Nehrim review

Wow, what a good game.  I’m actually really upset that I finished it, I was having so much fun…For those of you who don’t know what Nehrim is, it’s a total conversion mod for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.  The story is unrelated to Oblivion, and it has nothing to do with the world of The Elder Scrolls.

So, my impression the entire time I played through Nehrim was “holy crap, I can’t believe this isn’t a ‘real’, majorly funded game”.  The amount of detail that went into the story, the characters, the world, all of it just boggled my mind.  If you take a look at the staff behind Nehrim, they all look to be about my age…http://www.nehrim.de/teamEV.html So this was a super-ambitious, really well executed total conversion mod, done by what looks to be a bunch of young adults.

The game starts out in a massive, largely abandoned old mine.  You receive a letter summoning you there, but you’re not sure who sent it or why.  The cave is inhabited with cave trolls and you have to fight your way out (at first with the help of another person who received a letter just like yours).  Once you have finally reached the entrance to the cave, you learn why you’ve been summoned–you’re gifted with the ability to do magic, and you’re being recruited by a “religious” order who sense your potential.  You learn about the war being waged on the continent of Nehrim, as well as the ban on magic in the Middle Realm (where you’re located).  I felt that the intro to this game was a lot more engaging than the intro to Oblivion.  It also sets you up well to continue on to the main quest, which is much more extensive than that of Oblivion.

The main quest itself is really intricate.  It takes you a while to figure out what it is that you’re fighting for, as well as the intentions of your friends and of your enemies.  Much of the game is pretty morally grey; it’s less simplistic than many games out there, and often you come to learn that the people you’re fighting against aren’t the evil demons one likes to picture them as.  Also, many of the characters you meet along the way are incredibly unique.  You don’t only get the stereotypical army commander; you meet eccentric Dwarf kings (my favorite), meek but gifted slaves, haughty duchesses, apathetic townspeople, and so forth.  It really helps that SureAI got some serious voice actors to do all of the characters, so–even though it’s all in German–characters have unique voices that match their personalities.

The main quest will take you to some really unique places…Abandoned cities made of marble, exotic realms with unusual customs, ominous forests, and so forth.  However, the main quest doesn’t nearly cover all of the land on the continent of Nehrim, so you should definitely do some extra exploring.  The variety in the world of Nehrim is really astounding.  Much of the world is hand-placed rather than generated, which means that the forests you explore are by no means monotonous or repetitive.  You can come across some really interesting places–and really interesting side quests–by just wandering away from the main quest for a bit.

Even if you don’t find a side quest in that old temple you decide to explore, you could find some very valuable armor or weapons.  Nehrim has very special armor sets, each one with different attributes to them.  Often you will not find a whole set in one place, but instead need to look for all of the pieces across the continent of Nehrim.  When you wear more than one item from a specific set, you get an extra bonus of some sort or another pertaining to the type of set it is that you’re wearing.  For example, I was particularly fond of the “Dark Death” set, which included a hood, a robe, a pair of gauntlets, and a pair of boots.  These items contained enchantments to increase Destruction, Magicka, Alteration, and Mysticism.  So that set would be particularly good for someone who used spells a lot.  There were sets for people who like to use stealth tactics or who like to use more heavy-handed tactics.  Nehrim already has a great system in place for customizing your character through leveling, so with that plus the unique sets, you are really able to play the game in exactly your style.

The way you level up in Nehrim is by gaining experience points, whether through combat or exploration or completing a quest.  Once you level up, you can choose to upgrade certain things such as strength, agility, intelligence, and so forth.  You also gain “learning points”, which you can use by talking to an instructor and exchanging those “learning points” for upgrades in skills such as marksman, speechcraft, illusion, and so on.  You can increase those skills by practicing them too; if you shoot enough deer with your bow, eventually your marksman skill will increase.

So, one thing that everyone seemed most frustrated with in Oblivion was the leveling system.  In Nehrim, enemies do not level with you, so you have to train up in order to defeat certain ones.  There are some enemies which I still find difficult even though I have beaten the main quest.  Of course, an enemy which is more difficult will give you more experience points than one which is less difficult.  This makes it much more rewarding to actually practice and train in Nehrim than it is in Oblivion.

The mechanics of the actual gameplay in Nehrim is overall pretty similar to Oblivion; you use weapons and spells similarly, you talk to people similarly, you can still steal things (though there’s no thief’s guild to be welcomed into).  There is no fast travel, but you can teleport, provided you have a teleportation rune in your inventory and you have learned the appropriate teleportation spell for a given town or city.  Otherwise, you must walk or ride a horse.  Because the world is so freaking interesting and varied, I found myself not minding that I didn’t have the ability to fast travel from town to town.

So, what’s the downside to this game?  Well, it’s in German…I didn’t mind reading subtitles, but I can imagine how some people might get a bit frustrated with that.  Also, it’s somewhat glitchy and runs at much slower fps than Oblivion, which I believe is due to the fact that it’s a completely massive mod on the old Gamebryo engine.  It certainly does take better advantage of the graphics engine than Oblivion–the developers have made some truly unique and beautiful locations.  I didn’t really have any major problems with the game, but I’ve seen that people have posted on forums with various performance issues.

Anyways, I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who has the time to sink into it.  The main quest is supposed to take about 30-40 hours, I have played about 63 hours of Nehrim and I still haven’t come close to exploring the entire world (I mostly neglected the northern region of Nehrim and the desert between the southern region and Treomar).  You can read more about Nehrim, as well as download the game, here: http://www.nehrim.de/startEV.html

(edit) Also, here’s the intro video to get you all excited to play it

Nehrim review, 6.5 out of 10 based on 8 ratings

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