Without modifications, Starfields combat AI is set to 20 active users, so youd get a clunky 10v10 at best, but really its probably going to be 15 orcs vs 5 allies and the player character
Its not the worst game in existance or anything, IMO its almost a straight up upgrade from FO4 in almost all aspects. The biggest problem imo is they fumbled the biggest aspect, exploration, ironically in a space game.
It leaves you feeling sorta like Yooka Laylee, who had most of the Rareware team who made the N64 platformers, well except the stage designer, who was still working at Rare at the time iirc. The Stage design was Yooka Laylees worst aspect.
Look, everyone hates the Thalmor, but a lot of Nords treat every other race like hot garbage. The khajit aren’t even allowed in the cities and people never stop talking shit when I play as an elf. It’s not just Ulfric, and the game makes it pretty clear.
My favorite weird RPG moment is when the grizzled veteran of several wars who you probably just saw murder a bunch of baddies easily in a cut-scene has just joined the party......... and he's level 1.
BG3 did a great job with this. Everyones backstory is pretty badass with all the stuff they’ve done but the argument is that the tadpole in your head is suppressing everything and making you weaker.
You're generally the spawn of or mantling a god in most elder scrolls games. In oblivion you get to mantle both sheogorath and the shezzarine pelenial whitestrake, though who's to say if they're not just two aspects of lorkhan.
I think The Eternal Champion from Arena transcended or some bullshit? But in Daggerfall you are just some dude who gains power of a reality warping mech for one crucial moment.
Battlespire I want to say you were just some random ass wizard? And Redguard you are just some dude trying to rescue his sister (?).
And even Morrowind is more complex than that since you ARE just some dude. But by following the steps of the prophecy (and, futzing with the magic artifact that created some of the gods to begin with) you BECOME a god.
And even Oblivion, you were just some dude who helped out Sean Bean until the DLC.
And I think in ESO you are something “Other” because of your lack of a soul?
The more I think about it, the more Skyrim is really the odd one out for making you a godling to begin with.
Old man yelling at clouds, but holy crap was Morrowind awesome. Actively questioning whether Tiber Septim/Talos was actually a god, exploration of the nature of the gods to begin with, bug based taxis, etc. Like, even the idea of whether The Nerevarine is actually Nerevar Reborn or just someone else who stole from the same god fount that The Tribunal did is explicitly never answered.
And then Oblivion immediately confirms that, yes, the Septims are magic linchpins of the entire universe.
It is very much not worth going back to if you don’t have the nostalgia, but check out Morrowind. You are still saving the multiverse but it is just so “weird” that it truly remains memorable.
As for CRPGs that are well worth a first play in 2023:
Disco Elysium. You play as a washed up amnesiac cop trying to solve a murder mystery. VERY much about “role playing” and while the main story goes places, it is fairly “down to earth” with a greater focus on exploring the philosophy of the world rather than fighting it.
Planescape: Torment. The inspiration for the former. You play as an amnesiac (hmm) man who woke up in a mortuary at the nexus of the multiverse. Your companion is a talking skull who seems to know more about you than he is letting on. And you explore the ad&d era Forgotten Realms multiverse as you try to understand why you can’t die, who you actually are, and What Can Change The Nature of a Man? Stakes get somewhat high, but it is still “down to earth” in the same way The Odyssey is
Tyranny. You play as more or less a middle manager for The Emperor who has conquered the world and is putting down anything even resembling a rebellion. Hijinks ensue, and you now need to navigate a civil war between two major factions while deciding what you will do with your greater power. Like all good Obsidian games, it feels like it ends about two thirds of the way through so you never really “save the world” per say, but you gain a deep understanding of what that would entail and need to decide if the ends justify the means. Also pretty notable in that it is an “evil” campaign in that even the “good” outcome of most quests is choosing the lesser of two evils. Like condemning a man to be brutally tortured and enslaved so that a town can be spared and so forth.
And special mention goes to Torment: Tides of Numenera which is inXile’s spiritual successor to Planescape, but I never actually got around to playing it. But everything I have seen puts it in that same category as Planescape of “anyone who has played this will tell you they played it because it is that damned good”. Mix of way too much going on and always being a bit off put by inXile’s approach to CRPG combat. Think I backed the kickstarter though.
Yeah. if memory serves, it both under-performed and under-reviewed which is likely why the follow up never happened. Glad that Pillars did well enough to not only get a (really interesting) sequel but also a Skyrim-lite, but really hoping Obsidian goes back to the concept, if not universe, of Tyranny. Because that was interesting and shockingly nuanced for a video game.
Pentiment is a good sign, but I really hope that MS realizes what they have with Sawyer (and Obsidian+inXile in general). Like, I get why old school CRPGs never grew beyond their niche. But these were doing nuanced and “shades of grey” stories LONG before people lost their god damned minds over why people think Our Glorious And Perfect Hero Joel might have done a single bad in his entire life.
Like, Sony have mostly taken over the “prestige television” of gaming as it were. But there is a lot of room to turn MS’s studios into the “weird indie films” of gaming.
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