>>3860397
I tried it a long time ago but only got to the 6th staff piece before these giant magic-casting trees filtered me hard. Couldn't cast reflect spells to block them since I was a melee build (Ranger, I think) and I quit. I'd say no.

>>3860397
I completed it recently. It's ok. 90% of the gameplay is dungeon crawling. When you're not dungeon crawling, you're completing randomized town quests, buying or selling stuff, creating spells (if you're a wizard), and trying to navigate in towns (it's harder than you think). Certainly turns into a drag halfway through, it's a very repetitive game. Some dungeons have a bit of lore behind them, kings and queens share a bit of what's going on, and you can ask people what's up (there isn't much they can say), but overall there isn't much dialogue or story. Dungeons are basically big confusing monster galleries - monsters (and humans) are your only threat, there are no traps. I guess there are secret rooms, but that barely counts. Opening a minimap every 2 minutes not to get lost gets annoying. There isn't much roleplaying to be had without your imagination and starting stats don't matter very much. Magic system is easily the best part, you can create your own spells and get quite creative with it. The game is easy to break with a caster class, so you can bring the balance to its knees with just a bit of wit and whimsy. I don't know why it's called Arena, there is no arena in the game.
From what I've heard, it does everything Ultima Underworld does, but worse. Without having played UU yet, can't say how these two compare. Haven't played any other TES game either.
>>3860408
Items you get as a reward for completing artifact quests allow non-casters to resist spells.
>giant magic-casting trees
You're sure they were trees? You probably mean stone golems.

>>3860500
>I don't know why it's called Arena, there is no arena in the game.
lol

File: ArenaEND.png (896 KB, 637x479)

896 KB PNG

I prefer its main quest dungeons over Daggerfall's, ignore the randomly generated dungeons. I would very strongly recommend a mixed fighter/spellcaster class, there are mid-late game enemies whose attack speed is based on cycles or framerate or something that you won't be able to tank without abusing the shield spell. I also strongly recommend the invisibility spell. There's a mod that let's you switch between WASD and default (you need default for the riddles) if you find the default layout cramped.
Pic related, my character at the end of the game. If you play healer you can eventually cast low level healing spells for 0 mana.

>>3860500
the design philosophy of the day involved a lot of dungeon crawling, and story was only really necessary to get the player from point A to B. a lot of the antiquated mechanics are indeed annoying, but no one back then would have known better, there wasn't a lot of competition and games to choose from, and it was difficult to know which games were even "good", so you worked with what you had.

I was 10/11 when this game came out and it was a little too complicated for me to figure out at the time, other than just randomly going from place to place and killing monsters. Plus I had a lot of other games to play, so I never got that far. I would play a lot of Daggerfall though.

>>3860794
I remember being that age and seeing a print ad for one of the early TES games in PC Gamer. I misread it and thought it said The Elder Strolls and thought it was a game about old people walking around. in the fullness of time, I was accidentally correct

>>3860929
just as foretold...

>>3860500
>You're sure they were trees? You probably mean stone golems.

It's been more than 15 years since that attempt, I remember trees inside of a mist-covered maze and I had to quit do to the magic. Figures, I never did any artifact quest, though at the time I didn't even know about such a thing in the game. When I played Daggerfall I learned about them though.

No, it is not. You cannot get anything from Arena. Theres nothing there to be found. If you want an old untalked about ES play Daggerfall Unity like everyone else whos ever asked this question has been told. Arena is objectively shit. At least, Daggerfall was shit but has a great number of things not present in other Elder Scrolls and an enjoyable enough gameplay loop. None of these things are present in Arena. Its not like going back to Doom. It wasnt even a good game on release. Its shitty to play, it has no story, the archetypal races are all completely different from any game that comes after, its hard to even consider it an Elder Scrolls game beyond laying out the absolute most basic framework world that Daggerfall actually had to be the one to build on. Arena is generic fantasy given new names in a Godless 2d render engine that shouldnt exist.

>>3864296
>play Daggerfall Unity
Stopped reading here

>>3864296
>now I'm getting Arena

where do I find the girl in the middle

>>3864347
You need the Codex Scientia hint book.

Arena is the only game in the series with decent story dungeons, you can actually tell they're not generated

You can play it, you'll probably not finish it. See it as kind of a pilgrimage.

>>3864300
>daggerfall unity
eh
>daggerfall unity WITH the TTRPG combat reset
acceptable

>>3860397
>It's probably the leas talked about TES game on this board.
That's certainly either Battlespire or Redguard.

>>3865678
The main quest dungeons in Daggerfall are also hand-made.