The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal

"Mournhold, a new city, a huge dungeon, new enemies...Is it good? Or a flop?"

Morrowind – A game that needs almost no introduction. Basically, in Morrowind, the premise is simple – you are you. Do whatever you want, whenever you want, for whomever you want. Wander the countryside as a Barbarian, living off of the land, or maybe you want to be a Noble Paladin, serving the Empire? Or maybe a rouge Battlemage, running a murderous rampage through the Morrowind province. Well, whatever you may be, Morrowind is Morrowind.

The expansion I am reviewing, Tribunal, adds a new city to Morrowind, but it isn’t in Morrowind. Confusing? Yes. Basically, you get to the new City, Mournhold, via a mage that transports you. To get back to the mainland, another mage transports you back. When you arrive in Mournhold, your jaw will most likely drop.

You start your humble adventure in the Temple/Palace type area. You notice the wonderful Décor of the new buildings. The Royal Palace guards, strutting about in their red armor, looking respectful. The High Ordinators – Wandering around in their brand new armor, shining a silver glow, ready to sack you at any moment at any wrong doing. The buildings look astounding, with a brand new architecture that looks very different then what the Mainland has to offer. The Great Bazaar, teeming with life. The Temple, looking grand, overlooking Mournhold. The new buildings simply look astounding. The character models, with the new armor, also are quite great, and the new weapons also look spectacular. But, all good must come to an end, and it comes quite quickly, sadly. The graphics kind of stop being great when you get into the sewers and caves – Where you will be spending a lot of your time in Mournhold. Outside, the buildings look astounding, and building interiors are great also. But, the sewers and crypts…meh.

Graphics : 7/10
- Great interiors
- Very great architecture
- New armor looks pretty good
- Sewers and crypts look..boring.

The gameplay of Tribunal is almost the same. Collect Items? Check. Fight enemies? Check. New Quests? Check. Explore? …Half Check. Sadly, Mournhold is very restrictive, in that you cannot leave. At all. You are stuck in Mournhold, and its sewers, and the ‘last area’, which I will not spoil. But either way, you are restricted heavily in this aspect, which brings overall enjoyment down. It is not quite as fun, being restricted to a large city, but who says exploring is all gone? Mournhold is still quite a gigantic city to explore. It’s about as large as Vivec, from the original game, maybe a bit bigger. If you include the sewers and underground areas, its very much an incredibly large area. But, the problem with the underground – If you’ve seen 1 tunnel, you’ve seen them all. Its essentially an endless battle to whatever you need to do once you start exploring the underground areas – Battles with bland scenery. Item collecting, however, is still enjoyable. There are a few new armors, and some new weapons to collect. Some are very easy to get, while others require a challenging battle, or a long string of dialogue. There really aren’t that many new enemies to kill, which is disappointing. With the large sewers, I was hoping to run into packs of new monsters, but alas, we cannot have everything. Another problem with Mournhold, is there really is no reason to take up shelter there. You can simply rest on the streets, or just at the entrance of the sewers. The Great Bazaar has all your item needs down, and all of your quest providers are close by. Which brings me to another point – the quests. There are some entertaining quests strewn about. One quest makes you become an Actor, which is entertaining for how long it lasts, and it has unique dialogue to it to, which makes it enjoyable. Overall, Gameplay is more of the same, but who says that’s a bad thing? It is still very enjoyable, but being restricted to 1 town is kind of bad.

Gameplay : 8/10
- Combat is still fun, sort of.
- Collecting items is enjoyable if you like collecting.
- Restricted to 1 town, and lots of sewer.
- If you’ve seen 1 underground tunnel, you’ve seen it all.
- Enemies..meh. If you are a high level, expect no challenge.
- Some enjoyable quests strewn about.
- Collect artifacts for a museum! Yay!

Sound and music, there really isn’t nothing to complain about. Sadly, there is no new music included in Tribunal, which is a big downside. I have heard the damn music in Morrowind hundreds of times, and I was hoping for something new – which there is none. No new jingles, no new Tavern music, no lutes, no nothing. There are new sounds and voices, though. In Tribunal, there are plenty of new voice bites, which is quite entertaining to hear, and are surprising the first time around. Otherwise, nothing new or exciting here.

Sound/Music : 7/10
- Some new speech..
- No new music! Bleh!
- Nothing really wrong, here.

One good reason to get Tribunal though, is the new Journal system it adds. You can now sort things by quest, so all of you long time players can go back, and remember the girl on the side of the rode who got robbed, or a Naked Nord that you just happened to forget, and go help them. The quest sorting is an AWESOME new feature, which makes you wonder why it wasn’t in Morrowind in the first place. There is also now a ‘Seller Max’ button in the bartering windows, which helps greatly increase the speed of selling Daedric/Ebony items. This addition was a great idea. Overall, new features are nothing to complain about, and sell 10$ of the game by themselves.

Features : 10/10
- Journal sorting, finally.
- Seller max button, Yay!

The story of Tribunal, sadly, is quite boring. It really only has a few twists, which is saddening, but most of the story is meant to be ‘made by you’. What it means by that, is that you can do whatever you want – write your own story. But in the end, the overall Storyline falls short, with some good twists at the end. It isn’t going to have you at the edge of your seat or anything, but it fits for this type of game. It does fall short, though.

Storyline : 7/10
- Overall, it’s ‘meh’.
- Nothing really new going on, other than twists at the end.

Overall, I’d recommend Tribunal, for the full 29.99$ price tag, or the current 19.99. Try and shop around for 19.99 though, as putting this game out for 30$ or so is a bit of a stretch, but still worth it. The new features in themselves essentially sell half the game, but a forgettable atmosphere of Mournhold brings this down a bit. You may want to visit again with another character, but I personally, did not. I could deal with the random attacks that happened, and anyways, I think they are limited, as I have not gotten attacked in awhile. A Solid 8/10 from me.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/03, Updated 07/01/03