Rules:

• Share your thoughts civilly and logically
• I apologize, but if Skyrim is the only Elder Scrolls game you have played or even heard of, you have absolutely NO say in this whatsoever.

     Skyrim. A critically acclaimed video game. Belonging to the 'Elder Scrolls' series. And I use the term 'belonging' very loosely. Sure, the aesthetic, and lore is Elder Scrolls based. But the game itself? It is just really sad. I suppose you could say, ‘Just because it is different, doesn’t mean it is bad.’ Well, my fellow gamer, different doesn’t mean 'good' either. It depends on what is different. It failed on three major features: the story, the skill levelling system and the character creation. Note, I will be comparing all of these to the pinnacle of the franchise, 'The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.'

     The thing I despise most about the game is the story. Or lack thereof. What is the story? A dragon god is going to destroy the world! Though that idea in itself is very simple, it could be executed fairly well in the way the story progresses. It’s about the journey, not the destination. I will start off with saying, right off the bat, it still has the traditional Elder Scrolls ‘find this, find that’ charm. But that is all. This problem started with Oblivion, and was continued into Skyrim. The damned quest marker. Instead of making you explore to find it, the tell right where it is on the map. In Morrowind, they made you read (the third installation did not have voice-acting) the dialogue to use the landmarks they tell you about to find the location you are looking for. That brings me to the quest journal. In Morrowind, it is a physical book you keep in your inventory and constantly use for reference to find the quest. Also, as a nice addition, it keeps track of all of the lore. In Skyrim, you just use it for selecting quests to track. As for the questline itself, you can’t really change the outcome much. Really, you just kill Alduin that is the only outcome. In Morrowind, you can fail the entire questline just by accidentally killing the wrong person. Oh yeah, you could kill anyone you want; there are no essential characters. What does that mean? Well, Dagoth Ur is trying to infect all of Tamriel with Corpus, which essentially turns you into a zombie. So, if you fail to stop him, then the history of Tamriel will be changed drastically. You essentially cause the end of the world, though you won’t notice in-game.

     This brings me to an essential part of adventuring and questing, levelling up your character. Skyrim has an absolutely ATROCIOUS skill levelling system. Just a bunch of perks. Nothing interesting or new. Morrowind had what most traditional RPG’s had, percentage chances to hit. Now, Morrowind had something new added to that, which is the ability to actually improve your character’s skills. When you start off, you don’t know much. Depending on your class (I’ll talk about that later) you may have a 50/50 chance to hit or even a 25/75. As you level up your skills, the percentage increases. Maxing out your skills mean you have a 100% chance to hit with whatever weapon you levelled up. Magic is also different in Skyrim. Magicka regenerates, and magic is fairly weak. In Morrowind, you can’t regenerate your magicka without potions. With that being said, that make staves a great alternative. Staves allow you to cast spells without the use of magicka. Sure, you need soul gems, but you seldom need to refill you enchanted weapons in Morrowind. In addition, magic essentially makes you a god in Morrowind. Plus: custom spells. Skyrim doesn’t have that sort of immersion, Morrowind does. In this case, Oblivion stays closer to Morrowind than it does to Skyrim.

     What do you need to do in order to actually be able to level your skills? Why, create a character of course! In Skyrim, all there is to it is create your appearance. That’s it. In Morrowind, you can create your appearance, though there isn’t much to it at all but there is more to it than that. Each one of the races have their own strengths and weaknesses. In addition, when you create or choose from a class, it allows you to choose which skills you are better with. To help you with that, there are birthsigns, a feature much like Skyrim’s Standing Stones, albeit you choose in the beginning and that is it. You can’t choose another. Again, some birthsigns have strengths and weaknesses, some give unique abilities and some just have added skill bonuses (be it give a few extra levels or just allow you to level skills up faster). Again, what does Skyrim have? A detailed appearance creator, sure, but when it comes to gameplay, what does it have? Absolutely nothing!

     And these aren’t the only problems Skyrim has in comparison to other Elder Scrolls games. But I suppose it was because Skyrim was made for the general audience. But I say damn the general audience! What of the true Elder Scrolls fans? Shall we be swept away and thought of as nothing? I beckon Bethesda to create another Elder Scrolls game that is similar to Morrowind, but different enough to be considered something new. But as of right now, all we can do is wait.

       Skyrim isn't the best game ever in my opinion. That spot belongs to Morrowind. I just like the simplicity of Skyrim. The lore is very detailed and interesting.  The things that make Skyrim an amazing game worth every second you'll spend playing it are the detailed environments, highly detailed but simple to learn skill system.
       Now, I'll admit the story was pretty much bullcrap (yup, that's how bad it was) and cliche. But I thought the plot for Dragonborn was exciting. The main quest and Dawnguard were mega-cliche (human vs dragon. Humans vs vampires I don't even have to say why it's so cliche).

Ah, I forgot to mention. I still find Skyrim to be a great game.

Some reason why Morrowind is the best TES game: let's see, you can use spears (without mods!), you can FLY you can attack under water.

Not to mention go all Jesus and walk on water.

:0

Plus: Look what I can do! (Note this requires console commands to cast as the magicka cost is too high, but you can make a spell of this sort)