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What are your memories of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?

I was LTTP... didn't play the game until 2010 or so

i knew about the game via neogaf for about five years... piqued my interest a bit because it seemed like "the GTA of RPGS" but i never went out of my way to play it. along the way i had dicked around with morrowind on my potato laptop, but somehow i didn't even know the games were connected in any way (all cRPGS were just a singular blur to me back then, a distant curiosity i figured i'd never be able to wrap my head around)

then the Skyrim hype started and it just seemed like the most epic fucking thing ever. soon learned that was the fifth game, morrowind was the third, and so on.

my boss for whatever reason left a copy of Oblivion 360 on my desk along with a fatass strategy guide. why he did this i'll never know because i never even talked about games with him, and i didn't even have a 360 back then ... so figured what the hell and picked up a refurbed 360 on my way home....

i could tell the game had already aged considerably but man it really did blow my head wide open. i can only imagine how somebody felt playing it in 2006... sounds kind of lame with all the crazy stuff you can do in the game but my most memorable moment was the main quest, trekking down to Kvatch for the first time, gawking at the vistas (despite the uggo foliage popup) and then HOLY FUCK there's a demon portal in place of the town... and i have to go in there?? .... kinda funny looking back as, Oblivion gates are the lamest part of the game but that sort of stuff is what RPGs are all about to me

unfortunately Skyrim was so tempting i quickly shelved the game and bought that instead . so i never really got to sink my teeth into it. today i have Oblivion loaded to the gills with mods but it's still hard to sit down with it for more than an hour or three... one of these days i'll do a proper playthrough. it's on my bucket list

so yeah, never got to put too much time into it but it probably changed my gaming life forever
 
Putting hours into it then being told by npc1 to go find npc2, then getting to npc2 and being told to go see npc1, then going to npc1 and being told to go see npc2... rinse repeat into eternity, never to be played again.

Was also ethereal in it's beauty at the time.
 
I really enjoyed Oblivion when I played it on 360 on launch. The combat was never that great playing as a melee character but I had so much fun exploring the world. I have some good memories just exploring and listening to the music.

I feel like jumping back into Skyrim with the remastered edition, I really enjoy the open fantasy world with the music playing as I explore. Theres something really relaxing about it, until the fighting music picks up aaaaaaaaaand its just a mud crab.
 
It had some great quest lines, like the Thieves Guild one, the vampire related ones, and larger DLC packs.

But too many of the other quests boiled down to having to clear out similiar dungeons. I remember one quest the started out as a battle outside, and I thought "finally! At least it's outside!", followed by "Noooh, don't run into to another damn dungeon!", which I of course had to clear out.
 
Spent basically all of my time in the game playing the their side missions.

Barely played any of the story.

Also, crouching. Lots of crouching. And bows and arrows.
 
I remember leaving the sewer and having the freedom to do whatever I want. It was my first open world game and my mind was blown.
 
Oblivion was and still is to this day my most favorite game of all time. It was my first true open world experience. I had a shit computer back then that could barely run it on medium settings and I was nonetheless blown away by the lush woods and the (at first glance) huge imperial city. I remember a dozen of fond experiences and events in the game that I'll probably never forget. For one I loved stealing things and busting locks open to reveal what's behind locked doors. So, naturally, I would visit every house in the imperial city to check out what they hid behind their doors. This was also when I realized that you could steal stuff from people when they were asleep. So I made it my task to steal everything the sleeping person had on them resulting in my victims waking up stripped down to their underwear. In one house there was this imposing Bosmer, with a gold dwarven armor that I just had to have. I think he was even part of a quest line or something. Needless to say, the dude was walking around half naked ever since and I found it to be hilarious.

I also wanted to discover every hidden thing so during my exploration I stumbled upon ritual sites in cellars, a hidden village of I think it was cannibals?! It was these situations of total random discoveries that made the game so special for me.

What was especially awesome was that most of my friends played the game at the same time, so during recess, we would all get together and report on all the fun stuff we discovered and witnessed during our play sessions the other day.

I've played the game several hundreds of hours over the last decade, but funnily enough, I never actually finished the main quest. I was always so satisfied with all the side quests and exploration that at one point I didn't even have the urge to finish the main story.
 
I remember playing a lot of it early on, despite my PC being garbage at the time. I got like, 20 fps *tops* for probably 50 hours.

I would later buy it on every single platform it hit as I switched through different consoles and eventually got a PC that could do it justice. So yeah, I liked it a lot.

I played ES growing up, so I was already a fan of the series when Morrowind made it a mainstream console success, and Oblivion just furthered that.

Of course, I also remember fucking hating Oblivion Gates. I still don't know who greenlit those boring fucking zones.
 
- Horse armor

- I remember enjoying the Dark Brotherhood questline, but don't remember anything about it.

- The game was about closing Oblivion Gates or something.

Yeah, the elder scrolls universe is not particularly memorable to me.
 
Coming to it way too late and thinking it was janky (360 version) and that there were too many Oblivion gates so I stopped playing it. The gladiator arena story line was cool though.
 
I loved Oblivion, in spite of it not being as good as Morrowind in some key areas.

The landscapes were just so amazing, especially for their time.
 
For some reason i started doing all the sidequests, then when i had to do the main quest i didn't like it and quit it.
 
I'm sure I got guide by a external force to play this game.

I got hooked quickly and cheated at the beginning, I remember.

I've been a vampire and a stealer and a murderer.

I've finish it.

Very good game.
 
My memories of Oblivion are Horse Armour and being put off because of NPC Level Scaling and the repetition of the Oblivion Gates. I've heard some great stories and i'm sure there's some mods on PC that will fix my issues with the game.
 
My thought process was basically:
"Wow, this is gorgeous!"
"...This dialogue mini game sucks..."
"This isn't as good as Morrowind."
"OK this main quest is dogshit, I'm gonna go do my own thing."

I then proceeded to have a great time mucking around with exploration, side quests and mods. 100+ hours of fun. The game cops a lot of slack, and is the worst Elder Scrolls game I have played, but I had some fun with it and no regrets.
 
It's easy to criticize now with other games to compare to but it was a masterpiece when it got out...

I just hated the huge faces on the screen whenever you needed to talk to NPCs.
 
I remember a lot of walking backwards and swinging a sword. Seriously.

Besides the combat i loved it. Morrowind was better, but oblivion was great as well.

I remember hating the green gates popping up all the time. I always feel the sidequests in these games are way better than the main story.
 
I played it a bit on release but it never quite stuck with me then. My best experience with the game was probably around 2009-2010 when the modding scene had really matured. I installed OOO, Midas Magic, Unique Landscapes, a whole bunch of quest and dungeon mods, etc and had a really great time with it.

Lactose_Intolerant said:
Turning off bloom
Click to expand...

I also thought the game was better with distant land turned off and replaced with ye olde fog. Not only was it a bit of an eyesore with the low quality assets, but it also managed to make the world feel so small.

marciocdb said:
It's easy to criticize now with other games to compare to but it was a masterpiece when it got out...
Click to expand...

People keep saying this, but there was plenty of critique and disappointment aimed at the game even back then.
 
I was pretty young when I played it so I have lots of fond memories with it. Loved it of course, just wandering and stumbling upon dungeons or oblivion gates and the sky turning red.
 
Disgust. Hated the game on day 1 and couldn't believe how bad it was compared to Morrowind. Worst sequel to a game I love I have ever played. The discrepancy in quality is just astounding. Deus Ex 2/Alundra 2 tier sequel.

Unmodded the game is barely functional. The aggressive level scaling made for a horrible day 1 experience.
 
Xater said:
- Horse armor

- I remember enjoying the Dark Brotherhood questline, but don't remember anything about it.

- The game was about closing Oblivion Gates or something.

Yeah, the elder scrolls universe is not particularly memorable to me.
Click to expand...

The Elder Scrolls universe is actually really interesting and very in-depth, it's just that Bethesda does a terrible job of translating the lore to the gameworlds they create.

If I remember correctly most of it was written by Michael Kirkbride, who has left Bethesda quite a long time ago.
 
It blew my mind, and I had played hundreds of hours of Morrowind so my expectations were high. My memories of my first experiences with it are abstract and atmospheric, and I still get the same warm and fuzzies when I play it today.
 
Really enveloped by how much freedom there was coming out of the prison. Didn't like being recommended airy-fairy 'Scout' and went Knight. Realised the game was right, so restarted.

Really got into my character, and ending was impactful. Stopped after, I think, clearing the Arena. Recall having constant Oblivion gates got boring after a while.
 
Made a beautiful character only to end up ugly and wrinkled from becoming a vampire and jumping around everywhere to build up a stupid jump experience.

Otherwise, it looked gorgeous!
 
I'm still playing it on and off (bless you, backwards compatibility!). Got a "Gandalf" character on the go right now, pure Mage with a one-handed sword, just for fun.

My first memories are many and varied.

Obviously that view after the sewers! I'm one of the people who went straight across the water and down into the Ayleid ruin nearby.

Ayleid ruins were great. So spooky and atmospheric.

The music still stands out in my mind. I can think of a few different themes from the soundtrack off the top of my head easily, and my memory isn't great in that way, so it must have made an impression.

The size of the Imperial City blew me away. I loved how the npc's had daily routines and would stop and talk to each other as they went about their business.

The size of the open world blew me away. It was the big, beautiful fantasy world of my gaming dreams.

Kvatch was excellent. It felt so epic. The way the sky changed as you approached was an "Oh shit, something's going down!" moment.

The Oblivion gates felt dangerous and had a wonderful, creepy, unnatural vibe. It felt like going in to close one was an heroic tale of it's own.

All the questlines felt big and sprawling and satisfying to complete. There was so much to do. A crazy amount of people to meet, problems to solve, places to see and loot to find.

Shivering Isles is one of my favourite expansions of all time. Bizarre and colourful place (ruled over by a bizarre and colourful dude). I liked that you had to fight the Gatekeeper to get in to the place. That's the kind of idea I'd like to see more of from Bethesda. It's a simple thing, but it works well.

And on and on... I just loved it. I still love it. Oblivion was a definite gaming milestone for me as well.
 
I played it after Skyrim and liked it more. At least it tried to have a story and mission design, and not being the protagonist of the story was great.
 
I remember getting goosebumps playing the Dark Brotherhood segment. I don't know if its rose colored glasses but it made me enjoy Skyrim's version more than I would have if I skipped that part.

Also Shivering Isles.

I still listen to the OST.
 
I remember seeing how much detail went into the hilt of a great sword I was carrying. It blew me away. Morrowind never had graphics that good.
 
Loved it. I recall have upwards of 1000+ saves on my 360. Played a lot of the PC version also. It was repetitive toward the end.
 
I remember happening on a plantation with Kajit slaves. I made it my mission to free those slaves. I was way underleveled to do it but I kept coming back and persisting. As far as I know there was no quest arc to do it, it's just something I wanted to do. There still hasn't been an open world game to offer me that kind of experience.
 
It was the first console rpg I played of that Gen after being addicted to wow for 3 years and was severely let down. Combat sucked, faces sucked, the dungeons were all bland and similar, the story was ass, the daedric gates were hell to get through (hehe), the overworld was also bland and similar, the class/skill system felt half-assed, constant loading screens for buildings, fast travel from the start, towns that looked mostly the same, the dialog system was a mess, the only major city was heavily segmented and not very large, the bloom was blinding, 3rd person camera was extremely clunky/janky. It had some good side quests though and the soundtrack was nice.

I found Skyrim to be much better (along with almost every subsequent console rpg I played). Never played Morrowind but I imagine I would have liked that better.
 
Bought it and a 360 and played it for an entire spring break. I was a huge Morrowind fan and was blown away by Oblivion. Its faults are much more apparent in hindsight, but at the time I was just amazed at everything.
 
I worked a summer job, saved money and bought my first computer of my own, foremost to run Oblivion nicely.

I remember picking ingredients in the woods in the rain, such a nice atmosphere...
 
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