, Oblivion. The game that showed me games can be more than shooters or racing games, and my first true RPG and open world game. This game really blew me away back in the day. I used to spend hours on UESP just reading about the lore, and daydream about what could be done if i had played on PC with mods. It was amazing to me that a videogame could be a universe on its own and it was one i could imagine living in. I don't think it holds up gameplay-wise but it will always be special to me.
It always blew my mind when I looked up some tips for playing on the hardest difficulty just to learn I never level up properly the whole time I was playing. Also the Oblivion Gates at high level on hardest difficulty was insane
Oblivion quests were truly great. Majority of them are great. Even the simple quest have twists. Like the entry level mage guild'a quest where you retrieve a ring inside a well. The ring actually encumber/slow you if it's in your inventery so if you dont have a potion or spell for water breathing you are either likely gonna die or have to leave the ring there. It adds to the world building too, at least characterization of the quest giver as a callous arsehole because there are corpses inside the well too iirc, that likely were failed member's initiates.
Yoooo Didn't expect you to feature Oblivion. I recommend try playing it on 100% difficulty, it offers a good challenge, when you going deep into the character building.
This one played a sneak-thief Khajiit sorcerer in ESO and looks forward to your tale of the harvesting of souls and the liberating of items from the undeserving.
The Goblin warlords after you went lvl30+.. And unlike many others, my favorite pass time was doing the oblivion gates, by upgrading my speed (steed sign) and just running past everything, for those sweet sigil stones.
I really want to go back and play through Oblivion. I started it once many years ago on PS3, then another time a few years ago on PC, but neither time I completely finished it. The game is super fun and unironically still holds up well somehow, so I really want to do a complete playthrough of it.
Having the prima guide book for this game really enhanced my experiance of it, felt like a tourist guide of tamriel, used to play it all the time while watching lord of the rings and Terry pratchets colour of magic
I've bounced off of Oblivion so many times. The first time I didn't understand the levelling system and I eventually ran into what seemed like an impossibly hard mainline quest battle that stopped my progress. On future attempts, tracking and planning all of the efficient levelling that I wanted to do became too much of a chore and I put the game down. I also got in in my head during one or two previous playthroughs to collect EVERY book in Oblivion which (understandably) also became too much of a chore. I'm hoping to use this video (and your upcoming review) as a bit of motivation to get back in there and try again. I have barely scraped the surface of the main quest in all of my previous attempts and I would definitely like to see how the whole story plays out.
What has always helped me is to make a point to simply stop leveling between 20-26, after 26 enemies continue to scale up in health and your max damage will plateau as the final tiers of items are dropping at that point
Just bought oblivion last night so this video from you is very well timed haha, been wanting to play the older Elder Scoll games for a hot minute. I've played more of the fallout series but for ES I've only touched Skyrim
I know you are doing a pugilist playthrough but I would really love and appreciate to hear you cover the mage colleges spell crafting mechanics. Started with Morrowind and was too young to understand at the time how to play efficiently... Oblivion or IV-livi-blivio as I like to call it was the one that took hold of me. I was so sad when I realized they removed spell crafting from skyrim as it was one of the best rewards for playing through the guild and really helped my RP of my mage character. Love the content, I look forward to it no matter what it's about 🤘
TES Oblivion was my first Bethesda title, I got the edition that came with the book & coin for the Xbox 360. I became known as the potion maker & spell maker, I adored making things. For it's time it had little things, like watching the 2 characters brawling outside the arena & increasing your own skill there by simply watching them, the overall cosmopolitan feel. Rumors are that bethesda is planning on remaking Oblivion. They should just hire the Skyblivion & Skywind folks, even if on a contract basis.
I had just moved out of my house, bought a new computer, and took 2 weeks off work when oblivion was released. I put so many back-to-back hours into that game when it first came out... I knew it was going to be a life-long endeavor the second I popped out of the sewer and saw the first Ayleid shrine against the lush green backdrop.
Hopefully the rumors of a remaster/remake are true. Oblivion is one of those games I always wanted to play and never did. I'll wait for your review. Love your channel and your content.
I enjoyed Morrowind as a kid and I tried really hard to get into Oblivion as it was clearly a cool world, but the leveling system drove me crazy and I gave up. You have to play with a spreadsheet if you want to level efficiently and it took all the fun out of it for me. Maybe I will check it out again modded.
Nice! Do you plan on reviewing Morrowind as well? I'm playing simultaneously Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion (leveling and scaling modded), since they are so different from each other and offer such different experiences.
Nice video. Thanks. I installed this on my system weeks ago, along with Morrowind and Daggerfall. I've yet to jump into them (and stick with them). As an aside, I'm watching this video instead of putting together a bookshelf. I have a different take on mods than you. I now look at mods for all games, as they can often supply features that improve the game and experience... and often fix issues. Heck, I've a list of over 100 mods for Skyrim that just address issues (many of which are day one bugs). Okay. Thanks for being my procrastination catalyst. Now I have to get back to it. All the best.
Just seeing someone play TES4 makes me smile. I don't actually remember the level system at all. I'm not sure I ever knew. After a certain point, I just started swimming in lava (or jumping across lava lakes) and ignored everything to close the portals and only fought when absolutely necessary because I could. xD
Playing a brawler is super fun in oblivion and I wish they didn't remove the potential in future Bethesda games. Few things the game I think never mentions is Hand to hand Damage actually scales with your max stamina for some reason so if you enchant your gear with max stamina vs strength you will get tons of damage. Also hand to hand seemed to deal some amount of stamina damage to enemies or at least have a chance to knock them over. Also if you deal enough stamina damage to bring a characters stamina to a negative number they would collapse and act paralyzed but you could still speak with them or pick pocket them with 100% success. I feel bad for the NPCs of this game. I used to play like a mad scientist. I ran experiments on them and myself looking for game mechanics and how to break them with the awesome in depth magic system. I ended up using a level 4 Illusion master who was permanently Invisible (100% chameleon even more op than invis) and I only killed things by making them rage and kill each other. Or I played as a alchemist who would reflect 600% damage back and have constant unkillable health regen. Or just a simple mage who could run so fast i could teleport through walls and jump over the imperial city. Point is. Oblivion is good.
Yeah, unarmed deals damage to health and stamina at the same time which is meant to make up for the fact that you can't enchant your fists like other weapons
You mention the level scaling issue and now that you've said it I 100% agree. Even as a child I learned that things level with you and you could control how hard or easy the game is by deciding to level or not. Ironically not leveling makes the game easier and easier since you can level skills to 100 without leveling and levels only give you stats which are important but you can also use restoration to temporarily max stats anyway. It totally is broken I just think its funny that I never really realized that until someone said it. Oblivion is 100% in my top 5 games of all time Ive beaten it dozens of time and honestly Ive never modded it before.
Yeah I spent a lot of time as a teenager testing out custom class builds to see what made the level up process as seamless as possible, wish I still had the saves for my final min maxxed monstrosity. I still remembered I named the class Seraphim lol
The more I played the more I learned how to be OP and usually it ended up meaning getting as much MP and casting insane Restoration enhancing magic. I loved doing experemints in this game. Although potentially unfriendly to casuals it felt so rewarding as a teenager mastering this game on my xbox no mods no dlc just me and the game after school. @@MortismalGaming
Great video, as usual Mort. Given your detailed explanation of the leveling system in Oblivion, I would love to see a video from you whereby you detail which mods are the best/required to implement an intuitive leveling system into the game. I am not familiar with whether there are community-chosen best/mandatory mods for this purpose. That said, given your excellent ability at delivery within your videos, I would love to see this topic covered by you in your excellent, detail-oriented manner. Cheers, Mort!
@TheHeartThatRunsCold I agree that is very often a good indicator as to which mod is best for the desired purpose. I was more hoping to see and hear Mort's unique take and delivery on the matter.
Brings back some good memories. A lot of fun quests and adventures! Level scaling system is clearly not very good, since it encourages the player to stop leveling up. I remember though that I thought that the graphics were really impressive, even if they are ridiculed these days. I also liked the artstyle, which reminds me of older fairy tale and fantasy book, as well as DnD illustrations. I do think that several important things were better in Morrowind though, and missed them while playing Oblivion.
Oblivion is a game that I've been going back to at least once a month since release its a game I just can't put down. It was my first rpg at the ripe old age of 5 years old and it showed me what could be done in a digital world and I've been chasing that high ever since. Loved hearing you talk about this absolute janky masterpiece.
I think it was the voice audio for the orcs. Whenever they get hit, it's just these really weird "ughhh" and "oooh" noises. They sound like it should be in another game. Thanks for the video. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
Awesome! I love Oblivion so much. I actually played through Skyrim again 11/11 for the anniversary, and I've been thinking of going back to this as well! I really hope Bethesda can straighten themselves out and maybe revisit Morrowind/Oblivion design philosophy more than Fallout 4.
No fucking way!! Oblivion changed my life whhen i was in 6th grade. I didnt know how much i truly loved fantasy until i played oblivion. I have the symbol for the school of destruction on my neck as my constant reminder to stop being self destructive and i love being reminded all the time ive spent playing this game everytime i see it. This game will always have a place in my heart
I'm old and to date Morrowind is probably my favorite RPG. It was such a huge leap in graphics and scope from any RPG I had played at the time. Some of the areas were super creepy. It had verticality. There were some super good items hidden up out of sight so exploration was rewarded. Balance was a bit broken because you could stack potions and enchantments but becoming godlike made sense because you had to kill a god. Then oblivion improved on so many things but I missed the verticality. I missed being able to fly over mountains to get where i needed to go. Oh.... do you sleep? I don't know how you came as much as you do and still have an outside life. Morrowind was also the first game I ever modded. I used to push my old PC to the limit with plenty of crashes with all of the mods I stacked into the game.
My god... playing Oblivion for the first time when I was a kid were some of the best days of my life, not only did it introduce me to the RPG genre in general, but it helped me learn English from a very young age, I was amazed really.. looking forward to the review video
What is your first language?
Yeah. For me, Oblivion and Divinity 2 were my kind of games when growing up. When lighting and graphics were starting to change, but not there yet. It's a very specific vibe to the 2000s.
@@ashtonpeterson4618 Serbian
@traiforse5777 oh yea definitely, but even today, the game has that certain charm that really makes it an unforgettable experience
Yeah this was my experience with Morrowind
The combination of bizarre Radiant AI conversations, the goofy faces and Bethesda hiring about three people to do 99% of the V/A frequently make Oblivion seem like a fever dream...
Truely a timeless classic.
It makes me laugh everytime you find two npcs with the same voice actor having a conversation lol
I remember someone saying Oblivion is like a stain glass window. At its base level, it is fundamentally broken, but taken as whole it is a work of art. lol
The "which is nonsense" at 9:29 had me cackling 😂 It's the most strongly delivered comment I've heard from Mort thus far
The NPC's are glorious. Bethesda tried systemizing human conversations, which ended up making NPC's operate on this insane dream logic. The dreamy music in the background adds to the charm and the fact that all the characters look goofy is the cherry on top.
Loved oblivion for trying to do so much with the ai. Having ai with a schedule, needs, modifiers like lawfulness and bravery and watching it go haywire was so fun. Randomly you'd run across a dead body then realize that they tried to steal something or got into a fight and killed by guards lol
@@greenbrickbox3392 It's fun to joke around about Oblivion, but Bethesda took a big swing with the NPC's and I won't hold that against them (I like Skyrim too but there isn't really any dialogue system in that game at all so I wouldn't say that is necessarily a better solution). Plus I still think it's a good game anyway.
There's a reason whenever people record people being insane irl the Oblivion ost is always used.
This is the only game I've ever played in my 50+ years where I had to create a spreadsheet in order to play it efficiently without losing my sanity. I've been tempted to dust off the spreadsheet and play it again, but given the rumor about a rerelease, I'll wait.
It's still easily one of my favorite games of all time and I still think "well met" while greeting people.
My biggest gripes with Oblivion was the level scaling and random loot. When you play a grand adventure like this you want to feel like you are becoming stronger, and i never got that. I love finding areas with harder than hell monster, getting beat down, and coming back later after i have traveled the land and gotten stronger. I also did not like random loot in chests. I was great finding a cave with an awesome weapon or armor and marking the location on your physical map for your next play through. Everything in Oblivion felt like chance. I remember opening a chest, finding a great sword, forgot to save and died. When i went back to the chest it was full of garbage.
The game is easier when you are low level, because sneak attacks can kill. Thats the difference.
However you can be very strong in Oblivion as a high level character, because of crafting.
Oblivion is still Bethesda's best game. I know most people might not like the enemies scaling but I loved that. It prevented the game from becoming too easy as you leveled like all their other games since do.
Dark Brotherhood quests is so well done
Sanguine, my brother.
For those interested, the "All Attributes +5" mod makes it so any attribute with at least 1 skill increase can get the +5 upon level up. It fixes pretty much every problem with the wonky leveling and allows you to play how you want your character to be played. I highly recommend it.
Nah. Sort of ruins the game tbh
@@EgoJCs21 no. It ruins the free for all no classes each individual class as strengths and weaknesses. It ruins the replayabliity. The game is better off with out that shit.
@@Frencho9 so that'll feel like your character is actually yours Nad not some hack of all trades?
So glad you brought up the level scaling problem. Back when I played I kept a leveling notebook. It contained a list of all possible skills grouped by their governing attribute and every time I gained a point in one I’d make a little notch so I knew how close or far I was from leveling and how many attribute points I was on track to get so I could go jump off a tall rock or something if I needed more attribute points to make a level I was on track to get worth it.
I just kept my notebook out on the coffee table in the two bedroom apartment I shared with my friend and didn’t think much of it until I had some friends from work over one day. One of them opened it up and was like “what the hell is all this?” and as I started explaining why I had about 15 pages of this and various other leveling notes I realized how ludicrous this whole system was and how insane I sounded lol. Good times.
I remember playing this as a kid and not knowing what over encumbered meant so ended up making a new character whenever it happened before figuring it out
😂
I remember bringing new English words to school and the teacher often didn't know what the word meant. I distinctly remember asking about both "ore" and "ogre" but she only knew "oar".
I remember as a kid i didnt pay attention properly when i became a vampire, rested in thr middle of town and died. I think my last save was ages ago and the game autosaved to me dying in the sun so i restarteda
@@willywitchdoctor this reminds me of when final fantasy 9 came out, I was in middle school and a word had come up in the game that I didn't know, so the next day I asked my home room teacher about it. The word was "impudent", and she looked at me, disgusted, asked where I heard it and she said it was lewd. That didn't fit the context of the game though, and eventually I remembered to look it up and it was basically a fancy way to call someone rude 😂
Oblivion experience was surreal to me. I was mostly into shooters and my friend gave me this. I installed it with no clue, what kind of game it was. 2 weeks later, I realized I spent every ounce of time playing this game. I remember that somehow after escaping the sewers, I looped around the lake without even noticing the Imperial City and ended up in Skingrad, which quickly became my favourite city.
But after Skyrim, it was difficult to get back to it. I've been thinking about it for a while, maybe 2024 is a good year to try it out again.
Anvil for me
@@Hero-of-Midgar Anvil was my go-to when it came to housing, since it was very cheap and spacious and the quest was a minor inconvenience. A pity that there wasn't a real house in Imperial City, only the shack...
I feel you, the combat scaling is what makes it hard to get back into consistently, like the quests are great and the world is great but that puts a huge damper on playing the game
I own the game since 2007 and completed the main quest for the first time in 2023. Actuallay, I don't think it has aged that bad at all.
I understood the scaling system was broken, but I didn't realize all the implications you mentioned here. Thanks for the new information, it's always fun to learn new things about games you love!
Morrowind was my gateway Elder Scrolls, so when Oblivion was announced I was soooo hyped. I followed the development, pre ordered it, even made a custom dvd cover to keep my preorder receipt in. The day came and I picked up one of the last Collectors Editions (for some reason everyone who pre-ordered qualified for a Collectors Edition, and it was first come first served, so I got lucky). Installed it aaanndd... it ran like crap on my PC. It was unplayable.. I was so sad.
The next day my dad takes me into town to a PC shop, he ask me to explain the problem, tells them what computer we have and asks them to solve it.
He buys me a new graphics card and we go home, install it and it works out.
I play through the sewer and when I get out the graphics look so good to me, I stop and run to get my dad to come see it.
It's weird. My dad was never a gamer. Never really knew that much about gaming or how to connect with that stuff. But that gesture, understanding that this was so important to me and putting in the effort and money to fix it for me... That's why I will always think of my dad when I see this game.
I'm waiting for Skyblivion! I'm so excited!
I have a lot of memories of Oblivion. I was in the Army when it came out and was the only one in my unit who owned it (and on PC) but everyone wanted to play it. I remember there not being multiple slave slots or something like that, so everyone had their own save file in some random folder that we would copy and paste into the actual game folder and then they could play their own save. It led to many people overwriting each other's saves when they'd forget to move the other person's save out of the folder lol. I spent so many hours on CQ and such playing this. Such a PITA but good times. I honestly didn't even know about the level scaling issue, but then again it's been so many years since I played it.
When you said the game is pushing 20 years old I felt REALLY old...
You and me both lol
This is my all-time favorite game. I still play it to this day. It makes me happy still seeing people talking about it.
Mort it’s the new year and just wanted to say I for myself definitely appreciate you consideration. Without going to hard on the compliments, you and your content stand out. I’m sure everyone who follows you have or would echo the same sentiments.
I love Oblivion's world building. Just looking at the architecture tells you which city you're in (my personal favourite is Cheydinhal), and harvesting alchemy ingredients in the West Weald is a joy. Apart from the trolls. And the Spriggans.
For me it was Morrowind. It was one of the first single player games that was more complex than the usual and I had to sit and learn its intricacies, like sitting and reading what things do, which set the stage for the way I play games; unlike a lot of people I know that just try things, see what they do and go with it. I remember the first time I played it I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Oblivion on the other hand unfortunately came at a time when I did not have a good enough pc to run it, even though I wanted to play it to death, so I kinda missed playing it when it was meant to be played. It also marks the last game Bethesda has made that was good and not just mediocre or average like the rest of their entries going forward.
I was completely unaware of the levelling issues when I played this as a kid on Xbox 360 when it came out. I absolutely rinsed this game and maxed all my skills and never noticed any issues so I must have levelled up very luckily. I do remember making my character nearly invincible with around 90% reflect damage so maybe child me got round all the problems by making the enemies kill themselves for me. Good times absolutely loved this game.
Damn, man. This explanation of efficient leveling and scaling was something I didn't know I needed.
Ages ago, I got screwed by this without knowing it. I didn't know about the concept of escalation at the time, but I knew something was wrong. I took the warrior class and thought I was doing everything right and even though I didn't play on a high difficulty, the end of the game was practically impossible to complete in the conditions I was in, with each enemy taking several minutes to die.
Protecting the guy was a revolting thing to ask.
I simply assumed that everyone broke the game using enchantments to get "balanced" play. Something I didn't want to do.
The funny thing is that recently I was thinking about taking a look at Oblivion again, using mods precisely to resolve this issue. Now I think you've unlocked the game for me.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely pumped for this. I do a playthrough, modded, every year but still can't get enough of it.
I've been playing this game since the 4th grade lol I'm 25 now. What I did on a recent playthrough was I used some console commands to give myself lots of Magicka. Then I went through the mages guild and started creating my own spells. One spell I made absorbs life from enemies and also paralyzes them. I think that the spell requires a higher level of restoration which in my opinion is a super underrated school of magic in the elder scrolls. Acrobatics is also really fun to mess around with. Just jump everywhere you go and eventually you'll be able to jump super super high which makes traveling a lot faster. Happy to see you're playing one of my favorite games hope you have fun!
I love Oblivion. I played it a year ago with a custom modpack of my own. I can really recommend The Last Seed Wabbajack modlist as it is done really well and close to vanilla.
I always look to fill up the endurance first, the other stuff can be fixed retroactively, but endurance sets your health leveling, and it ruins you if you don't max it out in the beginning
Its definitely a case where ignorance is bliss. I'm not sure i can go back to vanilla oblivion without consciously being aware of how many major/minor skills im increasing each level. And to have a spreadsheet open to do "efficient leveling" would rob so much enjoyment from just relaxing and getting lost in the game.
Correct, Endurance is the most important one because its the difference of hundreds of hp which matters for everyone
I've just started this game on my steam deck and I'm not savvy at all with mods so the tips on levelling will be a huge help, thanks a lot!
My overarching memory of this game is how I never completed the main story. I levelled too high doing everything else, and was then faced with an invincible army of daedra, and allies made of glass, during the Oblivion Gate missions.
I would be interested in playing a remake/remaster with levelling more akin to Skyrim in future, but I could never forgive that levelling system as it was made.
Check out skyblivion. A modded recreation of oblivion within the Skyrim game engine. Not out yet, but coming soon.
@@thomashartka2926 it's been "coming soon" for years, I resigned to being an old man by the time it actually comes out 😂
@@yujin_sumeragiThe modding team is almost done with it. It’s been announced for release in 2025.
@@daracaexthat’s still a year away dawg
Oblivion is one of my favourite games of all time. My childhood was changed forever by the Elder Scrolls IV because it marked the first time I upgraded my graphics card, the first time I really got sucked into a proper RPG (had played Morrowind and Daggerfall prior and didn't like either one - love both now) and the beginning of my journey with PC gaming in general. Will always hold a special place in my heart.
come on mate the level scaling is not broken, you just have to select as primary and secondary the skills you DON'T plan on using so you can control the leveling and the modifiers, how is that convoluted and broken and not intuitive? :P
You should definitely gave Morrowind a shot. I feel like it was the last true RPG of Bethesda studio, while Oblivion and onward became Action games with some RPG elements.
How it holds up ? I wanna try Morrowind but i dont want to download like 100+ mods just to enjoy it. I had enough with Skyrim already.
@@fenrir2033I played it on my brother’s GamePass, and I was able to enjoy it; however, I tend to play a few old games every year.
@fenrir2033 I have only played a bit of it but it's good. Do recommend some mods mostly for bug fixes and maybe some graphical updates if you want but it's interesting in that everything is divided down to a specific skill. Magic crafting is super cool too, combat isn't great but is a little better than skyrim imo, though everything is based on success/hit chance
If he didn't enjoy the level scaling in Oblivion, he's really not going to like it in Morrowind. That Bethesda thought it was acceptable design to replace all of the low level enemies like goblins and mudcrabs with daedric warriors if you got high enough was... interesting... design.
The world of Morrowind was amazing, best game of my youth no contest
I remember the OOO mod for this one, Oscurro’s (sp?) Oblivion Overhaul. Did so much and ended up combining so many others into one package
I was just thinking of OOO. The change to semi-static enemy scaling was such an improvement. As were additional hidden legendary items.
Its is still maintained. I plan on a playthrough with OOO and MOO (Maskar's OO) some year soon...
@@adamh503add Martigen's to that list and it's a real fun ride.
lol am literally writing about this game for a couple days now and this pops up. My fav game of all time probably so I’m awfully excited to see what you’ve got to sau
I first played this on 360 using the RF cable, I couldn't read the text properly or make out much detail, but I must have sunk about 200 hours into it before I started going after the Oblivion gates because there was so much to do. Then I got my first HD TV and I was amazed at how much detail was now obvious. Then I got access to the internet and lost all of my 850 gamer score and my save corrupted. I managed to get through another run to actually complete it and the Shivering Isles. Very unhappy with all of that, but definitely on of the best value games out there and I would pick it over Skyrim hands down.
Oblivion is my favorite game of all time. What I love about Oblivion is the sense of wonder and adventure. Everything in Oblivion from the character model to the quest, voice acting are exaggerated. It's like being invited into a fantasy cartoon. The quests are one of the best quest in any game ever, especially the side quests. Shivering Isles was the perfect expansion for Oblivion because it heightens up the wacky charm of Oblivion even more. I've played plenty of GOTY 10/10 games throughout the years and I'd say they are technically better games, but I still love Oblivion more than any of them. Just because Bethesda is on the naughty list nowadays, people tend to give their older game unfair criticism. They forget this game came out in 2006 not 2020 I really hope Bethesda stop their obsession on realism and learn something from their success in Oblivion.
Have you seen Skyblivion?
th-cam.com/video/wgkkXyxklRE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=vrSFyUxQwT-6MB0N
They are modding the entierty of Oblivion in Skyrim. Its so insane in its ambition that I thought they wouldnt finish. But they are! If you check their page they have a video from the same time as this trailer where they very transperently show which areas of the game are done. 2025 release. I cant wait!
To go back in time to when I was playing Oblivion.... enjoy your playthrough
Great vid, Mort! Oblivion is thegame of my childhood, the game I spent countless hours playing, exploring, modding, cheating with console commands and having fun. My fav part of the game is music tho, but thats a whole different topic.
Speaking of the game problems - leveling system never actually bothered me, but at some point you just starting to feel like every single high-level enemy like Daedroths reflect most of your damage back to you, or if you visit Shivering Isles at level 20 even random Hunger can beat your ass. The thing is - you can cheese this game to the ground too. But anyways, it's always (well, almost) good to have a throwback to the original game. In fact, my last 100% playthrough (including filling excel tab, marking quests complete) I did in 2020, during covid lockdown. Same thing I did with Skyrim right after!
Hey, here's some TH-cam jazz for you. Thanks for your great work!
I remember reading the OXM/Gameinformer magazine previews about Oblivion and just imagining how much fun I was going to have. I started playing Oblivion at the same time I picked up reading the Forgotten Realms and Frizzy novels so my mind already adored those kinds of settings and stories.
Now THIS is the content I'm subbed for.
The best name I've seen for a brawler Khajit is Ma'ik Tyson
The Side content of Oblivion is some of my favorite in any game, One of my favorite games of all time as well. Great Video as always.
Skyrim is great but Oblivion is charming. It's like playing D&D or Pathfinder for the first time and getting sucked into a living, breathing fantasy world. The NPCs all have their own little lives, the voice acting is campy but comfy, and the music. I literally listen to the music everyday. I'm legit in Jeremy Soule's top .5% listeners on Spotify lol.
Oblivions levelling is one of two things id say are just impossible to defend with this game. The other being the scaling which is directly tied to levelling. I still play those things vanilla and enjoy them because i know them too well.
Everything else about oblivion in my mind can be justified as “oblivion charm”. The game is an awkward, uncomfortable mess, but to me is dripping with charm and character.
From the landscape of Cyrodil, the wackiness of almost every npc and how they all sound the same, the bugs, the ‘daily routines’, some of these things are flaws but they made oblivion feel heartfelt and magical in a way i think not many Bethesda games have shown since.
Oblivion is a game that in my opinion is better than the sum of its parts. Taking oblivion literally or looking at it objectively in a lot of ways it is a very poor game, but its more than its terrible levelling system and horse armor dlc. Oblivion feels like it was made with real passion and care. It has alot to do with nostalgia, but any game that can evoke emotions like that in so many people must have something going for it. I think that is what is so great about oblivion.
This was the first modern RPG I played, I was still playing all Genesis, NES and 80s PC games until my cousin moved in with this on his Xbox, it literally opened up new worlds for me and it's my favorite of the Elder Scrolls to this day.
I remember playging Oblivion back in 2006 and it was overwhelming for me at first, especially the language barrier since I was a teenager and didn't had the best english to follow along, even so I remember having a blast running around and exploring that huge map.
Time went by and in 2013 I got the game on steam, doing a proper playthrough, to this day no other game could match the side quests of Oblivion for me, and I played all the big AAA RPGs that came out since then, Oblivion writing and design for the sidequests was something else, I saw a glimpse of it on Skyrim but at end there's no comparison.
Me and my buddy got a 360 for this game. We were playing in his room when his dad came in and asked us what we were watching. Kinda cliche, but man, this game is so nostalgic, and the graphics were incredible for the time. Just the fact you could pick up arrows blew my mind, unlike Morrowind where they would disappear on you.
Hackdirt was something else for sure
What I did playing this game back in the day was install Obscuros mod (I think that's what it's called) which cancels level scaling altogether and replaces it with fixed levels for all enemies. This does mean of course you can't just go wherever you want any time you want, and it also means you can get mugged by a L25 bandit on the road at L3 if you're not careful (personally I considered that possibility a plus, YMMV), but it did play a lot better than the awful level scaling. It also takes the heat off the insane level up system since you can basically out-level the enemies through the game if you need to so there is less need to hit +5 every time.
Looking forward to your 12 hour Oblivion retrospective!
I loved this game; the only downer was that having closed so many Oblivion gates, I was fed up with them, only to discover that the end game meant closing another 8 (I think). That was a really downer.
Yeah theres a total of 60 per playthrough, 10 are mandatory for the main quest
It is a wonderful time to be a fan of Mortismal Gaming
I know it's kind of a meme and aspects of it have aged poorly, but I still consider Oblivion to be the best game I've ever played.
I don’t even remember level scaling being a problem.. oblivion was a really fun game back in the day.
This is so bizarre, I played this game to death back in the day, and never encountered, or realised that I encountered the leveling issues that you explained.
I have literally never had any major issues with Oblivions level scaling.
Unless you get to lv 30+ or just make an exceptionally poor build most people probably wouldnt notice it. It's not really a problem until lv 26 when every level after that leveled enemies continue to gain health while your damage potential has hit a plateau making them all into damage sponges that dont even pose a threat.
Let's... GO DUDE
Hell yeah, ive been loving playing oblivion, i started in november after like…12+ if not more years of not playing it
Aw man, Oblivion. The game that showed me games can be more than shooters or racing games, and my first true RPG and open world game. This game really blew me away back in the day. I used to spend hours on UESP just reading about the lore, and daydream about what could be done if i had played on PC with mods. It was amazing to me that a videogame could be a universe on its own and it was one i could imagine living in. I don't think it holds up gameplay-wise but it will always be special to me.
Second comment: I still remember the awe I felt when leaving the city and seeing deer bounding across the hillside.
It always blew my mind when I looked up some tips for playing on the hardest difficulty just to learn I never level up properly the whole time I was playing. Also the Oblivion Gates at high level on hardest difficulty was insane
BY AZURA BY AZURA BY AZURA! , It's the grand champion!
Oblivion quests were truly great. Majority of them are great. Even the simple quest have twists. Like the entry level mage guild'a quest where you retrieve a ring inside a well. The ring actually encumber/slow you if it's in your inventery so if you dont have a potion or spell for water breathing you are either likely gonna die or have to leave the ring there. It adds to the world building too, at least characterization of the quest giver as a callous arsehole because there are corpses inside the well too iirc, that likely were failed member's initiates.
Yoooo
Didn't expect you to feature Oblivion.
I recommend try playing it on 100% difficulty, it offers a good challenge, when you going deep into the character building.
This one played a sneak-thief Khajiit sorcerer in ESO and looks forward to your tale of the harvesting of souls and the liberating of items from the undeserving.
The Goblin warlords after you went lvl30+..
And unlike many others, my favorite pass time was doing the oblivion gates, by upgrading my speed (steed sign) and just running past everything, for those sweet sigil stones.
I really want to go back and play through Oblivion. I started it once many years ago on PS3, then another time a few years ago on PC, but neither time I completely finished it. The game is super fun and unironically still holds up well somehow, so I really want to do a complete playthrough of it.
Nice! I've never played the game before but I have it to eventually play on my Steam Deck (hopefully). I've heard so many great things about it
Having the prima guide book for this game really enhanced my experiance of it, felt like a tourist guide of tamriel, used to play it all the time while watching lord of the rings and Terry pratchets colour of magic
Not me thinking this was the remaster coverage for a second.
I've bounced off of Oblivion so many times. The first time I didn't understand the levelling system and I eventually ran into what seemed like an impossibly hard mainline quest battle that stopped my progress. On future attempts, tracking and planning all of the efficient levelling that I wanted to do became too much of a chore and I put the game down. I also got in in my head during one or two previous playthroughs to collect EVERY book in Oblivion which (understandably) also became too much of a chore. I'm hoping to use this video (and your upcoming review) as a bit of motivation to get back in there and try again. I have barely scraped the surface of the main quest in all of my previous attempts and I would definitely like to see how the whole story plays out.
What has always helped me is to make a point to simply stop leveling between 20-26, after 26 enemies continue to scale up in health and your max damage will plateau as the final tiers of items are dropping at that point
Just bought oblivion last night so this video from you is very well timed haha, been wanting to play the older Elder Scoll games for a hot minute. I've played more of the fallout series but for ES I've only touched Skyrim
the dark brotherhood, thieves guild and the painting quest are the best in the entire ES franchise.
I know you are doing a pugilist playthrough but I would really love and appreciate to hear you cover the mage colleges spell crafting mechanics. Started with Morrowind and was too young to understand at the time how to play efficiently... Oblivion or IV-livi-blivio as I like to call it was the one that took hold of me. I was so sad when I realized they removed spell crafting from skyrim as it was one of the best rewards for playing through the guild and really helped my RP of my mage character. Love the content, I look forward to it no matter what it's about 🤘
No mods? Don't be so cruel to yourself, mort. The leveling can be fixed!
you should review Might and Magic series.
I was working a 2nd shift holiday job when I first played this. So yeah, ended up calling sick to enjoy it 😅
That's great, man! Art does not cease to exist only because a few years have passed.
TES Oblivion was my first Bethesda title, I got the edition that came with the book & coin for the Xbox 360. I became known as the potion maker & spell maker, I adored making things. For it's time it had little things, like watching the 2 characters brawling outside the arena & increasing your own skill there by simply watching them, the overall cosmopolitan feel. Rumors are that bethesda is planning on remaking Oblivion. They should just hire the Skyblivion & Skywind folks, even if on a contract basis.
I had just moved out of my house, bought a new computer, and took 2 weeks off work when oblivion was released. I put so many back-to-back hours into that game when it first came out... I knew it was going to be a life-long endeavor the second I popped out of the sewer and saw the first Ayleid shrine against the lush green backdrop.
Hopefully the rumors of a remaster/remake are true. Oblivion is one of those games I always wanted to play and never did. I'll wait for your review. Love your channel and your content.
I enjoyed Morrowind as a kid and I tried really hard to get into Oblivion as it was clearly a cool world, but the leveling system drove me crazy and I gave up. You have to play with a spreadsheet if you want to level efficiently and it took all the fun out of it for me. Maybe I will check it out again modded.
Nice! Do you plan on reviewing Morrowind as well? I'm playing simultaneously Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion (leveling and scaling modded), since they are so different from each other and offer such different experiences.
eventually yeah
Nice video. Thanks. I installed this on my system weeks ago, along with Morrowind and Daggerfall. I've yet to jump into them (and stick with them). As an aside, I'm watching this video instead of putting together a bookshelf. I have a different take on mods than you. I now look at mods for all games, as they can often supply features that improve the game and experience... and often fix issues. Heck, I've a list of over 100 mods for Skyrim that just address issues (many of which are day one bugs). Okay. Thanks for being my procrastination catalyst. Now I have to get back to it. All the best.
Unironically, the most (intentionally & especially unintentionally) endearing game from my pipsqueak days.
nostalgia (for simpler times)
Just seeing someone play TES4 makes me smile. I don't actually remember the level system at all. I'm not sure I ever knew. After a certain point, I just started swimming in lava (or jumping across lava lakes) and ignored everything to close the portals and only fought when absolutely necessary because I could. xD
Playing a brawler is super fun in oblivion and I wish they didn't remove the potential in future Bethesda games. Few things the game I think never mentions is Hand to hand Damage actually scales with your max stamina for some reason so if you enchant your gear with max stamina vs strength you will get tons of damage. Also hand to hand seemed to deal some amount of stamina damage to enemies or at least have a chance to knock them over.
Also if you deal enough stamina damage to bring a characters stamina to a negative number they would collapse and act paralyzed but you could still speak with them or pick pocket them with 100% success.
I feel bad for the NPCs of this game. I used to play like a mad scientist. I ran experiments on them and myself looking for game mechanics and how to break them with the awesome in depth magic system. I ended up using a level 4 Illusion master who was permanently Invisible (100% chameleon even more op than invis) and I only killed things by making them rage and kill each other. Or I played as a alchemist who would reflect 600% damage back and have constant unkillable health regen. Or just a simple mage who could run so fast i could teleport through walls and jump over the imperial city.
Point is. Oblivion is good.
Yeah, unarmed deals damage to health and stamina at the same time which is meant to make up for the fact that you can't enchant your fists like other weapons
You mention the level scaling issue and now that you've said it I 100% agree. Even as a child I learned that things level with you and you could control how hard or easy the game is by deciding to level or not. Ironically not leveling makes the game easier and easier since you can level skills to 100 without leveling and levels only give you stats which are important but you can also use restoration to temporarily max stats anyway.
It totally is broken I just think its funny that I never really realized that until someone said it.
Oblivion is 100% in my top 5 games of all time Ive beaten it dozens of time and honestly Ive never modded it before.
Yeah I spent a lot of time as a teenager testing out custom class builds to see what made the level up process as seamless as possible, wish I still had the saves for my final min maxxed monstrosity. I still remembered I named the class Seraphim lol
The more I played the more I learned how to be OP and usually it ended up meaning getting as much MP and casting insane Restoration enhancing magic. I loved doing experemints in this game. Although potentially unfriendly to casuals it felt so rewarding as a teenager mastering this game on my xbox no mods no dlc just me and the game after school. @@MortismalGaming
Great video, as usual Mort.
Given your detailed explanation of the leveling system in Oblivion, I would love to see a video from you whereby you detail which mods are the best/required to implement an intuitive leveling system into the game.
I am not familiar with whether there are community-chosen best/mandatory mods for this purpose. That said, given your excellent ability at delivery within your videos, I would love to see this topic covered by you in your excellent, detail-oriented manner.
Cheers, Mort!
You can typically tell just based on what the most downloaded mod on Nexus is.
@TheHeartThatRunsCold I agree that is very often a good indicator as to which mod is best for the desired purpose.
I was more hoping to see and hear Mort's unique take and delivery on the matter.
Yup this is my childhood. I played morrowind as a kid and had a hard time, but oblivion was amazing.
Oblivion is easily my nostalgia fav game.
Brings back some good memories. A lot of fun quests and adventures! Level scaling system is clearly not very good, since it encourages the player to stop leveling up. I remember though that I thought that the graphics were really impressive, even if they are ridiculed these days. I also liked the artstyle, which reminds me of older fairy tale and fantasy book, as well as DnD illustrations. I do think that several important things were better in Morrowind though, and missed them while playing Oblivion.
Oblivion is a game that I've been going back to at least once a month since release its a game I just can't put down. It was my first rpg at the ripe old age of 5 years old and it showed me what could be done in a digital world and I've been chasing that high ever since. Loved hearing you talk about this absolute janky masterpiece.
I think it was the voice audio for the orcs. Whenever they get hit, it's just these really weird "ughhh" and "oooh" noises. They sound like it should be in another game. Thanks for the video. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
Awesome! I love Oblivion so much. I actually played through Skyrim again 11/11 for the anniversary, and I've been thinking of going back to this as well! I really hope Bethesda can straighten themselves out and maybe revisit Morrowind/Oblivion design philosophy more than Fallout 4.
Also, Oblivion delivered us the probably best DLC of all time: Shivering Isles!
No fucking way!! Oblivion changed my life whhen i was in 6th grade. I didnt know how much i truly loved fantasy until i played oblivion. I have the symbol for the school of destruction on my neck as my constant reminder to stop being self destructive and i love being reminded all the time ive spent playing this game everytime i see it. This game will always have a place in my heart
I'm old and to date Morrowind is probably my favorite RPG. It was such a huge leap in graphics and scope from any RPG I had played at the time. Some of the areas were super creepy. It had verticality. There were some super good items hidden up out of sight so exploration was rewarded. Balance was a bit broken because you could stack potions and enchantments but becoming godlike made sense because you had to kill a god. Then oblivion improved on so many things but I missed the verticality. I missed being able to fly over mountains to get where i needed to go. Oh.... do you sleep? I don't know how you came as much as you do and still have an outside life.
Morrowind was also the first game I ever modded. I used to push my old PC to the limit with plenty of crashes with all of the mods I stacked into the game.
Morrowind was peak. Taking boats and striders and mage guild teleportation is infinitely more immersive than fast travel