Watching G*mers slowly realise Skyrim is dogshit has been an experience
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.
As a big fan of the first two Fallouts and Daggerfall/Morrowind growing up, I do still like Oblivion. It's the right amount of jank and entertaining, with the bizarre voice action, the Dark Brotherhood quest line. Never played the main quest. Fallout 3 less so but still passable.
Skyrim was trash though, I did play the day 0 build and early patches only but I found a game-breaking combo of some sort early on and just ran thru the main quest to see what it was about since I never bothered with oblivion. I was pretty close to finished, but one of the last quests having a totally deflated final showdown between two factions where a dozen guys showed up and hit each other with poles in a courtyard just made me do the other stuff but none of it really landed for me. SO MANY RUINS.
The best description of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim I've heard is:
Morrowind is a book (with fantastic illustrations). There's a lot of reading. There's a lot of filling in the gaps with your imagination (combat). This can make it harder to get into, but when you do it's a deeper experience and timeless.
Oblivion is a community theatre production. It's kind of a hot mess and the acting is terrible. But you can still feel the love it's creators put into it, and it's charming in weird ways you'll remember forever. But you don't want every experience to be like this.
Skyrim is a blockbuster movie. It's initially really fun and climatic, but the more you revisit you see the plot holes, the limitations of production, the recycled tropes etc.
I was pretty close to finished, but one of the last quests having a totally deflated final showdown between two factions where a dozen guys showed up and hit each other with poles in a courtyard just made me do the other stuff but none of it really landed for me.
Jokes on you, there are no polearms in the game without mods