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Why Skyrim is the GOAT RPG game.

Kalon

Scholar
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
191
Skyrim is an unforgettable rpg game, and not just because its rereleased every year. From the depth of its simulation-tier mechanics, to the heights of High Hrothgar, no RPG game has ever offered so much gameplay. I have clocked over forty hours in Skyrim, and most of that time was spent curating a mod list from the inexhaustable nexus.

The content modders have published using Skyrim's robust dev tools, keeps the game fresh for hours. I have never played Dark Souls, but I can with Skyrim. I have never had sex, but now I can with Skyrim. Did I mention dragons? Dragons will attack Skyrim's lifelike cities, upon triggering an intricate chain of events in the main quest. These bosses may even kill characters very dear to you, like the husky and sardonic huscarl Lydia.

I loved Winterhold, I had spent many hours in the market selling my loot, doing quests for the Jarl and commoners, and playing with the village orphans. So I decided to settle down. I bought a house, married Lydia, and soon we adopted an orphan. It was a platonic marriage. One day, returned to find the city under attack and Lydia dead. Many Whiterunners died, but Jarl Bulgaruf is a stoic and stalwart defender of his people. He could not be shaken by any tragedy. What other RPG even approaches Skyrim's romanticism?

The encounter design makes for a flawless journey, one both challenging and new every time I play. The encounters fit Skyrim's exploration, enemies getting harder the deeper underground you go, or the higher up the mountain. Because enemies level with the player, I never felt like a god though. I never felt like I was too powerful to collect ingredients, or that a combat was beneath my abilities, even though I was killing dragons with thunderstorms. Yeah, you can call down lightening on your foes! Skyrim never lets you rest, always luring you with beautiful vistas and promise of loot.

Despite giving you the powers of the viking god Hercules, the Thu'um comes with a cool down. Its a mechanic I appreciate, one hardcore gamers familiar with Call of Duty should recognize. Your Dragonborn's voice can overheat, but an Amulet of Talos or a stack of honeycomb can sooth the pain, just like in real life. There are too many Thu'ums to remember, each with endless applications in and outside combat.

The story is why we play RPGs. Now, Skyrim unfolds at your own pace, unlike in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, but the story of Skyrim is one of a timeless Epic. Skyrim is the Iliad of our time. In Skyrim, ancient prophecies called the Elder Scrolls foretell the end of the world: when the evil king of dragonz, Alduin the World-Eater, shall return to take revenge on mankind. Cast into the role of the Hero of Prophecy, the Dragonborn, I get to learn Thu'ums that take wizards centuries to master, in just mere seconds. Just by walking up to walls with Dragon language carved into them. That's because the Dragonborn can speak dragonish, the language of dragons and Thu'um. I won't spoil all the twists and turns of the main quest, like the moral dilemma to kill Parthrax the Good Dragon, the weightest decision of my 34 years on earth, or the interplay between Skyrim's SECOND main quest, but there are decisions to make in Skyrim that surpass the C&C of classic cRPG games.

The fate of all of Skyrim is in my hands. Skyrim did what no RPG game had ever done: a classless character system with perks, in an open world devestated by war. The perfect setting. The perfect systems. The greatest of all time.

Have you ever considered starting a career in videogame journalism ?
 

Dramart

Learned
Joined
Nov 28, 2019
Messages
540
Location
Argentina
The greatest and only one
FF-FS-2020-4-3-1024x536.webp
 

Hagashager

Educated
Joined
Nov 24, 2022
Messages
517
I made Todd Howard appreciation thread, and still did not receive a bethestard tag.
An injustice if every there was one.

Skyrim is a terrible RPG and a childlishy written amusement park, but it has its charm. I can't bring myself to say I hated it like I did with Oblivion in High School. I find myself nostalgic for Oblivion these days so I'm sure TES 6 will violate my sensibilities so badly I'll miss 11/11/2011.
 
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DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
6,019
I'm fiddling with this occasionally as I never got around to finishing it on release and most of it isn't terrible, but the combat blows chunks. Also the amount of walking through empty space to reach the next point of interest is annoying (saying that the fast travel is a blessing once you've been to a location once).
 

Drakortha

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,666
Location
Terra Australis
Calling Skyrim the GOAT RPG of all time because of mods is like calling something like Unreal Engine the GOAT because of the games that can be built out of it. Skyrim by itself doesn't deserve the recognition for the countless hours of work from modders to make it into something worth playing.

Sort of unrelated to the discussion, but I was recently rewatching the first gameplay presentation for Skyrim by Todd Howard, and he's fucking lying about the game. One lie in particular he states the game has dynamic snow generation.
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,849
Daydrinking leads to posts like this.


Choice and consequence.
 

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