It is overwhelmingly beloved and enjoyed, so right there you have to be a pretentious idiot to call it bad. If a game makes a lot people happy, then thats pretty much all it has to do to be, "A success". However, my playing of it makes me think that maybe, I should have waited until a price drop. I suppose that given what its trying to do, it is impressive, but im thinking that its just not my kind of game.
The biggest thing is that for me, Open World usually translates to "Unfocused, sloppy storytelling" Yeah, it increases the investment you have in the story by giving you more agency, but it generally undermines the story at large, and the game needs to balance these factors. It splits the focus, and makes very little seem important. Hypothetically this could be okay if the combat was exciting, but the combat feels more like a matter of making sure you have the right numbers when that bad guy rolls up to you. If it were open world with a strong linear progression that ties everything together tightly, that could work too, but Skyrim encourages dicking around. That the story is standard fantasy fare (Not cliched fantasy fare, mind you: It does its own things and tries to expand on the formula, but it is still standard fantasy at the core [Oooh, something it has in common with Modern Warfare 3{Might need to run for my life now}]) doesn't make it stand out too well either.
A common praise is that the world is terrifically detailed, with a rich and full history behind it. But personally, I don't really care about that history, because it feels too much like there was a great fantasy novel that got chopped to bits, and got sprinkled throughout the game. The setting doesn't feel integrated with the game.
Also, am I the only one who feels like getting better at a skill by useing it just encourages a sense of endless grind? Is anyone else plotting there treks through the woods based on what minor path changes will let you burn a rabbit to increase your destruction? Because I feel obligated to do that, in spite of it not being very fun.
And lastly, I am terrified of the prospect of taking out a stopwatch and figuring out how much time I spend fighting dragons, listening to plot points or generally doing stuff, versus holding down W like a pacifist, noob Pyro in TF2 taking an endless stroll through the mountains.
So overall, I'm going to keep playing Skyrim. It's not bad, and maybe what it wants to do will click with me, and ill start liking it. But I think that for my personal taste, the game needs either better combat, or a tighter, less meandering focus.
Of course, I should also thank Skyrim. I know its is a good game because people like it, but it doesn't resonate with me quite so well. But know I can have a slightly more objective understanding now of what makes for a good game system, less cluttered by my personal tastes. Its very much a learning experience.
