Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2021
Original release: 2011
Some releases seem to make an impact forever upon release and continue their legacy for years to come thereafter. Massively popular titles like Witcher 3, review here, and Skyrim are two such titles. The latter being the sequel to the incredibly popular Oblivion, review here.
10 years after release, warmly loved by over 20 million players and the countless "you're finally awake" memes, I decided to play Skyrim. Critically acclaimed as one of the best RPG titles ever released, I couldn't let it stay unplayed forever!
However, I quickly felt I needed to begin with Oblivion to better understand it's gameplay and mechanics. I'm very familiar with Fallout 3 & 4 RPGs, but I'm new to the Elder Scrolls franchise. Not that the stories between Skyrim and Oblivion are directly connected, but I feel the latter is an easier gateway into Bethesda Game Studios RPGs.
Luckily, going back to Skyrim after completing Oblivion felt natural and made me appreciate it even more. The changes made for smoother gameplay, easier menu navigation and the sheer increase in detail of the world are impressive.
Let's take a look at this behemoth of an RPG!
My first attempt at Skyrim came to crawl as I found it difficult to progress. Although it has pointers as to where you need to go next, I found it lacking some kind of linearity for beginners in its opening hours. Finding myself having to cross vast areas of the map, without any clue as to where it was safe or responsible to wander with my low-level character, was overwhelming.
After jumping back and playing Oblivion, which is an easier beginning for newcomers to the Elder Scrolls series, where the story is tighter and more linear, I found it easier to return to Skyrim. The more open-ended structure of Skyrim is in no way wrong; it just has less waypoints through its main story and relies on the player to navigate themselves on the way. Clearly an attempt at tempting the player just to wander off and become engaged in side-missions for hours before returning to the main story.
It's a clever, yet steeper difficulty, of progression. The main story is less direct and impactful compared to Oblivion. The latter having a clear role of going into a dark otherworld and defeating the evil. While Skyrim has you off chasing down the knowledge of Dragons, learning how to fight and control them, and then finally allowing you to take them down to save the kingdom.
Like any of Bethesda's RPGs, be sure to dig deep into the side missions. In my opinion that is where the true gold of the developer's skills lies, some of the larger side stories feel just as important and intriguing as the main plot. Taking you to exciting new places you haven’t discovered on the map and experiences you'll never see by just following the main story quests.
Where Oblivion sported a warmly saturated, bloom filled and a green woodland aesthetic, Skyrim leans in the opposite direction with a dark, grey and colder appearance. Lending a lot of its visual style to Norse and Viking culture. Oblivion featured a luscious world of green forests and grass, Skyrim is harsher world of pine trees, fjords and snow-clad mountains. The contrast though, are wonderful when playing them one after the other.
While not entirely intuitive for newcomers, going from Oblivion to Skyrim, you'll appreciate the way you now can navigate the menus. It's just overall easier finding weapons, skills, level ups etc. Gone are the cumbersome and badly designed menus. Same goes for the increased animation when in first person too, it feels upgraded with more fluidity. That said, animation on the characters in third person never was this developer's strong suit until their latest title, Starfield. It's incredibly bad, but then again perhaps not the intended way of playing.
Just like Oblivion, I appreciate that you level up your characters skills that you actually utilise. For instance, using a bow and arrow often in combat will result in increased bow skills, thus increasing damage. Or maybe magic is your thing? Use it and become literally skilled at it. It's simple, yet intuitive way of rewarding the player for using their favourite approach to solve situations or perform attacks.
It's also possible to dual wield now, so maybe a light sword in one hand and magic in the other is you preference? For people that enjoy a full-on mage experience, dual wielding magic feels great as it allows for a defensive and offensive attack at the same time. Of course there's weaponry that require two hands, like greatswords or bow and arrows. The latter can be really useful for sneak attacks, dealing extra damage when you're undetected.
To aid the many weapons and magics the user interface is substantially improvemed over Oblivions confusing and aged menu design. In Skyrim you have a favourite weapons and abilities accessible from a menu controlled by the d-pad. Main options are controlled through a onscreen cross, where skills, items, magic and the map are easily accessible. At first it might not seem that streamlined, but you quickly appreciate it coming from Oblivion, allowing for faster choices without having to fumble around in menus.
Later into the story you're introduced to shouts too, basically old Dragon speak. These allow for some special abilities such as pushing all enemies away from you in a powerful energy blast, calling in animals in the wild to fight for you, ripping weapons out of enemy hands, covering the battlefield in bad weather or even forcing dragons to land on the ground. The latter is a game changer in your task to defeating the dragons.
Speaking of dragons, while I found their presence impressive and overwhelmingly threatning at the beginning, their rather awkward animation and buggy landing sticks out a bit. Sometimes the battle to take them down feels like pure luck as the dragon gets stuck between animations or just takes a beating as the game tries to figure what to do with their cumbersome movement.
Although Oblivion received automatic, system level, updates on the Xbox Series X with HDR support, framerate boost to 60fps and resolution upped to 4K, it was at its core the Xbox 360 version running at higher settings. Skyrim on the other hand, has been so popular it's received visual upgrades thanks to re-releases since launch in 2011.
Spanning through the Xbox One / PlayStation 4 era and then arriving at this latest build, enhanced for the current consoles. As such, my Series X version not only features 4K resolution and 60fps upgrades, but also increased settings for foliage, draw distance and updated textures. It's a vast upgrade from the seventh gen console version, launched back in 2011.
It may not sport the most interesting colour spectrum, clearly leaning into the brown and grey era, but Skyrim shines visually when you spend time within the vast natural landscapes. Depicting lovely sunsets, dense woodlands and changing weather like snowstorms. It's also visually interesting when you're deep underneath the ground in a dungeon with creepy crypts darkened stone halls. Then again, it doesn't have the massive contrast the gates to Oblivion had, where you basically entered hell.
The increase in foliage helps fill the world in a richer manner than Oblivion, which can often feel rather barren by todays standard. Arguably, Skyrim never was a strikingly appealing title from the get-go, in contrast to Oblivion when you reached the outdoors. However, Skyrim grows on you over time, and that's when you begin appreciating the more varied and smaller detail that surpass Oblivion in every way.
One of its shortcomings in appearance though, is the simple character models and their robotic animation. Not as dated as Oblivion but far outperformed by titles when it was released and especially 14 years later. As such, the characters faces look simplistic and their whole appearance too, sticking out in close-up dialogue scenes.
At the end of the day, Skyrim is still an incredible RPG to dig into these days. For beginners of the genre and series I'd recommend beginning with Oblivion. Skyrim offers an incredible immersive experience still and while the main story ends on a rather flat note, the side quests are the real gems here. Allowing the player to truly sink hours and hours into this fantasy world.
I'd still recommend Witcher 3 over this, review here. It's a more polished and detailed world to dig into for an RPG like this, holding up better when it comes to feeling modern in these days. After all, Bethesda Games have since upgraded their engine immensely with character animation and quality seen in Fallout 4 and Starfield. That said, Witcher 3 doesn't quite have the freedom of character creation, skillsets and open world like the Skyrim experience.
Whether you're crawling a dark and cold dungeon, running across snowy mountain tops, silently taking down skeletons deep underground or just heroically smashing dragons, Skyrim is a vast RPG to dig into. Playing with this upgrade version gives you an even better experience, the sheer amount of side missions and ability to sink deep into the lore, still stands strong amongst modern RPGs.
