An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire

This is a pretty straight forward dungeon crawler made by BGS between the releases of Daggerfall and Morrowind. This game is very different from the standard Elder Scrolls games in that the game is entirely focused on dungeon crawling instead of roleplaying. This game can be difficult to figure out how to progress especially compared to modern games. All in all I would think this is a pretty solid dungeon crawler especially since it gives you a different look into some of the Elder Scrolls lore than the other games; However the controls in this game are highly buggy. When trying to walk straight foward in the game you will almost always end up walking diagonally depending on which direction you are facing. This is incredibly annoying and can make platforming nearly impossible. This will also have a detrimental impact on the movement speed in the forward direction. I feel that if this movement bug weren't present then this game would be good fun to play however I can't get past this bug.

In my quest to play through all the Elder Scrolls games, I knew I would come across this game too. Now that I've played through it too, I can see why it wasn't a great success. The game actually adds value to the lore and world of Elder Scrolls. It goes into great detail about the Daedra and their clans and deepens their history in the world. Without these approaches in Battlespire, there would certainly be no TES IV: Oblivion. And the game goes deeper into their philosophies and customs than Oblivion ever did. Here, every enemy is also an NPC with fully voiced dialog. But what's so bad about the game? Battlespire is in a technically desolate state. These include some small but also fatal bugs that can ruin your progress if you don't attach much importance to backup saves. What's more, some of the levels have platforming passages frequently. The jumping mechanic in this game is partly a dice roll. So it can happen that the character simply jumps and misses its target or get stuck on an edge. Most of the time you can't get away from it, so you have to reload. Also a annoying feature of the game is the fact that enemies can knock you away. In this case, it can happen that you are knocked back meters, sometimes even down chasms. My last point concerns the dialog and the ability to talk to enemies. It's a great idea, no question and sometimes it's necessary to get tips on how to progress, but in reality I don't think it helps. Of course, if you're open to dialog, you get a bit more lore, but most enemies of the same type talk the same stuff and you often present less variation. And looking for unique npc is a pain because they all look the same. Even though the game takes an interesting approach and contributes a lot to the lore, it was just a lot of work for me to finish the game. I can only recommend it to hardcore fans for whom the story is important enough to subject themselves to such suffering.

I liked this game a lot, the music was quite nice and fitting for the dungeons. Although I havnt beaten or played this recently, I dont remember coming across some of the bugs that other people report in other revviews

Although it's a mess at times, this game is one of the best games I've ever played and a true testament to treating the player like a mature, intelligent adult. As a player works his way through the huge levels, a lot of brain power and exploration is required to meet the requirements to make it to the next level. Your patience will be tested, but if you persevere, you'll be rewarded with something that is very rare in games these days: a sense of intellectual accomplishment. The game is about resource management and puzzle solving with waves and waves and waves of enemies thrown at you. Of course, this is where the game gets frustrating and loses its fun value. The enemies are very hard to kill and you will die hundreds of times without question. Sometimes it's a matter of reloading and hope the virtual dice are in your favour for damage received and given, sometimes it's a matter of reloading and changing your weapons and tactics, and often it's a matter of reloading and hoping your enemy gets stuck in a wall. If you’ve played Arena and Daggerfall, you’ll handle the battle just fine – just remember to save every 15 seconds. There are no waypoints flashing or narrators telling you what to do, so you genuinely feel just like the protagonist of the game and that’s the exceptional brilliance of the game: you're thrown into the fight for the Battlespire with not much more than your staff in your hand and you're expected to find the equipment and supplies you need to survive. Getting through a level is hard, but for the most part fair and logical. (To my shame, I consulted a walkthrough twice and in both instances I told myself, “Are you kidding me? That’s the solution?”) The game is far from perfect, but I cannot recommend it enough.

Battlespire is Bethesda's foray into pure action, based on the Daggerfall engine, this one removes most of the things that made Daggerfall great, and sticks you in a tower in which you have to fight your way out of. pure action, no Role Playing. if the latest and greatest looking is your thing, you wont like this, but for Elder Scrolls fans, it is a must have, even if only to experience it once.