When I think of greatest of all time, Skyrim will always come to mind. It was my first RPG and man.....what a one to start off with.
I'm still remembering being in awe of the opening scene. Starting off tied, in a cart, on the way to be executed. The character creation had me absolutely captivated. Probably spent an hour picking my character.
The choices in quests have the game such individuality. So many permutations available to to the player.
Combat was 🐐. No matter what build I'd try to go for, I'd always return to archery. It was too goat.
The story had me contemplating everything. It felt to real to, interacting with characters, reading historical books within the game. I was captivated.
Being the DRAGONBORN was 10/10. Killing dragons, taking their souls, converting them into shouts.
The side quests were so incredibly fulfilling. Between interacting with stellar characters and receiving weapons and armor, man oh man. Dark brotherhood, thieves guild, college of winter hold, daedric artefacts. There were a perfect amount of side quests to enjoy.
I now have the game on PS3, PS4, and PC. I cannot get enough of it

Skyrim is similar to FF7 as in they were the most popular RPGs of their respective generation, many people's first RPG, and eventually had their reputation attacked, and them even being a good game has been put into question.

I'll be frank here, unlike FF7, which what it received has been outright character assassination based on supplementary material that shouldnt affect the quality of the original game. Skyrim is actually deeply deeply flawed game, and quite frankly the score I'm giving it seems perhaps too high.

First of all, its an incredibly basic game, with most quests devolving into go fetch something in a dungeon. And these dungeons are the problems. They're not inherently bad so much as, there's too many of them. And they swarm you with an insane amount of enemies you have been killing for way too long, especially those stupid dwarven robots I hate oh so much. This would be exarcebated in Fallout 4. Beyond this, the game cruely lacks player agency in many scenarios where it would seem obvious where to add it. For example, when X character says "we're having beef with Y faction". When your Dragonborn goes there, he immediatly gets attacked by mindless enemies who decide to kill you on sight without you ever having a chance to say, initiate a conversation, bargain with them, side with them, or anything. No this game is just made to be a dungeon crawler rather than an actual deeply involved world, and that's a shame, cause while I havent played them, I know that the previous entries, Oblivion and Morrowind, offer a lot more substance in that regard.

This is a very harsh blemish on this game, but I also reject the idea that Skyrim is completly devoid of substance, many quests in this game are actually very good, notably the civil war quesltine and the faction quests. And the core gameplay is also pretty good, even if simple, I found myself actually quite enjoying the combat, looting, questing etc.

What brings this game up is ultimately, THE VIBE. Skyrim is beautiful, the open world is beautiful, and walking in it feels better than pretty much any open world out there, bar perhaps Breath of the Wild. This game nails so much so high that I end up quite minimising its eggregious flaws, and I just look back on my time with it as a lot of fun.

Ultimately, yeah, it's baby's first RPG, its a shallow kiddie pool, its even frustrating in some regards. But it is an experience I am beyond glad to have lived. Ever since I started this game I always put the OST on spotify whenever I go for a walk and I will for quite a while.

TLDR: The shallowness of its core gameplay is overpowered by the beautiful world it lets you lose yourself in.

I decided to revisit Skyrim, and to what should be nobody's surprise, it is still a fantastic game. When a game blows up as big as Skyrim did its not surprising to see so many people calling it overrated or saying it wasn't good. Those people are absolutely wrong.

The story of Skyrim is definitely not its strong suit. It is a fairly basic chosen one story that has been told many times before. The moments of depth that come from it are located within its civil war storyline. This questline starts off by seeming very intriguing and philosophical, but it feels rushed and unfinished by the end of it. Luckily, there is plenty of elder scrolls lore to be discovered throughout the vast game world to make up for this.

The gameplay is initially very fun. Looting dungeons, leveling up skills, and crafting new armor and weapons is a fun gameplay loop for a majority of the game. Due to the enemy scaling and a slight lack of combat depth, this gets quite repetitive near the end of a playthrough. The enemy scaling also makes it difficult to drastically change your build without feeling underpowered, which only further adds to the repetitiveness. Even with these issues, exploring the world and fighting dragons is still some of the most fun you can find within an RPG from this era.

Skyrim's world is beautiful. The northern lights that can be seen and the way it looks from a mountain top is stunning. The soundtrack for the game is also a masterpiece. Every track feels so fitting for the game and is beautifully crafted.

Bethesda created one of the most replayed games ever with this one. It is not surprising to see people with a large number of playthroughs. This is due to the great build variety in the game and how packed with content it is. Even if you just wanted to do one playthrough it would take you many hours to complete all of the major quests, and even longer if you wanted to fight the ebony warrior.

Overall, Skyrim is a game with an average fantasy story and great gameplay that slightly shows its age. However, it is carried by its beautiful, content filled map, excellent soundtrack, and high replayability. It is far from the greatest game ever, but it by no means deserves the hate it currently gets.
( 92/100 )