MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Unearthing Mehrunes Razor"

The Pigsticker of Demonic Powah!

Alright, yes, this review is yet another opportunity for me to gush about how much I loved Morrowind.  That’s because it really is a large majority of what Unearthing Mehrunes Razor is.   But y’know, that’s really enough for me for this DLC.  It does much like certain other games do, but not in a way that screams “Hey! Look at us! We can make references to something that was once immensely popular! Please ignore the fact that it’s not actually a game!”  But the difference between that ungodly abomination and this is a simple one.  Unearthing Mehrunes Razor is an exercise in not just spectacle, but substance.  The references actually mean something, at least within the confines of the DLC.

You can start Razor from the moment you leave the Imperial Prison sewers, though it’s highly recommended you pursue it at a higher level, which I have to agree with.  So, once you’ve power leveled, you can finally answer the bizarre psychic message you receive about some activity in the far east of Cyrodiil by a Dunmer mage from Vvardenfell who seeks the power of Mehrunes’ Razor.  Understandably in Oblivion, you don’t get a quest from the Daedra Prince of Destruction, so this adds in his namesake artifact as a nice little bauble.  That doesn’t mean you can use it in the Blood of the Daedra quest, of course (Logic bomb:  After all, why would Mehrunes Dagon let you use the Razor against him?), much like you can’t use Sheogorath’s staff if you were to beat Shivering Isles before taking on the main quest (something I rather stupidly forgot to mention in the Shivering Isles review).

Nevertheless, this seems like quite a bit of trouble to go through for just a dagger, right?

Wrong!

Thus, to Sundercliff Watch you go.  Pack a lunch, because it’s a bit of a long trek as I said before – on the far east edge of Cyrodiil.  But once you’ve arrived, you can head in and the fun begins with several members of the “Drothmeri” army, a group founded and run by the Dunmer mage mentioned before - Frathen Drothan – a rogue Telvanni mage, he hopes to seize the dagger and use it to overthrow the Tamriel Empire.  Now, an obvious question is how a single mage can possibly just use one dagger to do this, but forget logic! Are you a bad enough dude (or dudette) to brave dark corridors, vicious monsters, and occasionally overly-long loading times to get a magic dagger?  Oblivion yeah, you are!

Getting through Sundercliff Watch to the Ayleid ruin of Varsa Baalim (where the Razor’s resting place can be found) can be a bit of a challenge if you just plow your way through the Drothmeri army.  Sneaking here is definitely a good idea and is rather fun.  With a high enough Sneak and a bit of luck, it’s actually very possible to get through the entire dungeon and kill nobody at all, sneaking around literally everyone in the dungeon and leaving no one the wiser that you were even there…or leaving a trail of bodies in your wake and anyone who follows it utterly confused as to who killed a certain Dunmer soldier and left his body precariously perched on a stalactite in a comedic fashion.

Interestingly, Dagon doesn't seem to notice the Razor if you have it in the Main Quest

  

There’s a medley of things to be found in the place, mostly dark elves of various types that give about as much resistance as your common bandits if things don’t turn for the  insanely fluster-cucky in fights.  Within Varsa Baalim itself, you’ll find vampires, which are pretty much your standard fair depending upon level.  Again, you can sneak around them too and they’ll be none the wiser for the experience.  Until, at last, you get to the final room in Varsa Baalim and come face to face with Drothan himself…who can very easily and promptly get himself killed if you wait him out and he doesn’t notice you, which will eventually get him to try and force the door to the Razor open, which will wake up the Guardian who will more than likely kill him.

If not, then kill him yourself and go for the Razor.  If you just feel bloodthirsty and kill him, then head up to the door and try to force it open, upon which occasion you will be forced to take on Mehrunes’ Champion.  Which you can easily side-step if you remove his heart, which will give you four infamy points and give you Porphyric Hemophilia (the vampire disease) and Cannibal's Prion if you eat it.  This is an easy way to become a vampire for some.

Which leads me to a brilliant and utterly flawless segue into talking about vampires in Oblivion, which admittedly I should have done before…why? Vampires are completely useless to play in Oblivion, even more so than they are in Skyrim.  Unless you restrict yourself to only moving around at night, you stay fed enough so that you don’t get the perks of the higher tiers of vampirism and really where is the fun in that?  Unless you’re just going to hang around in the Imperial City, I wouldn’t recommend taking the route at all.  Werewolves, given all the wilderness available in Oblivion, would have been a much more logical choice.

And now to segue flawlessly back into talking about Razor.  Like all weapons in the game, it’s levelled depending on your level, and unlike Knights of the Nine, there isn’t a handy little rack that will let you insta-recharge it and level it up to where your level is.  This, too, is another reason to tackle this DLC at a higher level rather than later on.  The Mehrunes Razor itself is not a bad weapon, with a nice bit of Distengrate Armor and Daedric Banishing enchantments, the latter of which has a change of instantly killing a target on strike which is based in part on the player’s Luck Attribute.  Interesting, which some pop up flavor text will tell you that “through the Razor, Mehrunes Dagon claims this soul” or something to that effect, any target hit with a Soul Trap or similar spell will still fill a Soul Gem as though nothing had happened.

And, of course, all the references to Morrowind.  Instead of just throwing them in our faces like certain other, lesser games might, Razor does it largely through flavor texts in various letters and books that can be ignored if the player so chooses.  However, through them we’re able to learn of Drothan – the work he’s done to find Varsa Baalim and the Razor, and the reason why he could be such a threat.  In essence, we can at least on some level care about what’s going on.  And apart from that, the little nods to things in Morrowind – the House of Earthly Delights and a book that is mentioned as having been purchased from Jobasha's Rare Books, and so on – add a little bit of spice and character to what would otherwise just be mooks that the player tears through to achieve a goal.

That all being said, there is one major problem I have with this DLC – there is absolutely no adventure hook.  You can go about being as the Champion of Cyrodiil and completely ignore Sundercliff Watch and all that is contained within and the game world will be no different for it.  There is a rather interesting letter that was made by Bethesda as part of the add-on that explains the situation with Drothan in the form of a missive from the Imperial Ambassador of Morrowind to an Advisor to King Helseth (who veterans of Tribunal will no doubt remember), but this doesn’t appear in the game.  There is absolutely nothing that gets the player involved in the add-on at all.  Just a sudden pop up in your Journal telling you that it’s there.

See, kids? You too can create paradoxes.

Beyond that, however, it’s a nice little add-on.  Around an hour’s time playing around with it, maybe less, and for three bucks (around that, it was 250 Microsoft Points at the time of release) I have to admit it was more than I was actually expecting to get.  That, coupled with the references to Morrowind, makes this one a fondly remembered one.

And that, dear friends, closes the book on Oblivion and my recollections of it.  Certainly, I could go on into the others, but here is as good a stopping point as any.  Besides, I just might need the fodder for the future, who knows?

Now with Oblivion out of the way, I’m going to take a look at another beloved Bethesda series.  Pack your rail guns and your Tesla canons, and wrap yourself up in something warm, because we’re heading into a nuclear winter wonderland…

…that happens to be very brown and green.

…huh.

"Unearthing Mehrunes Razor" is available for Xbox 360, PC, and Playstation 3.