Should I play Arena and/or Daggerfall?

[caleb4est]

I tried to download them from numerous sources, along with the emulator, to play them, but so far I haven't really made any progress towards getting access to a fully playable game.
So I'm curious: is it worth it to play them? I own Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, and I just don't know if I should finish the collection.

[Ultr4Chrome]

Wow @ the necro, but i'll still bite <3

Arena is not really an Elder Scrolls game. It works with the 'standard' get XP for mobs you kill thing, and has not many RPG mechanics at all outside of a very basic D&D inspired ruleset. It's also mostly very... flat.

Daggerfall is basically Arena, where *everything* is better. It's not a case of 'different' as it is from Daggerfall to Morrowind for example.

Both are "Doom era" type of games. Very early 3D, very basic geometry, quite limited in what they could show the player. Daggerfall stands out as being the "true" start of the Elder Scrolls series however, and is worth even just a tiny look simply for that reason. The "level up by using your skills" has its origin here, as does most of the lore. Arena was incredibly bare bones in that regard.

Daggerfall is absolutely enormous, but the size will not be readily apparent to you unless you torture yourself by 'not using fast travel', which would be a huge mistake. Most of the landscape is the same anyway.

Both games are almost entirely procedurally generated, aside from the main quest, so be prepared for a lot of repetition.

One thing that, at least for me, makes Daggerfall worth (re)playing is the stupid dungeons. Stupid in a good way. Most of them are very same-y, however the sheer enormity of the dungeons is mindblowing. They may just be randomly generated, but i have yet to find a game which lets me get utterly, properly, completel lost! It's frustrating, enervating and also just slightly scary when you have no idea how to get out of the dungeon after you've finally found the boss or the item you're supposed to find. Then you start backtracking, and despite the pretty good ingame map, you keep running into dead ends, and even new areas you haven't even seen before, with more monsters trying to kill you....

The starter dungeon is positively tiny compared to the average dungeon in the rest of the game. I swear, some dungeons are larger than some other, complete games.

I'd go on about how there's vampirism, housing, boats, lycanthropy, 30-ish guilds, creating your own spells etc, but the dungeons are just awesome imho, even though they are random.

[shaihulud]

Here are two superb videos on Arena and Daggerfall. If you watch these, you'll know all you need to make a decision. Have fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWmKlE1fR58&index=2&list=PL9qQ3PJcmlrfGzUQ0Y7kbMV-_nii2iIll

[Doctor3D]

I love Daggerfall - but it hasn't aged all too gracefully. I just finished another playthrough of it a couple weeks ago. Before doing dungeons just get a mark recall spell and put it on the entrance. Daggerfall though is very much a dungeon crawler - that's where the bulk of the action in the game is - if you don't like the feeling of being lost in a dungeon - you won't like this game. I'm kinda crazy in that I like the feeling of being deep in a complex dungeon.

It can get repetitive at times like any ES game but for this one it's to an even higher degree as everthing can feel very samey after awhile. (Towns, Dungeons, Mini-stories, quests..) The quest types for example are numerous but there are infinite versions of those types and the difference in each is just a name and location changes - everything else including the story of it is identical. Go unlock this box, Go kill this mad wizard, go rescue and escort this person, Go fetch me some mummy cloth, go and deliver this package, etc etc

You'll do those same quests MULTIPLE times (infinitely if you wanted) and the only thing that will change is just the names of the locations and items.

It's a fun game, and one of my favorites for its time - and should be experienced - but you'll likely burn out on it quickly.