The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II - Daggerfall

aka: Daggerfall: Die Schriften der Weisen, Daggerfall: The Elder Scrolls - Chapter 2
Moby ID: 778
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Daggerfall is a sequel to The Elder Scrolls: Arena; it is set in the same medieval fantasy world Tamriel - more specifically, in the homeland of the Breton race, known as High Rock, and the province Hammerfell, home of the Redguards. The game's title is derived from the name of High Rock's capital city.

The main protagonist travels to Daggerfall at the request of the emperor Uriel Septim. His mission involves freeing the ghost of the late King Lysandus. Apparently, a letter concerning the king and sent by the emperor to the court in Daggerfall contains information about a dangerous ancient power. It is now up to the hero to retrieve the letter, reveal the dark secret that has been preserved in the king's family, and eventually discover the key to the resurrection of an iron golem who wields immense power.

Like its predecessor, Daggerfall is an open-ended role-playing game, in which the main quest is but a small fraction of the various missions and assignments the player is able to undertake. The game is notable for breaking records concerning the size of its world (though much of it has been generated randomly). Interaction with hundreds of thousands of non-playable characters is possible. The player is free to join one of the many political and social organizations of Tamriel, as well as pursue a personal quest for power. The player is able to buy houses, ships, and horses, as well as become a werewolf, a vampire, or a wereboar.

Combat in Daggerfall is action-based: the player uses the mouse to determine the direction and the power of sword swings and shots from a ranged weapon. Character growth is handled somewhat similarly to that of Quest for Glory games: the more the player performs an action, the better the protagonist becomes at it. For example, swinging the sword will eventually increase the player character's attack power and skill with that weapon, etc. This extends to non-combat activities such as jumping, bartering, speaking foreign languages, etc. Leveling up occurs when several main and secondary skills have been raised sufficiently. During character generation the player is given the option to create and name his or her custom classes by combining attributes and skills.

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Credits (DOS version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 26 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 110 ratings with 8 reviews)

If open ended gameplay is your thing, look no further

The Good
Daggerfall is without question the biggest game I have ever played (Yes, I have played Elite) in a lot of aspects. It contains a world, too big to describe, a main story that's long, intricate and very hard to complete (for many reasons). It also contains mounts, ships, houses, guilds, royalties, assassins, monsters, dungeons, crypts, magic, love, well, you name it. It's all in here. You can spend a year real time immersed in Daggerfall without ever even touching the main storyline. There's so much to do and to see it's almost overwhelming. Even though it came out in 1996 I am still playing it. I even got it to work on WIndows XP!

The Bad
The bugs. Unfortunately, Bethesda discontinued the support for this game in 1998, leaving it in a sad state. When in dungeons you'll want to save often because sooner or later you know you're gonna fall through the floor and die. The main story is so easily breakable it's almost funny. And whatever you do, don't take advantage of all the weaknesses found in the advancement system since it makes the game really boring, really fast.

The Bottom Line
Daggerfall is gigantic. It is also one of the best free form RPG's of all time. If it weren't for the horrendous bugs and the somewhat oversized dungeons this would have been my all time classic. (Which is Wasteland)

DOS · by Mattias Kreku (413) · 2003

A massive, ambitious masterpiece that just missed 'perfect'.

The Good
Daggerfall is a massive, open game; anyone who has played it will tell you that. The land you can explore is twice the size of the UK, the dungeons are as of yet unrivaled in size in any other game, and the towns are pleasantly life-sized.

The premise of the game is that you can make your own adventure. In this, it succeeds; Daggerfall is the epitome of non-linear. This is obvious from the character generation, where you have the option to make your own class-- the class-making system is an amazingly fun part of the game which includes the options to add special advantages and disadvantages such as phobias, resistances, and specialties.

The non-linearity isn't just in the character generation process, however; it lasts throughout the game. There are a number of guilds to join-- assortments of temples and knightly orders that vary from country to country add to the normal selection of Thieves, Warriors, and Mages (and Assassins!) guilds-- each of which offer their own 'quests'. These quests are the building blocks of the game. They vary greatly, although about 45% are dungeon-hack quests.

The world around you feels alive, to a certain extent. The NPCs feel far from lifelike-- more on that in the downsides section-- but the intricacies and details of the world of Tamriel that the game is set in are a great help to the level of immersion. There are simulated weather effects, very rare for when the game was made, including snow and rain. When winter comes, the buildings, ground and trees are covered with snow.

The music is very good for the time, especially if you set up your sound the right way. Sound effects are decent; not impressive technicly speaking, but they work really well in-game. Monsters each have their own distinct sound, and when you hear something new in a dungeon, like a mummy's low, mourning cry or the horrific scream of a Lich, you're likely to be scared out of your wits. And if you are an arachaphobic, like me...

Shudder.

As for the game mechanics, they are generally excellent. The game does not use the typical 'experience points equals a level' system; instead, the skills you use are the ones that increase. This system is so much better then the normal one, it's really hard to explain. The spell system is interesting; you can buy default spells, or make new ones in the Mages Guild. This is not nearly as refined as in Morrowind, but it is still fun and interesting.

I could go on for a long time about how you can collect ingredients to make potions, enchant your own items, collect various pieces of the different armor the game offers, get a horse and/or cart, buy your own house, buy your own ship, etc, but that would make this review far too long. Instead, I'll move on the 'main quest'.

The main quest sneaks up on the player in the form of an innocent letter regarding the topics of the quest the Emperor sent you to this part of Tamriel for, which are explained to you in the introductory movie. From here, the quest branches into many directions. It's always more complex then you think, and in the end when you've figured it all out and solved both halves of the main quest, you'll have made your way through a spellbinding story of deception, intrigue, and betrayal. And the game doesn't end there-- you are welcome to continue exploring. Your adventure goes on for as long as you want.

The Bad
Bugs! That is the main downside you'll hear about Daggerfall. Bugs. The game is pretty buggy even with the latest 2.13 patch, and even when you've learned to avoid things that bug the game. It is bearable, however.

Another bad thing is the NPCs. NPCs you see wandering around towns are not just cookie-cutter-NPCs-- they are generated on the spot, and they change when you enter the town again! The other NPCs you will meet that are important to quests or plots are static, but feel unlifelike. They are represented by a single pixilated picture that is occasionally animated, and they don't fight. Things that fight, you can't interact with. This is a big failure of the game and, in my opinion, its primary shortcoming.

Other issues include how many quests are hell to solve, because you have to hack through a dungeon that, as you'll swear up and down when you finally get out, spanned all of Tamriel underground. The game isn't balanced; it's painfully easy to use various exploits, and powergamers will soon tire of how pathetically easy everything becomes after 10th level.

There are so many little issues that pester the game. A totally bugged logbook is one of them; you can record about 5 things people said in conversations before it resets itself. Another is the Automap; it's a great idea, having a 3d Automap you can view from different angles and navigate easily, but it just doesn't work like it should, and it's barely any help in the nightmarishly maze-like dungeons you will oft encounter.

The Bottom Line
Daggerfall remains one of the best RPGs of all time. I personally think that only Morrowind, the very recent sequel, is a superior game (and of course it is, given the time difference! Here's to hoping TES 4 will be better then Daggerfall and Morrowind both). It is truly a masterpiece, a classic; it should live on forever in the memories of gamers. It is flawed, of course, and perhaps had the developers not been so extremely ambitious in planning it, it would have turned out a much better, more solid game. But its massiveness is what makes it so captivating, what sets it apart from all the rest. If you like RPGs, this is a must-have game.

DOS · by ShadowShrike (277) · 2004

Deep...Very Deep.

The Good
Probably the most open ended game I've ever played! You are free to go anywhere, do anything to anyone...at least that's how it feels. Though having certain technical problems, it is a very atmospheric game...when you are crawling in the dungeons with the lights off, you actually get scared. Also, the possibility of owning property (houses, ships and a wonderful wagon) was unique in those days and very rare, these days.

Wonderful game.

The Bad
It was full of bugs...

The Bottom Line
Superb...

DOS · by Alexandre Reis (3) · 2005

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Do these (DOSBox-ed) as a free bonus count as a Windows release? Cavalary (11445) Dec 25, 2015
Daggerfall Soundtrack Remake Pieces of 8-bit Dec 3, 2015
It's FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Foxhack (32102) Jul 18, 2009

Trivia

CompUSA release

In order to get Daggerfall carried in CompUSA stores, a special edition of the game was requested. The CompUSA version has 16 extra quests added to the game. A patch was later released that added these extra quests to the standard version of the game.

Freeware release

The game was offered as freeware on July 9, 2009 in celebration of fifteen years of Elder Scrolls.

Graphics

Daggerfall's creature art is an interesting mix of hand-drawn work and rendered material. All of the creatures, in fact, originally had 6 frames to every animation, but this had to be chopped down considerably to compress the size of the game which was already monstrously large for the time it was released.

The only remaining trace of these original detailed animations is in a "bestiary" video describing several of the creatures of Daggerfall.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #8 Top Vaporware Title in Computer Game History
    • May 1997 (Issue #154) – Role-Playing Game of the Year

Information also contributed by PolloDiablo.

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Related Sites +

  • Daggerfall at Wikipedia
    Information about The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall at Wikipedia
  • Doug's Daggerfall Page
    A Fansite dedicated to Daggerfall.
  • TES: The Essential Site
    A site for Daggerfall, featuring one of the largest surviving conclaves of fans.
  • The Tamriel Compendium
    The Tamriel Compendium has lots of info about Daggerfall (and a few files), including a bestiary with creature sounds.
  • The UESP
    The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages is one of the oldest sites about the Elder Scrolls series. It has huge amounts of information about Daggerfall.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 778
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Omniscia.

Windows Apps added by Plok. Windows added by Rik Hideto.

Additional contributors: Brian Hirt, ShadowShrike, Alaka, formercontrib, Yearman, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 23, 2000. Last modified March 18, 2024.