Speaking of which, 99% of the characters use the same handful of voice actors as the main game, and Jeremy Soule's musical score does not feature a single new track. Indeed, it's legitimately very clever overall, but the ways its clever is repetitive, and while the story does remain interesting, by the time this expansion was done, I was really ready to pack it all in (versus the main game where I looked forward to next time I start a new game). The other interesting element was how the main antagonist forces are those the forces of Order, turning the story into a literal battle of Order vs Mass Insanity. For example, there's one quest where you need to prevent 3 adventurers from reaching the center of a Temple, and you can either kill them, or you can drive them insane (one being driven insane by putting them into a room with insane amounts of wealth, a locked door to it, and about 30,000 keys, NONE of which will work with that lock). And with that, the Insanity elements work their way into the story of the quests themselves suprisingly well. It's actually sad, however, as the actual writing itself is, at times, very sharp. To put it bluntly: All of the Insane people sound alike, as “Insane” is their only personality trait. The only way I can describe it is to imagine listening to 4 Weird-Al albums back to back – all of the songs themselves are indeed quite funny, but the sense of humor involved is so consistent that you feel like you're hearing variations of the same jokes over and over. Sure, the story is quite interesting and climaxes in a way that is arguably more rewarding thematically than the main game or Knights of the Nine, but it's not an altogether smooth ride. Along with that, the insanity is almost entirely played for Laughs – it's almost like someone was inspired by Weird-Al songs or early Dan Cummins jokes (or the already mentioned Shadow Madness), and this is where the subtle problematic elements begin to pile up. It's also really unbalanced, as some random enemies are notably more of a pain and harder to kill than the FINAL BOSS! No, really. For example, the monsters, while inventive, are kinda nonsensical, and also fight more unfairly than those in the main game, and not in the 'Challenge Is Good' way but rather in the 'I Will Need To Wait Longer Than Usual Till My Next Fight So I Can Heal Myself' way. What makes this game not quite as good as it could be are a few subtle elements. This game is all about odd locations, weirder people and literal manifestations of Insanity – Seriously, it was almost like someone used Oblivion to make a side-story to Shadow Madness (a brilliant game in terms of writing). It's not as polished by any means, but it's almost like a direct response to the complaints that Oblivion was essentially Fantasy 101 in its setting. Shivering Isles is in many ways superior to the main Oblivion game.
It is the best of what oblivion can offer, so if you already liked oblivion, this will be the most enjoyment you will get out of the game. If you played oblivion and haven't done the shivering isles, go do yourself a favor, reboot oblivion, and just play shivering isles. Yeah, still the weaker part of the game, as apart from a new spell and items, the glaring flaw of a meh combat system still persists. Super memorable, and again, peak oblivion characters. I don't know if they changed it, but there were way less times were the "oblivion jank" kicked in, and it felt way more fleshed out in terms of who they were, and their connection to madness. My god the characters were sooo damn good in this expansion. The main story is great, the side quests are great, there are a few meh quests, but overall was really good to go through, especially seeing characters like Sheogorath having to deal with the cycle of madness. Shivering Isle's story is peak oblivion, there are just sooo many great moments in this main story questline, from the dungeon master segment, to messing with haskill, doing the side quests where you have to kill a suicidal citizen, kill either double of a duplicated town, there are just far too many amazing moments to account for and it is amazing. I won't be diving too deep, as I already reviewed most of oblivion in my other review. The story, the Character, the Atmosphere, the quests and side quests, all of them were just at their best in this expansion. I loved tf out of Shivering Isles, and it was most def peak Oblivion in my eyes.
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