Yes , indeed after all the hate, complaints and criticism I can tell you that this game feels a lot more like an elder scrolls game than critics are saying. However, a lot of things don't feel like an elder scrolls game but that's simply because this is also an mmo.
I must say , i was really sceptical but as of late the game gets a lot of positive feedback from youtubers because of the numerous updates and the cancellation of the subscription fee.
It's one of the first things you notice as well, that this was a subscription mmo game. This game looks like it was pretty costly to make. When looking at the environment sometimes you think, hmm maybe there could have been more trees, or maybe a bit more creativity when it comes to the environment but seconds later you do realize that this game looks way better than skryim.
After all this is still an mmo as well and making extremely big maps doesn't always give you the freedom to make everything extremely detailed as in an single player game. STill I haven played the game for that long, and for all i know dense forests are in there as well. But to come back to my comparison with skyrim, this game wasn't made with the x360 and ps3 in mind and it shows, it shows big time.
I am already impressed by the quality of my staffs and how extemely good khajits and argonian look, they look like an actual race this time. It's not only the resolution, it's also the texture resolution and simply the amount of polygons. This game is not a last gen game like skyrim. It feels like early current gen, which it is.
What's also very good is the music, it's diverse, lore friendly and classy. Sometimes it has something spacy, cyberpunkish to it, but never enough to disturb the lore.
As for the lore, I'm quite satisfied and i'm a bit of an elder scrolls fan, not die hard but I'm already into the whole dominion, war for cyrodills, high elves are uptight assholes and khajit thieving bastards kind of thing. Books and notes are here as well.
As for the inventory/class/weapon/magic system. This game feels like a bit between oblvion and skyrim with a twist. In the beginning you chose your race but you also need to chose if you're going to be sorcerer, knight, rogue, etc... A little bit like you have to do in obvlion only now you have class based skills, so if you're a knight , you ain't going to get certain sorcerer thingies. It made me think about my character and the game was on.
Gameplay is certainly good enough for an mmo, it feels actually better than most mmo's but it still can't match single player though, at least not for everything. Mage attacks feels quite like other elder scrolls games, sword attacks feel pretty good as well, the bow feels a bit different though but still overall the gameplay is good enough. This is not a point and click rpg and feels quite similar like single player elder scrolls games.
You can play as first person and third person, I tend to switch between the two, especially first person is quite nice for the bow and sword. Mage and staff i like better third person, but this is of course prefererence. You can hotkey some abilities, like summoning daedra, fireball, storm, spear attack. You also have specific abilities to certain weapon styles , like bow , two handed sword, staff, one handed which you can also hotkey.
When levelling up you also choose what to upgrade in terms of magicka, health and stamina. You then get a skill point to spend on one of the abilities, wether they are class, weapon based, instant, self , active all the time etc. I'm sure you get the picture, this is the elder scrolls.
But and this is a big but, it's still an mmo as well, that means if you do a quest, there will be others there doing the same quest, sometimes it can be a bit frustrating if somebody else is killing the ennemies you were busy killing, on the other hand it's not always a bad thing when you're just about to die.
There is of course pvp but not everywhere, i haven't done pvp yet, and in the quests i'm doing there's no pvp (so don't have to worry about getting killed by other players) There are also solo missions and there you are playing actually single player . You can also team up with friends to do quests, boss fights ,dungeon clearances or in pvp etc.
I wish I could tell you more about this game but I thought i should review it today ince there are no reviews up yet after two days, which is understandable since it's a big mmo. On the other hand this game was already released on the pc, and some reviewers/sites probably think this is the same game. It is, but it had a lot of updates, making the game more balanced, especially in pvp (so 'ive read on numerous forums), the console version also comes with a lot of extra content out of the box and last but not least there's no subscription fee
And that's a big difference, this game went from 60 + 15 euro/dollar a month, to 60 all in and now you can play it on the consoles. Don't get me wrong, as a bit of an elders scrolls fan I do think this should have been a single player game, but it isn't and it's still quite good