So I've never really got on with skyrim it seems fun and so on but I always feel a bit disconnected from the world it doesn't pull me in for some reason. On it's close cousin Fallout I've spent loads of time and on the recent fallout 4 I've done multiple play throughs in different characters and gone back to it several time as more things have come along but with skyrim I start off do some bits and then something else comes along and I abandon it.
Anyway as most of you are aware the remastered edition of Skyrim came out the other day and if you own the orginal version and the DLC's or the game of the year version you get the remastered edition for free. At somepoint I picked up the various DLC's probably in a steam sale so I had the game in my account. So I installed it and decided to give it another go.
Skyrim remastered is the original game with the 3 dlcs (dawn guard, dragon born, and the other one about houses) where they've shoehorned it into the more recent fallout 4 engine. It's content are identical to the previous versions it's just now gotten a lick of new paint and some under the hood tweaks.
For the PC the graphics are better than the original but nothing amazing. It's running in an engine that even tweaked and upgraded for fallout 4 is showing it's age, as much as I love fallout 4 it's visuals even an launch couldn't hold a candle to some of the more modern engines like witcher 3 or the like. So shoving a game that's 5-6 years old in there is not going to make it suddenly triple a++. The graphical improvements they've done are a few more lighting effects things like volumetric lights bloom depth of field effects. They've done some texture upgrades tweaked a few of the models (mostly npc models) and improved things like foliage density in the forests.
It's doing the best with what they have it's improved over the original but it's clearly quite old. Now for consoles the step up is more noticeable the ps3 and xbox360 versions were hobbled to make them work on the limited hardware available and ran at lower resolutions upscaled to 1080p so the difference is much more pronounced.
The other parts they've adjusted is mods for the consoles and the engine is now 64bit so rather than running out of memory at 4gig you can basically use all the available memory for adding in mods. Skyrim always had a huge modding scene so I'm sure the remastered version will benefit from that too with additional levels of graphical improvement and custom game items content etc.
As for the game itself well it's the same as ever. I've been playing a magic character wandering around blasting thing with fire. I also tried some of the DLC that I had on the original version but never touched it. So I became a master vampire wandered about eating people turning into this weird bat thing that is too tall for some of the corridors so had to change back to get down them or use the walking backwards trick.
It's enjoyable but I'm wondering how long I'll stick with it this time. I think part of the reason I don't feel as connected with it is the lack of dialogue most conversations are npc's spouting information the don't really have a dialogue tree as such more like a bush and you being the silent protagonist don't really engage you might get a few options like "yes I want to be a master vampire" or "No I'd rather not be a vampire thank you" but these binary choices are end stops not really a discussion.
I guess there is also more of a quest in fallout 4 there you are searching for your son or pursuing the goals of one of the three factions. I've never been that clear on the end game of skyrim something about shouting at dragons and the various guild and factional quests seem less well crafted than the ones in fallout. They were all mostly forgettable the only one standing out being the dark brotherhood assassins guild which had a pretty fun story.
It may just be that with the more recent fallout games they had more experience and crafted a better world even with their first fallout game I spent far longer wandering the capital wasteland than I did climbing mountains in snowy skyrim.
Still if you feel like giving Skyrim another go then this is a slightly more polished version and with bethesda saying they're not yet even working on elder scrolls 6 (but confirming it's on their todo list) this is the most recent incarnation of an elder scrolls game you can play ... well unless you count Elder scrolls online but the less said about ESO the better.
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I was hopeful I would see a free copy to give try but it seems as an early adopter who bought the original game and 2 DLCs at full price, I am not considered worthy of a free copy of the enhanced edition, so I think it highly unlikely I will be giving them £30 they currently want for it; tbh I would possibly pay £5 for what it gives over the original.
I know what you mean about losing interest though, I have (re)started many times just to run out of steam and move on, despite really wanting to progress in it.
Maybe they will be nice and provide discounted upgrade path in the future; as it stands they are offering me the final DLC with a 39% discount, but given the free upgrade ended on October 28th there is not much point it seems.
I've been playing it a fair bit and have puzzled out some of the reasons I find it less compelling than it's future yet set in 1950's america apocalypse sibling. The xp system is entirely skill based you get nothing but loot for quests often not very much of it skill level and perks are completely disconnected from any story or side quests you get the same effect by just standing shooting arrows/swords/lightning bolts at a wall as you do from participating in the game world.
The story is pretty weak and your character is almost uninvolved there's no personal story here. Most of the various guilds and factions don't intersect with the main story at all and seem to just award you the leadership position by default. It never feels like there is anything at stake you don't care about the people you don't feel involved in the world you just wander along the quest try and at the end have a new place to dump all those various niknacks your inventory fills up with.
Combat is not very satifying some of this might be the magic system as I tend to play mage classes. Maybe stealth or full on weapons is more fun. With magic you spam what ever your favorite destructive spell is till you run out of magic the you frantically dodge around till it regenerates a bit or spam potions like you've got a drinking problem. If an enemy hits you chances are you die as mages are the classic glass cannon. You can build them with more health but then they have not enough magic so they die anyway.
With fallout every different one of the various weapon classes has an distinct playstyle and I found fun. You want to be a drug fueled chainsaw wielding pschopath who runs at their enemies and carves them up that works. You want to be a heavy weapons using power armour wearing juggernaut who blasts away at enemies then when they run out of ammo charge in fists flying knocking enemies down as you run into them then go bare fists that works too. Stealth approach where you use knives and appear out of the shadows doing massive sneak damage such that your enemies explode from the inside out, yep. Long range sniper who picks people of with head shots from extreme range, yep. Pistol packing sharp shooter who uses accuracy and the vats system to hit weak points in a blitz of gun fire, no problem.
There are so many options flamethrowers, power fists, flame swords, lasers, plasma cannons, missiles, and the shoulder launched mini nuke and some of the DLC addons gave even more like building a robot to follow you about or defend your settlements. And based on the character you want to play you can adjust your play style accordingly.
Skyrim feels mundane and fairly boring by comparison you have some standard weapon types you can add some damage or effects to that's it.
The bloody hills in skyrim are also annoying both the fallout and the elderscrolls have unhelpful map systems but with fallout the environment is relatively flat you can always work out how to get to your objective. With skyrim there can be a bloody mountain or cliff in the way and no way to know where the path is that gets you up it. You end up having to do the glitchy run up a steep slope and repeatedly jump while rocking back and forth on the edge of rocks till you trick the physics into allowing you to go up to reach some higher layer or going down trying to prevent a plumet to your death by edging round rocks some how clinging to sheer rock faces by walking sideways.
The progression systems and perks in skyrim are often confusing. With fallout we have the special system with each stat doing roughly what it says strength makes you stronger so can carry more and do more damage with melee perception allows you to see further gives you better accuracy with ranged attacks and so on intelligence is a bit nebulous but is to do with how much xp you get for quests and things then the perks behind those skills make sense with their theme strength is hitting things harder in various ways inteligence things like hacking building stuff and so on.
With Skyrim it's skill tree based each of the skills you get a level in (which doesn't really seem to mean that much) but is a prerequisite for perks some make some sort of sense qualifying you for better versions of a certain type of spell others are often quite opaque or have odd effects. In restoration (which is sort of healing) there is a perk called necromage which grants bonuses to spells against the undead so far so obvious but where that becomes odd is if you are a vampire and so technically undead yourself so your bonuses and weaknesses get amplified by that same perk and even some perks from other trees get effected.
Some of it is that fallout 4 is a lot newer than Skyrim and some of it is just down to fundamental differences in their game system.
Anyway with Dishonored 2 just about to hit I probably will be abandoning my current playthrough and who knows if I go back at all. Probably not with Skyrim it always feels like I go back to it thinking I didn't finish that last time I wonder why ... then I remember why and stop playing again. With Fallout I can play it with different characters back to back and it feels different enough to enjoy. Both of these games are dense enough that there are storys I find on repeated playthroughs I never found before but with Skyrim the rest is pretty dull so it's hard to care and it's been the same for oblivion before skyrim and morrowind before that and probably going further and further back (think the first one I played was redguard which was fairly limited 3d game with only the one class).
Maybe elderscrolls 6 will get it right
As someone who's finished Skyrim, I completely agree with you. Some of the story is just so bloody obtuse. They should have written down a story that fits the limitations of the game engine rather than go on about a huge war that only really appears as 9 blokes on each side complaining about the sodding cold.
This is why it's on my uninstall list. I've filled up all my places with nicknacks and if I want some RPG action I'll hit Fallout 4, which I'm only a tiny amount of the way through.
Fallout 4 managed a nice balance a personal story the search for your son and then the three or four (possibly 5 or 6 if you add the DLC) factions with stories that intertwine and are tied into the personal story. Rather than the mess of hundreds of factions and guilds with all the independant stuff skyrim has.
They also managed in fallout 4 to give the settlements some purpose in either the minutemen faction line or the dlc raider faction they play into building up (or tearing down) the various places and the nicknacks rather than just being inventory padding (or much needed tools for when you hit The broom dungeon ) are converted to crafting material to build up weapon/armor or your settlements.