Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-24.158.236.107-20131005022905/@comment-68.110.121.91-20190628192957

I can't say much about Arena. I haven't played it, and what I've seen of it just makes me think of a less fleshed out Daggerfall.

Now, as for Daggerfall... Obviously, you're looking at an older game. The graphics aren't going to be the thing that draws you in, though they are quaint. I remember liking some of the music, though it's obviously not Jeremy Soule's amazing work.

The thing about Daggerfall though, is that first, you should consider when it was released. Other than Arena, I know of no game which remotely resembles it. It's an open world RPG with no pressure to do your main quest. How novel! Also, you level your skills by using them. That's so cool!

Even more than that, though, realize that Daggerfall is the most complex of the Elder Scroll games in terms of mechanics. Each game which followed dumbed things down and removed features. For example, where's the bank in Morrowind where you can borrow money to buy your own house? Yeah... I think they removed the trial system when you were arrested, too. And you can't climb anymore. You could climb any damn vertical surface in Daggerfall.

Daggerfall was the last game in the Elder Scrolls series, I think, where someone was trying to fulfill an artistic vision, instead of a sell a game, and I think that's very, very sad, because the former breeds excellence, while the latter breeds mainstream-consumable mediocrity.