Is Skyrim Actually a Good Game?

[EngulfingDarkness]

Ive had this debate tons of times, to me it is a good game. but overhyped and so overblown to the point that every list is placing it as its best rpg ever for years now. It was bad at start, held on life support by modding communty to the point its a good game nothing more.

[Roydsy]

Whens the next one due? I mean actually completed. 2030??

[Kharn]

I just think all of the mechanics are really shallow and that Magic is a terrible thing to bother leveling up. It felt a lot better with cold and wet mods and after turning off the quick travel, but given most of the missions have quick travel in mind...it shows just how lazily designed the missions are.

I'd rather play Daggerfall or Morrowind.

[Juan-ton_Soup]

I really didn't get in to Oblivion or Morrowind that much (am excitedly waiting for Skywind/blivion though), and Skyrim was my first Elder Scrolls. I enjoyed vanilla when it first came out and played for hours on end. However, as time went on, it became very boring. That's where the mods came in. Vanilla Skyrim is very 'okay' on its own, but with mods you can enjoy Skyrim to its fullest.

[PassStage6]

Skyrim (unmodded) first go around is a fun RPG that does a good job at its basic functions. It draws you in, while providing the freedom to make choices that can alter the gameplay a bit. But you're correct. The modding community has kept the game going for the most part. I won't go into all the mods, but we all know that everything could be altered and can make the game brand new serval times over. The game is fun of course, but mods and how they allow you to change so much of the game is why people like me still play it after about seven years. This goes to show the community's passion for the game, not so much for Bethesda.

[Drann]

I think how we define the game needs to be established in order to answer that. If we're talking about stock unmodded Skyrim it's a very, very average game at best, and I'm being polite in saying that in an attempt to remain objective. The last Bethesda game I played that I genuinely felt was decent was Morrowind. While modded Skyrim can become very impressive in a number of ways once modded, I'd argue that's part of Bethesda's downfall in current days. They're used to being able to release games that are essentially unfinished and in a very poor state, but I don't feel they really took that into account (aka they were drinking their own kool aid) when releasing Fallout 76, which of course can't be fixed or improved by the community. That's going into another topic however, so I'll leave my answer at that.

[Garrett]

It's undeniable that Skyrim dumbed down itself in comparison to the previous games significantly. The rest are still just missed opportunities or blatant degradations of quality.
-Magic allows dual-wielding now, but every spell has a chargeup delay except the lowest-level ones. Yeah, the better your character is, the worse spells you have access to. Also you can no longer make your own spells, and you can't bind spells to enchantments.
-Skills have no success or failure anymore, not against enemies nor against you. Figures, since the game no longer has attributes, ie. no Luck.
-Speaking of Attributes, yeah. They don't exist. You don't need strength to swing a warhammer, apparently. And you can't get better at jumping higher. You're going to be a good boy and go through the linear dungeon that one designer-approved way.
-Archery feels like it has more weight now as it should, but the condescending default upward tilt and autoaim actually make it harder to hit targets. They wanted to cater to idiots who don't know that gravity exists and who don't know that you need to lead moving targets. So everyone who knows those things is at a disadvantage, and literally nobody can hit moving targets anymore due to the autoaim not factoring in target movement.
-Being able to smith your own equipment is a great concept, but it's insane that the knowledge on how to construct literal demon armor simply appears into your brain once you level up enough. It trivializes the rarity of those equipment.
-Alchemy requires you to taste or test every ingredient to find out their effects regardless of your skill. Why can't trainers teach you those effects? Also, you can no longer optimize potion weight by using more rare, lighter ingredients. It would also help to actually have some sort of a recipe book so you'd know what to gather in order to brew something. Oh, and who's bright idea was it to make alchemy take place in static locations, and you can't carry that equipment like you previously could?
-Maintaining your equipment wasn't just a chore in previous games. You had weapons and magic to disintegrate the armor and weapons of your enemies, and they could do the same to you. Skyrim just got rid of durability because people didn't want to spend two seconds fixing their stuff from time to time.
-Ghosts and daedra are now susceptible to normal weapons. You can improve a child's wooden sword to legendary status and one-shot an aetherial ghost lord.
-Quests are simplistic and with lame stories tied to them. Randomly generated quests are everywhere, but the few well made quests in Oblivion were infinitely better than the tons of shitty quests that Morrowind and Skyrim have.
-The game added children, but they are all Nord children, and they are immortal, so if a dragon attacks and you can't be bothered to save people, eventually there will be towns full of "essential quest NPCs" and kids. Oh, and they made sure to make all of the kids into insufferable cunts, so even those who like kids will get annoyed and try to slaughter them to no avail.
-Illusion magic can't be used to persuade people, alteration magic can't be used to pick locks and restoration magic can't be used to buff your attributes for temporary skill increases.
-High-level vampires can't blend in with regular people, but vampires of every level are so hideous that it's blatantly obvious who is a vampire because Bethesda didn't bother to program in the visual difference. Sunlight also doesn't kill vampires.
-Level scaling doesn't apply to player werewolf abilities so it's impossible to be a werewolf at high levels
-Lockpicking minigame has no auto-solve for high skill and low-level locks, and every lock is perfectly pickable on any skill level no matter how low.
-The arch mage of the mages college doesn't need to know jack shit about magic.
-The guildmaster of the thieves guild doesn't need to know jack shit about stealth.
-The harbinger of the companions doesn't need to know jack shit about combat.
-Dragons spawn infinitely even after the main quest and after you've killed enough of them to have unlocked every available shout. So in a way they are even worse than Oblivion gates. The gates stopped appearing after the ending, and the gates don't fly in and fucking attack you.
-Almost nothing gives you white grand souls for enchanting, and the supposedly super rare, illegal and immoral black soul gems are all over the place so you can just get your black souls from killing people. Yeah, now you're the King of Worms. Again, they trivialized something that was supposed to be exclusive and rare.
-Speaking of enchanting, you can't pay mages to charge your equipment.

There's a long list of more grievances but I think that's enough for now...

[ThyToaster]

I think it's a good game. This seems to be quite unpopular, but I actually DON'T mod my game much, if at all, and I still put plenty of time in to it. I've downloaded a couple weather mods to add more snow, but nothing that changes the gameplay. Just a minor weather and floral cosmetic change. I've had it on multiple consoles, and on PC multiple times, including the VR version and I still have yet to get bored with it. I can get burnt out on it sure, but that happens with any game when you play it for two weeks straight. However, I can't say I've done EVERYTHING in the game like so many people claim when they start modding. I bought the game on release and played the heck out of it and literally just now as of finding the post, I'm FINALLY leveling up my alchemy and pickpocket skills just so I can steal things and kill people with poison. Also in this same game save, I became legitimate leader of the thieves guild for the first time. Could be I'm just slow in my enjoyment of the game, but I've never uninstalled it, save for changing from regular Skyrim to Special Edition, and I've never really gotten bored. It has it's problems, it's a bethesda game, but I really do think there's a lot more to the vanilla game than people give it credit for and are seemingly, to me anyway, more interested in trying to over mod Skyrim to create a brand new game, rather than play actually play the game itself.

[The Anon]

Good game? Sure, I'd even go as far as to say it's a very good game, just flawed.

Jumping ahead 300years and saying "so that happened" felt cheap, combat wasn't great but as good if not better than any other TES game before or since. Oh and don't get me started on the UI, I remember seeing an early look before it came out and when you know the UI is going to suck before they even show it just based on how they talk about it (I believe they said it was inspired by iplayer or something) well you know it's going to be bad.

All that and many more things aside, you know what? I had fun playing it, a lot of fun. More fun with mods and a whole different type of fun after a trip to loverlab for more mods.

[SpringHeelMark]

I loved it at the time, but I definitely can't go back to it. The combat feels so empty and false. Worlds that scale with your level also really ruin the immersion for me too. Might all just be personal preference though and I'd certainly not call it a bad game

[Astraea]

I'd say it depends on what you're used to.

For me, no, it's pretty bad. I grew up playing Oblivion, a little bit of Morrowind, Fallout 1 and the likes. Furthermore I played the Warhammer 40K tabletop experience and read it's rulebooks which are more than just rulebooks, they are partly story books. On top of that I was engrossed in some epic fantasy novels. Why are these things important to the question? Because it put's my answer in perspective. I don't want to sound elitist about it, but believe me when I say Skyrim isn't necessarily the end goal quality you'd want to be aiming for when looking for a great fantasy RPG game/experience.

[noshpaq]

Is Skyrim a good game? Yep.
Is Skyrim a good TES game? N O P E.

[Mad Pauly]

I was hyped for Skyrim and played it to death on release, though I became quickly disillusioned by the simplicity and hand-holding. Revisiting it once the mod community had matured extended it's lifespan somewhat for me, although by no means to the extent that a fully-modded out Morrowind had (I was still playing TES III in 2008, long after the release of Oblivion). Still, something wasn't quite right. Oblivion suffered from the repetitiveness of Yet Another Oblivion Gate; for Skyrim, beyond a certain point, this became a Surfeit of Dragons. After the first half-dozen of these creatures (including the scripted event-driven ones) it became more of an annoyance than a challenge. Mods that increased the challenge, making enemies (especially the ubiquitous dragons) tougher expanded the playability for a while but by no means the 6+ years I got out of Morrowind.

I want to be hyped for TES VI, when that finally comes along. Sadly after the disappointments of Skyrim and FO4 (and to a lesser extent, Oblivion, but that's another story), I don't think I will be.

[HunterEste]

Once you pile enough mods into it, then yes, it's fantastic. Vanilla Skyrim is just OK.

[Avex]

I spent more hours modding Skyrim than actually playing the game lol.