A few flaws can't stop MW from being a great RPG experience
Pros:
-Insanely huge and immersive world to explorern-Freedom to play who you want and how you want
-Great soundtrack
-Hours upon hours of content and gameplay will keep you very busy
-Interesting storyline and lore
Cons:
-Some gameplay mechanics are clunky and bad
-Can be a bit buggy
-Journal can be confusing
When it comes to open world games and RPG's in general, very few can do it as well as Bethesda, and Morrowind is no exception. It is massive, it is vast, it is deep, and best of all, it's a great experience to play. Very few games can claim to be as immersive as Morrowind.
Morrowind begins in classic Elder Scrolls fashion with your character as a prisoner for unknown reasons, all of the races from other Elder Scrolls games are here for your choosing, and you can customize their features as you see fit. You will also choose your characters class, which is done through a variety of 3 different ways; you can take a quiz like series of questions, select one of the many different classes from a list, or you can even make your own. This let's the player feel more control over their character experience, letting them play and choose how their character turns out. You will also choose a birth sign as well. After you make your character you are free to wander the world as you see fit, or stick around the town and help with tasks and do quests for it's various citizens. Really though Morrowind doesn't hold your hand in any way, it let's you loose in this big, vast world and let's you choose how to handle it.
Graphically speaking Morrowind looks dated, but it does have some nice art direction that helps. Each different region you visit seems to have it's own culture and this is reflected in the game. Merchant towns have middle-eastern like architecture, tall and colorful plant and mushroom towers are homes to powerful wizards, giant shells of dead animals are carved out and used for homes....Morrowind is full of surprises in it's world. There are plenty of interesting things to see, which is a good thing as exploring is a big aspect of this game. From a gameplay stand point, Morrowind offers complete freedom but it's not as refined as it could be. You are free to make and play any kind of character you want, from a savage warrior, or a noble knight, a sneaky assassin, a powerful wizard who can conjure the dead to fight for him, or anything else you can imagine.
However the gameplay mechanics themselves lack finesse, for example everything is determined by an off screen dice roll, this is not a problem in it's self but with Morrowind it can be confusing as the game relies so much on immersion. It is strange and frustrating to pick up a sword and swing it directly at an enemy and have it do no damage, simply because you Long Blade skill is too low. Or try to cast a spell and it failing even though you have the right amount of magic, simply because once again you lack a higher level. The only way to really make sure your attacks always hit is to get them to very high levels, this goes for other skills in the game as well like Restoration and Alchemy etc...
Morrowind also has awkward and stiff mechanics when it comes to controls. Your character, for lack of a better word, is SLOW. Yes, very slow. Running does not feel life running, it feels more like fast walking, and walking feels more like crawling. This is a shame because Morrowind is such a large world and it would be nice to get around a bit faster. There are things you can do to improve it though, like choosing to raise your speed stat. But it takes far too long to get it to a decent movement level and it should be quicker from the get go. There are options available for you to travel around the world faster though, boats and striders (giant dead crabs, I know sounds weird) can be used to take you to various towns, villages, and cities. There is also a teleport spell you can use to transport you to the nearest town as well. But these cost money in the game, and it would make the player feel more in control if there was a better fast travel option. There are also many bugs in Morrowind, from occasional system crashes to weird pop in textures and getting stuck in walls, these all exist in this game. And while they can be frustrating, they are not too frequent to make it a big problem.
The Island of Vvardenfell (the island Morrowind takes place on) is HUGE, it can feel overwhelming at times but there is so much to see and discover you will love going over every hill, through every forest, into every town and dungeon.....Morrowind is highly immersive in the world it has created and the content it offers. There is literally a near endless amount of quests and tasks or the player to tackle, each one being surprisingly unique. There are various guild missions such as the Mages guild, Fighters, Thieves etc....each offering a different style of gameplay. There are also a large amount of free roam type quests you can get from the various NPC's in the game, Morrowind always has something for you to do. It is unfortunate however that the Journal system used for organizing your quests is not better.
It is clunky and can feel like a mess, especially when you start to get multiple quests at once, the game also does not give very good directions on how to get to your objectives, they are quite generic and often involve phrases like "look for two rocks over a hill" well there are hundreds, probably thousands of rocks and hills, how do you know which one exactly? Thankfully not all quests are like this, and many of them give better directions than others, but it the Journal system is definitely a system that could have been improved. Morrowind also offers you many different types of dungeons to explore, from creepy ancestral tombs to bandit cave hideouts, old abandoned forts and much more!
These dungeons make exploring Morrowind even better. rnrn Morrowind also offers a very engaging main quest, without spoiling anything let's just say it is far deeper than you first realize, and you won't be able to stop playing it until you finish it. Of course the main quest is entirely optional in this game, so there is no need to rush into it if you don't want to. The soundtrack is also well done, though it is a bit short, it is full of beautiful ambient instrumental scores that you will fall in love with and keep stuck in your head for a long time.
Finale Verdict:
Despite it's few issues, the bottom line is that Morrowind is definitely worth playing. It's world is vastly immersive and it's freedom, exploration, and content will keep you coming back for more time and time again.
The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind get's a 4/5
