The magic wore off for me back with Skyrim, I was obscenely hyped for it, literally failed several assignment in the pursuit of playing skyrim nonstop and then after like 120 hours, I was done and for years I felt like I just didn’t “get” Skyrim and that it was me, but it was already happening. I grew up with Morrowind, I was too young to actually play it and understand what was happening, the combat system was too abstract for someone that had very little RPG experience, and then Oblivion hit and it fixed all those issues dumbass kid me had with Morrowind. I swung a sword and I hit things and it had the compass that helped me not get lost. And then lost interest in the “genre defining” Skyrim. I look back at all of it now, I’m rather fond of Oblivion to this day, but I’d probably have a pretty negative reaction to Oblivion if it was a new game, but as a game with infinite meme potential and infinite jank along with some rose tint, it’s great. I love watching people do silly things in it, the NPCs doing uniquely Oblivion things. It’s an encapsulation of gaming and bethesda at that point in time and once you rip it out and remake it in a new engine with none of the original jank, meme potential, or rose tint, it’s just a crappy game. The studio making it is a Singapore based art asset outsourcing place so my expectations are in the dirt. It’s a game I don’t think should be brought to the modern era, kinda like how Todd says they’ll leave Morrowind alone since it was its own thing, they should’ve just left oblivion there too.