Time to face the dragon that is the internet…

While traversing the snow-covered landscape of Skyrim, a thought began to surface in my mind as my Breton Conjuror was climbing the Throat of the World. It was at first a creeping, discontenting feeling that I tried to shrug away. But after killing my fifth dragon with relative ease, these dark thoughts grew stronger. It was only a matter of time until I realized a cold, hard fact about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game is no where near as good as everyone says.

And I know those reading this now are more than likely sharpening their glass daggers and donning some daedric armor to partake in a witch-hunt against me. While the computer screen your reading this on can protect me from vicious physical attacks, let me preface the above comment with the following, Skyrim is a damn good game and deserves praise for the type of game it is, a free-roaming RPG that allows players to fulfill their inner desires of being the hero. It is impressive in it’s atmosphere, fantastic in it’s sound design, and is still one of the best games of the year.

But it’s not that good, I am sorry to say. The biggest problems I have with Skyrim can be summed up into five general grievances. Some may see these as nitpicking minor problems with Skyrim, but if I really wanted to do that I would just say that the game is buggy and the twelve different cheese textures in-game is not diverse enough. You know, pointless complaints that only Youtube accounts would bitch about to get 100 more views than their last video.

No, these are legitimate complaints as a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and of the overall package of Skyrim as I see it. These are things that honestly not only struck me as a surprise change, but also a very unnecessary change. So lets gather some gasoline and burn some bridges, here are my five grievances with Skyrim as a game.

So what is the difference between this…

1. Interfaced!

Well, after spending a paragraph bashing you tube accounts for nitpicking, I kind of do it right here with my first grievance, the obtuse user interface.

So much for following the rules, but fuck it, this one really bugged me.

Oh don’t get me wrong, most RPG’s have the problem of interfaces because inventory and character information, codexes, quest-logs, and so forth are very cumbersome to contend with. While Skyrim attempts to streamline it for the simplicity of a game pad, the biggest problem is that even after the simplification, the interface is still imperfect.

In an attempt to simplify things from a typical RPG system of a panel-style system, we have a button-mapped interface that breaks everything down into a few categories for you. Items are categorized into importance and in alphabetical order, so you will have a separate section for your weapons, apparel, ingredients and miscellaneous items that you will pick up (and by pick up I mean steal) on your travels.

The problems don’t come from the categorization of items, but rather the breakup of the menus. Note I said menus, because there are technically two of them. The quest-lines and options menu are all tacked onto a different interface, for the 360 the start button brings these two menus up, along with the fairly unnecessary stat-tracking system that keeps track of how many days in-game you are in, how many locks you picked, and how many times you got sick, you know, important stuff.

Away from this menu, the B button brings us the “compass” menu, a scrolling menu that attempts to break the monotonous feel of the panel system we are accustomed to. And it does so by… being a panel system we are accustomed to.

Yeah, it’s the same interface with a new look basically. The four points on the compass lead to skills/level up, items, magic and the map. The magic and items (inventory) sections are sub-categorized even more, by spell class and item class, as mentioned above. While this is great at keeping inventory for the plethora of items in-game, it becomes cumbersome because of constant searching for appropriate items. For example, while all of the items are in alphabetical order, going down a list of “Potion of XYZ” to find the appropriate item in a pinch becomes a constant nuisance, especially in combat which commits the ultimate sin of breaking the flow of the game.

…and this?

Now, the remedy that Bethesda put into Skyrim is the favorite system, which can map a number of favorite items and spells to a smaller, more useable list that negates the interface as a whole. It is a good idea, but it pauses the action so you can go through another list, in alphabetical order, to pick which item or spell you want from your favorites list. Once again, the flow is broken because of the split second of drawing a weapon or spell that occurs due to the pause is a problem.

If you recall, previous Bethesda titles Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion had a radial quick-click interface that would negate a lot of these problems. This acted as a limited de-facto favorite list, allowing players to switch weapons and spells on the fly, without breaking flow because it was a quick click on the d-pad for the consoles. And since it can hold a total of eight spells or weapons, chances are you won’t even have to use all of the space to cycle through the right tools for the job when in combat. The favorites section is limitless, but can become even more cumbersome if you rely on it too much; putting twenty items into it just makes another sub-list that you need to go through, and each click causes that slight pause to the game as you draw your next sword.

So really the interface has not changed. It was just simplified and re-skinned to include sub-categories that can keep track of items and equipment for you. It’s cool to see the items in full 3-D, seeing their statistics in weigh and amount, effects of magical items and so forth, but it’s all the same to begin with from previous generations, just with “less” menu packed with the same inventory issues.

As for the skill/level up system…well…that brings me to point number two.