4.5/5 ★ – administrator's review of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

[Retrospective Review] You wanna hear a secret? *Checks for listening ears* *Leans in close* *Whispers* ...I've never completed Morrowind. I know, I know. Utter madness. How can I write a review for a game I haven't completed? It doesn't seem right, does it? Look, I've marked it as "shelved" and I am determined to, one day, finish the main storyline. For now, a sort-of-review on my time with it, nearly 20 years ago. Most of this is what I saw and felt as I experienced the early game for the first time, because that is what has left the greatest impression on me. I first played Morrowind back in 2004 or 2005, and back then my only real time with RPGs was playing (and loving) Final Fantasy IX on playstation. Of course, Morrowind on PC is a totally different experience, and I had no idea what I was doing. At. All. I remember the very first time I booted the game, loaded into the ship and... I wasn't able to get out onto the deck. Yep. On reflection, my "hold my hand and click enemy heads" useless brain had taken over and expected an easy experience. Sigh. I had rushed through annoying popups and couldn't do anything. Of course I ended up quitting and instead playing... Whatever crap was occupying my time back then. But I kept thinking about Morrowind. Something about that short, frustrating experience had lodged into my brain and it wouldn't let go. I can remember thinking that maybe this was a game for the grown ups, and something about that was pretty enticing. It wasn't long before I booted it up again and actually engaged my brain. I paid attention. I listened. I got out of the ship! And what did I see? The scene that graced my retinas was, at the time, the most beautiful video game landscape I had ever laid my eyes on. The water reflections were a thing to behold, the terrain (that which I could see given the limited draw distance, impeded further by the fog) was quirky and different and alien. The buildings were somehow recognisable and comforting, being based, in this area at least, somewhat on established IRL human designs, and offered a safe place from the wilderness. The soundscape was... It gives me goosebumps still to this day. The wind, the water lapping at the shore and against the hull. The deep warbling vocalisations, of what would turn out to be a silt strider, echoing off the mountains. The soundtrack gives me the warm cozies even now. Over the next few minutes of the game, you are made to pick critical aspects of your character such as class and birth sign. This was of course misunderstood in my stupid return to "hur dur rush through everything" brain mode and thus I ignored entirely everything that was said or presented to me - I just wanted to get out and explore! My haste here led to many frustrations later on and was eventually the reason for my first shelving of this game. For now however, I made my way through the first couple of buildings, looting absolutely everything, and got out into the middle of a quaint village. Sedya Neen. It was here that my mind was blown - exploring, talking to everyone, realising that I didn't *have* to do anything. I was free to roam, explore, watch a wizard fall from the sky, die a lot. The world itself is something grand and detailed, with books of lore dotted around the map, small dungeons and ruins to explore. And despite the map being pretty small in reality, it felt huge. It felt like a whole world was waiting for me. I was smitten. And then I quickly gave up. Combat was difficult for someone who didn't pay attention to the class choice or any other material on the game. Swinging a sword at a mudcrab but no hits being registered is frustrating and feels like a really annoying bug. It isn't, the game uses RNG to determine if you have hit something. But I didn't know that. I tried to play this game like it was some generic FPS, but it was way more than that. I attempted to replay this a few times before Oblivion came out, each time learning a little more, but then fell into TES:IV when that released. But a year or so after that... I came right back to Morrowind. I missed it - the world, the feel, the charm. The silt strider audio. Frission, right there. That was when I really played it. I got it then. I was more mature, knew that patience could be rewarded. I think I have probably put in a few hundred hours into this game, but almost all of that was exploring the world, not always doing quests. In fact, I distinctly remember taking over a home in Balmora (by murdering the occupier, as back then the technology for NPCs to walk through doors didn't exist, so who would ever know?!) and making it my own personal library. I was determined to collect one of each book - something I tried to do again in Oblivion in a later playthrough, and Skyrim when that came out. Player housing wasn't a thing in Morrowind, but one thing it did have was mod support. The community still throws out mods for this game but even back then - unbeknownst to me - plenty of player housing was available, as well as loads of player content and - most critically - the unofficial patch, which fixes hundreds (thousands?) or bugs and annoyances left in the game. The community has really come together around Morrowind and made it into something more than its base parts - it's a living organism almost, one that changes and evolves more as time goes on. I still launch Morrowind every once in a while and explore the world. It is one of the few games that hold a warm cozy place in my heart, especially the earlier areas. It hasn't aged well as a videogame, but I would implore any RPG fan that hasn't tried it to give it a whirl. ...With a bunch of recommended mods to fix things and add some QoL, of course.