100% agree about the faction quests. The Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs had some meat to them, but the standard factions feel like joining a D&D group that's been going for 20 years. Everyone's desperate for new blood, and the DM is obviously just trying to hand the keys to someone else. Nothing like Morrowind, where you had to put in serious work to rank up.
On the other hand, I remember making a Khajiit paladin named Roombas-the-Skooma, and my holy quest was to do all the skooma in Skyrim before anyone else could. Pretty rare to have that level of freedom in an RPG.
For whatever reason, despite knowing for a fact I've played it, I have absolutely no memory of Dawnguard yet I remember Dragonborn quite well. That description is spot on too, they're almost falling over themselves to get you to the top.
Thank you! And try and kick that skooma habit, eh?
I really enjoyed it. But I play CRPGs almost exclusively, and yeah you have to be relaxed about the combat and character development limitations if you’re a fan of the genre. You mentioned the joys of the stealth archer - that was my build the first time I played, and it is genuinely a blast. Later attempts at different builds - not as much fun.
The quests suck, generally, particularly the wizard school one. I remember my thoughts when I unintentionally became archmage in like 2 seconds: uh-oh. The game suffers big from a usually fatal development choice: the refusal to gate off ANYTHING from a player. Your character is a priest? No worries, you can still lead the assassins guild. Brainless Orc barbarian? Archmage it is. Don’t bother lockpicking anything: the fact that there’s a lock on a container by definition means there won’t be anything great in it.
There were two quests, though, that were genuinely top-notch: the first quest where you catch the notice of the assassins guild was actually pretty wild, and the somewhat self-made quest to gather all of the game’s artifacts. They’re usually hidden behind zany quests.
The spin-the-wheel randomly generated quests suck from the jump (I really hope developers have given up on that concept). I don’t like arrows and question marks and compasses pointing me where to go, and I hate fast travel everywhere. It makes the world tiny. Crafting was ok. Fun but pointless.
But the world was gorgeous and exploring it never lost its excitement. Battles with either dragons and giants never stopped being magical: it’s been 20 years and I can still remember how intense it was battling dragons with my bow. And stripped down or not, the character builds were fun. Those things alone saved the game completely to me.
Agree with absolutely every single word of this, nothing to add. Skyrim is a lot more than the sum of its parts which is a good thing because Morrowind and Oblivion are constructed of better parts.
I had a blast playing Skyrim when it first came out. I’ve tried to replay it a couple times but can never really get back into it. Mostly, I think, because the combat feels too flat. I was however able to replay Oblivion when the remaster dropped. Maybe the magic system is a bit more fun like you point out or better quests?
Also I have a friend who raves about playing Skyrim after installing a set of over 1000 mods, haha!
Funnily enough, this has also been my only successful attempt to get back into it. From launch to about the time the Xbox One came out I played it at least once a week, if not every day but in these 13 years since I've come back again and again and never gotten much further than visiting the Greybeards until now. Ah that remaster last year controlled my life for a while, I'm so nostalgic for Oblivion and I fast-tracked building my current PC to play that, so worth it. I think the questlines are generally better in Oblivion but Skyrim probably has it beat in random encounters and sheer volume.
We all know one hahaha, I'm not a big modder but I installed Daggerfall Unity last year and was having a great time with it, though I put it down because Starfield hooked me more than expected, I'll go back soon.
Please do! I'm going to cover the other Elder Scrolls games and maybe another (shorter) look at Starfield once I've had time to enjoy the expansions but after that? I'll be getting on to your requests.
After reading this article and the comments I started getting excited about Oblivion Remastered. I really loved the game when it came out until I realized what “scaling” was. I’m not as bothered by the concept now, but at the specific time and in that particular game it ruined it for me (my build wasn’t keeping up, and I didn’t want it to have to). But ive wanted to go back and finish for a long time. I loved the world, almost as much as I loved Morrowind’s.
But $50 is a lot of money to spend on any game, much less a game that old and which I stopped playing for a pretty good reason (Morrowind or death!). How valuable are the improvements?
It's difficult to say because truth be told it's been about a decade since I played the original so it's tough to compare.
The graphics are gorgeous, some bugs and glitches (but not all) have been ironed out, the scaling isn't fixed but it has been adjusted; most of the changes are to do with the levelling system and they're all very specific fixes you're better off finding a list for.
Performance is hit and miss for a lot of people, I have a really beefy PC so I can't comment on this much, it was fine when I played it but I did encounter some stutters as new areas were rendered in.
For me it was worth it because I didn't own Oblivion on Steam and my original copy for the 360 is not the GOTY edition and the store shut down so buying Shivering Isles on the 360 is no longer possible.
The Dawnguard quest line has by far the best writing. Key feature: you don't become faction leader at the end; the Dawnguard's founder remains in charge. And there's Serana, by far the most fleshed-out party member (and love interest?) in the game.
For some reason I have next to no recollection of Dawnguard other than picking the evil ending (which I know is less developed) looking forward to replaying it after this comment.
The VR port is actually the only version of Skyrim I actually enjoyed enough to finish the main quest and the DLC with. Sure, that may have had something to do with the breast-physics enabled companions I had flanking me, or the fact that I could mod in the ability to do a simple gesture to conjure a bound weapon, but it was also just another case of a game being an excellent match for VR because it wasn't developed with VR in mind.
Would have been cool to see Starfield get the same treatment but doubtful now; hopefully TES VI is a bit closer to the classic games (and improves the combat)
I mean, from my understanding Skyrim VR is basically just a wrapper running over the Anniversary Edition anyway, in a similar way to Oblivion Remastered being a UE5 wrapper, I wouldn't be surprised by Bethesda doing a similarly half-assed port of Starfield if they think they could recoup enough of the relatively small investment. But I don't know how sales figures look for Starfield or if they'd wait for a next gen rerelease first.
I don't have a clue on the tech side of VR but I'm sure if Bethesda don't then modders will.
I have to imagine the PS5 launch will be a nice boost. I noticed a fair few online were planning to hop on (and funnily enough, the rhetoric softening once Sony fans got their way.)
Just want to agree with you that the PS3 version is the absolute worst. I was felled by a game breaking bug 60 hours in. To this day, I have tried to replay Skyrim at least twice and haven't been able to do it. I acknowledge it's a classic and that I will likely never play it again.
Can really feel the passion and love you have for the game in this piece, so thank you for that.
Sounds like it could have been the dreaded save file bug. Oblivion and Skyrim on PS3 were notorious for just breaking if you had a long playthrough going, something to do with the save file expanding over time if I remember rightly?
Wow, that's something to consider: which world do I prefer? I think I'd have to go with Oblivion too. I grew up in the kind of leafy, ancient towns in the Midlands Cyrodiil took heavy inspiration from and the soundtrack is weaponised nostalgia. I will say though that Skyrim has more variety, in Oblivion it's mostly just a cave, an Ayleid ruin or a fort around the next corner.
I adored that remaster last year too, I even speed-finished building this PC (which I was slowly, half-heartedly gathering up the parts for) after it came out so I could play it, my old one could never have run that.
100% agree about the faction quests. The Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs had some meat to them, but the standard factions feel like joining a D&D group that's been going for 20 years. Everyone's desperate for new blood, and the DM is obviously just trying to hand the keys to someone else. Nothing like Morrowind, where you had to put in serious work to rank up.
On the other hand, I remember making a Khajiit paladin named Roombas-the-Skooma, and my holy quest was to do all the skooma in Skyrim before anyone else could. Pretty rare to have that level of freedom in an RPG.
Solid review!
For whatever reason, despite knowing for a fact I've played it, I have absolutely no memory of Dawnguard yet I remember Dragonborn quite well. That description is spot on too, they're almost falling over themselves to get you to the top.
Thank you! And try and kick that skooma habit, eh?
A solid summary of Skyrim.
I really enjoyed it. But I play CRPGs almost exclusively, and yeah you have to be relaxed about the combat and character development limitations if you’re a fan of the genre. You mentioned the joys of the stealth archer - that was my build the first time I played, and it is genuinely a blast. Later attempts at different builds - not as much fun.
The quests suck, generally, particularly the wizard school one. I remember my thoughts when I unintentionally became archmage in like 2 seconds: uh-oh. The game suffers big from a usually fatal development choice: the refusal to gate off ANYTHING from a player. Your character is a priest? No worries, you can still lead the assassins guild. Brainless Orc barbarian? Archmage it is. Don’t bother lockpicking anything: the fact that there’s a lock on a container by definition means there won’t be anything great in it.
There were two quests, though, that were genuinely top-notch: the first quest where you catch the notice of the assassins guild was actually pretty wild, and the somewhat self-made quest to gather all of the game’s artifacts. They’re usually hidden behind zany quests.
The spin-the-wheel randomly generated quests suck from the jump (I really hope developers have given up on that concept). I don’t like arrows and question marks and compasses pointing me where to go, and I hate fast travel everywhere. It makes the world tiny. Crafting was ok. Fun but pointless.
But the world was gorgeous and exploring it never lost its excitement. Battles with either dragons and giants never stopped being magical: it’s been 20 years and I can still remember how intense it was battling dragons with my bow. And stripped down or not, the character builds were fun. Those things alone saved the game completely to me.
Agree with absolutely every single word of this, nothing to add. Skyrim is a lot more than the sum of its parts which is a good thing because Morrowind and Oblivion are constructed of better parts.
I had a blast playing Skyrim when it first came out. I’ve tried to replay it a couple times but can never really get back into it. Mostly, I think, because the combat feels too flat. I was however able to replay Oblivion when the remaster dropped. Maybe the magic system is a bit more fun like you point out or better quests?
Also I have a friend who raves about playing Skyrim after installing a set of over 1000 mods, haha!
Looking forward to more reviews 😁
Funnily enough, this has also been my only successful attempt to get back into it. From launch to about the time the Xbox One came out I played it at least once a week, if not every day but in these 13 years since I've come back again and again and never gotten much further than visiting the Greybeards until now. Ah that remaster last year controlled my life for a while, I'm so nostalgic for Oblivion and I fast-tracked building my current PC to play that, so worth it. I think the questlines are generally better in Oblivion but Skyrim probably has it beat in random encounters and sheer volume.
We all know one hahaha, I'm not a big modder but I installed Daggerfall Unity last year and was having a great time with it, though I put it down because Starfield hooked me more than expected, I'll go back soon.
Please do! I'm going to cover the other Elder Scrolls games and maybe another (shorter) look at Starfield once I've had time to enjoy the expansions but after that? I'll be getting on to your requests.
After reading this article and the comments I started getting excited about Oblivion Remastered. I really loved the game when it came out until I realized what “scaling” was. I’m not as bothered by the concept now, but at the specific time and in that particular game it ruined it for me (my build wasn’t keeping up, and I didn’t want it to have to). But ive wanted to go back and finish for a long time. I loved the world, almost as much as I loved Morrowind’s.
But $50 is a lot of money to spend on any game, much less a game that old and which I stopped playing for a pretty good reason (Morrowind or death!). How valuable are the improvements?
It's difficult to say because truth be told it's been about a decade since I played the original so it's tough to compare.
The graphics are gorgeous, some bugs and glitches (but not all) have been ironed out, the scaling isn't fixed but it has been adjusted; most of the changes are to do with the levelling system and they're all very specific fixes you're better off finding a list for.
Performance is hit and miss for a lot of people, I have a really beefy PC so I can't comment on this much, it was fine when I played it but I did encounter some stutters as new areas were rendered in.
For me it was worth it because I didn't own Oblivion on Steam and my original copy for the 360 is not the GOTY edition and the store shut down so buying Shivering Isles on the 360 is no longer possible.
First. Give me a sec to read
Priorities.
I only have like 300 hours in this game. No, idiot, of course I've never finished it.
The Dawnguard quest line has by far the best writing. Key feature: you don't become faction leader at the end; the Dawnguard's founder remains in charge. And there's Serana, by far the most fleshed-out party member (and love interest?) in the game.
For some reason I have next to no recollection of Dawnguard other than picking the evil ending (which I know is less developed) looking forward to replaying it after this comment.
The VR port is actually the only version of Skyrim I actually enjoyed enough to finish the main quest and the DLC with. Sure, that may have had something to do with the breast-physics enabled companions I had flanking me, or the fact that I could mod in the ability to do a simple gesture to conjure a bound weapon, but it was also just another case of a game being an excellent match for VR because it wasn't developed with VR in mind.
Would have been cool to see Starfield get the same treatment but doubtful now; hopefully TES VI is a bit closer to the classic games (and improves the combat)
I mean, from my understanding Skyrim VR is basically just a wrapper running over the Anniversary Edition anyway, in a similar way to Oblivion Remastered being a UE5 wrapper, I wouldn't be surprised by Bethesda doing a similarly half-assed port of Starfield if they think they could recoup enough of the relatively small investment. But I don't know how sales figures look for Starfield or if they'd wait for a next gen rerelease first.
I don't have a clue on the tech side of VR but I'm sure if Bethesda don't then modders will.
I have to imagine the PS5 launch will be a nice boost. I noticed a fair few online were planning to hop on (and funnily enough, the rhetoric softening once Sony fans got their way.)
Just want to agree with you that the PS3 version is the absolute worst. I was felled by a game breaking bug 60 hours in. To this day, I have tried to replay Skyrim at least twice and haven't been able to do it. I acknowledge it's a classic and that I will likely never play it again.
Can really feel the passion and love you have for the game in this piece, so thank you for that.
Sounds like it could have been the dreaded save file bug. Oblivion and Skyrim on PS3 were notorious for just breaking if you had a long playthrough going, something to do with the save file expanding over time if I remember rightly?
And thank you for reading!
An excellent and comprehensive piece!
I have to agree, Overall Oblivion felt superior to Skyrim if I'm honest.
Dragonborne felt too too superhero, and the guilds weren't as good.
The dark brotherhood having that fun quest to listen a moose head to fall on someone for example (pretty sure that was oblivion...)
Sheogorath was funnier to me in oblivion, the world and soundtrack superior (perhaps where we differ).
Specialisation felt earned and impactful, as did spells as you say.
I played the remaster recently, it was just as good as I recalled.
Vr was indeed a missed opportunity, the clunky half attempts made in alien isolation did the same but hinted it was perfect for it.
Thank you!
Wow, that's something to consider: which world do I prefer? I think I'd have to go with Oblivion too. I grew up in the kind of leafy, ancient towns in the Midlands Cyrodiil took heavy inspiration from and the soundtrack is weaponised nostalgia. I will say though that Skyrim has more variety, in Oblivion it's mostly just a cave, an Ayleid ruin or a fort around the next corner.
I adored that remaster last year too, I even speed-finished building this PC (which I was slowly, half-heartedly gathering up the parts for) after it came out so I could play it, my old one could never have run that.
An analysis for the ages. Thanks for your work!
I enjoyed Fallout 76 more than Starfield, tbqh.