I was watching “…why Skyrim?” by Razbuten on sloptube this aft and it’s so weird that it finally took Starfield for people to realise. Like Fallout 76 wasn’t enough, only now are negative things people were first saying about Skyrim in 2012 finally bleeding into mainstream consciousness. It’s so wild, like wow they ruined the magic system? The game has worse writing than a PS1 era Mega Man X game??? Skyrim is just shitty Game of Thrones?? Welcome to thirteen years ago!!
Bethesda hasn’t made a really good game since 2002, but it’ll probably be years before that realisation sinks in.
Oblivion I think has the perfect mix of dialogue options and voice acting. Once you get over the fact that everyone in the world shares like 5 voices, it feels more natural. Morrowind I think is better written and its lore and questlines make more sense and are more fleshed out, but goddamn are those motherfuckers longwinded. You’re telling me I can walk up to someone and barrage them with questions and they’ll spout a wiki worth of information at me? Nah, I like Oblivion’s more limited options. You can ask the average person 4 or 5 questions before they’re like “Okay now get the fuck outta my face and do the job, chump”.
Frankly, why not? If I walked up to a guy on the street and asked him to explain the basics of Christianity to me, then suddenly shifted gears and asked him to tell me what kind of car he drives, then shifted gears and asked him to tell me about the Nixon presidency… I mean he might tell me to fuck off (as some NPCs will in Morrowind) but I honestly find it more likely he’d do his best to explain whatever he knows about those topics. I don’t think the Morrowind NPCs are behaving strangely by answering your questions, really you’re the strange one for asking them. But it’s also not that strange because you were just shipped here from the prison in another country.