“If you're gonna compare a Hanzo sword, you compare it to every other sword ever made... that wasn't made by Hattori Hanzo.”

Like the mythical Hanzo sword, there is no comparison between Skyrim and any other video game ever made that wasn’t made by Bethesda. Not that Bethesda makes “better” games necessarily, but their games are unique and therefore not comparable to other games.

I have read a lot of posts on this forum arguing that Skyrim is an action game and not a role playing game, and many of these posts compare Skyrim to prior TES games and the Fallout series.

This thread is to discuss whether Skyrim is a roleplaying game by comparing it with other open world fantasy roleplaying games that have been released by companies other than Bethesda.

As an example, I played Dark Souls last night and found it to be much more of an action game than a roleplaying game. For my money, Skyrim wins hands down over any other open world fantasy game ever released by a company other than Bethesda in the roleplaying category, but I am open to having my mind changed by persuasive (nonflaming) arguments.

So, here is my challenge to those who say Skyrim is not a good roleplaying game: Can you point to any other modern fantasy open world video game that you think is more of a roleplaying game than Skyrim, and explain why you think such game is more of a roleplaying game than Skyrim?

I agree with the nice quote in the beggining. I'm not against Skyrim nor have I played another Open World RPG like it in any way. FF12 was cool. Same idea for the party system but they finally changed it to live action and further, you could build classes out of the license system. It is not (obviously, being FF) open world but it was a giant step in that direction IMO and when I rented FF14 (??I always forget which one were on ?) I was severley ticked that I didn't feel like I was in a world and more on a linear path.

compare apples and oranges much?

Skyrim is a roleplaying game. and i since a flamewar coming.

That's the point. Were looking for games like Skyrim but that weren't made by the same company. A lot of people bring up MW, OB and FO when they talk trash on Skyrim.

Why is the writing in black?

? what

http://www.zeldainformer.com/images/articles/secret070908.png

You dont have to compare Skyrim to other games to decide if its a rpg or not.

For me, Skyrim is a rpg, but it just barely classify as one.

Ther are very few if any choices in quests, choices doesnt seem to influence the world or npc's and the races diffrent races/classes playstyle doesnt stand out from eachother

So just because Bethesda said so, doesnt mean its a real rpg.

Which games did he compare it too? :/

No, Skyrim is not the Hanzo sword of gaming, there are plenty of non-bethesda games that are better than skyrim.

I don't know. Sorry, I cut and paste it from my word processing program to eliminate typos because they do not have a spell checker on this forum that I can find. Maybe that messed up the font.

I believe that the OP was asking for examples.


And what, pray tell, is a "real RPG™"? And who defines that?

Let's see, you could make a case that Reckoning is a better RPG then Skyrim although it's not a better game then Skyrim. We'll see what Dragon's Dogma brings to the table in May. That game has a lot of potential.


This, Skyrim is an RPG but not a very good one.

Thanks. I will give FF12 a try. I actually own it but have not yet played it. I have a small library of older games I picked up on the cheap and never have time to play all of them. Every once in a while I pull one out and give it a try. I will move that one to the top of the stack. I played FF10 for a while and it seemed more like a linear path than a world and I never finished it. Time to skip ahead to FF12.

I Think skyrim is more of a RPG then other games of today. (dark souls,kingdom of amalur)

Correct, and an explanation of why the poster believes their example is a better open world roleplaying game than Skyrim. I am focusing on open world fantasy roleplaying aspect of Skyrim here.

Im not saying Skyrim is not an rpg, what i mean with "real" rpg is that Skyrims rpg aspects are not as strong as the combat and exploring.

Well I never said it was "better," in fact, I specifically said in my OP that it was "not necessarily better," just unique. I tend to be pretty critical of Skyrim in this forum because I see a lot of short comings. However, I also don't have any alternatives to TES because I have yet to find a game from another company that delivers a similar experience to Skyrim.

Thanks for the tip, I will keep an eye out for it.



I don't disagree with the general criticisms of why Skyrim's RPG elements could be improved, but apparantly Skyrim is a better RPG than anything else currently available?

I agree with this. I want to make up a genre name Open World Game and then Skyrim would be the king. If people weren't calling it an RPG, would that make the people who bash Skyrim any less mad?

Doesn't mean I don't want some older features from DF, MW, and OB (paper doll, more magic, etc.) but I am content with where the game is going.

You wanted examples of better non-bethesda games? ok.

First I would mention: Mount & Blade any of the games in that series is better than skyrim. Combat is better, battles are bigger, you can own your own business and I would even say that romance is deeper. Though I guess the game is not really fantasy in the magic and monsters kind of way, but the realm it is set in is made up, well With fire and sword is set in our world, but the other two.

Baldurs gate and Icewind dale etc. Great story, a huge variety of monsters, lovable characters etc. If you are a graphics person however, this might not be a game for you as it is rather old.

MInecraft, HUGE open world, you can look like just about anything, great unique fantasy setting with multiple reals such as the nether and the end.

There you have five games already.

And you said the Hanzo sword of gaming and that's way bigger than just open world fantasy RPGs so there I would also like to mention:

the STALKER series, great games, great setting, good sotry. Dawn of War, well this is an RTS, but it's very entertaining and has a great sci-fi, fantasy (there are orcs and magic and stuff) setting. I could go on about this.

And I see that you just talked about a unique experience from skyrim, you will be really hard to peruade as the experience from skyrim is unique, just like any other game. No other game have ever had the TES feel mixed with meh before. Don't get me wron skyrim is a good game, just not a good TES game.
But as I said every game has it's own unique feeling, but the games I listed above are just a few non-bethesda I can think of that feels "better" than Skyrim IMO.

Correction, Skyrim is a better RPG than anything that is released nowadays. There are plenty of old RPGs that are still available.

This!! Exactly. I tend to be critical of Skyrim for a lot of reasons and I hope my criticism is constructive. But I am always comparing it to other TES games and FO, and most other posts I have read complaining about Skyrim tend to compare it to one of those games. I am trying to show some love here for Skyrim by pointing out that Bethesda delivers a product that is like no other, while at the same time to challenge my fellow critics to come up with an example of another game to compare Skyrim to besides a prior Bethesda game.

You just listed a whole ton of games that aren't even remotely open-world, with the exception of Minecraft, which hardly counts because Minecraft doesn't have a world as much as a giant sandbox to build things in.

The OP was asking for an example of a game that does what Skyrim does and isn't also a Bethesda title.

What