Absolutely legendary and special game for me, but unfortunately looking at it years later and experiencing a lot of actually good RPGs I just can't give it a positive review. I played as a pure mage on an expert difficulty, if that's important.
-Story, quests, writing. Forgettable and sometimes just plain stupid. Like, I can't say that there really are memorable characters or even hype moments and aura. Alduin is pretty boring as an antagonist. Some of the factions questlines are plainly horrible. Like, The Companions is literally one of the dumbest storylines I've ever had an honor to experience, Dark Brotherhood making its characters astonishingly stupid(Sure, Astrid, he will not betray you, trust me, bro), As for the quests, most of them are just dungeon crawls(which would be fine, if Skyrim dungeons weren't a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥) or talk to bro and come back. There are a few quests that actually have something interesting going go(story or scripting), but it's just a needle in a haystack.
-Gameplay. Bad. Combat is boring, exploration is boring and unrewarding. The biggest meme is artefacts that the game gives you and 99% of them are useless pieces of trash. Magic system is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cancer, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING. It's especially bad, when you come here from Morrowind and see this abomination. 99% of gameplay is just staggering enemies with firebold to death, cool! If you are a melee or an archer, left mouse click is also 99% of your gameplay, so don't worry. Roleplaying is basically non-existent, most of the perks are boring passive stuff, almost zero non-linearity or roleplaying opportunities in quests and gameplay in general. Like, I can't undersell it, the gameplay here is legendary bad.
-Graphics. World design and artists of Bethesda get my best kudos. The world of Skyrim and its beauty pull half of the weight for this game. Just walking around provinces, listening to the Jeremy Soule's OST and admiring the beauty of this game is an experience of its own, that nobody really created again and I don't think that someone ever will. Unironically, this game works really well as a walking sim. Yeah, fidelity shows its age, but it is still good, so it's not a problem.
-OST. I don't think that I need to say something about it. Skyrim OST is basically the peak, that I doubt someone will ever reach again. Tears literally sometimes come to my eyes when I listen to it, it's an otherwordly experience.
-Technical. Had a few scripting bugs during my 170 hours playthrought, but that's not really a problem and you always have a console. FPS is good. Also want to give my respects to Bethesda for its modding tools. Modding scene keeps this game alive and nobody does it like them in this aspect.
So, 5/10. On the one hand, some of the experiences that this game gave me were never matched and I doubt they ever will, but on the other, if you want to play an actually good RPG, I can't recommend this game in a good faith.
