Gurn
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Cool concept with an evocative setting. The core gameplay felt spread a little thin even for such a short playtime (~ 1hr) but I enjoyed this experience for what it is and thought the sound design and lo-fi graphics were creatively utilised for some fun scares.
Though the features added in Rise and Fall are hit and miss, I would not go back to playing without it. The positives outweigh my grumbles: the loyalty mechanic brings welcome depth to city placement and livens up your borders; achieving historic moments feels great and so does being able to review your civ's history; and overall there's a lot more of what was already in the base game (new playable civilizations, new wonders, etc.) which together bring variety and longevity to the experience.
But while we're here, I have two grumbles and they're both to do with the Great Ages mechanic:
1) It was much more fun in base game when the big "you have entered the renaissance era" (or whatever) moment was triggered by you researching a renaissance era technology. The new system—wherein you are pre-warned that "the world will enter the renaissance era" (or whatever) in X amount of turns, and then it just happens—feels passive and thus dissatisfying.
2) Because the points that you earn towards achieving a Golden Age do not carry over into the next era, players who have already met the threshold for a Golden Age are encouraged to make odd decisions and avoid triggering Heroic Moments in order to score the points later. It's a level of micromanagement that feels narratively incongruous.
But while we're here, I have two grumbles and they're both to do with the Great Ages mechanic:
1) It was much more fun in base game when the big "you have entered the renaissance era" (or whatever) moment was triggered by you researching a renaissance era technology. The new system—wherein you are pre-warned that "the world will enter the renaissance era" (or whatever) in X amount of turns, and then it just happens—feels passive and thus dissatisfying.
2) Because the points that you earn towards achieving a Golden Age do not carry over into the next era, players who have already met the threshold for a Golden Age are encouraged to make odd decisions and avoid triggering Heroic Moments in order to score the points later. It's a level of micromanagement that feels narratively incongruous.
A game bursting with groundbreaking technology and interesting ideas, all of which are implemented so poorly as to seem quaint with hindsight. To be frank, there are many things that this fourth Elder Scrolls game does not do very well—and I find it a disappointing RPG when compared to its predecessor, Morrowind. Nevertheless, Oblivion is fascinating to revisit having played later Bethesda games; it is, after all, the successful manifesto that their subsequent releases built upon.