Look, I enjoyed Skyrim, but I miss the days when Bethesda made RPGs
The thing about Morrowind for me was that it was so completely alien. It wasn’t just more sword and sorcery in the British countryside but instead unleashed ridiculous magic where people lived in giant shells/mushrooms and the fauna was like nothing I had ever seen. To say nothing of the mechanics which I found more engrossing than the follow on games.
And then you get to Oblivion and Skyrim and they’re Britain and Norway. Cool.
I’ve been slowly working through Morrowind, and while some of the mechanics and gameplay feel dated, there’s so much to love about it.
Aside from the world building, and the storyline where you have to earn your prophetic self instead of being handed it like in TESV… having to actually listen to people in the game and work out the details of quests feels so rewarding when it gets accomplished.
Also, the game gives such a guilty feeling that when you’re looting ancestral tombs, making sure the players know they’re grave robbing from families and their heritage …
I tried, but the combat was so janky. I just couldn’t.
Completely understandable. I originally tried to play as a mage, and that was a horrible choice. I restarted, putting everything into 2-handed weapons, and that’s been a much better choice. It’s actually fun now.
Morrowind really brought out the fantastic in ‘fantasy RPG’.
Imagine if Blivs gave us the original conception of Tamriel, the Roman rainforest
As someone from tropical country, it’s magical.
No cliff racers is a good thing, though.
Morrowind was the essential piece of media that actually taught me about the “unreliable narrator” and how awesome it can be used.
Praise Saint Jiub the Eradicator
Skyrim added some cool lore. Not as much as morrowind sure but the Thalmor, the dragon priests, and the vampire stuff was all awesome in my opinion.
I’ve watched multi hour video essays that have failed to make this point so well. Morrowind truly was where the series peaked.
Morrowind is a good story wrapped in terrible game mechanics. Skyrim is a moderate story wrapped in pretty good game mechanics. I do miss levitation though, even if it negated as many things as it helped.
Morrowind has excellent game mechanics. It’s just that combat is not one of those excellent mechanics.
Yeah, the combat in Skyrim is boring and uninspired, but that’s still a step up from Morrowind’s combat.
Y’know everyone really snarls at Morrowind’s game mechanics, and I can see why they don’t have mass appeal but…idk, I built a character that had a combat proficiency as a major skill, and didn’t try to fight things when my fatigue was near zero, and I found myself enjoying it for what it was even early game.
When you kinda see it as a sometimes jank simulation that abstracts all the crazy in-depth combat the devs WISH they could include at the time, like a tabletop game does, it feels more fun to accept (and eventually break lol).
What are the excellent mechanics? It’s not leveling, quest journal, inventory management, stealing from vendors, walking speed being a stat you level, etc.
It’s absolutely leveling, walking speed being a stat, spell customization, NPC interaction, bartering, quest interconnectivity, and especially, exploring.
This sort of comes down to the classic debate of “Depth vs Quality of Life”. To quote Steak Bently in his excellent video essay on Metal Gear Solid 4:
Depth of game play, to boil it down, is usually defined by the number of ways a player can approach any given scenario. More tools with more unique properties. More hardcore players tend to value depth more and consider additional depth to be generally how you measure improvement in game play.
But more casual players value ease of play and think additional depth and challenge at the cost of accessibility is more of a downgrade. Hence why the general public considers Bayonetta 2 a straight upgrade from Bayonetta 1, but the crazy combo junkies don’t like it as much.
Morrowind’s mechanics have a level of depth that vastly exceeds Skyrim’s in almost every conceivable way, but is often referred to as “janky” and “clunky”. Skyrim’s mechanics are far more intuitive accessible, but is often referred to as “shallow as a puddle”. Which of these you prefer will largely dictate which game you think has the “better” mechanics.
This is excellent. Thanks for the insight!
I liked a lot about Skyrim, minus the “hand to hand is a minigame now” thing, and basically how it’s almost intended to make an omni-character who can just start dipping into any skills and be good at them, without much reward for a thought-out build.
That and magic…dual-magicking was cool, except it just turned into “Why wouldn’t you always use two of the same spell!?” and combining elements wasn’t a thing. . .
I wouldn’t say Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim mechanically, but it is more complex. There’s just more wrong answers in Morrowind, spears aren’t a different play style, it’s just an effective handicap for combat. Choosing major skills becomes a stat and level cap that’s never really explained, you just get a worse character. Walking into a wall for a few hours so you move faster isn’t interesting gameplay.
Lock picking and trap disarming in Skyrim is better than Morrowind.
The story and quest elements are generally better in Morrowind.
I wouldn’t say Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim mechanically, but it is more complex
You’re gonna have to back that claim up cuz it’s pretty weak
Immediately spell crafting and the entire magic system come to mind. Skyrim’s system is absolutely puddle shallow by comparison, and that’s before we get into all the other skills and abilities that got watered down, merged, or removed
Morrowind has significantly more mechanic depth than Skyrim does in just about every mechanic the 2 share
Armorer (smithing), alchemy, athletics (gone), block, enchanting, unarmored (alteration perk), weapon, and armor skills are the same or better in their Skyrim versions.
Enchanting and magic were far more powerful in Morrowind, but also game breaking. They aren’t game breaking in Skyrim, but magic is limited. Having actual mana regeneration is huge though. Again random chance to fail isn’t a great mechanic, higher level magic requiring absurd mana when low skilled does a better job of creating a power curve. Leveling magic in Skyrim actually requires it to affect things, which is more interesting than making a 1 mana spell.
Combining speech craft and mercantile was also a good change. The disposition system was super basic, just bribe anyone that didn’t like you and taunt anyone you want to kill. The random intimidate\admire system works better here as you can’t just keep trying with bribes\taunts to get what you want. Taunting people to death isn’t that deep.
Skyrim arguably offers better combat depth as it’s far easier to utilize combinations of magic, powers, shouts, melee and ranged combat. Combat is hardly deep in either game, there’s more options in Morrowind, but it’s more about what color you want the magic than anything deeper than Skyrim.
Skyrim seemed worse when it came to grinding. It’s too easy not to sit there and train on the invincible NPCs. Sneak walk into walls within earshot of hostiles, spam conjuration on rocks near hostiles, shoot arrows at NPCs that never die.
The person who grinds speed and athletics in Morrowind goes on to do cool things. In Skyrim they’d have like 8 more hours of playtime before they could play the game.
Weapon and sneak grinds existed in Morrowind too, you just couldn’t do them all at once without hurting your leveling. If you wanted to switch weapon types in Morrowind, it usually involved summons and spamming attacks until you hit them reliably.
Just finished a playtrough with Openmw and some graphical mods. The only thing i felt lacking was the quest log. Stellar game with a nice story.
Sure, increasing the base walk speed would be nice.
The only thing i felt lacking was the quest log.
What do you mean? Press the J key.
Skyrim does at least raise a very good question that has stuck with me. Having to kill paarthurnax is always hated on by fans but I like it. What if your neighbor was hitler but he has reformed and was now living life as a good person? Would you turn him in? Why not paarthurnax? He committed unspeakable atrocities against humankind.
Paarthunax is an immortal being, he actually can impact enough lives positively to potentially balance out to being at least neutral in the grand scheme of things
Plus, magic and other ancient power he uses for good actually having the capability to improve life beyond the horrors he did, no irl human has that kind of capability
I’m literally just realizing they redid this exact same story beat for Far Harbour in fallout 4 with Dima
I’m glad people are finally coming around to this. There is still fun to be had in Skyrim, but it released around the same time as Dark Souls, Witcher 2, Risen 2 and Fable 3 among others. Not all of them are better games, however Skyrim most certainly isn’t the best one.
Perhaps not, but I think we can safely say Fable 3 was the worst!
