And we're back with another episode of Before You Buy, that show where we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing. As usual, it's me here, Jake Baldino, and today we're taking a quick look at Oblivion Remastered. Uh, we're essentially jumping right into this with you guys. Uh, this was a Shadow Drop release. Nobody knew it was coming other than if you followed the leaks and rumors. So, both myself and co-writer Eric behind the scenes, uh, we both jumped into it as soon as the game was available, and we got some first impressions and some thoughts. Now, me personally, I'm coming at this as an Oblivion fan. Marowind is still my favorite, but I have dumped a ton of hours in Oblivion back in the day. I never really fully replayed it, so I was looking forward to this. It seems like a good opportunity to jump back in. And what we got here is The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion Remastered. And it's a looker. Uh it's using Unreal Engine 5 for the visuals and the creation engine for the game logic. So this hybrid of new and old is uh just a lot more than we were expecting. The visuals have been completely overhauled with all the newest bells and whistles you'd expect from an Unreal Engine 5 game with high resolution textures and completely new models for absolutely everything like textures and stuff. It looks like a brand new game, but under the surface, it's the old Creation Engine, so it's essentially still the same game. It's got those original bones. It has what makes it special and kind of weird, but it's just a huge visual overhaul on top of it. The footage you see captured here is PC, but I also have some PS5 Pro impressions, and all this footage on screen is going to be spoiler-free. Long story short, this isn't a Resident Evil 4 remake style like total reimagining, but it's also not just some slap dash elevated port either. It's Oblivion as you remember it, but with significantly better visuals across the board. It's not a perfect re-release or anything like that. I think harder Oblivion fans and some technical purists will have some issues with certain things, but I think definitely like if this is your first exposure to Oblivion, this is going to be fun for you to play. if you were only a Skyrim fan or something like that. Essentially, you're getting a whole new Elder Scrolls game. Sure, it feels a little bit old, but there's just a ton of good adventure in here cuz in 2007, Oblivion was a revolutionary game, but it really didn't take long for the shine to wear off on the visuals. This new remaster takes one of the weakest aspects of the original game and completely transforms it. And now we're looking at what is honestly probably one of Bethesda's better looking games. It is a little more washed out, you know, maybe taking some inspiration from the visual direction of Skyrim there, but it still feels like Oblivion. I wish they had the color palette a little bit more one to one. Uh there's a little bit more of like biome differences and colors here and there uh to really make it feel like it's not like repetitive looking when you're out around the Imperial City. But I say for the average player, it gets the job done. Color palette complaints aside, like everything looks better. specifically like enemies, NPCs, weapons, and towns. Man, it's been so weird to walk around all these towns that we spent so much time in in the past, and now they're like fully realized and fleshed out. The graphics aren't the only thing this remaster updated, though. They've also added a few quality of life improvements here and there, and added some new voice work to bring in a little vocal variety to the different races. Cuz in the original game, it felt like there were like three voice actors. But again, this is still otherwise the same game, warts and all. Uh there was an almost slavish dedication to being accurate to the original experience. They even made sure that the new voice actors matched the sometimes stilted awkward cadence of the original performances. A lot of the bugs and exploits from the original game are still possible here. It's clear that the developers behind this remaster had some love and respect for original Oblivion and wanted to keep things true to the original experience. The dedication is admirable, but we would have liked to have seen a few more tweaks here and there to really make it the definitive version of the game. A lot of Oblivion still holds up, but the occasional thing comes along that reminds you that, oh yeah, for as good as this game looks, you're still playing a game from 2007. And some of that stuff could have been cleaned up a little more, maybe, you know, there are improvements to the core gameplay here. And while they're relatively small, they do make somewhat of a difference. The third person camera is way better, as is the animation when you're playing in third person. At least except for the running animation. It's kind of funny, but there's actual hit animations when you strike an enemy, which does go a long way towards making combat look just a little less stiff and awkward. It still feels older. It still doesn't feel quite as responsive or or like feedback heavy as Skyrim, but it's just slightly elevated. Now, the mechanics of combat are mostly unchanged, but those little bits of hit stuns give you a little bit more feedback, but the updated UI is really good. I I think they did a really good job walking a line here. It feels like classic Oblivion interface, but it's a lot more usable and easier to navigate. It's not the best menu. Like, it's not a complete overhaul. You still have to scroll through a lot of menus to find anything. And certain important items could have been sorted better. like it would have been nice if like we got an actual notes tab or something in the inventory, but either way, I think this is another case where they wanted to be accurate to the original experience. So, the actual menu options are the same. They just cleaned up the UI to make everything a little bit more readable and more at a glance friendly. Uh, they also added sprint and it makes a hell of a difference. Pretty much works like it does in Skyrim, but this game has a lot of long stretches and a lot of traveling really long distance. I will say the icons and and the map icons and stuff are measured in steps, which is weird. You usually see distance measured in like miles or kilometers or something like that. Steps is kind of an interesting choice. It threw me off a little bit. But the sprint again just makes such a difference going from A to B, especially some of the Oblivion gates, which do still feel like a slog at the end of the day, but being able to sprint through them, I I really appreciate. Oh, and now when you level up, you actually get to allocate stats. So, you're no longer completely relying on Oblivion's traditional stat growth. That means that even if you're only ever leveling up your magic skills or something, you can still put some points into strength and endurance if you want. It's a simple but welcome change that gives you a bit more control over your character's growth and not really get too boxed in. Character building is still a really good experience, like picking your stuff and going out there. And uh just to mention it, you can still make weird freaks in the character creator. All the faces still have some of that Oblivion vibe, but the character creator is once again detailed enough to just make a cool person or the strangest thing you've ever seen. And faces out there are very interesting. They look much much better. Emperor Uriel sipped him looks a little weird, a little uncanny. You know, it threw me off. It took me a second to get used to, but obviously he's not around too long. But anyway, like I said, you build out your character. Uh you essentially go through a pretty early dungeon, then you open a door, and suddenly you're thrust out into the open world, and the choice is all yours. That's where the fun really begins. And uh one annoying thing about some recent re-releases and remasters and stuff like that is that they try and nickel and dime you with new versions of the DLC, but Oblivion here is doing it right. It it straight up just has every single official add-on from the original. So, like you get the Shivering Isles expansion, which is great. Knights of the Nine is in the game, and all the little add-on packs are also accounted for. And yes, that includes the infamous horse armor, which changed the world. They are cheekily selling again as part of the quote unquote deluxe package. In this case, it's it's more horse armor. The original sets actually come with the base game. It's funny that they're just doing it again. I don't support microtransactions and stuff like that, but I don't know. It's just kind of funny. The Shivering Isles are particularly stunning, but everything in this remaster just looks very good. As long as you're like willing to roll with the newer, slightly more desaturated visual style that we mentioned earlier. It's definitely a little bit more brown and gray than the classic game, but overall, I I think it works. The lighting effects in particular are understated, but they look very, very good and make the world really pop at night this time around compared to the original where everything just looked really empty and flat at night. Uh, this is a really, really big improvement. Again, for me, I just kind of miss the big, deep, bright, high contrast blues and greens and, you know, the kind of dreamlike lighting of the original. But what they've done still here, I think will work for a player. And like I said before, specifically for new players, players new to Oblivion, some of the forests don't really have that same lushness, that same feel of the original game, but where you lose that, you just get a ton of details in the towns, the actual foliage and flowers and water and rocks and stuff like that. And keep in mind, this is a good remaster, but at the end of the day, you're still playing an almost two decade old game with a new coat of paint. So, for new players, there might be some friction. The quest log is just as weird and sometimes vague as it ever was. For the main quest, everything is made nice and clear, but for smaller side quests, it can be kind of confusing to figure out what you want to do next. Sometimes sometimes the quest log doesn't even update when you get new information. So, uh you better pay attention to your surroundings and what NPCs are telling you. And there's a lot of general jankiness of Oblivion 2. you know, the the scripted sequences like how they play out to how quests trigger that can lead to a lot of, you know, immersionbreaking little moments and that's just part of the experience. There are bugs and it's not just creation engine jank anymore. Now it's got like a whole layer of Unreal Engine jank on top of it. So, you might get the occasional weird thing like robes not rendering properly or this incredible physics bug that we managed to capture where a clan fear just went completely apeshit flying all over the place like an outofc control bottle rocket. And then in my instances, I definitely stumbled across a lot of enemies that just didn't notice you or kind of remain frozen and and and not really doing anything. It wasn't like often, but I did experience it a few times here and there, so it's worth pointing out. Also, on PC, the game did manage to crash a few times. Just a full-blown Unreal Engine crash. It wasn't constant, but it did happen more than once. At least the game has auto saves constantly now, so you're not going to lose much progress if something like that happens. Now, on PC, performance-wise, we didn't have too many issues, but I will point out that Eric played on PC. I played on PS5 Pro and unfortunately I'm a bit disappointed with performance. I expected a little more. This is a like a remaster of a very old game and it unfortunately does have some stuttering when you're wandering out in the open world. Uh there are two modes, you know, like performance or fidelity or whatever. I keep it on performance and while you're in dungeons and stuff, it's pretty smooth. Exploring the open world does have the occasional frame hitches. You know, it's not dropping down to like 20 frames per second or anything disastrous, but it's not just as it's not as smooth as butter as I was hoping. You know, they are charging $50 US for this game. And again, it's a game from 2007, so I was just hoping that performance would be a bit more rock solid here, man. And the thing about the Oblivion remaster is that you have to take the good with the bad. It's an old game and like we said, it shows, but the original Oblivion just had a lot of really good stuff with it, especially some of the quests and they're all retained faithfully here. Stuff like the nightmare quest or the one where you enter the painted world or of course like the legendary whole dark brotherhood thing, all that stuff is here and the game is better for it. Also, a main quest that I I think is still pretty underrated. It's got some memorable moments. It's got some good performance, like some some some good voice acting, and this game just has endless charm. It did then and it does now, and I'm so glad to see that. On the other hand, there's stuff like the universally reviled level scaling system. If you're wondering if they fixed that or or changed it really in any way, it seems like they didn't. It seems exactly the same uh with the same overly beefy enemies and the same bandits with glass armor. It's just as immersionbreaking and annoying as ever. Enemies get beefier as you level up in the remaster. So, just like they did in the original. So, just like that 2007 version, it just feels like leveling up makes you weaker, not stronger. The enemies keep getting tougher while your growth feels more limited. It's annoying. And in terms of immersion, it just doesn't really make the most sense. Like, why does this tomb that originally just had some low-level skeletons and ghosts suddenly now that I'm level 29 is filled with way more dangerous crazy enemies? like it it only makes sense in terms of game balance, but with a remaster this authentic, I I guess they didn't really have a choice. They had to stick with this cuz it's how the whole game was built. We would have preferred if they change it to something closer to how like Skyrim handles enemy scaling with designated high and lowlevel areas where there's more variation, but the entire quest system, like I said, I guess is just built around all of Oblivion's level scaling. So, I guess I guess it wasn't an easy fix. The only other negatives we can really think of is that some PC commands, if you're if you're playing on PC, some still work, like the really simple ones like give item, uh, but other stuff doesn't. And the fact that the game doesn't seem like it's going to support mods is unfortunate because that's kind of part of the whole appeal when people come to Bethesda games like this. I'm sure some crazy people will crack this open one way or another, but more official mod support would have been really, really appreciated. So, for better or worse, that's really the gist of the Oblivion remaster here, at least with our firsthand experience, right? It's very much good for people to play Oblivion for the first time. If you're hardcore obsessed with Oblivion and you still know it ins and outs, it might not feel like exactly what you want or what you really imagined in your head. But still, at the very least, I'm glad that the developers didn't really compromise. They kept all the weird crap in here. They kept the parts of the game that are flawed while also having all those special moments and just making some of those towns, areas, and NPCs way more beautiful. Honestly, I can't help but just be corny here and be excited for people to experience Oblivion for the first time. The first time you see an Oblivion gate is a holy [ __ ] moment. The first time you step out of that first dungeon and see the open world is still a holy [ __ ] moment. jumping into the shivering isles DLC is a holy [ __ ] moment. Going on that Dark Brotherhood quest, seeing the mage guild, just so many holy [ __ ] moments, and I'm glad they're all still here. The mileage is going to marry depending on the type of player, again, if you're a hardcore player, but if you're a new player, just go in knowing it's going to feel a little old, but if you're going in with an open mind, you're going to have a blast. I just wish the frame rate was a bit better on PS5 Pro, cuz come on. But that's it. Before you buy, you know how this goes by now. I give you some pros, some cons, and some personal opinion. And now I want to hear yours down in the comments. Honestly, we'd love to know your experience in general with Elder Scrolls and specifically Oblivion. Is this your first time? It seems like there's a lot of people who are going in at this for the first time or are you someone who has played it endlessly? Are you part of the modding community for it? Are you part of the Sky Oblivion project, which we're still excited to see? Or maybe you're like some of us here at Game Ranks where you played it back in the day, you were obsessed with it, and then never looked back. So, how are you coming at this one? Let's talk anything at all down in the comments. 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