Is Skyrim Actually a Good Game?

[Aidy]

No, it's not. But it's a very hyped game. And in todays gaming climate that's basically the same thing for most people.

What a ridiculous thing to say.

[Animusisters]

A technical outdated mess that consists of 95% no brain busywork is not something I would call good.

[fenrif]

It's marketing was great, yeah.

[fenrif]

No, it's not. But it's a very hyped game. And in todays gaming climate that's basically the same thing for most people.

[Shazam2016]

Yeah to be honest unless you can play a modded version I wouldnt recoomend this game anymore deep potential but its just painfully meh. If you want a decent RPG I would reccommend the vastly superior Witcher III

[SeanCampbell]

I've actually spoken with some people in the gaming business before and told them how much I enjoyed Skyrim. Apparently that's a popular game to kind of crap on. I don't understand it. When it came out it was practically the only game I played for like a year straight, and the fact that people are still playing and talking about it after all this time speaks volumes. It did something right.

[ad_victoriam]

I'm not claiming "Skyrim was a better game than [x]", I'm claiming Skyrim was a great game for reasons that extend beyond the mechanical. Is it dumbed down compared to its predecessors? Absolutely. I am still infuriated by the depth they ripped out of the game. But to pretend like that invalidates its contributions to the genre and to gaming is narrow-minded.

[Merlin]

I thought long and hard about it, and realized that skyrim was the first game of that sort I ever played. I got oblivion near the launch of skyrim because it had a discount code and had a steelbook and my friends liked it, but I found it rather obnoxious and the difficulty scaling made it not very fun since dodging and such aren't really a thing, its just glorified runescape combat as far as I'm concerned in these games which is fine. But it just kept being hard, though I liked the lore, the setting and the customization, and I'll get to morrowind some day since it seems to be really freeing, and maybe even the one before that because it seems even more free(strange how it seems to be inverserly complex over time). But Skyrim kept me happy just because the level scaling was better and more than 3 enemies could be on screen at once. But looking back, it has aged like dog poo in a barfy toilet. As much as people praise mods they don't work for me ever anymore so its just vanilla. I think there just isn't enough real competition in this game's space, or at least I don't know of it. But the game engine is what ruins all bethesda games. Skyrim in particular suffers from some lack of freedom. I should be able to kill the dang jarl of whiterun and become its leader if I darn well please. I could do just as good a job anyhow. Also many skills were just stupid, like speechcraft, who even used that in skyrim? It just made shops cheaper AFAIK. I'd have liked more interesting options for combat and more unique dungeon puzzles. The same shallow few things got boring especially as a sneaky assassain rogue. Rushing through axes a' blazin' as a dual weilding orc and finishing things in half the time proved that I had nothing to lose by doing so. There was no special stuff gained by being sneaky and careful ever, or for being a brute, or for being a mage.

But I still had fun, and I can't deny that, but FO4 looked very samey and I thought to myself, "I played that game before, but with magic and swords and better".

Is it a good game? Its an...okay game. I would suggest someone play it in 2011, but not today. I'd say play something else, or even an older Elder Scrolls game, probably morrowind, which even I haven't played yet.

So I say if TES6 doesn't actually try to go back to its roots and have actual QC and not be a buggy mess, I will see it as just a massive Skyrim DLC and just skip it. Skyrim is okay. It was fun, but I wouldn't touch it again today, maybe in 10 years when nostalgia kicks in.

[TheSHEEEP]

Skyrim modded with something like Requiem can be a nice and challenging experience.
Vanilla is... meh. Deeply meh.
Really just a walk in the park without any challenge whatsoever.

[isturbo1984]

It's a great game. I put in over 400 hours over multiple characters in the game last generation. And another 200 hours with the Special Edition this gen and actually 100%ing the game.

[Sorain]

I think Skyrim was a little basic, but a solid foundation to build upon to make something great. The modders did this to truly hilarious levels. The developer did not, to truly sad levels. Unmodded Skyrim is a fair enough game for it's time, and that time is long past now.

[Dr.buttcheeks90]

It's not bad, played it on the xbox 360 a long time ago, moved up to ps3 (regret it) which was the first time I had played the dlc's. Now I play it on PC with lots of mods and no regrets, 10/10 would fight another Randy Savage dragon.
A combined total of 500 hours on PC, easily over a 1000 for Xbox 360, and I'm convinced is over 3000 hours on the ps3.

[Astraea]

Count me a hipster ad_vic, have you ever played Oblivion? It was way better in my opinion and Skyrim was so toned down coming from that. I guess you can still like Skyrim when you like Oblivion but to me it was a let down. Maybe i'm wrong in thinking that the only reason it was a success is because the majority of the people who bought it never played Oblivion or Morrowind, then I guess the joke's on me.

[ad_victoriam]

Sorry guys, Skyrim was, is, and will remain not only a good but pretty much a great game.

And for one simple reason: like Baldur's Gate before it, it basically saved the genre in the West at a time when it was assumed it was done.

People like to forget historical context, so here is some: Skyrim came out in November 2011. Before it came out, the last major RPG to hit the market was Dragon Age 2, in late 2010 and early 2011. As a critical and consumer flop, Dragon Age 2 ignited a firestorm of speculation that the RPG, as a genre in the West, was dead:

https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/05...old-school-rpg

And for once in their FUCKING lives Bethesda found their nuts and stayed the course on something instead of bowing to the "market consensus" (though, to be sure, that might be just because they had too much riding on Skyrim to change course as any actual courage), and not only continued forging ahead with Skyrim, but insisted it was going to great.

And the rest is history. Skyrim isn't without its flaws, but pretending that it isn't a landmark not only in RPG but gaming history is sheer hipsterdom.

[aileron]

I thought Skyrim was better than Oblivion but worse that Morrowind, **if** you completely ignore improvements to graphics and controls. I never played Daggerfall. I did play Arena a little bit, but it didn't stand out for me from other RPGs at that time.

tl;dr Don't activate quests. Walk/ride there.

In my opinion, they really hurt the Elder Scrolls game playing experience when they added the ability to fast travel to anywhere (you've discovered) at anytime (when you're outside) by just clicking a point on the map, and when they added the... I cannot remember the name of it... the thing that shows you where the quest location is. I don't remember which of those elements were introduced in Oblivion and which were introduced in Skyrim, but suddenly destinations were trivial to find and you didn't have to travel "in game" anymore, be it by walking or some other vehicle, beast or magic. They broke the immersiveness and removed part of the role-playing experience when they added those 2 features. Morrowind **had** fast travel to certain places, but the **fast travel made sense as part of the world**, e.g., you paid for a boat ride from one city another city when both cities were on the coast, you could teleport from one magic users guild to another if you were part of the right guild, etc. When I know exactly where I'm going, and I can just click to jump around the world, I'm no longer role-playing, I'm not immersed in the world, and I'm just playing any other video game.