-Pulls out arm: - | ¬
-Watch a burst of energy emanating from myself kill everything in the blast radius

Total freedom is the name of the game. I'll never forget how I got into the Order of Edurneum's vault earlier in the game, stole some powerful runes, casted invisibility, walked to the front door, unlocked it, came back in through it (now visible), and was greeted with dialogue for endgame quests I was only expected to receive 12 hours later. Wanna murder every single NPC? The game lets you. Wanna study the lich spellcasting motion, mirror the runes and try to cast their spells? You can, they work, even though they don't get registered in your spellbook.

The spellcasting is the star of the show. Sure it's fun to select the correct spells in The Elder Scrolls series, but it's 1000x more fun to have learned the necessary runes yourself, in your own head (not in the game character's head), for the spell you want, draw them mid-combat, and watch the results.

The immersion is damn near perfect. The world-building, the setting, the level of interactivity, the multiple ways to accomplish tasks, the dialogue, the graphics (believe it or not), the sound design, and especially how interconnected the map levels are. Everything is purposeful.

Now for the negatives, I guess melee combat would benefit from a remake. It was fine for the time, hell, it even has contextual damage and dismemberment, but it is a bit janky, and there's no active guard, just a passive damage reduction from equipping a shield.