I was watching "...why Skyrim?" by Razbuten on sloptube this aft and it's so weird that it finally took Starfield for people to realise. Like Fallout 76 wasn't enough, only now are negative things people were first saying about Skyrim in 2012 finally bleeding into mainstream consciousness. It's so wild, like wow they ruined the magic system? The game has worse writing than a PS1 era Mega Man X game??? Skyrim is just shitty Game of Thrones?? Welcome to thirteen years ago!!
Bethesda hasn't made a really good game since 2002, but it'll probably be years before that realisation sinks in.
The longevity and nostalgia for Skyrim largely comes out of the extensive modding community that developed around it. That blinds people to the reasons the vanilla game needed such modding.
Game is good because I make it basically a different game
Unironically yeah. Let's say there are two games that are in all other ways equal, with multiple ways to softlock them. One is left unpatched forever, the other has a large userbase that puts out community fixes. The latter is a better experience. I'd also argue that most of Skryim's competitors are actually worse.
And before you say "ah but Morrowind is a better game!", if you were going to play it, would you run it vanilla or using OpenMW?
Yes, as we can see with New Vegas, it helps to have bug fixes and little tune ups. But many mods for Skyrim tear out the magic system entirely, or like replace all the game's content I guess. Core game Skyrim is nongood in a way that Oblivion even, isn't.
I find it weird that Skyrim is thought to have "competitors", like no other games really do the sandbox western RPG thing. Bethesda games are still basically unique.
FWIW I do mostly agree with you re: Skyrim, was just pointing out that a dedicated modding community does make a game better. It doesn't necessarily make it good!
Re: competitors, it's mostly other Bethesda games (which I agree have been going downhill since at least Oblivion though I haven't really dug my teeth into Morrowind), but I'd also throw in stuff like Kingdoms of Amalur, Two Worlds (which IIRC pitched itself as a competitor to Oblivion), or some of the Gothic games.
I'm shocked and impressed that you have an original Xbox in 2024 tbh. How's it look at higher resolution? Or are you using a CRT?
Yea true, and I mean if good viddy game content is made in skyrim like Enderal then rad, ig.
Kingdoms of Amalur
I think Two Worlds is closer to like Gothic or something, but yeah I guess they're in the same category ish. Quality of Bethesda games is a linear trip downward.
Hell yeah I put UnleashedX on that thing
I have the Advanced AV pack and it looks pretty bad on an HDTV, better on a CRT but spending the money for the component HDAV pack or an HDMI device would be good. Also looks decent on a CRT.
People have this tendency to think Morrowind is a mechanically bad game in need of fixing, but I happen to greatly respect Morrowind as it is. Some of the changes they make in OpenMW I don't even like. Morrowind is bugged up the ass in ways and could do with patching in some respects, but mostly
I mean, yes. Being easy to mod and having lots of mods available and community support does add value to the base game on platforms where modding is possible. Not every game is easy to mod or has community documentation on how to do so.
Tell me about it, I've always wanted modding for Jet Set Radio Future to be real. Skyrim is, I find, more like an engine or platform than a game though, like it has a core game but it's not any good, so mod it.
And a few games have even started as skyrim mods! Like The Forgotten City.
Now that is based.