A take I see around the internet a lot is that this is where the Elder Scrolls franchise went mainstream given its massive success; however, I would argue that Skyrim is the result of the mainstream success Bethesda found with the 3rd installment, Morrowind. That game is where Bethesda had found that simplifying a game and streamlining systems previously more complex to create an accessible experience for a wider audience was a recipe for success. For better or worse, this sealed the fate of the franchise as a whole.



And how do I view the result of 9 years' worth of streamlining? Well, it's a bit complicated. The thing is, I don't entirely hate Skyrim as a video game. It didn't earn the merit of being the biggest success Bethesda had ever released at the time based on reputation alone. As simple as an Elder Scrolls game as Skyrim is compared to its predecessors, it still has enough going for it. The melee combat is pretty darn good. I felt rewarded at points for having to manually aim my strong attacks to avoid hitting a companion or actually hit an enemy who was mid-movement. Archery is good, but it’s impossible for Bethesda to fuck that up.



What they did appear to fuck up, however, is the magic. This being said, I should say upfront that the most magic I’ll use in any Skyrim is generally healing magic. I’ve never deeply delved into this game's magic system, and I can’t begin to imagine what a magic-only run of Skyrim would look like with how bare-bones this game’s magic catalog is. Phasing out movement-based spells is one thing I can understand why something as busted as levitation had to go given the direction the games were going with regard to their environmental structure. This system focuses largely on a three-element scheme: Fire, Ice, & Shock. Every offensive spell is more or less designed with these three elements in mind. There is a vampirism spell that siphons health from enemies, but it seems to be a novice spell without any strong version of it present in the game. And without spell crafting, this limits the level of play for magic heavily. And while I can use some illusion spells to fuck with the enemy, I struggle to imagine why I’d do that for anything beyond a challenge run when the better alternative is to enchant your war axe with a 10% chance of inducing fear and then hacking everything around me into little bits.



So as far as Elder Scrolls games go, Skyrim doesn’t have a lot going for it outside of its setting, and even that feels stale when compared in aesthetic when compared to the dry palette video games were hard focused on having at the time. I can’t hold it fully against this game, however, given the setting they set out to build, the odds were stacked against it having a vibrant environment like Oblivion or something otherworldly like Morrowind. Skyrim is the cold, dry mid-west of Tamriel. Any colors that ought to stand out from the stone gray, dirt brown, & snow white is muted to all hell and back. That being said, I should reiterate that I don’t hold it against Bethesda; in fact, I’d even go as far as to say I kind of like how Skyrim looks. This, of course, is with the massive caveat of moving the other Elder Scrolls games just out of the frame of your mind. But if I do that, then I can say I don’t hate Skyrim as a video game.



Skyrim is just a nice game to shut your brain off. If you don’t think too hard about what you’re doing on any given quest, then you’ll avoid any unnecessary rage from the simple of thought how asinine this game is. There’s no real sense of reputation in this game. No matter how much you do on the side, everyone in the main & guild questlines will treat you like a baby bitch. I suppose it’s because they couldn’t account for that in all the dialogue & writing they’d already done, but that’s something I’ll blame on them using voice acting too much. One can only spend so much on a voice-acting budget before the dialogue has to be curbed for the sake of every NPC having fully voiced lines. So I’ll round off this with my lukewarm take that opting for full voice acting was the worst direction for Bethesda to make period. I think Morrowind’s system for dialogue was so much better and I’d rather have that than hear Stephen Russel or Paul Ganus for the millionth time.

It has a cool concept along with some interesting ideas, but their implementation was done in a subpar way, leaving much to be desired and made the game feel pretty mediocre.

You "technically" don't have a pause menu, an inventory, and an equipment system. When you press start, it sends you to a place called "The Sanctuary", which is where you can do these things, with the addition of stuff like fast travelling and buying some upgrades like increased melee, magic and gun damage. You have to teleport to a separate room where you have to run around for a bit at times in the search for a certain upgrade for the weapons, along with other things you may be interested in.
It's cool the first few times, but it makes what should be a simple process unnecessary monotonous and long. Sticking to a much simpler equipment, inventory, and upgrade system wouldn't have resulted in the game losing anything and made it much more appealing.

Combat felt ok at best. You have your melee weapon, gun and a few magics you unlock over time.
Enemies mostly felt like something you had to go through rather than an engaging part of the game. The encounters were pretty easy and most of them felt like they could be beaten through button mashing with occasional blocking.
If you find yourself overwhelmed, you can just stall a battle by running around since you don't have a health bar and could just wait for your health to regenerate.

The concept of gaining people's support towards reaching your ultimate goal sounds cool in concept, but the quests you have to do (for the most part) to achieve that are rather boring. Not to mention there don't seem to even be save files, so if you feel like you want to go back and try something different, you can't.
And without spoiling too much, the game takes a sharp turn in the 2nd half which made it feel like it was developed without a unified vision in mind.

Overall, the game tries to be original, but it doesn't work out well. Had less time been spent on trying to implement unique systems where they weren't needed and that effort was invested in other areas, they could've made a much better game.