Report 35: Big Boys Time VIII: Climbing ALL the mountains
Well… that took a while. But then again, why wouldn’t it be? Skyrim is a pretty big game.
For the past two months, this game was pretty much all I’ve been doing.
Essentially, it’s power fantasy galore, and pretty much every fart player does makes every NPC around him applaude. It’s really obvious that sometimes the game tries too hard praising the player’s achievements, but still it’s very fun to listen what guards at cities have to say about you. Almost every major quest makes them say unique lines during your playthrough, so you always hear something new.
While being extremely simplified and player-friendly, this game still plays Bethesda’s strongest part as confident as it can - and that is envinromental storytelling. While this game has a LOT of really awkward diaries with clumsy exposition dumps, there are still many little moments of strictly visual storytelling to appreciate about it. It’s nothing too mindblowing, but just connecting the dots on the spot is pretty entertaining.
There’s a HUGE power gap achievement-wise. There’s “that one” achievement that requires you to slay the Legendary dragon, and they only spawn after your character hits level 78. You can see why this is a problem when I finished most of the quests barely hitting 50. Thankfully there was still a list of things to do, so I wasn’t exactly wandering aimlessly. Despite that, I did have to abuse the game leveling up system a bit, mostly Pickpocket skill (which is ridiculously easy to level up) and Smithing (getting gold with Transfusion spell and making golden jewelry out of it), getting it to 100, making it a legendary skill, rinse and repeat.
DLC: Dragonborn (unique and fresh setting to relax a bit after constant snowy/autumn-y scenery, quite a few interesting quests) > Dawnguard (the plot seems weirdly written in places, and it’s basically more Skyrim. Crossbows are awesome though) > Hearthfire (why? I see there’s some effort put inside it, but why?)
Quests: Thief’s Guild/Dark Brotherhood > Main > College > Civil War > The Companions
And now it’s time to finally play something that’s NOT Skyrim.
Backlog progress status: