The Elder Scrolls: Blades

by Mikhail Jul 13, 2020 | 1 Votes | 41 Played | 0 Reviews

9 rate

Genres:

RPG , Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Adventure , Fantasy Setting , Dungeon Crawler

Platforms:

Play The Elder Scrolls: Blades and become a part of the esteemed order devoted to protecting the Dragonborn Emperor of Cyrodiil. Set some time after Oblivion, you’ll dive into a deep RPG with outstanding combat mechanics. Battle various enemies while gathering resources to rebuild your devastated hometown.
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Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/Sound Conclusion

Summary

The Elder Scrolls is undoubtedly Bethesda’s best and most loved franchise (whatever, Fallout fans). That aside, the games in the main series, Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind, are among the most influential RPGs of all time, treating us to large living worlds full of magic and lore. They provide a world you can dive into and get lost in.

The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a spinoff game and it follows the main character - a member of the titular Blades - who you’ll get to create and fully control. Although the game itself lacks the open-world appeal of the main series, it carries over lore and some interesting gameplay mechanics and elements. In a way, it’s a pocket-sized TES experience that is you could consider a downgrade to the mainstream games, but it may very well be worth a shot.

Available on Android, iOS, and the Nintendo Switch, is this free-to-play Elder Scrolls title something you’d want to dive into? Let’s see what it has to offer:

Plotline

If you’ve played Skyrim and Oblivion, you’d be pretty familiar with the Blades, a society dedicated to protecting the Emperor of Cyrodiil and the Dragonborn (in Skyrim).

Without diving deep into spoilers TES: Blades is set sometime after the events of Oblivion. After a devastating war with the High Elves, the emperor was forced into a disadvantageous treaty. One of the provisions included the Blades being disbanded and outlawed, and its members hunted down by the Thalmor.

You’ll play as one of the Blades, but instead of saving the person who shouts people off a cliff (FUS RO DAH!), your adventures will take you back to your hometown. Here, you’ll start rebuilding it with your very own customizable character along with the residents after a cataclysmic event while performing tasks and quests.

Gameplay

The Elder Scrolls: Blades is mainly a dungeon-exploration RPG that focuses mostly on combat. Gameplay mostly involves going around town, talking to NPCs with exclamation points on their heads to trigger a quest that you can start right away. In addition, you’ll start with a ruined town, and from there, you’ll build essential buildings and homes for the residents who were displaced because of a certain event.

Although the building management aspect may be appealing to people who love base-building and time-management gameplay, it deviates from the main appeal: the combat. You see, players are required to gather resources, build and upgrade buildings in order to increase the village level. This is important because the higher your village’s level, the more quests you’ll get to access. Stay stagnant, and you’ll limit your experience to just a few ones.

The combat and adventure elements are The Elder Scrolls: Blades’ main appeal. Fighting monsters involves using a combat system similar to that of the popular Infinity Blade. With that said, it involves a lot of swiping while on the Switch, you need to press, hold, and release the ZL and LR buttons.

As you level up, you’ll gradually gain access to magic and stamina skills. So yes, you can launch fireballs and lightning bolts at opponents or cave their heads in with a powerful ax strike. However, you can only face one enemy - may it be a bandit, a goblin, or a wight - at a time (unless a horde of skeevers is after you).

The quests are fairly straightforward: you need to kill a certain number of enemies, reach an objective, or save people. However, levels are equipped with secret areas chock-full of loot. One bad thing about them though is when you have to find certain keys and levers to open doors. This is just bad game design; make us solve a puzzle, not find a book inside a cluttered dwarven ruin.

Since it’s a free-to-play game, it naturally has a ton of microtransactions. The game will constantly present you with promos and ask you to buy a chest or an item pack while bombarding you with gems and coins. Fortunately, the game is generous when it comes to rewards and loot (which is lootbox-based), so you won’t have to deal with sudden difficulty spikes at the start. Drops range from armors and shields with various elemental resistances and affinities which are also present in the main game.

Apart from the usual adventure, there are also other game modes with Abyss and Arena. The former is an endless dungeon; the deeper you get, the more rewards you’ll get to earn. Meanwhile, Arena is the PvP mode where you’ll get to fight against other players.

Community

Though The Elder Scrolls: Blades has an arena mode, its main appeal is its singleplayer adventure. Nevertheless, you’ll be able to find matches seamlessly, although if you’re a free player, you better hope you won’t be paired with a premium one.

Graphics/Sound

In terms of presentation, The Elder Scrolls: Blades looks more like an upgraded version of Oblivion. Although you could safely say this isn’t Bethesda’s best attempt at a mobile game, the presentation holds up well both on mobile and on the Switch. In addition, the game has fairly decent has voice acting, which adds to the immersion.

Conclusion

Overall, The Elder Scrolls: Blades deserves to be on your backlog, regardless if you’re a fan of the franchise or otherwise. It holds up well compared to other mobile RPGs and its combat mechanics will definitely make your stay and keep playing. Although its building elements deviate you from the action, it’s still executed fairly well.

So, start your journey, explore dungeons, and fight countless enemies!