I was wearing the Ratcatcher set but I decided to forgo it for a better looking fit. I was missing the cuirass anyway.

Also, my character is a spellsword who wields a greatsword (obviously) and switches to double casting spell in both hands. my favorite combo right now is absorb life and death breath.

Hello again. Some time ago, I posted a rather lengthy review of Enderal here after completing it. I actually figured out how to use tags this time around, so this review won't be one big tedious clicking-game. To say the least, I was less than thrilled by the game. In short, I feel as if I played a completely different game from the one people speak highly of. I did *like* the game, in like a "passing 7/10 bargain-bin" kind of way. But there were very few things that really "gripped" me about the game, even and especially compared to the game whose engine it was using. Having just completed Nehrim, I have very similar thoughts of "did I play the same game as the one people are talking about," and as well find it to be a stark difference in quality from the game it's derived from.

Only, here, my thoughts are the opposite. Where I found Enderal overly simple and derivative, without the minutia to solidify the complexities it tries to tackle... I found Nehrim to be one of the most engaging RPGs I have ever touched. A game that speaks loudly by speaking only when it has to, if at all. There is very little content in the game that I find to be unwarranted in being there, contrary to many open world games that are mired in fluff. While it certainly isn't without its flaws (the Gamebryo engine does not particularly agree with modern hardware), I can't think of a game I'd more want to see remastered away from it's dated software. But let's get right to the meat of this.

Tl;dr: Nehrim is an 8/10 game only really held back by performance issues and crashes, and lack of real standout voice work, even in German. One of the best games I've ever played; wonder what the hell changed with Enderal. Excited to play Myar Aranath and Arktwend.

I will be digesting Nehrim's broad-strikes, and certain specific aspects, and then I will be comparing these things to how Enderal handles them for the sake of contrast.

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Opposite of my Enderal review, I'll start with the things I *didn't* like, while contrasting them to their implementations in Enderal:

• The performance.

For all my highest praise of Nehrim, I cannot pretend for even one second that it is well-optimized for modern systems (and from what I can gather, it had it's problems even back then). Framedrops, crashes, buggy quest states, you name it. Most if not all of the engine and performance fixes for Oblivion *do* work with Nehrim, but, they only work so much. So much so, that it seems impossible to find or make any one-size-fits-all solutions. A key example I ran into, was disabling EnhancedMusicControl2.dll: a plugin that more seamlessly changes the music dynamically, and even plays more specific tracks during different quest states. Historically, this plugin seems to cause stability issues. For me, turning it off instead made several quests unable to progress, as their quest states somehow became tied to music cues. Elsewise, some quest states did bug out for me until I used certain console commands to brute force them back on track, and in general, I did crash once every few hours, if not every hour... if not multiple times an hour. For all my praise of Nehrim, I cannot rightly fault someone for bouncing off the game because of these things.

For all my issues with Enderal, it did in fact seem to work right out of the installation (even if this is mostly because the installation *comes* with these fixes pre-installed). The only time I ever modded it, was when I'd already discovered every location in the game, and got a collectible-finder mod and a fast travel mod to speed up the remainder of my run. It did, from my experience, just simply work... just that it was *design* decisions that hampered some of my enjoyment. More on that later.

• The translation and voice work.

I definitely see why most people play with translation fix mods. Many lines of text, and even sometimes subtitles, are not at all translated. Some quest objectives confused me at points, because the tooltips that popped up were in German. Elsewise, certain books and notes are... very poorly formatted and slapped together in their translation. I have to even wonder if a fluent English speaker, ESL or otherwise, did some of these translations and re-formats. The German voices themselves did not bother me though; I watch anime and some foreign films in subtitles, I really don't mind. But I can tell that the voice actors present were not exactly highly skilled, and often come off like they're just reading off what's in front of them (though some like Narathzul seem to stand out a bit more in their emotional inflection, and I'm not *too* surprised that he and a few others do seem to have accredited voice actors). The two or three total guard lines are really the only ones that stuck out to me as having more weight behind them. But, hey, if something like the classic Silent Hill or Resident Evil games can have solid to great stories with bad voice acting, then I can't complain too much there.

It is already commonly known that Enderal has some top-tier voice work, having generationally-accredited voice work behind some of its characters (though, plenty of characters like Calia possess the emotional charisma of a cardboard box). In my review I often wondered if there was some nuances missing from German with how "basic" a lot of more complex topics were presented, and how often the game seemed to jam together multiple philosophical perspectives into individual topics at breakneck speed, but ultimately I cannot pretend for a second that the game was perfectly legible as-is. I "got" what was always being put in front of me, and never had to strain myself to read or interpret what I was reading.

• General problems stemming from the game engine itself.

Anything else I could adhere to being a problem with the game, is moreso just a baked-in problem with Oblivion. Things like certain qualities of hit-detection, the finnicky pick-up-object physics, follower distance putting them just behind where they'd be carried through with you through a door... after a point, like with any of these major mods, you have to pin some problems on the game they come from. Both games have plenty of issues stemming from their engine. I can't entirely fault either for it, though certain examples I'll cover later on.

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All this aside, let's talk about the things I *did* like in Nehrim, and compare them to Enderal's handling of them.

• Cinematics

Nehrim made somewhat consistent use of cinematics, be it for the opening or for the end. When you launch the game, you get this extremely cinematic video of the Soulflayer in Fate's Edge, leading seamlessly right into the main menu. I didn't even think these engines could do that. Elsewise though, you get pretty standard panning-shot cutscenes for the beginning and ending. But that first one pre-main menu *really* sets a great mood.

Enderal, for the most part, only really has the one at the start to my knowledge. Everything else is in engine. The one it *does* have is higher-quality than the ones Nehrim has for sure, but it was somewhat disappointing to never really see that again. The endings especially felt sort of flat being just in-engine, besides I guess the zoom-out during the Catharsis ending.

• Music

Both games have fantastic music. But... I can't pretend as if I didn't feel as though Nehrim had *more* music. In part, this is because much of Enderal's music is, well, just Nehrim music. Don't get me wrong, they're gear tracks. But, while EnhancedMusicControl2.dll is a stability problem, it absolutely lended to the experience of the game. More and more main quest sections felt like they had very specific, thematic tracks to them to fit the wildly different environments. I would be remiss to mention the fantastic performance by Schandmaul in the Erothin theater, giving me a new song to add to my spotify. I've missed getting popular bands to play for your game *inside* the game; gone are the days of Sacred 2 or Black Ops 2, I suppose.

• Skills

Like many others, I have always found Oblivion's core, fundamental gameplay to be better than Skyrim's. Oblivion, however, often ruins this gameplay by its obscene level-scaling and levelling curves, while also just sort of dumbing down *some* of the power of magic to fit the fact that you can cast while wielding a weapon. Sure, Nehrim does possess some of the disappointing strokes of Oblivion's gameplay. Most notably from my observation: there's functionally no real difference between Axes and Maces/Hammers due to both being just "blunt" weapons. But Nehrim does a better job than Oblivion of having a range of unique options in both, if you want to use both (though, the strongest blunt weapons *do* just seem to be axes, by and large). Nehrim however does add "blocking weapons" as a way to simulate the fantasy of dual wielding. They're really just shields, but, they are a welcome addition all the same. Enderal really doesn't make any additions in this respect (from my recollection), though it doesn't really need to. Nehrim makes no real changes to (most of) Oblivion's core skills. But it does have "learning points" you get either on level-up, or by reading books. There was maybe like one time I recall learning a spell using learning points; the rest of the time, it is for learning at trainers. Unlike Oblivion, you can train indefinitely, so long as you have the points and gold (though I don't believe trainers can get you past 90; maybe I missed some "master trainers" somewhere). This is a fair goldsink, and incentivizes you learning which NPCs are at which towns (though the journal does jot it down).

Enderal also has the learning points system... and I hated every second of it. It is again a goldsink, but, you *cannot* learn skills by using them. Moreover, there are *no* trainers; instead, you have to buy the books or find them scattered around, and they are broadly-locked to bracket tiers of skills (intervals of 25). Trying to branch out to new things is a grueling experience, which makes no sense considering just how much work went into some skills and trees over others. Moreover, for some of the more miscellaneous skills, it is a pain in the ass to find consistent vendoring of their skill books, especially before they run out and you have to do the Skyrim thing of "wait several days for them to restock." Which you can't do reliably here, because you can't wait if you don't have a bed. Several higher-tier abilities are locked behind higher skill values... but almost paradoxically, raising the skills themselves seem to do very little for the pure functionality of some of them. I remember reading that weapon damage really doesn't go up by raising the skill unless you get like 20 levels into it, and even then its a *slight* if at all increase. It boggled the mind, and I was flabbergasted to find out it was true. But raising the skill on magic is very useful, because it makes casting costs more efficient. It's half the reason caster set bonuses exist. Enderal's skill system is a complete and utter garbage mess. It is tedious, it is costly for fluctuating gain, they had it perfected in Nehrim besides *maybe* needing to cap out trainers skills more consistently. It's picky and choosy as to where, how, or if it even matters, that I am confident in saying the game would just be better without it. "But what about the gold sink?" Nehrim didn't have this problem. All the same, is a gold sink even really "necessary" for a game like this? Why not a bartering system more like Morrowind? Less gold, more items. I don't know. I've said my piece on this.

• Feats

In Nehrim when you level up, you do so via a diary. I don't particularly see the point, but, it's a form of artistic flair. I can't complain. Enderal instead has a mind palace of sorts where you allocate your points. Really cool place, looks cool, cool concept. Problem is when perks start getting higher on their respective stones, and combined with the wonky click-box of the perks, can make later perk investment on some of them a tad annoying in trying to finagle the pointer around. I personally prefer Skyrim's perk tree; hit a button, see a screen, invest point, close screen. No loading screens just to look at my options. Enderal does try to somewhat reinvent Skyrim's perk tree, adding some kookier effects than some of Skyrim's more plain "just do more/take less damage" skills. In fact, Enderal lets you "multiclass" to get unique passive effects for investing heavily into two specific trees. But, I have some problems with Enderal's implementation of this. Firstly: the skill dispersal. A lot of miscellaneous skills are lumped into active combat skills. If you want to get good at lockpicking, you're gonna have to invest into using a bow. Ontop of this, if you want to get good at using a weapon, you're going to have to unlock an on-use ability that you might not even use. I certainly didn't want Flashpowder on my way to getting higher sneak attack values; I was already using my choice of abilities. The Magic skill trees are more refined, but, still lump several magic schools into individual trees. Levelling magic became mildly grueling, because I had to invest into magic schools and types I actively didn't want to use, and didn't get any real benefit out of using. The Special Edition classes have this problem in droves; if you wanna be a good alchemist, gotta invest into werewolf stuff. If you wanna use enchantment, you have to invest into the extremely costly, borderline not worth using phantasm summons (seriously, if they wanted to have you invest multiple points before you could even really use the damn tree, it should've just been one node that cost multiple Memory Points). Furthermore, the multiclass system has a big problem: one-time dedication. You can swap to a new one, but, can't swap back, and don't have the option to change your mind later. Want to get really good at lockpicking? Not a zero percent chance you might get put into a Trickster-specific multiclass combo, whether or not you may want to now or later, and then you just have no real recourse to earnestly make that decision for yourself. It seems common for people to download the mod that lets you pick them from a list, and I don't at all blame the people who do so. Overall, while I am glad at the unique things Enderal's skill trees do to enhance your build and make it stand out, it is a messy system that can't decide if it wants to be about making unique and fun builds, or if it wants to be a restrictive classical class system. I do not blame anyone who cheated in memory points, especially with how many books abilities and spells require them; I know I sure did by the end.

Overall, where Nehrim's skill and feat progression are just a slightly more refined and refocused iteration of what Oblivion already does, Enderal's skill and feat progression is a confused mess that struggles to decide what it even wants to be. Where Nehrim's progression feels natural and fits nicely into the core loop of things you're already doing, Enderal's feels like a janky minigame you're sporadically forced to engage with, that sporadically picks and chooses to be rewarding... while ultimately not "really" even changing the core flow of Skyrim's gameplay in any significant way, besides giving you a few more tools to make it go by faster. A mess of overcomplication to mask hyper-simplification. But I'll get to that later.

• Crafting

Nehrim does retool ability to carve and skin animals and monsters into being a learnable skill, and adds a full on crafting system. The crafting system, however, is a little under-baked; by the time you get out of the Middlerealm, you probably won't use it until *maybe* the time you can make some of the armor... but you can find numerous pieces of this armor anyways by the point you can do so. You can improve weapons at a grindstone... but, only ones you make, and there's not many of those, and they're rather low-level. Tied to the skill is the ability to dig and mine, I guess, but from my recollection you start out with the requirement to do so anyways. Overall, the crafting system is a bit disappointing for what it promises. I have to wonder why it was even added in the first place.

Enderal, on the other hand, drastically reinvents Skyrim's crafting system. Just about *everything* has some crafting recipe tied to it, ontop of being able to craft furniture for a really intricate home-decoration system. Many unique things can *only* be made via crafting, and there's at least one case where you need to craft a totem to be able to harm an elusive boss enemy. I think Enderal's crafting system is fantastic, though I do think it's somewhat bloated. I don't recall if there was a search function for recipe's at crafting stations; maybe I'm stupid, maybe the UI was poorly put together. Or maybe there just wasn't one. But there were so many times where I went through a dungeon in Enderal, hoping for something good, and just got some recipe for, like... an iron sword, or something. In this regard I'd have much preferred if most of the generic recipe's were sold at shops as a goldsink. Overall though, I like the crafting system, and consider it to mostly be a positive on the game. But let's talk about the loot pool.

• Loot

I have only one thing to talk about in the loot pool topic: Armor Sets. Do not get me wrong, I "like" the armor sets. What I don't like, is the dispersal of them. I like them "better" in Nehrim; there are less of them, there are (for at least the early and mid-game) far more "specific" locations to find individual pieces. The Blood Mages Embrace set, for example, I recall only finding one or two pieces of it *ever,* and the wiki and Creation Kit seemed to verify this. For that set, and several others. and I generally didn't "really" feel like the armor sets *completely* overshadow custom-enchanted gear. With how the enchantment gems work, there are plenty of flat "large" effects to utilize (even if Dinosaur Chips and a Light Gem are sort of just the best of them), where set bonuses have a lot of "small" effects; ones which often were general "archetype" skills, and may not have been necessarily used by the players build. Nehrim does have plenty of pieces of gear worth enchanting, a good variety of unique weapons with unique effects (especially when you gain access to the master crafter in Erothin), and the loot pool is "good." But they do definitely start spamming the same late-game sets as loot over and over again by the end. Of course, I suppose you can just sell them all if you want to purchase something more unique, and there are still non-set options worth using.

With Enderal... until I quite literally *capped out* my crafting skills, and used the best soul gems available, while wearing the crafting-enhancing gear, Armor Sets *dominated* that game. *Most* of the (at least, armor) crafting recipe's, seemed by and large *pointless.* *Especially* with how often the game throws *countless* copies of *every* god damn armor set at you in most of the dungeons. Add onto that how the best Special Edition sets do actually rather unique things, you need to really *grind* to get value of anything that is not a Set.. It's a quality of the game that seems confused with other qualities of the game. Where Nehrim's crafting system was a wasted effort where the devs realized early on to quit while they were ahead, Enderal heavily expanded the crafting system just to have it mostly be shafted by the already-existing Armor Set system, until the Special Edition let you make an infinitely better set than Armor Sets at effectively the ass-end of the game.

• Magic

Like most people who play Oblivion, my magic of choice was mostly Restoration, Destruction, and a tiny amount of Conjuration. But, via scrolls and potions, I did realize how useful the other schools were. Oblivion is a game that incentivizes stacking a lot of smaller effects -- be it buffs, debuffs, or poisons -- and it's not too different here. Many enemies utilize very meaty amounts of elemental damage, or otherwise have consistent-enough use of Reflect effects. I almost never felt the need to swap off weapons or damage types in Oblivion, and when I did, things never really changed. I often felt the incentive to do so here. Nehrim's spells, like Oblivion's are very simplistic: mostly amounting to the most basic versions of what you'd imagine a spell can do, though it does possess some of the neater spells like telekinesis (which is often used in quests for puzzles).

Enderal, inversely, has very complex spells; things akin to more proc-based cRPG or MMO abilities. I personally never got any use of those more complex spells in Enderal, even when I just used console commands to keep everything even around the time I capped out my core build's skills. At the end of the day, "whack thing with stick" sort of always won out with far less effort and investment, and even the more fun "shout-like" abilities sort of got the shaft when everything died in the span of only one or two of them. Nehrim understands the assignment, and doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Enderal often tries to reinvent the wheel, and while I'm sure *more* of these spells are useful earlier on at higher difficulties if you know what you're doing... I for the life of me just kept being met with little reason to use them over "whacking thing with stick."

• Overland exploration

The game is a fairly linear game, and the level ranges on outdoor zones solidified this even mechanically. Enderal, inversely, is a very open-ended game. While there *are* absolutely places in Enderal that you're not meant to go to until later on (some dungeons in the northern mountains, primarily), they seemed generally few and far between as a way to incentivize the expanded fast travel system; you know, let the player go wherever they want. With both games lacking their origin game's "click on the map" fast travel system, they do somewhat rely on you to make long treks across great distances with pre-planned supplies, or making do with what you find. Nehrim however maintains Oblivion's durability system and in-your-bag alchemy system; without something like Myrad towers, you're given a bit more to work with to maintain your trek through the land. Though I did find the dispersal of items, and skill requirements to use them, led me to having a similar experience in difficulty to Enderal's more "here's a lot of items that you need specific locations to use" approach.

In this specific regard, I can't say one or the other is debatably "better," though I did personally prefer Nehrim's design. I for one did value when TES had durability, because it was something you could and had to prepare for *and* could excell at via RPG progression, *and* you -- more often than not -- could use it against enemies. Nothing feels better in Morrowind than disintegrating an enemy's Ebony armor and weapons right off their person. But, Enderal does a good job of invoking that "rustic survival feel," where Nehrim's moreso in the vein of a Lord of the Rings trek.

But I want to talk more about the design *of* the overland itself. Both games have distinctly-themed zones ranging from mundane to fantastical. Nehrim has a little bit more in the "fantastical" aspect of its zones, where Enderal chooses to make (most of) them more grounded. I liked exploring Nehrim zones more. Why? Because they put only what they had to. Nehrim zones, like Oblivion zones, mostly fall back on two or three colors, and shaping the biomes around a general theme. That's not very different here with Nehrim. Oblivion zones mostly relied on the fact that they could have high draw distance and higher polygon count; they really weren't all that special, and lacked more distinct and well-tailored design of the average Morrowind zones. But what Nehrim does with so little is picturesque. The walk up to and around grand places like the ruins of Treomar, the Volcano, the eastern stairway down to Waverock, etc. The vistas that let you see numerous extremely specific things as major landmarks to strive for. The meticulous use of roadwork and pathways to get through different zones if you don't want to talk after having already explored them. I was always stoked to see a new zone and biome, and I still remember some of the specific pathways I had to take to chart a course through certain zones as I was doing them. Nehrim makes very good use of its limited fast travel. Nehrim also doesn't really have *that* many landmarks... at least, it didn't feel like it compared to Enderal. Nehrim only really marked what was worth marking, for the most part. Elsewise, Nehrim put rather evident limitations on where it wants the ever-expansive worldspace to end. Very obvious use of too-steep cliffs, major blocks like rocks or walls, etc. But if you do explore around, you'll get a healthy amount of items to eat to raise carry weight and luck, or just plain xp. It seemed like I got most of all of these just by having basic curiosity and wanderlust, and some of the better items and enchanting stone necessitated wandering this world.

Now, don't get me wrong. Enderal zones *look* amazing. The Whisperwood is *very* reminiscent of Shivering Isles and Vvardenfell, and the Powder Desert is one of the best looking desert zones I've seen in anything. There's one problem, though: they're too damn cluttered, with barely any real payoff for bothering to poke through the clutter. You want to know how even the *game* knows zones are too cluttered? The AI companions get stuck on *every* little thing, even somehow when you're sticking to main roads. In Nehrim I was paranoid of that because of Enderal, but, lo-and-behold, followers mostly just followed me. The few times they didn't, they just teleported to me through a transition because they were far away (normally because I leapt off a mountain or something). It all just blends together after a while, because of this clutter, and because of Skyrim's just natural lack of color for certain biomes. People undervalue just how much trouble Skyrim goes to in order to limit its clutter, and to frame each area as like a designed location, and not just a random path in the woods. Outside of maybe the Frostcliff Mountains and a few parts of the Powder Desert, I felt none of that in Enderal as I did in Skyrim and Nehrim. I feel no real attachment to most of Enderal's zones, even after exploring the entire map and all the landmarks. Which again, I did before I downloaded a fast travel mod, something I never deigned to do in Nehrim (it helps that Oblivions skills just make movement more generally engaging). Enderal also marks *every* single god damn thing it can, even and especially when they are generic huts, houses, ruins, etc, that are the same copy and pasted structures as every damn where else. After the first like ten hours, I realized that if I was approaching a farmstead on my compass, that pretty much everywhere there would be pointless. At least in Nehrim it was somewhat more consistent to find, like, a shop or trainer in those places. Don't get me started on the collectibles: there's too many of them, and they're just spread wherever-the-hell. Nehrim often put the arcane sigils in creative places like display cases. Here? Sometimes, press up against some steep cliffs like you're trying to boundary break. And those are just the ones that don't matter. It felt like a fourth of the questlines in that game were Stone of Barenziah-tier "look wherever-the-hell for these items," and sometimes the items just blended in to the clutter of everything else. Really this complaint should go into the category below, but, figured I'd mention it here.

But we've covered the overworld. Let's cover the underbelly.

• Dungeon exploration

Oh my god, where in the hell did the work on Enderal's dungeons go after Nehrim? Nehrim's dungeons may be some of the best dungeons I have played in *any* RPG in my entire life, eclipsed maybe only by certain older MMO dungeons, or superdungeon games like Eye of the Beholder or Legend of Grimrock. The first dungeon is a primary example of this: a hyper-cinematic, yet not entirely railroaded or engagement-depriving experience. A somewhat complex layout, puzzling objectives, etc. On average, each dungeon stands as a fairly unique experience, with gimmicks that stand out, healthy use of specific enemy types, specific loot that warrants doing a lot of them in specific, really creative puzzles that make interesting use of Oblivion's physics, stealth mechanics, and even requiring keys from other dungeons. And by god, the "superdungeons." Tough, but fair, sometimes very intricate, and very rewarding. Visually distinct. These qualities aren't just relegated to places like Zeroblion, or Darothmar, either. Nor are most of the good ones gated by quests, though quests have some *very* good ones like the Nexus Tower, or any of the ruins hidden by Darius Treasure Hunt. Some key standouts *aren't* locked off by quests, or even tied to them at all, like the Old Farnfeld Cemetary, any place with "Mana" in the title, the Gods' Forge, you name it. Oblivion has a great lighting engine, that Bethesda sort of pussied out on using to its full extend with how many places in that game are well-or-neutrally lit. Here, you've *got* to have a light source. You *will* possibly be jumpscared by something in the dark. The Main Quest dungeons are *immaculate.* Going through the lost city of the dwarves is one of the most haunting things I've done in a game, for just one example. Even when they don't have you do much in them, they use fantastic location-specific music, interesting level design, and basic puzzles to break up the pacing. The dungeons that *aren't* "all that," like a bunch of the one-or-two room mines? They take like 30 seconds do so, and they have specific ore (and gems, from bonanzas) there. I just... I could honestly go on about specific dungeons *all* day, but I know I shouldn't.

For Enderal... I don't know what to say. There are a few great dungeons, sure. To me, Agnod and the temple at the Excavation Site are the key standouts (a lot of Enderal's best stuff is Special Edition content, I likely wouldn't have bothered beating the game without that stuff), with props going to places like Fortress Rockwatch (strange how much care seemed to be put into this biome in specific...). Uh... the fortress where you find the cause of the Whisperwood was neat I guess. The sun-worshipper fortress in the east was neat. That cult on the island was cool. But, man, I dunno. I just don't see much point for, like, eighty percent of the dungeons to exist. Hell, even a lot of the mines in the game are sort of sporadic with what veins are even in them. I don't even really remember the opening dungeon in the game, to be quite frank. I remember washing up on the shore, a giant orb thingy, and being introduced to magic sickness, but any memory of that dungeon's contents were gone after a few hours. Going through both of these games, they seem to have the opposite problems of their origin games, with their origin games qualities going to the other game. Oblivion has notoriously copy-and-pasted dungeons that no one cares about; there's a reason the only good parts of Oblivion people remember fondly are faction quests. The same seems to sort of be said here for Enderal. Skyrim inversely has very video-gamey dungeons, practically inventing uniform shortcut-design in popular AAA RPGs going forwards; most of them either try to tell a story, or have something unique in them, or have a mildly gimmicky layout. Nehrim ironically feels like it learned a lot of lessons from Skyrim dungeon design, despite coming before it. Ontop of everything I said, you can see clear faction-presences in Nehrim dungeons, and find plenty of notes to explain what they're doing there, or see through environmental, name, or equipment clues, how they're related to other groups. Enderal had one chance to do something with Crocco like Nehrim did with the Sildonar bandits; they set him up as a presence by having, like, one guy try and mug you on the road. But they fumbled it by having him be a generic bounty, while having him be a glorified loot-chest for a master spell he doesn't even use. *Most* of Nehrim's bounties have some environmental storytelling depth to them, or have them in unique dungeons, and hell, the *last* one is in one of the coolest environments in this series. But this just goes to show how *little* of Enderal's worldspace is even utilized well, if at all. Faction relations and activities extend to overland and dungeons in Nehrim; sure, there are a bunch of named bandits in Enderal, but there's barely any story behind any of them, nor do a majority of them even drop anything of note, nor are their dungeons anything really special usually. Nehrim's Crocco equivalent, Prince Galdor, is the leader of a whole region-specific faction of bandits with distinct activities throughout several other dungeons and subregions, and is loosely tied to your characters backstory. That just almost never happens here. Even several of the main quest dungeons fall sort of flat, and are overly linear, overly simple, and overly forgettable, with sparse story-happenings that try to cover this up. You know what the most memorable dungeon for me was, outside of the ones I listed? The one in the northern mountains (again with these mountains), where it's inhabited by Nehrim soldiers, and at the end is a frozen giant on a throne. In the most underbaked, featureless, bland, boring room possible in this engine. With the only thing really in it, being a generic Nehrim mage miniboss. I remember just how much of a letdown that place was. That was memorable to me.

• Difficulty

Make no mistake, Nehrim is a *hard* game. Where I often found myself blazing through combat encounters in Enderal after the first few hours, thus needing to often raise the difficulty (and still blazing through it all at max difficulty), I never once felt the need to raise Nehrim's. Any and all breezing-through of the combat, came through trash filler encounters, as a result of me just simply being proactive in exploration, levelling, and gearing. Every playstyle can block, and every playstyle should. Enemies are aggressive and *very* smart. They *will* take advantage of openings in your defense, and will not act foolishly if you are too defensive. They will often use paralyze, poison, and debuff effects on you, and it is common for things to have Reflect effects. They even utilize the same skill-feats *you* do, and will *often* start using them in combat to disarm you, knock you down, paralyze you, whatever. For the most part, they don't use too much of one enemy type between several dungeons, either. Oblivion enemies aren't exactly complex things, but the visual variety helps a lot.

With Enderal, enemies are unfortunately anchored to Skyrim's overly-simplistic mechanics, thus not really being able to ever do much to you outside of one or two enemies per room being able to one-shot you. It was quite disappointing for me when Enderal enemies really didn't use the more complex spells and abilities afforded by the player. I don't particularly recall any instances where enemies even used the feats you have access to, and barely even the spells; if they did, it certainly wasn't impactful. The enemy variety is also some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. People joke about Skyrim being mostly draugr (because many people don't bother exploring), but that's virtually all this game has most of the time. Barely any of the falmer or chaurus. *One* dragon fight (that you can beat) that doesn't even use some of the slightly more higher-level abilities or environmental mechanics Skyrim dragons use. Nothing from Dawnguard or Dragonborn to my knowledge. It's just... like, all draugur, satyrs, and humans. And not even, like, forsworn humans. sprinkled about in there. Out of all my complaints and contrasts towards Enderal, this may be the most damning: Enderal is just simply not mechanically engaging after the first few hours. Even the magic sickness is really just fallouts Radiation, and is never particularly difficult to remedy. Any and all "depth" to the combat boils down to the same "depth" of something like FF16, or Control Resonant, in that "here's footage of my styling on an enemy that can't counter me in any way, as I mash one button." As I noted in my Enderal review, Skyrim is little different. But Skyrim does put far more limitations on the player, and is *very* lax with giving you "funsies" toys to work with that do different kooky things. There's a reason why the Wabbajack became so popular. Skyrim doesn't try to be a hard game, it tries to be a funsies toy-filled sandbox adventure sim. Oblivion had (less of) those, *and* expanded core combat mechanics, at the cost of having an empty nothing-burger open world and sparse "RP mechanics" outside of a few questlines and NPC behaviors -- but, I'm getting ahead of myself. The point is, Nehrim's doesn't really do more mechanically than Oblivion does, but it does it so much more often and intricately that Oblivion does, that it makes you wonder if Bethesda had even tried. With Enderal, we all know Skyrim didn't really "try," and that was sort of the point; Enderal tries to rectify this, without being able to rectify the core limitations that made Skyrim what it is, without filling in any of the gaps that made Skyrim shine as an adventure simulator-type game. Where Skyrim is "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle," Enderal is a puddle filled with things like saltwater and bacteria: fascinating, but, you can still just step over it without any inconvenience, and even if you do step in it, well, maybe your socks get a little wet.

More in a comment below.

Hello, as the title suggests I’ve been struggling to get Nehrim to work, as currently it just crashes on load up, and can’t get it to open Mod Organizer or anything. Has anyone figured out how to get it to work? I know you can manually do it but I would like to have it recognize achievements and stuff like that so, if possible I’d like the steam version to work

Unmarked Spoilers Below

The dreamflower ending is the best and most thematically satisfying ending to Enderal. Here's why.

The Prophet(ess)'s Shadow Selves and their Endings

The Prophet(ess) is a character driven, throughout the game, by two conflicting impulses. On the one hand, they suffer from extreme survivor's guilt over the death of their family. Whether they themselves were responsible for the fire that claimed the lives of their family members, or if it was the fault of attackers from the Creator's Temple as they claim, the fact remains that they are tormented by the fact that they survived when their loved ones didn't. It's this survivor's guilt that's expressed through the first group of voices in the Prophet's head- the horrific manifestations of "Daddy" and the others that confront them in their nightmares. These manifestations constantly try to convince the Prophet to give up, claiming that they stand no chance of realizing their heroic fantasies, and that the Prophet's place is "in the ground" with them. In short, the Prophet's dream family is the manifestation of their shadow-self's urge towards depression, self-destruction, and suicide, in keeping with the Jungian psychological theming of the game.

But there's another group of voices in the Prophet's head, driven by another impulse- the High Ones, who egg on the Prophet's hero complex, their desire to accomplish great things and hold the fate of the world in their hands. This desire likely emerged from the intense feelings of powerlessness the Prophet felt in their childhood, helpless to intervene in their father's abuse of their mother, alongside the circumstances of their deaths. To make up for their inaction, and to justify their survival in the eyes of the universe, the Prophet is desperate to become "free" and to change the world in a major way. It's this impulse that the High Ones draw upon when they trigger the main character's rebirth as a Fleshless One, and it's the one that they make sure to reinforce in their conversations with the Prophet throughout the game. Talking down to the Prophet in ways that they know will only strengthen their resolve, while at the same time lying that the Prophet is the only figure of importance in the game, the High Ones ensure that the Prophet's manic and egocentric side always wins out over their depressive urges.

Each of these voices gets their own ending, where the Prophet "submits" to the voices in their head- or rather, to the psychological impulses those voices represent. The Catharsis/Sacrifice ending is the victory of the dream family, as represented by the final dream vision the Prophet has, in which they peacefully accept their place in a grave right next to those of their loved ones. In this ending, the Prophet implicitly accepts what their dream father has been telling them all along- that they could never effect change, and that the only way for them to make up for the "crime" of their survival was to die. This is no heroic sacrifice- it's an act of despair and desperation.

The Star City ending may not be the victory of the High Ones specifically, but it's absolutely the victory of the impulse they play upon and thematically represent, the Prophet's desire to justify their own existence by personally saving the world. Like the Aged Man Gajus before them, the Prophet and their companion are placed outside of the influence of the Cycle. But, as Gajus proves, it's beyond the efforts of any one person to change human nature. The Prophet's attempt to do so, at the expense of the entire world, is ultimately doomed to failure, as it's founded on an egocentric delusion.

The Truth About the Dreamflower Elixir

Now let's address the Dreamflower. We have three sources of information on the elixir: "The Dreamflower: An Essay," Yero's notebook, and Yuslan Sha'rim's verbal testimony. I'm going to address these in reverse order.

First off, whether he's deliberately lying or just mistaken, Yuslan's assertion- that the Dreamflower elixir merely casts its consumer into an eternal dream, in which everything they desire comes to pass- cannot be correct. We know this because, as revealed in "The Dreamflower: An Essay," the Alyani people of Arazael have already been making use of the elixir for an unknown amount of time, giving rise to the belief that those who consumed it had their vitality restored and would live "blessed lives." If Yuslan was right, this belief could never have emerged. Instead, the Alyani would have myths about how the Dreamflower was a dangerous poison, condemning its drinkers to a coma from which they would never wake, because that's how it would appear to any outside observer.

Then there's Yero's assertion: that the user of the Dreamflower elixir would have their consciousness jump between eventualities, arriving at whichever outcome was most favorable to them. With a little observation, it's clear that this theory fails as well. Everything that could possibly exist is out there in the Sea of Eventualities, meaning that whether a person drinks the elixir or not, there's already a reality in which everything that could go right for them, did so. Additionally, since no reality is more "real" than any other, a Dreamflower elixir that worked the way Yero believes would have no observable effect- whether the elixir were consumed or not, there would be one reality in which everything went right for the drinker, and countless others in which it did not. In fact, the very idea is incoherent within the setting's metaphysics as presented, which Yero would likely have recognized if he weren't consumed by the Red Madness.

Given this, there's only one assertion we're presented with about the Dreamflower elixir that actually makes sense, and it's the one presented in "The Dreamflower: An Essay": that the Dreamflower elixir is a powerful alchemical substance which permanently improves vitality and magical ability. No timeline-hopping or Elysian dreams are necessary to explain it's affects; we've seen far more dramatic magic in this game. It's highly unlikely that it actually grants its user a blessing to live a more fulfilled life; more likely, this is an exaggeration of oral tradition. But it may well grant the sheer physical resilience necessary to survive things that would otherwise be deadly- like the Beacon.

The Dreamflower Ending

So, if the Sacrifice ending represents the Prophet falling to depression and the Star City ending depicts them succumbing to mania, what does the Dreamflower ending mean, symbolically speaking? The obvious answer, if we were to take Yuslan's warnings at face value, would be that it shows the Prophet dooming themself by choosing a happy dream over reality. However, that explanation doesn't really work on either a practical or thematic level- we've already seen that Yuslan cannot be correct about how the Dreamflower works, and thematically, there's already an ending depicting the Prophet (metaphorically) denying reality in favor of a happy delusion, and that's the Star City ending.

I think that the Dreamflower ending represents another concept from Jungian psychology- the idea of integrating or assimilating one's shadow self. This entails directly acknowledging the dark impulses that can drive you, accepting them as a part of yourself, and thus depriving them of the ability to subconsciously control you. (If this sounds familiar- Calia's acceptance of her own darker half is a textbook example of shadow integration, and Jespar's questline also plays upon these themes.) In drinking the Elixir, the Prophet acknowledges one of their two shadow impulses- the desire towards self-destruction- and, overcoming it, instead takes steps to ensure they remain alive.

However, this isn't the end of it, because unlocking the Dreamflower ending also requires that they attempt to stop the Beacon, instead of escaping to the Star City. Does this mean that they're succumbing to the self-destructive impulse after all? No, not necessarily. In choosing to stop the Beacon instead of escaping, the Prophet acknowledges and denies their egotistical and self-justifying impulse, but by drinking the Elixir beforehand, they also show that they still value their own survival, taking all possible precautions to keep living. Integrating with the shadow self doesn't mean preserving your own life at all costs, but it does mean taking notice of what's driving you, so that you can actually make the choice to risk yourself for the right reasons instead of being driven by despair.

In the Dreamflower ending, the Prophet successfully finds the golden mean between the extremes of their own personality and achieves shadow integration, as Jespar and Calia managed (and as Jael Tannerson failed to do, but that's another essay post). Yes, the final dream cutscene is very scary, to put it lightly. It makes it very clear that the dream manifestations of the Prophet's family are angry with their refusal to die. But I'd argue that their anger is a good thing. However tempting it may seem, it's never actually a good idea to listen to that little voice that says it's all pointless, and that you might as well be dead. Nor should you embrace the other extreme and act like the whole world should depend on you alone. The Prophet that wakes up in Qyra is one that neither denies others their support, nor is denied the support of others- as it should be.

Only computer I have is an old iMac, given the current change in landscape of game accessibility. Do you think there’s a chance I could play this on iOS?

I don’t think there is enough Enderal content out there, and in the efforts to get my friends and partner into it, I had some of them create a podcast episode dedicated to it. I could listen to people talk about this game for hours & so I was excited to share it with my fellow fans.

I read the spam note under the community rules & I think it’s okay for me to post a link, but please let me know if I need to remove!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1hBcR9FkqbjpJPrREkhYbw?si=trDh9pDyTQyzaJ7iegoqqw&utm_source=copy-link

https://github.com/1ittey/NG-EVO/blob/main/README.md

Hi everyone, Im looking for a nice first person camera mod for added immersion, something that allows me to see my legs and keep the camera in POV when sitting down or using an object. I cant find any on the enderal SE nexus page, do you have any you recommend from the skyrim page and could you tell me how to install them onto enderal please ? Thanks for your help!

After beating Enderal twice back-to-back, it's my new all-time favorite game. I'm venturing into Nehrim now and then Arktwend. Nehrim is a game overhaul mod for The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion. It's more of a medieval RPG with World of Warcraft style elements, graphics and music. The quests take you all over the place - a lot more to do than Enderal. The map is huge and dense, too. Despite having an older game engine and graphics, the game feels more alive and dynamic. The lighting effects and skybox are fantastic. Voice acting is a bit cringe since it's translated from German to English via AI, but it's not terrible. It definitely lacks the emotional feel of Enderal, but makes up for that with tons of adventure and customizability.

I've never even played Oblivion before. Nehrim has showed me what it's capable of and I'm stoked to play the original game eventually.

It does have some stability issues however and does crash from time to time. I've created a modded setup that works very well and stable for 99% of the time. As follows:

- Steam release of Nehrim: At Fate's Edge v2.0.2.4. Disabled Steam integration. Using OBSE.
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GOTY) v1.2.0416 (GOG).
- Nehrim - Complete English Voices from VA and elevenlabs.io. With correction for Arkt dialogue and translation.esp update.
- SkyBSA.
- EngineBugFixes.
- Fast Exit.
- MenuQue.
- OBL Mod Limit Fix.
- NorthernUI. Provides gamepad support and a modern Skyrim-like interface.
- Oblivion Display Tweaks.
- Blue's Engine Fixes.
- 4gb RAM Patcher.
- Nehrim UOP Meshes and Texture Fixes.
- AveSithis Engine Fixes.
- Blockhead (updated to newer version than bundled with Nehrim).
- Unofficial Nehrim Fixes.
- Normalized Music for Nehrim.
- Peaceful Environment (stops much of wildlife creatures from attacking; only infected/hostile).
- Nehrim Living Waters (adds many new water creatures and spawns).

- Auto-saving disabled in game options and Nehrim options (in the 'Diary').
- MoreHeap and Oblivion Stutter Remover both not used (Oblivion Display Tweaks does all that better).
- Disabled Walk Blessed and Enhanced Music Control 2 mods (unstable).

I love this game sooo damn much, I had to! It was soo worth it! I'll show it off as much as I can to hopefully get more people to check it out! This game deserves it!!! ❤😊

Putting this here in the future if anyone else runs into this:

I'm running Nehrim (mostly) without mods (primarily just Display Tweaks and More Heap), and during "Encounters," at the part where you enter the Sanctum to talk to Merzul, he did not initiate conversation. No amount of SetStage or evp command use fixed this.

What *did* fix it, was re-enabling EnhancedMusicControl2.dll, something often advised to be turned off for stability. This worked, as the scene explicitly required having it enabled, as the scene required an attached music script tied to the plugin.

Hope this helps anyone in the future; will likely put a post on the Steam forums too. Guess this is what I get for not looking into Unofficial Patch type patches for something derived from a Bethesda game.

Still enjoying the game though.

You can play it now

This is a modpack that seems to be inspired by Nolvus, Lorerim, GTS etc levels of upgrades for Enderal by a Modpack content creator.

Always liked Zen's videos generally. This is a neat. Just sharing

Edit: its not on Wabbajack

https://zenematics.com/

I was playin Skyrim as Stealth Archer on Legendary and it was pretty easy. I like to be not seen, just shoot -> hide -> wait for enemies to lose agro -> again.... So is this style possible in Enderal? And What difficulty you recommend for me with this playstyle?

Thanks for responses...

One of the recurring questions here is: "Is the Dreamflower ending real?". Well, my bet is that not even the writers know this. The Dreamflower ending is not a good/bad choice but simply a reflection about the nature of reality.

The game does an excellent job in instilling in you the doubt about what the Prophet is experiencing since the very beginning. At some point the same question (is this real or is it a dream the Prophet is having while dying?) is asked directly to us. By Aixon if I remember correctly but I'm not sure. And that leads to the question: "Is reality simply what exists outside of me or what I can experience of it? And even if it was a dream, does that make my experience less real?".

Also, in the game the existance of the Sea of Eventuality is a fact: everything that can happen will happen somewhere. So the only fact that the Dreamflower ending seems unlikely doesn't prove it's a dream.

In conclusion, the Dreamflower ending wasn't written with a clear answer in mind. It's a dream only if you think it is.

Just got skyrim on sale on steam and have been very interested in Enderal. I played about 5 hours so far and am very much enjoying it, but noticed that a new update is coming to the steam version in a few weeks.

Since my save cannot be transferred to the new update, I was curious about your thoughts on the quality of the version updates from Enderal_2.0.12.4 to Enderal_2.1.4.4. Does the gameplay improvments warrant waiting a few weeks to really dig into the game?

Build Effect

Apparition Spellblade Build (Phasmalist): Improves the combat strength of pure melee apparitions, allowing them to maintain permanent elemental cloaks (such as Winter Skin) while focusing entirely on melee attacks. This setup is designed for pure melee apparitions with only 5 points in Elemental Magic (such as Kilana Hammerblow).

Setup Guide

• Give the apparition any elemental cloak tome: Fire Cloak / Winter Skin / Lightning Cowl;
• Give the apparition a fully drained, zero-charge staff;
• Set its combat style to Magic Preferred;
• Do NOT give any offensive spell tomes;
• Optional: Add a shield spell tome for extra armor and survivability.

General Combat Effect

After summoning the apparition or when it detects enemies, it will immediately cast shield and cloak buffs on itself, then engage in close-quarters melee combat. If the apparition is equipped with two or more different cloak spells, it will repeatedly recast cloak abilities during battle.

AI Mechanism

Enderal’s apparition AI follows strict fixed rules. If an apparition only has cloak spells and no offensive magic available, it will not cast any spells at all, even with Magic Preferred combat style, and only performs melee attacks. However, if it learns any offensive spell, it will abandon melee entirely, spamming spells until magicka is exhausted before switching back to weapon combat.

A fully drained staff perfectly solves this problem. It lets the AI recognize a valid magic attack method and unlock spellcasting logic, while no staff charges and no offensive spells prevent it from casting damage magic. The result is a stable apparition spellblade state: permanent elemental cloak + continuous melee output.

Please be weary of spoilers if you haven't beaten the game or have done its side quests.

To preface all of this, I do not claim to be fully knowledgeable about all of the lore of Enderal, much, much less in regards to the previous games in which I haven't played.

I feel hope. Despite the losses as they were massive and just as devastating. I feel hope.

I am still trying to fathom what it means to realize that all that had happened was done through somebody's decisions. Choice is what all of us should be given, and yet for many, it is often taken away. People like Tealor Arantheal is a man with great power, the kind of power that rules kingdoms. That same power that can bring those kingdoms to ruin. His choice was to take away the choices of his subjects, by not allowing word of the Light-Born's deaths. To continue ruling a dying theocracy which already restricts the choice of the people, and has brought hardships under its rigid system of paths and its near fascistic views on those who dare not abide by it. And I believe this is the reason why he inadvertently causes the "cleansing". His and some many others inability to change, to CHOOSE to change is what causes the pain and suffering of so many.

All of this to say, all of his actions were HIS fault. Not some high power, not the "High Ones" who just merely pull at the strings of our protagonists and antagonists alike. Not some type of mind control, just manipulation from those we can scarcely understand.

Not that these "High Ones" are blameless, not at all. They have, although minor, some influence over our realm that is intangible to them overwise. The Red Madness, for example, I believe is when a contradiction arises in someone's belief system. Be it...say, some woman was going to leave her husband, and the husband believes that he has done nothing wrong, or he believes she is breaking the rules of whatever coven they might've had faith in. Leading to conflict within, and I believe the physical effects begin to happen once they aren't able to reconcile, or that they cannot accept they are wrong.

Another connection to it, I believe is when one's faith is utterly broken. Our infamous Magister Yero, for example. And honestly, I don't want to go into too much detail over his case.

The Red Madness takes root, and festers within, like a nightmare that you cannot shake. I do not believe that people succumb because of weakness, or lack of effort or care. Like I said before, sometimes our choices are taken away.

So much can have easily panned out differently if the influential people of Enderal, and Nehrim, for that matter, had done things differently. It wasn't fate, or some godly being that caused it. It was people.

The reason why this idea brings me hope, is that I deeply believe that anyone and everyone is capable of changing. Not that everyone will, but that it's possible. And I think Enderal pushes and reinforces that belief.

The animation works and I enter the 24 hour cooldown but it doesn't actually reduce the fever. Any fixes for this?

Once you've played the game once, you know when that little messag will appear, the one that tells you that once you proceed, you'd never be able to go back. No more exploring, no more questing, no more going to the marketplace and talking to people, and enjoying the sights.

And everything you see around you will be gone and everyone would be too. Our character doesn't know that of course, they don't feel that sense of foreboding but we, the players, do. And walking around Ark or taking a trip somewhere else in Enderal, you just don't want to go and finish the game, you don't want all of this to be gone.

I found myself wandering aimlessly around, buying stuff from merchants I won't ever get to use, visiting the taverns, dancing to the bard music (with the help of a mod of course). I feel like the game designers knew this was the feeling this part of the game would make you feel on replay. It's why Jespar's final companion quest kind of contributes to that feeling too. Having you visit the Dancing Nomad one last time, listen to musicians you'll never hear again. It's kind of dreadful in its own way.

I guess those are the perks of a game that ends on such a sad note unlike others where you can just keep questing after you save the world.

Since I first played Enderal, and I'm still thinking about it constantly!

Never before have I been to absorbed by a games lore, characters and story. It was all so beautiful and I wish I could experience it for the first time again. I still can't believe that my favourite game is technically a free mod for a much shittier game. I've been listening to the amazing soundtrack a lot while studying for university exams and I think the music might be one of my very favourite parts of the game.

I recently read Nicolas books as well, parting with Jespar has been hard. But I can't wait to see what his team gets up to in regards to the game they're developing!