Look, I enjoyed Skyrim, but I miss the days when Bethesda made RPGs
The thing about Morrowind for me was that it was so completely alien. It wasn’t just more sword and sorcery in the British countryside but instead unleashed ridiculous magic where people lived in giant shells/mushrooms and the fauna was like nothing I had ever seen. To say nothing of the mechanics which I found more engrossing than the follow on games.
And then you get to Oblivion and Skyrim and they’re Britain and Norway. Cool.
I’ve been slowly working through Morrowind, and while some of the mechanics and gameplay feel dated, there’s so much to love about it.
Aside from the world building, and the storyline where you have to earn your prophetic self instead of being handed it like in TESV… having to actually listen to people in the game and work out the details of quests feels so rewarding when it gets accomplished.
Also, the game gives such a guilty feeling that when you’re looting ancestral tombs, making sure the players know they’re grave robbing from families and their heritage …
I tried, but the combat was so janky. I just couldn’t.
Completely understandable. I originally tried to play as a mage, and that was a horrible choice. I restarted, putting everything into 2-handed weapons, and that’s been a much better choice. It’s actually fun now.
Morrowind really brought out the fantastic in ‘fantasy RPG’.
Imagine if Blivs gave us the original conception of Tamriel, the Roman rainforest
Morrowind is a good story wrapped in terrible game mechanics. Skyrim is a moderate story wrapped in pretty good game mechanics. I do miss levitation though, even if it negated as many things as it helped.
Morrowind has excellent game mechanics. It’s just that combat is not one of those excellent mechanics.
Yeah, the combat in Skyrim is boring and uninspired, but that’s still a step up from Morrowind’s combat.
What are the excellent mechanics? It’s not leveling, quest journal, inventory management, stealing from vendors, walking speed being a stat you level, etc.
It’s absolutely leveling, walking speed being a stat, spell customization, NPC interaction, bartering, quest interconnectivity, and especially, exploring.
This sort of comes down to the classic debate of “Depth vs Quality of Life”. To quote Steak Bently in his excellent video essay on Metal Gear Solid 4:
Depth of game play, to boil it down, is usually defined by the number of ways a player can approach any given scenario. More tools with more unique properties. More hardcore players tend to value depth more and consider additional depth to be generally how you measure improvement in game play.
But more casual players value ease of play and think additional depth and challenge at the cost of accessibility is more of a downgrade. Hence why the general public considers Bayonetta 2 a straight upgrade from Bayonetta 1, but the crazy combo junkies don’t like it as much.
Morrowind’s mechanics have a level of depth that vastly exceeds Skyrim’s in almost every conceivable way, but is often referred to as “janky” and “clunky”. Skyrim’s mechanics are far more intuitive accessible, but is often referred to as “shallow as a puddle”. Which of these you prefer will largely dictate which game you think has the “better” mechanics.
I wouldn’t say Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim mechanically, but it is more complex. There’s just more wrong answers in Morrowind, spears aren’t a different play style, it’s just an effective handicap for combat. Choosing major skills becomes a stat and level cap that’s never really explained, you just get a worse character. Walking into a wall for a few hours so you move faster isn’t interesting gameplay.
Lock picking and trap disarming in Skyrim is better than Morrowind.
The story and quest elements are generally better in Morrowind.
Skyrim seemed worse when it came to grinding. It’s too easy not to sit there and train on the invincible NPCs. Sneak walk into walls within earshot of hostiles, spam conjuration on rocks near hostiles, shoot arrows at NPCs that never die.
The person who grinds speed and athletics in Morrowind goes on to do cool things. In Skyrim they’d have like 8 more hours of playtime before they could play the game.
Weapon and sneak grinds existed in Morrowind too, you just couldn’t do them all at once without hurting your leveling. If you wanted to switch weapon types in Morrowind, it usually involved summons and spamming attacks until you hit them reliably.
I’ve watched multi hour video essays that have failed to make this point so well. Morrowind truly was where the series peaked.
Skyrim does at least raise a very good question that has stuck with me. Having to kill paarthurnax is always hated on by fans but I like it. What if your neighbor was hitler but he has reformed and was now living life as a good person? Would you turn him in? Why not paarthurnax? He committed unspeakable atrocities against humankind.
I’m glad people are finally coming around to this. There is still fun to be had in Skyrim, but it released around the same time as Dark Souls, Witcher 2, Risen 2 and Fable 3 among others. Not all of them are better games, however Skyrim most certainly isn’t the best one.
