It was the lack of handholding. Between modular armor, spells and enchantments without guardrails, lack of leveled lists, diverse lore/region based loot, and other things like shopkeepers having a physical inventory you could steal from, you had a kind of freedom and respect for the player that the later games failed to replicate.
There was still a lot of funkiness to it of course between graphics, bugs, severe lack og QoL features, and just being an older game. The chunk loading was miserable, especially on console where you’d walk a few minutes then load just as long. For the era, however, those drawbacks were forgiveable.
Because you were probably 12 at most
It was the lack of handholding. Between modular armor, spells and enchantments without guardrails, lack of leveled lists, diverse lore/region based loot, and other things like shopkeepers having a physical inventory you could steal from, you had a kind of freedom and respect for the player that the later games failed to replicate.
There was still a lot of funkiness to it of course between graphics, bugs, severe lack og QoL features, and just being an older game. The chunk loading was miserable, especially on console where you’d walk a few minutes then load just as long. For the era, however, those drawbacks were forgiveable.