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SPOILER INFO
No spoilers. This article describes the mod Falskaar in general terms.
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I have now completed all the Falskaar quests I have found, as far as I could endure them. Falskaar is agony and ecstasy in 100 parts.
The things that make Falskaar not just emphatically recommended, but an absolute must, are:
1. The scenery in Falskaar is far more beautiful than anything in Skyrim proper.
2. If you are, like me, fed up with your job as a ghostbuster in Skyrim, Falskaar offers a welcome chance to help likeable people with things that actually make sense.
3. The women are adorable. (I mean their attitude.) It is possible that the Yankers who wrote Skyrim have never seen a good woman, and Velicky, apparently a Czech, might find it as hard as I do to believe that the bitchawhoruses Hollywood tries to pass up as women can actually exist. I wrote in one of my past articles that the Solstheim women are a welcome change after the Skyrim testosteronesses, but even they are a far cry from the Falskaar ones who are actually decent women.
However, when you play Falskaar:
1. Save often, because a slight mistake in your reading of Alexander Velicky's thoughts can irreparably break a quest. (Really! I am not being sarcastic here. Don't tell me I didn't warn you.)
2. Do not be ashamed of turning to forums and walkthroughs for help. I can't imagine a person other than Alexander Velicky or his twin brother who could complete all the Falskaar quests without external help.
3. Make sure there are no children nearby, because you don't want them to overhear the words you will be occasionally addressing at Velicky while playing.
I won't waste your time by describing Falskaar's faults in detail. They are few and minor.
I will intentionally refrain from criticizing the mod's voice acting, because I'm so grateful it at least has voice acting. It's a huge deal among Skyrim mods.
I will only point out three intolerable blunders in Falskaar:
1. The city of Borvald is a Potyomkin village. I feel obliged to warn you and I don't consider it a spoiler. Do no get your hopes up, thinking that you will be able to, like, walk from house to house and talk to people. There will be nothing like that in Borvald. It's a despicable rip-off.
2. The final parts of Falskaar's main quest are complete nonsense.
3. Falskaar is a mind-boggling abundance of buggy doors and gates.
There are four ways to properly program a door or a gate in Skyrim:
1. When the player targets the door, it says E – Open, and when the player presses E, the door opens.
2. When the player targets the door, it says E – Open, and when the player presses E, the door doesn't open and instead a message such as “The door is barred from the other side” is displayed.
3. When the player targets the door, he is informed that the lock needs to be picked or can only be opened with the right key.
4. When the player targets the door, no help text is displayed, which is a hint to the player that he needs to find a switch of some kind to open the door.
Doors and gates that promise to open upon pressing E and then fail to open without any explanation as to what is wrong are unacceptable. When a gate can only be opened by operating an external switch, the text E – Open is not supposed to be displayed. This is so elementary. Alexander Velicky's inability to get it right is stupefying. How can any programmer be so sloppy?
Oh, and before I forget – a switch that cannot be operated by me but can be operated by any NPC (including my followers!!!!) is beyond idiotic. Apart from which, how can a padlock on a cell door be opened and closed by pulling a lever on a nearby wall? A padlock, for crying out loud! After this, I wouldn't be surprised to see Velicky drink his coffee with salt instead of sugar.
Apart from all those disgraceful crapdoors, Falskaar isn't really buggy. It's just that the author has envisioned a way of doing one or another thing, and he can't imagine that anyone might want to do it in a different way. If Alexander Velicky would build a car, its wheels would fall off if you sneezed at a wrong moment. If you used your own lighter to light your cigaret, the gas tank would explode, as Alexander Velicky considers if self-evident that everyone uses only the car's own built-in cigaret lighter. The driver's seatbelt would absolutely have to be fastened before the passenger's one. If the passenger accidentally fastens his seatbelt while the driver's is still open, the engine won't start – ever. And most importantly, nobody would ever warn you about those things. You'd just have to guess right, or find yourself without a functioning car. That's how Falskaar's quests are. As I said, save frequently.
On the other hand, when you free your mind from the urge to accomplish, and just be there, Falskaar can be the most delightful place in your Skyrim game.
If you want to, you can read in more detail about my impressions when I entered Falskaar:
for the first time ever
in my next game (as a woman)
[originally published 2017-04-06]
