Morrowind - Retrospective Review @ RPG Codex

Deuce Traveler of the RPG Codex has reviewed Morrowind:

RPG Codex Retrospective Review: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)

The two most recent entries in the Elder Scrolls series will never win any popularity contests on the Codex, but the hivemind is split on the question of which of the more well-regarded earlier games was the best. Arena is admired for its character progression and class specialties, Daggerfall for its dauntingly huge scope which is still unmatched, and Battlespire for its puzzles and dungeon crawling. But for myself and many others, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is the clear favorite. Playing Morrowind is an engaging experience, starting right from the beginning with the complexity of its character creation sequence.

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Although there are some quests in Morrowind that can be completed using stealth or dialogue, combat is unavoidable as you travel back and forth across the world and delve its many dungeons. Dungeons are no longer procedurally generated like in Daggerfall and are more thematically consistent. You'll find yourself exploring places such as mines, Dwemer ruins, and Sixth House fortresses. The Dwemer ruins are particularly haunting, offering a glimpse at what the extinct Dwemer civilization was like before their magical catastrophe wiped them out. Some ancient machines still operate and guard these vacant halls, creating an evocative mixture of steampunk and fantasy. Too bad that getting to all of these interesting dungeons can be a pain in the ass.

I believe the developers of Morrowind made a design decision that resulted in a glaring flaw. The game is amazingly detailed, with architectural styles and natural terrain that vary from region to region, city to city, and dungeon to dungeon. All of that detail meant that something had to be cut somewhere, and so the game's dungeons are very small compared to the ones in previous Elder Scrolls titles. Some of the dungeons on the main questline can be fully explored in fifteen minutes, which would have led to a rather short total playtime if you could run through them back to back. I also believe that the developers were so in love with the world they had created that they wanted to ensure that players took their time exploring it. And so Morrowind is the only game in the series where you can't fast travel on the world map. Even Oblivion for all of its faults handled this better by allowing you to fast travel to any significant location you have already visited. Your character can only fast travel using in-world transportation services, which means that in order to get to most dungeons you're going to have to hike painfully long distances. This experience becomes worse at higher levels as much of the wildlife is out to kill you while not being any sort of real threat. The notorious cliff racers are the worst of the bunch. They'll sneak up on you from above and you'll only realize they are there when you hear their annoying screeches and start getting knocked around by their tail strikes. I suspect the only reason the designers made cliff racers so prolific was to stop you from circumventing everything using levitation magic. All of this ensures that most of your time in Morrowind will be spent pointlessly walking from place to place, rightfully earning it the derided moniker of 'hiking simulator'.

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