Morrowind: Tribunal Review

Now you face the one true god

The very first time that I played Morrowind, all the way back on the Xbox 360 with the help of Microsoft's ever comprehensive backwards compatibility program, I was unfortunate enough not to get to play the DLCs. This was, of course, because these expansions didn't come with the original game and this was before the age of online stores, so I was stuck pretty much playing Morrowind 1.0. Funny thing about that, Morrowind 1.0 is almost unplayable in the modern age thanks to one huge freakin' omission that the team got right around to mending for the first DLC. It's not so much a mechanical issue, but something which I can only assume was a conscious choice, which exacerbates the already iffy Morrowind combat to being a hurdle for enjoying the game at even a base level. Can you guess what they left out? It was the enemies' health bar. Morrowind 1.0 had no visible enemy health bar. (Nor did it have any way to 'check' enemy health, like old school JRPGs and the 'scan' ability) Not that I'm going to bump up my rating on Tribunal for fixing that, should have been in the game to start with, but I thought that was just a curious titbit share with you. 

So Tribunal gets a bit of a bad reputation for featuring one of the most overly aggressive story hooks of any Bethesda DLC to date, and in the end it doesn't really amount to anything anyway. Basically, from the moment you download the DLC (Or, if you have the Game of the Year Edition, from the moment you start the game) every time you rest for prolonged periods of time you are subject to attacks from The Dark Brotherhood. (Yes, that Dark Brotherhood) They'll interrupt you, lay into you with decently powered gear, and likely brutally murder the unprepared. (Of course, if you beat them then that's some free decent armour to screw with early game balance for you. But Morrowind combat is hardly balanced anyway so who cares?) Still, it's annoying for these guys to harass you constantly with a seemingly endless supply of rookie assassins to disturb your sleep, especially as the Tribunal storyline is specifically geared to be played after the main quest, so you're going to be dealing with hordes of dumb ass Assassin's before you get to track them down and tell them to lay off. (Good thing Bethesda never did that ag- oh wait, 'Dragonborn'.)

Tribunal is so named because the main game only ever has you visit one of the three living gods in Vivec, whereas you but hear of Nerevar's Queen/Wife Almalexia and chief inventor/scientist Sotha Sil. This time you actually get to meet them, and must travel to the mainland in order to so; exciting right? Well prepare to be disappointed off the bat because the Morrowind capital of Mournhold is the only location you get to visit on the Morrowind mainland, so discard all those sightseeing plans you had drawn up. Mournhold consists of 5 outdoor cells all stitched together as different districts of Mournhold, and thus feels strangely regressive when compared against the wideopen nine cantons of Vivec. Whatsmore, one of Morrowind's best explorative features, levitation, is disabled within the city because otherwise you'd be able to see how none of the districts are actually connected and would float into the abyss outside the map. (There's an invisible ceiling stopping you from just jumping up there too)

This would make for a pretty disappointing time if it wasn't for the fact that Mournhold is just so darn beautiful. Using almost entirely new assets, Tribunal manages to take the distinct styles of the various Morrowind families and addendum upon them with this slightly new architectural design philosophy of slopes and sharp corners. (A design style that would later, through The Elder Scrolls Online, become the default of the majority of Morrowind.) Most of the districts themselves feel individual with another personality to them to define the manor area from the market place, or the temple from the royal palace grounds. I also adore the royal guard armour, it's this deeper shade of red that invokes the muted but rich palette of Morrowind proper, it fits in seamlessly. I only came out the whole thing wishing that Mournhold had even more districts to enjoy and that the majority of it's content didn't take place in the sewers, which don't share the level of beauty that the main city does.

Built for high player levels, Mournhold offers a challenge for the endgame characters as they have a new major creature to fight, the goblins. That's right, this is a game that shoves an enemy as standard as goblins in the endgame slot. And they're... numerous at the very least. I don't know, I didn't particularly enjoy cutting through hoards of them, like the main quest will force you to do, and found their presence just a chore to have to do deal with. What is much more interesting, but sadly vastly underutilised, are the clockwork fabricants of Sotha Sil's Clockwork city, wholly unique beings that are mix between organic dinosaur beings and synthetic robots. The series could really use more appearances from these guys, no matter how unlikely that may be.

In narrative I found Tribunal to be actually rather strong, picking up with the themes of political turmoil as governing forces come at odds with one another. For this story you have the Temple headed by a notably headstrong Almalexia against the Royal Morrowind family led by the obviously corrupt Helseth, son of legendary historical figure Queen Barenziah. Their struggle for supremacy over the capital of Morrowind will have you going back and forth seeing the flaws on both the tradionalist temple and the new age Royals, as you come to understand that even without Dagoth Ur peering down everyone's necks, Morrowind is a country completely on the brink of systemic change, not for the better or worse specifically, just for the different.

I genuinely loved the whole 'contrasting rules' aspect of the main Tribunal storyline, even if it served as a bit of a microcosm for the same struggle in the Morrowind main story. In fact, I like it so much that it actually starts to highlight the lack of actual meaningful choices to be made throughout such a campaign. I know I commented the same for Morrowind and said how the lack of such choices don't hurt the story, but this time around I feel they actually do; because the narrative goes to lengths to play a cat and mouse between the Temple and the Court only to have the situation end on a weird sort-of cliffhanger by the end. I won't spoil the ending twist, which I think was decently executed, but it does feel like it leaves the conversation this narrative started mid-sentence, and thus I wanted more. But as a bookend to the entire story of Morrowind, I will agree it serves it's purpose admirably and certainly wouldn't recommend anyone experience that game without this DLC, that'd be missing out completely!

Tribunal is peppered with some cool features here and there to enrich the gameplay, including a whole museum system for turning in your artefacts and actually getting paid for them, as opposed to in the main game where their astronomical prices means you cannot sell them to anyone unless you exploit Creeper or the Mudcrab Merchant. (I will say, however, that I found it extremely insulting that the museum wanted my Boots of Blinding Speed. To think that some believe this game playable without those boots is mind-boggling) Also, having the dungeons be made out of entirely endgame areas for endgame players does sort of circumvent the extreme combat gameplay shortcomings of Morrowind, as you'll be fighting tough enemies who take a bit of a beating and actually hitting them thanks to a decent skill level. (Clever Devs) All around, however, I have to give Tribunal a middling B grade just for missing the potential in both creating a sprawling capital for Morrowind (which was somehow smaller than Vvardenfell's capital) and in resolving it's own narrative in a satisfactory manner. I understand what it was that the writers were going for, with spelling out the impetus for Morrowind's impending new age, but even with the hindsight of knowing where this will lead for the country 19 years after the fact, I still felt unsatisfied. Stick around, however, for next week when I'll cover the second, and final, DLC for Morrowind and perhaps even a little something extra.