The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall - Review

Author: Brokendownflier Date: Sep 03 2009 - 17:56 Score: 75 points

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall still remains one of the top RPG's of all time according to several computer gaming magazines even though it uses a dated engine.

What keeps this game at the top?
In my opinion the best reason is that Daggerfall is non-linear, which means you don't have to do things in any order nor do you actually have to do the quests--though these do advance the storylines and allow for a more robust game. Yes I said storylines, there are multiple endings to this game; what determines which you see are your own actions throughout the game. There are thousands of locations to visit and explore/exploit with tons of npc's (non-player-character) you can interact with.

Another thing is you can explore dungeons or just roam the land plundering whatever you want. You can buy ships or houses to store your booty but sadly enough there aren't any cabinets or furniture you can buy or use to put things in, just dump them on the ground in piles. You can join several guilds--even competing ones like Fighter/Thief or Mage/Cleric...this makes questing more intriguing due to conflicting loyalties. You can pick a preset class or customize your own with skills you choose based on about 30.

I must be fair though, Daggerfall is not without some quirks and a few bugs. The most frustrating bug is that you end up in the void if you aren't careful and the only way out is to reload a saved game. Thankfully you can save anywhere at anytime---use this OFTEN!!! There are a few patches available that take care of some early quest related bugs and of course there are some cheats out there for those of you who can't play a game without some sort of edge. There's also a bug where if you save in a shop, then reload your game the shopkeeper is gone and you can take anything you want without fear of guards trying to arrest you. This also works if you have stolen everything from a shop that you want and need to replenish it so you can rob it again. No bug fix was ever made for this though.

This game's combat system is the hardest to get used to as you use your mouse to hit things with weapons. The speed, directions and frequency you move your mouse determines what kind of attack (jab, thrust, slash, etc.) how fast you attack. Combat is based on dice-style modifiers like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons though you never see the computations.

My playstyle is to gather as many of the readable books in the game to store on my ship or to hide on second floors of buildings and use my bow & arrow to shoot any npc baddies that get within my range. You can also loot shops after picking or bashing down the door, but I'd advise you not to be outside at night in the main city as the ghost of a slain king haunts it-that's part of the main quest. The guards will chase you if you kill someone who hasn't attacked you first and it affects your reputation in that province until you either pay a fine, go to jail or slip off to another province and wait about a game month.

All in all this is a great game without excessive gore, even if there is some half nude females running around. For those with kids, Bethesda has provided an option to hide that and for those guys who play Nude Sims, there's a patch you can find that removes all the clothing of those half nude npcs. There is no multiplayer option.

Bethesda has recently announced that this game has been released as freeware as part of their 15th Anniversary of the game's debut.

	Title / Type	Submitter	Date
	Review	Brokendownflier	Sep 03 2009

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