Same. Oblivion had some good points. The guild quest lines were superior to skyrim, but the oblivion gates were unbearable for me. The mods were great though, which is why I can't wait for the CK release for skyrim.

Pray tell, whats so different between Skyrim and Oblivion's combat with DR? With the exception of shouts being added, its almost identical even to the point of it having identical power attack directionality type. And how can you quantify finishers as 1% of combat? If the fight itself is a one strike finisher, a finisher is therefor 100% of the combat.

This is a little off topic, but I wholeheartedly agree. Put it in the Skyrim engine, redo the graphics completely, but keep the gameplay and map as similar as possible.
If bethesda could include new and varied animations for the character missing a swing or failing to cast a spell, people could actually see that their PC was BAD at something, and see the results as they improved at it. They would get rid of a lot of frustration around the "my sword is clipping through this person but no blood puff" problem.

skyrim is better than oblivion. both have terrible combat systems. at least in skyrim you can't abuse back pedaling and cirlce strafe too much. and if the main point of these games is exploration (sure isn't the story) and combat, the fact these games are so popular despite having really poor combat says a lot about the world beth creates. no other game series does what beth does; i don't even see companies try. this is certainly a factor to the series' success as well. and it also is telling that a great majority of people say oblivion is good with *insert list of mods*, but few say vanilla oblivion is exceptional on it's own.

beth games have some major flaws that would get other games run out of town. poor combat plus poor story will usually get a game a score of a 6/10, but when beth does it, they get 9/10 and GOTY.

OP: i tried to revisit oblivion before skyrim, and i just couldn't do it. paying anything more than $10 for it is a waste. but i would say don't bother; if you're expecting skyrim you will be horribly disappointed.

if you're interested in the series, you'll like it. a lot of people underrate Oblivion now that they got Skyrim to compare it with, but Oblivion had a lot of good aspects to it.

Oblivion feels the same to me as it did before Skyrim; which is to say that it feels kind of like playing with Duplo blocks in the uncanny valley. It still is a good game, but I've always been wary of games made by Bethesda on the gamebryo engine.

My opinion of Oblivion hasn't really changed since I began playing Skyrim. I find some things that Skyrim has done better, yes, but equally I find some things that I feel were better in Oblivion. Obviously Oblivion is significantly older than Skyrim, and so you will notice a distinct difference in the level of the graphics and other technicalities. Oblivion has a lot of similarities to Skyrim as well though, and I think if you can get past the 'older game, slightly clunkier feel, not so good graphics' side of things you should have no problem enjoying the game. Just don't start playing Oblivion with any preconceptions of it being like 'an older Skyrim' and you'll be fine

I personally will probably go back and play Oblivion again someday; I didn't complete all the guilds yet!

Skyrim is the best TES game. It improves on the formula in every conceivable way. This is not debateable.

No class selection that requires you dump your gameplay style into one of the Holy Trinity of sword and sorcery RPGs. The perk system makes leveling more enjoyable.

In Oblivion: pick three attributes to add to when you level up. Whoopty [censored] doo.

Morrowind and Oblivion (especially Morrowind) are festering piles of fecal matter in comparison. The Morrowind pile even has flies buzzing around it.

Firstly, I loved Oblivion. Until Skyrim came out, I don't think I'd ever sunk that many hours into a game. But, sadly, I've gone back a couple of times just to check it out post-Skyrim and it really hasn't aged well. The textures are fairly bland and the city architecture is pretty basic (with exception to Imperial City). Not to mention combat and leveling. Combat is definitely more interesting in Skyrim and I really enjoy the Perks system. I actually don't mind the leveling system in Oblivion but I find I don't spend nearly as much time torturing myself with what skills to increase now. I can upgrade my perks and get right back into the world. I still have a fondness for Oblivion, but it's hard to go back now.

Consequently, I've gone back to Morrowind and I find the combat and leveling horribly tedious.

I agree, it's still a good game but there's no way I could go back there now and enjoy it like I did in the past.

It feels like a new classic.
Feels funny and weird in someway.

Oblivion's age would be dramatically conspicuous. Yet, a game such as Oblivion was so ahead of it's time that it's hard to believe it was made in 2005/6.

I know this topic is old news now, but it depends on what you like most from Skyrim.

Oblivion did a few things better than Skyrim. Quests are generally handled much better (they have actual meat to them for the most part) and the faction questlines are things you pretty much can dedicate entire characters to, they have enough meat in them. Now the premise behind some of the faction quests aren't really too interesting, but they are still pretty solid to play through, while Skyrim's factions barely even exist. Dark Brotherhood was especially done very well.

It also had a better "RPG system", in the sense that there was simply more flexibility in gameplay choices. By that I mean, Skyrim has a lot more unique "cool" stuff to it, but its very restricted in the sense that you either have the cool-thing or cool power, or you don't. Things were more flexible in Oblivion with what you could do, in the sense that you can make your own spells, there are a lot more spell effects (though they aren't nearly as unique/meaty as Skyrim in how they are implemented), etc. It also has attributes - which means a potion of strength with ACTUALLY increase your strength, etc. Skyrim for some reason got rid of these and just left skills - which means character boosting potions kind of just vanished.

However, it has absolutely terrible world design, dungeon design, voice acting, characters, etc compaired to Skyrim. It's quite obvious bethesda spent the majority of their time with Skyrim vastly improving their art departments, because it just is so much more beautiful, interesting, consistant and has a higher focus on the lore. Oblivion is very "light" when it comes to all of those aspects, to the point where its almost not-fun to explore at all outside of quests. Skyrim is pretty much a complete overhaul in everything involving lore and visuals, and the feel of the gameplay is lightyears ahead.

Now you could go with morrowind of course

IMO Morrowind has the environment/art design strength of skyrim, amount of unique cool stuff as skyrim, while also having that more flexible and interesting RPG system that Oblivion has. Only issue is.. it's very slowly paced, hard to get into, and the feel of the gameplay is terrible compaired to skyrim Not to mention no voice acting aside from NPC greetings or important characters, like in old RPG's.

Oblivion is not quite as pretty, has more sophisticaated alchemy, allows you to create spells, allows you to do more sophisticated enchantment, has more cookie cutter dungeons, somewhat more scripting, a less compelling plot, worse looking people, and a tougher start (harder I thought).

I think you'd be ok playing it. I like the enchantment and spell creation WAY better in Oblivion. Skyrim's is easier to use but less powerful and versatile.

Every game since, and including, Morrowind?

no

try the Dark Brotherhood and thieves guild quest lines, the DB in OB is a little less grandios but the quests are MUCH more fun, the Thieves guild is MUCH more grandios and you actually do thievery, major, awesome thievery and heisting

Also there are a some individual quests around the world everyone seems to love, there is an arena faction where you can fight in a coliseum and the towns feel much larger, particularly the Imperial City, and the feels are more distinctive for the most part, not as distninctive as Markarth to the rest of Skyrim, but more unique than the rest of Skyrim compared to itself, I always loved the grundgy feel of Bravil, the bay around Anvil is also a favorite

I guess it depends on what exactly you are looking to experience from Oblivion. I was in your situation when I played Oblivion for the first time. I really enjoyed the lore and wanted to see other parts of Tamriel. So I found a copy of Morrowind on PC and modded it just to make getting through the quests faster and easier because all I was interested in was the story. Of course the graphics are much improved in Oblivion compared to Morrowind. I play games more for the story lines anyway and don't pay much attention to the mechanics.

Getting back to Skyrim... I enjoyed the guild quests in Oblivion more than Skyrim, especially the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild quests. On the other side, I thought the Main Quest in Skyrim was more interesting than in Oblivion. Oblivion is still beautiful in my opinion only because I prefer great vistas of green hills and trees over snow covered mountains. Technically speaking in terms of graphics, I think Skyrim looks better and its animations are much improved (like flowing water).

All in all, if you want to experience different stories/lands of the Elder Scrolls, I think Oblivion is worth buying.

I love the lore. I found a PDF online of all the skyrim books (or most of them) and I read them out of game. GREAT. Bethesda should publish them to Amazon for free for this purpose. I used my iPad Kindle reader to read them at my liesure.

Well, I played Oblivion after Skyrim and while it isn't bad, it certainly feels lacking and less visually stunning.

I really never understood the hype about this quest...it's not even that good.

Okay...you know that's most of the games right? At least the popular, 3d ones.

I was playing Oblivion yesterday, It's a much different experience. But, I personally loved Oblivion more.

I went back to Oblivion after playing Skyrim for about a week, and Uncanny Valley is an understatement. Despite being made to be able to play on the same generation of consoles (I'm playing both on PC) the countryside in Oblivion is far less real-looking. The colors are over-satured in much of Oblivion and of course those awful faces.

That said, Oblivion was awesome for its time, but Skyrim's got it beat in almost every way.

OP, I think Oblivion with mods like OOO, MMM, Natural Environments, Quarl Textures will give you an amazing experience even compared with Skyrim.



This is a false statement.

It certainly is debatable.

My first experience with the TES series was Oblivion 3 years ago. My first game was over 600 hrs long. Then I found out about mods and that kept me playing up until Skyrim was released. I played Morrowind for a few months so I could learn about the back story and so I could honestly make a comparison of the two without taking someone else's word for it.

Oblivion is really cheap now and I think it would be well worth your while to get the game. Decide for yourself whether or not you like it.