How can I describe Oblibbions? It's like a mish-mash of game design gone horribly, horribly wrong and it's mostly because of this pile that I enjoyed Skyrim as much as I did... though don't get me wrong, Skyrim is a fine game.
You'll hear a lot of people talk about the repetitive strange conversations that you overhear or how weird …
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How can I describe Oblibbions? It's like a mish-mash of game design gone horribly, horribly wrong and it's mostly because of this pile that I enjoyed Skyrim as much as I did... though don't get me wrong, Skyrim is a fine game.
You'll hear a lot of people talk about the repetitive strange conversations that you overhear or how weird the "radiant AI" is (I never saw any evidence of the radiant AI, so color me confused). Or perhaps you'll hear people talk about the somewhat awkward physics and rag-dolling... but none of them will dare comment on the fundamental gameplay flaws of this fetid pile.
First of all, leveling. Having the world scale with you sounds good in theory because, in theory, it sets a sort of difficulty curve. Basically when you're young and inexperienced and low level, battles against simple should be hard and dangerous, while as you level up and get more powerful you should fight consistently more powerful enemies. Somewhere along the line; however, the balance team sort of got this all fucked up and bass-ackwards: the game becomes unplayable at around level 3 for Marksman characters because the quality of armor your opponents have and their slew of HP means it'll take twenty or thirty arrows to bring them down. Similarly by the end of the game (circa level 20) every single battle you fight against anyone or anything feels like an epic Star Wars duel between Yoda and Darth Sidius, that is to say, it takes 30 minutes, contributes nothing to the story, and is really dull when you see it the fortieth time. Oh and did we mention that you can actually break the combat system entirely? Yes, my friends, every character has relatively trivial access to Reflect Damage and Reflect Spell values that are greater than 100%, which is to say that the most efficient method of fighting becomes to stand perfectly still and let people hit you in the face because they won't deal any damage to you... while dealing damage to themselves.
On top of that the fundamental reason for an open-world game (exploring) is subverted by the leveling system and the samey dungeon design and world environment. Typically exploration is encouraged and controlled through a risk-reward balance. This place is hard to get to, but it looks unique and cool. This place has very hard enemies to fight, but there's a powerful weapon available. Unfortunately the environment is so same-y there isn't anything unique to look at, and what's worse is the leveling system is SO PERVASIVE that all the items you find are "tailored" to your level. Yes, that means if you find an ARTIFACT at low levels, it's going to be a useless piece of crap after you level up a bit. In this way the leveling system not only renders exploration pointless but actively punishes you for exploring: you don't just find loot that's fairly boring and mundane, you eliminate the possibility of finding good loot later.
Aside from the whole mess surrounding some silly design choices for skills (at level 2 or 4 you can get the Skeleton Key which renders the Security skill obsolete and Alchemy is far, far, FAR too easy to level up, as well as Speechcraft, I mean my god); however, the game is relatively playable at levels 1 and 2. There are certainly some satisfying moments when you peg someone with an arrow and they flop over the railing onto the floor below to which his buddy will respond, "What was that?" before finally conceding that it "must have been the wind.".. but over all these moments are too few and far between and when they happen consistently it gets pretty old.
Speaking of gameplay failures, this game makes the worst end-game decision I have ever seen: when you get to the final boss, you don't actually fight the final boss. Someone else fights it for you. I get that it's supposed to flow into the plotline of the story, but that leads me to something else to complain about: the lore.
Oblibbions is to Elder Scrolls lore what Westboro Baptist Church is to the Bible: superficially you might be able to draw parallels between them, but at the end of the day WBC is missing the entire point. Somehow the Emperor's illegitimate son (a direct descendant of the first Emperor, sort of, who possibly, but not definitely, became a god) is also the Avatar of Akatosh? And this is important because apparently only Akatosh can stop Mehrunes Dagon from entering Mundus and destroying everything... even though there's a recorded history of two demigods fighting Mehrunes Dagon and defeating him. Basically the story reads like an awkward fanfiction from a teenager rather than something written by someone who made the whole damn universe.
In short, the game fails to be engaging and is a mockery of everything TES fans hold dear... but it's the kind of mainstream swill chugged by Pabst Blue Ribbon and Budweiser drinkers as they go off to another frat party.
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