Massive and hard,old school and ugly but really an immersive title even now.
Ok to start Daggerfall is just huge and I do mean huge.If you thought Morrowind or Oblivion was big then think again.This game I bet is bigger than both of those as far as a game world goes and maybe even some more.No joke its huge.You will traverse this world in any manner you want.Don't want to play the main quest then don't go join a guild or just go spelunking in dungeons or in towns have at it.You can also make a character the way you too.Its the essence of any elder scrolls game, you make the character you want to and play that character how you want to play him or her.The size of the game and content in it is just huge.So believe me when I say that you will find lots and lots too do.
You start off with the character selection where you can pick a pre maid character or make one from scratch.When you make one from scratch you get one of the best character creation systems to do this with too this day in my opinion.You will adjust stats,11 skills witch are the biggest part of a character,select how many hit points you get and even add special advantages and dis advantages that help balance out your character.You will pick the face you want to use and there are many considering the age of this game and then answer questions about your background if you want too.The skills are really diverse to some of the most diverse from the elderscrolls games.You can climb,swim,jump,cast many forms of magic,fight with a longsword,an axe pretty much if you want to do it you can pick it.You will then be on your way to a grand adventure.
The actuall game play is really fun,immersive and addicting all at once.That is after you make it over an equally massive learning curve.The combat is fun to me you use your mouse and hold down the right mouse button and then slide you mouse to mimic sword swings and its really solid as far as i'm concerned and it really gives you the impression that your really swinging a sword which helps to make combat fun and exciting.One thing you must remember is that if you can't kill a enemie its because you don't have the right weapon for the job.Some creatures can only be killed by weapons made out of a certain material like steel,or dwarven for example.So if your having trouble with that just try to go find a better weapon at a shop or something it makes the game so much better.The interfce is one of the learning curves that you must master to enjoy this game and you can switch controls to look around with the mouse and move with the keyboard witch works best for me.You can also map the keys the way you want too.All the menus also take some time to get the hang of but work really well once you get the hang of it.I have actually come to really like the world map screen and how you can type in a town or dungeon name and the games pin points the location and then asks if you want to fast travel there.Yes you don't have to visit the place first to fast travel to it before hand, you can fast travel to any location you want to.If you could not do this the game might get a 1 from me lol.You'll also learn the towns,how to chat with npcs and more and once you do like I said the game just takes off and even offers tons of replay value.For a free game you just can't beat it.
Like I said though the interface's and menus are a nightmare to get used too and some might not have the patience to endure such a tough learning curve.Not too mention that even at the start the game will test your mettle, you start out in a decent size dungeon with enemies that will kill you at times so save often.The map in the dungeons takes time to get used too so be patient.Talking to people even takes some getting used to but once you figure out the dialog options its easy as almost all npc's offer the same choices.Thats another thing for as much diverse content as there is in this game there is an equall amount of repetative content to match.Lots of like quests,all NPC's offer the same options,and towns and dungeons while different also feel a lot alike.Given how old the game is and the size of it its easy to over look some of these things however,like I said you just need some patience.
So for a free or not free game Daggerfall stacks up as a game that can hold its own and its still a fun and immersive game experience even today.