"You should have acted. They're already here. The Elder Scrolls told of their return. Their defeat was merely a delay... Until the time after Oblivion opened... When the sons of Skyrim would spill their own blood. But no one wanted to believe, to believe they even existed, and when the truth is finally revealed, it rises in fire. Yet there is one they fear.
In their tongue, he is called 'Dovahkiin,' Dragonborn!" — That was the context introduced by Bethesda, Skyrim's producer, for its official trailer. Skyrim speaks of prophecies. The most anticipated game of 2011 is, in fact, the best game of its year. Nothing else was talked about in the gaming world, and even with major releases such as the new Zelda for Wii, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty, and others, Skyrim was the most-awarded title and was played by everyone for a long time.
If you are still "lost," find out once and for all why The Elder Scrolls V deserves all that credit.
Discover Something Entirely New Even After 50 Hours of Play
It is no exaggeration that whenever Bethesda releases a new game, we see those corny nerd jokes about "losing your social life." Here, it is easy to shut yourself in a room and forget—or pretend you forgot—ordinary commitments in life, such as paying bills. The world of The Elder Scrolls is full of adventures. In it, specifically in the province of Skyrim, we will experience civil wars, legends becoming real, journeys to new regions, battles against dragons, searches for rare treasures, marriages, rare diseases such as lycanthropy and vampirism, and much more, even interacting with the evil entities and supernatural forces of the realm of Oblivion. But all of that matters only because you can face it. After all, you are a Dragonborn.
After 80 hours of play, I bought my mansion in Solitude. I purchased all the furnishings except the kitchen, because I had run out of money. Once I organized the house, I put all my rare items on display, arranged shelves with all the important books I intended to read or had already read, and never wanted to stop improving the house to suit my tastes. It is impressive how, even after so much time, you will probably still not feel satisfied and will keep looking for more. The game leads you toward a variety of choices for your story.
You can join the Thieves Guild and improve your abilities, or spend your time at the school of magic, with missions in a Harry Potter-style plot in which you study and solve problems. The point is that even after completing the main story of The Elder Scrolls V, I knew there was much more to be done.
In addition to the ordinary houses purchased in the game, you can literally build a house from scratch and adopt children with the Hearthfire expansion, for example.
Skyrim is going through a civil war in which the Empire and the Stormcloaks fight for power. Early on, you learn that the leader of the Stormcloaks recently murdered the king of his province and declared himself the future new king. Entering a delicate issue, you will have to choose which side you will take during this war. What makes it more complex is how Bethesda handles it. There is no truly wrong side of the board.
The Empire is said to have become corrupt after Thalmor oversight led to a treaty concerning its power and banned belief in Talos on the grounds that he is not a true god. On the other hand, it has always ruled Skyrim, bringing safety to cities and families. The Stormcloaks, meanwhile, want to remove Skyrim from the control of the Empire and the Thalmor and once again legalize the worship of the great god of the Nord race. Yet because they are pure Nords in their homeland, they are repugnant racists.
Take their main city as an example, where they confine races such as Dark Elves and Argonians to separate districts. From this point on, you choose Skyrim's fate in political terms. After a few speeches and events, I chose the Stormcloaks. You can choose the other side instead. They represent different perspectives, and the developers handled their outcomes very carefully.
The world is open, and the main story should last around 20 hours. Alduin, the dragon known as the "World-Eater," has returned according to the prophecies of Tamriel, the realm where the series takes place. Your duty will be to kill this great historical villain. The story is enjoyable, with twists that you choose for yourself as you follow it. But as people say, the story's true excitement lies in the one the player creates. So much so that there are not even any credits after the main adventure ends. After all, your story may only have begun. There are also excellent expansions, but several missions separate from the main story can be just as exciting as they are, or even more so. In this respect, Skyrim stands apart from its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, in a major way.
Read About Legends, Then Play Them
Leaving all that conflict involving kings and dragons aside, however, let us discuss the game as a whole. Graphically, the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions may leave a little to be desired, with strange shadows and occasional frame-rate drops, compared with the PC version, which has an official HD texture patch, downloadable "mods," and other naturally better features such as draw distance and lighting. Some dungeons are highly distinctive, both visually and in the way they work. Others are not as much.
Even after 80 hours of play, this did not really bother me, because what mattered were the missions that brought the character into them. The vegetation and settings—whether cities, fields, mountains, or forests—are all highly detailed. I feel good exploring a province that is varied and different from the previous game.
The battle system was improved, giving your blows a genuine sense of weight. In the past, in the third and fourth games in the series, the way characters fought could be quite strange. They looked like clumsy dolls attacking and defending with magic and swords.
We now have new abilities and styles, such as the Shout, a cry spoken in the game's draconic language that lets you use a wide variety of powers, from the now-famous "Fus Ro Dah," with which you push opponents away with a blast, to calling other dragons for help and summoning dangerous storms. The detail and impact of magic have also been enhanced, and spells can now be used not only in one hand, but in both.
Later, you can increase the power of some spells by using two at once, producing explosive "shots," among other effects. You can also use magic in one hand and a weapon in the other, which perfectly recalls the style created by BioShock, which did the same thing.
Character classes, a typical feature in RPGs, were completely set aside this time. You will not wake up one day and say "I am an archer," already possessing a bonus or ready-made abilities. Your only choice in that sense is your race. The options are quite varied, granting a particular passive or daily racial bonus depending on your choice. You must also create your character's appearance and sex at the beginning of the story, and after that creation, NPC dialogue is adjusted according to your race.
As your adventures and daily life unfold, whenever you use something or work with a particular activity, you improve the related abilities, increasing their points and also raising your overall level. The points accumulated with each level reached can be used to unlock new Perks within an ability, bringing new uses and possibilities for archery, for example, such as slowing time while aiming, or also increasing your powers when using magic, your stealth, and more. With each new level, you must also choose one of the three main attributes to improve: Magicka, Health, or Stamina. You can train with other people and automatically increase a point, but it will be expensive.
The developers put considerable effort into making a great game for mages, warriors, and assassins or thieves alike. Thus, there are stealth missions in which, if you have a good range of related abilities unlocked, you can turn an entire castle upside down without showing a single sign of life. If you are a mage, for example, there will be missions in which you need to use certain spells to open gates, activate something, and deal with other situations. As a warrior, it is the old routine: smash everything and live to tell the tale.
After a while, you notice shortcomings in the artificial intelligence of NPCs and enemies when you are in stealth. Yet there have already been improvements that those accustomed to the developer's earlier games will notice immediately. The possibility of being and doing different things makes Skyrim a genuinely interesting place. You can work at the forge, learn new things, and improve excellent armor. You can become a great alchemist or even enchant weapons with magic and effects that can help you.
As for those last three activities, I always do something between one mission and another, such as making healing potions with the ingredients I found.
You Will Become Involved in Some Very Dark Situations, Whether You Want to or Not
Dragons are everywhere! At the beginning of the game, when you start exploring locations, they appear more often. The realm is terrified and its people are afraid of the situation they face, but over time, if you are a good explorer, the creatures will become less common.
You can encounter basic dragons at first, with varying levels of difficulty, but soon there will be different types that bring greater challenges: Blood, Elder, Ancient, and Red dragons, along with secret dragons, other very rare ones, and others with their own names that are unique. What is interesting about dragons is that some require different strategies. Some bring storms, others attack cities, and some are almost impossible to draw close enough to land a blow.
There was one occasion when I found a skeletal dragon inside a cave. It was bizarre.
With so much available, one thing is certain: the history of Tamriel must be vast, and you not only can but should learn some of its details. Read the books scattered throughout the world. Anyone who has never liked reading books may change their mind. Skyrim has its own gods, evil entities, and story of the world's creation. It has an entire mythology of its own.
There are historical events, such as what happened to the Dwemer, a highly intelligent race with advanced technology that mysteriously vanished completely one day. The stories range from the "Oblivion Crisis," which occurred in the fourth The Elder Scrolls hundreds of years ago, to living legends that you will face right there after researching books and pursuing their cases. It is a lot like the series Supernatural, except medieval and without salt to put on the windows.
The narrative behind some of the secrets you find is genuinely impressive and holds the curious player's attention. I once researched Aedra and Daedra, which, according to one line of explanation, are divided as Aedra = "our ancestors" and Daedra = "not our ancestors." This is the division given to the deities found in Tamriel. Put roughly, the Aedric deities are the good gods who helped Nirn, the greater god, by giving part of their power to create the universe.
The Daedra refused to support this cause, so they still have their immortality and can roam Mundus, the game's world, in a non-ethereal form, unlike those who helped Nirn. Thanks to that "small" detail, they usually have their own followers. In any case, neither group was created by this universe; the Daedra even live in the dimension called Oblivion, and their princes, who are its entities, are divided among distinctive realms of their own, each with its own form.
And when people ask me, "Did you research that purely out of curiosity...?" — Not until I found a "poltergeist" in a certain abandoned house that was not, in fact, just any ghost.
There are many secret organizations, clans, armies, groups in general, and every kind of conspiracy unfolding freely. Some organizations seen in earlier games may have dissolved completely or become mere shadows of what they once were. Others may be stronger than ever and at the height of their power. In Skyrim, you encounter many of them on your journey, and all you need to do is speak with the right people to join their missions.
"Remember When That Giant Threw You Out of the Atmosphere?"
Like every Bethesda game, this one is no exception and is not free of bugs. Although they are much less severe than in earlier games, you can be hurled 1,000 meters above the ground if a giant hits you. You may see dragons flying backward—this one happens on PS3—people spinning in bed as they sleep, which is frightening, and the occasional problem with the progress of a mission. That happened when I went to free a man's brother, who was imprisoned by the Thalmor.
An option appeared to complete it peacefully by obtaining a warrant for the prisoner's release, or to "get brutal" and "beat up" the guards. The problem was that the first option was impossible to carry out, because there was nothing that could make it happen. In any case, most of these errors have already been fixed with patches.
You can also have mercenaries, friends, horses, and others join you on your adventure. The system for giving orders to your companions is quite good and interacts with the entire environment. Their AI is very useful, and they rarely get in your way. Of course, some die in silly traps. They sometimes comment on situations, and depending on your companion, they will have their own problems and need help.
Today there is a 'Definitive Edition,' a version with all the expansions (Dragonborn, Hearthfire, and Dawnguard) and improved graphics.
There are still many other details that I forgot or should not even mention here so as not to spoil the fun. But at least you can be certain that Skyrim will become your new home for many weeks. Setting aside oddities such as the fact that a horse can climb a mountain better than you can, as well as the bugs, I could think of only one response: I do not care.
I believe that if a game can hold my attention for at least 80 hours, and even after 70 hours I was as excited as when I began the adventure, that becomes Skyrim's true experience: holding your attention and entertaining you. The Elder Scrolls V holds the attention of any player with intermediate English skills—if you do not download a Portuguese translation—from beginning to end. It is also good evidence of why Japanese RPGs have recently begun yielding ground to Western ones.
You are free to create your story in a wonderful world ready to be discovered. You can be the greatest thief ever seen in history, or the greatest vigilante. Or you do not need to be either and can simply travel as a collector of rare items. The choice is yours, and most importantly, it will remain completely acceptable no matter what it is.
Note: The expansions can add many hours and striking elements, such as riding dragons, new regions including an island in the Morrowind area, factions, enormous missions, and more. The Legendary Edition, which comes with every expansion, is worth the investment.
Tip: Play at higher difficulty levels. The game's Adept mode can end up making everything very easy after a while.
Rating: 9.5
Played on PC; the base game was reviewed.
