Forum Overview :: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim :: I think they've done better

[quote name="Mysterio"]Morrowind was exotic and weird and kind of impossible to relate with, but occasionally surprising and sublime and beautiful. Oblivion was extremely, depressingly ordinary, apparently inspired by suburban connecticut. Skyrim strikes a good balance. It's kind of exotic (it's Scandinavia! Here's an alpine meadow! Here's a scrubby heath-moor thing! Here are some glaciers! Sweet snow effects abound! everybody wears furs! Some people sound like they're from minnesota!) but it's also relatable (It's Scandinavia!). Skyrim follows Morrowind's philosophy in mapping somewhat blatant cultural and geographic cues into the architecture of buildings and such, and it really does make the cities feel fantasy-authentic. I haven't seen enough dungeons to speak to their cookie-cutter-ness... but the gnawing existential emptiness that will consume you when you realize you've been trapped in the same mcdungeon for 150 hours will be partially alleviated by OCD completionism, as every cleared dungeon gets marked as "cleared" on your map. From what I've seen so far they've done an OK job at giving each dungeon it's own micro-story arc, if not integrating them into broader quest lines. The blatant fillers are forgivably short, you just tip them in 3 minutes and they're "cleared". Gotta catch em all....[/quote]