CYRODIILICIOUS

OBLIVION REMASTERED is a beautiful, buggy wonder

- Kerry Brunskill

In 2006 Final Fantasy XII was a brand new PlayStation 2 game, the Xbox 360's hard drive was at least in spirit still an optional extra, and horse armor DLC was the biggest corporate issue surrounding Oblivion's launch. I didn't play the game back then, because I thought I didn't need to—I had Morrowind, a smug sense of superiority, and no use for a sequel. I might have been wrong about that.

Although Oblivion's tutorial-laden intro, starring the most obviously doomed MacGuffin-carrying Emperor who ever briefly lived, didn't do a great job of convincing me otherwise. Was a rat-filled sewer, the most clichéd RPG environment of them all, honestly the best opening they could come up with? And then I escaped that boring place, and all of my grumbles were instantly forgotten.

This sunlit paradise doesn’t look like a game that came out when My Chemical Romance songs were in the top ten. Dragonflies flit across the water as flowers sway gently in the breeze.