Gaming! So many games, not enough posts!
Fighting in Zelda vs Skyrim / Action vs RPG
I assume that Skyrim will be on the Nintendo Switch. For a decade people have been telling me I need to play Elder Scrolls. This seems like a good time to pick it up. But then I learned something about RPGs that made me think I won't be interested in the gameplay.
Please let me know if I have this wrong.
The core element of games is fighting. That's for most games, regardless of genre. Both Skyrim and Zelda have a lot of non-battle parts to them. But it still comes down to fighting. I believe that I will find Skyrim battles to be boring. Let me know if I have the gameplay right:
In a real time RPG games like Skyrim, a battle is:
- Choose weapon
- Use attack button, and keep attacking until someone dies
- Periodically heal or increase your DPM
- Periodically use a special attack item/spell
- Eventually someone dies
This is true regardless of what enemy you attack. You can use range or melee attacks. Special attacks (spells) might only work against certain types of enemies.
In action/adventure games like Zelda battles are more unique. Some you just hack at. Others you need stun and climb on top to reach their weak spot. Others you need to knock down and then hack. (I thought Skyward Sword did a bad job of this: it turned enemies into puzzles, which I didn't appreciate.)
I feel that hack and slash RPG games would be boring. You win not be being awesome (doing the right stuff like in Zelda) but in your character having increased their stats. (You go back and try again. Change nothing and win because you have more strength, health and DPM. Not through strategic decisions or action.)
I'm sure I'm simplifying. But do I have it sort of right?
I have barely played any RPGs. I tried Fire Emblem on the GC, which is turn based. I dabbled in Diablo 1 and World of Warcraft. I generally didn't like them. In fact, I worry Breath of the Wild will have too many RPG elements. (I'm not used to weapons and armour that break.) Or, maybe it will get me grounded in them enough that I will learn to enjoy them more.
Am I way off base about this?




I recently started playing skyrim for the first time. I would say your description of battles matches what I have seen for the most part, but to say that skyrim is just battles is to miss out. I would say that the reason to play skyrim is to explore the world. It is about the joy of wandering through the woods and finding a bear cave that has a door that opens up to Bandit Kings dungeon. Or walking up the side of a mountain as the sun rises.
Thanks for your confirmation. What you say also agrees with my understand of the rest of the game. I strongly believe there is a lot going on in Skyrim. And a lot of other stuff to do. In the same way, I find that I spend more time exploring in Zelda than fighting as well. And Breath of the Wild will probably be more exploration based than other Zelda games. But probably less so than Skyrim.
So I get what you are saying. However, fighting is a core gameplay element of each. With RPG games there is more grinding, which seems less enjoyable to me than the item based progression of Zelda games.
Of course, everyone has different tastes. And I will not underestimate how much other stuff is going on in that games. Thank you for your input! I appreciate it.
I didn't find Skyrim grindy really - IIRC there are enough quests and places to explore that you level up naturally without needing to take time out to grind xp.
I've actually just gotten into Skyrim for the first time and am grappling with this, as I think I have very similar expectations/feelings about these types of games. I want to play games to escape reality, not simulate mortgage payments. I'm not much of a craft-er, cook-er, etc.
There does seem to be a certain "Rock, Paper, Scissors," with some of the battles in Skyrim, where specific spells work better than others on specific creatures, but for the most part I just spam enemies with Flamehand™ and then hack them to pieces with my mace. It's not as rewarding as even some of the most mundane Zelda enemies.
Having said that, the open world in Skyrim is really cool, and the exploration is a lot of fun. If you like lore, there's an inordinate amount of it, with virtually no hand-holding. The game expands and contracts to your ambition. It's a little intimidating at first, but is mostly an enjoyable experience.
Pretty much. Skyrim is mostly button mashing, between attacking a target and buffing your character, and bored the hell out of me. After 80 hours, I couldn't look at all I'd done and actually say I cared about any of it, because it felt like nothing had actually changed in any meaningful way. I had a mage character and couldn't even tell if you different element spells did any difference to any enemies apart from robots. Then, I'd spent an awful lot of time stealing stuff but all I could do was sell it for gold to buy crap to make into potions or make into weapons and armor, and crafting was the worst grind I've ever experienced in any game.
I say that as someone who has played almost every Shin Megami Tensei main and spin-off game. Those games have a helluva grind. But battles are generally fun, or you're at least given an auto-battle option for when you get over leveled and can blow through enemies (or spells to just prevent encounters altogether). And stuff feels like you've had an effect.
Even Zelda games, which I've only played a couple of b/c the lore and style disinterests me, at least kept my interest with puzzles and such. Meanwhile, in Skyrim, most "puzzles" were basic, straightforward "turn three dials to make a pretty picture and oh look you did it yay now leave" stuff.
As far as being unexperienced in RPGs, I think a good way to get grounded is with the golden standard of Final Fantasy. People will disagree on which ones are worth playing, of course. For me, I found VII and VIII to have interesting systems for customizing your characters and the stories were mostly alright (VIII goes off the rails 3/4 the way through), while XIII, XIII-2, and XV have been wonderful experiences for me (though they're a bit less turn-based and slightly more real-time, but not like Skyrim).
The cream of the crop, though, has been Final Fantasy Tactics. That's a tactical RPG so it's turn-based, with you controlling a few characters you move around on a square map and position everyone to defeat multiple enemies. The story is fantastic, a tale of politics, theocracy, and class. It also has a Job system, allowing a lot of unique and customized approaches.
Beyond that, a game like Persona 3 or 4 is a good start for RPGs if you have a PS3 (they're on PSN) or a Vita (the ports). Persona 5 is coming out in a couple months and will be phenomenal. Then on 3DS, there's Shin Megami Tensei IV (and Apocalypse, a "remake" that takes place during the end of the original's story and has a brand new story) which is turn-based and has the monster capture elements you'd recognize from Pokemon (though SMT came out long before Pokemon was a thing). There's also Persona Q, also turn-based. SMT IV involves decisions as well, so choices you make will influence the world and ending path, while Persona Q has choices that mainly just influence the characters on your team. The former is set in feudal japan but then modern tokyo, the latter is set in modern day japan but in a high school.
That's my take on this, but someone who liked Skyrim or has played more Zelda can chime in with their thoughts.
Thanks very much for your opinion. There certainly is a lot to do in Skyrim besides fighting. I'm not currently a fan of crafting and other modern RPG elements. But as Zelda includes them maybe I will learn to understand and appreciate them. Thanks.
Mmm, at least in my experience Zelda doesn't contain crafting in any sense close to other RPGs.
Skyrim, for example, crafting means gathering a bunch of ore, going to a smelter to melt it, going to a work bench to craft it, then using what you crafted to improve other stuff you've already crafted. It gets very tedious very quickly as you can only craft things matching your skill level, so you'll spend hours crafting junk just to raise your skill to craft more junk before eventually being able to maybe craft something that raises your defense slightly.
Some JRPGs have crafting as well, usually a bit more useful as there's no skill level but instead a reliance on recipes. So rather than crafting junk over and over, you'll only be able to craft things you find recipes for, usually which can be brought in stores or found in dungeons.
And yeah, Skyrim has a big, open world. For me, though, I spent 80 hours in it always hoping to find something like...interesting, and came up short. Maybe you'll find a secret cult, but it just culminates in killing one of them and then never hearing about the cult ever again, with no effect on the world. Exploration would be fun if it wasn't for every cave, dungeon, castle looking and feeling the same to the point of blending together. Oh, there's the dwarven-esque dungeons that look different from your standard dungeons, but all the dwarven dungeons are pretty much the same. Really, the whole game felt like a much slower hack-n-slash that also wanted me to gather metals to make generally crap weapons so I could fight the same enemies over and over.
The main difference between Skyrim and Zelda is personality, I'd say. Zelda games are varied worlds with generally diverse dungeons and areas of exploration. Skyrim is a lot like Bethesda's Fallout series, in that before too long, you can't really tell if you've seen anything new and interesting in the whole game.
In the next Zelda game you find food. I feel there are not recipie per se but and algorithm that determines the value of you food. Which essentially means a hidden recipie list you have to figure out.
Eh, could be. Depends. Most games rely on recipes for that, though some have you experiment with throwing random stuff together and seeing what comes out. Skyrim did the former with some things, and the latter with other stuff like potions.