VGflicks: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Part 1)

There’s quite a bit of history to a movie such as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It’s actually ironic as I find everything surrounding the movie more interesting to talk about than the movie itself.

But first the basics. This movie was released in American theaters on July 11th, 2001. It bears the name of Final Fantasy, but instead of being a direct adaptation of any game in the franchise (which would probably require an entire series rather than a mere film), it instead features its own story. It’s implied to be a part of the Final Fantasy series, but the connections stop there. It features the blend of fantasy and science-fiction that the franchise was veering towards at the time (in FFVII in particular). But that’s it; the film feels like Final Fantasy “in name only”.

Picture taken from the sets of the film, as actors in mo-
cap suits were playing their parts.

It’s also known as the first animated film released worldwide featuring photorealistic CGI, a practice that would become a staple of video games years later. Photorealistic CGI in cinema would be used a couple times with performance capture (AKA motion capture, or mo-cap) for entire films, as seen in Polar Express, Monster House, Beowulf, A Christmas Carol, Mars Needs Moms… all movies that have seen ground-breaking success and were never made fun of for crossing into uncanny valley territory. This movie was the first to fully use the technology, thus being a pioneer in this new way to animate movies. For 2001, that’s impressive. And knowing how far the tech has come since, I guess we can thank it for this contribution to the world of animation and special effects. That said, the mo-cap effects here are showing their age in a way that’s fairly noticeable.

The people at Square Pictures had high expectations for this film, hoping to achieve box-office success (of course) but also making plans for the future. The silliest idea, if you ask me, is that of “animated actors” – that is, they were hoping to reuse the models of the human characters in The Spirits Within in other roles in future feature films. We’re not talking “these characters reappear over the course of multiple films”, we’re talking “these models appear in different movies, as different characters”. A few problems with this idea: I can imagine this getting confusing after a while for viewers. CGI technology was improving quickly at the time, so the models would be outdated eventually. And finally, this movie bombed HARD, making 85 million dollars worldwide at the box-office for the 137 million dollars it cost to make. It’s one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time.

They even tried to pass her off
as some sort of top model. 

Top 12 Games With Unique Styles (That I've Played)

He who says that video games cannot be a form of art is a fool. Why would it not be art, exactly? Because it’s “for kids”? Because of the direct interactivity the player has with it? Because it’s for uncultured swines? Or perhaps is it because the unfortunate, enduring stereotype of the average gamer is a 12 years old kid screaming obscenities at other 12 year olds while playing Call of Duty or Fortnite?

This is all unfair. Video games are art.

One example of several. This list will be full of them.

Video games can tell enthralling, complex stories that put the player in moral dilemmas. They can contain soundtracks that a player will enjoy above any other music. They can provide personal challenges like nothing else ever could. They can look anywhere from 8-bit to the most modern CGI, or switch it up with seldom-seen styles. Or they can have none of that, because like all forms of art such as movies, music, paintings or literature, there are examples of the amazing and the horrendous.

Today, I focus on style. Much like plot, the graphical style of a video game is determined in the early phases. The sky is the limit! Sure, AAA titles will go for the best CGI they can manage, while indie games will do whatever they please - but there's always the odd title out there that does something out of the ordinary. If there’s an attempt at making something special with a concept, not only will the graphical design show it, but the concept might extend to gameplay as well. This list will be filled with examples of great creativity.

For this list, I’ll only take into account games that I’ve played; I may have beaten them or just given them a try.

12. Auditorium

Oooooh, pretty.

As I was building this list, I realized that games that go for a very special style are frequently taking inspiration from a different form of art, a different craft. Video games that play around with music are fairly common, though most of the time it’s a track playing and the game plays along to it. In Auditorium, which I reviewed a long time ago on this blog, you solve the puzzle in order to create the music. It involves redirecting a stream of “music” into the required areas, which will turn its white form into color. You can even feel the music getting more complex the more goes into the required zone, hear instruments adding themselves to the track. As far as music puzzle games go, this one put a spin on the idea, one that helped its style.

Which one of these will play Megalovania now?

11. Just Dance (Franchise)

As an example, this choreography over a song that makes
numerous references to comic books features backgrounds
mimicking Jack Kirby's art.

Perhaps a controversial choice, which is why I’m keeping it low on the list. What’s so “special” about the way this game looks? Music plays, some character dances, you dance along to it, right? On the subject of style, it’s more complex than that. Every level has its dancer(s) and choreography, but it also has its own background and animations to go with them. Usually something related to the current song, no less. If one doesn’t think it’s enough to make this list, something else made me decide to include Just Dance on here: This is one of the most colorful game series I’ve ever seen. Between the fluorescent colors worn by the characters, almost every level hits you with a barrage of flashy, fun colors. I struggle to think of a level where I didn't enjoy the general aesthetics. The people at Ubisoft work hard on making these games feel like a party is going on in your TV, and they make it as inviting as they possibly can to make you join in. There’s an art to partying, didn’t you know?

I never get tired of showing these.

10. Monster Loves You!

Reviewed last year on the blog, Monster Loves You! is a work of interactive fiction in which you build your little monster from its very first moments all the way to adulthood and beyond, and seeing that character change through the interactions it has with its fellow monsters. This game reads itself like a fairy tale book, including a handful of winks to actual fairy tales. The cutesy style of the images and the similarly cute situations make this entire game feel like you could read it to a kid. It breathes “bedtime story for children” for most of its duration… well, I say “most” because some endings would be nightmares. The story feels harmless enough, but then you get to special endings where humans or monsters are either enslaved or killed in war… Let’s say it’s 95% child-friendly. Hey, that's still better than some real fairy tales - reading the earliest versions of Little Red Riding Hood will scar you for life.

9. Pop-Up Pursuit

Well that's an impressive pop-up book.

Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. I reviewed this game from the Nintendo Wii Shop Channel’s WiiWare section, and it’s bad. Really, really bad. So bad that even 6 years after I published that review, I would probably still put it on a Top 12 list of the worst games I’ve ever reviewed. However! The one good thing I can say about it is that it takes full advantage of paper and books to present a style that’s somewhat fresh. Everything is made of paper: The characters, the worlds and every item. It pushes the style further than other games that also took the paper aesthetics. Of course, since that time, we’ve had more games that push the paper idea even further beyond, but this was a notable example. Now if only as much effort had been put on gameplay as there was on style…

8. Evoland

From a Zelda-like...

If video games are art, and this list is all about video games taking inspiration from all sorts of art and craft, then a video game can definitely play around with the styles of older games as a base concept. Evoland begins looking like a Game Boy-era RPG, then slowly evolves graphically to 8bit, 16bit, all the way to Wii-level CGI. The game controls evolve alongside the graphics, and the dungeons start playing around with various conventions. Things start as a regular turn-based RPG, then we have a Zelda-like dungeon, then we have a cave level that plays like an action RPG. It’s a trip through the evolution of action fantasy games, and though the game ends looking like your average video game of modern years, it starts in a unique way and sticks to its concept. For something that aims to parody more than homage, that’s really good!

To a different Zelda-like.

7. Scanner Sombre

Wow.

I feel like I’m rambling about this game at every chance I get lately. I just really like it. As far as style goes, it’s definitely doing something I’ve never seen another game do. Save for the tent at the start (and something at the end), this game is set in complete darkness. The player creates the path by scanning the world around, sparking little dots of color all over the walls and obstacles, eventually allowing them to find their way through the cave. The end result is beautiful, no doubt. And the upgrades to the scanner allow for an easier time navigating the world. By the way, aside from dots lost in the depths or vanishing in watery areas, no dot created on a wall ever disappears, so even at the end of the game, you can look at the 3D map and see the whole path you’ve walked so far. Then the scanner’s “glitches” come around, and you’re never quite sure that you’re actually alone down there… Oh, I LOVE talking about this one!

Wooooooow- is that a demon priest??

6. The Paper Mario series

I guess it breaks my rule of talking only about games I’ve played, since I played only two of five Paper Mario games, but I wanted to acknowledge the three I haven’t experienced. The franchise kept finding new ways of pushing the concept further, which is why I bundle them together.

The first Paper Mario worked as a proof of concept, introducing the idea of 2D paper cutout characters navigating a 3D world.

The Thousand-Year Door added paper abilities to Mario, allowing him to fold himself, origami-style, for special effects.

Super Paper Mario went for a 2.5D style, as the game can shift between 2D and 3D almost everywhere – so things hidden in one perspective can be seen in the other. It does somewhat ditch the paper cutout idea for this idea to work, unfortunately.

"Hello, I am a shiny sticker paper."

Sticker Star… well, as the name suggests, explored what would happen if suddenly stickers came in that paper universe. It also went a few steps further in exploring the results of characters being flat and foldable.

Lastly, Color Splash touched on the life stream of this cartoony art – the colors being drained by villains, and restored by the hero.

And thus each game tries something special, expanding on the core concept, resulting in a very stylish sub-franchise of the Mario games. (The quality of these games, especially the last two, is a different debate that we’re not having today.)

5. Virginia

It all feels like a movie.

So far, most games have taken on the style of a different art or craft, and incorporated it to their look more than anything else. Games have also become more cinematic as time went on, taking some cues from the universe of film and television. That said, most games are still playable, interactive experiences. Very few video games can claim that their base gameplay is taking on the codes of filmmaking to tell a story. Virginia thrives to do this, featuring a 2-hour story in which your input is very limited. But you can use that limited freedom to see more than a movie would show, which is still good. It is, however, “filmed” and edited like it’s a movie, something that very few games can claim. It’s a great style for experimentation, though it’s the type of style that takes over much of the development of a game that utilizes it, so few if any franchises are actually capable to play with that style – that’s why non-franchised indie games are more likely to try it out. It’s a commitment, hence why it’s still fairly rare. But it’s an avenue I wished gets tried more often.

Sometimes you'd wish you had soem video game powers
to survive this movie plot.

4. Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Have a reminder that this was all hand-drawn.

Nowadays, everything is done on computers – for coding, that’s a necessity, but for design and spriting? Who says those things must be done on a computer? The art of hand-drawn animation has unfortunately fallen out of vogue over the past 20 years. It’s not entirely gone, but hand-drawn animation is rare nowadays. So when a game goes the extra step by having absolutely all of its art hand-drawn? Not only is it rare, but the extra effort can lead to absolutely marvelous results. Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a Wii game embracing the anime aesthetic like none other, and every single sprite, background and detail was lovingly drawn before being incorporated into the game. That said, it’s not the most famous hand-drawn video game, and it’s certainly not the most recent one either…

Again: Hand-drawn. I know it's hard to believe.

3. Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Even though it's all thread, you can somehow feel the
heat of this place.

So far, games on this list have taken inspiration from hand-drawn animation, movies, paper, retro games, storybooks or music… There’s a reason I kept saying “other arts or crafts”. Crafts in particular. Who would imagine building a game that takes inspiration from cloth and fabric? Well, after Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and Yoshi’s Woolly World, we no longer need to imagine - we have it, and it works. There’s great thought put into the world of a game such as Kirby’s Epic Yarn, in which everything follows the set theme. Everything is wool, threads, patches and buttons, with fabric patterns like plaid and stripes in the backgrounds. It’s all so fluffy and comfy! The game is actually very easy, getting to the end is very simple; unlocking everything is a tad more difficult, but easier than teh average path to 100% completion. Then again, any reason is good to come back to such a creative universe.

You can drive a wool-mecha!

I haven’t played Yoshi’s Woolly World, which does disqualify it from this list, but I look at the woolly Yoshis and I swear my pupils turn into hearts. The little wool figurines are so cute!

2. Cuphead

It's like visiting the 1920s!

A video game made to look like a cartoon isn’t exactly breaking new grounds. Now, if it aims to copy a particular era of cartoons, with all the designs and tropes that were commonplace at the time – cool, cool. Made with the production methods of the time, meaning good ol’ paper and pencil? Now we’re talking. I know I already covered hand-drawn games with the Muramasa entry on this list, but I feel that Cuphead has gone far beyond. Barring the fact that it’s a video game, it’s a love letter to the 1920s-1930s era of animation, especially the Fleischer Studios cartoons where characters squash, stretch, and transform all the time. The music? Ragtime, big brass band, music of the time. Hell, if you want to stretch, the game’s levels being 2D run-and-gun, a genre seldom seen nowadays and more closely attached to the ultra-hard games of classic earlier consoles, is another nod to the past. And every single second of this explosion of style is enjoyable. Insanely hard, but so worth it just to look at it.

Boo-yah!

1. MadWorld

Maybe a tiny bit hard to make out what's going on...
But damn, it's so worth it.

I have played some of this game and it’s in my collection. I haven’t beaten it yet, but you bet I am planning on it eventually. I first heard of MadWorld in the Nintendo Power magazine, and already knew this would be special. The game itself is in 3D, but it’s all in black and white, save for splotches of red, for blood. If you’ve ever seen the Sin City movies, you already know that style. I don’t believe it’s been seen in a video game before, or since - black and white maybe, but not with that included exercise in tone. Of course, mimicking the style of those gritty comic books and movies makes a lot of sense considering MadWorld is another massively violent story carried by horrible people in an uncaring, dark world. The difference is that, in comparison to video games or movies that take themselves too seriously with such concepts and ideas, MadWorld improves everything by adding a thick layer of self-deprecation and overall comedy to everything it does. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is what works best for what it it. The tone may not be serious, but damn – Sega took the designing of this game extremely seriously to arrive to such a fantastic result.

Expect a review... uh... someday.

That’s it for the list. Have you played, throughout your years as a gamer, similar stylish games that didn’t make the list (either because I haven’t played them, or never heard of them)? Share those with me, I’d love to hear about them.

Next time: A movie review!

Movie Review: Sonic the Hedgehog

"Not the lack of sleep, not the feeling of being overworked, not the constant side-projects, nothing will stop me from seeing the Sonic movie!" ...Is what I was telling myself three hours ago, and now I have seen it, and I can report on it. (Warning: This review may contain spoilers.)

Everyone who's kept track of this movie's development knows what happened: The first trailer came out, Sonic looked horrible in it (although, let's be fair, while some shots were alright, on the whole the design was just... bleh). And thus, the studio behind it went back to the drawing board (literally), went with a design closer to what everyone knows, and pushed the film's release back 4 months, from November 2019 to February 2020. They basically had a Hollywood crunch period. I was pretty critical of the design as well, so I thought it was only fair that I'd go watch the movie in theaters. (Also, video game movie. I kind of had to.) I'm not disappointed, personally.

The synopsis: Sonic the Hedgehog was born with his powers, but was careless with using them as a young child. In danger in his own world, his caretaker handed him a bag of rings with special teleportation abilities, and sent him to Planet Earth. Ten years later, Sonic has adapted well to life on Earth; he's got a burrow full of stuff, and he watches the humans of Green Hills, the nearby small town. He pretends he's having interactions with the townspeople, but none of it's actually real as he remains hidden from them due to his "alien" nature; as a result, he feels desperate and lonely. One night, he overruns on a baseball field and the power surge caused by his excessive speed causes a massive, multi-state-wide power outage.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Part 5)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Today: everything else.

EXPLORING SKYRIM: THE DRAGON PRIESTS

I touched on that topic during my re-telling of the main quest, but here goes. Your trips through draugr ruins may end in a battle against a Dragon Priest. These priests can be a lot of trouble if you come unprepared, as they’re usually at the end of long dungeons and often have their own strategy against you.

Eight draugr ruins end with a fight against a named Dragon Priest, and each one of them carries a mask with its name. Beating all eight and picking up the masks off their cold, dead bodies will unlock a ninth. Each mask has an armor rating that can be upgraded at smithing tables, and a unique effect – so unique, you can’t destroy them at enchanting tables in order to put that effect onto other items.

Two notable examples of named Dragon Priests I’ve encountered are Rahgot, whose strategy involves swarming the room with draugr to take down the Dragonborn and their follower, and Krosis, the only one of those who doesn’t live in ruins but rather at a dragon peak, and will attack along with that peak’s dragonic resident if you choose to come too close. Then there’s Nahkriin, which must be defeated in the main quest.

I think these enemies are pretty cool! These fights can be awesome.

EXPLORING SKYRIM: DAEDRIC WISHES

Just take a look at Sanguine and tell me this isn't a
goddamn demon. I dare you.

While venturing Skyrim (or Tamriel, really), you may stumble upon a quest involving the Daedra. They’re semi-godly to godly beings, some of whom can be more closely described as demons. They’re not all bad, but many of them are. They love to mess around with the living, and the arrival of a new hero in the Dragonborn has got many of them very interested. The more powerful ones are called Daedric Princes.

A Daedric Prince’s quest may spring upon you when you least expect it. You randomly find the pieces of a short blade. You discover a sphere known as a Beacon and are asked to bring it to Meridia’s temple. While seeking a runaway dog, you find one… that talks in English, with a Brooklyn accent, in a medieval fantasy setting. You get into a drinking contest with a guy that turns out to be the Daedric Prince of debauchery in disguise, and the Dragonborn’s ensuing bender makes him run into drunken adventures across the land. You’re tasked with ending the recurring nightmares of residents of Dawnstar, which involves the Daedric Prince Vaermina in a nearby dungeon. And so on.

Meridia, one of the least bad of the lot.
Her weapon is super-destructive against the undead!

I haven’t met all of them yet, but those are examples I’ve seen. By completing these missions, you frequently get a unique equipment item out of it. Says a lot that after 150+ hours in this game, I’m still discovering stuff.

EXPLORING SKYRIM: SO MANY FACTIONS

You can’t join every faction across the land, but you can join most of them. There’s the conflict in the main quest, which sees the Greybeards and Blades at opposing ends of the dragon crisis. There’s the civil war opposing the Imperials and the Stormcloaks. However, there are several other groups to join.

There's usually more people than that.
Also, I'm standing in the fire.

First are Whiterun’s Companions, a group of brave warriors doing random lawful good acts of kindness. Oh, and some of them turn into werewolves. And you can, too! You can also become a vampire in this game.

You come close to joining the Thieves’ Guild in Riften during the main quest. Should you choose to join it, a long questline awaits. Enjoy your life of crime! (If you weren’t already living one!)

Upon your arrival in Windhelm, you can complete an orphan’s request to kill a nasty orphanage headmistress. However, the next time you go to sleep and wake up, you find yourself in a nondescript shack, forced by Astrid, leader of the Dark Brotherhood, to kill one of three morally-dubious people. The headmistress was the Brotherhood’s contract. You can follow Astrid’s orders, kill one of these people, and join the Dark Brotherhood… or, since her actual order is to kill someone in the room, you can kill her and go on a quest to destroy the Dark Brotherhood for good.

Nothing like an isolated college of magic practitioners
to feel like a youth literature protagonist.

Then there’s the College of Winterhold, which you do join during the main quest – but then it’s up to you whether you choose to follow the wizard lifestyle or not. Up in Solitude, the Bards' College might also be of interest.

In Markarth, there’s also the Forsworn, though it’s… complicated. Let’s just say you unravel a large conspiracy in there that eventually gets you sent to prison, and you can plan an escape by sort-of-joining, but you’re never really a part of that group. Which is for the better, really. The Forsworn are murderous asshats. Don't worry, you can kill them later.

You can be a member of almost every single one of these groups at the same time, contradictory beliefs be damned.

EXPLORING SKYRIM: RADIANCE

Let’s pretend that you’ve finished every big quest you could do. Well, The Elder Scrolls V is designed so that you could technically always have something to do. Aside from main quests, you can collect several smaller quests, most of which are known as “Radiant quests” (kept in the “Miscellaneous” section of your Quest journal). Those can be given to you by minor NPCs, or may be orders from Jarls and other major characters. A Jarl needs a giant killed? Bandits have taken over some mine? Perhaps the librarian of the College of Winterhold needs you to find some books for him? Does someone need a certain quantity of a particular item?

There isn’t much to say about those, really – unlike main quests, they don’t have any incidence on the plot, nor do they involve any major interactions. A few radiant quests may lead to the discovery of larger quests, however…

DUNGEONS, LICHS AND… ER… CASTLES?

Also known as "More bad guys to kill or serve".

There goes my attempt at tying the letters of DLC into anything Elder Scrolls-related. Anyhow…

I purchased the early version of Skyrim, the one that went down to 20$ when the HD re-release came out. For some reason, DLCs aren’t available for the original version anymore. The Special Edition includes all of the add-ons, as well as the related new quests, items and possibilities. This includes:

-Dawnguard: A vampire lord is trying to take down the sun itself. You can choose to join him, or fight him.

-Hearthfire: A DLC more practical than action-based, this one allows a player to buy a plot of land and build their own home just as they want it, and even hire staff! The base game actually allows for a player to marry one of several characters they may have met on their journey – with Hearthfire, it also becomes possible to adopt two orphaned children. …What, you expected a Dragonborn to do the do in a T-rated game?

I want this guy's helmet.

-Dragonborn: This one opens a brand new, sprawling questline, in which the first Dragonborn, named Miraak, wishes to reclaim his title now that dragons have made a return in the world. A new island to explore, more dungeons, more Dragon Priests, in short – a complete secondary story.

I’m actually going over these pretty quickly as I need to wrap up, also they aren’t in the game I purchased. I’d need the Special Edition for that, and after 150 hours… I don’t feel like going through the game again.

FINAL WORDS

Took me long enough, but here I am.

All the sights you'll see!

With no surprise, I’ll say that Skyrim is, for the most part, a good game. It’s by far the most expansive action RPG I’ve ever played, with more freedom in how to play one’s own character than I’ve seen in any other game before (but that may be that whenever I go for an action RPG, my choices are usually pretty basic). The huge map is a treat to discover and there are enough different environments to keep the player interested even if the color palette is a bit more in the grays, browns and whites across the world. Hundreds of NPCs have complete backstories and schedules, and tend to their things, which makes the world feel alive. You can go for scripted events, or have completely random encounters with travelers as you go! Sure, in one playthrough you’re gonna hear a thousand times the guards’ tales of taking an arrow to the knee, but hey – can’t all be perfect.

Hell, the mere fact that you have complete freedom of choice in this game is a breath of fresh air to me, the Nintendo guy, who's lived for years with games where the options were “Yes” and “You're wrong, pick Yes”.

Killing all dragons? Sure. Well, except maybe one.

The humongous number of missions is certainly welcome, along with any branching paths that may invite the player to do things differently on another playthrough, like joining the Stormcloaks instead of the Imperials, or choosing to kill Paarthurnax if you spared him before.

I will admit that I was fairly reticent to playing this game, or any Bethesda game really, in part because their unfortunate reputation for releasing games that are glitchy messes had preceded them, but also because Fallout 76 came out and destroyed whatever good faith they seemed to have left. And I had sworn to myself I wouldn’t talk about F76 here, dammit! Anyhow, while I did run into my fair share of glitches and bugs, it was never so horrendously bad that I couldn’t enjoy the game.

Of course, from time to time I would run into a weird situation (such as an NPC or item simply not appearing), wonder what to do, look up that NPC on a wiki devoted to The Elder Scrolls (UESP in particular), and either a) find out what to do in the game, or b) literally spawn them into existence near Nikhaolaas using the debug mode, accessible with the # key. It goes without saying that a normally-developed game wouldn’t require this type of effort on the player’s part. Although I do understand; a massive game such as this one, with several possible scenarios, means many ways the programming can screw up, and there ought to be some glitches Bethesda’s game testers and QAs would have missed.

I didn't run into that one, but damn,
I kinda wished I did, now.

...Maybe not so many that damn near every page of an Elder Scrolls wiki needs a “glitches” section regarding every way the game can break? Reading some of those, I feel lucky that the worst that happened to me was clipping through the ground and respawning on it seconds later. On one hand, it is true that glitches didn’t ruin my experience too much, even if I kept to playing the vanilla game. On the other hand, that’s still a buttload of glitches in there! Game crashing for no apparent reason? Yep! Stopping as I quit an alchemy table? Yep! Weird stuff happening to NPCs? Seen it. Mammoths falling from the sky? Yep. Let's just say that I completely understand why people mod the game by patching out its worst glitches.

Other critiques aside from the glitches. There’s an element of random to the game, in that a lot of loot is spawned as you find it. Generally, that’s not so bad since items found that way tend to get better as you go up in level. However, if you’re looking for something precise (such as a spellbook to learn a precious spell), good luck. Unless you build it yourself with the game’s complex and detailed crafting system, you might never find it. The random spawns also means you might become a bit of a hoarder over time, which is why owning a house to store everything becomes a necessity fairly quickly. The game is also built so that many enemies will level up with you up to a certain point, meaning there’s always a bit of a challenge even after a hundred hours.

Now, if only I could keep the crown.

The game feels fairly complete, glitches notwithstanding, and a lot of questlines seem decent. Still, the game being rushed in development for release on 11/11/2011 is perceptible from time to time. The main plot is pretty basic as far as fantasy stories go. Some elements, such as the Civil War, seemed to be a major point of focus for the game (explaining why some of them awkwardly barge into the main questline from time to time). Looking into unused game data reveals many quests that couldn’t be implemented in time that would have helped make this game feel even more lively and interesting. I’m not disappointed by what I’ve played, but it does feel at times like more could have been done.

I also felt that some skills were pretty tough to excel in. As you go up in player levels, you need to level up your skills more and more often, and some vital upgrades to particular skills happen at pretty high levels for those skills. As an example, you can’t upgrade enchanted equipment until Smithing Level 60, and creating dragon armor out of the heavy bones and scales you pick off killed dragons isn’t until Level 100. You’ll usually end up splitting the skill points gained off leveling up pretty unevenly based on the skills you feel you need, forgetting about the others. Then, most magic schoolsare pretty tough to level up if you're not playing a magic-practitioner character. And may the Gods of Tamriel help you if you choose to go Legendary on any skill…

Once again: Apologies to arachnophobes.
There are so many giant spiders in this damn game.

Last but not least, while I can praise the world map for being large, interesting ad at times simply gorgeous, I will admit that a lot of dungeons feel samey. There aren’t that many variants when it comes to dungeons, so if you’re exploring several of them like I did when I started, you quickly realize that there isn’t a ton of variety to them. Once you’ve seen two or three draugr ruins, you realize they’re all roughly the same. Most caves also feel similar. It’s a limited number of dungeon types to explore, on a map where there’s several dozens of those dungeons. It makes adventuring feel more than a bit repetitive after a while. Sure, there are rewards to be gained from this and many dungeons have their own associated mission, but when you’re exploring on your own, it may get a bit boring and tedious. Not helping this quest is that not every dungeon can be cleared, making it a hassle to remember what you visited and “cleared” when the map doesn’t always reflect it.

But yeah, all those issues put aside, I liked The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I might play it some more once in a while. For all the fears I had due to it being a Bethesda game, I was pleasantly surprised! I would say I’m looking forward to playing the other Bethesda games I have, but since they’re all huge games, I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.

(Also hey, mods are always there to improve the base package...)

Next Friday: Something much shorter.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Part 4)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Alduin, you’re going down!

THE WORLD-EATER’S EYRIE

Have you done everything you wanted? Geared up for the final quests? Good, let’s go! The Dragonborn climbs onto Odahviing and is carried away to the distant temple of Skuldafn, located so far off-map that players can’t get there except by riding a dragon. The place feels like a final dungeon; it’s meant to put all of your skills to the test, and by all the Gods of Tamriel, it does!

It IS a pretty big dungeon.

This isn't even a Death Overlord, just a Deathlord.

The place is swarmed with the most powerful draugr you can fight at your level. I was Level 51, so I faced mostly Draugr Scourges and Deathlords, all of which are as powerful as bosses and can use Unrelenting Force. Hordes of them. Picking them off one by one with arrows didn’t work too well. Beat them up with swords? That’s all good, but they ganged up on me pretty quick. Although, I’ll say, it was the first time in a while that I felt truly challenged! It was really hard, but felt very rewarding as well! It’s not like draugr carry a lot of stuff I’d need later anyway, so I guess I didn’t need to carry as little as possible into battle. The exterior area alone had a dozen of those damn monsters, that’s not even counting the northern and southern towers. Oh, did I mention the two dragons circling over Skuldafn too? Yeah, those can attack too.

To reach the roof of the dungeon, we need to walk inside and make our way up. There are more draugr in there, as well as several puzzles (some of which are actually quite tricky!). Again: A test of all your skills, as any well-developed final dungeon ought to be. Just before leaving the dungeon, what was waiting for Nikhaolaas? A draugr death overlord, in case deathlords weren’t overkill already. And what’s outside? Well, more of these undead, of course!

Have I mentioned that they can Fus-Ro-Dah you too?

I did try to keep as few items with me as possible, but I had a hunch I would be fighting these. I had three weapons with me: A sword that can capture souls into gems (since those are necessary to power up a weapon whose enchantment has run out of power and I was afraid I’d run out of filled gems); my trusted ebony sword that sets everything it hits on fire; and Dawnbreaker, obtained in a side-quest (I’ll discuss those later), which has nifty bonus effects when used to kill undead monsters. For armor, my dragonplate set did the trick.

Your mask is the only one I've yet to collect!

At the top of the ruins, a portal to Sovngarde awaited. It was, however, guarded by a Dragon Priest. Those are particularly powerful draugr who led dragon cultists; they excel in magic. Many are nameless, but there’s a handful scattered around Skyrim, in precise dragon ruins, who have names. Those are pretty impressive bosses, and upon defeat you can pick up their dragon mask, which bears their name. Such masks offer decent armor protection, but they’re sought for the very powerful effects they contain. I came across some of them when I was trying to clear every dungeon. The one in Skuldafn, named Nahkriin, must be defeated. Its staff must be picked up to open the portal, and its mask must be collected as you can’t come back to Skuldafn once you leave it. Better not forget anything important. Anyhow, the Dragonborn opens the portal into…

SOVNGARDE

That's when it's not foggy.

Man, for the Nord afterlife, this place is really misty. According to the few souls we meet, it’s unusual for this place – Alduin seems to be causing this mist. Thankfully, we can clear it with the Clear Skies shout. Sovngarde is actually quite a nice place. I hope I won’t get to see it again anytime soon once this is over. What’s interesting is that while you walk around this area, you can actually meet some of the NPCs that died over the course of your playthrough. That’s clever!

Too bad I can't stick around, those look yummy.

Nikhaolaas eventually gets to a bridge made of a dragon carcass. In order to pass and access the Hall of Valor, we must prove our worth by battling Tsun, a legendary warrior. Boom, done, can I pass now? K-Thanks. Inside the Hall of Valor, we can speak to several heroes the Dragonborn may have heard about throughout his journey. The most important ones are Gormlaith, Hakon and Felldir, the three Nord heroes who sent Alduin forward in time and from whom you learned the Dragonrend shout, by reading the Elder Scroll at the Throat of the World. After Nikhaolaas presents himself, the three rally behind him to put an end to Alduin for good. So all four walk outside, to the big field before the dragon skeleton bridge…

DRAGONSLAYER

It's time to end the World-Eater!

Before the fight proper can start, all four heroes dispel the mist by using Clear Skies at the same time. It has to be done thrice, because Alduin brings the mist back. After the third time, the dragon gets pissed and attacks.

Chances are that the Dragonborn is even mightier than he was during the fight on the Throat of the World. To top it off, the old Nord heroes are there to help as well. The result? A final boss fight that’s easier than the previous battle against the same opponent. I’ll admit I struggled, but not nearly as much. I also quickly realized that the cooldown for the Dragonnrend shout was short enough that I could simply do it again before the dragon could escape from it, leaving Alduin incapable of flying away, and chip away at his health until the World-Eater was defeated.

Alduin might return someday. This day isn't anytime soon.

Well, that was… almost anticlimactic. Alduin dies and decays, and this time he has nowhere to run. The Dovahkiin doesn’t absorb his soul, though – but at least that enemy is as dead as he can be. And with this, one of the old Nord heroes teaches a shout that carries the player back to Skyrim; the Throat of the World, in fact. Dragons fly around, claiming their allegiance to the Dragonborn, while Paarthurnax congratulates Nikhaolaas for this victory. Odahviing also reiterates his role as the Dragonborn’s willing mount, as long as you choose to call for him to carry you around. With this, we can go down to High Hrothgar to speak to Arngeir, or to Sky Haven Temple to speak to Esbern. Guards around the various holds will acknowledge your victory, but good luck getting the various Jarls to say the same!

It's a dragon party celebrating the... killer of dragons...

And thus ends the main quest, roll credits. Or not. You can watch the end credits from the main menu anyway.

However, Nikhaolaas can’t go and rest on his laurels just yet. There are so many other quests to do here!

QUESTING FOR FUN AND PROFIT

I felt bad helping the Forsworn in Markarth that one
time, so I went to their lair where they thought they
were safe and I murdered them all.

Sure, one can try and complete only the main quest, but chances are that a player will complete several side-quests alongside the seventeen missions of the central plot. I already touched upon the Civil War questline taking part of the stage as you negotiate a truce between the involved parties. I also brought up a few examples of quests that can pop up from time to time.

Or a player could just go into every dungeon and clear every area that can be cleared. As I mentioned already, that’s what I started with – after becoming Thane of Whiterun, I travelled far and wide across Skyrim to find all of the areas one could find.

There’s just a couple details about this project that ought to be mentioned.

Some dungeons are bigger on the inside. Kagrenzel, as
an example, is small, but leads to a gigantic underground
cave (one of several around Skyrim).

Some quests open when you enter a dungeon. Surprise! There’s an NPC here asking for help. It might even turn out to be an important quest with several steps, if you’re lucky. Usually you’re gonna walk into a dungeon and nothing special will happen, and you can just go through, beat the boss of that area, and leave with some decent loot. On the opposite end, there are dungeons that you cannot enter unless you have a particular quest lined up. The door will be locked with a key and you can’t pick it. Some places are also closed unless you’ve reached a particular player level, but it’s usually fairly low so there isn’t much of a worry there.

Back in Part 2, I mentioned owning a home in a hold and upgrading it. The reason is pretty simple; if you go questing around, you very quickly collect a lot of items, and will need some place to store all of it. Early on, you don’t make a ton of money selling back items, so you might often want to hold off on selling some of your better stuff. You eventually collect a lot of soul gems, precious stones, crafting materials, weapons and armor that you might never wear, and your carrying capacity soon feels incredibly limited. Even if you use your follower as a pack mule, they may have sworn to carry your burdens, there’s only so much they can take. (On the other hand, equip a battle-capable follower with the second best gear you find and the weapons you don’t use, and they become a better fighter than you.)

Also, you end up with so many goddamn potions.

Even with a map, good luck keeping up with what you’ve gone through and what you haven’t. The map will show everything of interest: Standing Stones, towns, solitary cabins, ruins, caves, sepulchers, dragon peaks… Only some of those can be marked cleared, and even then not always. On top of not every dungeon being available until you reach the associated quest, some dungeons just… straight-up don’t have a marked boss! For the record, that’s how a dungeon gets marked cleared – you killed the monster marked as a boss within its walls once. You can come back many in-game months later, the dungeon’s boss will be back (or different), you can kill it again, but the dungeon has been cleared already. Yet some places cannot be cleared, no matter how often you go through them. I used a map on Microsoft Paint, crossing off every area I had cleared, and yet I was still confused at times!

Not even halfway through with those, Christ.

Lastly, like I mentioned, you may go through random places for the Heck of it, and gather all sorts of items. You might run into quest-relevant items, which become stuck in your inventory, weight and all, until you finish their quest. Have a friendly reminder that, aside from enchantments and a handful of in-game effects (which you can thankfully acquire and use in enchantments), your weight carry limit increases only by 5 each time you increase your Stamina when you level up. Quest-relevant items can pile up in inventory. The worst one?? There's a quest that requires finding 24 Unusual Gems all scattered over Skyrim, in places you might not look very often. Got one? It’s stuck among your stuff. Thank God they all weigh only 0.5, but that’s a total of 12 if you do find them all…

If you can live with all this, have fun exploring to your heart’s content!

"GET A HORSE!"

♪♫"I'm gonna take my horse to the old town road..."♪♫

Is traveling long and tedious? Are mountains in your way? Go to any town's stables and buy a horse for 1000 gold. Horses are sturdy, fast, and strong. If you've exceeded your weight carry limit and are slowed to a crawl, you can climb on a horse and be allowed access to fast-traveling again. Several laws of video game physics apparently don't apply to Skyrim horses, either, so you can definitely use them to climb mountains that the Dragonborn can't climb on their own.

Now let's get into the problems around horses. The player can only climb on or get off a horse after sheathing their weapon, and the process is very long. Akatosh help you if you encounter any enemies while on a horse, as you can fight on horseback but it's extremely impractical and best avoided. Hell, your horse is an extra target for enemies, and while they can fight, they go down in a handful of hits. It's very easy to lose your steed. And of course, climbing up a mountain works well, but the horse is not very resistant to falls - you better hope you're not going down a cliff too steep.

Honestly, the only reason I keep a horse is because I need some way to fast-travel. Other than that, it's more impractical than useful.

THE CIVIL WAR

Okay, that didn't happen to me, but seriously - It sounds
fucking awesome to fight against a flying skeleton dragon.

This may be either the best part of the game, or the worst, depending on who you ask. Me? I’m so indifferent to it I would have preferred it wasn’t in Skyrim, although you can tell the world was built for it to happen. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was rushed a smidge, one could say, so that it could be released on November 11th, 2011. Or 11/11/11, a bitchin’ date to release anything really. This can be noticed in the odd little elements that don’t quite add up – oh wait, I mean, the HUNDREDS OF GLITCHES, because yes, the topic of those had to come up eventually. I couldn’t spend over 150 hours without stumbling on a handful, or rather, a buttload of them. That’s not the only area where you can tell the game was rushed. Some quests feel incomplete, while other questlines could have had far more content to them.

...No, I would like to keep it.

That’s unfortunately the case with the Civil War, which is integrated to the main plot fairly late, but at least it doesn’t detract for too long from killing Alduin. One way or another, you will meet the two factions during your travels, hear their motivations and see what they’re all about. When the time comes to join the Imperials or the Stormcloaks, you’ll have a bit of an idea which group feels less scummy to you.

However, for all the buildup, fanfare and preparation that you can feel behind this questline, the end result feels lackluster. There’s so much to read about the History of Skyrim, and how these factions came to be. There’s decent and horrible people on both sides, and good arguments either way. I personally couldn’t be brought to care, because dragons were swarming and a World-Eater was on the loose. The petty political squabbles should wait.

Then again, it’s close to reality; we fucked up the planet so bad it’s trying to kill us all, and we keep on with our political squabbles anyway.

In the end, the quests you’ll be doing for the side you’ve joined won’t really differ all that much from the quests you’d be doing if you were on the opposite side. It’s also usually the same types of missions you might have done multiple times before. It may be that I’ve grown too attached to the place, but whatever faction you choose, shit’s gonna go sour for Whiterun, and I don't want that. I love that place too much, it’s literally home for my Dragonborn right now. Last but not least, there is no perfect ending to that conflict – one side wins, there are losses for the other side and for Whiterun. So yeah – I ain’t delving too deep within that questline, though from it you can get your hands on some cool gear, including a crown that doubles as armor headgear.

Dayum, I could get used to wearing a crown, if it looks that cool.
(Note: No quest allows you to become High King of Skyrim.)

See you in Part 5 for everything else.