TL;DR: extremely ambitious game that bit off far more than it could chew. Worth playing for RPG/fantasy fans. Horrible levelling system.
Synopsis: you are allowed to escape from jail after assassins attack the emperor, forcing him to flee through a secret passage inside your cell. You now are tasked with helping the blades destroy the order behind the attack.
While Skyrim became a massively popular title, it is rather puzzling that its predecessor Oblivion did not enjoy such virality. They are essentially the same game with a different skin and a few different quirks here and there, so I must infer that it was Skyrim’s graphics that made it the more popular choice.
The release date also matters — in 2006 gaming was still seen as a loserish or quirky hobby, while in 2011 it was already starting to become increasingly normalized, but I don’t think that can account for the difference in sales that is roughly an order of magnitude. Skyrim is also friendly to new players, and got a lot of the CoD and Nintendo audience into role player games. I cannot really say the same for Oblivion; the graphics are odd looking and the mechanics are convoluted.
With no further ado…
Graphics
Oblivion’s graphics are dated. On modern machines it is not difficult to run it at maximum settings and consistently reach 144+ FPS, but the Oblivion faces still look off.
Resident Evil 4 and other games from that era already had facial graphics that were not dated, so this is not just due to times.
OST
Oblivion’s soundtrack was made by Jeremy Soule, the same guy who did Skyrim’s soundtrack. Like Skyrim, the music is incredible, and many of the individual pieces are worth listening to on their own.
Story
The story of Oblivion is interesting, and I think it is better than Skyrim’s. Instead of being the chosen one to defeat evil, you have been chosen to help somebody else defeat the great evil. The story becomes less predictable in the end; instead of you facing Dagon, Dagon invades the Imperial City and Martin is forced to sacrifice himself to save Tamriel. Normally Jauffre or Baurus would have been expected to die, but there is no harm in being avant garde.
As for the guilds, the Dark Brotherhood is the best guild again, followed by the Mage’s Guild, the Thieves’ Guild, and then the fighter’s guild. For whatever reason people like the Thieves’ Guild a lot in this game, which I found to be a rather mediocre guild. The gray fox is kind of cool, but at the end of the day he’s just a cracker who hires global nigger communists to steal from aryan aristocrats to feed homeless people and poorfags who should die for the sake of #neoeugenics.
The dark brotherhood individual quests are well designed, and have their individual quirks, instead of being mere “go and kill this faggot” quests. The story to the guild is also quite fun and makes lots of unexpected turns.
I don’t have much to comment on the mage’s and fighter’s guild, besides that the former is too tedious to join and the latter kind of sucks altogether.
Mechanics
The combat in Oblivion is slightly better than Skyrim’s for the sole reason that the warrior class is better, otherwise Skyrim has superior ranged combat.
The stamina management is more diverse, with standard blows consuming stamina and basic running making stamina regeneration happen slower than it would normally happen. Making mistakes like basic attacking a shield or power attacking when the enemy is already recoiling are punished more as well, increasing the skill cap.
The archer class is not bad, but I the game encourages a kiting playstyle which allows you to indefinitely kite enemies at a certain speed, which is bullshit. If that exploit is ignored, the archer is overall better designed and less overpowered in Oblivion.
Oblivion’s magic does not have the same problem of running out too quickly. However, the magic lacks the same visual flair and power that Skyrim’s does, so I feel it is inferior despite the superior design.
The game also suffers from the same problem of everything being too tanky, which they did not fix in Skyrim for unknown reasons, and unfortunately makes the combat more dull than it really should be. The leveling system is broken of course, but this is easily ignored, as the skills level up on their own anyway.
While Oblivion edges Skyrim out in the combat, it has better controls than it does, to an embarrassing extent. There is a special spell key, so there is no need to switch spells in the inventory to heal, which is particularly relevant for non-mage build. The hotkey system is better, and instead of having a disorganized favorites list that stalls the game, Oblivion has a 1-9 hotkey system which feels much more intuitive.
Playability
Like Skyrim, people overstate how bugged the game is. Even on linux with zero mods, all I had to complain about in 20-30 hours of gameplay was that I noclipped twice in dungeons and the game crashed a few times. That’s it. That’s literally it. The Windows and Xbox 360 versions of Oblivion had even fewer issues in my experience.
Overall Assessment
Besides the better story, Oblivion only surpasses Skyrim in the guilds (which are not that good) and in the combat (which is hardly better). Skyrim’s is also far superior in visuals, which makes the difference between the two games marginal.
Scoring:
Design (14/20):
Atmosphere: (4/5) - good high fantasy, but a bit generic
Graphics: (3/5) - dated, face models are particularly off
UI: (2/2) - looks very good, actually
Bugs: (2/2) - little to complain about
Sound: (1/2)
OST: (2/2) - kino
Character designs: (0/2) - eh
Script (18/25):
Character Investment: (3/5) - didn’t even care about them that much when I played the game as a teenager. I did feel attached to the Dark Brotherhood guys and Martin Septim, otherwise there wasn’t much to care for.
Character Realism: (2/2)
Character Complexity: (1/3)
Writing: (8/10) - good for a game, otherwise not much to care for
Ending: (4/5)
Gameplay (24/30):
Skill expression: (8/10) - higher than Skyrim, good for a single player RPG
RNG: (5/5)
Satisfaction: (7/10) - warrior feels good, archer is busted, mage is ok
Optionality: (3/3)
Novelty: (1/2)
Value (11/15):
Skill: (4/5) - game was hard to make, especially for its time.
Originality: (5/5) - fills the same niche Skyrim does, but without the Nordicism (less based)
Thematic elements: (2/5) - nothing to speak of. traditional hero story.
Enjoyment (8/10):
Did I like it: (8/10)
the soundtrack is indeed maybe the best one ever produced for a game; love every track of it