it's good to know even the first Elder Scrolls had side quests which are just pointless filler. bewildering at first but quickly becomes merely tedious. i've heard this game was intended as only a dungeon crawler at first but was morphed into an RPG late into development, and if true, that shows. any and all "role-playing" mechanics are slapdash, though often overly ambitious. there are dozens of individual towns in this game, all complete with plenty of NPCs. there are even holidays. you can visit all of Tamriel, which is apparently unique for the series with the exception of the MMO. it's just a shame it's all copy/paste. no town has a unique identity nor do any NPCs. there is no point where you have the chance to actually role-play as your character; again, the game is at heart just a dungeon crawler.

as for the dungeon crawling, it has more individual identity. levels actually have distinct themes -- there is an ice dungeon, a volcano dungeon, etc. but the levels themselves are quite bad -- all of them without exception are sprawling and senseless labyrinths which practically require you to use the (very good!) strategy guide. as for combat, the heart of the game, it sucks. you have a problem when the heart of your game sucks. enemies early on feel far too powerful and still feel rather over-tuned late into the game. monsters often randomly spawn on top of or behind you. combat practically forces you to rest in between fights but you cannot rest while enemies are nearby (sort of like another game!) and enemies spawn near you frequently when you try to, interrupting it. you die very, very fast; too fast. at the very least swinging your weapon in different direction is cool at first, but that's about it. there's nothing really compelling in this game.