Well, after five years of not so patiently waiting for the next installment of the Elder Scrolls series the wait is finally over. Actually the wait was over about two months ago, but it took me that long to fully complete a playthrough so I could write a complete review.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was my favorite fantasy based game of all time and I can happily say that Skyrim takes everything I enjoyed about that game and improves upon them. Even better it takes most of the problems with that game and fixes them as well.
The Good
The biggest drawback to Oblivion was that the leveling system was broken so that if you chose skills that you actually intended to use and leveled them naturally, then you would end up with a very weak character, very quickly. The new system allows you to play however you wish and allows you to allocate special skill points any way that you want as long as you meet that ability’s requirements. So now leveling your character is no longer something to be feared.
I have always been a fan of mages in fantasy role-playing games, so this is the class I usually take for my first playthrough. The brute force bludgeoning talents of the warrior or sneaky tactics of the thief can be tons of fun in their own right, but I like the versatility and late game power that the mage provides. Of course, in previous Elder Scrolls games it was important to have some fighting skills as well for all but the most dedicated players looking to use every exploit at their disposal. In Skyrim, this is no longer the case. It is completely possible and, more importantly, lots of fun to play as a mage or any other specialized character. I am now playing a magicless thief quite successfully.
This game is big. There are more quests in Skyrim than you can shake a stick (or magic staff) at so you can play for literally a hundred hours and not run out of new quests or areas to explore. There are also lots of interesting set pieces and random encounters that seem like something out of a fantasy novel like the time early in the game when I was walking through the mountains and got attacked by a dragon. At the time I was severely outclassed by a dragon and was forced to hide in a cave to escape fiery death. Upon exploring that cave I discovered it was the home of a vampire coven.
The Bad
Now here comes the bad part. There is one glaring problem that fans of Fallout 3 are very familiar with: glitches. Skyrim can be at times very glitchy. Sometimes quest items would remain in my inventory after I finished the quest and could not be removed. Other times the next objective on a quest would not activate.
Although I only had it freeze up entirely one time it was rampant with stuttering later in the game from too much action going on at once. It became particularly bad after I mastered conjuration and would summon two permanent creatures in the open world. It got to the point that I decided to stop using the summoned creatures in the cities or open world. In other games this would be enough to write it off as being too buggy, but Skyrim excels in so many other aspects of its design and was so large that I found myself forgiving these bugs.
The Decision (9 out of 10)
Overall, Skyrim is a great game and should be in the library of anyone who loves fantasy genre games or even good games in general. I give The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a 9 out of 10. The only thing keeping it from earning a perfect score were the glitches. If you love fantasy and video games, then why are you reading this? You already bought Skyrim and if you somehow managed to not buy this game because you have pinned under a large boulder for the last two months, then go out and buy this game. Right now. It’s ok… I’ll wait right here until you get back. Why are you still reading this? Go!
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