{"id":712,"date":"2022-06-17T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T10:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geeksfromouterspace.com\/?p=712"},"modified":"2022-08-22T15:01:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T13:01:47","slug":"skyrim-is-the-goat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geeksfromouterspace.com\/criticism\/skyrim-is-the-goat\/","title":{"rendered":"Skyrim is the GOAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being old and decrepit like a Draugr Deathlord, I only fairly recently became aware of the acronym \u201cGOAT\u201d (for fellow elderlings, it means \u201cgreatest of all time\u201d). And now I\u2019m here to explain why I believe that when it comes to PC and console RPGs, Skyrim is, in fact, the GOAT.<\/p>\n

I can already hear the clacking of keyboards as other RPG fans question my age and experience with the genre. There seems to be a general climate in the RPG video game community where Skyrim is considered to be something for the kids and the plebeians, whereas the superior Patrician gamer will prefer a Morrowind or a Baldur\u2019s Gate II. Well, to clarify, I\u2019m about to turn 40 in a few months and the first RPG I ever played was called \u201cLands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos\u201d. My first Elder Scrolls game was Daggerfall. I was there when Morrowind came out and purchased it right away. I also played almost every Bethesda, Bioware, Obsidian and Larian game that\u2019s ever been released. I even played Gothic I and II, Drakensang, Two Worlds and other obscure European titles like Kult: Heretic Kingdoms. I\u2019ve dabbled in MMORPGs like LOTRO, SWTOR and Guild Wars and tried ARPGs like Diablo and Torchlight but I just don\u2019t understand the appeal of those. I think all of this is worth mentioning because it should clarify that I\u2019m not calling Skyrim the GOAT just because I don\u2019t know any better.<\/p>\n

\"Riverwood<\/p>\n

Now, I will grant that I\u2019ve always been a casual player. I got into RPGs because I loved fantasy, not because I loved complex mechanics or challenging gameplay. For me, the whole point of an RPG is becoming an inhabitant of another world and getting immersed in that. That immersion and freedom is what I love about tabletop RPGs as well.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, there seem to be opposite trends in the tabletop community compared to the video game community when it comes to RPGs (I\u2019m talking about devoted fans here, the sort of people who frequent forums or use reddit and Discord to talk about gaming). In the tabletop world, there has been a strong push towards streamlined, elegant mechanics for a long time now, which allow players and gamemasters to focus on a shared storytelling experience without being bogged down by complexity. These days, few people have the time anymore for a really in-depth, simulationist type of game like you would have seen more of in the 80s and early 90s.<\/p>\n

In video games, though, old-school roleplayers often lament that RPGs have become too casual and too streamlined, a process which is referred to as \u201cdumbing down\u201d. This has been happening for a long time as well. I remember when Oblivion came out and the Bethesda forum was full of complaints from people who missed the mechanical complexity of Morrowind. Dragon Age: Origins was dissed for being too user-friendly compared to the Baldur\u2019s Gate series, and Mass Effect 2 got a lot of flak for doing away with a great deal of customisation and focusing on fluid gunplay instead of statistics.<\/p>\n

\"Skyrim<\/p>\n

Personally, I don\u2019t think there is anything wrong with preferring mechanical complexity or prioritising character skill over player skill, but to me, that\u2019s not what RPGs are primarily about.<\/p>\n

I know the debate over \u201cwhat makes a true RPG\u201d is old and boring, and ultimately it just comes down to personal preference, so I\u2019ll just describe what I myself expect from a roleplaying game.<\/p>\n

What I want from an RPG is the ability to inhabit a character of my own making, use my imagination and explore a fantastic world where I get to do heroic things and see my character grow into a more powerful version of itself.<\/p>\n

That means none of the Witcher games make the cut, because they force me into a single pre-established character with a very restricted range of playstyles and very limited progression. I get that a lot of people like those games, but in my estimation, they are only marginally more RPG-like than a Red Dead Redemption or something. To some, that might be considered akin to blasphemy.<\/p>\n

But it gets worse.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the Baldur\u2019s series offers the true RPG experience according to my (highly subjective) definition of it. Neither does the Dragon Age series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?!\u201d \u201cHow…?\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t even…\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s alright. I\u2019m just one guy. Who cares about my opinion. But if you\u2019re curious, allow me to explain my outrageous statement.<\/p>\n

\"baldurs_gate\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Baldur\u2019s Gate and other such games were invented to provide an alternative to tabletop roleplaying. Nothing beats getting together with friends and rolling some funny-shaped dice, but it\u2019s not always practically feasible, at least not back in 1998-2000 when the Baldur\u2019s Gate games were released. However, in my opinion, these Infinity Engine games provide an experience that is nothing like actually playing D&D, even though they use the AD&D ruleset. Baldur\u2019s Gate is about controlling an entire party of characters which you only see from high up like you\u2019re one of the deities of the Forgotten Realms. In that way, it actually feels more like playing a small-scale RTS than an RPG. While there is a main character, the fact that this person is only represented by a small pixelated sprite and a portrait in a sidebar creates a lot of distance and keeps me from identifying with it. The isometric perspective in combination with the fact that I control the entire party utterly destroy any sense of immersion as far as I\u2019m concerned. And look, I tried to love these games. I tried hard. I played for many hours, really tried to get into it, but it never worked out. The only isometric RPG I ever actually enjoyed was Divine Divinity, where you only control your protagonist and the camera is a bit closer so I can actually see what he looks like.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over-the-shoulder titles like Knights of the Old Republic, Kingdoms of Amalur or Fable work better for me, but even they are never as immersive as a first-person title. It\u2019s fairly obvious, but the feeling that I\u2019m inhabiting a character is never better than when I\u2019m looking through his or her eyes. Even though I suffer from motion sickness and can\u2019t stand watching someone else play a first person game for very long, I love the experience of actually playing like that more than any other type of video game. (Tangent: yes, I know this sounds strange but I get nauseated much more easily when someone else is controlling the camera, because my brain can\u2019t predict where it\u2019s going to move. It\u2019s worse on PC than on console, by the way, because the mouse allows for much faster camera movements).<\/p>\n

The Elder Scrolls games are a rarity in that they\u2019re first-person RPGs. For some reason, few developers make those anymore. Back in the day, you had Lands of Lore, Eye of the Beholder, the Might & Magic series and so on. These were usually grid-based but that didn\u2019t matter since they firmly planted you as a player inside the game world. Like many isometric games, some of these titles also had you controlling an entire party, though, which is a bit silly and unrealistic. Not so in Elder Scrolls, where you are your character and that\u2019s it. You can have followers, but they are clearly their own person, like an employee or guide would be in real life.<\/p>\n

\"Skyrim<\/p>\n

Okay, so we have the \u201cinhabiting a character\u201d bit. Then there is \u201cof my own making\u201d. As I said when I mentioned The Witcher, this is very important to me, and few games offer that experience to the extent that The Elder Scrolls does, and that includes Fallout.<\/p>\n

I feel like Fallout was always intended to be more story-driven and thus a little less open-ended than the Elder Scrolls series. I never played the original 2D titles so I can\u2019t say much about those, but in Fallout 3, you are destined to play as Liam Neeson\u2019s child, and you grew up in a vault. In Fallout 4, you are bound to be a married army veteran who loses a spouse and child while in cryo. Obviously, Elder Scrolls games put you in a main narrative as well, but you always start out as an anonymous prisoner whose past is unknown. That allows you to make up who you were and what you did before the start of the game. Furthermore, the games give you the same sort of character creation freedom you would expect in a tabletop RPG. If I have one criticism of Skyrim, it\u2019s that I wish you could make your character\u2019s appearance more unique (without using mods, of course) but what is there is good.<\/p>\n

Okay, so far it should be obvious why The Elder Scrolls is my favourite series when it comes to video game RPGs. But why Skyrim? Why not Morrowind or Oblivion? Or even Daggerfall, which I did play back in the day? My next step is to explain why I feel Skyrim is the best game in the series.<\/p>\n

TES fans are old-fashioned curmudgeons (I am too, in many ways), which is why they will always say that the game that came out before the current one was the best entry in the series and the new one ruined it. This happened when Morrowind came out. Yes, more than a few Daggerfall fans hated it for making the world much smaller. The same happened when Oblivion came out. Morrowind fans complained that it had become too generic and dumbed-down. And when Skyrim came out, all of a sudden Oblivion was a timeless classic that could do no wrong. There is no doubt that when The Elder Scrolls VI comes along, no matter how good it is, fans will say Skyrim was better. There is a chance I will be one of them, but so far, I feel quite strongly that the Elder Scrolls series got better with each instalment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Daggerfall had a huge world, but it was lifeless. Only the towns and dungeons had anything to offer, but the wilderness as such was nothing more than a ridiculously oversized wasteland full of absolutely nothing, entirely defeating the point of having a large world in the first place.<\/p>\n

Morrowind vastly improved on the concept of The Elder Scolls and finally offered a game where exploration was something worth doing. However, the combat system was absolutely horrible. There is simply nothing enjoyable about fighting in Morrowind, which in itself is enough of a reason for me never to play it again. On top of that, I hated the dialogue system, which felt like you were reading a Wikipedia article rather than having a conversation with someone. Finally, the NPCs of Morrowind, even though they were all named, were a bit dull in that they simply stood around a lot of the time and never did anything. The fact that there was very little voice acting also made it harder for me to get invested. To some, this may seem shallow, but I don\u2019t care. I love reading books but looking at a silent character and reading their lines below just doesn\u2019t do it for me. It makes me feel like the game isn\u2019t finished (and yes, I grew up playing games that didn\u2019t have voice acting, but I was really happy when it became more commonplace). When it comes to voiced protagonists, that\u2019s a different matter, but so far we haven\u2019t had that in The Elder Scrolls so I won\u2019t go into it.<\/p>\n

Oblivion was the first Elder Scrolls game that I got really excited about, and before Skyrim came out, it was my favourite game of all time. I loved everything about it and I still do to this day. The setting was wonderfully cozy and beautiful, while also offering enough darkness and danger hidden beneath it all. The combat felt like I was actually fighting monsters and the NPCs actually talked, even though the random conversations were often hilariously awkward and absurd. They also walked around and behaved like real people, even if they didn\u2019t look like it yet. Oblivion really made me feel like I was a character of my own making inhabiting a gorgeous fantasy world where I got to do heroic stuff and grow into someone more powerful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But Skyrim is better, and here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

A lot of nostalgic Oblivion fans will point to the things that Oblivion had which were lost in Skyrim. Honestly, I don\u2019t really miss any of them, but let\u2019s go over some of these things.<\/p>\n