we should compare MF3 and skyrim!!

would have the same relevance!

You are missing the whole point of the article. The number one flaw of Elder Scrolls when compared to Zelda Dark Souls is that where a Zelda World of Warcraft will present you with unique challenges and ennemies as you progress, an Elder Scrolls title is incredibly repetitive. Skyward Sword Soul Reaver will challenge you with unique architectures, bosses and puzzles. Skyrim will challenge you with twenty Blood Dragons and either Bandit Chiefs or Draugr Deathlords at the end of every dungeon.

See what I did there? It's not just Zelda. Skyrim remains an awesome game with its own merits in other areas, but it could definitely take a cue from other series in the variety department. Unique, memorable encounters are not bad, even in a sandbox.

If you believe Skyrim is Linear then it must be the only game you have ever played my friend.

The reason you have markins on the map, which I find a great thing, is that otherwise you would stumble across this world and maybe, get to do a few qusts in total.

The fact is, the character we are playing have a map. And EVERY quest you recieve, they mark for you, on the map, where you need to go. How hard is that to understand.
And this thing about a compass. So what?
It takes 1 minute for anyone, without anything, to find north or south, if you have some knowledge in nature and astronomy.

People on this forum have no knowledge. If you dont have high tech items you would not find your way.

We play a character, that as most in this time era, could find directions, such as North or South especially, and its not hard to find West and East when you have that knowledge is it.
And if you carry a map, and someone place a pin on it that "this is where X is". Its pretty simple to find it.

I dont get all these complains about hand holding when its actually just logical and natural steps.
It would be illogical to not have a compass or marking on a map when you are told your map is updated, as if your character would be a complete impecil for the time he lives in.

You can do whatever you want in Skyrim. There are no limits.
Thats why it is called an open game.
Again, if you think Skyrim is linear then it is the only game you have played cause you lack experience of linear games.

I wouln′t pick at someone with vote options like yours. Your options imply differently minded gamer to be stupid and when they disagree they have to admit that you are a smart guy? Sorry but this thread ends in a troll cave.

I can, and have beat Alduin without using a single shout. It is all in how you want to play the game.

Zelda, on the other hand is the same god damned thing every time. You play as some dip stick in a green tunic. You beat the three dungeons and then get the master sword. then you beat the Six dungeons using the weapon or item you found in that dungeon, then you beat gannon for the millionth time cause he never dies, to save a princess who even a ten year old could kidnap due to the ineptness, and stupidity of the guards and king.

The supposed best one in the series gives you the great pleasure of having mans inhumanity to man come to be in the form of a fairy that will not shut up whilst saying the same thing over and over again...

And this waste of skin Says ZELDA IS BETTER THAN SKYRIM?!

Apart from the "Skyward Sword is better in almost every way." comment. He makes a valid point Skyrim could learn from Zelda. The combat system in skyrim is extremely basic it's not much better than an traditional ATB RPG. The boss battles aren't really all that special. Now partly the reason the combat is so humdrum is because of the huge aspect of the game and they had to make it so you can take down any enemy many many different ways. I still really enjoy the game but the combat/bosses isn't its strong point. The thing is though almost any game developer can learn stuff from another awesome game and it'd be stupid to say that Zelda couldn't learn from Skyrim either.

Also Bethesda could learn a lot from Nintendo about quality control. I would rather have a solid glitch/bug free experience that was a bit smaller of scope than what we got with Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim. This is a consistent issue for this company and they are going to lose fans because of it.

Ive never played Zelda so I cant comment on that but the writer does make a good point.

The poster above said it perfectly, Skyrim, and Bethesda in general focuses way too much on quantity>quality.

Well, I am not particularly bashing Zelda, as I am some kind of Zelda fan (my favorites are "A Link to the Past", and "Link's awakening", then OOT/MM). I am also a TES fan (since Daggerfall, when I was an early teen back when it went out).

Like you said, it's apples and oranges. He could as well throw final fantasy in the mix, haha.

I haven't bought Skyrim or Skyward sword yet, but I know I will. For Skyrim, I'm just waiting for patches and the CK (and possibly xmas price drop ?), and for Skyward sword, waiting for xmas too. But I know I'll enjoy both. They are completely different things, indeed, even if you go/ride around and swing your sword at enemies.

Depends what you mean by linear...

For instance, you have linearity in the gameplay, or in the adventure, or in the story. Linearity in the story means that whatever you do (even in sandbox, buy your house, wear pink bikinis and kill a whole village), you'll end up the "hero", like with all your other chars. A story where you can choose to be good, evil, or neutral, or more etc... is less linear. Bioware have some experience in these tree-branched stories, although there is always room for more.

I tihnk TES games can be called, to some extent, linear in terms of story. Even in sandbox, it is less linear actually if for example you can't join all guilds in one playthrough etc. So a new playthrough with a different themed char, will bring a different experience.Of course, there is always the RP solution to "limit yourself" to some guilds to RP your char, too. But that means the linearity is defined by the way the player handles his playthrough.

When do people get that Kotaku is a damn blog where every [censored]face can write whatever the [censored] he wants?

I don't even visit the site anymore.Sometimes they even write hate articles on purpose just to get clicks from many butthurt gamers.

Where is the "screw Kotaku,i don't care" option?

It's impossible to honestly pick number 4.

You poll is broken.

There's no option for "Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion and I respectfully agree/disagree"

I honestly tend to agree with the article. Don't get me wrong, I'm a die hard TES fan, ever since Daggerfall, and I'm a Zelda fan, though my favorite of that series is A Link to the Past to SNES. But I think the dragons do tend to be too often. And then on the PS3 they went and "fixed" the rare occasions when dragons wouldn't attack. I didn't know that was a bug. I kind of liked that not all of them attacked 100% of the time. It felt a little more real. That and I wish that the landmass for Skyrim was more stretched out, or less dense . . . Same complaint as Oblivion. I don't like tripping over dungeons, caves and forts. You can't walk fifty feet without coming across another cave or something. It makes the world feel almost claustrophobic. There should be much greater space between locations.

But the jyst f the article is valid. Imagine, if every dragon was different, not a variation on the same model, but different. Now those dragon cairns, if they varied more, locations more unique, etc. I don't think doing that would be practical in Skyrim, but it would give a more epic feel, the dragons a little more unique, the locations all offering various unique dangers aside from the dragon.

But whatever, I still love Skyrim to death and it's currently my favorite game. Level 38 as we speak.

I think Skyrim has improved over Oblivion in this aspect. The locations are not always so big and generic. There are more smaller things and I think not as often as in Oblivion. IMO, it is quite right but I wouldn't mind an increase of landmass with the same locations currently in Skyrim.

imo skyrim could learn from COD a few things

It's Kotaku, guys. KOTAKU. A website everyone should finally learn to ignore, so that it finally vanishes from existence.

Kotaku is the WORST

It's like the Bleacher Report of video games (that's a terrible sports site for anyone who doesn't know)

True enough, it isn't quite as bad as Oblivion in that department. But I think I was spoiled by Shadow of the Colossus. Man, you ride around in that world, and the locations you are seeking are so far apart--that in itself lends a very epic feeling.

Jesus Christ...stop following the dumb trend, no Its not getting dumbed down every game, no it will never be like Heavy Rain, so stop trying to be a cool kid.

Yep, Skyrim will have a GOTY edition, same with many many more games.

Its obvious you don't like the game, so why are you here? :cryvaultboy:

EDIT:I suppose Morrowind was the besttestes game evas?

Alot of us dont agree upon that.. Skyrim is the worst in the series in my opinion.

This.

Zelda can take a hike. SKYRIM is goty. End of story.

Motion seconded.

So I might be missing something here, but how is Brian Ashcraft (whose writing I personally enjoy) related to this article at all? It was posted by Mike Fahey, and reflects the opinions of the commenter SageofMusic (NOT a Kotaku writer).

Also, to think Kotaku has some preference for Skyward Sword over Skyrim... have you seen how many Skyrim posts have been flooding the site recently? Compare that to the relatively moderate number of Skyward Sword articles, and I think this whole thread is pretty silly.

Finally, labeling this thread as "Kotaku's writer betrays the Elder Scrolls"? I don't see how this is a betrayal of any kind. Also, I was under the impression that game news sites should be as impartial as possible, rather than have some strange loyalty to game brands.

Just my 2 cents.

(I'm not even touching the Zelda vs. Skyrim competition)

Apples and Oranges.

I play in 1080p, and I love the graphics. I have seen nothing that wasn't just an inconvience to be repaired with a new texture or texture edit. The only exception I've found was the UI. I hate it. But the new patch promises to repair that, so I can't complain until I've seen the repair. I've played all of the Elderscrolls games and they are all buggy. But when you consider what the game designers are trying to do, they could have been worse. I am not saying that you should not be upset. The broken quest lines BLANK me off. But you should remember that everything in Skyrim can and will be changed either by Bethesda or us.

I didn't like the Zelda series, I was into D&D.

So anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot? Grow up. Skyrim's merits are open to discussion and as much as I like the game, it falls short of providing freedom and variety.



Uh, how is Skyrim's gameplay open or free? Sure, you can pick any race, give it any face you want and use any equipment you want, but at the end of the day, these are mostly cosmetic choices that do not affect gameplay significantly. Quest design? Please. Apart from the random quest generator (which isn't anything to boast about, STALKER games had the same FedEx random quests, and that's just the most recent example), Skyrim is painfully linear and forces the player to perform very specific series of steps in the correct sequence. Can you bypass any stage of the main quest? Can you make a choice that takes the questline in a different direction (eg. with the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild)? Can you make ANY choice, in fact? Apart from changing the banner you fight for, Ulfric or Tallius?

Skyrim provides a nice setting, but fails to capitalize on the richness of the province lore and the potential provided by the conflicts in the area (Forsworn-Nords, Nords-Thalmor, Thalmor-Empire, Empire-Ulfric etc.).



The main antagonist in Morrowind is Lord Voryn Dagoth of House Dagoth, not Mehrunes Dagon.

Your argument is also self-contradicting. You're stating that Zelda series' plot is of the same type in every game (save x), while consciously ignoring that the same simplification can be applied to the TES series, where every plot is of the "kill x" variety. No matter whether it's Dagoth Ur, Mehrunes Dagon or Alduin, you're still the good hero killing the bad villain.



I can't speak for Zelda, but The Elder Scrolls a mature series? I can agree about Daggerfall and Morrowind, but Oblivion and Skyrim? Oblivion is generic black-and-white fantasy, while Skyrim... Skyrim tries to incorporate mature themes, like genocide (both physical and cultural), imperialism, slavery, politics etc., but falls short of providing any kind of social commentary or food for thought. Compare that to Deus Ex series, which focus on sociological, economical and political effects of human augmentation, government types, corporate expansion etc. Or New Vegas, which uses the post-apocalyptic backdrop of the Mojave to explore topics of human survival, conflict, politics, religion etc., all in a very mature and very thought provoking way. Even Morrowind, with the Nerevarine plot asked a lot of questions about fate, politics, religion and absolute forms of government.

Skyrim? Sorry, no dice.