There are many better options to serve as worthwhile decent introductory RPGs that aren't too complex, unpolished, ancient or too challenging.
There probably are, but I'm going to agree with the person who said Skyrim. It's fairly easy to get in to. There's enough to do to keep someone occupied and wanting more. Not to mention it's a game that probably everyone has played, so it wouldn't be too hard for them to find answers if they need it or even share an experience. Hell, there's around 20,000 people on average playing the Special Edition right now in April 2024.
https://steamcharts.com/app/489830
Skyrim has a decent map, a decent journal, a somewhat decent dialogue system(unlike something like Mass Effect and Fallout 4 where you have to guess at what you're going to say based on a keyword), lots of places to explore, lots of things to see, books to read, and so on.
Incredible that this site is staffed by these kinds of retards. Everyone starts as a "non-gamer" dude. So when your own child asks you for an "introductory game" or whatever, you will give him Skyrim to play? Disgusting.
When a lot of us started gaming, we had to configure sounds cards for each game, know DOS fairly well, and so on. Some of us go back further than that where if you had a home computer, you probably at least knew how to program in BASIC. Today is completely different. Everyone has a computer, but most people don't know shit about them. I'd be willing to bet there's a good chunk of people that don't understand the difference in storage and memory because they're both measured in "gigabytes".
Also, if you go back and see my list of recommended games, Skyrim wasn't on it. But I can see why someone would say it. If you were going to recommend an Elder Scrolls game to someone that's never played a video game, I don't think I'd recommend Arena, Daggerfall or Morrowind even though I picked Daggerfall and Morrowind both in my Top 10 CRPGs of All Time. I wouldn't recommend Oblivion because, quite frankly, I couldn't stand that game even though I really liked Morrowind. I found it too generic. I never could get in to it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
It's true that they might only see certain things as a problem after experience with other games, because they don't expect anything more. The issue is that their preconceived idea of games hasn't been challenged by Skyrim. Even people who've enjoyed Skyrim to some extent might come to see it as indicative of the shallowness of the medium. After all, it's supposed to be the most "immersive" game ever. So I believe it's a really bad introductory game.
That's a fair assessment. If the person in question were an avid tabletop gamer, for example, I don't think Skyrim would be a good choice because, let's face it, the character system in Skyrim is very, very underwhelming. It's debatable on which Bethesda game has the most underwhelming character system, Fallout 4 or Skyrim. However, at the point where the person mentions that the character system really doesn't seem to have a lot of depth, you can suggest something else, right? It's not like you're giving them one game and then banishing them to a remote desert island somewhere.
But yeah, there's a reason why I picked Torchlight over something like Skyrim. In fact, I didn't pick Torchlight II because it's really big. REALLY big. If the person is a completionist and wants to explore everything, there's a whole lot of everything there. Torchlight is tighter since it takes place in one town and one big dungeon, but also has a lot of things in town to do. A good argument for Torchlight II over Torchlight is that it has co-op multiplayer, though, so you could play together. I have yet to try Torchlight III, so I can't comment on it.
