The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

Daggerfall is a genuine gem of it's time. Unlike the other TES entries, it feels like an immersive sim first and a RPG second, for better and for worse. -Gamplay- Daggerfall is the blueprint that every other Elder Scrolls game since has followed. Leveling is done by improving skills through use rather than just killing endless mobs. The character creation system allows you to prepare your build early on or let you create a character to immerse yourself. The freedom to pick and choose what stats, skills, reputations, advantages and disadvantages you begin with allow every new character to feel unique, even if there's some easy exploits in the custom class creation (High Elf with critical paralysis weakness and the "U" key resetting the point imbalance on stats). The combat, in the original DOS version, is clunky, janky, and fully RNG dependant. You hold the button, swing the mouse, and the game rolls the dice for whether you hit or not, then rolls for damage. Arena and Morrowind follow the same logic, and from Oblivion onwards, was abandoned for a more intuitive "if it connects, it's a hit, roll damage" -The World & Immersion- High Rock feels geninely to scale unlike the entire rest of the series. Map is huge and interconnected, and there's a reason why fast travel points are given by default as soon as you leave the tutorial dungeon. Traveling between towns in real time is heavily advised against for that reason. I tried. It was tedious. I taped my W key down and left my game running for 20 minutes heading due east while I made myself lunch. Made it 1/5 of the way. The cities are sprawling, filled with NPCs that wander aimlessly. Shops and taverns aren't marked until you enter or a NPC gives you the location if they're feeling generous. Sometimes they'll tell you to leave. You're able to take out massive loans from banks, use them to buy a boat or house, it'll even calculate interest, but be real, most players will just jump ship to a different part of the world to avoid having to pay. The dungeons are massive. Often too big for their own good. You WILL get lost. You WILL regret not having a teleport spell to take you outside readied beforehand. You WILL keep doing them because you get loot to sell. -Graphical jargon- Game came out in 1996, and for it's time, it would be one of the best 3D PC games of that year, if not for the mismatched style of it's 2D sprites and Quake hadn't released running full 3D at higher framerates the same year. The render distance of the original release is poor, with a heavy fog obscuring your view beyond a certain point. It was intentional to keep PCs of the time from having to render more polygons for the environment than they could handle, and was funny due to the size comparison of the game's playable area to Great Britain. -Daggerfall Unity- If you want to play this game, play Daggerfall Unity. A fanmade port of the game on a modern engine with higher rendering distances, QOL features, bug fixes, and mod support. Texture packs, questlines, gameplay overhauls, and more are all available. It's just a genuinely better version of the game, and just as free as this version. Point it to the DOS version and it works simple.

This, with daggerfall unity, is peak Elder Scrolls.

Just....Don't do it. The systems and world are cool and its easy to get very good at combat, but the main quests are just awful. So much "flip random lever here behind hidden wall" to progress halfway across the map with no indication thats what you need to do. I asked myself so many times "how in the world was I supposed to know to do that without guide??" Its like the game was purposefully designed to get you to buy the accompanying paperback guide. Its cool to see the history and progression of what is essentially proto-starfield, but just watch a video on it instead the gameplay is just not good. 4/10 If you want play a worthwhile old elderscrolls game, start with morrowind.

Review Score: 10/10 Listen to me carefully Vanilla dagger fall is super dated In its base state, this game is a literal headache to play. It looks like complete ♥♥♥♥, the visuals are severely dated, and the default combat controls will make you want to throw your monitor out the window. Trying to fight enemies when you can't even turn your screen fast enough to face them is a full rage in itself. You will get incredibly mad at the smallest, jankiest mechanics before you even make it out of the first dungeon. and i dont mean it lightly you will die several time in the spawn area due to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ controls BUTTTTTT. If you take the time to mod this game specifically installing Daggerfall Unity, fixing the controls to feel modern, and slapping on mods that give it that nostalgic, clean N64-like graphic aesthetic without being to old this game transforms into absolute beauty Once it is actually playable, you realize the core concept of this game is mind-blowing. It is a true, deep, actual RPG in a way modern games just aren't anymore. The sheer scale of the world, the freedom to do whatever you want, the political factions, and the deep character mechanics are unmatched compared to newer titles One of the most impressive technical aspects is that, even with numerous mods active like i have, the game puts almost no strain on a modern PC. It is efficient enough to run smoothly on very basic hardware. by using mods that remove the original fog and extend the render distance, the scale becomes overwhelming. Climbing to a mountain top allows for a view of a massive expanse of land that seems damn near limitless. whats crazier is even that enormous landscape or horizon wherever you are represents less than 5% of the total world map. The game previously held the record for the largest map in gaming history. to imagine the size the world of The Elder Scrolls V or Skyrim is approximately 15 square miles, the island of Betany in Daggerfall which is a small landmass not even connected to the main continent is actually larger than the entire map of Skyrim. its hard to believe until you play the game and also realize its procedurally generated ultimately Bethesda had the right idea here even with how bad vanilla is becasue at the end of the day its a pc game from 1996 and if your used to games form that era im sure you can get behind this games ♥♥♥♥ controls becasue you grew up doing your whole life. me personally, i cant stand it becasue i stated playing pc in 2021 i need modern controls becasue pc feels way to janky when its not all in all Do not play it vanilla. Spare your sanity unless your a true at heart old school gamer like really old school and just download the right modern controls and visual mods, and experience one of the greatest RPG concepts ever made.

9/10

This game is a funny one... On one hand, it looks like aids. On the other, it's very addicting to play through. For new players I recommend installing the Unity port for this game. It adds countless QOL features and it also makes the game look less like an operating system's bios and more like a game that people with lives can play.