If that sentence made no sense, just keep reading.
So Skyrim. Oh Bethesda. What an amazing game you've created. It is the culmination of perfection in various forms of art. The music is superb, the level of detail in the environment excruciatingly critical, the story a living and breathing beast, and the dialogue sweet.
All combined, and with a keen scope on controls, user interfaces, and menus, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the best god damned RPG I have ever played. No contest.
I have been playing RPG's since I was 5. That's right. For two decades, I have been submersed in the world of video games. I wouldn't have it any other way. With that said, one can assume I have experienced a plethora of styles within the RPG genre, and this is true.
When I was growing up playing these RPG's, I grew accustomed to a model that was common in most games. There were side quests, and then the main quest. And this is the reason I so heavily rely on strategy guides. The term "strategy" guide is a misnomer. It should be renamed to "This is how you should progress through the story of the game" guide. Because what I really desire out of an RPG is 100% completion.
For example, I was dumb enough to get sucked in to playing Final Fantasy X-2. And it was interesting enough, kept my attention, I liked the love-sappy story line. But I think it was because I enjoyed X so much that I wanted to continue that story. Anyway, the reason I bring up Finfal Fantasy X-2 is because I completed that game with a 100% completion rating. But not on the first play through. I played it -- I want to say -- 5 or 6 times through the "new game+" (new game plus) feature. This allows you to continue playing after the last battle and replay the game from the beginning, but you retain everything: skills, items, whatever, you keep it.
There was a specific part in that game that had several requirements to not only access but complete as well. It was the Chocobo farm that you had to do something very specific to access in a cave some place. And then, to get to 100% complete in the game, you had to send out a single chocobo of each level to a specific location for each level and have it return within in a certain amount of time for each level. The problem was that it was all RNG (random number generation). You may have 1 of each level chocobo (up to 4 as far as I remember, forgive me I was doing this 10 years ago) but if you send it out, IT WILL COME BACK WHENEVER THE FUCK IT WANTS TO. OR IT MAY NOT COME BACK. IT MIGHT GET LOST. OR DIE.
wut?
So I seriously attempted completing this about 5 or 6 times and eventually succeeded. I think I still have the memory card on which the save exists. Mainly because I wasted several weeks over my summer breaks for a few years in high school playing that god forsaken game.
The problem was that it was about 3/4's of the way through the game to get to this "feature". So I would have to go through MOST of the game before I could get to that point. And there were a few things I could not skip, if I remember correctly, if I ever wanted access to that chocobo farm.
The DUMBEST part was that the guide was so HORRIBLY unorganized that I didn't realize some of those requirements until the 2nd or 3rd play through. The guide was split in to two. There was a large detailed guide (that omitted some shit) in the main bulk of the guide, and then there was a smaller bullet point section near the back THAT INCLUDED THE DETAILS LEFT OUT IN THE MAIN PART OF THE GUIDE.
So you had to supplement the main part of the guide with the simpler bullet point section.
Needless to say, I hopelessly dependent on guides due to my insane OCD to complete single player RPG's to their fullest degree.
Now that I've told you that story, you'll understand the next thing I'm going to explain about Skyrim. I've been trained as a gamer to not pass up the opportunity to go do something else outside of the main story line because I can bet that if I progress the main story ever so slightly forward, that opportunity might vanish a la Final Fantasy X-2 chocobo farm.
So in Skyrim the game starts with you a prisoner on a cart headed to a city. You're about to be beheaded after arriving to the city when BLAM a fucking DRAGON attacks and burns almost everyone to a crisp. An Imperial solider and you team up to make it out of there alive and you manage to escape to Whiterun, the main city out of which you end up operating.
Cool. Dragons, soliders, kick ass races, cat people, lizard people, various types of humans, dark elves, wood elves, etc. It's a robust set of species. Oh and shit blows up a lot.
You're first option is to continue following the solider you've teamed up with to escape the Dragon or follow a Stormcloak rebel. But this choice comes up in the middle of the dragon attack while you're running for a tower and you've already been following the solider for a few minutes. And then this Stormcloak runs in and says, pretty much, "Hey, follow me!" and doesn't really give you much of a reason to abandon the guy that's been helping you for the last 10 minutes.
So I said, "Fuck dat" (a la Taylor) and continued following the solider. This eventually gives me the oportunity to sign up with the Imperial army. Which I found kinda bad ass. We'll talk about that later.
Eventually, in Whiterun, you find out that NPC's talking to each other, or just walking around in the city, will have random quests for you at just about any point in the game in any city/village/town/cave/cult/mountain/hovel/whatever. What's so cool about this, you ask?
YOU CAN DO THEM WHENEVER YOU WANT.
You can do them all right then and there when you get them. Alternatively, you can put them all off and do whatever main quest you're on at that time.
Skyrim has, as far as I can tell, very few restrictions on when you can pick a quest up or when you can complete a quest. And no matter how far you advance one story line, the only thing it will affect is the talk of the NPC's you're around. It has little to no effect on most other quests. The only reason I don't say this indefinitely is because I have only experience an excruciatingly small portion of this game.
Because of my trained habits in RPG's from previous games, I, like an alzheimer's patient, MUST COMPLETE ALL THE QUESTS RIGHT WHEN I GET THEM.
This is what happens
Me: Okay, I'm going to go to Riverwood and turn this quest in as soon as I --
NPC: "Hey, do you have a minute, I could use a hand."
...
My Character: "Okay, what's up."
NPC: "I'm looking for someone in town. I'm going to give you no leads, but I need you to find her. All I know is that she's a Reguard."
My Character: "Whatever ..."
Me: Okay, I need to go talk to the Jarl first and then ...
Different NPC: "Help me!"
My Character: "Whoa?! What's going on?"
Different NPC: "I lost my dolly in the cave outside of town! Can you get her back?! There were big spiders so I ran!"
My Character: "Um .. sure ..."
Me: Still need to talk the the Jarl first, and then I'll head to Riverwood ...
NPC: "You look like you could use some work."
Me: "FUCK YOU."
Eventually I got to the point while in Whiterun, the first city you make it to you, where I was inundated with quests and didn't know what to do. I had very few leads on any of them, and wanted to continue progressing the story forward.
BUT FOR FEAR OF MISSING OUT ON SOMETHING, I decided to start doing side quests.
Seven hours later, I managed to FINALLY come back to Whiterun and finish the main quest line. I managed to COMPLETE an entire side quest story dealing with the College of Winterhold, which is a college of mages and I became their Arch-Mage because I saved their asses.
And guess what? I didn't miss anything. Not a single thing screwed up because I completed a story line. Everything else was the same except the fact that NPC's knew what I did and talked about it as I walked passed them.
o.o
During this tangent of side quests, I had to travel to some fairly far reaches of the country (Skyrim) and decided not to use the "quick" travel if the option was available, or the carriage driver to take me to a city I hadn't been to yet (which prevents you from using "quick" travel). I did not use either option because WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS IS FUCKING AWESOME.
I could easily walk through the woods in World of Warcraft to get from city to city. I could walk from Ironforge to Stormwind but it would take me about an hour because there's a shit ton of mountains in the way, a bay area I can't swim through, and invisible walls.
Skyrim is a loosely coined sandbox. While it is very open ended, you're given enough direction to know what the fuck you should be doing at any given moment.
But it's open-ended enough that you can easily trek through the forest, swim across a river, hike up and back down a mountain, and stroll quite safely into the city. You may encounter a few wolves and maybe some bandits, a troll or two is possible, but it's nothing you cannot handle at any level. Whether you're flinging fiery balls of death at your foes or plinking them in the eye with arrows, you'll handle these natural enemies quite fine.
Speaking of spells and arrows ... the "class" system does not exist in this game. Which isn't exactly a true statement so I'll elaborate. The character is made up a set of skills to which the various races get bonuses in various areas. For example, my character, an Imeperial, had a 15 in every skill except Heavy Armor, Block, One-Handed, Destruction, Restoration, and Enchanting. Restoration was a 25, and the others listed were 20's.
Because of the options available to me as an Imperial (which is the race I selected), I decided to go with a caster type. I fling balls of fire at my enemies and can heal myself quite well. I also make my own enchanted Items. Since I have ranged spells now, I don't use any ranged weapons like daggers or bow/arrow.
Here are the skills in Skyrim:
§ Archery § Block § Smithing | § Illusion | § Alchemy § Sneak § Speech |
Nice table, eh? I didn't think it would copy the whole thing right form the Skyrim wiki.
I think of it like the mage who shoots fire from one hand and wields a bad ass long sword in the other hand and knows how to use it. She would be a battle mage of sorts, and able to wear heavy armor too.
The thing is though, heavy armor typically only gives bonuses to melee types. Robes (light armor) gives bonuses to caster types. So it eventually balances out; you don't really want to wear the heavy plate armor as a fire and ice slinging sage of doom. The robes will benefit you much better in the long run.
Each skill levels up as you use abilities that fall under said skill. The more destruction spells I use, the higher up my Destruction goes. I also get general experience for my character to level up as well.
My character is level 12 and has a Destruction score of 43. She likes fire. :D She aslo has a decent enchanting score now, something like 37, and her light armor is slowly catching up.
On top of each skill (as listed above) is a sort of talent tree. They're called Perks. They're really not talents. Perks is a way better term. You unlock more perks in a tree as your score in the skill increases. So now that I have a 43 in Destruction, I have several perks in it like the ability to stun foes when I hit with a dual casted destruction spell. (Dual casted means using the same spell in both the right and left hand. You equip items in your left and right hands; you can equip the same spell in both hands. This is called dual casting and eventually ends up super powerful). My mana also regens faster, novice level spells cost half as much mana, and my Fire spells currently do 50% more damage than prior to having the perk.
Each skill has a perk tree that allows you to perform things within said skill with deadlier precision. I love it. It's such a streamlined skill/class/benefits/abilities model that it makes combat very fluid.
The replay value of this game seems to be endless at this point. That is until Star Wars: The Old Replubic comes out next month. I'm in the beta for that next weekend. Once the NDA is lifted, I'll talk about it.
Continuing with the awesomeness that is Skyrim, I bought a house shortly after becoming a Thane in Whiterun for killing a dragon. I'm also a Dragonborn. No, not the D&D 4E Dragonborn. I'm able to absorb the power of a dragon's soul once I've killed it and it allows me to use what's called a Shout.
Shouts are another spell system that use the "Speech" skill score. They allow you to do super cool shit like dash 100 yards in the blink of an eye, or stun everyone in the room, or slow time, or become ethereal. (Those are the ones I have right now). With every Shout you learn, you either need someone to teach you how to unlock it (the Graybeards on top of the main mountain in Skyrim can do this) or you need a dragon soul.
People are really weirded out by the fact that you're being called a Dragonborn too. Dragons and Dragonborn have apparently been extinct for a very long time. And now they're reappearing.
Kinda weird. You have no idea from where you originate, you just woke up in the carriage taking you to the city to be beheaded at the beginning of the game. You're not exactly sure why you're a Dragonborn, or how, but you do know that you are and that's typically enough for most adventurer's.
So you can use these Shouts. They're bad ass.
I mentioned a house earlier (I know I'm kind of jumping around on topics, stick with me). I bought one after I defeated the dragon that first appeared in the game when I was about to be beheaded. When I bought it, I was like "Sweet, I get a friggin' house!" and I immediately went to it and was totally sad because there was nothing in it. Then I thought, well duh, of course there's nothing in it, I don't own anything. Good news though because the Jarl's adviser sells furniture. Yay!
I checked prices on all the furniture he had available and then started spelunking for money. And by spelunking for money I mean, killing everything in every cave I could find and looting everything I could until I was no longer able to carry anything on either me or my housecarl (who is a follower that fights with you) and then went back to town and sold it all.
I eventually made enough money to buy all the furniture. This is what my house looks like:
Yay for large pictures!
Pretty sweet. My housecarl even has her own bed in my house. She's a very nice lady, although I don't think she's super happy about being my pack mule.
To give you an idea of how sweet this environment looks here's another screen shot.
Yay more large pictures!
Is that not gorgeous?! I wish I had a better video card. I'm almost tempted to buy another one of the same card I have and run them in Crossfire but unfortunately, Skyrim has some issues with Crossfire and SLi. Oh well. I'll just wait until this card shits and get a new one.
The odd part though is that the card I have is supposedly baller. But in almost any game I play, I have to turn the Shadow setting down a couple notches to keep my frame rate an acceptable value. Otherwise, with Shadows on high or ultra, the game is unplayable. Which makes me sad.
My current graphic settings for the game are the "High" profile default, but with the Shadows turned down to Medium. That's why they're blocky in that first picture of my house.
That's been the only downside. And some glitches where I fall through through a wall or something weird like that.
I highly suggest/recommend this article to anyone that has played Skyrim at all. Because it's hilariously true:
5 Personality Flaws Skyrim Forces You To Deal With
There is a particular paragraph in here that summarizes my OCD with not wanting to miss out on anything:
"This terrible habit -- of scouting out every single other pathway before the main one -- may be a leftover impulse from older RPGs, where many areas became inaccessible after you advanced through them. So if you wanted to make sure you found all the secret spells and legendary weapons, you had to explore every other path before the right one, otherwise the story might drag you, kicking and screaming, away from the best toys. That's no longer the case with modern games. Most let you visit and revisit any area at any point, but it's too late for me: The behavior is learned, and the damage is done."
This describes my craziness when it comes to worrying about missing out on something in an RPG like Skyrim. But thankfully, the designers at Bethesda realized gamers loathe missing out on shit because of poorly designed side quests taking away time from the main quest.
This leads to a different kind of play style. The, "Whateva, I do what I want!" style. You need help right now? Nope, sorry, I'll take your quest, but I won't do it for several days. I'm in the middle of something else right now. You want me to kill some big bad evil dude and I get to absorb all of his powers if I succeed? You betchur ass I'ma do it right fuckin' now.
The only problem is sometimes I blow off someone's quest until way later and find out that I already did what they wanted me to do before I ever talked to them and all I had to do was talk to them again to complete the quest.
The Cracked.com article describes this issue in perfect comedic fashion. I'll copy/pasta here for those that don't want to read the entire Cracked.com article:
"I have yet to do a single thing in Skyrim in the proper order. I'm constantly showing up to some dude's castle that I've never seen before, only to hand over a mystical item that I'd mentally scratched off as garbage hours ago, and then sit and listen to the story be retroactively explained to me:
King: Wanderer! Thank the gods you've come! The prophecy told us that a mighty warrior would arise, worthy of wielding Fjalnir, the God-axe, and slaying the evil Demon Prince Synraith. We believe you to be that warrior. What say you, traveler? Will you accept this task?
Me: Yea, verily I shall accept thine task and vanq- wait, Synraith? Fiery dude in a floating city? Cape made out of screeching souls? Ahhh, shit. I already killed that guy.
King: You ... already slew the Demon Prince, the Knife in the Dark, the Void at the Heart of All Men, whose identity you did not learn until just now?
Me: Yup. I saw that castle floating up in the sky, and I wanted to know if I could jump up the rocks to get in the back way. It took a lot of reloads, but I finally managed to hop on up in there.
King: You "hopped on up" into the Abyssal Palace?
Me: Yeeeep, yep yep yep. Just squat-jumped on in there and looted the place. Then I killed that Sydney guy-
King: Synraith, Demon Prince of the Abyss.
Me: -yeah him. I ganked that guy. Mostly just to see if I could. Plus he looked like kind of a dick.
King: Indeed, the Foulest of the Foul was "kind of a dick." But you vanquished him without the aid of sacred Fjalnir, the God-axe?
Me: Totally. It wasn't even a thing. I just hid on top of a bookshelf where he couldn't reach me and shot him with arrows. Then I waited until he forgot I was shooting him, and did it all again to get the sneak damage bonus. Took a while, but he died all the same.
King: Forsooth! Thine heroic deeds are ... well, that sounds kind of fucked up, actually. Never thought I'd feel bad for He Who Devours. So you have no need of our sacred totem weapon?
Me: What, the gold dealy, with the shiny bits? Nah, I already stole that out of the display case four hours ago, before I knew who you were. I gave it to Sven, but he Quantum Leaped out of the game with that shit.
King: Huh. So. I guess ... the bards will ... sing of your tale now?
Me: Oh yeah? Sweet, let's hear it.
Bard: The hero came with eyes aflame / his tasks already done / the land was rescued all the same / but 'tis kind of a shitty song.
Me: Word."
All credit goes to the author of that article for making up that dialogue.
This game gets a 10/10 in my book. Absolutely love it.
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