The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard

The openworld nature of the game is nice The combat sesquences are repetitive and meh The platforme sequences can be pretty horrendous Some of the puzzles turn out very complex. Sometimes rewarding, sometimes frustrating. It would be almost impossible to finish the game without the help of a guide (like the official Redguard Companion) Redguard is a pretty bad game and hasn't aged well However, I love the Elder Scroll's universe and I was not disappointed with what I got here. Not at all. The writing is very strong, characters are good, artworks are great, the atmosphere is charming, the lore is rich and can get very deep. If those are points you are looking for and if you can overpass the gameplay flaws, TESA: Redguard it very much worth while

Let me preface this by saying The Elder Scrolls is my favorite video game series. After beating all five of the mainline titles (I know, do you actually "beat" TES games?), Redguard became my sixth TES game that I finished. I have enjoyed all of them. But I also can critique all of the games, and Redguard is no exception. First, the negatives. Redguard is VERY clunky. The movement is awkward and "tank-y" and the combat is clunky too. Be sure to read up on combat (UESP.net, among its plethora of useful TES info, also has some combat tips), and even then you will need some patience and practice. I honestly wasn't able to figure out a consistently viable strategy in fights until about halfway through the game (I don't want to spoil it and say what it was, but feel free to ask me should you need to). Visually, it can be hard to tell whether you are doing well in combat, so audio cues are very useful here. Some of the puzzles are obtuse and frustrating (admittedly, I looked up a few answers, although I was able to solve the infamous Scarab puzzle through sheer luck). The game's performance also stutters and lags at points. But there is quite a bit to love in this game. This is the only TES game with a set protagonist, but he is awesome. You play as Cyrus, a Redguard on a quest for redemption that gets caught up in far more than he originally planned. Armed with his trusty saber, the voice of Michael Mack, plenty of clever quips, and a Redguard fire, he will set in motion one of the most important events in Tamrielic history. Speaking of history, if you want some great TES lore (or video game lore in general), you've come to a great place. It is with Redguard--NOT Morrowind, although it is a phenomenal game--that the "modern" direction of TES lore began. Stros M'kai is also a neat setting with interesting things to find. The gameplay itself is a bit lackluster, but the story, writing, and setting is fantastic. I recommend giving it a try. 3.5 stars from me.

A very important game for Elder Scrolls lore. This is still the only game where we've ever seen a normal (non-Sea) Sload, the only ES game until Skyrim that showed a Dragon, the first one that mentioned Dwemer, and the list goes on, and it's all wrapped up in charming early 3D graphics. The problem? The game is complete dogshit. Almost everything is a burning dumpster fire here. The voice acting is some of the worst I have ever heard in my life. The controls could be considered a cruel and unusual punishment, and the combat system can barely be described as combat. The game is written by Michael Kirkbride, who is a creative genius and the father of the Elder Scrolls world, so the dialogue is absolutely worth hearing, or less painfully, reading, and the main story is actually fantastic. However the gameplay is genuinely so atrocious that unfortunately not even that makes it worth actually playing, and that's saying something.

This game's framerate is horrible, i do not know if its DOSBox's fault or if GOG messed something up, but the FPS will randomly drop at times to like 15 or even less and other times it runs smooth. When i load a save file the FPS jumps to something like 1000 for 1 second causing me to dash forward at the speed of light when i press W. This makes it really hard to fight and jump to certain areas. I wouldn't put this as a hardware issue as my PC is quite powerful but maybe if you have a crazy level PC you may be able to run this game better, or depending on what the problem is with it, it may run worse. I pushed through the bad framerate and managed to explore every location in the game and even got pretty far on the main story. You get really frustrated trying to play with the horrible fps problems to the point where you just quit due to frustration. I am an elder scrolls fan and also i really like redguard as a game. It has a very cool feel to it and i like the setting. The graphics are of course low quality but they give you an old school feel which i really enjoy even though i have never played this game before to feel nostalgic about it, i still do feel nostalgic somehow. When the frustration wears off, i go back to playing it just so i can finish it. When i do finish it, i probably will never replay it though, it is very frustrating to push through the FPS problems. This game is perfect for a Remaster or even Remake. If Bethesda themselves or a group of modders was to make this game playable on modern machines atleast at a solid 30 fps i would buy and play it again. I am not sure if GOG will try to improve performance on this game with updates, but as i write this review, near the end of 2021, it really is a bad experience concerning FPS.

Tweaking the Dosbox configuration doesn't seem to do anything for me. From changing resolution to turning fullscreen on and off, the game seems to be set to certain settings which I am unable to change. Playing this on fullscreen on a full HD tv doesn't look too well, so not being able to change any settings is a real downer. Also the game is choppy, but again, as I don't seem to be able to change any settings, this is also an unfixable problem for me. Would not recommend buying this game in it's current state. I hope in the future GOG will be able to deliver a better version of this game.