REVIEW - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

Hmm, Western Role-Playing Games. Some are good, some not so good. While some people prefer them over their Japanese counterparts I personally cannot see the appeal in most of them. The only WRPG series I've ever had any enjoyment out of was The Elder Scrolls, after having a summer dedicated solely to playing TES IV: Oblvion.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim isn't as good as Morrowind or Oblivion, but it's still a very good game.

Skyrim takes place exactly where it says it does: The Northern most continent of Tamriel, Skyrim. You begin the game off as a nameless, raceless and genderless prisoner (as with every Elder Scrolls game) heading to the town of Helgen to be executed for an unknown crime (although fans speculate that your crime was murder). As you are about to be decapitated, a dragon - beings thought to be extinct for ages - down and wreaks havoc on the small town. You can escape with either an Imperial Guard or a member of the Stormcloak rebels. Once you've escaped the town, you're actually free to do what you please. The main plot involves your character realizing their destiny of being the Dovakhinn, or Dragonborn as we say it. Your goal is to simply gather enough power to find out why Dragons are coming back and to annihilate the majestic creatures. The plot certainly isn't as epic as Bethesda made it out to be, but it works in favour of the games limited main cast (since your character may as well be a brick wall when it comes to personality). While not at all memorable, Skyrim does have a serviceable plot, even if it does lack character. It's not really a good sign though when your game's opening is its best part.....kinda shows a lack of effort when it comes to making real emotional moments in the games middle and climax.

Something Skyrim has that a lot of the RPG genre has is an unprecedented amount of freedom. once you leave Helgen, you're free to do what you want, how you want and when you want. It's a simple yet well thought out concept, and you'll be wandering for hours trying to find everything in the world. On the actual gameplay side of things, Skyrim is the first Elder Scrolls game to actually re-use an engine from a previous game, although it does heavily change a few things that either were or weren't in Oblivion. First of all, the realisim factor when it comes to weaponry is gone. In Oblivion, weapons degraded with repeated use, y'know, just like they do in real life. It made for some tense situations and added strategy. In Skyrim, you can hack away at your hearts content without any regard to weapon durability at all. Skyrim follows the Elder Scrolls trope of  "The more you do something, the better you become at it" and I've never seen it done so well as I have in Skyrim. It encourages you to get better at things and also forces you to decide on what "class" you want to be, whether you become a Warrior, Mage or Rouge (each with sub-classes such as Fighter, Alchemist and Thief). You also can now fight with two weapons at once, a feature that wasn't in Oblivion. This actually can make combat too easy at times, since you can spam a full heal spell while attacking the shit out of a dragon. The gameplay in Skyrim is fun, but I think it could be done just a bit better. My biggest problem is that Skyrim holds your hand too much. One of the great joys of Morrowind was the sense of adventure you had from exploring and trying to find your way around the world. You had no compass, only a block of text telling you where to go next. In Skyrim, you're being guided by arrows and compasses and it really ruins the immersion of exploring a fantasy world.

Graphically, Skyrim sure is pretty as fuck. While it does have some texture issues, it's a very vast, open and most importantly believable fantasy world. It's very detailed, even down to the weather effects. You can tell that an awful lot of care went into making the continent of Skyrim look the way it does. Like I said, there are some texture and framerate issues on consoles, especially during the more intense parts (NO THE PS3 VERSION DOESN'T SUCK BALLS ANYMORE THANKS DLC) so it's not perfect, but it's great nonetheless.

Musically, it's pretty good but again kinda lacking. I like a lot of the very large soundtrack, but some tracks are just too dull or uninteresting for me. I will say though, the games main theme is just...I can't even describe. It's not perfect but Goddamnit it makes you wanna kill dragons so fucking badly. It's definitely the highlight of the soundtrack.

Overall, I feel the same way about Skyrim as I did with The Last of Us. It's a really good game, don't get me wrong, but I think it's HEAVILY over rated, especially when compared to previous games in the series. I recommend Skyrim to fans of any RPG, but it's NOT the game everyone makes it out to be.

Story: 6.5
Gameplay: 9.5
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 7.5
Personal Enjoyment: 8.5

FINAL SCORE FOR THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM: 8.3/10