My Soul Shouts

Girl Who Leapt Through Space quote, post about Skyrim. Wondered where I was this last week? That'd be where. My brother and I rented it (and bought it yesterday); during the week we had the renter, I already defeated the rebellion.

All told, damn fine game. Coulda done without the glitches, but considering the amount of rendering, AI, and keeping-track-of-what-you've-changed it has to keep up with, it coulda been worse. Hell, every previous game in the series was worse.

Since I like the thing, and this is, I guess, a review, let's go negative first. Be warned, spoilers follow.

The Thalmor, and to a lesser extent High Elves in general, are the "snooty elves" thing that I hate so much, though a well-done take on it. The Wood Elves being cannibals is a bit much, as is the Dwarves' having poisoned and blinded the Snow Elves so they could enslave them. That the Dwarves were evil, human-sized cousins of the Dark Elves (before the Dark Elves were turned gray by the curse of Azura), rather than, y' know, dwarves, is sorta irritating, as is what became of the Snow Elves. Though, considering the major thing Snow Elves did in history is a massacre called the Night of Tears, they probably weren't very nice either.

There are too damn many missions involving Daedra (demons). Especially since one of them (Waking Nightmare) is really glitchy: when that priest glitched out of existence, I thought it meant I was trapped in, well, a waking nightmare, and that when I went back outside the temple, I was going to gradually realize I was still trapped inside, dreaming—and then do something, doubtless something inconvenient, to get out again. But no, turns out the stupid computer just decided to forget where it was supposed to put him. Similarly, Sheogorath is a son of a bitch, I don't care how funny he is.

That you can contract vampirism is horrifying. I only consider that a non-game-breaker because you can cure the first stage of it with a Cure Disease potion or by touching any of the shrines of the Eight Gods (or nine, if you count Talos—which I think I sorta do, even though my character's a High Elf; certainly he holds Talos in reverence, as his predecessor in Dragonborn-ness).

The secret nature of the Companions (the specifics of which I won't go into) is probably a lot more secret to people who don't know what "Vilkas" and "Kodlak" mean when you combine them.

Arngeir getting all butt-hurt when he finds out you've been dealing with the Blades and want to know how to kill Alduin, and then not showing you where to find any more shouts, is ridiculous. Especially 'cause he only told me one. Thanks for nothing, monk, I hope the jarls loot High Hrothgar. Historically Germanic noblemen have been into that.

For the pluses? Everything else. I love that you can not only do alchemy, enchanting, and smithing, but you can tan leather and cook stew. My character's basically a fighter-mage, since I'm a combat-oriented guy by nature but I like elves, and the elves in this have +50% starting magic; my bound sword's been upgraded so it banishes summoned demons, turns the undead, and traps the soul of anyone it kills (don't look at me like that, that's how the enchantment works in Elder Scrolls—besides, they go wherever it is they're gonna when you use up the enchantment).

The dragon who helps you—I won't go into it much beyond that—is, basically, Leopard, if the Dragon Cult were Nervalists. And how you meet him is probably the coolest thing in a very cool game.

Speaking of things I loved, the Imperials are, almost unquestionably, the good guys. The Stormcloaks are racist, ignorant jackasses, exactly like the Thalmor except without the excuse of being millennia-old arch-mages whose genealogy demonstrably is also their pantheon. What's real fun to point out is that they are, to the Empire, as the Forsworn are to them.

I like that every elf race was born of an ideological dispute—the High Elves are the originals, and then the Dark Elves were born of the worshippers of the other half of the pantheon. The Deep Elves (dwarves) were born of a sect of Dark Elves who considered the gods irrelevant, and chose instead to worship, well, math (and, also, to seek to reclaim their divine heritage—elves, remember—by using the Heart of Lorkhan to become gods).

Finally, the depth. From the mythology—my character carries around a Children's Anuad just so I can read this world's creation myth—to the history, all of it intertwined with shoutouts to the previous games. This world, more than any other fantasy world I've seen in game or film or in most books, feels old, and lived in.

Incidentally, I play games like this for real. A dragon attacked Riverwood, at one point, and killed the smith, Hodvar's uncle. And I didn't feel frustration with the game: I felt guilt, that I had failed as the Dragonborn, and let one of the people I'm supposed to protect die (I felt a little better when I remembered there was no reason the dope didn't go hide inside). When the Forsworn shout that the Reach is their land, I find myself (remember, my character's an elf) saying, "No it's not, it's our land, you apes!" (All of the continent of Tamriel was originally elf territory, conquered by humans over centuries.) I don't know, maybe it's just that I know how to play.