Two console generations later and Skyrim is still a buggy mess. What Skyrim does right is give the player agency over their protagonist and how they they tackle the world. The only other games that do this as well are Bethesda’s Fallout games. So fans of 1st person RPGs have to take what they can get.
My son asked me what I was playing. Then he said, “That game looks terrible.” Indeed itTwo console generations later and Skyrim is still a buggy mess. What Skyrim does right is give the player agency over their protagonist and how they they tackle the world. The only other games that do this as well are Bethesda’s Fallout games. So fans of 1st person RPGs have to take what they can get.
My son asked me what I was playing. Then he said, “That game looks terrible.” Indeed it does. There is no graphics technology to improve upon. In its day, Skyrim was a lackluster looking game. The game engine is last, last, last gen. The game does not run without hiccups even on a PS5. Stutters happen. Bugs also happen. Quest breaking bugs to be precise. All this time and Bethesda didn’t bother fixing much of anything.
Most of the gameplay is simple, awkward combat. You can level of Speechcraft but it barely matters. Most of the enemies are zombies and your only discourse is in killing them again. If you equip a shield for blocking, you can see what Bethesda was trying to do. Block at the right time and you have a window to counterattack with no risk. Or maybe the enemy goes crazy with exploding fireballs. This is not an issue of the mechanics not aging well. Other games at the time had this kind of combat all figured out. The real game (what we now call the “meta game”) is making the most powerful character as quickly as possible. The downside of becoming a god like being is that the game becomes pointless. The upside is figuring out how you will break the game. As a Skyrim veteran, I focused on one kind of weapon and restoration magic to heal my character. Then I maxed out Smithing, Enchantment, and Alchemy to make weapons and armor that outclass any quest reward. I’m not sure if my time is worth finishing the story. But I did it. I broke the game using only the game mechanics. The story and such is interesting but limited in depth. Bethesda when quantity over quality with this before The Witcher 3 showed us that we could have both. NPCs are all blah, blah, blah and I’m like fast travel to a cave and get the thing. There are only so many ways to wrap a fetch quest. The cut and paste dungeons don’t make quests any more interesting. The big let down is the magic. In prior games, which are really, really old, players could cast levitation spells, stack huge amounts of damage, become permanently invisible, etc. Skyrim limits magic to just combat, and from a damage standpoint, weapons work better. So if you want to go full mage, maybe lower the difficulty.
Full disclosure: I downloaded this through PS+ Extra. So for me this was an interest side mission for nostalgia’s sake. Can I recommend buying this game? Not really. 2022 has too many better games to offer. Even on PS+ Extra, you will have a better time with Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon Zero Dawn. But as I said, if you want a 1st person RPG with player agency, Skyrim and Fallout are your only options.… Expand
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special EditionYour Score0 out of 10User Score
