GamersGlobal - Nehrim review (translation)

[Aisis]

I have made this translation for the guys on ORE. Since it is already translated and I didn't see a translation anywhere on these forums, I thought of posting it here too. There may be some things missing (the huge majority is there, but I did not translate absolutely everything - the voice acting part is missing completely) and my English may be flawed too. Both of the languages are foreign to me, but the contents should be correct. In order to see the pictures and video, please visit the original site. http://www.gamersglobal.de/test/nehrim?page=0,0


Nehrim review - Part one

Nehrim is one of the biggest modding projects, that have been made till this day. Next to a world close to the size of the original Oblivion game and a well-thought out gameplay offers this Title also professional sound, on which participated 56 voice actors and a studio. By evaluations of fan modification it is usual to include a good portion of good will, following the motto "Well, they made it for free". With Nehrim it is a different case and thus we think of it and evaluate it as a "fully-fledged" game.

Epic storyline with original ideas

The plot of Nehrim doesn't need to hide behind any of the up-to-date RPG-Storylines. Nevertheless it proceeds a bit slower, thus be ready to invest a bit of patience – it pays off! The Lightborn, powerful mages, rule over the humans and let themselves be worshiped as Gods. In the past revolted a group of three powerful mages against this reign. One of them, Arantheal, killed the "God" Erodan, was however captured in a later battle with the troops of the Lightborn and has since then vanished. Barateon, another mage, used this arisen void in authority and declared himself the only ruler over Nehrim. And because he wishes to keep this position of power, was the existing ban of magic even more intensified. Non the less a certain Merzul continues to teach the gifted students in arcane arts, to preserve the ideals of Arantheal. As a fresh member of this Order you also follow this ideal and strive to get rid of this yoke of oppression. The first direction you get is to find and free Arantheal, since without him the Order is greatly weakened.

With this description is the storyline only a bit scratched on the surface. In the further development gets the story deeper and can be very well described with one word: epic. Until a grandiose ending you will be fully occupied for round 40 to 50 hours, depending on the count of side quests you decide to fulfill. You can also deepen your knowledge of the background and lore with books in the game, that were written by the developers. Even though not all quests keep the high norm of the story and sometimes feel like they should just stretch it's length, we think that the whole is really well made. In the following video you can see the Intro of the game, that may not be at Blizzard level, but makes you wish for more.


Intro: - see video on the original site

"I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely." ~ Ludwig van Beethoven ~

Humans say, that fate always wins. But that's only the case, because those fools follow the rules. If you do something unexpected, something that has never been done before, opposite to any mankind's idea of mission and prediction, you will leave the road of fate, run away from it and resist the dangers lurking on it's edge - then it definitely will not win. Often just a small stone that begins to roll is enough to do that. Likewise on the continent Nehrim was such a stone made to roll. If it was unintentional or intentional is impossible to find out. Although the avalanche this event started, should mark the legends of this land for a long time. The first stone, rather a small pebble, was a dozen of sealed letters, which were without a signature one night lain unseen before the doors of their recipients. The content was a mysterious invitation to a meeting in an abandoned part of a mine, somewhere in a faraway part of Nehrim. Why and for what purpose was not mentioned in there, but even then a lot of recipients have followed them. With the arrival on the meeting spot was the avalanche made to roll.


Before you start with your adventure, it is time to create your character first. You can choose one of the three races as your own, two of them are human and one a Half-Aeterna (a kind of elven race). Then you have to make your way through a rather thrilling dungeon. At the end of the cave you will find out, that you are one of the few people with the gift of magic and can study more of it in the "Sanktum". To do so you'll have to join the Order, a community of mages, which fights for the freedom of mankind since a thousand years ago. We won't flood you with the diverse terms and names here, but in the game you will get without mercy the full load of unknown words and concepts. We were sometimes remembered of the Outcast, which game had also the same way of charging the player with unknown terms. Though with the time you'll get acquainted with them. Overall is the flow of new information in the beginning quite big. They are however packed into well made dialogs and it is fun to get step by step into the history of the land.

The side quests: refreshing different

By the side quests did the mod-team SureAI distinctly base on Quality, rather then fill the product with countless, cold "kill and collect" quests. There are round 30 of such missions, a lot of them are at a norm, that we would wish to find also in some fully paid titles. The missions tend to look rather easy at first glance, but get deeper whilst completing and await you with a nice count of turns in them.

In addition is the game world in harmony with the quests. Someone, who is send into a dark grotto, will also be awarded with a thrilling and precarious mission. Thus we recommend to you to take all the quests that find their way into your journal, because these tell motivating stories and present with it "independent" adventures outside of the main story. There can be found also weaker representatives, which serve rather to stretch the gameplay time then to improve the pleasure form the game, but those will feel negatively only because the other ones are so brilliantly created.

Mages are hunted game in the world of Nehrim; the city propaganda promotes this with posters. - see image on original site

Rhyme on the poster: The mages pack should be banned, or rather immediately burnt! Witchers, mages as they are called, should be into flames dropped!


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Nehrim review - Part two

The game world feels more alive then Oblivion's Cyrodiil, since it was more made by hand then a generator - see image on original site

About woods, deserts and mountains

At the beginning (and mostly the largest part of the game) you will find yourself in the idyllic looking Middlerealm. Dominated by populated woods, villages and meadows it strongly resembles Cyrodiil. As the central province from Oblivion, does the Middlerealm feel a bit like a Disneyland version of real landscapes. There are quiet woods, through which stride deers, foxes, bears, wolves and other animals. You can find waterfalls, which fall in arches into hillsides and seem to wait only for a postcard photographer. Wanted posters and notices point you to several quests or other interesting things in the scenic villages. In Erothin, the capital of Middlerealm is even an art exhibition to see. In the local theater takes place a performance of the well known medieval band Schandmaul, stylish illuminated by lighting crystals.

There can be no talk about idyll in the adjacent Northrealm. This region is in many places marked by war, the streets are bordered with burnt houses and corpses. Especially well made is the contrast between the by war shaken areas and the still untouched places, or between the mountain passages covered in snow and the desert.

The destroyed Northrealm is realistically portrayed. - see image on original site

Next to these regular regions there is also a magic contaminated land, that is crawling with all kinds of undead. We think it is a shame, that the lush environments, with the exception of the Middlerealm, are only scarcely filled with quests. Although you have a lot to do in Nehrim, you have only some rare chances to travel in the mountains and only a few hours to spend in the desert. Let's hope, that SureAI will supply us with more quests later. The atmospheric game world, made with a lot of love for the detail, would deserve it in any case. It is also a shame, that the teleportation net not as thick as in the Middlerealm also in the other parts of Nehrim is.

A highlight of Nehrim are the atmospheric caves and dungeons. In opposite to their relatively bright counterparts in Oblivion are these darker and especially those related to quests are extremely oppressive. Although we were asking ourselves sometimes, which poor soul has to get up early every day, to lit and replace all the hundreds of candles, which serve in one or the other dungeon to create a flickering-gloomy atmosphere. By the way, we didn't describe all the background of Nehrim's landscapes with our examples, since we don't want to take the surprise from you.

Jumping hero in steel skin

Also a part, where you have to evade fireballs, is present in Nehrim and provides some entertainment. - see image on original site

In the overall gameplay is Nehrim strongly oriented on Oblivion. In both titles are a lot of fights, in both are present smaller puzzles. SureAI had in addition incorporated some jumping passages, which may be liked or not. We found them alluring.

A rather worse idea is the usage of typically Oblivion like hold function, with which can objects be lifted, thrown or put back. For example, this way you have to put bricks into holes or carry buckets around. At the same time you are under attack or timed, which in combination with the already originally clumsy control will put your nerves to the test.

Whilst in vanilla Oblivion a lot of different places are automatically marked, once you pass it in a closer distance, you have to be much more careful in Nehrim. Here will hardly any relevant places be marked by a friendly green arrow. All places will be shown in the map sooner or later though. It is important, that you carefully listen to the NPCs and eventually consult with you journal. Although is Nehrim thanks to that less comfortable, it supports the immersion into the virtual world.

The dungeons from Nehrim are extremely oppressive. Adventurers without a torch will experience some tension... - see image on original site


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Nehrim review - Part three

In the journal you can find you experience and learning points, also as some of your skills. - see image on original site

Advanced leveling with learning points

Nehrim partially makes use of the Oblivion character system, changes it though in important points. So the skills advance through usage as before, at the same time you also get experience for slain enemies and completed quests. Once you gain enough experience, you will gain a new level and can invest learning points to upgrade your skills. At the first level up you gain ten learning points, seven by all the others. You can't though use these point freely in your skill list, instead you have to find the corresponding trainers, who will share their wisdom in exchange for gold. The price of it depends on your level, but are always expensive. Minor and main skills are present in Nehrim, but only because they can't be technically removed. The actual division of the skills consist in the fact, that some skills, like the crafting skill, will with one learning point raise up by two and other skills, like swordsmanship, can only raise up by one.

This system solves one of the main problems of vanilla Oblivion, an that is the obstructing leveling system. It was depending on the leveling of the attributes and didn't bring any motivation to keep using any of the mastered skills. Therefore were people desperately trying not to use their main skills, just so that they wouldn't rise a level too fast and thus gain less level up points (thanks to the fact that other skills were used less). This flaw in the design, that was already fixed with a number of mods, was passed by in Nehrim. You will also gain learning points, even if the skill is already at it's maximum. This way you will stay longer motivated to optimize you alter ego further, without the need to suddenly get as a master swordsman into a fight with bare fists.

Another lack of the original system: the hit points are increased after a level up, but not the only at intelligence depending magicka. In Nehrim is the magicka still depending on intelligence. But after a level up you'll gain in addition another 10 percent of the points, that you have given to your intelligence over the basis of 40. It sounds more complicated then it is; here is a small calculation: you have intelligence on 60, so you will gain by every level up 10 percent from 20, which are 2 points gained in addition to your magicka. And last but not least: the well known leveling of enemies led in Oblivion to elite bandits in heavy armors in the course of the game, or to wimpy looking crawling beast turning into difficult enemies. The creators of Nehrim have thankfully kept only a very small part from it.

Magic and enchanting in a new style

Next to the known spells from Oblivion are in Nehrim also some new ones in action. A new spell can for example turn your life energy into magicka. In addition can magically oriented classes conjure one magicka potion per day. The magic system is divided into diverse spell ranks. With every new spell rank – every seventh level you will unlock one of them – you also gain new spells, which have the corresponding magicka cost. To be able to use the spells, you still have to gain a certain stage in the matching school of magic. Especially strong spells can be casted through the so called "Arka-runes", and also only then, if you are part of a special class. Spellmaking is thus not possible anymore.

With enchanting goes Nehrim also it's own way. Thus the old system, where you could make diverse strongly enchanted armors with a soul gems, doesn't exist anymore. You have to collect magical gems instead, which can be placed on your armor. You can always place only one gem permanently into one object. This way was removed another one of Oblivion's problems, and that is the possibility to enchant a whole armor with a mono effect – like fortifying strength – and then wander through the land as an uber war god. Although it is fundamentally also possible in Nehrim, the gems are placed scarcely enough to make it practically impossible. In opposition is the recharging of magical objects more favorably formed and thus is their practical value improved.

Here you can see the blood-rage spell in action, that is restricted to fighters only. In general are the classes, just as in Oblivion, not too important, they bring "only" special spells with them. You can choose your class only later in the game. - see image on original site

Refined crafting

While Oblivion limited itself in the terms of crafting to let the player mix his own potions, does Nehrim offer a broad spectrum on activities. You can for example brew your own wine or cook food, fry or bake. Also armorers will have enough to do: they have to mine for ore, smelt it into bars and then make tools or swords out of it. There are several classes of goods too, which can be switched on when improving the crafting skill and those lead to stronger weapons. While hunting was in Oblivion rather useless, you can disembowel animals in Nehrim and take fur, teeth, hearts or claws form them. In addition to the fact, that the trophies are quite high-priced, they have also been freed of any weight. In order to get the wanted pieces, you have to learn the corresponding talent first. There is always a special skill for every trophy, that can be learned though reading a book and investing two learning points into it. Though, oh my: these books are at the beginning of the game out of reach. It would be more motivating, if the player had a chance to gain them sooner, so that he may be from the start interested in hunting.

You can also mix potions. This is something that will be used a lot by you, since the fights are partially quite challenging. Healing potions in large quantities are thus basic equipment of every hero's backpack! The ingredients can be found in masses spread around the large game world. A lot of the plants you pick up will also optically disappear from the world – in Oblivion they were harvested, but stayed in the vanilla version optically still there. As in Oblivion do the plants grow back with time. In the caves will the mushrooms stay though, because they also serve as light sources – one Oblivion's property, that probably couldn't be rebuild by the modders. In addition to the originally known plants was also new flora supplemented, like the "Iron Claw", that will permanently rise your carrying capacity by one point. There are also more plants that will rise some of your attributes permanently. This way is the exhausting searching through the game world made even more motivating and pays off, such as it is in Risen.

Risen does only indicate it, Nehrim goes further: with smithing you can create blades or mine for ores. - see image on original site

There is one thing though, that has rather bothered us a bit: as an alchemist you can also make use of field crops such as wheat, potatoes and tomatoes. Sounds good at first, but the problem is the following: the fields are richly planted and so you have – when you want to put some effort into this simple task – rather fast some hundreds of pieces together. Those who invest into this, can make so many potions, that they will become extremely rich on one hand and extra strong on the other. Even though the game balance is through this not completely overthrown and Nehrim stays still quite challenging, this part of the game still feels like cheating, or leaves some with the uneasy feeling: "I should actually put this to use, but I shouldn't, so will this become too difficult then?"

Just from this field it is possible to get 162 pieces of corn - and sell them. - see image on original site


END OF PAGE 3/5


Nehrim review - The final two parts!

The armors are brimming with detail. Here you can see the Steel Vestment, which is a part of the light armors. - see image on original site

Armors, weapons and new enemies

Next to several new blades and fashionably designed armors you will also meet a large number of new enemies. In the world of animals you will meet cows, hares, chicken, foxes and pigs – but also elephants and boars. The last ones are not too powerful like in the one or another roleplay game... young boars won't attack you at the beginning at all, on the other hand are aggressive deers the nightmare of any young hero. Animals and NPC interact with each other: bucks get hunted by wolves, travelers robbed by bandits, hunters sneak through the forests. Sometimes it does feel a bit exaggerated and reminds of some kind of war, taking place in the undergrowth. Especially in the territory at the beginning you will see a bunch of corpses, that had nothing to do with you...

There are some very nice pieces of armor to be found, an example is the Steel Vestment, that you can see in the screenshot above. Next to the regular items we managed to find also a kind of diablo-like sets, which are - thanks to their enchantments - especially powerful. Their full power will be your of course only then, if you manage to get the whole set. Since these objects are spread around the dungeons, forts and caves of Nehrim, gives this another reason to carefully search the world through. Another not completely unimportant detail: in Nehrim do the robes, which were not part of any armor class in Oblivion, count as a part of light armors. Thanks to that are the mages in no need to give up on proper defense.

About chests, donkeys and teleports

To make your life in Nehrim simpler did the creators work out couple things and also overtake several elements form other games. An example of this is a "secure chest", that can be found in every larger settlement and where you can store the excess equipment. It is always the same chest, which is so to speak teleporting with you. A practical thing, that on the other hand doesn't make the game too simple: after all, you have to find the chest in every region in order to get you hands on the stored items.

The fast travel from Oblivion was canceled and replaced by a teleport network: you can learn a spell in most bigger settlements, that will bring you exactly to this point in the game world. By using it you loose one of your teleporter stones, which you can buy from merchants or find in ruins and caves. The stones are expensive for you and hard to find at the beginning, so that you have to walk a lot – which won't bother you though, since the game world beautiful like that is and has a lot of things in store. Once the running starts to get into a bothersome routine, you will also be able to buy more teleporter stones and make use of the dense teleport network. You can also buy horses and donkeys, like in the original game, which will make the travel time shorter too.

The donkey will come with you while teleporting. - see image on original site

If you are teleporting to another place, your mount will also go with you, and thus the long search for a new companion falls off. It is also useful, that the teleportation spells can be used in interiors; hence if a dungeon becomes too much for you, you can any time return home (the fast travel function from Oblivion assumes, that there are no enemies in your vicinity). Furthermore is there a spell, which allows you to set your own teleportation point and later you can return there. You can always have only one such active point and this one can not be placed in an interior.

The inventory is also modified and is much more easier to search through. Except for the potions was the original list of items replaced by square icons. (Seems like the author doesn't know the WZ inventory mod. Thanks to that he missed the possibility to switch between the Oblivion type list inventory and the Morrowind like icons. That is also why the potions inventory is displayed as a list. Can be easily changed with a single click.) Some items, like the raw meat or pelts don't weight a thing anymore. It may be illogical, but thanks to that you can spend more time hunting in the wild, without the need to "return home" – a compromise for better gameplay.

Once you get at the end of Nehrim's dungeons and other regions you get a chance to leave them fast, using a second exit or a shortcut to get back. The creators have copied this from games like Zelda Twilight Princess, which is a good idea. What they did not copy is the right mixture of size and content of the dungeons: they all feel somewhat too large. After fulfilling some quests you get to be teleported to the submitter, which will also spare you time. Despite of all these signs of comfort is Nehrim close to the end extremely walk intense. We were gradually bothered by it more and more.

END OF PAGE 4 - BEGINNING OF PAGE 5

Lacks and child illnesses

In Erothin goes the performance down the hill: with the mass of items is the Oblivon engine obviously stalled. - see image on original site

When you stride through Nehrim, you will repeatedly meet some smaller flaws, distinctively more, then it normally would be by a fully paid product. So are some of the enemies too passive, won't react on your presence at all or with a delay. On top of that some scripts don't run perfectly. Thus there may happen, that in the previous dialog as a "coordinated attack" described action turns into a boring scuffle in the game. Also when climbing the staircases some strange scenes will occur, since the NPCs like to "fall down" the stairs.

The wandering with companions was also not optimally resolved: when you travel with them through the world – which happens quite often – they tend to run ahead a bit and then wait for you. But since they tend to wait after some very short distances, the animations feel cut off. Another problem is the path-finding, which is rather properly made at the beginning, near the end of the game it feels greatly flawed and gets the player on the nerves a lot. At least this problem should be possible to solve with some patches. Distinctive is, that Nehrim tends to crash; thus to spare yourselves from the frustration you should make use of the quick save key a lot. We encountered in addition a impossible-to-repeat bug, which adjusted our speed permanently to the count of minus ten. (You can fix this using one of the Oblivion cheats. Hopefully you can remember what the original speed count was.)

As pretty the dungeons are: all in all we found them too long, sometimes it managed to make the game struggle for air. - see image on original site

During larger fight it is easy to loose overview, thorough the "epic battles" often lead to indiscriminate skirmish. To clearly hit an enemy becomes a plain strike of luck. Looking at these flaws one should remind, that Nehrim is a mod project, that uses the Oblivion engine also for features, which were never meant to be made with it. Anyway: since we consider the mod to be good enough to compete with paid games, we won't consider it with the fan-project-amnesty.

For your information: the testing version was given to us from the creators and does not represent the full release version. We consider, that a lot of smaller bug will be removed before the release, but also strongly doubt, that the larger part of the problems mentioned before will be removed anytime soon. Nevertheless we do believe, that SureAI will keep going on; we will update the test when the time comes then.

Result

With Nehrim managed the SureAI team a title, that is equal to a lot of regular roleplaying games, even have the edge on some. Especially the well executed game world and the epic, philosophic story pull the program up for miles out of the mass of fan projects. And even many commercial RPGs make less efforts to tell an ambitious story. When you particularly care about the story and the atmosphere of these games and can shut your eyes about the technical inadequacy, you will have a great time with Nehrim. On the other hand, those who expect a polished hit, will be less enthusiastic about this total conversion. It is a complex program with many corners and edges, which often requires patience and sometimes even gracious bearing. Don't worry though: Nehrim isn't in any case one of the ambitious, but in the end prematurely finished or failed fan projects – it is completely and with enjoyment filled game till the finish, and the years of work can be seen everywhere.

If the world of Nehrim is really better as the one from Oblivion, and the story more exciting? That is of course a matter of taste. One fraction always considered the story from Oblivion too short and trivial – the other on the other hand enjoyed the real story in their head, and not only in the obviously few main quests. And while many rolplaying players will be enthusiastic about the depth and complexity of Nehrim, could others find several elements as troublesome and quite some of the passages as long-winded. But Nehrim is without a risk worth a try, since it is completely free. And even those, who won't be too keen on it after giving it a try, as we were after playing it after some time, has to admit one thing: what the free working developers managed to create, in both quality and the pure amount of content, is in the outcome more worth, then a sum of sloppy rough-and-tumble mass product. Any RPG fan should play Nehrim at least once!


EVALUATION - GamersGlobal: 7.5 / 10

(In order for you to be able to picture the value a bit better - GamersGlobal gave the same evaluation to the game Ego Draconis.)

[ReymasofAshborne]

Thanks for the translation, I am more and more excited for the English version of this!