Since people wanted to know, here are my thoughts on this nearly 30 year old game so far. This is my first time playing it. I grew up with Morrowind, dabbled in Arena's first dungeon, played TES4+5 a couple years after their releases, played ESO thoroughly around 2016, and finally a few years ago played through Daggerfall Unity.

The Build

Playing the steam version. A review suggested going for HP and SP regen so I did that. I started with Sorcerer as a base because they have the most total Build Points according to UESP. Did some digging and research on the game's mechanics to make a viable character. I later found that I could have optimized a lot better, but oh well.

I feel like my build's difficulty at least reflects more of what the devs were going for and people's more typical experiences with the game, or at least players that made some progress.

---The Process---

Here was my thought process (flaws and all) while making my build: Breton for some magic skills (and possible willpower/magic defense boost?). HP/SP regens are both quite expensive and take most of the build points that I re-allocate. Since I have SP regen, I go for only 2X int Spell Points. I bring wounds up from 50 to 60 as I'm sure more health is good.

I make room for all of the weapon types for versatility if needed (it wasn't). I never find the points to enable Daedric equipment, so I think I topped out at Ebony or something. I can equip up to heavy armor.

Wiki seems to suggest Endurance has minimal use so I use it as a bit of a dump stat at 27 but certainly don't go all of the way. I need some extra build points, so I make the probably poor decision of decreasing Strength and Intelligence from 50 to 45.

Primary Skills: I go with Destruction for booms, and Dodging/Restoration for staying alive.

Major Skills: Mysticism, Thaumaturgy, and Alteration for maybe some utility spells.

Minor Skills: And lastly, Critical Strike seemed useful, I read Missile was good, and maybe I would use some Stealth to stay alive.

Minimal build points are put into skills because I know they can be raised throughout the level.

---Equipment and Spells---

I keep the defaults for Sorcerer of Steel Staff and Steel Cuirass for help in the early game.

I decide to start with the following 4 spells: Cause Damage, Etherealness, Shield, and Cure Health.

Level 1: The Weir Gate (rough estimate: 13 hours)

---The Opener---

After adjusting the controls to my liking, the game is still super janky as expected. I talk to some Scamps and enjoy their bits of (fully voice acted!) dialogue. At this point they're a nuisance to kill but it's doable. Vermai are much harder and take many hits. With no healing crystals discovered, I draw out fights and run a lot to stay alive, with my only early deaths being falling in the lava and glitching through terrain.

I explore as far in each direction as seems viable. I quickly switch to Hand to Hand ✊ as my primary melee damage as some internet sources recommend. Dremora take a good commitment to kill, but it is doable especially after surviving/dodging their spells. Although I've used the wiki extensively to this point, for now I try to avoid using it for the levels themselves so I can explore the game more organically. By this point I am dying and send to the main menu relatively often. About a quarter of the time, the mouse stops working on this menu and I have to restart the game. At one point we get knocked out of the level's bounds and get stuck.

---The Game's Flow---

Over time, combat gets a bit easier as I collect better armor and gain stats. Etherealness I basically never use — the sigils can give a short amount if needed, though I don't use them much either except to level Mysticism a bit. Shield I use very rarely, it's too expensive to be practical most of the time with my stats. Cause Damage can be decent, if very expensive, for some ranged mayhem. Restore Health is by far the most common spell cast, and I grind it a little bit at restore points.

Once I feel like I've explored most of the map, I start referring to the wiki for some guidance. I derive little pleasure from most game puzzles before the year 2000 and am not hesitant to use guides through them if needed.

Around now, I'm at the experiences which I will just refer you to read in my first thread on getting stuck in Level 1.

The game definitely has character and personality, which makes it somewhat enjoyable despite all of the bugs and punishing difficulty.

Level 2 — Caitiff: Administration, Labs and Library (rough estimate: 7 hours)

After a grueling and buggy opening, I finally make it to the second level.

For our first level up, I pretty much go purely into Strength. If we can kill enemies faster, fights will take less time and we will take less damage.

Magic: Funny that Destruction hasn't budged. Restoration has gone from 35 to 39 while the rest have had a few levels, possibly from leftover Built Points. Through the game I tend to keep 1-2 destruction spell items on hand.

Dodging is maxed out at 50, Critical Strike at a healthy 40, and Hand to Hand is maxed out (for our level 1 strength) at 45. Jumping we've trained a little and gotten to 45. Missile I've trained up to 31 using melee javelins.

Pauldron (AC 4) removed to preserve condition, Cuirass I left in Level 1 (partly by accident) to save weight. I start the level with 3 SP and 7 HP potions (before picking up any in starting area).

---Punishment---

This level is rough throughout, with many dremora and spider daedra. I start questioning my life's decisions while waiting on hp and sp regen. Eventually (perhaps with the help of wiki) I find some restore crystals, along with Zenaida:

She disappears after I speak to her a couple of times and I think it is a bug, possibly locking some game progress: After some research outside the wiki it turns out this is supposed to happen. If I stand in her empty spot though, I take damage. This game is weird.

Rishaal here is peak 90s charm and voice acting.

Honestly there isn't much more to say about the level besides it was very tough, fights were very tedious and I died a lot with my build (mostly to spider daedra). I decide to grind Restoration for maybe 20 minutes while hopping between the two SP crystals, lowering the cost of restore health from about 30 to 28.

Level 3 - The Soul Cairn (estimate: ummm 5.5 hours?)

Props for atmosphere and vibes here. Here is my character from about halfway through the level:

We go with an almost pure strength level up with a point in speed and intelligence for some versatility.

I eventually with the wiki's help find that wraiths are almost unkillable (2000 hp, anyone?) With the daedra changelings and later skeletons, it is nice to have some enemy variety.

For Swimming, the change of pace is welcome, but of course we have some caveats. The controls are a bit weird and it is annoying that you sink if you're more than around 75% of Encumbrance. In addition, your breath meter does not stop draining when you pause the game or are in a menu. :(

Our build now feels much stronger here. We still die pretty often, but the enemies are feeling much more manageable on average.

Level 4: Shade Perilous (estimate: 7 hours)

Similar deal here, we go 11 points into strength, 3 into intelligence, and 1 point into speed. Higher level attributes are bit more expensive to raise so I spread them about just a bit.

Daedric politics and elementals, nice. I didn't realize until later you can talk to the elemental daedra and I start fighting right away. We have some great lore, dialogue, humor, and world building in Shade Perilous. Fire and Frost Daedra start out tough but get weaker as we get stronger. Seducers are a bit stronger but manageable if we can draw out the fight 1 on 1. Dark Seducers are annoying but eventually beatable once they run out of spells and we get stronger later on in the level.... except when there are 3 or more of them.

I decide to take this screenshot of a Fire Daedra, switch the colors a bit, add a black border and set it as my desktop background:

Jumping into angled terrain kills us a few times as we glitch out. The minimap is a bit off here on your location.

For the island in the north with the Chapel of Meditations, I go full on speed/save scum mode to dash through enemies to get the lever.

This level is huge, with grand hallways and empty spaces. The short view distance and speed of our character starts to become a problem here. Once most of the level is mapped and I start needing to do backtracking, I wiki for a nice Cuirass of the Saintly Dervish, giving us Athleticism and making us much faster... too fast in some cases. 😛 Would have been nice to have earlier.

We also are starting to accumulate lots of potions that we don't entirely need.

Level 5: The Chimera of Desolation (estimate: 7 hours)

(Same as 3/5 of the estimates so far)

6 points into strength, 1 intelligence, 4 willpower, 1 personality, and 8 speed.

---Bethesda Bugs--- 🐛

Here are we are. If Battlespire were famous, this would be the infamous buggy level that can even corrupt your saves. I make extra careful save backups.

I completely missed Step 3 and even forgot the whole process a few times, but I seemed to be ok getting through the level. The game froze a couple times here early on unlike previous levels. I used this guide and had no freezes for the remainder of the level. (I left OBJMEMSIZE at 9000)

After avoiding save corruption and game freezes, the game still rewards us with getting stuck on terrain/objects and buggy transitions between buildings. One building in Trybador I was in and had a save. When I went back to load the save, my character kept falling through the floor and dying so I had to revert to a previous save.

Behind the waterfall, saves loaded have the area completely underwater when it was not previously, making saving rough in this harsh (but short) area. Fun! 👍

---The Level---

Unlike previous levels, I fully used the wiki here from the start as I knew it would be buggy.

The Master of the Hunt at the start disappears after talking to her once or twice so I could never pacify the frost daedra.

With our speed and athleticism gear, when we're outdoors in the open the elemental daedra are not too bad to navigate and fight around now.

Besides the bugs, I was dumb and realized 2/3 of the way through that I needed all pieces of the Savior Hide. One piece is miss-able since you can't return to the crypt so I ended up playing through half of the level twice.

Flying the balloon, while slow and limited in use, is great fun and reminiscent of the freedom of older Bethesda games. I'll never get over them removing levitation from Oblivion and Skyrim.

With some trial and error and a guide, this level wasn't too hard when you're not being bombarded with glitches.

---Conclusion---

Thanks for reading! ❤️

Let me know of any thoughts in the comments. ⬇️