The treasure that slipped out of their hands however could have been avoided if they are just a little more careful.
Graphics: 9 (quite pleasant to look at / love that day, night, sunrise, sunset effects)
Sounds: 5 (musical scores are weak / no voice acting (maybe to save space) / broken)
Value: 8 (big world however when it comes to the crunch, it's just a dungeon crawl)
Tilt: 6 (a good first attempt however the bugs killed it for me)
The best techniques are passed on by the survivors…
That's the message you'll see every time when you boot up The Elder Scrolls Arena. Apparently it was quoted by Gaiden Shinji, a Bladesmaster during the First Era, 947. This message sends a pretty powerful message as it's true however looking back after completing Arena, there wasn't much of this 'best techniques' to go by. Yet, even though it had a turbulence production cycle, littered with bugs, the sales eventually increase over time and thus the forefront of the present Elder Scrolls mega successful franchise.
The Elder Scrolls Arena was not the game when it was first announced back in 1992. It was supposed to be a gladiatorial combat game where your main goal is to become the ultimate gladiator. Developer Bethesda then thought it would be a pretty boring game therefore added features to expand this gladiatorial game. Well, as it turns out, the game had a total facelift and because of this, missed the December 1993 release date. Eventually it got released in early 1994 however the first edition was a complete mess.
For starters, Bethesda didn't want to change the title as considering the cover art was published everywhere and being a small company, cannot afford to redistribute this 'Arena' title. So they plastered in small print 'The Elder Scrolls' on top of it to differentiate itself from its original concept (gladiatorial combat) and added a plot that was so painful and clichéd, it hurts. To those who played Quake 2, remember those marines moaning 'stop it now…it hurts', well that's exactly how I felt thinking about the plot. Also, Bethesda was trying to justify this 'Arena' title by saying (in more or less words) that the entire continent Tamriel is in such turmoil it's like one big battle 'arena'…(stop it now…it hurts).
Why am I going into such detail into the history of Arena is because the entire game felt like it was constructed within minutes. Of course it wasn't however it looks like Bethesda finally agreed having a first person view role playing game (say 'hello' Ultima Underworld), the entire gameplay just didn't make sense. Yes, there were plenty of good ideas however the execution was horrible – it's like viewing a person hanged back in the days however the rope broke just at the last second. I know it's not the world's greatest analogy however neither was this game.
So the plot goes like this – emperor was captured by bad guy – bad guy sealed the emperor in a 'slow moving' time dimensional thingy – bad guy is new emperor – to find the emperor is to locate the staff - staff broken in eight pieces throughout Tamriel – hero needs to collect all eight pieces to open the dimension door to save the emperor and then all is well. Of course there is some padding as well however that's the crux of the story. Basically, go wander, explore and kill, then if you decide to find one of the pieces, do so then rinse and repeat until you find all eight. Kill baddie and game over (…it hurts typing this…).
According to the developer's note, their goal was for the player to design their own adventure. They also admitted that you cannot effectively remove this 'good vs evil' storyline however I beg to differ. Nevertheless, when it comes to exploration, they definitely hit the spot as there are tonnes of cities, towns, villages and dungeons – so many that I don't think anyone has 'done them all'. The reason for this is because beyond the city walls, the lands are randomly populated. That is, you can travel for hours on end without ever reaching the next settlement.
On one side, this definitely can make the player to create his / her own adventures – you know pretending that the villagers requesting you to clear out the local crypt. However the downside far outweighs the positives. For instance – using the crypt for example, all the random dungeons are extremely small in size so clearing out will take five minutes / the dungeons will reset once you leave (thus you cannot effectively 'clear it out') / why move to another location if the current can provide endless 'fun' (…it hurts…) and boredom will kick in real fast. The only positive I can see here is that some of the vistas are quite impressive however because of this random land generator, it's a matter of luck.
As for the main plot, because you need to collect eight pieces to reassemble the staff and the eight pieces are located in eight dungeons, all the main quests requires you to 'side track' to another 'set dungeon'. So in total you will be visiting sixteen plus (as there are some others that I not going to indulge you). So regardless of this 'never ending exploration', the game is basically a massive dungeon crawl. I think the main reason for this is to save memory space (as hard drives back then are very expensive and CDs weren't quit hip yet) so basically travelling the land are nothing more than a waste of time.
Character creation is quite decent considering. There are eight stats to allocate, eight races to choose from and eighteen classes to pick from. So basically there's a role for all walks of life. For me, I chose the Bretton race and played a spellsword class. Bretons are known for spell resistance and heck, I want to try out both melee and spell casting to see how effective it is. And looking in hindsight, it's pretty effective however casting can be easier using the mouse button instead of hitting the 'c' (cast), choose a spell and then watch the fireworks. Thankfully, casting a spell pauses the game otherwise spellcasters will be in a lot of trouble.
Why this is so is because the monsters are all rabid induced, steroids freaks that once they spot you, it's a duel to the death. Other words, there are no tactics other than bash (or spellcasting) the hell out of each other until either you or the enemy/s dies. Sad though as the game is designed to make the player 'feel' for each attack – meaning you'll need to hold down the right mouse button and wildly shake your mouse like you're overdosed on caffeine. There's actually some tactics involved when swinging your weapon (like up to down causes more damage however having a less chance to hit etc) yet trust me, just shake your mouse wildly in any direction.
Whilst set encounters are easy to spot (they always attack in front of you), it's those random encounters you need to be careful of. Randoms literally appear out of nowhere - i.e. one second the corridor is clear and the next, your screen shakes as you are getting belted from behind. Yes, it's that sudden and to make matters worse, it's based on your level. So don't be surprised when being attacked by a 'set piece orc' only to be belted two seconds later by a random iron golem. Yet out of this nonsense, it does add a little tension wondering when the next douche will suddenly appear.
Spells can heal you however the game is designed to ensure that the best rest is at an inn, for a small price of course. However 'outside' of town, you can rest on platforms however if you rest on 'ground level', you are guaranteed to wake up on the hour by some random encounter. Don't believe me, break into a house, rest inside and enjoy – heck it's a good way to level up at least. I personally do this often when waiting until the morning breaks as this is when the shops open up.
Speaking of which, a stronger point to this game is the day / night cycles as during the day you see people about running about doing nothing really however the important thing is that the shops are open. Nice touch though as you can see the sun moving across the sky. However when dawn sets, you see the town folks getting less and less until darkness arrives. This is when the random monsters come out and play and the shops bar the tavern, closes. So you can be a total wuss and sleep in the tavern until dawn or be a man, break into someone's house, rest on ground level and fight random monsters until dawn.
Travelling around the countryside cannot be simpler as every location is 'unlocked' – meaning you can see the entire continent from end to end. So you can practically fast travel from one end of the continent to the other and yeah, it might take you several months of travel, you'll get there eventually. However those set piece dungeons won't appear on the map until you talk to the right person and only then they will appear on the map. Also there are some side quests that require you to kill, say a medusa in a cave that also appear on the map once consulting the right person.
And speaking of side quests, there are no 'quest markers above people's heads' anywhere so you need to speak to chumps to trigger those. So when you are at low levels (less than level ten) all you'll going to receive at best is delivering pizza for pittance – other words, miss them or do it just for kicks. When hitting around mid-level (level ten and above), the kings / queens will look at you for assistance. They pay a decent sum and some even unlock a dungeon – pretty reasonable considering. And if you are extremely lucky (and I mean extremely), you can unlock an artefact quest. I only located one during my play through however I believe you only can wear one regardless. So if you want to be effective, just do the main quest line, break into someone's house between missions for a bit of R&R and repeat. Seriously, it's the best way by a long shot.
Visually, and thanks Doom for this, this game is viewed in first person. Not true 3D (as you cannot see their backs however there are some instances where you can), it's quite decent. Also all the buildings look the same no matter where you go however I think the building's architect is better when you wander outside into the wilderness than in the towns – go figure. And all the town folks look the same save the colour on their faces; a shame though as even though the game is large, in essence, they're all the same. Yet what truly shines is the weather patterns – for instance, in Skyrim expect snow, Summerset Isles clear blue skies and in High Rock, fog.
The sound quality is pretty much the same – good in some areas and dismal in others. The main musical theme is quite boring to listen to as it doesn't have that 'punch' like for instance, Heretic or Doom even. Other sounds like opening doors are actually quite well done especially when you are roaming in the dungeon (as doors can be opened by a frenzied mob too or they just get jammed in the doorway so you constantly hearing the door open / close / open etc). Sometimes the environmental sounds, like doors opening override the moaning sounds of, say from a ghoul so you only get one or the other or even none at all –yep a glitch.
And speaking of bugs, unfortunately Arena has a lion's share of them. General ones like clipping issues and broken sound files are common yet not game breaking. However major ones like those bloody memory leaks / monsters appearing above you when you are in a tunnel forces you to reload the game. Therefore it's very wise to save often and use more than one save file slot. The memory leaks mainly happens between load times where it just simply crashes so the morale of the story here is when you about to exit a level, save it beforehand. And if that's not bad enough saves can also be corrupted (pretty rare though however it happens) so use more than one save slot just in case.
In essence there are many good features in Arena that I didn't go into detail like repairing (i.e. weapons damage over time unless you are a knight class), spell making (mix / match spells to your liking) and auto mapping (as this feature was rare back then) Arena has a lot to offer yet it's riddled with bugs. Maybe because they changed the goal post from gladiatorial combat to a fully-fledged RPG and needed to release the game sooner than later (as they missed the Christmas period and being a young company didn't helped either).Whatever the case maybe, Arena is a game of lost opportunity – the treasure that slipped out of their hands however could have been avoided if they are just a little more careful next time.