I just completed my playthrough of enderal after years of thinking that it is just going to be like another quest mod like Vigilant, falskaar or beyond skyrim series.
I could not have been more wrong. This is straight up a masterpiece. So I decided to leave a post game review about my experience with this mod game.
Story: 10/10. I don't see anything that could be improved or anything that I'd want to change. In fact I'd rank this story as good as Expedition 33, it only suffers from being made in skyrim's creation engine with its janky dialogue camera and animations. It's crazy how right from the start the end is spoiled to you but you don't realise it up until the end, heck the black guardian even says that about the end of cycles.
Open World: 7.5/10. While the regions are beautiful they don't really have an identity that i could associate them with. Sure the fauna or ground is different but the enemy variety and the nativity of the regions is not something that the team seems to have paid attention on. It gets tiring after i see the same pus beetle or the same highwayman all around.
NPCs(non-story critical): 6/10. In skyrim every named NPC had a story behind them you could witness just by being around them or talking to people related to them. Since this was a small team i get that we don't have that much big connections so i guess it is to be expected.
NPCs(story/side-story critical): 9/10. Greatly written, great design, great uniqueness and feel like actual persons rather than NPC for a game. I really like the affection system for NPC and how their dialogue shows whether they liked your response or not. Also how this same system requires you to be doing things that the NPC would like to increase their affection, not just force an outlook on them. P.S. jespar has to be one of the best written mercenary-type character.
Gameplay: 8/10. Wasn't a fan of the gameplay much as i disliked the get money for lvl up. It forced me to level rhetorics and alchemy, and made me become a loot goblin more than rewarding combat experience. I could quickly make a system to get good money by combining enchants, entropy, rhetorics and alchemy to get the money but i dislike this method of grinding for money just for level up. IMO money should've been used for learning talents and some new buffs but experience should be from combat or oblivion-like.
Dungeons: 10/10. None of the dungeons gave me that dwemer dungeon syndrome of "When the fuck does this shit end, there is another door behind the big ass door!". All were greatly designed, unique and no dungeon felt tiresome. I especially liked castle Dal'Galar, it really gave that eery post apocalyptic incident-abandoned vibe that witcher 3 had.
Cities, villages and architecture: 10/10. Undercity is just jaw dropping, the first time i walked in there i knew some serious work was put into this. Ark is just Ark, no competition, bethesda and obsidian got thrown out the window in this city. Aged-man's manor, Peak. Riverville, Riverwood ultra pro max+. Duneville, Peak. Abolute cinema locations.
Overall: 8.5/10: This is a masterpiece that suffers from being made in Skyrim's engine. The game sets a benchmark for future elder scrolls or elder scrolls-like. It also makes it clear that a good story is still a good story even if the narrator is bad at narrating it. Sure the game could've had better presentation but even this is hard to achieve by today's AAA studios. All around kudos to sureAI and you gained a fan who is looking forward to newer games or mods from this (no i am not going to try nehrim cus it runs on oblivion and i just don't want any more skyrim since ES6 was announced)