The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I feel like there's a pattern to how people enjoy Elder Scrolls games.
Your first Elder Scrolls game is absolutely breathtaking and amazing. It's a vast world that you get absorbed into, and you remember it very fondly.
The games before it feel very archaic and borderline unplayable.
The games after it remove everything you loved about the game, and dumb down every possible thing "to appeal to a broader audience". Each game seems to sell better than the last, so maybe they're onto something.


My first Elder Scrolls game was Oblivion, so all of my comparisons will be against that game. Is Oblivion perfect? No, but I love it to death.


The most important thing in an RPG is the quests. You can set aside mediocre gameplay if you're engrossed into the world and what you're doing.
In Oblivion, you had to claw your way up every single guild and faction. You may have found the Emperor's son and stopped the Oblivion crisis, but what have you done for me lately?
Here is a direct comparison of each and every equivalent faction in the two games:

Fighters Guild/The Companions:
Oblivion: Your boss does not respect you in the slightest until you've proven yourself by completing many contracts and cleaning up after your guild buddies.
Skyrim: Clear out two draugr/bandit dungeons and you're let in on the Companions' deepest, most tightly-kept secrets.

Mages Guild/The College of Winterhold:
Oblivion: You have to work your way from below the bottom to even get into their headquarters. You have to do favours for all the important people before you get access to the good shit.
Skyrim: Cast one spell and you're in. Then from then on, you're the chosen one once again. Note: You do not actually have to cast the spell if you pass a speech check.

Thieves Guild:
Oblivion: You have to meet them at midnight in the "Garden of Dareloth", and you really have no way to know what that is. You're invited by a mysterious note after you're done serving time, or you have to bribe a beggar. You go through, steal a bunch of shit, on your own and for people, and the final mission is to steal a Goddamn Elder Scroll. This was a big deal before Skyrim handed them out like candy.
Skyrim: In broad daylight, some guy walks up to you, regardless of your reputation, and says "you like to steal stuff???? me too". There is one quest that requires you to steal something, one that requires you to plant something, and the rest are draugr dungeons. Wow.

Dark Brotherhood:
Oblivion: You kill a man, and you're approached in your sleep by a dark figure who invites you to join their brotherhood of assassins.
Skyrim: In Windhelm, you hear rumours of a boy trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood. You enter his house, kill the old lady he wants you to kill, and then you're kidnapped in your sleep by the Dark Brotherhood's 'leader', Astrid. This doesn't work for a variety of reasons.
1. Most characters who would get to this point would just kill Astrid and leave.
2. If you do kill Astrid, you're given the location of their Sanctuary via a note on her person. With this, you can choose to wipe out the entire Dark Brotherhood. However, the most likely character type to want to wipe out the Dark Brotherhood would never be able to, as a good character wouldn't have killed the old lady to begin with.
Also to note: You can wipe out the Dark Brotherhood, a shadowy organisation most people insist doesn't exist, but you cannot wipe out the Thieves Guild, who operate brazenly in broad daylight.


Outside of factions, Oblivion's sidequests still shine way brighter than Skyrim's.
In Oblivion, one quest takes you inside a painting to rescue its painter. One quest has you go to an island and run through a death gauntlet some guy is kidnapping people to run through for money. Another has you enter the nightmares of a guy and conquer all his fears.
Skyrim has draugr dungeons.



The dungeon enemies in Oblivion were pretty varied. Depending on the quest, you could fight goblins, skeletons, bandits, ghosts, trolls, daedra, you name it.
In Skyrim, every dungeon is a draugr dungeon. Sometimes you need to solve the same door puzzle using a claw over and over.


Both games have terribly ugly character models, but Oblivion's character models are unique and memorable in how terrible they are. Skyrim's are just bad.
Skyrim also removed attributes and spell creation, meaning you can't up your magic and speed to go fast like Sanic or walk on water* any more.
*Unless you buy the DLC and wear the proper boots.