Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
By Dustin Mendel | November 17, 2011 | Reviews | 2 comments | Share
I’ve never been the type of person to really immerse myself in video games. I’ve never spent more than a few minutes playing an MMO, and typically when I finish playing a game, even something as amazing as the recently released Batman: Arkham City, I don’t really think about the game again.
But last night, I dreamed of Skyrim.
For the past few days since the release of the newest Elder Scrolls game, whenever I wasn’t actually playing it, I would find myself thinking about what type of armor I wanted to craft, which side of Skyrim’s civil war I wanted to align myself with, or thinking about an epic battle I had had with a Blood Dragon earlier that day. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has invaded my life in a way I can’t remember any other video game doing, which is a testament not only to how good the game is, but how immersive the massive world of Skyrim is. If you’ve been trying to decide which of the plethora of amazing new games released this month is most worth your time and money, Skyrim might just be it.
Story
If you’re new to the Elder Scrolls series, there is nothing, save for a few references to previous games, you will have missed out on in terms of the story. The game begins with your character on their way to being executed, only to witness the return of the dragons, originally thought to be nothing more than a myth. The story that unfolds engrossed me in a way Oblivion’s main quest never did, and I wasn’t able to predict every twist and turn in the story like I could with Fallout 3, Bethesda’s other RPG masterpiece.
In addition to sending you to some of Skyrim’s most remote and impressive locations, and pitting you against a handful of badass dragons, the story introduces you to Dragon Shouts, a powerful new type of magic that allows you to learn and improve powerful commands with your character’s voice. It always rubs me the wrong way when things like magic are introduced in games with little fanfare, so I was thrilled to find that the Shouts are treated with respect and fear by the game’s NPCs.
I was pleased with the main quest, but any Elder Scrolls fan knows that the real fun comes from the game’s side quests and random encounters, and Skyrim is no exception. The game features what seems like an endless number of side quests, and they’re integrated so seamlessly into the world, you often don’t realize the length or scope of a mission until its well underway. Rather than use something mundane and predictable like a job board, Skyrim’s quests can begin any number of ways: townspeople will run up to you asking for help, you may overhear something in a conversation between two NPCs, or you could stumble across a unique item or book. On one occasion, I was clearing out a cave filled with undead Draugr, and happened across a note on one of the bodies, which led me on an epic three part quest that took over an hour to complete. What made it so cool was that if I hadn’t thought to enter that cave or loot that particular enemy, I would have missed the quest entirely; the game is so big and so deep, it can afford to have quests that you may never find during your time in Skyrim.
The various guilds from Oblivion have all made a return in one way or another, and they are as good or better this time around. Whereas a few of the guilds in Oblivion felt more like a series of themed quests than an actual side story, each guild in Skyrim has a rich history and its own three act story for you to play through at your leisure. The magic guild is a disgraced college not unlike a Hogwarts for grown-ups, your character stumbles upon the Dark Brotherhood as they anxiously await the arrival of the Night Mother, one of the creepiest things I’ve seen outside of a horror game, and so on. Each guild allows you to step away from the main story and completely involve yourself in the world of whatever guild you are aligned with; during my time with the Thieves Guild, I exclusively wore the armor they had given me, focused on my sneaking and lockpicking skills and spent most of my time in Riften or completing smaller burglary jobs.
As great as the guilds are, their respective stories feel forced at times. In an effort to keep each guild’s quest line at a reasonable length, the character is often quickly and unexpectedly thrust into a leadership role within the guild, and villains appear and carry out their fiendish plans with little set up or emotional weight. It’s a bit disappointing, and I certainly would’ve preferred it if Bethesda had stretched out the stories a bit, and not necessarily made the player the focal point each time, but it’s unfair to ask for more in a game that already provides hundreds of hours of gameplay.
Not all of the major side quests are repeats from Oblivion though. Some have the player aligning themselves with either side of an ongoing civil war, while others will task your character with finding over a dozen Daedric artifacts, each one providing a massive boost to your stats or weapons. More often than not, obtaining these items will require a pretty significant turn to the dark side for your character, which, depending on the type of character you plan on playing as, could be a problem for some.
If you plan on trying to do everything in a single playthrough (and good luck with that), there will be several situations where you will be forced to be either very good or very bad. It bears no consequences on the player, but if you begin Skyrim with the intention of playing as a heroic knight or an evil mage, you’ll have to leave some of the side quests for another time, or go off script for the sake of earning items or perks.
Gameplay
Fundamentally, Skryim bears many similarities to Oblivion, but Bethesda’s new engine and a whole host of gameplay improvements are evident the moment you begin the game. From an aesthetic point of view, Skyrim is hands down the best looking game Bethesda has ever made. The character models have been significantly improved, and the environments are absolutely beautiful and incredibly varied. The menu system from Oblivion has been completely scrapped, and replaced with a slick, minimalist design that makes the items, weapons and armor in your inventory the focal point. Every single sword, potion and cowl can be viewed as a three-dimensional model, and there are puzzles in the game that will require you to study items in your inventory for clues, something I can’t remember seeing since the Resident Evil games.
It’s true that the new menu system will require a bit more searching and button presses to find what you’re looking for than the system in Oblivion, but the layout is intuitive and it never feels like pausing the game is breaking up the flow of the action.
The levelling system from Oblivion has returned, relying more on repetition of your various skills than rewards for completing quests. In order to level up your character, you will need to level up your individual skills, like smithing, alchemy or archery, which will in turn grant you access to a variety of different perks. For those of you who were concerned that you would be bunny-hopping across Skyrim, the athletic skill has been removed, along with a few others, and the system allows you to pick or switch between any style of play, while being rewarded for sticking with your choices.
The system isn’t perfect however, and there were times where I longed for the levelling system used in the Fallout games. I spent the early portion of my time in Skyrim relying on melee combat with a bit of archery and magic for ranged attacks, and never really bothered or had much of an opportunity for stealth. By the time I reached the Thieves Guild and began the burglary quests, I was stomping around like a Clydesdale and was caught by the cities’ guards on a regular basis. It occurred to me that if I had spent an hour creeping around in a tavern, my stealth skill would have been good enough to complete these early missions. In that sense, it’s easy to be left behind in certain skill trees, and they’re often required later on, leaving you to either stumble through quests or exploit the skill system and likely taking yourself out of the game in the process.
Combat
Skyrim’s combat system has received a massive overhaul since Oblivion, which usually consisted of circling around enemies, hacking at them until they fell down. Enemies will rely on magic, poison and shields more frequently now, forcing players to adopt strategies for every situation. Weapons consist of one and two handed weapons, bows and staffs, and there are dozens of each hidden around Skyrim. Each weapon type can be enchanted as well, giving it modifiers like fire and cold, but they require soul gems to stay charged, which prevents certain weapons from being too powerful. For those of you who prefer magic, dual wielding of spells is now possible, as well as combining one handed weapons and magic, which gives the combat a Bioshock feel.
These wolves are about to get a double dose of ass whooping.
It may have just been my skill level or the weapons I was using, but I found some of the battles in Skyrim to be surprisingly difficult. The dragons are a huge undertaking early on, as expected, but there were times when a swarm of insects in a cave would prove to be too much for me, and one boss character during a side quest forced me to tank the difficulty level just to continue. As if Skyrim didn’t have enough to prolong your journey, if you’re looking for a challenge, this game is ready to provide one for those of you playing on Hard.
Technically Speaking
As sad as it is to say, I went into Skyrim on day one expecting a glitch mess, based on my experience with Bethesda’s previous games, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with what I found, or didn’t find. The game suffers from a bit of texture pop ins, but I never saw anything really bizarre during my playthrough, and the game only froze once for me, and it was after a particularly marathon session, so I gave it a pass. I played Skryim on the Playstation 3, which seems to be the red-headed stepchild when it comes to reviews of the game, and if this is the buggiest version of the game, I’d say everyone is in pretty good shape, regardless of which console you choose.
Never has something so horrible looked so good.
My time in Skyrim is nowhere near its end. As I continue exploring the game’s dungeons, uncovering secrets and slowly gaining my skills until I’m able to craft a full set of Dragon Armor, I don’t see myself putting this game down for any reason, even with the plethora of new and amazing games out this month. There are things I would change about the skill system and some of the quests aren’t perfect, but if you’ve been impatiently waiting for Skyrim since you closed the final Oblivion gate, you’re in for an amazing experience, and it was more than worth the wait.
Score: 9.5/10 | Read our Scoring Policy |
I like the reviews at DeltaGamer, and this one is no exception. I think that I would give the game 9, and only because of the combat system. The 2007 "Dark Messiah" had simmilar idea of combat, only much better and I hoped to see something like that in Skyrim.
@AramilSiandol - Very good example. I was hoping for something along the lines of "Dark Messiah" as well.