Oblivion is easily the worst of the series to date. The only thing it has over Skyrim is the fact that it preserved attributes instead of "health/stamina/magicka" system.

The main quest is bland, repetitive and boring. Moreso than Skyrim's main quest. That's saying something.
Magic system is broken, but in a different way than Skyrim. In Skyrim, you can have zero-cost spells. In Oblivion, you can be immune to everything and have 100% reflect damage and spells.

Morrowind was just as broken gameplay-wise, but at least it had an epic story to go with the brokenness and you got to battle the Big Bads in the end.

Oblivion was great, but I think you need player created character/NPC face and body mods for it to be playable, especially compared to Skyrim's characters. Other than that the graphics still hold their own although it is not quite as beautiful as Skyrim. it is definitely more colorful, and I feel like it's larger as well. Also, modding is still quite a bit easier for Oblivion. Storywise I think Morrowind was best, then Skyrim, while Oblivion was pretty 'Vanilla' in terms of Story. IMHO.

Yes, it is much more easily playable than Morrowind as it is not that far behind skyrim.

I think Oblivion's graphics hold up very well; it's a beautiful world in Cyrodiil. I have another game going and I'd say definitely get it and play it. I love Oblivion and Skyrim both because I love the open world play...and the Fallout games too. Each game has some different systems and ways of doing things and it's fun to learn it all. What's great is that you can pick up more of the lore and actually experience the story of the Oblivion crisis that you read about in Skyrim. I loved closing Oblivion gates too. Mehrunes Dagon, go away!

ADDED: If you're on PC, Oblivion GOTY is only $9.99 on Steam today and it's the same price for Morrowind too. How can you beat that?

oblivion is definitely worth checking out and i think it still holds up well. if you are console only you can pick up oblivion GOTY for either system for $10-15. I liked cyrodiil better than skyrim as a location, much more diverse landscape and more interesting to explore.

even morrowind is worth checking out. yes the graphics are dated and the battle system is a bit clunky. but the story and exploration greatly exceed both oblivion and skyrim in my opinion. if you have an xbox i find morrowind GOTY comes up from time to time on craigslist for $10 and while it does suffer from load time issues on the 360 i still quite enjoyed it even after having played it originally on PC.

if you're on pc both can be heavily modded to improve graphics to a point that you'd notice only small differences.

if you want to delve into the deep history and lore created for the elderscrolls I think both are a must play. oblivion is very similar to skyrim with a few subtle differences. morrowind is more complex than both, and has only limited voice acting so you get much greater detail from NPCs on pretty much every topic you could imagine, morrowind also has a larger pool of playable factions because of the great houses.

I would disregard this post, Skyrim is not the "complete opposite" of past games. It is very similar to Morrowind and Oblivion, the three games all over have some rather minor changes in the grand scheme of things (the biggest change being the combat from Morrowind to Oblivion)

If you liked Skyrim, you will enjoy Oblivion and Morrowind.

Skyrim has many references to previous TES chapters, nothing extremely important, but recognizing them makes Skyrim experience much richer.

Graphics wise Oblivion still does pretty good today.
Morrowind already a lot less.

I couldn't really get into MW. Combat was really stupid and I wanted a difficulty slider until I got the hang of it. OB was unbelievable (my 1st ES title). I don't know how much you'll like OB since you played skyrim 1st but it's definitely worth looking into.

He's gotta disregard pretty much everything EngravingMan says.

I say yes! Oblivion was a great game, and has more replay value than Skyrim.

I think i may go start a new character on OB right now and see how it feels after playing skyrim

Even with the problems that Oblivion has, I might just do the same myself. I really want to play a TES RPG and Skyrim just isn't it. Oblivion isn't much better but Skyrim has just really turned me off so bad that it's made Oblivion look good.

that isnt what i meant at all...i still love skyrim but i want to see how combat, magic, and stealth feel after all i have done in skyrim

Yeah I know, but for me it will remind me of what Skyrim could have become if they fixed the flaws in Oblivion and built upon it.

Combat in Oblivion is similar to Skyrim, other than duel wield which I never used in Skyrim. The magic in Oblivion will be so much better since you have the spell making. The stealth in Oblivion will be so much better just because the thieves guild in Oblviion was so much better than Skyrim.

There are mods for Morrowind on the PC that will make it http://public.sn2.livefilestore.com/y1pGR8uXRnL4CII8Ym1Jw9dxqJDtcTEQ1xFcFdIviFBEgeQWPwk_g7w3j1LlttvSYGA-G2IQqVMz1Zqt8BEx5rN6g/Morrowind01.jpg?psid=1. And you don't need a new game PC to run it either. If you're interested, search around for the "better [whatever]" mods.

At the time i played Morrowind, the graphics were amazing. They were the best I had ever seen. Now that the standards of graphics have moved up, my visual level of graphical realism has gone up as well, so Morrowind looks very crappy. I thought Descent Freespace was the most amazing space game ever, now there are games like Black prophecy which make Freespace looks like a child's drawing.

Its a normal mental evolution for this to occur. I loved Morrowind, but i just couldn't go back to it because my mind is used to so much better looking visuals, not because the game was bad.

My order of favorite TES games is from favorite to least would be Skyrim, Morrowind, and Oblivion. That said, Oblivion is a fairly good game. Some things, it did a bit better than Skyrim, like the guilds. The faction quest lines could last a while in Oblivion. If you want to understand what led to Tamriel ending up the way it is in Skyrim, Oblivion will really help in that regard

Not better than Skyrim, but still worth it a try.

Skyrim edges out oblivion for me because the game world is much more interesting and varied. But oblivion is arguably a more complex game with more options and a better main quest. It's a fantastic, fantastic game in its own right. You should definitely play it. Don't let the graphics deter you. It looks good but it's nowhere near the level of skyrim.

After playing Skyrim my friend said try Oblivion now it looks terrible, and it did make me laugh. My khajiit backpeddling super fast and flipping all over the place with poorer environments, but that's to be expected. It is a good game, the main quest is cool.

Morrowind is great, best storyline, but starts off at a slow pace, and combats different; the ratio between hitting or missing the target is based on skill level. Not a direct hit everytime like oblivion and skyrim.

They'd be worth playing someday.

I bet that you will return to Skyrim -or simply left Oblivion - after a couple of minutes/ hours.


perhaps the developers had achieved just this with Skyrim for someone else.


Combat in Skyrim is far better than oblivion,apart from dual wield you have dual casting and a lot of more fun/option in it

the spell making was useless for most,in Skyrim the Enchanting is better

the guilds in oblivion were unnecessary longer; but not all "better"..in Skyrim you can decide even how long they last with the opportunity of doin' radiant quest.

I agree that the story in Tg were more interesting in Oblivion

but Skyrim Db is on par with Oblivion one


and the College and companions are far more interesting than the Warriors/mage guilds of Oblivion in my opinion -even if perhaps not so well developed/written like almost all in this game.

Too much things added at the last moment perhaps..and too little time to doin' all the stuff in the best way possible sadly.

p.s. i miss too a lot of things/features of morrowind/oblivion,but i'm even aware that perhaps something must be different/missing in a new game of the same series to "refresh it" and try to keep even the old titles (still) interesting to play today (heavily modded perhaps,that is better)

I have a hard time playing Morrowind after Oblivion too, but it's more to do with how clunky the combat is.
NOTE: I played Morrowind first, I mean going back to Morrowind after Oblivion.

in my opinion your missing out on a great game with plenty of great quests, and fun gameplay. Graphics are really still quite good, if they matter to you that is. I mean if storyline and well written quests mean more to you then combat and silly kill cams and shouts, then yes play oblivion. You will like it.

Well I may be biased since I consider Oblivion to be the worst TES ( TES 2 to 5 included), and Skyrim is sort of an improved version of oblivion (what oblivion should have been I would say) so I don't think it's really interesting to play oblivion after skyrim, no. Except with some mods maybe.
Daggerfall and Morrowind are both very interesting to play because each episode is very different from the previous one so I would say oblivion is the least interesting opus to play after skyrim since it's basically the downgraded version.