Alright, it’s time for me to emerge out of the dark cave I’ve been living in playing Skyrim for the past week, and write another installment about my findings. Let me just check the save file here and let’s see, oh wow, 45 hours in.

That’s triple how much I’d played after my first journal segment, and now I should be a bit better able to comment on some of the larger aspects of the game rather than pure first impressions.

I’ve spent the last two full days of gameplay time doing a mix of missions from the main questline to the various guilds around Skyrim to the assorted random missions that seem to crop up with each new person you talk to or area you discover.

My melee character sword and shield is now level 30, and has evolved from a relative wimp to a medieval tank almost incapable of death. Find a few pieces of quality equipment, level up your stats the right way, and I don’t know, but I’m feeling a bit overpowered at the moment, and I’m not sure I like it.

This is the opposite of me.

My nord barbarian now fears almost nothing. My complete set of dwarven armor and increased blocking and defense perks make him simply not take damage the vast majority of the time. My level 90 one handed weapon skill would be fearsome enough already, but I did a relatively simple random sidequest and ended up with a Daedric mace that’s far surpasses any weapon I’ve seen in the game so far which has made me completely unstoppable in battle.

I just did an side questline that involves taking over the entire country for the rebel leader Ulrich Stormcloak. He had me invading fort after fort and I cleaved through legions of Imperial soldiers like I was Sauron wearing the One Ring. I now walk up to giants, the one hit kill wonders from early in the game, spit in their face, turn them to ice and them beat their asses into the ground in couple of swings.

I laugh at dragons now. The first time they  land, I pummel them to death within a matter of fifteen seconds or so. In fact, I can almost say I’m getting a bit tired of dragon encounters. Randomly generated battles like this seem cool in theory, but about the fifth time it happens, you sort of know the drill, and by the fifteenth? You’re sort of tired of it, and just want to get on with your quest.

Most of dragon battles are just waiting around for the thing to land, while lobbing arrows at it sporadically. No matter what sort of dragon, this tactic never changes, and honestly, they just haven’t been hard opponents so far. There’s enough time in between their fire and ice breathing to heal yourself five times over, and when they do land, you can just whack them on the tail and wings taking almost no damage until they die. Then there’s the annual tradition of transporting  their heavy ass bones and scales back to your house for storage, or else you’ll find yourself over encumbered the next time you pick up a potion.

Scary when I’m wearing leather, not so much when I’m coated in golden impenetrable metal.

I’ve had a lot of fun learning new dragon shouts as I’ve progressed, and as there are a ton of dragon encounters I’ve always had the souls to unlock them. My favorite is probably the ice shout, which freezes opponents solid, and though my usual go-to is my fast recharging fire blast, I enjoy ones like Become Ethereal which makes jumping off a cliff a breeze without fear of damage, and Slow Time is just damn cool to watch. I haven’t unlocked the one I’ve heard is the coolest, which summons a lightning storm, but hopefully that’s soon.

I’ve tried to spread out my missions quite a bit, as I’m not sprinting through the main plotline and doing everything else later. Rather, I do a few main missions, stop, do an entire guild plotline, do a few random quests, and then keep going. I’ve learned that an ancient dragon is reviving all the dead dragons from their burial grounds in the earth, and I need to seek the help of an Elder Scroll so I can learn a end-all shout that can defeat him. I have no idea how far I am through the main plotline (don’t tell me), but I want to say I’m probably more than halfway through at this point.

Rather most of my time has been spent with guild missions, as each of those sub-stories could be their own game, as they usually take many hours to complete. I finished the Companion quests, but I found their werewolf-inspired plotline to be a bit lacking and I don’t recall receiving any significant or useful rewards from them. Rather, I appreciated the story of the Thieves Guild a lot more, as it had twists and turns and backstabbing, and I was gifted actual useful things like new stealth powers and awesome medieval Batman armor that is by far the coolest thing I’ve seen in the game so far.

No, I’m not built for stealth at all, but I’ve found that even as a straight fighter, you can bumble your way through any mission, or pretend like you’re agile and sneaky for the few seconds you’re required to. Currently ,I’m crashing my way through the  College of Winterhold (Mage’s Guild) missions despite my complete and utter lack of magical skills for any spell that doesn’t heal you or create a light over your head.

The Companions were supposed to be my brethren, but I found them a bit boring.

Doing these guilds and other side missions let you acquire companions to accompany you in battle. It’s a cool idea, but one that split my decision making for a while. I used a companion for quite a bit of time. They can carry extra weight, and can help you out during particularly tough battles where you could use a distraction.

But also, they can be annoying as shit. They’ll give you away on stealth missions, they’ll stand in every doorway and narrow hallway and simply refuse to move, and worst of all, they’ll die and make you feel really, really bad. It got to the point where I would win a tough battle against a truly hard enemy, but then realize my partner had been killed in the process .Guilt would force me to reload and try to win WITHOUT them dying. I got tired of this repeated situation, and finally sent my follower home, and now that I’m an immortal god king, I don’t really need their help any way. And on the truly hard battles where I would? They wouldn’t last three seconds anyway.