Skyrim was actually a rare, true RPG. You actually do save the world, and when you do, people actually recognize you. Not only that, but they went a bit further and gave recognition for other little deeds too.
Was there another version of Skyrim that I'm missing? Because after completing the main quest and civil war quests with hardly any mention and plenty of dialogue pretending my victories never happened, I'm pretty sure we played different Skyrims.
Eh, I thought having Stormcloaks/Imperials fill up certain cities were good enough recognition of victory. It's also quite cool that the overthrown Jarls would glare at you when you walk past, and certain other people would talk more about it than others. Much like RL, you don't actually change the world by taking control of politics, you just change whoever's in charge, and I thought it was satisfactory enough that the game gives you a bit of a hanging ending there.
For the main quest, I thought those two pretty damn cool powers you got at the end was enough recognition. They showed that you had the support of some of the two most respected factions in the game. I didn't really bother playing the game after that, though, since I didn't see much fun left in that specific character, and I had already beaten the toughest thing in the game.
And the game does give you some random bits of recognition when you become the head of a guild and stuff. Personally, one thing I've always loved about RPGs like Fallout were that they detailed the really little things in the game, and Skyrim did a great job with those little things.
From start to finish, it provides an ideal RPG experience... do what you like, be a hero, destroy the world or save it, get legendary artifacts, etc. There's the good old cliches like innkeepers giving quests, guilds for all the major playstyles of the game, etc. So, heck, I give it a 5/5, definitely RPG of the year, and a good benchmark for the whole decade (even with the game killing bugs).
Taken out of context, that could easily be said about Oblivion. The more I've played of Skyrim, the fewer differences I honestly see between it and Oblivion.
Skyrim has a setting that wasn't generic the instant your feet hit the ground. That's its strongest and most enduring feature. Beyond that? It's chalk full of the exact same tropes, experiences and methods that Bethesda has been polishing since Oblivion. It's better textured, more varied and the map has a more artisanal quality to it. But it's exactly the same kind of content you got in Oblivion.
Skyrim is going to get game of the year for Mountains and Dragons. If people think it deserves GotY for more than that, I think their brown-tinted glasses could use a good polishing. Because the guts of Skyrim are the exact same as Oblivion, FO3 and FO:NV.
Heh, I was going to write a blog entry on why I thought Skyrim did everything right. First off, I don't think the core gameplay really matters, it's all about implementation. There's a reason why Final Fantasy is miles ahead of generic RPGMaker games. Why Halo is better than the thousands of shooters out there. Why Knytt Stories brings in a wonderful feeling, when at its base, it's a generic platformer. Mount and Blade has superb gameplay, but lacks any other elements to it; same with many Total War games both of which just generate storylines for your battles.
Too many people look at the separate components of games - I hate any review that splits the final score into things like "Sound and Music" and "Bugs". A good game is more than the sum of its parts. An typical $50 flop is a game which basically copied off the exact same gameplay as another game and put better graphics on top of it.
Personally, I think the most enjoyable bits of RPGs are:
1. Dungeons.
2. Dragons.
3. Items.
Computer RPGs have been doing those forever, since games like Wizardry and Buck Rogers and Diablo. It's that aspect that bring computer RPGs ahead of pen and paper - you can just hack and slash through stuff and then get rich and fat on the plunder, and then hack and slash through bigger stuff.
Dungeons mean a guided route. You can have a huge world, and Bethesda games certainly do. But Dungeons are designed to give them a path to follow. It makes sure that the player doesn't miss too much of the treasure and end up too weak, but the secret doors and stuff reward the player for taking specialized skills. It gives them a clear path to the big boss battle and the boss's treasure hoard. It lets the players enjoy the scenery of the dungeon, sniff the culture of the game world. It tells the player what to do, without seeming bossy. It allows the players to exercise all their PvE skills, whether it's combat, sneaking, lockpicking, finding/disarming traps, etc.
Bethesda games have reaaaallly sucked in this. Dungeons are superb tools for guiding players; Bethesda games usually just leave you with this huge world and giving you no idea what to do. Bethesda dungeons have often felt quite random, out-of-place from the world (literally with Oblivion). They might as well have been randomly generated. My main beef with FO3 was that its world felt like it was 90% raiders and 10% townspeople, which was rather jarring, and the Dungeons were just really plain.
Skyrim's dungeons on the other hand had a nice handcrafted feel to them. They let you go in, give you a lovely experience, and are even nice enough to allow you a quick exit once you've beaten the boss. There's a sort of culture in every dungeon. It's difficult to say with words, but it feels like a tour instead of a crawl, and even when it's a crawl, it's usually because you expect something really cool at the end of it.
Dragons are basically these massive monsters, way stronger than you, with a long history in being invincible, powerful, and really rich. Any game can have their own version of Dragons, like some kind of ancient 1000 year old Lich, or an invincible Emperor. The game just builds them up as some kind of undefeatable threat, actually convinces you that they're undefeatable, and somehow, through some birthright or hard work (like recovering an artifact or investigative work), you actually beat them and get richly rewarded.
Skyrim takes this aspect quite literally and to the point. The other Bethesda games were not quite as impressive at it. The RPG classics have always had this supervillian(s). Baldur's Gate 2 had you fighting against demigods. Fallout 2 had progressively bigger threats. FO3 ended with a whimper (and a really unimpressive ending), and I got bored of Oblivion/Morrowind long before I found out who the boss was.
Items are basically the cool factor. The unique artifacts in games, unique craftables, being able to buy mansions and show off your wealth. They're a little similar to the Dragons aspect in that they're goals you want to chase after. But you get to keep them as trophies and show them off to other friends playing the game, or enjoy showing it off.
Skyrim excels here as well. There's tons of "get this legendary artifact locked away for several generations" quests. FO3 had very little cool stuff, and none of it had any real cultural value. The best I found was this cool talking armor, but even that was more of a novelty than an artifact. Oblivion did a grave crime here in giving you really crappy and ugly items, and I stopped at the point where I found out that the ugly glass weapons were state of the art.
Yes, Skyrim has its flaws, and plenty of them. If I rated it on bugs, it'd be 2/10, especially with a few game breaking ones. I dislike the encumbrance system, and the "info overload" still applies to potions and ingredients and scrolls later on, when you end up just lugging around 500 units of stuff because you're too lazy to dump it. Also kinda sucks that there are few jewelry buyers, when jewelry seems to be a currency.
The difficulty system really sucks; I'm pretty sure Bethesda just decides to let the players choose their own difficulty, and I absolutely hate how it ramps up accordingly to levels (meaning that you get punished in combat for having skills you just dabble with). The 'set your own difficulty' system ruins the sense of accomplishment.
But despite all the gameplay flaws, it's an excellent game. It's a role playing game, in meaning. The game pulls you into another world and does its best to convince you that the world is real, just like what Fallout 2 does. It's hard to describe by breaking it down into parts, I guess the best word is... immersive. And immersion is something that too many RPGs fail at.
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Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Read 1622916 times)