The original did have a lot of varied and interesting quest ideas, and some of the graphics still hold up now - dawn breaking over the mountains and reflecting off a lake looks even better in higher resolutions. The problem is more that there’s about a billion identikit dungeons which only contain level-appropriate loot, so you never find anything really exciting, and of course the leveling system is completely busted so every fight is a slog everywhere you go. Felt so limited compared to Morrowind, too - MW might have been a completely broken sandbox, but at least it was open enough to break.
I don’t really feel that the main problem with Oblivion is how it looks.
While Morriwind is considered as one of the best TES titles, its absolutely not beginner friendly and will scare most casual players.
The combat system with invisible dice rolls is a joke at the beginning and its extra annoying. The dialogue system is overwhelming and complicated and there are basically no tutorials to explain the in-game systems. Some quests are not very well explained and without reading/watching a guide you will ty to solve the task via trial/error, or will search for a cave entrance about 360 steps after the fifth big tree on the west side of the riverbank. Also the UI is not very intuitive.
Its truly for hardcore RPG players.
On the other hand Oblivion is a more plug and play experience. Quest markers, easy to understand systems, voice acting and nice interface.
Its a watered down version, sure. The level scaling is also a weird design choice,but its just as iconic as MW.
The magic of Morrowind is that you’re just there. There isn’t a time critical plot. There isn’t a need to go after every quest. You can freely and happily wander around and oh hey there’s a cool cave I guess I’ll go in there now.
Modern games tend to give me anxiety because while in theory “choice” systems add flavor, theres also clear winners and losers and most games no matter how much they doth protest (cough dishonored) still punish you based on standard moral sensibilities. You kill more bad guys, you get the bad guy ending. You kill fewer bad guys you get the good guy ending. Morrowind lets me kill bad guys and be a good guy at the pace I want.
It’s not unfair to claim Morrowind is a broken sandbox, but for every mudcrab that wrecks you at level 1 there’s a pterodactyl up in the mountains that I defeated 15 levels early because I was good at run-n-gun.
The original did have a lot of varied and interesting quest ideas, and some of the graphics still hold up now - dawn breaking over the mountains and reflecting off a lake looks even better in higher resolutions. The problem is more that there’s about a billion identikit dungeons which only contain level-appropriate loot, so you never find anything really exciting, and of course the leveling system is completely busted so every fight is a slog everywhere you go. Felt so limited compared to Morrowind, too - MW might have been a completely broken sandbox, but at least it was open enough to break.
I don’t really feel that the main problem with Oblivion is how it looks.
There’s a mod that fixes leveled item rewards (by always giving you the best version): https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivionremastered/mods/99
While Morriwind is considered as one of the best TES titles, its absolutely not beginner friendly and will scare most casual players.
The combat system with invisible dice rolls is a joke at the beginning and its extra annoying. The dialogue system is overwhelming and complicated and there are basically no tutorials to explain the in-game systems. Some quests are not very well explained and without reading/watching a guide you will ty to solve the task via trial/error, or will search for a cave entrance about 360 steps after the fifth big tree on the west side of the riverbank. Also the UI is not very intuitive. Its truly for hardcore RPG players.
On the other hand Oblivion is a more plug and play experience. Quest markers, easy to understand systems, voice acting and nice interface. Its a watered down version, sure. The level scaling is also a weird design choice,but its just as iconic as MW.
The magic of Morrowind is that you’re just there. There isn’t a time critical plot. There isn’t a need to go after every quest. You can freely and happily wander around and oh hey there’s a cool cave I guess I’ll go in there now.
Modern games tend to give me anxiety because while in theory “choice” systems add flavor, theres also clear winners and losers and most games no matter how much they doth protest (cough dishonored) still punish you based on standard moral sensibilities. You kill more bad guys, you get the bad guy ending. You kill fewer bad guys you get the good guy ending. Morrowind lets me kill bad guys and be a good guy at the pace I want.
It’s not unfair to claim Morrowind is a broken sandbox, but for every mudcrab that wrecks you at level 1 there’s a pterodactyl up in the mountains that I defeated 15 levels early because I was good at run-n-gun.
It’s down to personal preference. I agree with everything you wrote, even though MW was never my favourite.
My point was reacting to OPs comment that Oblivion is iconic enough to fully deserve a remake/remaster, its just for a slightly different audience.
Maybe something insane can happen one day were Bethesda works with OpenMW and does the same deal with the UE5 wrapper for a Morrowind remaster.