"The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered" I Wish This Was a Remake So Badly

 

    I shall be the first to admit that I am a whore for Bethesda Game Studios games. I have way too many hours in both the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series by them. So the real question is, how much did I enjoy this game? The truth is less than I should have, and there's a couple reasons for that. Honestly, the short answer is if I hadn't already played this game I would have enjoyed it more, but I already did, and that's ok. I doubt this game would have been as successful if it wasn't already squeezing nostalgia out of any gamer who had their childhood defined by this game. I suppose the main issue was I was not one of those kids, so I have absolutely no nostalgia about this game.

    Don't get me wrong, I liked Oblivion when I first played it, but that was in like 2021, and honestly I've always been a Skyrim man through and through. I suppose I would have enjoyed it more if the game was an actual remake compared to a remaster, though I fear that's a battle I've been losing for quite some time. Think about Pokemon FireRed and Pokemon LeafGreen, or Pokemon SoulSilver or HeartGold. Games that do more than just update a games graphical fidelity, but actually adapts it and makes meaningful changes, usually for the better. That's what I wanted this game to be, to feel like it made this game better, but it wasn't, it was just the same old game with a shiny coat of paint. And for me, that's just not enough, I'm not even complaining about random creature comforts, or really missing SkyUI or something along those lines, it's just that the jankiness isn't as charming when it looks like a modern game and doesn't have the funny dated look to it.

    Which brings me to the gameplay and oh brother I forgot how bad it was. or well how easy it is. Where do I even start? Let's begin with the AI detection, which is awful enough to make someone quit. You see, the map for this game isn't that big, and so you'll want to fast travel lest you just want to run through a bunch of generic ass forests the entire time. The only issue with that? If you even get a little close to any mudcrab in the ocean you'll have to spend the next five minutes either hunting this mudcrab you've accidentally sprinted past or not be able to fast travel. Why do I make it sound like that's so difficult? Because it is so easy to level up your athletics and acrobatics skill in this game that I kid you not the fastest way to travel is not through horse, but simply bunny hopping the entire time. I sweat I was close to level 100 on acrobatics by the time I was like level 20.

    Or you could just kill everything you come across, but no mater what you do it'll be painfully tedious. Either you just started out on adept, which should be the default/normal setting on the difficulty curve, and everything is just a sponge. You'll start to ask yourself if your loot is so overpowered, until you hit about level 15. If you're smart enough you'll be training destruction, and after that assuming you chose the right major skills it's a cakewalk. At that point it doesn't even become fun to kill anything. By the time I had reached the endgame I had started using heavy armor and blunt weapons not because my character was good at them, but because they were bad at them and I thought it might make things more interesting, which by the way they didn't.

    All of this to say is that it's still Oblivion. Ray tracing won't fix the fact that the Mages Guild final battle is done in a tiny cave that doesn't really speak to how grand a final battle should be, or that closing oblivion gates is the most annoyingly tedious task there exists, or that the Dark Brotherhoods quest ends like that? I mean seriously, I would say the Knights of the Nine or the Thieves Guild quests were the best because they actually felt grand. I suppose this is all my fault. I basically did spend 100 hours playing the same game I've already sunk 100 hours into again. This time without any mods or anything to improve the issues. 

Final Score: 60/100

    But that's just it. This game isn't for me, it's for the people who loved this game so much they bought this game on launch. I was never quite the biggest Oblivion fan. It wasn't my childhood, why should I care? That's why this gameplay was tainted for me from the start. How could you outsource the remaster of an entire game to another studio because of the restraints of modern day AAA game development, and have them do nothing but put a literal shiny blanket over the original game? It's insane to me, it's just disappointing. I deserved better, the fans deserved better, the game deserved better. I don't care if you're scared of backlash or controversy because you changed something or fixed the game. If you want to release a game again you do it properly, and this time you be brave enough to try and make it better, and if you don't then who cares? People will still buy it. It was literally a surprise drop that's banking on nostalgia. It's just a shame I had none.