#daggerfall unity

Over the course of the past month, I played Daggerfall for the first time. Since it's an older game and not part of the big three TES games I felt it would be neat to write out a little review to provide an extra perspective for people curious about the game / potentially interested in playing it.

I'll also pepper in some screenshots I took during my time playing the game for some visual flavour.

Before I get into my actual thoughts, I should probably give some extra specifications of how I played through the game:

Like pretty much everyone else, I played the Unity version. I followed the installation tutorial on the UESP and it was a quick and easy experience.

No mods were installed.

Smaller dungeons were enabled.

Guild quest selection screen was enabled.

I allowed myself to use the UESP walkthroughs for story dungeons.

I had pre-existing knowledge about the game from watching Just Background Noise and Ragnarok videos on Youtube beforehand.

Picture of the city Glenpoint, where I spent some time doing quests for the Resolution of Zenithar.

With that out of the way, it's time for the actual review part. Let's start with the positives:

Daggerfall is a challenging game, but in a fun way. Every dungeon and enemy is seemingly designed to test specific parts of your character build, meaning that you will be tested every time you go on a new quest. As long as your build has at least one counter to whatever obstacle the game throws at you, then you can realistically complete your objective. On the other hand, if you didn't take into account e.g. the possibility of contracting a disease then you're screwed and you will die a lot. A harsh but fair system.

The smaller scale dungeons are pretty much perfect for me. They provide nice 20-minute adventures without sacrificing that sense of discovery and challenge.

The class creator is by far the best one that the TES series has to offer. You are allowed an incredible amount of freedom to create whatever kind of build you want, ranging from the most minmaxed powerhouse to the most pitiful mortal that Tamriel can produce. You will also immediately know where your build falls, since Privateer's Hold is as much a dungeon designed to break your character build as it is a tutorial.

Similar to the class creator, the spellmaker is fantastic in this game. Once again lots of creative freedom granted to the player.

The fact that spells scale with your character as you level up is an amazing mechanic and I think it would've single-handedly saved Skyrim's magic system without the need for spellmaking.

The plot itself was compelling enough to keep me going along with the main quest. I like that it was essentially 2 stories that culminate in one big ending. My favourite quest was probably either The Missing Prince or Orcish Emancipation.

Mannimarco's look in this game is peak character design.

My character, Kataarinna of Sunhold, at the beginning of the game (left) and more details about the good but flawed custom class I put together for her (right).

Unfortunately, there are also some negatives that should be talked about:

There was little to no diversity in the passive / neutral NPC's. You only meet Bretons in High Rock and only Redguards in Hammerfell, but a lot of the Redguard NPC's are also very pale and practically indistinguishable from the Bretons. The only times I came across dark-skinned Redguards was when I visited more rural towns in the Alik'r Desert. Daggerfall Unity does change Barenziah, Morgiah and Helseth to be Dunmer, sure, but in the original version of the game they were also Bretons.

If Skyrim's puzzles are insultingly easy, then Daggerfall's puzzles are frustratingly hard. I always consulted the UESP to get them over with.

The quest journal is unintuitive and provides only minimal information. I ended up making my own quest journal outside of the game.

In Direnni Tower, you can become trapped if you set your anchor next to Medora. This is because the dungeon resets when you exit it, including the "moving walls" puzzle leading to her chamber, and this effectively seals you inside. You can only get out by either reloading a save or by briefly toggling on noclip ("tcl" in the console).

All weapons and armours have the same base design regardless of material, with only the colour distinguishing them.

The dialogue system is quite bare bones.

Just look at the map for Lysandus' Tomb. Would you be able to navigate this with relative ease and in a reasonable amount of time? Also, why does touching an ominous floating skull teleport you when up until this point in the game teleporters were always represented by red bricks?

Now, is Daggerfall worth playing for its pros and in spite of its cons?

Definitely! Even if you're just curious about what TES was like 30 years ago, it's certainly worth it to give it a try as the positives vastly outweigh the negatives in my opinion. Besides, it's completely free and Daggerfall Unity is also very easy to mod (it's as simple as dragging a file into the appropriate folder) so even if you don't like it, the only thing you've lost is a bit of your time.

His name? Demetrate Tibersus.