Time for another deep dive into one of the mighty worlds from the team of Bethesda. This time returning to the mega RPG classic that is Oblivion which first released in 2006. The fact this is twenty years old already makes my hairs go that little bit greyer just writing this.
I won’t dive to much into the specifics of this game as I suspect that there’s a high chance that if you’re reading this you are well versed in the original already. However, to be called a simple remaster feels a slight on the effort that would’ve gone into this. It’s not just overhauled 4k visuals and lighting. Its new textures, overhauled assets, new models, redesigned environments in and outside of the cities. New animations for everything which is a blessing for combat with better hit boxes. Especially if you wanna play as an archer. The upgraded system has been tweaked, health regenerates out of combat which is a nice bonus. I’m sure I’m missing something. But the sheer amount of quality of life upgrades are immense. Nothing against Bethesda games, but they are normally gammy as fuck, littered with bugs and glitches. Some of which are endearing and can be fun overs not so much.
So naturally being a massive Skyrim player completing it in its entirety on 4 different consoles across 3 generations. I went Nord with my character choice along with the option of picking their area birth being the western side for higher endurance. I couldn’t be to arsed in character creation so I just hit random a couple times, a splash of ageing and some facial hair. I felt that did the trick. But you can used the enhanced character creation to do far more then me. And because I’m edgy and like to be different I went for a crusader build under the warrior star sign. Which is daring I know, but it means I can pick up a stick and beat shit out of everything out with it. What can I say and I’m an easy type of guy effort ain’t my thing. However full magic or stealth builds are completely doable from the get go, with the race you pick also aiding in your chosen play style, from Orc, Breton, Redguard or any of the Elves you can choose. You unfortunately can’t respec in the game once you leave passed the sewers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t mix and match your play style to be a hybrid of another vocation if you wish. Its more akin to the special system in fallout where you main attributes do the heavy lifting and everything around it can still aid you even if not to its full potential.
Another bit with the skills is every 25% of filling out to level 100 you can a permanent bump and it ranges from damage boosts,stamina boosts, new abilities like dodging. Even gaining the shield bash which can be handy as you can multi hit with either hand like in skyrim, the dexterity isn’t there in the system. You can only defend, attack or cast spells which can be a tad annoying on some occasions when you’re surrounded by multiple enemies who just start to really lay into you from all angles and you can only really hit slowly, waiting for a gap in between defending and trying to heal yourself. You do have potions that replenish all these things or give you temporary boosts or scrolls that acts as one time use spells. Like fireball or summoning a one time monster.
One of the best things from Skyrim for me is crafting, it’s not the most in-depth system in the world. But I fucking love me a crafting system. Now there isn’t one in oblivion which I think limits your weapons and armours a tad. Having the option to bump it all up by a few points would go a long way here. You can if you max out your armourer with repair hammers at level 100 over repair temporarily but it dips off quickly.
There’s a deeper enemy pool then Skyrim as well, and the dremora are more on focus as well with the closing of the Oblivion gates. However it lacks a lot of the cool shit from Skyrim you know with the dragons, giants, mammoths etc.
I’d say there’s gotta be around 200 explorable locations in this game. So there’s much spelunking to be had if you really want to explore everything this world has to offer. I would say on average though the chests and loot in theses kinda fucking suck. It’s mostly shit potions or gold and if you sell everything like me once you hit the item weight limit you’re caked up pretty early on so it becomes a wee bit redundant. Better stuff appears on your enemies as you hit personal level miles and around 15 is where it hits it stride. This helps the rng chance of the best version of rare stuff or named items. This is where the dungeon bosses start to come in handy if you need an easy enchanted weapon or armour piece to buff you up a tad.
The continent of Cyrodiil has a real wayward wondrous nature about it as you plip plop around. It’s odd as you feel you need to do the main quests or jump into the nearest mining cave you find but simultaneously you don’t ever feel the need to rush yourself. Everything has it’s time and place and if you only wanted to do the main stuff and the bigger side quests in the guilds. So the mage, fighters, thieves, dark brotherhood and the arena. Now I’d recommend smashing out the arena as soon as due to the easy levelling up and skills you get and its not particularly difficult to rinse your way through and earn a few septim along the way. The dark brotherhood is the best side questline by a long mile, the fighters and thieves guild are a bit naff but still worth your time to explore more of what this sprawling rpg has to offer.
Now this being a bethesda game it does come with its bugs and glitches. For the most part it’s just part of the charm that comes with them. Many games suffer the same sort of fate but often these come in spades with these titles. I got mostly lucky except for at one point a will-o-wisp was hunting me down like the fucking terminator on every single save option. It wouldn’t take damage and it was mercilessly cutting down the npcs. It was nearly game breaking, funny but ass-clenching as I was like 50 hours deep at this point. It eventually gave up after I ran the length of the map from one end to the other and it allowed me to finally fast travel and then I never saw it again. Hopefully it died. This was the only one that caused any real issue nothing a quick load of a quick or auto save didn’t fix if anything else appeared.
The dlc for this game even when it initially dropped was the gold standard and it still is. The two main ones are the path of the nine and Shivering Isles. The path of the nine is a fun linear experience which rewards you with some of the best armour, sword and shield. However, as previously mentioned it sorta matches with your level. I didn’t realise this and did it a bit early on my final defence and attack I got form it was a wee bit shite. Also it’s best to do it after the dark brotherhood and thieves guild quest lines as it gives you a negative morality standing with the games system. The first quest clears all this off for you and you can redo it anytime but you need to have only like 2 points max going against you else you can’t wear or use anything which you need to finish the missions.
Now the Shivering isles is magnificent, just everything about it is amazing. The weird and wonderful dialogue especially from the Daedric Prince Sheogorath. This particular plane of oblivion does feel like an extension of the main game but with it’s own odd flair. The strange creatures you come against and the odd flora that inhabits the land. The plot is great and easily stands on par with the main story but in some regards I actually preferred it. It has more choices in it which don’t do a lot but make you feel more involved. It adds a good 20-30 hours for your playtime if you wish to explore everything and do some of the most tedious collecting side quests going. But it adds new weapons, armour types, spells to help flesh out the game more. It”s everything you’d need in an expansion which is often missed in most games nowadays. I would complain that it should be harder and feel more of an endgame expansion though whereas you can kinda just do it whenever. This could more be a complaint on my particular preference then an actual grievance.
I did find lockpicking to be the absolute drizzling shits and I can’t recommend enough to do the daedric quest for Nocturne. This rewards you with the skeleton key which is an unbreakable lockpick so you can just spam the auto chance option. All the while reaping that sweet sweet skill exp. Ironically by the end of the game I was pretty decent at the very hard lockpicking an often didn’t need to use the auto chance. So perhaps its just a skill issue on my part.
Overall i’d give this a massive 9/10, some Pure Tasty Gaming.
Its not a 10/10 for me though just on the basis of the main quest feeling lacking and the oblivion gates kinda being sucky and a bit boring after a few off them. Along with the dungeons often feeling a bit rinse, repeat. However, the world is great, the variety is there in all other aspects. So for me to only rate it down for these minor things should show you how amazing this 20 year old game is. It is a masterclass in the genre still, not as in-depth as Morrowind or missing the less lore-heavy books and stories of Skyrim. All three have there merits and there is some quality of life and improvements that went into the more casual Skyrim which after replaying this I can appreciate even more. I definitely enjoyed the more rpg heavy mechanics, the clunky combat could’ve felt a bit more modern still but it fits the game perfectly. I never felt bored at any point in this game. In- fact once I had finished all the main quests and did nearly all the other quest I could find I felt sad to be finishing it. Luckily though its always there to dive head first again when I need too.
Released Aprill 22nd 2025 on Sony Playstation 5.
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