The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim review by CaptainLagfail

Hear me out before the downvote brigade arrives. This is not Elder Scrolls. It may be made with the same IP, it may have many similar attributes, but this is NOT Elder Scrolls. The graphics are beautiful, the soundtrack is half new and half ripped directly from Morrowind. Unfortunately that's all they took from Morrowind. What I loved in the older games (Oblivion included) was the sheer freedom afforded to the player, especially in the silly spells you could come up with. You could do anything in Morrowind. Oblivion dumbed it down quite a bit but there was still something good there. Spellmaking is gone. 90% of everything outside of destruction has been simply removed. Gone. There are about 80 spells left in the game, total. Half of which are just destruction spells (damage stuff) and half of the rest are restoration spells (heal stuff). There are one or two conjuration spells and the rest simply cast lights on the walls. The lore has gone way too dark. High Elves have gone from snarky westerners to cloaked nazis. The blades are nearly all dead. The only decent sized city in Skyrim is destroyed. Morrowind was apparently blown up by a flying city, a rock and Red Mountain going up. There is no respite from the grey color scheme anywhere. It's too damn depressing. Weapon smithing has been added, but it seems in a form directly ripped from Nehrim, and then somehow made worse for the hell of it. Sneaking is no longer really useful. Some sneaking missions involve enemies literally LEANING on the fucking door you're meant to go through. I snook past all the other guards, snook up to the door, the guy there says something about me being at my post then attacks immediately. It seems they designed that mission to only be possible for High Elves. The game still deserves a high score simply when compared to the rest of the current fare. In comparison to all but Minecraft and Dark Souls it deserves 10/10. But I can't give it that knowing what has been removed.Hear me out before the downvote brigade arrives. This is not Elder Scrolls. It may be made with the same IP, it may have many similar attributes, but this is NOT Elder Scrolls. The graphics are beautiful, the soundtrack is half new and half ripped directly from Morrowind. Unfortunately that's all they took from Morrowind. What I loved in the older games (Oblivion included) was the sheer freedom afforded to the player, especially in the silly spells you could come up with. You could do anything in Morrowind. Oblivion dumbed it down quite a bit but there was still something good there. Spellmaking is gone. 90% of everything outside of destruction has been simply removed. Gone. There are about 80 spells left in the game, total. Half of which are just destruction spells (damage stuff) and half of the rest are restoration spells (heal stuff). There are one or two conjuration spells and the rest simply cast lights on the walls. The lore has gone way too dark. High Elves have gone from snarky westerners to cloaked nazis. The blades are nearly all dead. The only decent sized city in Skyrim is destroyed. Morrowind was apparently blown up by a flying city, a rock and Red Mountain going up. There is no respite from the grey color scheme anywhere. It's too damn depressing. Weapon smithing has been added, but it seems in a form directly ripped from Nehrim, and then somehow made worse for the hell of it. Sneaking is no longer really useful. Some sneaking missions involve enemies literally LEANING on the fucking door you're meant to go through. I snook past all the other guards, snook up to the door, the guy there says something about me being at my post then attacks immediately. It seems they designed that mission to only be possible for High Elves. The game still deserves a high score simply when compared to the rest of the current fare. In comparison to all but Minecraft and Dark Souls it deserves 10/10. But I can't give it that knowing what has been removed.