“Hey, you’re finally awake.” - Ralof.
The power of hearsay
This game released way back when I was in school, and since then I have been hearing about how it was the ultimate RPG experience, how you could be anything and do anything, almost like having a second life. I was never much into RPGs; used to think it was too much of an effort to grind my way up from nothing. Having complete control of my character also brought with it the weight of deciding every little detail – from appearance to skill upgradation.
Nevertheless, I decided to give Skyrim a try based on sheer hearsay. I can’t say that I was absolutely blown away, but it didn’t disappoint either. It was as I had expected it to be – typical RPG where you get to choose your player and build their skill tree up from the very basic level. The story wasn’t anything extraordinary either. Once it is revealed that you are the fabled Dragonborn (which seemingly doesn’t qualify for a spoiler anymore since it’s all over the internet now; spoiled the story for me, too), the rest of the game goes on quite monotonously. The Dragonborn revelation is the highest point of the whole game. After that, it’s the plain old story of the long lost hero of yore, returned to save his people.
What actually is amazing about Skyrim is not its story, but the world-building and lore. Anyone who is willing to invest their time into it, the world of Skyrim is swelling with tomes and quests that provide abundant insight into the realm. This, however, also proves to be a turn-off for casual gamers like me who are not used to playing the same game for over a month. There is so much to do in Skyrim that after a while, it started feeling somewhat overwhelming and then, tedious. I had to take a break from gaming altogether before returning to complete it. And by completing it, I mean only the main story. There are yet many incomplete side quests and many more still that I may have not even initiated.
A world brimming with creativity
Packing so much in one game didn’t look like a good idea to me. Sure, the ones who actually want to make the world of Skyrim their own will find plenty of room and rewards for exploring every nook and cranny of the kingdom. But, personally, I was done with the game as soon as I finished the main quest. Unlike Batman: Arkham Knight, in which I actually felt motivated to collect all Riddler Trophies and 100% the game even after finishing the main story, Skyrim had little to compel me to do the same.
Although appreciation where it’s due, Skyrim is a paradise for the observant minds. On the one hand, so much information did feel like a bombardment, on the other I was also pleasantly surprised by how well it was represented visually. If you notice carefully, the environs and habitats of each race have these small, characteristic details that give them uniqueness, and invokes a particular feeling when the player enters them. Additionally, the cities are modeled beautifully as well, each one having its own style and charisma. There are well-planned towns like Whiterun whose shops and pathways get etched into the player’s mind in no time, and then there are maze-like cities such as Markarth which feels like a giant palace with stairs connecting different areas instead of streets.
These shifts in the milieu of Skyrim’s different areas keeps its world from getting monotonous. No matter how boring or overwhelming it seems to go through books and tomes to gather more knowledge about the kingdom, when traversing the map there’s always this excitement of discovering a new town and meeting new characters.
The game within the game
Visually, there wasn’t much to expect from Skyrim, considering its date of release, but boy did that change. Which brings me to the game within the game – modding. That is correct, modding is a game in itself, and modding Skyrim, especially, has a learning curve to it. I ended up devoting a good 7-8 hours spread across the weekend to learn how to mod this game, installing all the mods and getting them to work. In the end, though, it was all worth it. Skyrim has one of the biggest modding communities of all games out there. There are so many mods that spoilt me for choice, and almost all of them are worthy of attention. They transform Skyrim into a whole other game. So much that I would recommend playing it just to see what mods are capable of, if not to experience the game itself.
A huge kudos to the whole Skyrim modding community for their work and the dozens of tutorials that finally got my mods working. It can take some time to get used to modding, which the community is totally aware of and has made numerous help resources available to ensure a good modding experience.
Something annoying this way comes
It’s not all roses and sunshine, though. Mods are known to introduce bugs into the game and though there are quite a few patches to fix them, I did encounter my fair share of bugs in my playthrough. The most prevalent and by far, the most annoying one was when my follower got stuck in a place and just refused to budge. I had to retrace my steps and prompt them to move somehow, pushing or hitting them and hoping their AI would get a jolt. I’m not sure how many of these bugs were caused by mods, so I’m not blaming anyone but yeah, they did affect the gameplay and increased the playtime significantly.
Another substantially pestering thing about Skyrim is its combat system which I found to be quite unbalanced and buggy. It frustrated me to no end in the initial stages, when my character was but a puny Khajiit (a feline race in the game). Being on the lower levels of the combat skill, I would engage in battle with strategy and care, but despite that it felt as if my attacks just weren’t hitting enemies, my shield wasn’t blocking any damage and as a result it was only a matter of a couple hits for me before I succumbed. This noticeably eased up when I leveled up in combat, however. Now I could just hack and slash my way through most enemies without having to worry about incoming damage. Even then, the more powerful enemies still felt invincible at times in weapon combat.
An important piece of the pop culture pie
Apart from the “Pandora’s Box” experience and the mods, the soundtrack is another shining aspect of Skyrim. It boasts of some good BGM, with a certain peaceful track that plays when the player is wandering in quiet areas already very popular among gamers. I forget the composer’s name, apologies.
That’s all, really. Try as I might, I am not able to wrest anything more of substance from my experience of playing Skyrim. When you have been playing a game for so long, everything just kind of reaches a saturation point where the game itself doesn’t have anything more to offer you. Sure, you can install new expansions and quest mods, but the world still remains the same, doesn’t it? Even though many players claim to have put in thousands of hours into the game and still not being bored of it, after half a year I decided it was time to try something fresh.
Nevertheless, it was an extensive experience and I’m glad I tried it. To be honest, I felt compelled to try it, considering how popular it is; the old FOMO coming into play again. It may not have blown my mind, but still, it's one thing off my checklist. Plus I have seemingly added an important piece to my pop culture jigsaw. Now I finally get Skyrim memes, especially the videos that unexpectedly spring the opening scene onto the viewer – “Hey, you’re finally awake...”.
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