I have no context of the previous elder scrolls games. Ive replayed it because i wanted to see how much of my view on the game was nostalgia, or maybe just not remembering things right. But what ive found is that Skyrim still holds up incredibly well after more than a decade of other games doing what it also did.

A great world to explore, find trinkets, secret locations, run into quests, join factions you hear about from NPCs and help them out with their problems...The combat is a bit on the shallower side, only focusing on your equipment, magic spells, and swapping between them mid combat if you so choose, but i dont feel the combat being week impacts my opinion on it too much.