Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Skyrim Retrospective
353 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Adam and Satsunami discuss their experiences in the world of Skyrim. Does it still hold up after it's release over ten years ago? Or has it finally fallen into legend like the dragons of old? Let's find out in the latest episode!
For more Satsunami content, please click here!
For more Chatsunami content, please click here!
--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chatsunami/message
Recommended
![[Spoiler Free] THEY DID IT?! Let's talk about Sonic x Shadow Generations || Chatsu Shorts image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/6184f404ff8e31006d3165c2/95064aad-4b5f-43ca-961c-2d51f675a22f.png)
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Teasers
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami.
Humorous Banter and Skyrim Teasers
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm Satsunami, and beware, beware, the sandwich born comes. It's the one, the only, Adam. Adam, welcome back. Hello, hello, good to be back. And you know, some people may call this podcast junk me, I call it treasure. That sounds like something, you know, that people in the cloud district would say. Have you ever heard that saying, Adam?
00:00:46
Speaker
I mean, I'm aware. Let me stop you right there. What am I saying? Of course you haven't been to the cloud. Hold on, let me have a look. Take an arrow to the knee. Let me guess that tsunami. Somebody stole your sweet roll. Yep, no, all the gagging here. Definitely none. We could just fill the hour with this, couldn't we?
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, actually, for all you listeners out there, you might be thinking, when is the retrospective for Skyrim coming? We bamboozled you. This is our early April Fools episode, so you have been fooled much like the Wabajack and all that, but you know what I mean. We'll let the coogee out the bag, haven't we?
00:01:34
Speaker
pretty much. With the amount of dialogue in Skyrim, we could probably have a whole episode where we simulate a conversation just by using Skyrim lines. You know, you're actually not wrong. I don't think the lovely listeners at home want to hear us keep the mics by trying to recreate the dragon shouts.
00:01:55
Speaker
What do you think about this?
Personal Journeys into Elder Scrolls
00:01:58
Speaker
Very interesting and very philosophical point. But I'm quite curious, jumping away from the memes, the references, the gaffes, the hijinks as it were, how did you actually get into this series? Because as we all know,
00:02:16
Speaker
Skyrim. It is over 10 years old at this point. Yes I know, we're old. Fight me. Don't break my hip. But once you don't break my hip, fight me. But yeah, it's over 10 years old. It is, quite frankly, one of the bedrocks of video games. It is iconic. It has like a thousand different re-releases. But yeah, Adam, how did you get into Skyrim?
00:02:41
Speaker
My first Elder Scrolls game was Oblivion, which I played. I played Oblivion a good few years after its initial release. Was it 2006, its first release? I can't remember when it was first released, but I played it a few years after that. And I liked Oblivion. I really enjoyed exploring the world.
00:02:57
Speaker
and kind of getting into the story and stuff but I reached a point quite early on when you enter one of the first Oblivion Gates which I just found crushingly difficult and it basically just broke my will to continue so I gave up on it there. I didn't bother exploring any more of the series but then I remember hearing when Skyrim was getting released looking a lot of the marketing I got quite excited for it and yeah so I got this game I think a month after it came out I got it towards the end of 2011 so not long after it came out and yeah I honestly just fell in love with it and remain in love with it to this day.
00:03:26
Speaker
would you believe me if I said that this was my very first Elder Scrolls game? No, I could totally believe you because I think that's probably the same for a lot of people. I'm like, this is by far the best selling of the Elder Scrolls series to date. And I said, I only really got into the title before and not even that much, you know, Oblivion didn't make me an Elder Scrolls fan, it was Skyrim. So I can totally believe that this would be the first one you get into.
Skyrim's Impact and Legacy
00:03:48
Speaker
It's a weird thing to think though, because before this, Fallout 3, that came out in 2007, didn't it?
00:03:55
Speaker
yeah 2007, 2008, some time roughly around that time yeah and that was the kind of game before Oblivion of course but that was the kind of game that kind of swept everyone off their feet you know don't get me wrong Elder Scrolls it had a firm grasp on people's mind really didn't it you know you had Morrowinds you had Oblivion as you said both of which are
00:04:19
Speaker
really really like you can't really talk about fantasy epics and gaming without talking about these games especially you know you can't say oh yeah I love this open-world game without thinking oh is it like you know Morrowind is it like Oblivion oh yeah absolutely I mean definitely I think the Elder Scrolls series had a very loyal fan base before Skyrim I think as you were saying it kind of felt like Fallout especially with Fallout 3 obviously Fallout 3 kind of became the
00:04:48
Speaker
Bethesda mainstream in a way. That was, you know, as you say, the one that got a lot of eyes, a lot of eyes on Bethesda and people playing that and then wanting to see more and more of their games. And Skyrim just continued that. But there certainly was a very core group of people who really enjoyed Oblivion and Morrowind. And maybe probably dating back to the first two Elder Scrolls games, Daggerfall, the first one maybe just called the Elder Scrolls.
00:05:09
Speaker
I think it's called the Elder Scrolls Arena. Okay. Do you want to know a fact that's going to make you feel very old? I'll go for it. We are two years older. The series is younger than us.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yes, this series is somehow younger than both of us. Yeah, it came out on March 25th, 1994. Two years. Two years in between. Well, there you go. Do you feel like a skeleton yet, Adam? Pretty much. I mean, I feel much closer to the grave now than I did 15 seconds ago, so thank you.
00:05:46
Speaker
Looking back onto the Fallout point, I always remember going over to one of my friends and we played through like a couple of, I don't want to say levels because it's an open world game, but you know what I mean, we played through Fallout 3 and Fallout 3 has like all the trappings of a game that would entice me normally. You know, it's got the gunplay, it's got the roleplay aspect, it's got the kind of quirky retro theme going on, but I don't
00:06:12
Speaker
know, it was a game that never really hooked me. I've played it, I think it's a good game objectively, but I just, I didn't get into it the same. I can't remember why I got into Skyrim in the first place. I think it was maybe just because I thought this game has been praised to the high heavens, really. Throughout the entirety of 2011, you just hear people say,
00:06:35
Speaker
Skyrim's the best, Skyrim's great and everything, and I think I got it for... I mean, I think I got it the year after. I bought it, I played it, and I never really stopped playing it for a good couple of years, and I just fell in love with the series. I actually... and I know, I know, S. Banks is our lore master. I genuinely dived headfirst into the lore to learn more about the world, bar a few exceptions
00:06:59
Speaker
There are very few games that make me that interested, both in the world and the lore. Did you feel the same way as well when you first started playing this? Oh yeah, I was instantly hooked by this game. It just drew me in and, you know, I know Skyrim has a lot of faults and I'm sure we'll talk about them as the episode goes on, but I really don't care.
00:07:20
Speaker
I really don't care about them at all, because I still find it such an engaging game. I'm on my third proper playthrough of it now, which I started over a year ago now, and I've been playing it every week consistently over the last year, and I still love it. It's my Sunday game now, so every Sunday, use it to that exception.
00:07:37
Speaker
I wake up in the morning, I take my dog downstairs, get him his breakfast. We go out for a nice long walk. We come back. He usually settles down for a kind of mid-morning nap. And then I boot up my Xbox and launch back into Skyrim for an hour or two. And that's been my Sunday, basically for over a year now. And I love it. I absolutely love it. I love diving into the world. I just find it a really engaging game.
00:07:58
Speaker
I still do, 10 years later. But it is quite a timeless game, even though it's been ported to Hell and Back, it's on your granny's toaster, it's on somebody's fridge probably, it's on the PlayStation Vita. Now I'm only kidding, there's no games on the PlayStation Vita, is there? Not that I'm aware of. There's some urban myths out there, but I refuse to believe. Yeah, so next week's episode is going to be PS Vita. Did it exist?
00:08:25
Speaker
OK, no, I'm kidding. This is our first true crime episode, OK? It's like, did it exist? Where did they bury all the E.T. cartridges? I know that's Atari bashing, but you know what? Give us a break, we're older than bloody Elder Scrolls. Atari's like the one thing that's older than us. What is the phrase? Our time is now, old man.
00:08:53
Speaker
Are the future's now old men? I mean considering it is such an iconic game, will we just jump into it?
Gameplay and Character Experiences
00:09:01
Speaker
Let's go, I've got my adventuring gear on so I'm all ready. And I am just going to go away very briefly just to cook a couple of sweet rolls for the journey. Yeah, we will be right back after these messages.
00:09:12
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that talks about topics, from gaming and films to streaming in general interest. Previously on Chatsunami, we discussed Game of the Decade, Deadly Premonition, the romantic thriller, Birdemic, and listen to us get all sappy as we discuss our top five Christmas films. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can find us an anchor, Spotify, YouTube, and opiate podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:09:44
Speaker
We are Beer and Chill Podcast. Podcast where we review TV shows, games, movies and whatever else takes our fancy. So what are you waiting for? If you're a cool kid like us, you're gonna listen to the Beer and Chill Podcast. You can get it anywhere from Spotify all the way to your grandma's radio. My name is Jan. And I'm Craig Yisi. And we are Beer and Chill.
00:10:19
Speaker
So Adam, I've got to ask, and this is a very important question, please don't feel bad, don't feel pressure to answer this, but what type of character did you create in your first playthrough? So I started out with a Nord, and I went straight into the sword and shield fighting combo. Basically, yeah, I did not deviate from it at all, and to be honest, I've been quite bad in all my kind of three big playthroughs of Skyrim. That's
00:10:43
Speaker
That's always how I've started. I've started to slightly branch out a little bit more in more recent playthroughs, but yeah, first one, you know, as Nord, it was all about that sword and shield combo, just mindlessly like hacking my way through while it's swinging wildly. Whatever came near. Was it like Conan the Barbarian then? Pretty much. Pretty much. He said I wore slightly more armour. Ah. Because I'm a coward. I was going to say, you don't have to lie here. You're amongst friends. It's me and my loincloth. Just swinging around. Yeah. So it's just me, you, the loincloth and whoever's listening to this podcast.
00:11:13
Speaker
So what inspired you to do that? Was it just, you know, your standard starting character? You know, I feel like it is that almost that vanilla. What I thought as well, kind of being in Skyrim, I was like, I want to be, I want to be, you know, the native race in Skyrim. And as well, I feel a sword and shield combo is that kind of, is that, is that base starting thing. It's kind of the way to ease you in.
00:11:32
Speaker
especially I didn't have that much experience with RPGs before Skyrim. So it was, I feel if I'd thrown myself into kind of magic and you know, stealth archery, I think I would have been quite out of my depth. Although Skyrim is a very accessible game and I think it's fairly easy to pick up these kind of play styles. But when I first started, I wanted something quite familiar. So I was like, right, you know, sword and shield. I know where I'm at.
00:11:52
Speaker
I mean, it's a good combo. That is something that's great about Skyrim is the fact that you can mix and match these different gameplay styles. Like, can you think of a game, not to put you under pressure, but can you think of a game like that that has that same versatility? I'm sure there are some other RPGs that allow you to do it. I'm definitely racking my old brain to think of something. I know there are some games out there that do have kind of... I mean,
00:12:19
Speaker
I suppose games like Deus Ex and stuff have different playstyles. You can be stealthy, or you can be more action-focused, a bit more hacking. I think where Skyrim might have a slight advantage over others is that it feels fairly easy in a lot of ways to change your playstyle, as you say. So you can maybe start off sword and shield, but you could transition into being an archer, maybe focusing a bit more on stealth.
00:12:44
Speaker
maybe incorporating some magic in there in a way that in other games it's more difficult to do you kind of feel you've locked yourself into a path that does happen as well with Skyrim to an extent because if you try to switch something else you're gonna be a lot lower level so you're not gonna do as much damage and you might be you're probably facing higher leveled enemies it can be a bit tricky but I still find it I found it easier to switch and try new things I can't I'm sure there's something out there and please somebody feel free to correct me but I can't think of any off the top of my head
00:13:09
Speaker
I'm just laughing because I'm thinking back to, I don't know if you've seen this meme where it's like the guy saying, oh boy, I can't wait to go for a two handed playthrough this time. And basically it always reverts back to him being like a stealth archer built in the end because it's just so much easier to play the game as a stealth archer rather than putting yourself into the fray and having to like punch a bear or a dragon or
00:13:36
Speaker
Would you say this is a game when it came out? This is a game, obviously you said it's like your kind of Sunday game, but is this a game you would say you've devoted a lot of hours into since you started playing it? Oh, definitely. I mean, when it first came out, I was obsessed with this game. I think I played it basically every day. I was at university when this came out and I was living in a flat with four other guys and
00:13:57
Speaker
and we had a 360 there and this was basically, this was always on. I was really obsessed with it. So were some other guys in the house. And so it was the mainstay for certainly a good few months. I mean, I know I really devoted myself to this, so I'd finished basically the main quest lines. I haven't shown the same dedication. It's not a game I said that I play every day now, but I kind of like the way I have now. I've still devoted, you know, obviously over a year.
00:14:22
Speaker
to my current playthrough, which is a lot of time, but I like having it as just the game I play once a week, rather than every single day I like having some other games that I maybe play more regularly and it's nice to kind of just ease into Skyrim for a couple hours, you know, a couple hours each week, and just, you know, do a couple quests, explore some places. My devotion to it is slightly shit. I'm still very devoted to it, but it's just changed, I think, to, you know, to reflect, I guess, a different part, a different stage in my life now, I guess.
00:14:46
Speaker
Before I came onto this episode, I decided to check my Steam library to see how many hours I've actually played of this game. Before I reveal that fact, it is my most played game, but do you want to guess how many hours I've actually played this according to Steam?
00:15:03
Speaker
God. I'm gonna guess over 50. Oh yeah. I'm just gonna play this and say it's not something ridiculous like over a thousand hours or anything like that. Are you into triple figures? Yep. Triple figures. It's in that rate. 100%? Higher. 200? Higher. 250? 246 hours. Oh. Need to get those into 4. Need to round it up. I need to start streaming that right now.
00:15:28
Speaker
Honestly, this game, although I'm about to say this game didn't, you know, consume my life even though, you know, I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two hundred and I've got two
00:15:52
Speaker
of Tamriel, the world or rather the continent that Skyrim is based in. And it is weird how it kind of went downhill from there, because I don't know whether it was because I was interacting with other Skyrim fans, like I've got a friend who the reason I started talking to this person was because she played Skyrim, I played Skyrim, and then I kind of started to learn that there was such a, you know, like an invested community. Some more invested than others, but that's a topic for
00:16:19
Speaker
other day but the main thing was it was like you were getting to talk about the lore, you were getting to kind of carve out you know your own like slice of story and history with Skyrim. You could very well be the dragonborn, you could be this mythical figure who sucks out dragon souls and you know skips along Skyrim or you could be this warrior who takes sides during a civil war or you could just be like a peaceful farmer who just buys a house and
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, just messes about. Don't get me wrong, some roleplay aspects are a bit more optimized than others. We'll come to that, but I mean, for me, do you want to guess what my first character was? Were you all about that magic?
00:17:05
Speaker
not really no I did try but the bow and arrow slash crossbow slash I mean I've been known to have a war hammer every so often because I'm an absolute psycho and nobody expects like when I jump out of nowhere and go yeah yes land them with a dilemma hammer but no no no what character do you think I chose for my first playthrough oh did you go did you go not to be insensitive here but you go under the freak races
00:17:31
Speaker
not to be insensitive but there's those freaks did you go i'm now just trying to like do argonian and kajit okay you feel more like an argonian to me than kajit i'll go argonian hess you are right hey there we go now i chose them because
00:17:49
Speaker
This is then the Satsunami justifies himself for an extra hour. This
Elder Scrolls Series Comparisons
00:17:53
Speaker
was going to be an hour long episode. This is now going to be two hours because I'm, nah, I'm all again. Yeah, because initially I remember looking it up, you know, before I played and people were saying Argonians wear the easiest race because apparently they're immune to poison, they can breathe underwater, you know, those kind of things. And I thought, okay, well, that's going to be useful. And then
00:18:15
Speaker
after playing throughs an Argonian, you know that way when you play through as a particular character or race or things like that, and you just get so attached to the lore and everything around them? Did you feel like that when you were playing throughs your Nord? Oh yeah, totally. I found it very difficult to not be a Nord. I think I reinforced myself. I didn't force myself too far away because I still played the other human races like Imperial or Redguard, but I found out I was like, I just want to be a Nord. I know exactly what you mean.
00:18:42
Speaker
I mean I've tried the other races and you know that way it's just it feels weird. It feels wrong almost because I did play a Nord called Jim McFreedom who was like this brave heart looking guy. He was a Nord who carried a clay mower everywhere and whenever they killed someone they would drop a thistle on their body.
00:19:02
Speaker
level of roleplay. Oh it was so much fun. See like if you get invested in that way and just do really stupid things like that. It was amazing, it was so much fun. And I think I stopped because I accidentally triggered the Dark Brotherhood storyline. Just for anyone who doesn't know, to activate the Dark Brotherhood storyline. So this is like where you can either become an assassin or not. I remember I was playing as Jim McFreedom, so imagine like a buffer version of Mel Gibson probably.
00:19:31
Speaker
you know like this kind of buff Scott with the like the war paint the you know the blue war paint in these ways and he's walking around and to do it you have to kill the owner of this orphanage who's being like really horrible to these orphans and after you fall asleep you end up getting kidnapped by them the dark brotherhood and you either get the choice to join them or not.
00:19:50
Speaker
And I always remember that, going to the orphanage and being like, Jim McFreedom doesn't approve of this action. Drawing my, when I say drawing, you know, as if it's like a one-handed motion, taking out the long sword slash claymore and just, yeah. It was a dark day in Riften, that's all I'm saying, it was a very very dark day. Especially for Jim McFreedom, but kind of after that I stopped playing his character, I should really
00:20:13
Speaker
play him again. Anyway, yeah so I played the Argonians and then I learned about their history. History. Only true Argonian. Only true Argonian fans, oh no.
00:20:28
Speaker
half of the people listening to this will be Elder Scrolls fans and go, ahhh, I get that. And the other half will be like, what the hell is he talking about? And I'm not going to explain it because this would be an hour of longer than it should be. After that, so I remember I played as an Argonian called, I think I called him Tempest. I don't know why, I just thought, oh, Tempest's cool name. And then
00:20:48
Speaker
because of that, that kind of trickled down to the previous games. So as I said Skyrim was my first field of schools game. I went back to Oblivion first. I didn't complete it. I wasn't a big fan of Oblivion compared to Skyrim because as you know that way you're kind of reverse engineering yourself.
00:21:06
Speaker
Like if you play like a new FPS game and then you go back to like GoldenEye or something and it's just night and day completely different. And don't get me wrong it's still like really well done but I played as an Argonian they are called, I think I called them walks with shadows or something like that, and a role-played them is like this demon hunter and he was meant to be like tempest ancestor who kicked down doors with the oblivion gaze and it's like knock
00:21:31
Speaker
knock who's here the lizard nothing is more terrifying than seeing like a tiny lizard run with a giant war hammer he'd like get back here and then i tried to play motorwind i really tried i could not get into that game at all the combat's a lot more different if you played no wait i've not tried it but i know it is quite radically different to you know what skyrim is and
00:21:55
Speaker
Unfortunately I think it's maybe one of these games that is of its time unfortunately. It's very much like RNG combat where it's like you hit someone and the system rolls whether or not you hit them or not and I was trying to punch a rat for ages and I could not kill him and I was just like yeah no this isn't the game for me so I was like yeah.
00:22:15
Speaker
turn it off. Yeah, looking back onto Skyrim though, what would you say was one of your most memorable moments in the game? Because don't get me wrong, we could fill up a whole episode of that, but what was one of your favourite moments? Oh, it's so true. I was just laughing there because we literally could. I'm sure we could just do a whole episode about memorable and favourite moments. I think for me, there's two that stand out, and it's nothing to do with any story, any quest or anything. It's from my first playthrough, very early on in my first playthrough.
00:22:44
Speaker
of the game and I just remember them being moments I was just like wow I just I just marveled at this game I thought I love this game not long after so as you start Skyrim you're basically about to be you're slated to be executed but then the dragons show up and you're able to escape and then you're kind of you kind of get a chance to then explore the world if you want you have some markers you know if you want to follow a main kind of path so I was following the main sort of path and I went to this little village did a few things there and I was told to go to the nearest city called Whiterun
00:23:12
Speaker
to speak to the Jarl. So I set off on my way exploring through really enjoying my time and then I came to I came to kind of the edge of a edge of a cliff down below there was like kind of wide sweeping plains and everything and then I saw the city of Whiterun just kind of sitting on this kind of hill in the middle of these plains. It looked very much like Ederus from Lord of the Rings Two Towers which is the capital of Rohan and it just looked so much like that and I just thought wow it was just absolutely marvelous. I was like oh god that is that is gorgeous.
00:23:37
Speaker
I mean, I know the visuals are dated now, but I still think it's gorgeous. The world looks great when it does these kind of epic panoramas. And I was just like, wow, I just was absolutely blown away and just, I was just so amazed. And then later on in my same playthrough, I was exploring, I can't remember where I was exploring, but I was going around, it came to nighttime. I remember looking up and then it was the kind of Northern Lights.
00:23:57
Speaker
style of Aurora Borealis through the sky and I just remember thinking it looked absolutely gorgeous and I was just like I just felt it just felt to me almost like this real world and I just I was just I just remember being like I'm so I can't wait to see what else I'm gonna find so I think for me those are the two moments cuz they just really drew me in and just made me just fall in love with this game
00:24:13
Speaker
I completely agree with the Aurora Borealis moment. I was actually thinking that myself. I remember the first time, I think it was when the DLC came out where you can build your house like in the middle of nowhere. I remember like going outside, you know, could you play through the game? You've become like this very hardy soldier, or not soldier, but you become this very hardy adventurer who has seen the world as slain dragons and now it's kind of the time to wind down and
00:24:40
Speaker
I really just take in the scenery. Again, I do agree. Some of the stuff looks dated now, but I still think for what it is, a lot of the visuals still hold up. It was just beautiful looking into the night sky for the first time and just seeing the moon and thinking, wow,
00:24:56
Speaker
Not to get too sappy, but kind of to be like, ahh, I'm home.
Memorable Moments and Quests
00:25:00
Speaker
In terms of memorable moments, one of them, I'll give you some funny ones, but one of the ones I always remember was, I think it was after the, yeah, it was after the Dawnguard expansion, which introduced like, I think, was it vampires? Yeah, it was the vampires, the Empire Hunters and Dawnguard.
00:25:17
Speaker
It's an amazing expansion by the way, but I remember one time I was just riding through Skyrim, minding my own business, and then two seconds later I'll go, here is this like fiend. Help! Help! And I thought, great, it's banned it, so I drew my sword and I was like, okay, what's gonna go on here? So, of course, low on the hold.
00:25:36
Speaker
I look down and it's just like these two vampires about to mug me. So I'm like, okay, it's Dovah King time. I crack my knuckles ready to let loose. And then all of a sudden, a group of spiders start attacking them. And I'm like, okay, this is weird. So the spiders start attacking. They're fighting. It's like a three for all. Then a bear comes out of nowhere.
00:25:56
Speaker
starts attacking them and I'm like okay this can not get any weirder. What's that shadow up above me? And two seconds later a dragon just thumps down and I was like okay I'm gonna go now.
00:26:09
Speaker
So these guys who thought they were getting like an easy score, I was just like, eh, no, I'm out of here. The other moment, and this is a bit more sentimental, but the other moment I absolutely love is see the side quest where you're walking through the woods and you meet an abandoned dog.
00:26:27
Speaker
You meet an abandoned dog and you find a cabin nearby that says, it's something like it says, oh the owner has passed away and everything, please look after this dog. You end up just getting this pet to follow you around and I love that dog, I'm not gonna lie. I was just so touched that one of my favourite moments with him was I always remember going into Markarth for the first time. Do you remember what happened when you stepped through?
00:26:52
Speaker
So when you step through, there's this event that triggers where a guy tries to stab a woman in the market. Now, depending on your actions, you can either help her or let it play out. I had no idea what was happening because it's like an old dwemer city, technically dwarves, but we won't get into that, but I came in and I was like, wow, this is a beautiful city. And then all of a sudden I looked round and my dog was attacking
00:27:17
Speaker
this guy and I was like oh shit oh shit I am in so much trouble I am in so much trouble what is what are they gonna do and then the guard says wow thank you for saving that woman and I'm like ah no problem
00:27:29
Speaker
It's like, hey, thumbs up. I have no idea what I did there, but I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna take that one. Why are my dogs laughing in the background? Like, oh, is it Murtly, Dick Dastardly's dog? No, those were definite with some of my highlights.
Skyrim's Re-releases and Modding Community
00:27:45
Speaker
There's just so many moments you can look back into. There's so many moments you can look back and think, wow, this game really stuck with me. I don't know how much I think it deserves like 50 reader lists, though. What are your kind of thoughts on that?
00:27:59
Speaker
I mean, financially, I get it. I mean, it still sells. And I don't know. I mean, I so I've bought two copies of it. I bought it when it first came out for my Xbox 360. And then I recently picked up the what I say recently over over a year ago now, but I picked up the legacy edition. I can't remember what it's called, but the one that was on came onto the Xbox one, I guess, PlayStation four and things like that. They had the core game and then also put in the three big three expansion packs. I think it's called the legacy edition. I might be wrong.
00:28:27
Speaker
I don't know, I mean, it's a bit of a joke now, it's a bit of a running gag that Skyrim does appear on everything and I'm sure it's going to appear on other things, but then again, other games like Grand Theft Auto 5 appear on everything now, mostly, so I don't know, I mean, I like the option of it being there, I like the option that I can get it if I want, and I get why they do it, you know, so I've not got a particular problem.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm in the same camp as well. I think I bought the disc initially, but of course my latest PC does not have a disc drive. Thank you Landscape of Gaming. But no jokes aside, obviously I can't use it anymore, but I can still install it remotely somehow, I don't know. But I ended up having to buy the legacy edition because my old version doesn't work.
00:29:10
Speaker
anymore. I don't know why. Like it kept crashing. I was actually going to stream it on Twitch and then right before the stream, like I opened it and it was working perfectly fine. And I was like, oh great, I can't wait to play this on stream. And then two seconds later when I tried to open it up, it kept crashing. And I was like,
00:29:29
Speaker
fantastic. Well we just talk about the elephant in the room that is weirdly glitching in the corner. It's true, I mean it's a thing you have to talk about I think with any Bethesda game isn't it? You're originally gonna have to talk about the glitches in the books. There's a lot of glitches in this game, whether it's like for fun, whether it's like
00:29:46
Speaker
game-breaking, there are just loads of glitches. By extension, would you say that the modding community have played a role in extending the life of this game? They've fixed the game! They've done a bit of job in Bethesda, in many respects, in actually fixing the game, you know, and actually making it a better experience in many ways, so without a doubt.
00:30:09
Speaker
I think the modding community kind of speaks to the legacy and you know the impact of Skyrim that it's still regularly you know I think it's there's still a lot of mods coming out for it and there's some fantastic ones as well I mean there's I've I've not really dabbled into the because I had it on console so I never really and of course you can do it now I am able to put mods on so maybe I'm gonna have to play around with some of those but I know there's some that are very highly regarded things like the Forgotten City and other ones which you know
00:30:33
Speaker
subsequently that group who made the Forgotten City went on to make their own game, which is also fantastic by the way, I highly recommend. But yeah, so it just, I think it just again speaks to the impact of Skyrim. It's only people were invested to devote their time to make these free mods and everything and that it still goes on today. Just speaks really to the legacy of it. As I kind of alluded to there being a steam player of this game, I played this on PC.
00:30:55
Speaker
I don't think I have played it in the console. When I first started dabbling into the modding scene, I think the very first mod I had was how to stop the tail clipping through like armour and things like that. And it was literally just like a tail remover mod. Works perfectly, by the way. Works absolutely fantastic. Then I started going into crazier things like, you know Warhammer? I'm aware that they've dabbled. Oh yeah. You know the chainsaw sword that they've got?
00:31:22
Speaker
this is kind of a running joke as well but it's like whenever you want something in Skyrim to be like lower friendly but you don't know how to make it lower friendly just make it a Dwemer artifact so it's like the Dwemer's had guns or the Dwemer's had like an automatic
00:31:39
Speaker
Crossbow, which I never got that mod to work. I tried my best, so I was like kicking down the doors like a bounty hunter, like reach for the skies and shoot. One of my favourite mods, and I think it was on Nexus, so you know the website that hosts a lot of them. There was this particular mod
00:31:58
Speaker
that they had called the TARDIS mod. So all the Doctor Who fans will be cheering in the background but it was basically a mod to introduce the TARDIS from Doctor Who. Basically it appeared in Whiterun, like you'd be walking by the cows and then all of a sudden it would just appear and then you would go inside and one of my
00:32:16
Speaker
favourite things was it had a button inside where you could press it and it would teleport you to a random location in Skyrim. I honestly think that was one of the coolest things ever. That's why I kept going back. I pretended I was just like a traveller where I was like, I'd press the button. I could honestly go anywhere. I remember pressing the button once, going outside and thinking,
00:32:37
Speaker
there's nothing here. And then I turned round and there was a legend to do dragons right behind me, or ancient dragon or something. Some like a really powerful dragon and I'm like, shit, get me out, get me out, get me
Factions and Storylines
00:32:48
Speaker
out. I've never pressed a button so fast in my life. Speaking of travelling, we're going to talk about the factions in this game. Is there any particular faction you liked?
00:32:58
Speaker
I really like the Dark Brotherhood. I think that is maybe one of the best quest lines of the main one. I think you've got a, it's a nice kind of diverse group, but it's also quite a small group as well. So you kind of get to know all the members. I like the kind of secrecy. I like the way you kind of get introduced to them first. It's really cool. And as you say, being like, you know, being kicked, cause you kind of stumble on, do you basically take an assassination contract from the Dark Brotherhood kind of by accident? And as you say, you get kidnapped and stuff. And I really liked the introduction there and kind of finding their secret layer and everything.
00:33:28
Speaker
because I think it's a really, you kind of build up to this big assassination of the Emperor. I think it's really fun to do. I like the Thieves Guild as well. I kind of like their storyline. I like some of the members in it. It's not as good a storyline. It's not that good a quest line, I think, but I do quite like it. I like the Civil War storyline. Again, I don't think it's going to be the best, but what I like about it, and I think actually Skyrim did actually a really good job with this, is that Skyrim is basically embroiled in the Civil War when you start the game.
00:33:55
Speaker
between the Imperial Legion, you know, the military, the army of the Empire, the rural Skyrim, and then between a faction called the Stormcloaks, who are trying to basically separate Skyrim off from the Empire and make it its own province or country or whatever. And when you start the game, you're about to be executed by the Empire and you can basically escape with some Stormcloaks and then you get a choice later on to choose which side you want to join in the Civil War if you want to take part in it. And initially, so obviously, because the Empire tried to basically execute you,
00:34:25
Speaker
you're naturally inclined to join the Stormcloaks. So it seems like quite, you know, it almost feels like you'd have to kind of really break character to join the Empire. But as you learn more about the Stormcloaks, you learn more, there's a really dark kind of side to them and that they are very, they're very racist towards elves and very uncompromising. And they're actually quite
00:34:43
Speaker
especially their leader as well. They're not like evil people. Well, that's maybe to an extent, but they're quite like a more complex faction. So you're kind of like, oh, I'm not sure I want to align myself with them while the Empire are much more inclusive, you know, for their fault. So it's, you know, much more inclusive faction. So I think Skyrim did a really good job with those two, making it an actual choice and not making it just kind of a one dimensional thing.
00:35:04
Speaker
which I've had some problems with in previous Bethesda games. I feel like in Fallout 3 is quite bad for that. I feel there's like one faction, the Brotherhood of Steel, who is just like, just a good guys. There's not really any kind of depth to them or anything, but I like this guy who kind of added depth to these two main factions. So they'd probably be the ones, I think definitely to our Brotherhood though is probably my favorite. Okay, here's the awkward talk of the night.
00:35:24
Speaker
I do not like the dark brown. No, let me reiterate, it's annoying because there's not really any good faction if that makes sense. There's the companions, but I'm going to be honest, I didn't buy into it. I did not like the companions whatsoever. Did you ever do the companion? Yeah, I like the twist. I like elements of it, but it feels like one of the more underbaked. I think it feels like maybe the underbaked of the main factions.
00:35:51
Speaker
See, this is the problem, and don't get me wrong, obviously with a game this big they can't do everything, but it's like if you decide to side with the Dark Brotherhood or the Thieves Guild by extension, you get this really cool storyline about betrayal and
00:36:07
Speaker
learning the meaning of family and set your own fast and few days reference in the air. But if you decide to turn them all in, there's literally nothing. There's one cut scene where it's like, well not cut scene, but there's one interaction where it's like, go kill them all. Okay, so you run and you kill them all. Okay, that's it. It is done. And you never hear from them again. And you're like, ah, son of a...
00:36:30
Speaker
I do like the Dawnguard though, I thought their interactions were really cool and I thought Dawnguard as a whole was great because it's a fact you could either choose to be either a vampire of course or a vampire hunter. I don't know because I didn't really spend as much time as a vampire but you got to explore like both sides of the campaign if you know what I mean. You know it wasn't just like oh kill the vampires, oh the vampires are dead by. Same with Dragonborn, that extension was
00:36:59
Speaker
phenomenal, where you could go back to Morrowind. It's Morrowind, isn't it? You go back to... It's an island. You can see Morrowind and the Red Mountain in the distances. I think it's technically... I think it's one of these things that kind of sits in between Skyrim and Morrowind. And in that whole bar a couple of things, but that whole questline was absolutely fantastic. I loved that. But
00:37:20
Speaker
There wasn't a lot of balance between a lot of the core campaigns. As I said, for the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, if you decide to stop them, you know, that's it. There's no real kind of payoff or anything. The blades as well, the blades annoyed me. How did you feel about them? Again, it felt just a bit underbaked. It was one of these things that I just... There is some interesting, there's an interesting dynamic between them and the Greybeards, but I don't think the game really bothers to explore it all that much.
00:37:49
Speaker
So yeah, I look at them kind of the same as the companions. I like some of the ideas but I just don't think the game really bothered to flesh them out fully. One of the things that annoyed me was see at the very end once you complete the main storyline and there's a moment where you basically get a choice whether you side with the blades or the greybeards.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, but Parthinax. Yeah, it's like either you have to kill Mario, I mean, sorry, Parthinax. Fun fact of the night, Parthinax, who is the dragon in this game, well, one of these dragons, of course, the dragon. Now, he's one of these dragons who teaches you how to use your dragon voice. You get a choice
00:38:27
Speaker
as to whether or not you want to kill him and then do more crazy things with the blades or you can not do anything and then it comes to kind of stand still like there's actually mods to fix this where it's basically like just an extra dialogue option where it says well i don't care what you think i'm the dragon morn suck it up and they go okay even though they're like so obsessed with killing all the dragons and i don't know i i didn't like that bit at all i just thought it was like
00:38:56
Speaker
unnecessary. But speaking of unnecessary and fun facts I know you've got a couple of facts as well about this game prepared. I've got one in particular that I've been keen to share because it's it highly disturbed me and honestly we're recording this on a Saturday so the next day will be my Skyrim playthrough day so I'm a little bit worried to go back in but anywho so I'll be interested if you know this one or not. You know how in Skyrim when you buy a house some of them have kind of areas where you can store weapons and armor
00:39:24
Speaker
oh i know what you yeah you know about the mannequins yep the mannequins yep yeah for those who don't know so a lot of your houses have um areas where you can say you can store weapons and armor and you get these art mannequins where you can put armor on apparently what these models are is they're actually like regular kind of regular nords who'd be living like in the city or wherever but they've been reskinned to look like mannequins and basically just frozen in place
00:39:47
Speaker
But, however, apparently there is a glitch that means sometimes, because they are, you know, characters, their heads will move sometimes, and also people have said that the mannequins have started moving around, which is highly disturbing, and, you know, many horror films and games have played on this exact concept. So, honestly, I'm going to be quite freaked out. I might not visit my houses for a while, to be honest. I might just not give them a visit for a while until I've calmed down. But that was the fact that I discovered today that I was a bit like,
00:40:14
Speaker
Also, apparently as well, Winnie the Pooh's voice actor is
Combat and Challenges
00:40:17
Speaker
in Skyrim. Quite a few points. Yeah, I tend to read that. I thought, wow, he really gets around, doesn't he?
00:40:23
Speaker
You gotta pay your bills. Gotta get that honey. Gotta get it. See, going back to the mannequin thing, if you wanna really not sleep tonight, there's like a fan video of that where someone goes into the house and they all start moving and following the guy around and he goes upstairs and he sees the body's on the floor and thinks, oh, it is really well done but it's just terrifying. Yeah, the mannequin thing is creepy as hell. It kinda puts you off having mannequins in your house, to be honest.
00:40:51
Speaker
I mean, I was a bit off already, but now I'm extra. I was like, first of all, I was a bit bemused. Now I'm bloody scared. But I do agree. It's too good to even think of. Let's move on. We kind of touched a few negatives of this game, but I think maybe one thing that definitely has not aged well, I don't think was good at the time with a lot of the combat, especially I feel, especially kind of melee combat is pretty, I don't want to say dreadful, but it's not good. It wasn't good at the time and it's really not good now.
00:41:20
Speaker
especially when you see other RPGs have done. We look at something like The Witcher, you know, or something like that that's built actually quite robust combat. The kind of melee combat in Skyrim is basically just mad flailing, to be honest. Especially as well, if you ever engage in any kind of fistfights, you engage in any kind of fistfights, it's just literally right hook.
00:41:37
Speaker
right hook right hook right hook until the person's health bar goes down so there's i think there's maybe a lot of people also go to archery as well because archery probably feels the best of the combat styles so yeah i think i think it is a problem with the game but again it's not something i it maybe bothers me to an extent but i don't particularly mind it that much because i'm just so engrossed in the world and some of the stories and everything but i don't know how do you feel about it but
00:41:57
Speaker
I know exactly what you mean. I always said earlier that this game is very versatile when it comes to its combat. You know, you can either be a magic user or you can be an archer. You can kind of mix and match the both of them. But at the same time, those particular skills are very limited. There's not really anything outside of, oh, you shoot the arrow, oh, you shoot the arrow. That's it. I mean, you get the crossbow. That's sort of varied up.
00:42:24
Speaker
I mean, obviously, you know, some people might be listening to you and think, oh, what else that do? What would you do with a sword? Or, you know, I mean, you get the finishing moves, don't get me wrong, which are kind of different. But I see what you mean about the unarmed combat, because there was an article. I don't actually know if you have read that article where it was a guy who played through this game and they only punched people.
00:42:45
Speaker
and they completed the game and I think that's so cool and I did try that initially I just got bored I'm gonna be honest I just got so bored it's one of these challenges that when you read about it you think oh that was amazing but just so boring I would do a challenge if I thought it was interesting but if I get bored of it I'm like well nah I'm not gonna finish punching bandits for ages although it was quite funny because I played as a Kijeet which I think they've got like the best
00:43:13
Speaker
base punching skills. They got caught up amazing. Yeah, like Argonians do as well but I think Kijeet have like a advantage. I don't know how it works but it's one of those two races anyway but it's just the thought of like you know the first bandit bridge you come to where you're going down the road and the bandit stop you and they're like oh you have to pay the toll to get by. Two seconds later you have like a bandit running across the bridge and just this angry cat man running with his fist.
00:43:42
Speaker
as if I'm gonna get you. I'm gonna get you. I'm gonna suplex you off this damn building. Okay, here's a question for you though. Who's your favourite villain type or enemy type? Oh, that's a good question. Because I'm gonna say I do not appreciate the spiders. I never used to mind them but the older I get, the more terrifying they are.
00:44:02
Speaker
That's fair enough, I don't mind the spiders too much. The enemies that I always dread fighting are the Falmer, because you're getting so poisoned and everything. They're quite creepy, I think they're quite a creepy looking one. Also some of the Dwemer enemies, especially like your good old Centurion, who'll come and just like steamy to death and just like hammer you. I always quite enjoy the Draugr. I don't know why, I feel like they have quite a cool look to them. I especially like the way the Draugr Deathlords look.
00:44:27
Speaker
They look similar to a heavy metal album cover. They get a little bit repetitive because you fight them a lot. But I still quite like the way they look and everything. So yeah, I'll probably... I loved fighting dragons the first time around. I think that first playthrough, when dragons randomly show up and stuff, it's so epic. I feel now that dragons are like, oh my god, this is an annoyance now. It's an inconvenience to stop me from getting to what I want to do. Yeah, so I'll stick with it. I'll go with the Draugr.
00:44:52
Speaker
I was agreeing with the dragon point. The first time I played through it, I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is epic. You've got the music that swells in the background as you have the one guy in the background going, Dragonborn, Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin. It goes on. It was so cool. But I think it peaked for me when I was beating up a dragon.
00:45:10
Speaker
And then I thought, I wonder if I could take this toy sword and kill this dragon. Cut to a few minutes later and I indeed got like the finishing move when I like drove it into the dragon's head. And then I went home and gave it to my son and said, here you go son. This is your future weapon.
00:45:28
Speaker
Which I thought in a way, I thought that was quite a nice role play moment when I was passing it down. After a minute, I do like the skeletons purely for the fact that they just crumble right away. Yeah, because people kept saying, oh, they're creepy and they're weird, but it's like one arrow and they're down. Well, a couple, but you're like, what's scary about these
Role-playing and Immersion
00:45:50
Speaker
guys? Imagine being raised from the dead and they're just like, oh, well, whoops.
00:45:55
Speaker
Yeah back to the dead. I don't like the witches though or any like any kind of project yeah like any projectile magic I hate it because they always get me and I'm always having to chug potions and eat cheese wheels and I'm like you son of a bitch I just want to explore. Would you say that you're more of a role player or would you say you're more focused on the gameplay? Ooh it's a good question I think
00:46:23
Speaker
I think my first playthrough, I think I was more role-playing. I think now the way I play, I kind of, I feel like I almost play like a Dragonborn with ADHD, and I kind of just go off and do different things. I'm like, I know Alduin's about to destroy the world, and you know, I know he just asked me the Emperor, and the vampires wanted to destroy the sun, and everything, but I'm like, but you know, I need to deliver this letter.
00:46:45
Speaker
I feel that's important now or you know I want to go get these herbs for somebody I guess I'm not really role-playing in that sense anymore I'm just kind of doing what I want to do now you know what I feel like I want to do at the time and I think that's one of Skyrim's real strengths is that I feel you can maybe at points you'll feel bogged down in a particular quest line you're like oh it just becomes a bit of a drag but there's so many options there's so many other things to do and you might be doing the same activities you know a lot of time but at least it's for different people you probably go to different places so I feel that there's quite a lot of
00:47:14
Speaker
latitude in a way that, you know, you can switch up what you're doing, which is, with the scribes, it kind of prevents that, it staves off that kind of boredom that you might find in other games with only kind of one storyline. And if I could just as a brief point, just because you brought up something when you were talking about the, Define the Dragons and everything, you talked about the music. The music in this game is stellar. It's one of the, it's one of the best soundtracks I think in any game.
00:47:33
Speaker
still. It's from that opening like Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, you know, that track, to some, to the one, there's one called The Streets of Whiterun, which is probably my favourite one, which is a great thing, and there's great ones in the inns and everything in taverns that you visit, like the soundtrack is phenomenal.
00:47:48
Speaker
like it's just so good. I'm just trying to think of the names. There was The Road, I think this one called The Road Less Traveled, which is like the kind of standard one when you're walking and nothing's happening and that's probably the base points because you get a bit of downtime. There's The One They Fear, which I think is the one that plays during the dragon encounters. That is fantastic, like all of it is fantastic. The music is incredible, the music is absolutely phenomenal and it does kind of build that
00:48:18
Speaker
you know like if you want to be a role player you know it really builds those kind of feelings of oh I'm the dragonborn or oh I'm just I think you're a jewel with a war hammer. Don't look at me funny. It's like little Billy don't look at me.
00:48:33
Speaker
Because I always remember people kind of scoffing and turning their nose up when the DLC was announced, because obviously Dawnguard came out, everyone loved it. And then there was the housing DLC, Parthire, and nobody really seemed to take to that as much, even though it was like a kind of smaller DLC update.
00:48:52
Speaker
It was alright but the main kind of crux was the fact you could build your own home there in Skyrim rather than buying it in a city. You could get married and have a... I mean I know you could get married in the base game but it's like get married, you could adopt children and things. You could really like make up a family. Did you ever do that out of curiosity?
00:49:14
Speaker
for your character. I've never married. This is a bit of roleplaying. I was like, no, I want to, I'm going to do all my quests and then, you know, I'm going to settle down to the married lives. I've never married in the game. I actually just recently in my recent play for Adopted, a child, I was just just before I went off to fight Alduin. I was just like, you know what, in case I don't come back, I'm going to adopt this child. I mean, maybe it's terrible to adopt a child and then instantly maybe go off and make them an orphan again straight away. It's like if Alduin kills me, I was like, at least there'll be somebody to inherit everything.
00:49:41
Speaker
a weird bit of roleplaying so I only did that recently but it's a quite cool feature and I do like, you know, it adds more depth to this world and that's one thing I think I really appreciate about Skyrim is that it's a huge world but it doesn't really feel empty in a way that a lot of other games of the open worlds often you're just like, this is just, this is just, you know, faff.
00:50:01
Speaker
You know, it's just distance to travel and nothing's really going on. I feel like there's always so much in Skyrim's landscape, people to meet, places to explore, things to do.
World-building and Quests
00:50:10
Speaker
And that's one of the one of the great things about Skyrim as well is just stumbling on new quests. You might be doing something, exploring a dungeon or exploring a ruin or whatever, and you just happen to come across. You might come across somebody in that place. You might come across a letter.
00:50:22
Speaker
or something and it starts with a completely different quest, you know, it's really good at kind of just being like, Oh, are you giving you new things to do and everything? And there's a lot of things, lots of great detail as well. There's lots of things you can unearth about people and places because you might come to a place and be like, Oh, this is a bit strange and you can find out a bit more.
00:50:38
Speaker
Just going and circling back to Markarth, which I think is one of the best-looking cities, as you say, built into this cliff face with all the Dwemer ruins. You can meet a couple of different suspicious people in there. There's one woman who talks about losing her husband and everything, and there's a guy out front selling dogs, and there's a butcher in the marketplace just as you enter the town. And then, spoiler warning here,
00:51:03
Speaker
haven't played this particular quest line so skip ahead like 20 seconds but you can go a quest line you find out they're all cannibals it adds this like detail to it you know and then i love going up to them afterwards and it'd be like oh hey weren't you at that cannibal feast i'm like shh keep it down
00:51:18
Speaker
out public but it's this great kind of build, great world building and just great fleshing out to lots of the characters which I really I think Skyrim does so well. Yeah that is true I mean look at cities like Winterholm as well. Do you remember in Winterholm they've even got their I think it's like a murder mystery plot like going on? It's so good. So you put on like a trench coat and you know you put on your best column bow.
00:51:40
Speaker
You've got your best columbal impression that you're just like, you're telling me that you were in the market at this time. Okay, okay, I'll be on my way. Just one more thing, sir. You do realise the market's not open today. I actually think I'd remember I found out the killer by accident because a randomly picked pocket tore it. And I was like, yeah, and I was like, oh. I had my hands deep into the guy's pockets. I look up at him, he looks down at me, and I'm like, huh. Well, this is a fine hound you do.
00:52:10
Speaker
Is that incriminating evidence in your pocket where you just have been a samey? It was incriminating evidence. I ran so fast. That was such a good storytelling. And I think that's like one of the great things. It's as you said, each city has like a distinctive personality. You've got Whiterun, which is as you said, it looks like the city from Rohan in Word of the Rings. You've got Markarth, which is the Dwemer city, you know, so it's very ancient.
00:52:37
Speaker
and you know it's got all the old architecture and all the old things like that. You've got um one town which of course is a lot more Nordic, traditional, Riften. You've got other ones. I really don't like Riften, I'm sorry. I know that's where 90% of the game happens but
00:52:55
Speaker
Okay, no, not 90%, but you know, you've got the thieves guild, you've got Greta, the terrible, or whatever her name is. Why she put that on a resume, I don't know, before becoming the head of an orphanage. The one thing I don't like, kind of going back to the marriage point, is there is a woman in the town.
00:53:12
Speaker
called, I think it's Mio, The Lioness. Although I really liked her, like I married her in one of my playthroughs because I thought, you know, her like beliefs align with mine. I'm an upstanding citizen, I don't like the Thieves Guild, she wants to get rid of the Thieves Guild. It's a shame there was no quest to expand on that or anything, which I thought, that's rubbish. But if you marry her, then the guy that she's saved that keeps following her around actually comes to live with you.
00:53:41
Speaker
I don't know if that's a glitch. Well, it's Bethesda, of course, it's a glitch. Yeah, so there is a crowd. It's like a weird sitcom where it's like the Dragonborn, your wife, me all. The third guy who's just like, oh, you're out of ginger snaps. And it's like, you leave my biscuits alone. You don't deserve the biscuits. You're not the Dragonborn. I have to admit, some things in the game do break your immersion. I think it was something you were touching on earlier, but it's like,
00:54:07
Speaker
especially for the marriage options. So this is quite interesting. See if you marry someone who is a shopkeeper in the game, then they set up a shop in your home and then they'll give you like presents and things and they'll give you like money that you earn. Well sorry, you earned. They earned. On your behalf.
00:54:26
Speaker
But other than that, they kind of just linger around. It's like, you just don't do anything. He's trying to interact and it's just kind of the same, oh, would you like to buy something? As if it's like a normal shop interaction. But then you can, of course, marry people who, you know, they can go on adventures with them and things like that. They can also be kidnapped. Did you know that? I did not know that at all. They can be kidnapped by bandits. That happened. I can't remember who it was, but this is terrible. I can't remember which wife it was.
00:54:54
Speaker
and which played through. It was different characters. I'm going to preface that. It was different characters. So I remember the first time that happened and I got my trusty dog and I was like, okay, we're going to kick some ass. So we broke down the doors of the band to keep waiting. I say gun down, you know, we got a crossbow and, you know, shot them all down and we saved our, you know, wife and everything. It was great. And then it just kind of went back to normal, that normal cycle of, are you okay, honey?
00:55:23
Speaker
oh yes, would you like to buy, I don't know, sweet rolls and I'm like, this just feels like a shopkeeper in your house. I mean, I'm not saying like there should have been a fleshed out thing considering it's, you know, a bit of Dragonborn that kills dragons. That's obviously the main focus, but it kind of felt as if some features in the game fell short, between that and some of the quest lines fell short.
00:55:44
Speaker
There's a bard college, but no questline for the bards. I thought, what a missed opportunity, even for DLC and it's a shame because there's only three DLCs as
Skyrim's Cultural Impact
00:55:55
Speaker
far as I know. Yeah, there's only three major ones, there's no idea if there's any smaller. I think there's like smaller patches and things and of course the fishing DLC that we've got now in 2022. But other than that, there's just absolutely nowhere. Before we finish up, is there anything, you know, you want to bring up
00:56:13
Speaker
I think I would maybe just speak to the legacy of Skyrim. Within its first three years, Skyrim had sold about 20 million copies, which not many RPGs can boast that achievement. And I think it is still one of the most accessible RPGs. As I said, this was really the first proper one that I played, that I can remember certainly anyway.
00:56:32
Speaker
I think it's a good gateway. It's a good one to start with and then you can delve more into the genre. Maybe find titles that have deeper mechanics to them, deeper combat mechanics, some that have more consequences. As we said, Skyrim's not really a game that you have to live with your consequences too much. There's not always that much impact on the choices you make, but other games.
00:56:51
Speaker
in that genre do have it but it's still a really good one to kind of wet your feet with and try it out because it is a really accessible game. I think as well if you look at a lot of other games try to copy Skyrim's formula series like The Witcher and Dragon Age kind of like trying to basically take Skyrim's kind of massive open world and kind of add their own spin to it and that really became a thing for RPGs was to have as big a world as you could get and
00:57:13
Speaker
a lot of them were basically trying to capture the epic scale that Skyrim had in the sense of wonder that you got from exploring the land. Some definitely did, others didn't, but the fact that lots of games were trying to capture that feel really speaks to Skyrim's impact and its legacy. It's still a game I love, it's one of my favourite games of all time.
00:57:31
Speaker
still, I absolutely adore it. I still get swept up in it now as I did when I first played it 10 years ago. There's faults to it and we've outlined some, there's others as well that we've not touched on but it's not a perfect game by any stretch but I think it does so well. It's one of the best games
00:57:49
Speaker
that I've ever played. Just making a world that you just want to spend your time in and you want to meet people and do quests and everything. It's the real triumph of the game to just create this world that I feel is so alive and just feels such a great place to explore and you want to experience it all. So I love this game. I always have and I always will.
00:58:08
Speaker
and I just think it's just excellent. Yeah, there's not really much I can add on to that. I think at this point, if you haven't tried it out already, yeah, it's usually cheap on Steam, it's usually cheap on Xbox, PlayStation, but pick your poison. But the point is, it's a really interesting and absolutely fantastic entry into the fantasy series of video games. Elder Scrolls, the whole world is amazing. Again, it's kind of become a meme at this point,
00:58:38
Speaker
that it's become an utter meme. Which speaks to its legacy again, the fact that how you think it's become and, you know. But at the end of the day, whether you love it or hate it, you can't deny how much of an impact it's had on gaming. Everybody knows the phrase of, you know, I took an arrow to the
Podcast Teasers and Closing Remarks
00:58:56
Speaker
knee. And the fact that they put so much love and attention into this series, just as a closing point, because you know I'm a language geek,
00:59:04
Speaker
as it were. But did you know, here's my last fun fact of the night, did you know that see the, I think it's the Dovah Zoo language it's called, but the dragon language essentially. Apparently you know how it's got the symbols and the written letters. It's designed like that so a dragon could like possibly carve the letters. Oh well.
00:59:25
Speaker
So that's why it's all kind of scratchy and things and it's something I never thought about, but the more I look at it, the more I think, wow, that is actually really cool. And, you know, the whole like Nordic influence that comes to all the different cultures you get within Skyrim and Tamriel by extension, it's just great. If you haven't played it, go play it now.
00:59:46
Speaker
you don't have to have me tell you that because at the end of the day if you play this you're done with the main story you think what's next there's two amazing expansions you can do and if you get bored of them do the mods like just download a mod and go wild i've got 246 hours on it so that's a testament to how much fun you can have on this game
01:00:06
Speaker
On that note, before we wrap up, Adam, do you want to tell these lovely listeners what we've got planned next week? Well, me and Satsang we've been having a long chat and we were talking about ways that we think we can take the podcast to the next level. And so we were brainstorming, you know, writing some ideas down and we realised that the one thing we needed to do was we needed to go fast. So we decided we're going to dedicate a whole month to Sonic.
01:00:32
Speaker
and what a month it's going to be. Next week we are going to be diving into the weird, the wonderful and the indeed speedy world of Sonic. We're going to be talking about his rise to fame in the 90s, we're going to talk about his middling 3D career and we're going to talk about him in the modern age. We are also going to be doing another trivia episode where I put Adams, well your knowledge to the test,
01:00:59
Speaker
No, it is very generous to say that. Yeah, well, I mean, it's Sonic. Yeah. And to wrap up, we will be doing an episode on the Sonic Adventure series. So I am super hyped for that. Me too. I'm excited. I'm excited to, as somebody who's very much a novice to the world of Sonic, I'm very excited to dive in the deep end, see what the fuss is all about.
01:01:22
Speaker
It's gonna be great. On that note, thank you all so, so much for listening to this episode. If you wanna hear more of our content, you can hear us on Anchor, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and really any good podcast and app, so feel free to go check us out there. As always, guys, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.