The Elder Scrolls: Arena

This game is old, very old. But still holds the tales of time. The downside of it being limited to psuedo-3D graphics and clunky controls, the game still has a great story and provides great Elder Scrolls lore. You need to be patient to play, and even attempt to finish, this game. FYI make sure to save a lot, I mean alot. And clock you cpu on DOS box anywhere from 50,000 cycles to 60,000, this is what works best for smoother gameplay.

I hate to put a bad review under this game, but the flaws of The Elder Scrolls: Arena sadly outweigh the strong points by a lot. There are many things I love and enjoy about this game, but more often than not I am overwhelmed with frustration and it is purely due to the poor game design. The twisting maze-like dungeons that are just such a chore to navigate through, the unfairly tough enemies that destroy you even if you have the strongest gear obtainable in the game, and good lord is this game buggy. The amount of times that I have come seconds from escaping a dungeon and get a message that reads "insufficient base memory" is so stupid. Also, this game does not hold your hand whatsoever. I wasted about 15 hours just trying to learn the game and figure out the gameplay loop (which is VERY repetitive by the way). Once I finally did learn how to navigate the games story, things only got worse and worse as I progressed. There is absolutely no reason that this game should be such a struggle. It feels like they didn't know how to make a ton of engaging content so to keep us players busy they simply just ramped up the difficulty, threw in a ton of unfairly strong enemies, and gave us massive (empty) dungeons that just suck to traverse through. With all that being said, the game is free, so if you really want to try it out I say go for it. When I finally complete this game, I can confidently say that I will NEVER be playing it ever again.

I've begun the rather large endeavor of playing every mainline Elder Scrolls game in order from the very beginning starting with Arena. I expect this will be a lot. This game itself was already a lot. I won't lie, I cheated a little bit. I used online maps to get through the dungeons with less wandering and I have read plenty of forums online to get better a clearer idea of how to play the game. So this was not truly a blind playthrough on my end and without the maps my playtime would probably be double or even triple the length. I do think I would have gotten burnt out on the game if I did not use maps, however. I didn't get past Stonekeep for about 6 hours because it got so difficult the further in I went before I ventured off a side path and suddenly found what I was looking for. This is honestly pretty standard for Arena; dungeons are meant to be these sprawling tombs which hide their treasures from you behind empty rooms and twisting hallways. While this design philosophy can be fun, it certainly can become a chore after a while. Frankly, that is how a lot of this game feels to me. A pretty fun time with a lot of tedium. Obviously this is due to the game's age and while I'm sure I would love Arena had I been alive to play it in 1994 it tends to irritate the modern gamer used to more refine designs. That said, I do think this game is incredibly fun. It is wonderfully immersive in its own way, it manages to hold a lot of atmosphere and ambiance, and is actually incredibly fun. I just think you are really gonna need to follow some guides or use maps when starting out. The edges really show in the year 2026 and knowing what you're doing is half the battle. So, yeah, I definitely recommend it as long as you prepare and follow some guides to mod the game to be more modern. Maybe just wait for the OpenTESArena project to get a long further. Reasons to play: atmosphere, the origins of a lot of Elder Scrolls lore, dungeon delving and immersive fantasy living. Reasons to avoid: old gameplay and design, tinkering required for modern gameplay, difficulty.

주인공 혼자서 던전 탐험만 하는 게임입니다. 메인 퀘스트 던전은 정말 넓고 복잡합니다. 그래픽도 나쁘고 조작법도 불편하지만, 이후 시리즈에 비해 시스템이 단순한 편이라 클래식 던전 RPG 좋아하시는 분이라면 재미있게 즐길 수 있습니다. 캐릭터는 다크엘프 스펠소드나 브레톤 배틀메이지 추천합니다. 스팀판은 DOSBox 기반이고 기본 상태로도 윈도우11에서 잘 돌아갑니다.

I got interested in the The Elder Scrolls series and decided to start with the first game. The mechanics were fairly challenging at first, but I gradually got used to them as I played (without any mods). I enjoyed the game overall, although I nearly dropped it because the gameplay became quite repetitive and somewhat tedious toward the end. Despite that, the journey was worth it. Defeating Jagar Tharn and rescuing the Emperor felt incredibly satisfying, making for a rewarding conclusion to the adventure.

For a game that gets so much flak in the Elder Scrolls Community as something you should just skip over, I had a ton of fun with Arena. The controls take a little getting used to but I found them surprisingly intuitive after an hour or two of playing. The only problematic keybind in my option is the Jump key (which is J or Shift + J to jump forwards) if only because you have to move your left hand off the arrow keys to jump which either forces you to briefly move and look around using the mouse (which is a depressing experience compared to the arrow keys) or makes you stand still for a second or two after landing while you move your hand back into position. You can usually afford to take a second or two of time to recover from jumping though, so it isn't as big a deal as you'd think. I like the more grounded, classic-adventure sort of feeling that Arena has. Traveling between points of interest takes days if not months of travel and needing to ask NPCs for directions and rumors while in town really makes you feel like a proper adventurer. Having to visit multiple weapon shops and the Mage's Guild in hopes of finding powerful weapons and magic items, while kind of tedious (even after you get good at recognizing shops on the map without asking for directions) also contributes to this vibe of shopping about and getting prepared for your next dungeon delve. Speaking of dungeons, they're really fun. They're often maze-like akin to your standard dungeon crawler but the inclusion of tunnels and waterways you can use to travel beneath walls along with the occasional raised sections help make exploring them a lot more interesting than they'd otherwise be. Some of the main quest dungeons also shake up the "Find the staircase formula" by requiring you to find keys instead, which helps them from getting too repetitive. The Passwall spell is also a neat way the game allows the player to explore the dungeon their own way, allowing them to skip past riddle doors they can't solve or even skip entire rooms/floors if they really want to (though I just about never used Passwall except to speed up escaping from dungeons). You also get taught in the tutorial that raised platforms are safer to sleep on which adds another element to dungeon crawling where you want to keep track of safe spaces to recover your health, fatigue, and magicka. Some dungeon floors also don't have any raised platforms which forces the player to either spend extra resources keeping themselves healthy, risk being ambushed while resting, or risk pushing on to find the next staircase/escape the dungeon while in less-than-ideal straits. I also found the game consistently challenging but not unfair, so long as you're properly prepared. Resistances are very important, especially resistance to magic and to fire. In the late game, almost every enemy has some sort of magical ranged attack and you will get overwhelmed very quickly if you can't properly buff yourself with potions, magic items, and/or spells. It's also a good idea to carry a spare weapon with you just in case your primary one breaks. I found armor durability drained much slower than weapon durability so you're often more than fine without spare pieces so long as your armor is at full durability when you first enter a dungeon. As for the story, I liked the cutscenes you get from Ria Silmane which direct you to the next piece of the staff. I especially like that some of the later staff quests are less specific about where to go, forcing you to (again) ask NPCs for help and/or make educated guesses about which province to travel towards. I also like that Jagar Tharn talks to you after you collect staff pieces. It makes him feel a lot more connected to you as an antagonist than he'd otherwise be as just a "final boss" type of character that you never see the entire game. The only gripe with the story I have is that the final cutscene from Ria Silmane was cut from the game. She's supposed to explain what the Jewel of Fire is to the player which adds necessary context to the game's ending cutscene, but because her explanation is cut the player is left somewhat confused when they do actually beat the game. It's a shame that final cutscene got cut because otherwise I think the story presets itself pretty well, everything else considered. All in all, I really liked Arena and I'm glad I played it in spite of the community's general opinion. I heartily recommend it, especially to players on the fence about skipping it.

trash