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Date: 2012-04-17 01:41 pm (UTC)Skyrim is pretty much as good as Oblivion -- slightly better in some ways. Oblivion/Skyrim combined with Dragon Age (I) would just about make a perfect CRPG (modulo the failings of all CRPGs, which someone should fix someday).
Basically, in Dragon Age you have some very interesting backgrounds, which differ for each race/class choice, and ease you into the story with a different set of overall experiences. There's a lot more personal interaction with characters and the development of the relationships can go from tolerating each other for the good of the realm to full-blown love affairs.
However, Dragon Age is very close to a pure railroad; there's very little side-plot work. You can't explore the world as you will -- there's a small, set number of destinations you can select from and there's effectively nothingness in between.
Oblivion and Skyrim are wide-open worlds with all sorts of things you can do all over the world. You can just dungeon-crawl for hours (finding random caves or forts inhabited by bandits, killing things and taking their stuff), help farmers gather their harvest, do various side missions for dozens or hundreds of different NPCs, and so on. The scenery is beautiful and you can actually enjoy traveling from point to point because there's things worth LOOKING at along the way. The designers have done an excellent job.
The downside of both is that despite all these things to do, there's actually relatively little CHARACTER interaction. While, for instance, there's a goddess (Mara) of love and marriage, and you CAN get married, there's almost no interaction to GET married; I proposed to a woman I'd helped once, we were married, that was it. There's no significant interaction afterwards either. This compares poorly to Dragon Age, where you can (and in fact if you want to go that route, MUST) develop a relationship, come to know the person, possibly give them particular gifts that show you understand their needs and wants, and so on. And there's some PG-13 scenes for when you get to a certain level in the relationship.
Skyrim is prettier and has some new, improved mechanics (one obviously taken from Fallout 3, for lockpicking, which is just LOADS better than the old one in Oblivion). It also has somewhat more unfortunately obvious "invisible walls" keeping you from going places; Oblivion had fewer of them, if any, and if there were any they were a lot harder to find for sure.
As I mention Fallout, I should say that Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are also excellent; they obviously use the same or very similar game engine (not surprising, same company), and they have an absolutely CHARMING Retro-Future background involved. You can make lots of choices, and a lot more personal interaction is available -- although no romance, which I find very disappointing. You're trying to help bring life back from the ashes, revive hope where there is none, love should be a part of that.
Now, if only I had a few million dollars to make my OWN games...