It’s a good thing that this a written review instead of an
audio one, largely due to the fact that I am really unable to properly form any
sort of words with my mouth after playing this new DLC, much less any
sentences. This DLC is amazing! When Hearthfire came out a few months ago, I
was vastly disappointed. The kind of disappointment one really only
receives from being promised the world and being given a rusty tin can and some
string. Dragonborn has proven to be everything that the previous DLC, for
all its lovely aesthetic appeal that didn’t save it from being completely
pointless, was not.
The storyline was picked up by my Dovahkiin in the city of
Whiterun, where he was approached by two strange looking cultists (very reminiscent
of the Knights of Order from Shivering
Isles) who inquired as to whether or not I am the true Dragonborn. After telling them I was, they made a poor
life choice that resulted in them being piles of ash on the small bridge by the
blacksmith and I found among their remains a note that led me to Windhelm, and eventually
to the island of Solstheim. That’s
right, the beloved stomping ground of werewolves in Morrowind’s expansion Bloodmoon returns and has changed significantly
since the time the Nerevarine came to meet the channel of Hircine.
The story follows the Dragonborn learning that the many
sacred stones of the Skaal people have been corrupted by some unknown force
that is getting anyone who comes into contact with it to build temples around
them. Sooner than later, we discover the
identity of the cultists’ leader – the original Dragonborn. And you lore fanatics might be screaming that
it’s Saint Alessia, but it is in fact and individual that we’ve never met or
heard of before. I have to admit, that
is a little disappointing (and given lore, more than a little confusing), but
it soon becomes irrelevant as you go on more and more through the storyline.
It quickly becomes clear that your Dragonborn much become
stronger than the one currently rising in Solstheim. To do so, you seek the help of Hermaeus Mora,
Daedric Prince of Knowledge and Memory, and can find a few new words to channel
into Shouts. The DLC also gives you a
variety of new armors and weapons to try out that those players of Morrowind should find quite familiar – Bonemould
and Chitin – as well as badass new Nordic armors among other things.
I really did enjoy playing through this DLC and I think you
will, too. I speak, of course, from a
position of not even being remotely done.
Even after wrapping up the main questline of the Dragonborn, most of Solstheim is left open before me,
untouched. There are still many Dwemer
ruins and Dragon temples to explore, and I wish to leave no stone unturned and
you shouldn’t either. The nods to things
in Morrowind are just great and a big
gushing point for me, as Morrowind
remains to this day one of my favorite games.
Even some of the remains of House Redoran and Telvanni make appearances. The homages are done in a way that doesn’t
get in the way of the main story, and I like that.
Where Dragonborn
falls short for me is in two areas: 1) The Dragon shout that allows you to tame
and ride dragons, and 2) Morrowind itself.
The shout has a problem in that, I can get a dragon to come down and
mount it, but I’m not even sure that I’m controlling where it goes. When I tamed a dragon for the second time, in
the forests of Solstheim (so I could test it out in a non-plot related event),
the dragon would go in a certain direction for a set amount of time, and then
loop back around. No matter how I moved
the control stick, it seemed I was unable to much control its movements. Being able to lock onto targets from the air
would be nice, but when are you ever going to have that many enemies to rain
fire down upon? My Dragonhunter character, my main play right now, is nearing
level 45 and he can easily dispatch even a crowd of enemies very well on his
own. But usually enemies aren’t in mobs
of more than three or four. I could see
this being useful for maybe a bandit or a Forsworn camp, but not much else. And if you can’t even really steer the
dragon, what’s the point? It just seems
rather cheap for a mechanic that Bethesda was so blatant about promoting as
something awesome.
And then, there’s Morrowind itself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Morrowind is probably one of my favorite games of all time. It had depth and complexity to almost every facet of the storyline, it was just great and well thought out and all that. And the scenery, well it’s a Bethesda game, so the scenery is kind of a given it always looks good. But traipsing around the island of Vvardenfell, there was always this strange, exotic look to everything. When I first played it, I could see just from that that this was not the normal sword and sorcery tales I had grown so accustomed to. This was something wholly unique.
I’m not really fond of Bethesda’s decision to have had the
Red Mountain erupt and render Vvardenfell effectively uninhabitable, because it
robs us of seeing so much amazing things that could have been done with Skyrim’s
graphics engine. Not to mention, I would
have just loved to see how Vvardenfell had progressed in the 200 years since we
last saw it. It just seems like a rather
cheap cop out, especially almost taunting us with Solstheim – an island that was within swimming distance
in Bloodmoon – being the setting for this one. But, I suppose in the end, it’s not all that
bad and it doesn’t at all ruin the charm of this DLC. If you’ve got an Xbox 360 and 1600 Microsoft
Points lying around, I highly recommend that you get it. It is completely worth it.
Oh, and the PS3 crowd will
actually be getting this one, Bethesda has said. It’s about time, guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment