after finishing the modern (yes I am calling this modern...) Elder Scrolls games I did not think Skyrim would be my favorite. I liked this game a lot there is just a sense of exploration that is really not in modern RPGs game the game is certified RAW, but with that rawness comes some things that maybe should stay in the past the quest logs as cool as it is that they are with adding entries to your diary in whatever other you play them and do them making it very organic is cool but the main quest alone will fill up over 100 pages making it borderline impossible to go back and check on quest details for something you left unfinished 10 hours ago its a cool idea but this game is too big for it, this is made slightly better by your diary having hyperlinks to its in-game "Wikipedia" but then if your going to that point of immersion break a lil organization would've helped. then the 2 most famous things about this game has no waypoints and stats are leveled up by doing the thing and they can reach crazy levels which is cool the game is built around not having quest markers characters will constantly give you directions like the lost tourist you are and these are the standout feature of this game but the missions never get too crazy you really ever get a payoff for them imo don't get me wrong the game has its story build up but aside from the actual ending missions are often go talk to someone get sent to some dark cave to get cool looking item rinse and repeat I was surprised but how much of what I didn't like about oblivion and Skyrim was already here.
I can respect its title as a classic but its a Bethesda RPG at the end of the day and all the good and the bad that comes from that

slight aside, on the first day playing this was completely lost mostly just doing random quests much later I thought maybe I should do the main quest look at my quests and there's this thing about someone sending assassins to kill me well that seems important I follow that get sent to a whole new area i was like wow this must really be an important quest surely the main quest so i push through that and it turned out to be the DLC tribunal anyways i drop that and go back to Vvardenfell incredibly overpowered and i just get a guide to figure out how to start the main quest

I remember when Oblivion came out, and a number of my friends got super into it. I don't think I'd heard of Elder Scrolls before that. I got it to give it a try and got a ways into it before getting too bored and dropping it. I saw other people online having that reaction, and the response was always: "You should totally try Morrowind, it's much better." I was curious enough to give that a shot too, hoping Oblivion was just the less-interesting entry in the series. Morrowind was definitely better, but it really solidified for me that this series was not for me. The quests at least felt a little better to pick up and then explore how to complete them, still didn't love the first-person gameplay. Characters and story just felt too drab and lifeless to really hooky me. Of the 3 Elder Scrolls games I've played, this one probably seemed like it had the most going on, but I still couldn't stick with it after a handful of hours.