The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994, DOS) (CD version)

Format: DOS
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release Date: March 25, 1994
Playtime: 28 hours, 21 minutes (finished the main quest as well as at least one of each of the seven types of side quests; ended with a level 19 Nord Warrior)

Even though the word "gaming" is in the title of this blog not a single video game has actually been reviewed here. Why is that? Well, the day I started this blog I also started the first Elder Scrolls game. Today I have finally finished it. The Elder Scrolls has been a series with which I have always had a significant interest in, but have also been intimidated by their length. I have played a little bit of Oblivion and Skyrim (the fourth and fifth games respectively) along with a decent amount of Morrowind (the third game). Never have I actually completed one of these games or even one of the quest lines. One of my goals with this blog was to play more RPG games so I decided to go back to the very beginning. My goal is to at some point complete all of The Elder Scrolls games.

The first and second games, Arena and Daggerfall, I had very little knowledge about. Essentially this first game is a large open world role playing game. The first thing that popped out at me was how sexist the cover is. The scantily clad woman on the cover is degrading. Moving past that though to begin with I created my character. In these sorts of games I typically try and create a character which looks as much like myself as possible. Arena doesn't have a particularly robust character creation system as the later games. Essentially you pick your class either by picking from a list or answering questions at which point the game will recommend one to you (which you are not forced to go along with). You cannot create your own class in this game. I chose a warrior as that is my preferred play style.

The classes in this game are much more restrictive than the later games in the series that I am used to. As a warrior I was unable to cast any spells whatsoever and was only able to do magic with particular items. However, many items seem to be locked out for mages and classes like that so it goes both ways. I much prefer having more of these options open so one can dynamically fit into whichever class they wish to fit their play style. Beyond ones class the game gives you some attribute points to distribute into various skills (the most important for me being strength and endurance which control attack and health respectively, along with a few other things). The race you choose effects these attributes. I typically go with an Imperial (human) in these games but it is unavailable in Arena so I chose a Nord as it is pretty close and I am a fan of Skyrim (which is where the Nords are from). From there you get to pick your gender and your look. The only options for one's look is to pick your character's head from a bunch of premade ones. You cannot mix and match for example one hair color with another style or things like that.

Anyway, before I get into the actual gameplay it only makes sense to talk about the plot. In the fantasy land of Tamriel Emperor Uriel Septim VII has been trapped in an alternate dimension by a wizard known (and Imperial Battlemage) Jagar Tharn. Tharn attempts to corrupt his apprentice, Ria Salmane, but she refuses so he kills her. You begin in the dungeons with Ria Salmane's ghost form telling you that you need to escape the dungeons and collect eight pieces of a magical staff as this is the only thing that can defeat Jagar Tharn who is now impersonating the Emperor. This is a pretty generic video game plot in that it has a standard villain you must defeat and a bunch of items to go collect which basically function as plot devices to force you to explore the world. The plot doesn't seem to get more advanced in the series until later titles.

You begin the game in a starting dungeon. Immediately a few things are apparent. First of all, the controls have not aged well at all. The mouse essentially controls everything (more or less). You must hold down the left mouse button while moving the mouse toward any side of the screen to walk in that direction. Holding down the right mouse button while moving the mouse back and forth will swing your sword. So moving the mouse from the left to the right side of the screen will do a left to right swipe. Everything else can be done in two ways. There are a bunch of buttons at the bottom of the screen that can be right or left clicked (often doing mildly different things) such as using items or checking your map. These can also be accessed by pressing buttons on the keyboard which is generally preferable. After a while you get used to the control scheme but I much prefer a more modern WASD control scheme.

Supposedly getting out of the starting dungeon is extremely difficult. Ken Rolston (the lead designer of Morrowind) stated that he started the game twenty times but only managed to get out of the starting dungeon once. When starting the game I had no problem whatsoever. I leveled up to level three or four and found my way out of the starting dungeon in about twenty minutes on my first try. Maybe I just got lucky but I feel like the starting difficulty of this game is exaggerated. I will say though that the game does get pretty difficult toward the end.

Compared to the later games in the series this one is much more of a dungeon crawler. All of Tamriel is available too you, sort of. Basically there are nine regions in the game. Within each region are various towns and cities that can be explored. From what I can tell these are made by hand but I could be wrong. Each of these towns is more or less the same. There are inns that you can pay to stay at (to heal or pass the time, since other stores are only open during daytime hours), stores to buy/sell items, temples to get healing and diseases cured, a mages guild to buy/sell spells and potions, plus a palace which is for questing purposes. There are a lot of houses littered about but they serve no in game function unless you want to just break into one to use their bed (although I never tried this).

You can also leave any of the towns and go out into the wilderness. The wilderness is randomly generated so it literally goes on forever with long stretches of openness and the occasional randomly generated dungeon to explore. It is impossible to actually walk from one town to another so the only way to do so is via fast travelling. So even though people say this is larger than Elder Scrolls 3-5 it doesn't mean that all of this extra space is really worth exploring as it often feels bland and repetitive.

Compared to any of the other main games in the series this one has significantly less content (which is why I was able to finish everything in this game in under thirty hours). The main quest is ten quests long (although each of these are pretty lengthy) and other than that there are an infinite number of randomly generated side quests. Each of these side quests can be broken down into seven different categories. For example, one of the categories I would call "rescue". You go and talk to a king or queen in a palace and they tell you that one of their relatives has been kidnapped so you have to go to a dungeon, rescue them, and bring them back for a reward. This quest can appear an infinite number of times but the exact details (the dungeon, the person being rescued, etc.) will continue to change.

For my purposes I decided that completing the main quest and finishing at least one of each of the seven types of side quests would be considered completing the game. Some of these side quests were rather minor and would appear frequently (a delivery quest in particular) while others were much more work. By far the most complex side quest was one involving finding an artifact. Essentially if someone brings up an artifact in conversation then you have to go to a specific inn and pay money to get information about said artifact. There are sixteen possible artifacts and the game randomly selects one for you to go down. Without using an exploit (which I did not do) you only get one of these quests and thus only one artifact. The item I ended up receiving was the "Ring of Phynaster". This ring made it so that electricity, magic, and poison did not work on me. Unfortunately this is far less useful as it sounds because most enemies only use magic as their ranged weapon. As a warrior I often would have to get up close and personal at which point they would use non magic melee attacks to defend themselves.

The main quest is pretty repetitive but it does have some highlights. The first quest is escaping the starting dungeon (basically the tutorial) but then the middle eight quests are more or less the same. You ask around until you figure out who to talk to about a piece of the staff. Then they state that they cannot help you unless you do a favor for them first and find a specific item for them. So essentially you travel to a dungeon, collect the item for them, bring it back to them, and then they give the location of the actual dungeon you need to go to to get the staff piece. So basically you have to explore two dungeons for each of the eight staff pieces. The final quest involves fighting through the imperial palace and taking on Jagar Tharn (okay, it's a little more complex than that but I will get into that later to avoid spoilers).

The dungeons related to the main quest are the only ones in the game that are not randomly generated. Due to this they are way more fun and way better designed then the randomly generated dungeons of the rest of the game. Unfortunately about half of them are just standard boring dungeons. Even though they are handmade the designers end up creating basic ones more often than not. The best ones are the ones that significantly deviate from the norm such as an ice dungeon early in the game or exploring a large forest about halfway through.

One major complaint I have with this game is an issue that still plagues Bethesda games to this day: the glitches. The game crashed on me a number of times but worse yet was some of the issues I had. At one point I completed one of the main quests and then continued to the next area. I talked to the correct person but they would not bring up the required quest. Upon looking in my journal I realized that the game didn't actually register that I had completed the previous quest. At this point I was afraid that I lost a significant amount of progress as I was unable to properly continue. Thankfully, restarting the game made it appear properly in my journal so I was able to continue.

One of the most common glitches is that I would be swimming through a narrow passage of water. All of a sudden there would be an invisible barrier blocking the way I needed to go. Basically you cannot pass through enemies in this game and a door would be placed about the water. If an enemy stood in the doorway then the game would think that I am are trying to pass through the enemy so it would not let me pass. Since you cannot fight in water my only option was to backtrack to land, press the wait button for a few in game hours (which resets enemy placement), and then go back and hope there is no enemy there so I can continue. Lastly, the final cutscene involving Ria Salmane never appeared in my game. From what I can tell this is not uncommon in the latest version of this game. I couldn't even find the cutscene on YouTube (although I did find an excerpt of it online so I at least know what she said). The game also crashed the first time I finished it so I had to replay the end part to see the final cutscene.

The game is available in two versions. The original floppy disc version or the CD version. If possible the CD version is definitely the way to go and is the version which I played. For the most part it doesn't make much of a difference as they are largely the same. However, the CD version is patched to a higher version, you don't have to keep switching floppy discs (or have a floppy disc drive), it has moving cutscenes with voice acting (instead of still frames with just text), and a slightly alternate ending. Other than that they are essentially identical. In 2004 Bethesda made this game available as a free download on their website (where it is still available). Unfortunately it is the inferior floppy disc version. If you are looking for the CD version but don't want to fork out the cash for an original copy then it is available in the Elder Scrolls Anthology box set for PC where it is prepatched to run in DOSBox on modern operating systems. It is also provided for free with any purchase of an Elder Scrolls game on the GOG website.

Arena is a game that I have a very love/hate relationship with. While I was playing it there were many points where I was really enjoying myself as I was exploring the dungeons and fighting the monsters throughout. At other times the glitches, awkward control scheme, and boring randomly generated dungeons made me just wish I was finished with the game. I would say that if you are into classic dungeon crawlers or are a hardcore Elder Scrolls fan then this is worth a look, especially considering its shorter length (by RPG standards). For anyone else this game is difficult to recommend.

Spoilers

The one compliment that I have for the plot in this game is that it did surprise me when it was revealed that upon finishing the staff that it is essentially useless. At least they put this plot twist in their to keep it from being totally generic.