I think there's really no doubt in anyone's mind that Skyrim is a very good game.
This is how i came to the same conclusion.
I've been playing Skyrim on and off for the past 2 years and the first two characters i did were very planned from the beginning. I first made a straight rogue, all sneakyness and stabby-happy-action, then i built a warmage, casting spells and brandishing a mace. Both times i was actively trying to achieve an ideal character, something i had thought out in my mind before starting, and i was strictly following the main quest, while doing all side-quests to maximize experience gain.
Then i had to study for exams and stopped playing anything at all for a while. I only just started playing again about a month ago.
This time around, i didn't plan on anything. I just started playing again mostly because i remembered it being fun.
I thought i'd play it just for the sheer enjoyment of it, not force myself into a type, just follow whatever quests seemed interesting. I excused myself from any self-imposed pressures or long-term objectives. Since this was supposed to be laid back, i decided to invest in crafting, because Minecraft taught me that gathering resources to make gear can be a satisfying endeavour.
So i played around, i reached Whiterun, i slogged through the initial grinding of alchemy, smithing and enchanting, and did fetch-quests. It's surprisingly fast to level up smithing if you invest a bit of time into i, so i got it to level 30 in no time, and started forging better equipment.
By now i had the whole alchemy-smithing-enchanting-selling cycle down, and i was even turning a profit. I bought the house.
When i killed my third dragon, i was cruising. Then i accidentally stumbled onto what must be one of the most fascinating quests i have ever seen. I'm sure there are others, and in other games that i haven't played, but this just blew my mind.
It's called "A Night to Remember"
As i walked into the Bannered Mare Inn to sleep and get my "Well rested" bonus before smithing, i saw a character leaning against the bar that i hadn't seen before. I decided to just talk to him.
He introduced himself as Sam Guevenne, and challenged me to a drinking contest. He promised a staff if i won. I thought this might be like one of those mini-quests where you brawl a random drunken patron for a quick 50 gold pieces. I thought i just had to win the drinking game or something, and i'd get a unique staff.
But after the third drink, the screen suddenly goes black, and suddenly i realize i'm in full blown quest mode.
Surprisingly, as i wake up, i find that i am in a completely different place.
Apparently i'm in the Temple of Dibella, and the priestess thereof informs me that i stumbled in drunk and ranting and thrashed the place in the night. This immediately feels different from other quests, and i'm left wondering how this is going to develop.
She forces me to clean up and even apologise (i've killed dragons for christ's sake), and then gives me a list of meaningless items to gather to repair the staff. It is a fucking fetch-quest after all.
She also tells me that i should visit a guy in Rorikstead.
Since Rorikstead is halfway though to Whiterun i stop by just to fulfill the next mission marker. I meet a guy named Ennis who tells me that i was so drunk last night that i stole his prized goat and sold it to a friggin' giant. I wasn't expecting this, since most other quests are usually full of importance and take themselves very seriously. This is getting funny, and for the first time i genuinely can't tell where this is going
The giant isn't far away, so i decide to fight a giant. It's surprisingly difficult, surprisingly.
So i get the goat, and the guy is happy, and the trope about drunk parties and goats persists, until he tells me that i should go meet Ysolda in Whiterun.
Whiterun is where i was going anyway, so there's never an option of not meeting Ysolda almost as i entered. She asks for the money i owe her from buying a ring. An engagement ring. Because apparently i got engaged. While i was drunk.
How long was i drunk?
This quest has gone full Hangover on me, and i didn't even see it happening. I thought this was a fetch-quest and turned out into the most engaging quest i'd found so far.
Ysolda tells me that my bride is waiting for me in Witchmist Grove, where i fell in love with her, or so the story went. And i also need to get her the ring back, or pay 2000 gold pieces.
So i go to Witchmist Grove just to see what's there. I find one of the strangest creatures in Skyrim, a Hagraven, a woods/swamp witch that has the mutated body of a crow. They're creepy as fuck, and i my sense of strangeness/bizarre about this quest keeps on growing. So i ask for the ring and she gets mad that i'm not actually marrying her so i kill her. I bring back the ring to Ysolda, who tells me that i was getting married in a place called Morvunskar.
Right now i don't need any other reason to go other than i want to know how much crazier this can get.
Morvunskar turns out to be an abandoned gloomy stronghold, creepy even for the general standard of strongholds in Skyrim, and i'm already anticipating more shenanigans. Turns out to be filled with deadly Ice Wizards!
Doesn't hurt that i've kept up with the smithing and enchanting all the while, so now i'm starting to get some good gear.
At the end of the Stronghold i find a godamn interdimensional portal! An actual, inter-dimensional portal, into a place called Misty Meadow. So i giddily jump into the rabbit hole and come out in an amalgam of every description ever of the Fae, from Neil Gaiman, Marion Zimmer Bradly to Patrick Rothfuss.
I find at the end of the path a table where a banquet is going on and Sam Guevenne is standing there. He has menacing glowing red eyes, so i sense some mischief is afoot!
Obviously he transforms into his true form, which just so happens to escalate quickly to a Daedric Prince.
It is the godamn manifestation of one of the Evil Gods of Skyrim. Sanguine, the Demon Prince of debauchery and drunken revelry.
He's been toying with me all along. This started as a godamn mini-game, and ended as a wonderfully played out trope of God Messes With Mortal Hero.
He congratulates me essentially because i got out and saw the world and just acted out on a whim.
The game is straightforwardly rewarding me for just going with the flow and enjoying the game. The very attitude that drove me to start this playthrough and character in the first place led me to finding a quest that rewards that same attitude: mindless enjoymend and doing a quest just because it was curious and intriguing.
So now he gives me something called the Sanguine Rose Staff, which is a unique item you can only aquire through this quest, and which summons bad-ass Daedra! Yes, this staff calls up demons to beat stuff up. This is almost game-breakingly ahead of anything i own!
The way this quest was designed, from beginning to end, playing narratively with well-established tropes, and even making fun of them, made me walk from one end of the map to the other, see some beautiful sights, and transmitted so much of the feel of the wonderment of exploration, and the sheer fun you can have with this game.
I ended up with definetly the most creative and fun to play character i have ever planned, and i didn't even plan on it!
Now i love this, now i want to play even more of this.
I find that this quest in just one in a series of fifteen (15!!!!) quests, that explore all of the Daedric Gods and all have equally unique rewards! I'm going to explore the world and backstory of this world as i do these quests.
That this would even be a thing in a game like this. That among all of the dreary, grinding of fetch-quests, kind of repetive side-quest, and neutral commonness of the main-quest, such a specific and curious and challenging concept of a quest could show up is very impressive to me and makes me respect the developers so much more.
I am going to drop every other quest and just do these through to the end!
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