Someone told me Skyrim’s story is good.
Well. It isn’t.
Unfortunately. There’s a lot of things that contribute to this problem. There’s nothing wrong with a bad story for the sake of gameplay and experience. In this case, I can say the sacrifice was made for that very reason. However, it is still not very good.
I think the biggest offender is the game’s story is told through words, and never actions. There’s almost nothing developed in a way that has impact or meaning. You’re merely told that hey, bad things are happening. Go fix them! You never know why these bad things are so bad. You have no real understanding of the conflict happening. The world will end. Why? How? Yeah, a bad dude is coming to town. I cannot see how powerful he is, why should I believe all this? There’s nothing at stake here. There’s nothing that says. “Yeah okay, if I don’t do this, bad things will absolutely happen”. Like a dragon blew up a town. That’s the only time in the game dragons are a real threat. They’re otherwise pretty long-winded minibosses at best.
There’s no emotional investment in the world. Who am I saving the world for? There’s never any interesting characters to really develop a connection to. Most characters are mostly emotionless actors that serve as arrowed signposts more than actual humans (or cat things). The best character in the game, the one with the most character was M’aiq the liar, a man who appears at random times in random places with interesting things to say that are rather meta. They don’t really have flaws and strengths. None of them do much that’s witty, or have things to do that come off as interesting to stick in the back of my head. Maybe I missed the ones that do, but I’ve played through a decent chunk of the world and thus far, nothing.
A character needs to do more than talk. They need to speak to the player beyond sentences strung together to coherently guide them. They need to do more than debate with each other over conflicts that you have no understanding of. There’s groups that say the problems they’ve had, but you don’t really know the major impact of these problems. You’re working with a primarily visual medium and you’re shown nothing, only told.
I don’t think discussing the main story in extreme detail would do much justice here. The story problems in Skyrim have nothing to do with the writing itself (which is mostly inoffensive and uninteresting at worst). But has more to do with how the story is conveyed. Frozen bears falling down mountains is more memorable than the actual plot. That’s what sells the game though, so I forgive it.
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