The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal

The Good
Tribunal is small, compared to Morrowind. It only has about 40-60 new hours of gameplay to Morrowind's 100s or even 1000s if you are an avid RPGer like me. But it is still great, and here is why.

Tribunal fixes two issues in Morrowind: The journal, and the Automap. I didn't even mention this in my review because they didn't bug me; I have a pretty good memory for game things and rarely need to check my journal.

Anyways, the journal before simply listed entries by order of when they were put in, and no entries ever left, even when you completed the related quest. This resulted in a very large, very hard to sort through journal. Topics are new sorted by quest and that is a big help.

The new automap feature is that you can add your own notes to the automap. This is a big help, although the lack of it wasn't a problem previously. When you drop that Daedric Longsword you just can't carry any further out in the wilderness, it's nice to know that you'll be able to find it again.

Those are not the main highlights of the expansion, however. The primary new 'thing' is that you can travel (after a bit of work) to the city of Mournhold.

Mournhold is on the mainland of Morrowind, not the island of Vvardenfell that the game Morrowind is set on. Morrowind surrounds Vvardenfell completely, like a doughnut. You can't venture out to the mainland, only the city is open to explore, but what an exploration that is! There are a nice amount of side-quests in the large city, and a multitude of new weapons, armor, NPCs, and even architecture styles.

There are new monsters to fight, too; Goblins and Liches among them. They are made very well, considerably better then the original Morrowind ones I think.

The main quest in Mournhold draws you in almost instantly. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll say that the quest is brilliant. It's a lot more linear then the rest of Morrowind, but that also allows the story to be much stronger. The tale of the Three Gods of Morrowind, the Tribunal, is much more complex and it is really finished with Tribunal. The conclusion left me feeling a bit sad, but very interested-- this isn't one of those games where everything is answered at the end, oh no!

Tribunal's '40 hours' are worth more then a hundred in Morrowind.

The Bad
Nothing was wrong with Tribunal. Problems remain from Morrowind, but actually Tribunal fells much more alive. I've never played an expansion as close to perfect as Tribunal was ('close to' since perfect can never be attained!).

The Bottom Line
Tribunal is a must-have for Morrowind players, and for those who don't have Morrowind, you may want to reconsider with this added solid 40 hours of gameplay! The story is brilliantly designed and one of the best I've encountered in an RPG.

The Good
They fixed that damned journal! Though I'm still pissed they didn't fix that with a PATCH like they should have.

New monsters and dungeons were interesting. I suppose if you enjoyed Morrowind, you'll enjoy this. "A hundred more hours of gameplay" they say. I admit, I didn't get very far in the expansion.

The Bad
Just about everything that was bad (except the journal) in Morrowind is just as bad in this game. They didn't improve gameplay at all. Not a bit. The game is still remarkably easy, the quests are still of the same variant ("go here, kill them" or "go here and talk to this guy").

Multiplayer would have been an interesting addition, but on a game like this, that seems impossible.

I can't believe I forgot to mention the number one reason why I dislike this expansion; the fact that it's a retail expansion. One of the biggest selling points (not that I needed one - I would have paid any amount of money for Morrowind...that is, before I played it and realized what a bad game it was) for Morrowind was that you could download and install ANY kind of mod imaginable with little to no hassle whatsoever. They even promised that they'd be releasing free mods all the time to download. They didn't break this promise...however, the official mods available for download are small, pathetic mods. And then they bring us this, this much larger mod...but not large enough for me to shell out thirty bucks for it. No, Bethesda, this is an even bigger insult than Morrowind. It would be like traveling to some starving country and promising them food, only to bring them rotten apples. And then to offer them some nice juicy steak - if they're willing to pay for it.

Bah!

The Bottom Line
If you hated Morrowind, this expansion won't improve it enough for you to enjoy it. If you liked Morrowind and want some more of it, you'll enjoy this.