Oblivion Retrospective: The Last Good Bethesda Story
Vložit
- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- A good Bethesda story? Hard to believe but Oblivion really is that good. Join me on a short journey back to 2006 to witness the beautiful work of old Bethesda!
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:38 Chapter 0 - The Assassination
06:50 Chapter 1 - Finding Emperor
12:49 Chapter 2 - Path of Dawn
20:20 Chapter 3 - To Hell and Back
27:50 Theory
31:20 Outro
SOURCE:
1. en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mehrune...
2. en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mankar_...
3. The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion Trailer
• The Elder Scrolls IV :...
4. www.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls...
5. steamcommunity.com/app/22330/...
6. The Elder Srolls III: Morrowind Soundtrack - 01. Nerevar Rising
7. Cat Saying Huh Meme Green Screen Template
• Cat Saying Huh Meme Gr...
8. TES4: Oblivion Analysis | A Quick Retrospective
• TES4: Oblivion Analysi...
GET IN TOUCH
Contact me at austpowerbiz28@gmail.com
FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL
Twitter: Jubbalubby
#rpg #openworld #bethesda - Hry
It's an interesting perspective playing a secondary character in the Main Characters story arc. You exist to make sure the Sean Bean reaches his full potential and fulfill his part in the prophecy. You're the Han Solo or Obi-Wan to Luke helping to get him into that X-Wing to destroy the Death Star.
The first video game I really REALLY played - spent so many hours in the countryside, listening to the beautiful music and having a great time. Oh I wish I could go back!
Assuming you meant to say game, but honestly same experience here. I was too young when I got morrowind and couldn’t get into it and all other games I played before was more of a fun/casual thing but oblivion was the first game I was fully immersed in and wanted to explore and learn the lore etc. good times
Yes!!! I’ve been playing and replaying oblivion since 2006, still chasing that exiting the imperial sewers for the first time high 😭
You can.
13:22 "... That guy in the corner behind me will follow me. You follow him. I'll follow you. Trust me... I've trained for this kind of follow thing all my life."
A cult called the Mythic Broads
Baurus and Sean Bean actually felt like friends by the end of the story. I can't say that about any characters in FO4 or Skyrim.
(Boone in NV doesn't count, obviously.)
I would agree besides Balgruuf. I feel like the main character has a very sound progression to becoming great friends with the Jarl. Saving his city obviously made this very simple and practical, but still. Love Balgruuf. Besides him, can’t think of that many friends made during Skyrim’s main quest.
@@emperorconstantinexipalaio4121 i agree, I was wrong to forget about Jarl Ballin'
NV is not Bethesda.
@@lukadubak7476 which is exactly why I said Boone didn't count.
Character I felt closest to in any Bethesda game was Caius Cosades. It's a real gut punch when he leaves.
Patrick Stewart is such a badass .
God I love him . He made this game experience unbelievable.
I love everything .
I love the games he did, like oblivion.
I love Star trek:TNG
I LOVE the movies like Excalibur .
A classically trained Shakespearean actor .
He was actually knighted . He’s just perfect
Must mention the NPCs living their daily lives and quests like Unfriendly Competition that relies heavily on you stalking the clothes thieves(grave robber) to solve it... It was mind blowing back in 2006. and when you think about it not many games since have done something as intricate. Even with modern tech and hardware and software tools.
i always did like how it's basically Martin's story, you're just his greatest friend and ally not the *chosen one* it was refreshing back in the day.
also yeah that siege of Kvatch was cool af back in the day, got a bounty for murking a guard by accident
I warmly recommend playing Morrowind one of these days. It's old and kind of grimy looking, but the narrative design, and the sheer volume of things such as faction quests (Morrowind has, totalled up, _300_ individual faction quests) are incredible. The main villain is also a lot more compelling than Alduin, Miraak or Dagon. Not to mention the fact that its formula is less about "hey cool adventure" and more about "oh no I just wanted to do a guild job and now I've gotten mixed up in a political powderkeg", which is imo a lot more compelling.
MW also spawned arguably the most legendary modding project ever attempted: Tamriel Rebuilt, which adds the Mainland of Morrowind, constructed to the standard of the game's original vision. With TR, the content of Morrowind *triples.*
It's definitely on the to-do list
Being the secondary protagonist made it way easier to role-play any kind of character. In Skyrim, you're locked into being the Dragonborn, which I don't love.
Damn! Ovlivion brings back some beautiful childhood memories
Dude wtf are you doing here at this hour 🤣
Oblivion will always have a special place in my heart, I’d give up anything to be able to go back to 6th grade and play that game again for the first time 😂
wtf is that Cilian Murphy but yassified in your pfp?
That Wii Bowling "Strike!" from fireballing a goblin in the tutorial, i already know this is gonna be good
This was my first Elder Scrolls game and I spent quite a bit of time playing. At some point I was looking for some information and ran into the huge Morrowind fanbase. After hearing how great it was, I tried it. Made me a Dunmer fan for life and I could listen to lore and theories about Dwemer for days. Great video.
Fun fact: This game was written mostly by Todd Howard and Michael Kirkbride with anyone in the team who felt like contributing (which is why some of the side quests were bangers). FO3 was mostly Todd, and after that the team went through a 'specialized' restructuring where only certain people had creative control, with Emil as lead which IMO is one of the worst writers in the whole game industry.
Don't expect anything good as long as Emil keeps doing what he does and everyone around him pats him on the back.
Hm...I've given this matter some thought and I think Bethesda's writing wont magically improve if they remove or demote Emil. Sure he may not be the best writer, but looking at later Bethesda games you can clearly see a trend: they deliberately write their stories around spectacles, these sort of "wow" moments as Todd Howard said. It's not a competence issue, but a design and something as such can't be caused by one person.
@@jubbalubby Emil is the creative lead, which means he decides what goes where, who he puts in charge of various tasks and such. I would say it's similar to a conductor in an orchestra but that's probably understating the importance of it as far as the game industry goes.
It's true that getting a different lead writer might not change much, but at least it would be a start on the right path. I mean the man admitted of not using design docs because 'its too hard and nobody pays attention anyway' for god's sake. Anyone with those views just starting out would not get a second interview let alone a job as lead.
I saw that talk of Emil. It does sound very bad what he said there, but I think this issue goes beyond the scope of a creative lead. That's a game director issue, or even higher on the chain. Point is it's not a one person problem and using one as a sacrificial lamb to appease the public won't solve anything. I think all we need to do is to play the games we like and don't play what we dislike, voting with the wallet and Bethesda will get the message. Or they won't and another studio will step up to do what Bethesda did but much better.
Emil is REALLY into "shocking reveals" over everything. Like, everything else can suffer for the sake of "the reveal". Look at "reveals" like the fact that Shaun is Father, or the whole Starborn nonsense in Starfield, or even the end of the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion. It's all just cheap "shocking reveals" that say nothing and mean nothing.
Emil's writing is like a horror game that relies on jump scares to be scary.
I don't think Kirkbride contributed as much to this one, mainly the 4 Commentaries and Mankar Camoran's speech in Paradise.
“releasing in the ancient year of 2006” F OFF IM NOT OLD WEH SNDJDN
It's ok man it was only 18 years ago...
Oblivion also has so much more enemy variety than vanilla Skyrim, i mean theres bandits, draugr, dragons, animals, falmer and warlocks. But Oblivion has bandits, animals, dreughs, all the different daedra, goblins, imps, zombies/skeletons/ghosts, minotaurs, necromancers, marauders, ogres, trolls, will-o-wisps and liches.
Bruh Skyrim also has trolls, skeletons, and will o wisps. Also spiders, all the different dwarven automatons, and dragon priests as liches
@@quinnlawless6263 there is a reason why most of the popular creature mods for skyrim are just adding in creatures that were in oblivion/morrowind that are exempt from Skyrim for whatever reason and yeah skyrim has some enemy variety but for 90% of the game you are fighting bandits and draugr
Morrowind is my favorite game of all time. I loved the strange, unique world that it portrayed. Oblivion was a bit of a downgrade-- but the Shivering Isles were top notch in strangeness and creativity.
Skyrim is the McDonalds of TES.
@@epaomirimiri Sad fact of Bethesda. They remove content each new release
A tongue shriller than all the music calls me
This was my first rpg I remember getting lost in the tutorial and spending days in there, still love going back and playing it
I disagree with your point around 5:15 that Morrowind requires a spreadsheet but Oblivion doesn't. Oblivion's enemy scaling means that if you aren't meticulous with your level ups, you quickly get outpaced by the enemies. Whereas Morrowind has some degree of scaling, but mostly has high level areas and low level areas, and you'll be strong enough to take on the end-game content regardless of your choices if you level high enough. In morrowind, a non-optimal build just reduces your level cap.
Fair point. I base that argument around the amount of skills, and Oblivion has fewer skills than Morrowind. The leveling up system is not really complex, just counterintuitive
I genuinely loved Oblivions main quest I never understood the general disinterest in it let alone some people genuinely hating it, maybe some of it stems from the allies for Bruma quest which isn’t essential but I get it, but even that for me wasn’t bad because I loved mass killing demons in Oblivion and you get a sense of accomplishment from the allies you receive for Bruma. Plus two of those cities have great quests attached, the one to rescue Farwil is fun and breaking the Siege of Kvatch is incredibly fun and one of the best side quests in Oblivion for me.
The main quest was really cool because you played a sideline to a main hero, you got to experience taking part in Clandestine activities as an agent of
the blades slowly unravelling the details about the Mythic dawn cult, if they leaned more into the espionage and spying elements the main quest would have been perfect. But none the less it was amazing and it’s still my favourite quest line to play in Oblivion.
whats unfortunate is i agree wholeheartedly- i played skyrim first, so i should have nostalgia goggles for that one, but i dont.
skyrim retconned ALOT of morrowind and oblivion lore about the Nords, and failed to follow up on the doomsday scenario the dragonfires being put out would cause. youre saying in 200 years, not one other daedra invaded tamriel?
After Martin mantled Akatosh he sealed the gates between oblivion and nirn forbidding daedra from freely travelling en masse to nirn. Some daedra still sneak through but now mostly require mortal helpers especially if they have bad intentions. The dragon fires are considered forever lit as far I as remember
I always figured that it was sort of in 'waves'. First the red demon guy, and then following that, the dragons. I always thought it was sort of 'Attack, wait, attack, wait...' between the apocalypse creatures.
You present a good point. I never thought of that!
@@rory0233but the dragons aren't daedra tho? If anything they are the son of a divine, the furthest thing from a daedra
I heard this theory before and it makes more then sense if you know who Dagon is and what he represents among the daedra. Also if you consider the things that happened in the first 2 centuries of the 4th era before the events of Skyrim (A huge ass war that nearly wiped off the empire from the map and made things much more unstable) than yes, Dagon got a Tamriel which is probably far more to his liking.
To me, this game was the first real open world game i probably ever played and oh boy i played the crap out of it.. I remember i first payed it on console, but than i realized how much im missing out when i discovered the God tier modding community this game had (and has to this very day probably) and it was my fastest game buy for PC ever. :D
But honestly, what made this game stand out to me compared to other bethesda games was actually not the main story, but its side quests. Like the one when you have to enter in to a painting to catch a thief, or you when you went in to the mind of some mage and the only way out was to help him conquer his fears and there was even a manhunt island scenario.. They were fun because you never really knew what to expect.
People like to meme this game these days for its clanky random AI, but the thing is that back in 2006 we looked at this game from a very different perspective. In fact this game was the last time Bethesda actually dared to do something new and kinda unique.
The spontaneity of Oblivions quests were and are still so much fun even after many, many replays; Skyrim’s quests lack that same quality and charm, as much as I love it as well.
@@mossyteef Yes, they always had some crazy twist, or sometimes they just suprised you from the very start, like the one when you find a village where everyone is invisible. Skyrim is still decent as Bethesda rpgs go, but often you only end up with fetch quests, or with "go kill this or that guy".
I like the end theory, even though we know some parts aren't what you proposed to be you give an interesting point of the whole crisis !
First thing we know that Uriel Septim had his visions from his gifts as a Dragonborn, he was one of the greatest of his dynasty and was blessed with his foresight, he saw the gates of Oblivion because he felt the great power of Change doing his moves and planning the crisis, probably that Mehrunes Dagon didn't expect the player but still planned that Martin Septim had a role with or without the player's intervention
Secondly, the Hero of Kvatch (the player character) isn't a "chosen one" like the Nerevarine or the Last Dragonborn, but is still a hero with a destiny even greater than both examples as it is later revealed in the DLC where he is the main character, even more than Martin I would even say. It is expected that Uriel with his foresight would have "felt" his destiny and his role to play.
BUT the whole thing about Mehrunes Dagon planning the Crisis not to destroy Tamriel but to create change in it is incredibly interesting and I would say that it makes lots of sense !
We learn in Skyrim that he clearly see the Mythic Dawn as expandable, they "served their purpose" after their defeat and Mankar Camoran's death and lost total interest in them past that point.
And, the most important thing, the whole Oblivion Crisis totally broke the hold that had the Empire over Tamriel, The argonian An-Xhileel arose with the Crisis and immidietly waged war against their past opressors the Dark Elves who saw Morrowind amost entirely destroyed, in the Summerset Isles the Thalmor arose themselves soon after the Crisis, taking their influence thanks to the chaos it created, the whole magic institutions (say, the magic guild) were dismantled because of the fear mages inspired to the victimes of the Crisis.
One thing is sure: The Oblivion Crisis enacted a huge change in the whole continent, revolutions, wars, political changes and it is THE point where the Empire's downfall started having it's peak with the war with the Thalmor
So I think your theory has a lot of sense from the point of view of Mehrunes Dagon , that the whole thing was a pretext to break the whole stagnation that the Empire's domination would have created
It's late for me rn so I'll keep it short. Mehrunes absolutely came to remake Tamriel, it is clear in the Mysterium Xarxes and from Dagon's origins. He was created of hope, and is the lord of hope -revolutionary hope. The indomitable will to overturn tyrants at any cost. The Magna-ge are heavily involved, it's cool shit
Ha i was 2 when this game came out and i still remember all them years playin it with my brother 😂
And the MUSIC is sooooo amazing.
You should have mentioned that for the Blood of the Daedra quest, turning in Sanguine's Rose opens a dialogue where Martin reveals he was a member of that cult before becoming a priest, which also explains how he has the magical knowledge to successfully read/overcome the Mysterium Xarxes. And also that the entire main plot is sort of a "redemption arc" for him to finally put his dark past to good use
I don't think he knew that, as he said he jsut gave the Azura Star as it was the easiest, but yes their is lots of hints that Martin was a Daedra Worshipper before and he know their magic and it is stated with the Sanguine Rose
I really liked his character, not as impactful as others, not as well written as others, but it is still a very interesting one with lots of efforts but into him if you dig a bit deeper than the surface
Are you using a Martin angry face mod? lol I swear he doesn’t look like that. Loved the video
glad you enjoyed the vid, I use a character overhaul mod but yeah, Martin with a scrunch up face is hilarious
I remember even as a kid when this game came out thinking the siege was pretty silly. Some level 1 rando who has been stuck in prison for who knows how long just walztes right in to hell and closes the gate? Nothing more powerful than some scamps and low level daedra to stop us yet none of those fully armored, seasoned warriors could do anything about it?
Once skyblivion hopefully comes out it will completely kill Skyrim for me.
I can't wait for Skyblivion to come out.
2025 cant come soon enough
Also a note on some of the things you brought up (even as a devil's advocate) as potential "bad writing," I think a lot of them can be written off as either gameplay limitations OR they're explained ingame/by lore. For example, Cloud Ruler Temple's whole deal is that it's an impregnable fortress so of course the Mythic Dawn couldnt attack directly. However, if they could destroy Bruma and cut off the nearest source of reinforcements/supplies for Cloud Ruler Temple, it would be much easier to siege. That and every major city was being infiltrated/attacked, because the goal was to weaken the Empire and basically soften it up and divide it for easier conquest.
Well considering there has only been 1 real Elder Scrolls game since Oblivion, I’d say Bethesda still have a good track record when it comes to Elder Scrolls story telling.
Your NPC face mods are HORRIBLE 😢
But good video regardless ❤
My first RPG. Everything I’ve played since doesn’t have the same magic Oblivion had.
this game was incredible. skyrim didnt scratch the same itch that oblivion did
The year of akatosh 433, these are the adventures of the starship enterprise 😂
Oblivion is also the beginning of putting the protagonist in the shoes of an observer of someone else’s story, only Martin makes much less of an appearance than the later main characters.
Fallout 3: James/Dad
Skyrim: Arguable, but I’d honestly say Delphine makes most of the player’s choices.
Fallout 4: It’s just Fallout 3 but your son is the main character this time.
Starfield: It’s you, but not actually you.
I liked the story of Skyrim with its Dragonborn DLC.
tod howard and his f**king horse armor was the start of micro transactions as much as i love oblivion i also hate it
if youre gonna do a retrospective on oblivion, i think it should be done without any mods, none of these npcs look like the ones i grew up with and they dont look any better than the original they just have more angular features. it takes the personality away from characters like martin, the emperor, baurus etc who were clearly hand crafted as they're main characters, look at the smarmy grin on martin at 18:43 for example, that's not martin.
It would be nice if it was put on the switch doubt it tho
To me this game is so much better than Skyrim in soooo many ways.
Fallout 3 was okay, too
Wait till you get to Morwind
going through it rn, great game
Definitely a better game than Skyrim, but the main quest sucked I thought
Wabbajack back to Oblivion
The modded faces look significantly worse
They look ok to me, but then again I've never been the best with faces
Not the last good story but better than Skyrim. More importantly oblivion had items you could find but not make so adventuring was fun. In Skyrim you make stuff stronger than can be found and the fun of finding cool stuff is ruined.
The game is vastly better with modded faces at the very least. Bethesda is stupid for not rereleasing Oblivion with better graphics, we will sooner see another Skyrim edition before that happens.
I think the last great game Bethesda did was Fallout 3. After that it has gone downhill.
Valid way of seeing it. FO3 has some very interesting ideas going for it, but as per modern Bethesda's fashion, they were never explored further than the surface.
I was about to say “hey new vegas was pretty good”! And then I remember that was Obsidian lmao
@@jubbalubbystill, F3 was miles away better than anything Bethesda produced afterwards. The only exception could have been Skyrim, if more polishing went into it and if it had way less bugs, like Oblivion. Skyrim was extremely rushed. And everything after that... Well. No comment on that.
I'm sorry, NO the main story of Oblivion is not only NOT brilliant. It is not even good. There are so many flaws I don't want to bore you with them but a few of them include EVERYTHING ABOUT JAUFFRE. Also I hate the idea people tend to spread about this game, playing as a side character. Like what? If we wanna put it in Lotr terms Martin is Frodo and the player is Aragorn, both very much main characters, just of different stories within one overarching plot.
Boomers don't play this, you need to look up the generation timelines dude, Supposed to be an exaggeration, it just sounds like silly Gen Z
I'll keep on misusing boomer just to piss you off
Morrowind is better.
Nah it was either fallout 3 or new vegas
New Vegas is Obsidian and you gotta be high to think FO3 belongs in the same sentence with "good".
@@jubbalubby yea but they also had a few of the original devs from oblivion work on new Vegas. I personally prefer fallout 3. To each their own.
i think you have a bad case of rose tinted glasses. the story of oblivion was extremely basic and utterly missmanaged.
I don't. I never grew up with Oblivion and finished it last week.
@@jubbalubby Dude just like fallout three you are not the main character famous actor guy is.
I dont see how thats a problem. If the story is good then who cares, and Oblivion has a good story.
Edit: And I checked. Oblivion came out a whole 2 years before Fallout 3 so that repeating plot argument doesnt make sense here.
@@jubbalubby no it does make sense, the same people wrote it, and both stories have the same problem, you are the catalyst to which the main character relies on to set the pace, but other than pushing the story along, you have no effect whatsoever on it, it is an elementary way to tell a story and give it the facade of interaction, so it doesn't matter they did it here first, they do the same thing in fallout three, which is the only part of that that matters
@@adeptusfantasticus which famous actor guy are we talking in Oblivion? As far as I remember, it was just Fallout 3 that had Liam Neeson in it
perfection...