izigame.me

The remaster recaptures the feeling of playing the original perfectly (down to the small detail of my PC fighting for it's life while running it.)
Stuff I liked:
1. I have not yet encountered any crashes/game breaking bugs.
2. The character creator. I can now create both a good-looking bosmer and an eldritch abomination. The introduction of sub-races was a welcome addition.
3. Environments & graphics in general. This is how child-me saw Cyrodiil. It's definitely not as "yellow" as some of us feared. The cities look the same and different at the same - more "lived in". The Arena redesign is great. The lightning inside buildings changes according to the time of day - which is nice.
4. The introduction of new VAs and voice lines, re-recording some of the old ones. It feels so much better now.
5. Combat. It's still Oblivion (and not a Souls-like), but now I am not getting stunlocked constantly. Weapons feel heavier.
6. The pricing. May seem insignificant but it isn't - we live in a world with 90 USD Mario Cart releases.
The Original game cost 50 USD in 2006 without any DLCs. The Knights of the Nine was 10 USD. The Shivering Isles was 30 USD.
The remaster is being sold for 50 USD - all original DLCs included, even the player homes and, *gasp*, the OG horse armour.
Did the Mehrunes Dagon quest from the deluxe edition and was pleasantly surprised. Harbinger's VA did a good job. Haven't finished the Akatosh one yet but if it's similar, then I am 100 % fine with buying the delux. Glad that the extra armour sets are not just cosmetics you buy from a vendor.
7. The new difficulty settings mechanic (instead of a slider).
Edit 1: However, as others have pointed out, the difficulty gap between "Adept" and "Expert" is way too drastic. Same for "Master". Needs rebalancing because currently the "Adept" is too easy and "Expert" is too much.
Things I didn't like:
1. Optimization. (Or it's lack thereof)
I am running this on GeForce RTX 4070 with Intel Core i9. 32 RAM. And I can only run it on "Medium"(!) decently while still getting that signature UE5 stutter in the Imperial City.
"Medium" settings also means that things like Lumen don't work properly, so in some areas (mostly wilderness) the lighting looks off.
2. NPC walking animations.
No, really, how is it worse than the original? Why are they slouching?
2.5. Sprinting animation.
3. Whose idea was it to highlight the pickable objects when the cursor is on them? Probably a nitpick, but I grit my teeth.
4. Not sold on some of the new UI details - especially how the inventory/spells are (not) sorted. Also the alchemy/repair menu - they are quite confusing now.
Bugs encountered:
1. Character's equipped weapon is sometimes invisible when in inventory (like she is holding nothing).
2. Quest marker "went wild" and pointed the wrong way - twice.
3. Porkchop is out of her cage - always. (Maybe not a bug?)
Edit 2:
4. Spelling mistakes in the character creator screen?!
Look, I get it, the Virtuos team are French(?) - but this is just embarrassing. Fix it and fix it FAST.
Edit 3:
5. The NPC AI seems more "stationary" than in the original. Perhaps due to the heavy uploading. Especially visible in the Imperial City: it seems like nobody is moving when you enter a district, then suddenly it all "comes alive".
All in all - good introduction to the series for Skyrim-only crowd or new players. Does need some bug fixes and should have been playtested (more?).