so i finished The Lost Spires and felt like reviewing it! i'll start with non-spoiler thoughts and then get into more detailed spoiler thoughts later
The Lost Spires is an Oblivion (og only!) quest mod revolving around a group of archeologists investigating strange Ayleid activity, artifacts and ruins to uncover what's really going on behind the scenes. if mystery, artifact-hunting and dungeon crawling already sound appealing, hopefully this helps you decide if it's earned a place in your load order <3
THE GOOD
very long play time (13 quests total)
lots of rewards and player items
research/history logic is mostly cohesive
interiors and locations are often designed well and fit Cyrodiil
the archaeology guild itself is cozy and makes for a nice player home
THE BAD
bad dungeon design (very long dungeons, too many enemies, awkward jumps, few shortcuts, not companion-friendly)
unclear objectives and directions at times
limited player dialogue (not very roleplay-friendly)
VERY loud enemy audio (one of them scared me rlly bad lmao)
underused characters that are hard to get invested in
Overall, i still recommend it IF you really enjoy large dungeon-heavy quest mods, collecting rewards, or simply want a huge player home with familiar NPCs hanging around. don't forget to download the ModDB version and other patches/fixes before playing!
my rating = 5.5/10
SPOILERS BELOW !!! (aka me ranting about characters as usual)
i know this mod is old and i don't wanna come off as overly critical, but i got really invested in the potential the cast had and left feeling disappointed with what wasn't explored. gameplay frustrated me sometimes, but i would've been willing to overlook more of it if the characters themselves were memorable.
The first member you meet is Teav, an Argonian who introduces you to the guild and gives you your first assignments. after only a handful of quests, he dies off-screen during an excavation attack and you learn about it rather abruptly in the middle of another quest.
the issue's not necessarily that Teav dies, it's that the mod barely gives you reasons to CARE!!!
most information about Teav comes from assistant NPCs explaining his personality or backstory instead of you naturally bonding with him. there's a short funeral afterwards, but many characters barely react after it and his death quickly starts to feel irrelevant once again.
honestly i think making Teav a temporary companion early on would've fixed a lottt. this applies to almost every character. most of them rarely do anything outside of giving quests and researching things off-screen.
Ironically, assistant NPCs mostly exist to tell you interesting facts about the main cast instead. Aster being married to a Khajiit tribeswoman sounds awesome right?? ...except it goes nowhere lmao
Rythor is probably the weakest character imo. he's absent for large portions of the questline, barely interacts with anyone, and despite acting as the leader figure after Solan's death, never really feels like he earned it.
So the big twist is that Rythor killed Solan because they discovered something dangerous and he wanted power. you learn this, tell Aster, chase Rythor down and kill him in a very sudden boss fight, and that's kind of it? there's no major confrontation, no meaningful exchanges, not even battle dialogue or pre-battle dialogue to leave room for a villain monologue. the final betrayal ends up feeling weirdly empty because the mod never gives you enough reasons to become attached in the first place...
aaand the ending itself is also pretty abrupt. You become headmaster, get thanked by Sova, and that's IT </3
in conclusion --- The Lost Spires is still extremely impressive in terms of scope, interiors and ambition, but it feels like the mod prioritized excavation, research logic and dungeon crawling over the characters experiencing those discoveries themselves, and i honestly think stronger character writing + more time with them would've tied everything together really nicely!
i NEED to make some vyn OCs/characters omg but i just don't like nehrim/oblivion's character creator, and i'd need to get so many mods for enderal's to have more options but i also suck at modding skyrim 😭😭
I dunno, stop apologizing for your art. This includes not posting enough, too much, changing style, inconsistent style, repetition, subject. Its your art its your expression. Have fun.
i love how gith tavs & sina'zith take precedence in reacting to the gith patrol! we needed more scenes of tav speaking honestly
also, i slightly tweaked sina'zith's hair/skin color (the ice skin tone made her eyebrows look rlly blue so i tried smth else) and recruited + re-designed varanna so she's more wood elf-y, they're so cute oml <3
btw, did y'all know every bg3 hireling has a forgotten realms wiki page?? i honestly love the forgotten realms wiki, it documents every character in D&D media no matter how obscure they are, even the nwn2 soz characters have pages! 😭💗
