I replayed The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Tfw I realize that this is my third time playing through Oblivion but it doesn't have a dedicated post on this blog. 

First time I played Oblivion was in 2013 and I was pretty confused a lot of the time. I remember being annoyed by all the Oblivion gates popping up everywhere (now I've learned there's a set amount which gives me an incentive to do them. I used to think they were random spawns), and I remember being terrified of Ayleid ruins, and I remember laughing my ass off at the blue-skinned Dunmer because they looked like smurfs. 

Second time I played Oblivion was in 2016. I got to level 30, hadn't completed the main quest yet, got bored and dropped the game indefinitely. 

Then we got to this year and there's been so many Oblivion references this year. From lots of Oblivion talk on the r/Skyrim Discord server, to the Oblivion chapter in ESO, to Oblivion clips in almost every single Game Fails video from GameSprout on Youtube recently. Then I joined the r/Oblivion Discord server for basically the same reason I joined r/Skyrim - I like the game. Didn't have any plans to replay the game when I joined, but that ended up being the final nudge I needed and I reinstalled the game and started playing. 

And it seems to have been the perfect time because I'm enjoying it a hell of a lot more than I did on the previous two playthroughs. 

This time I decided to try to do everything the game had to offer. Complete every quest. Explore every location. All the hidden content, and non-journal quests, and actually complete every single Oblivion gate. I had done a lot of it on my first playthrough back in 2013. But I discovered a bunch of daedric quests that I hadn't done that first time. 

So basically what I did was I did the main quest up until I got the quest called Paradise. I knew some side quests and what not would become unavailable after I completed the main quest so I stopped there. After that I completed the Fighters Guild and the Mages Guild. Then I did the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. Then I did all the town quests and wilderness quests and addon quests and non-journal stuff and daedric quests. Finally I did the Knights of the Nine DLC, and then I completed the main quest. After the main quest I went on the addon quest to find Mehrunes' Razor and then I went to do Master Training quests. My proudest achievement is that I managed to complete Seeking Your Roots completely without help. 

I still love the Thieves Guild questline in Oblivion and the Dark Brotherhood questline completely broke my heart all over again. According to my memory of my first playthrough it was a hassle to be a vampire but this time around I actually kind of liked it, but I still completed the Vampire Cure quest before I did the Purification quest (why you gotta keep hurting me like this?). Mainly because vampirism turned my cute little Bosmer into a very masculine-looking old woman ._.

After I had done all the stuff I had planned on 100%-ing Shivering Isles and then go back to the base game and discover all the places and do all the Oblivion Gates. But after completing all the side quests of Shivering Isles and getting halfway through the main quest I suddenly lost interest in the game again and I didn't finish it. I remember I loved Shivering Isles in my first playthrough, but also that I became bored with the game when I started Shivering Isles on my second playthrough. This time I can safely say that the sidequest Taxonomy of Obsession killed my vibe. Because I always do Shivering Isles as the last thing I'm always level 30 or more when I get there, and all the creatures she asks for are way over-levelled for the Calm spells she provides for the quest. So after struggling with it for way too many hours I finally resorted to summoning low-levelled variants through console commands to finish the goddamn quest, but it had killed my vibe. 

Several of the quests in Shivering Isles are annoying one way or another. Ghosts of Vitharn is pretty unique but also so annoying. Work is Never Done was another one I started to do the way it was intended but then I gave up and just added everything the quest asked for via console and handed it in, because my god, dude. Addiction was annoying on a whole different level. Get addicted to this substance on purpose and then suffer withdrawal effects from hell after just a couple minutes. Doesn't help that you go from base game where everything is fairly simple after level 30 and get to Shivering Isles where suddenly every enemy is a bulletsponge that hits like a truck. It just made the whole experience annoying. 

In this playthrough I adored everything about the game until I got to Shivering Isles, and at this point I'm wondering if my good memories of Shivering Isles isn't just the nostalgia talking.