I remember Morrowind feeling a bit overwhelming with its sheer size and scale (in a good way, of course), while Oblivion takes a different approach—its richness. A short stroll through the Imperial City and you forget all about Uriel’s mission, getting swept up in countless side quests. Tasks are handed out at every corner: even a casual conversation with a passerby might spiral into a long adventure across the entire continent.

The role-playing system is excellent—once you learn its patterns, the gameplay becomes smooth. Each race has a natural inclination toward certain playstyles, and the zodiac sign grants a useful perk, like enhanced magical power. Your chosen class affects how skills—like archery, armor usage, and alchemy—are divided between major skills (powerful from the start, leveling up quickly) and minor ones (slower to improve). As your skills grow, so does your overall level, prompting you to choose which core attributes to boost. All in all, it's a great system.

I could go on forever. This is a brilliant RPG.

Makes Skyrim look and feel like ♥♥♥♥, I don't think there's any TES game that can beat Oblivion

"Hello."

"Good evening."

"Any news from the other provinces?"

"I heard the high elves say this is the best game of all time."

"You too."

Still holds up in 2024. One of my favorite games of all time! I honestly prefer it over Skyrim.

solid game. lovely game. amazing game. best game.

g

"Hello."
"Hi."
"How are you today?"
"I've been better, how about you?"
"I've been better."
"Heard any news?"
"Nothing I'd like to talk about."
"BYE."
"You too!"

Truly the greatest Elder Scrolls game. Not as in depth as Morrowind but more-so than Skyrim. But the advantage it does have over morrowind is that if you want to hit something it will hit - no dice rolls
Oblivion is fun, colourful, quirky - and like every elder scrolls game - has an appropriate amount of in world racism

I wish I could play it for the first time again

Oblivion has not aged well. Even with mods and fixes (which help a lot!), they can't fix the basic facts of the game: The world map is dull, the mini dungeons dotted around the map feel pointless, combat is repetitive, the graphics (and especially faces) are terrible, despite my extensive modding to attempt to make it better.

Particularly grating is the levelling system, which is almost certainly the worst of any game I have ever played, and that's a lot. It's opaque, and given the world levels up with you, very easy to mess up. You can optimise it if you want, but that means keeping a notepad handy while you play and deliberately increasing random non-core abilities so you don't accidentally level up suboptimally.

The world levelling up with you destroys any sense of threat, danger, or progress. Everywhere you go, you just so happen to be able to beat the enemies; sure, it opens up the world, but all that gets opened up is more middling enemies. You can jump straight to Hell and kill a bunch of demons with your starter iron dagger or whatever, which feels odd that everyone was so concerned about them.