+ The Goods
Compared to others titles in the Elder Scrolls series, The Elder Scrolls V is arguably one of the easiest and most approachable. It's systems for leveling up, gaining experience, and applying skill points are all incredibly self explanatory. This, accompanied by the overwhelmingly easy-to-achieve sense of questing and duties makes The Elders Scrolls V the most accessible game of the series, thus far. Beyond the basics of learning how to become more effective and being offered a blank slate to work with, no specific classes or racial limitations officially set on you, you are also given and literally handed missions left, right, front, and center which assist in some way with empowering and amplifying your abilities. This brings us to the next point, factions. Unlike most RPG's where you're given a chance to invest into and become fully enveloped by a faction, Skyrim essentially works more like a series of bumper cars with its factions, where you just bounce from one faction to another and gain something from it. You don't even have to officially be dedicated to any guilds and are essentially able to completely ignore the majority of quests to do nothing and be nothing. Along with this non-committal style of play and world-building, you are also allowed to gloat on Bethesda's mantra of being highly moddable and offering a variety of decent mods. This modding is the strongest and arguably the core reason why it is so incredibly dynamic with all that it offers. Compared to previous installations, Skyrim Special Edition and the original Skyrim offer a large number of constantly growing mods and mod authors. This can basically throw a wrench into all of the previous things I cited and make your game easy or incredibly hard, depending on the psychotic path you wish to invest into with your modding.

+/- Meh
Similar to other installations of Bethesda games, The Elder Scrolls V's story is mostly forgettable or largely comprised of repeatable and easy-to-do quests which give off some small amount of loot that is largely, again, forgettable. In an extremely rare moment, you may unlock or find a weapon that does something special, but this is neither a major element, nor is it a major factor in game play. This non-committal style of world building and story telling makes Skyrim the most interesting and free game, while simultaneously being the most uninvolved RPG offered on the market. Power, survival, and money are really what it comes down to, along with your mod tastes and desires for your character. While the player is offered a lot of choice in terms of factions, very little can be said about being involved in the factions, beyond that they're oftentimes going to offer the same series of quests multiple times. The challenge of being invested in story telling with Skyrim is that you really aren't given much in the way of good story material. The worst offender of these will be mentioned later, but just note that none of the role-playing elements in this game are really that invested or matter all that much.

-The Bads
The largest bad in Skyrim is between two things; first the story and its role playing elements. As previously mentioned the largest limitation to the game is that its role play and story telling are largely forgettable. While this is somewhat mitigated by certain DLC like the Dawnguard which offers different major paths to follow, it is largely uninteresting or unchanging in how the world around you develops. This little bit is mostly in reference to the Civil War quest lines and how little actually changes in the grander scheme of things. Certain elements of the openness to game play can outright disable getting any real rewards when playing Skyrim. A great example of this, is that when you receive an honorary weapon for completing one of the first major plot hooks in the early story, particularly involving the Jarl of Whiterun, you receive two weapons that are assigned to you based on certain values and numerical stats. This reward is completely outshined by the fact that I was, at the point of receiving these weapons, completely outclassed. I was walking around with Glass gear and equipment and was able to completely ignore the value that these two awarded weapons offered. This approach to questing makes doing certain things nonsensical on the grounds that you bring better gear and items, anyways. Receiving a gift during some quests would make fighting and struggling in some missions more worthwhile, but in other instances, it's just lazy.

To conclude, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a largely noncommittal role playing high fantasy setting which positions you in a country comprised of undiscovered locations, civil war, and mythological abominations challenging you at almost every turn. The bread and butter of Skyrim is largely the modding, while the actual game and story is largely forgettable. With this dynamic level of customization, one can aim to eventually find something that they'll like about the game, assuming they're not planning on playing a more invested story-based role playing game.

+ The Goods Compared to others titles in the Elder Scrolls series, The Elder Scrolls V is arguably one of the easiest and most approachable. It's systems for leveling up, gaining experience, and applying skill points are all incredibly self explanatory. This, accompanied by the overwhelmingly easy-to-achieve sense of questing and duties makes The Elders Scrolls V the most accessible game of the series, thus far. Beyond the basics of learning how to become more effective and being offered a blank slate to work with, no specific classes or racial limitations officially set on you, you are also given and literally handed missions left, right, front, and center which assist in some way with empowering and amplifying your abilities. This brings us to the next point, factions. Unlike most RPG's where you're given a chance to invest into and become fully enveloped by a faction, Skyrim essentially works more like a series of bumper cars with its factions, where you just bounce from one faction to another and gain something from it. You don't even have to officially be dedicated to any guilds and are essentially able to completely ignore the majority of quests to do nothing and be nothing. Along with this non-committal style of play and world-building, you are also allowed to gloat on Bethesda's mantra of being highly moddable and offering a variety of decent mods. This modding is the strongest and arguably the core reason why it is so incredibly dynamic with all that it offers. Compared to previous installations, Skyrim Special Edition and the original Skyrim offer a large number of constantly growing mods and mod authors. This can basically throw a wrench into all of the previous things I cited and make your game easy or incredibly hard, depending on the psychotic path you wish to invest into with your modding. +/- Meh Similar to other installations of Bethesda games, The Elder Scrolls V's story is mostly forgettable or largely comprised of repeatable and easy-to-do quests which give off some small amount of loot that is largely, again, forgettable. In an extremely rare moment, you may unlock or find a weapon that does something special, but this is neither a major element, nor is it a major factor in game play. This non-committal style of world building and story telling makes Skyrim the most interesting and free game, while simultaneously being the most uninvolved RPG offered on the market. Power, survival, and money are really what it comes down to, along with your mod tastes and desires for your character. While the player is offered a lot of choice in terms of factions, very little can be said about being involved in the factions, beyond that they're oftentimes going to offer the same series of quests multiple times. The challenge of being invested in story telling with Skyrim is that you really aren't given much in the way of good story material. The worst offender of these will be mentioned later, but just note that none of the role-playing elements in this game are really that invested or matter all that much. -The Bads The largest bad in Skyrim is between two things; first the story and its role playing elements. As previously mentioned the largest limitation to the game is that its role play and story telling are largely forgettable. While this is somewhat mitigated by certain DLC like the Dawnguard which offers different major paths to follow, it is largely uninteresting or unchanging in how the world around you develops. This little bit is mostly in reference to the Civil War quest lines and how little actually changes in the grander scheme of things. Certain elements of the openness to game play can outright disable getting any real rewards when playing Skyrim. A great example of this, is that when you receive an honorary weapon for completing one of the first major plot hooks in the early story, particularly involving the Jarl of Whiterun, you receive two weapons that are assigned to you based on certain values and numerical stats. This reward is completely outshined by the fact that I was, at the point of receiving these weapons, completely outclassed. I was walking around with Glass gear and equipment and was able to completely ignore the value that these two awarded weapons offered. This approach to questing makes doing certain things nonsensical on the grounds that you bring better gear and items, anyways. Receiving a gift during some quests would make fighting and struggling in some missions more worthwhile, but in other instances, it's just lazy. To conclude, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a largely noncommittal role playing high fantasy setting which positions you in a country comprised of undiscovered locations, civil war, and mythological abominations challenging you at almost every turn. The bread and butter of Skyrim is largely the modding, while the actual game and story is largely forgettable. With this dynamic level of customization, one can aim to eventually find something that they'll like about the game, assuming they're not planning on playing a more invested story-based role playing game.