The Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind

Developer : Bethesda Game Studios

Publisher : Bethesda Softworks (NA), Ubisoft (PAL)

Year : 2002

Before Oblivion, and Skyrim there was Morrowind. One of the first open-world games that featured breathtaking exploration and promise of countless adventures, it was lauded everywhere when it came out. It was loved so much that people generally ignored its weaker sides, besides it was not like they had similar games to compare it to. I remember playing it when it came out, and quite liking it. I've never come even close to finishing it, and was planning for a lot of time to see if it was indeed that good, or relevant in today's standards. Well, now that time has come.

And I will tell it from the get-go, it is indeed still pretty good, albeit it has several serious problems.

Wake Up Prisoner

Not surprisingly (even in 2002), the main character is a prisoner released by the Emperor to do his bidding. That, and the presence of a dream voice telling you to wake up, are the only informations you have when you are cast out into this bizarre world. The game takes place in the Dark Elven province of Morrowind, and it creates a unique experience to say the least. It does not have the mainstream fantasy or medieval styles the provinces we have seen in other Elder Scrolls games have. Morrowind looks alien, bizarre, and fantastical. It feels more akin to a Star Wars planet than a province in an Elder Scrolls game, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to see the resemblence.

The world is huge, teeming with unique cities, dungeons, ancestral tombs, and the like, and it has fantastic lore which you discover from lengthy dialogues with NPCs, and books scattered around, keeping you curious and busy until the game ends. The main plot is not bad either, getting interesting the more you find out you are not who you think you are (or may not be).

...I feel a but coming

While it is a surprisingly relevant game in today's standards, there are indeed some aspects that many modern players will likely find bland, and/or frustrating. The biggest offender is the difficulty in finding out where you need to go, plain and simple. NPCs (generally) give vague directions to where they need you to go for their quests, and there are unfortunately no quest marks on the world map.

This becomes a big problem both on the wilderness, and in the cities. Morrowind's terrain is mostly swamps, volcanoes, and similar treacherous terrains through which passing is difficult, and you can not jump on or climb steep hills. Even if you have more or less figured out where you need to go to, getting there can still be frustrating, especially if you are not a wizard, and can't spam levitation spells. If you are also trying to find even the general location of a particular site, you will likely have a lot of periods of clueless explorations, many ending with a dead-end made out of mountains and rocks. I personally love the exploration in these kinds of games, even dislike having my hand held, or keeping my eye on the quest markers etc. which modern games feature a lot of, and Morrowind's exploration is pretty fun due to its bizarre and unique architecture, and geography, but even I was annoyed at some points. Most players will probably hate it.

The same problem also occurs in cities. The unusually designed cities in Morrowind are both the strong and weak aspects of the game. Strong for obvious reasons. The creativity of towns, and cities are simply fabulous. From a city built around, and inside of a giant hollowed out insect shell, to entire complexes dug inside mushrooms, to a huge city with cantons divided across water, the design is jaw-dropping. 

Yet this is also a problem, because finding your path in these weird locations tends to be quite difficult, and again thanks to the vague directions given by the NPCs, most of the time you don't even know where the people you need to find are anyway. The city of Sadrith Mora, and Wolverine Hall just outside of it are perfect examples. Your quest giver just says "Find this person. She has all the answers." Well maybe you should have told me where the heck the lass is at sir. Now I've got to look inside every nook and cranny of this confusing complex, and still not find her. If you at least told me where she is, I would still lose hours, but at least I would find her without going insane. 

These issues would be solvable with basic quest marks, as the later games easily figured out. 

Another lack of modern mechanics is auto-travel. Besides travelling with silt striders, and boats or teleporting via mage guilds on particular locations, you will hike everywhere. Planning your order of quests is essential to cut down the running time. This will again likely frustrate many modern players.

The other weak point of the game is its NPCs. The cultures these NPCs belong to are great, from Ashlander barbarians with unique customs, to various noble houses with very interesting traditions, the communities are generally very rich. But the NPCs themselves are lifeless, and have zero personalities. They are essentially there just for talking about topics to give you information about the world and politics of Morrowind, or giving you a quest here and there. Even the reasons some like or dislike you are just tied to your race or the noble house you serve. If someone from a particular district does not like you, all of the NPCs at that part won't like you. None of them has a personal opinion or reason to do so. 

I gotta hand it to the game's atmosphere though, in spite of its shallowness at parts, it still does a very good job to immerse you in its world. You really feel like you are in an alien, and fantastic world. This is also achieved by its then state-of-the-art visuals and enjoyable soundtrack.

Familiar Territory

The core mechanics are more or less the same as the newer, more known Elder Scrolls games. You still have class skills, and you level up as you improve them, which is by training or actually using the skills. There is still some level scaling. Monsters do not level up when you do, which is great for me, since I can't grasp how a common bandit would become basically a demi-god hero by robbing travellers. But instead the enemies get replaced by stronger types (like Oblivion also featured for example). This still help creates a sense of freedom, as each corner of the world will be equally dangerous wherever and whenever you go, so there is never a reason to not go where you want.

The skills work more or less like the usual stuff, but some of them could be better applied: Marksman skill is less useful than it should be. First of all, aiming at moving creatures is a tad hard, they tend to make sharp turns causing you to miss a lot, and the shooting dynamics are not as good as the modern entries. Secondly, your projectiles sometimes do not reach their targets even when there is visually nothing in your way. Aiming someone standing right over a hill, or shooting from corners cause issues. Alchemy skill is also very disappointing, because even though you can prepare poisons you can not apply it to your weapons, thus they are only useful for selling. It sucks when the image of an assassin with poisonous weapons in your mind can not be realized in the game. Of course loyal fans have made mods that can remedy this, but they are not subject to this review.

Cleaning Out The Rats

There are many quests in the game, and some of them are quite interesting. While most of the quests themselves are generic RPG stuff which is normal for its time, the interesting parts are the conflicting quests. Unlike most other RPGs, you can not both be a prominent member in the Fighter's Guild, and also assassinate one of its individuals for another guild, without being expelled at least. This makes the world more realistic, and I think it is the supreme system, but it may frustrate the completionists out there. 

Add in many guilds, noble houses, factions and the like, and you are in for a very interesting experience even in your replays. Not all guilds clash, but if the moment comes you will have to roleplay and set your priorities which creates realism. 

Unique Enemies

The game's enemies have also great variety, and creative design, just like every other feature in the game. From little bug thingies to scary looking bizarre monsters, they never fail to inspire curiousity, and awe when you first see them. As with the newer TES games, you can retrieve various alchemical materials from their corpses.

But as you level up, travelling in the wilderness starts to be a problem. Yep, you know what is coming. Meet the Cliff Racers, possibly the most annoying enemy...of all video games. They are so frustrating that fans made mods that annihilated the screeching pests from all of Tamriel even in 2002. They are not badly designed, but the whole province is infested by them toward the end game, causing you to face them every few steps you take. To boot, when one of these critters see you, they start to slowly, slooowly descend and you have to wait for the inevitable battle. If you decide to ignore them, or run away, they always reach you and this time scare you with their sudden screams and hits. They are such a serious problem they actually subtract significant enjoyment from the game.

Final Verdict

It may feel like I didn't think much of the game but on the contrary, I think it is a very good game. Not only for its time (it IS amazing for its time), but for the present as well. It is nearly as enjoyable as the later TES games, and for some people it is still their favorite. For me, in terms of world design, creativity, and its cultures, it is the best the series has to offer. But the gameplay is not as entertaining as the newer entries, which is a high bar indeed. In general, I urge every roleplaying fan to try this game to decide for themselves.

Rating : B+