Into Oblivion

I didn't play Oblivion back in 2006. But, as I fell in love with Skyrim years later, when the remaster was released, I didn't think twice before buying it. A few weeks later, I have quite a few things to say about it.

Yes, it looks good, but...

Skyrim with mods looks better. Oblivion didn't blow my mind with its visuals, all the more because my Steamdeck has a hard time running the game, while I had no problem with recent games like Dragon Age: Veilguard, which in my opinion is far more stunning. Ray tracing, which is enabled by default, is a visual gadget and the game would play better without it. The colors lack authenticity and overall the performances are quite disappointing. When playing Final Fantasy XV with my old PC I was able to show very distant landscapes on screen, here I am doomed to reveal assets only when I'm getting close. Unfortunately, stuttering, painfully long loading screens and crashes keep preventing me from fully enjoying the game.

A much better game than Skyrim

Past this disappointment, I must say I was stunned by the clever gameplay mechanics and depth of narration. I have been having so much fun wandering about, sometimes doing nothing but enjoying the atmosphere (which is really enhanced by a detailed sound design), other times completing complex questlines which bestow a real uniqueness, especially when compared to the Skyrim quests. Playing Oblivion, I've been constantly thinking "why did they give up this cool feature in Skyrim?!". 

Let me tell you a bit about my first playthrough. I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to video games, and I chose an assassin class. Once, I was told to arrest some tomb raider, and when entering the tomb, I spotted two guys. One wearing simple cloth, the other in full armor. I didn't think twice, and, hiding in shadows, I aimed my bow at the full armor guy. One shot, and he was dead. It was considered murder and the night after this, Lucien Lachance came to me in my inn room. RP-wise, I thought that was destiny and I embraced the dark side, becoming an assassin from the Dark Brotherhood. And I didn't regret this once, because I had so much fun completing the Dark Brotherhood quests. Contrary to Skyrim, I got to mingle in a high standing soirée, I got to kill a man almost in plain sight before cutting his finger and smuggling it to a marked location, and I was confronted to a real challenge about morals standards all the way through a quest line which included a couple of stunning twists. I also realized I could have a gameplay designed for my class instead of taking random perks in order to become super powerful. I'm powerful, but a powerful illusionist assassin, not a jack-of-all-trades. In my opinion, optimizing a class-specific gameplay is what brings real engagement in RPGs. 

Surprising side quests are legion in this game. Once, I slept in a boat that was anchored and used as an inn. When I woke up, we had set sails, navigating toward an unknown location. It turned out the boat was hijacked by bandits and I had to resolve (kill everyone) the situation before I could get back on land. Most of the quests in Oblivion are both interesting and fun.

Okay, so why are you angry then?

Because this is a remaster, because twenty years have elasped, because I paid 50 € and what I got was an obsolete game with improved visuals but poor performances. 

Because I love this franchise. Even today, I struggle to find other games that give me this sense of adventure, this pleasure in simple wandering through the vast maps. I'm only so critical when I have to speak about the games I love the most.

UI in this game is a nightmare. You have to scroll through long lists of items in order to find the one you need, alchemy isn't even sorted with ingredients on one side and potions on the other. 

You have to get by with an early 2000s interface and you must no be afraid of annoying menuing. For example, when you capture a soul in order to enchant an item, you have to open your miscellanous tab, scroll all the way until you find a filled gem, then clic on it to charge your item, knowing that you must do that very, very frequently because the enchanted items lose their power so quickly. It's quite annoying and even disheartening at times.

Also, I lied by omission. I did play the game once in its original version. I was so appalled by the character visuals, I didn't play long. Today, NPCs are still quite awful, but not the stuff of nightmares as before. Humans, Khajits and Argonians are okay, but don't mind Elfs and Orcs...

Even if today this is common practice to sell a game even if it hasn't been properly tested, I am amazed that even updates can't fix bugs, and that they thought it was okay to release a remaster that needs a PC from the NASA to run properly, even if its visuals are just alright, not amazing.

So, was it worth it?

Definitely. Overall, I had a blast with this game. But I do resent Bethesda for being so careless, counting on the popularity of the Elder Scrolls franchise and use it as an excuse to not get the job done. Oblivion remastered is not a modern version of a well-loved classic. It's a polished version of an old game, keeping all the imperfections and adding very few added value.