4.5/5 ★ – PhatBaby's review of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.

*Walks over to my PlayStation. smells the fumes from its industrial-grade, jet-engine sounding fan, inhales deeply* Black magic was conducted here... Honestly, I have no clue how the fuck this was made. People keep saying: "omg, it actually looks like how I remember it looking when I was a kid!" And that's absolute shite. I played this game RELIGIOUSLY as a child and let me tell you, it always looked like the landscapes were made of playdough and everyone's face was a melting pickled onion. Somehow, this is one of the prettiest RPGs I've ever played, and what's even more impressive is that it's taking Oblivion for what it is, going in with a surgeon's scalpel to make it a little less archaic and weird, then re-unveiling it unapologetically as Oblivion. Everything that made Oblivion so ridiculously goofy and great, from the radiant AI conversations to the hilariously convoluted speech mini-game to the way characters will ferally lunge out of nowhere to initiate their scripted conversations. It's all here. And that's the kind of love I, as a lifelong fan of this doofy-ass masterpiece, absolutely cherish. It's Bethesda and Virtuous looking at the magic of a game like Oblivion and trying to follow its vision to make it the best it can be, not reinvent or reimagine it to make it something new. And that's what a remake or a remaster should be. Oblivion had so many good ideas, but trying to get people who played Skyrim to give it a go was impossible. Now, there's a version that introduces them to how it plays, how weird it is and what makes it so special, but doesn't lose their attention instantly because it looks like heavily-saturated mush and plays like ass. Visually, it's gorgeous, every refinement is fantastic (New UI, a good character creator, better facial animations and the reticule specifically rock) and the fact that it isn't ashamed of the silliness makes you quickly realise that it was put together by people that understand why we still fuck with it. And yes, it's still buggy. I actually felt it was MORE buggy than the original, to the point where I'd talk with friends playing it, mention a bug jokingly, and they'd all be like, yeah, I've had that one too. Plus, they said they fixed level scaling, but once you reach level 15, Minotaurs flood the land like its seasonal migration, every bandit gets dripped the fuck out in Dwarven armour, and doing the giant Bruma gate mission becomes a challenge of "will Martin die instantly, will the 10,000 spider ladies and blue demon men make my game crash, or will I get stun locked by 9 killer crocs hyper focusing me." But that's Oblivion, baby! That's what we're all here for. At times, it may be a broken mess, but it's my broken mess. Regardless, we did it, boys. We got the remake. I truly am criminal scum, and you know what, you're goddamn right I'm prepared to pay my fine or serve my sentence.