Welcome to my review for the Sofia Follower Mod for Skyrim. I'm a little late on this particular bandwagon, but after seeing this mod reviewed elsewhere, I gave it a bash. I was extremely impressed by the mod, so I thought I'd share my opinion.
Voice Acting:
The first thing that jumps out at me is the voice acting. The quality of which is amazing; the actress really has nailed the Nord accent. In the default Skyrim, there are some speeches in which the pause between different lines is brutally obvious, and makes the whole thing seem alien. The mod author has done really well to make the transitions between lines, so smooth it seems completely natural. Overall, I think the quality of the voice acting is a league and a half above the majority of the voice acting in vanilla Skyrim.
There is lots and lots of dialogue written for the character, so much so that, despite playing 2 characters to level 45 & starting a 3rd new character, I'm still hearing new dialogue. The mod description boasts witty & humorous dialogue, and that is what you get and more! Conversations are topical, or making witty remarks about your current location. It screams out to me that is what M'aiq the Liar should have been like.
The writing is done really well, and the dialogue is kept very consistent to Sofia's character, while still being varied enough to keep her seeming natural and likeable. The only thing I will say is that does play the "I'm a cute/sexy girl" card a little too much for my liking, but I struggle to criticise it too much, because it does fit her character really well, as a boastful, confident Nord.
Balance:
As a companion, Sofia is well balanced. Generally more powerful than you, but not game breakingly so. I've seen some mods in the past that at level 4, your companion can 1 hit kill a dragon - and I play on the Master difficulty setting! That really does ruin the experience for me. However, Sofia is not overpowered, and you'll find her a competent assistant in combat. I don't know if it's just me, but I get a CTD if I try and give her arrows. Bows are fine, but no arrows it does mean she cannot use archery at all. She is, by trade, a spellsword, using magic and one handed weapons together: with the destruction magic making up the total of her ranged abilities. Fair enough if she does not use archery, but I do have to mark the mod down for causing CTD's.
Elsewhere, she's a pretty vocal follower, which is nice as it makes it her seem like more of an involved companion than just a box for all of your spare stuff who stops to stab things every now and again. I tend to play exclusively stealth characters and Sofia continues the trend of Bethesda companions by generally screwing things up. However, the Summon Sofia spell that comes with the mod means you can easily get her to wait somewhere while you stealth properly, then summon her in when shit hits the fan. On balance, I don't mark the mod down for that because it's more to do with the game AI than it is to do with the mod, and they do make up for it with the summoning spell.
Let me try and convey how good this mod is. I have 500 hours on Skyrim, and another 500 on other Bethesda RPG's. In all of those games, I never have a companion. I don't think they add anything to the experience, in fact, since I generally play stealth based characters, I'd say they take away from the experience because the AI cannot stealth. That being said, I've now done 3 Skyrim characters with Sofia by my side, and if do any more, you can bet your backside, she'll be with me again. I do leave her behind while I clear out dungeons, but at all other times, the sheer personality of character makes it worth taking her on your adventures.
Humour:
On the topic of her personality, lets talk about the humour of this mod. Some of the lines and jokes are so well written, they're not just "oh ha ha that was kind of funny", it's the proper laugh out loud material that firmly puts this mod in my top 3 funniest content in games, along with Portal & The Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3. Even the bad jokes have a spin on them where she says "that was a bad joke even for me", which still made me laugh! John Jarvis, the writer of the mod and Christine Slagman, the voice of Sofia, have done a phenomenal job of brining the character to life and I feel more empathy towards Sofia than I do to any other character in the game, and indeed most other games that I've played.
Summary:
So to summarise, the Sofia Follower Mod for Skyrim is an absolutely fantastic mod, that has, for the first time for me in a Bethesda game, made it worth having a follower. The content and quality of the dialogue is a cut above that offered in the base game, and in some of the few other follower mods I've tried out. My only significant criticism of the mod comes from the fact you can't feed her arrows, or your game will hark it ye olde crash to desktop style. Despite that, I feel that this mod is an absolute must have for a playthough of Skyrim. You can check out links to the mod in the description, and I've also put in a link to Christine's other work, which you can check out as well.
Scoring:
-5% - Game CTD's when giving Sofia arrows
-1% - A bit to much use of the sexual nature for my liking.
Total: 94% - Gold Standard!
This mod was awarded the Hibblejaybob Gem Award for being the first mod to ever make me give a damn about a follower!
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