The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind GOTY Edition

Man oh man....where to begin....The atmosphere for starters was amazing. The architecture for the native dunmer (dark elves) was/is so unique. And many of the natives would talk to you like you were trash which was strangely awesome at the time. Also the music is top notch. The world is big and the expansions make it bigger. Tribunal is another big city with lots to explore underground with a decent story. Bloodmoon is another wintery island with plenty to do. Both have decent stories and TOUGH bosses that will take you a while even if you're character is overpowered in the main game. You will come out with awesome items. The main game has a really cool boss. But beating him you'll need certain items which are kind of annoying to find. His pseudo philosophical rants are very well written. The main story is this messiahnic-type of deal where you unite factions and tribes and become the savior of the land. It's very well done. You can keep going after you've beaten everything and everyone will appreciate that a hero like you has bothered to stop and say hi to them. Ha. A little buggy but the unofficial patch takes care of what the latest install version does not. Also look for a sweet texture pack! There are TONS of them as well as other various mods to make the game to your liking. For first timers try to avoid mods outside of simple texture packs. I've beaten the main quest 3 times and the expansions twice. In one play-through I put twice the time into morrowind as I do for one play through of oblivion or skyrim (both great games too). One thing to note this game has "dice rolls" even if you visually land a hit. So at first your character will miss a lot and it'll be frustrating. Stick with it though! The stories in this game are fun but the exploration and how stylized the dunmer buildings and ruins were just blew me away. This is my fave elder scrolls game and in my top ten for best games ever. Sorry if I'm geeking out! It's one of those games for me!

PROS: - A memorable storyline. Read books, read dialogues – if you skip them, you'll not fully appreciate the literary merit of the game. - The option to play mostly non-violently. You can hack-and-slash your way through the game (of course), but it's often possible to complete quests WITHOUT killing NPC’s. - Levitation. This spell was removed from future Elder Scrolls (ES) games, and what a shame that is, IMO. Some locations can only be accessed using levitation. - Alien landscape. The landscape (creatures, humanoids, plants) are unique. In subsequent ES games, there was a less alien and (for me) less interesting world. - Excellent soundtrack. The score is a pleasure to listen to. Skyrim re-uses part of it. PRO or CON: - No hand holding. No quest markers, limited fast travel, you can kill NPC’s that will break the main quest, you can be quickly killed if you wander into the wrong area. For me, these are all a “PRO”, but if you're used to quest markers and the like, you'll be in for a bit of a shock at the beginning of the game. CONS: - Outdated graphics. Use a mod of this bothers you. I like the standard graphics. - Combat is (initially) frustrating. You’ll initially be “swinging-and-missing” quite a bit. To hit consistently, you need to have experience with the weapon you're using AND keep your fatigue (green bar) high. Eventually, you'll land a hit every time. If you can’t get passed this, check for mods that alter the fatigue mechanic. - Cliff Racers: The most annoying creature in Morrowind! High level spellcasters can one-shot them. - Very limited voice acting. Most of the interactions with NPC’s are through reading, and you have to click the same dialogue choices for each NPC. You get used to it, but it can be tiresome. When there is voiced dialogue (usually a cut-scene) it is often truly memorable, and sometimes very moving. Azura speaks to you in cut-scenes that I still remember to this day. Enjoy this wonderful game!

This game has an insane amount of replayability and ways you can really make each playthrough and experience unique. The base game, blood moon and tribunal easily have offered me years of amazing experiences. But definitely note worthy mods for veterans of the game are -Tamriel Rebuilt -Skyrim home of the nords -Province cyrodiil ^these three all require the morrowind code patch mod but you might as well get that even if you only plan on playing vanilla due to its extra resolutions -The watercolors texture packs are gorgeous and have very little to no hit on performance. Its truly a timeless rpg that with all the years of community made content it truly feels like I'll never run out of new experiences to be had in this gem of an RPG.

TESIII: Morrowind is a roleplaying game with character customisation, a world to explore freely, and factions to join. It is possible to complete the main story line without completing every quest in it, though the shortcut is present at only two specific points. Otherwise, the player does not have the ability to address the questions they might have realised by themselves without being prompted by a quest giver. The story explores the topics of historical ambiguity, free will, and destiny, and touches the themes of cultural identity, colonialism, and slavery. The world feels alive and not centred on the protagonist, though there are fewer options to affect it significantly. While the dialogue system has very light branching (Yes/No/Maybe) with the most prevalent option being “Continue”, it is possible to ask every NPC about different topics and receive answers, depending on the NPC’s opinion of the subject and the protagonist. Though, asking about X results in receiving the directions to X, instead of the opinion on X. There are few memorable characters with deep interactions. There are bugs and occasional crashes. Stat stacking with magic and alchemy is ridiculously and delightfully overpowered. There are in-game ways to travel, such as teleportation or caravans, but no dedicated fast-travel system from the map. The quest descriptions are reasonably detailed and allow to find the objectives without explicit map markers, while all relevant information is added to the Journal in order of acquisition with the options to sort it by topic or by quest. The combat system and the skill checks utilise the character’s skills, instead of the player’s. Those skills improve with use and the protagonist levels up upon increasing their 10 major or minor skills. The graphics are adequate, the soundtrack is fitting, and the VA is partial. The controls are rebindable, though for the settings to save, it might be necessary to set the “Morrowind.ini” file to Read-Only.

The game starts out a bit hard For detractors the skills are low and do not always proc and map information are not known to the player; that gives a realistic experience in my opinion, but some may not like it. There is an issue with alchemy which is caused by running multiple cores that glitches that skill in the port. It usually will insist that you haven't named your potions. The graphics are dated, as is anything from twenty or more years ago. And the voice acting is a Bethesda commonplace for all of Elder Scrolls being voiced by like 5 people. Also there are text bricks where voice acting doesn't do justice to larger bits of dialogue. Talking to people or interfacing with them from the start tends to do a good bit to help alleviate map and other quest marker issues but if you have low charisma or speechcraft or barter skills it usually will only get you the bare minimum or they'll outright admit you're not worth their time to talk to. Aside those detractors, the lore is deep, the world is very explore-able and vast with random encounters. The storyline and racial quirks of each specie are well thought out even in the conflicts between specie. Exception there being cliff racers which definitely should be purged by your holy fire at some point. There are many tongue in cheek jokes and easter-eggs hidden about. The ability to craft spells and items makes it very user friendly to replay and long term game play. Unlike later Elder Scrolls titles you can levitate, jump beyond normal height, and do many things they hadn't capped or removed from the later editions... Like summoning more than one creature in a single summon spell. Many of the places will have some degree of feeling lived in as is common for the genre, and in some cases like Solstheim there is a beauty which kind of has a verisimilitude to the world we know. As for the sky graphics... kudos to the artist, they're always nice. Overall... great game. Worth trying if you've patience to get through it.