What can I say about Skyrim that hasn't been said a thousand times already? For those brand new to the gaming community, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim utterly destroyed the minds of gamers five years ago with its humongous world, its giant amount of lore and its gameplay. Almost anything was up for grabs; did you want to create a book selection? Collect a book, add it to your shelf in your own and read them sitting around your campfire! What about creating a home? Do a short quest and a plot of land was yours to model to how you see fit. Join some thieves, or the Dark Brotherhood, perhaps even follow a talking dog down the rabbit hole of Oblivion, your world was nearly unending in things to do.
But what does this say about the release of the remastered game?
The primary focus of this re-release was its upgraded graphics, which in comparison of the previous console titles, they are definitely an improvement. Lighting is heavily improved, and this can be seen clearly in the morning and evenings. Models have also been improved ever so slightly and textures for items look much cleaner and sharper than before. What sets this release out is its inclusion of the DLCs and now mods for the consoles, easily adding more replayability than before; the main story, a few side missions and the DLC alone will set you back easily 50 hours, but for those looking towards grabbing more from their game, there are mods to consider. The PS4 has over fifty with more on the way, and the Xbox version has over one hundred, each needing a Bethesda account to gain access to downloading them. Keep in mind however that by using them, you disable your achievements/trophies so use with your own caution.
In saying all of this, there are a tremendous amount of bugs also. I experienced six crashes (two of which being on horseback), and mostly through the Dragonborn DLC. There were plenty of graphics bugs, floating characters, dragon souls not being absorbed, unkillable skeletons and more. We can consider that the port has made the game a tad unstable, but consider the age and time spent on the game, leaving the bugs excusable because "No Bethesda game released has been bugless" isn't an excuse: in the gaming era that the Elder Scrolls was created in, if a game was released that was buggy, it was ridiculed and slammed. There were no patches, there were no fixes, there was no excuse. Today, we can be lenient, but for a five year old game to experience the same issues as the game had at the original launch is ridiculous.
The game itself is just as terrific as it was before; the gameplay still holds up, the musical score and sound effects are just as as good and the game is still worthy of its awards and praise, of that I have no doubt. But I am a reviewer, and I review games by a code, judging a game at the state its in at release. To give a game a free pass because of its legacy is being biased, and the day that I am biased is the day that six years writing reviews means nothing.
For its many crashes and bugs, I cannot in good conscience give it a high score to be fair, but that doesn't mean the game isn't worth it. The game can be patched, and the DLC/mods are a added plus.
PC users can get Special Edition for free if they have the game and DLC, which I highly recommend. But for those who have played on the previous generation console version, it may be best to return to Tamriel and relearn all your Dovah. The game is buggy, but it is still brilliant.
Skyrim Special Edition - C-
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