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Oblivion Remastered? GAF impressions?

Beat the original, beat the remaster. I loved it, had a great time with it and it felt refreshing enough to play all the way through. Definitely one of the most memorable releases this year for me.
 
I'm enjoying it a lot, glad I picked it up. I'm about Level 7, just poking around Bruma at the moment.

For a long time, I was resistant to playing "another long open-world RPG." I felt tired of them. They were too long, too much of a time-waster, too bloated with busywork. That's what I thought, anyhow. Something changed for me lately, though. I want something that you can lose yourself in for hours. I want something you can just wander around in.

I'm not being quest-focused. That's helping. Sometimes I'll follow a questline, but more often I'm wandering around, exploring whatever I happen to run across. It's a relaxing, pleasant experience.

It's a game I played before, but it's been so long -- 20 years -- that I don't remember any of it. I sort of feel like I'm playing a new Bethesda game. I'm glad that I've played these games before, though, because I know where the enjoyment is for me, and I also know what I don't want to bother with (e.g., alchemy). That saves time and reduces the sense of "too much to do."
 
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Because the anniversary edition screwed up Fallout 4, it is the go to on PS5 for Bethesda games now.

On XSX that is still New Vegas(the best vanilla version of NV available imho) but short of NV on XSX, Oblivion on PS5 is the best.

On PC a modded something or other will be best. Skyblivion perhaps.
 
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I'm enjoying Oblivion a lot more this time vs. my first playthrough, 20 years ago. Back then, I remember continually measuring it against Morrowind and feeling let down. I loved Morrowind, and I expected Oblivion to improve on that, but instead it felt dumbed down and lacking. So it really suffered by comparison with Morrowind, at least in my mind at the time.

This time, I'm measuring it against Bethesda's recent output -- Starfield, Fallout 76, Fallout 4 Anniversary edition, etc. -- and appreciating how it captures the old Bethesda magic.
 
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Its amazing and I didn't have the issues others had but I also played it on a strong PC. I'll probably come back once they are expansive mods to check out.
 
I'm playing it now and enjoying the hell out of it. It has a ton of charm to it. It's janky but also really ambitious and ahead of its time.

I love the visual style, it's like what me from 20 years ago dreamed RPGs could look like.

And thank god they fixed the retarded leveling system. That was almost enough to ruin the original for me.
 
I'm playing it now and enjoying the hell out of it. It has a ton of charm to it. It's janky but also really ambitious and ahead of its time.

I love the visual style, it's like what me from 20 years ago dreamed RPGs could look like.

And thank god they fixed the retarded leveling system. That was almost enough to ruin the original for me.

Yeah, I remember a lot of people complaining about that in the original. I'm glad they fixed that. I remember feeling frustrated with it. I didn't feel like I was getting that much stronger as I went along, because the enemy leveling seemed very closely tied to mine. Something about it was off. It's much better now.

They seem to have mixed up the loot better this time, too. I chuckled in the original at how every chest had the same amount of gold in it.

And yeah, the visuals are a big improvement over the original. It adds a lot to the atmosphere.
 
I'm playing it now and enjoying the hell out of it. It has a ton of charm to it. It's janky but also really ambitious and ahead of its time.

I love the visual style, it's like what me from 20 years ago dreamed RPGs could look like.

And thank god they fixed the retarded leveling system. That was almost enough to ruin the original for me.


Agree on all accounts.

I enjoyed my time with the remaster immensely earlier this year, even 1000G'd it like the original.
 
Yeah, I remember a lot of people complaining about that in the original. I'm glad they fixed that. I remember feeling frustrated with it. I didn't feel like I was getting that much stronger as I went along, because the enemy leveling seemed very closely tied to mine. Something about it was off. It's much better now.

They seem to have mixed up the loot better this time, too. I chuckled in the original at how every chest had the same amount of gold in it.

And yeah, the visuals are a big improvement over the original. It adds a lot to the atmosphere.
The enemy scaling was dumb, but the worst part was the way the stat bonuses at level-up worked. If you played the way the game seemingly intended (as in, pick the skills you plan to use most as your primary skills and just play the way you feel like playing) you permanently screwed yourself with shitty stat growth. If you wanted those sweet +5s then you had to micromanage your skill growth and play in the most counterintuitive way possible.

It's like torture if you're a RPG nerd with OCD
 
The enemy scaling was dumb, but the worst part was the way the stat bonuses at level-up worked. If you played the way the game seemingly intended (as in, pick the skills you plan to use most as your primary skills and just play the way you feel like playing) you permanently screwed yourself with shitty stat growth. If you wanted those sweet +5s then you had to micromanage your skill growth and play in the most counterintuitive way possible.

It's like torture if you're a RPG nerd with OCD

Yeah, you're right. A lot of people complained about that. Glad they fixed it. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to the nuances of the leveling system to notice that, at the time.

I did have a bad case of RPG restart-itis, though. I used to spend the first 8 hours of an Elder Scrolls game creating a character, playing a while, then starting over and creating a different character, trying to get the balance just right. This time, I just stuck with the character I chose, even though I screwed up some of the stat bonuses (e.g., took a big bonus to Strength thinking it went to Health but actually it went to heavy weapons, which I don't use at all, oops).
 
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Damn, I love this game. I'm playing 4 hours a day. I haven't done that for nearly a decade.

I'm 40 hours in and feel like I've just scratched the surface. Haven't even bothered with the main questline yet. Martin who?

Great game. Bethesda really nails the freedom, exploration, and immersion.
 
I'm 110 hours in and still really enjoying it. I haven't touched the main quest. Well, I did return the ring to Weynon Priory, but I haven't visited Kvatch yet or found Martin. Partly that's because I'm not interested in the main quest -- I found the story generic and the Oblivion realms repetitive. But I also don't want to trigger Oblivion gates popping up all over the place, which will make free exploration harder. And to me, the free exploration is what it's all about. That's mostly what I'm doing -- adventuring, doing whatever I come across (forts, caves, etc.), then returning to town to sell loot, do a few quests, and head on out again.

I thought I was burned out on open-world RPGs. Turned out I was just burned out on boring open-world RPGs. I still like the way Bethesda does (or did) it.
 
I'm 110 hours in and still really enjoying it. I haven't touched the main quest. Well, I did return the ring to Weynon Priory, but I haven't visited Kvatch yet or found Martin. Partly that's because I'm not interested in the main quest -- I found the story generic and the Oblivion realms repetitive. But I also don't want to trigger Oblivion gates popping up all over the place, which will make free exploration harder. And to me, the free exploration is what it's all about. That's mostly what I'm doing -- adventuring, doing whatever I come across (forts, caves, etc.), then returning to town to sell loot, do a few quests, and head on out again.

I thought I was burned out on open-world RPGs. Turned out I was just burned out on boring open-world RPGs. I still like the way Bethesda does (or did) it.

You should do the guild quests, at least, if you haven't. Most of them are pretty good.
 
You should do the guild quests, at least, if you haven't. Most of them are pretty good.

Yes, I'm doing some of them occasionally. Working to qualify for entrance to Arcane University. And I'll get to the Dark Brotherhood quests eventually. I don't think I did them on my first run for some reason, or at least I don't remember them, but everyone talks about how good that questline is, so I'll have to do it this time. A few Fighter's Guild quests so far, just low level-ones. I have not bothered much with the Thieves' Guild yet, because I have more than enough money and don't really need to steal.

Btw, I just realized my game clock is way off. Apparently what is happening is when I put the PS5 in "Rest" mode, the game clock continues. So if I play a little in the morning, put it in "Rest," then play more that night, the game thinks I've been playing the whole day. No wonder it shows 120 hours. I thought that seemed like an awful lot. Actually, that's a relief to know. I have been playing a few hours a day, but I found it hard to fathom that I'd already put over 100 hours in. But no, it's probably more like 40.
 
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If any TES game needed a systems and quest update, it's Oblivion. For what I would have wanted out of it, they took the worst approach. Skyblivion will do this better than this. This needed to be Obrim to have a reason to exist.

If you're console only and deadset on staying such, it's a different story. Might be worth your time if you can appreciate the quaint aspects. It's got a lot of old school clunk without the benefit of old school, more serious writing.
 
Yes, I'm doing some of them occasionally. Working to qualify for entrance to Arcane University. And I'll get to the Dark Brotherhood quests eventually. I don't think I did them on my first run for some reason, or at least I don't remember them, but everyone talks about how good that questline is, so I'll have to do it this time. A few Fighter's Guild quests so far, just low level-ones. I have not bothered much with the Thieves' Guild yet, because I have more than enough money and don't really need to steal.

Btw, I just realized my game clock is way off. Apparently what is happening is when I put the PS5 in "Rest" mode, the game clock continues. So if I play a little in the morning, put it in "Rest," then play more that night, the game thinks I've been playing the whole day. No wonder it shows 120 hours. I thought that seemed like an awful lot. Actually, that's a relief to know. I have been playing a few hours a day, but I found it hard to fathom that I'd already put over 100 hours in. But no, it's probably more like 40 or 50.
Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood are the two best, IMO.

I really would have thought we were due for a major patch before Christmas, but alas, incompetence.
 
dropped off this hard after the first oblivion gate.

looked amazing on screenshots but it's dreadful in motion. the frame drops kill it completely.

the biggest thing for me though was the gameplay. it's a very pretty version of oblivion but oblivion is a product very much stuck in the early 2000s. the fane simply hasn't aged well imo.
 
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It took up a good 3 weeks of my life back in spring. I'd never played it before so it was refreshing to play a Bethesda game with half decent writing. I'm a big New Vegas fan so I always understood what Fallout 4 did wrong. I now get why some people were disappointed with Skyrim.

Simple things like making your own spells. Why would you take that out?

I played it on a 9070XT which has very strong 1% lows, especially in UE5 games it seems. So the stuttering wasn't a huge issue for me.
 
dropped off this hard after the first oblivion gate.

looked amazing on screenshots but it's dreadful in motion. the frame drops kill it completely.

the biggest thing for me though was the gameplay. it's a very pretty version of oblivion but oblivion is a product very much stuck in the early 2000s. the fane simply hasn't aged well imo.
I would say the gameplay is still miles ahead of the convoluted systems we have right now for the sake of being "complex".

Anyway, wife demands, wife gets. Bought this for Steam Deck, made engine tweaks, Lumen is on. Mix of Low and Medium, open world is 28-30FPS, inside it locked 30FPS. I can live with that, cartoony graphics is never something I appreciated, I prefer the grounded Morrowind graphics way more so the remaster IMO improved from the original.
 
Personally i enjoyed the Remaster much more than the original which i hated with passion because i was a hardcore Morrowind fanboy.

After so many years i was finally able to enjoy the game on its own terms and the small tweaks to the leveling system also helped a bit.
 
I never finished the original, but I would like to enjoy that world. There's a lot there lore-wise and by all accounts some great stuff to appreciate.

I'm put off by both the performance of Remaster and the uncertainty around modding.

I know that when Skyblivion drops I will be able to jump in with the most up to date Skyrim QOL and core gameplay enhancement mods, no questions asked. And I won't be bogged down by stutters and all the rest of it. Hell, there are even Skyrim mods to patch in DLSS/FSR if needed.

As much as I'm not particularly impressed by pretty graphics, the tweaks to Oblivion the game are what interest me most about Remastere so it's a shame the other bits let it down.

I should probably practice modding on Linux though, it might be messier at first and I'm out of practice with MO2.
 
Absolutely loving it. Was my GOTY. Yes Punished Miku Punished Miku 😉

I went from Avowed (which I enjoyed more than expected) to Oblivion and it instantly made Avowed seem older. The way Oblivion do object interaction, physics, NPC simulation and routines, is still impressive 2 decades later. Bethesda really is the king on this stuff and it really matters imo.

And they improved the whole thing a ton. Up close it looks nicer of course but also how the different areas look, a swamp look like a swamp and a mountain like a mountain etc. I think it looks amazing, playing it maxed out on PC. And they've improved a bunch of gameplay related things. I like the sprint and sword combat is definitely better, not sure what they did but I'm having fun. And the level up mechanic is easier.

I could never go through and finish the original, partly as with Skyrim because there is so much stuff to do and and I always drift away from the main quest, but partly also because I couldn't deal with the level up system. You had to really know what you were doing in the original or you would end up making the game harder the more you level up.

Haven't finished the remaster yet but I should be at minimum half way through by now and in general don't have any problem with my character build. I've carved out a nice sword and magic build, still holding on to Honorblade of Chorrol, never returned it, so no weight since it's a quest item, then destruction magic, can plow through oblivion gates. I'm having fun!

I do think Skyrim with a similar update would be better though. If I would rate Oblivion Remastered right now I would end at a 9 and save the 10 for Skyrim Remastered. Both originals are among my all time favorites.
 
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