hurt my feelings, cried at the end, good stuff

This is peak open-world RPG experience

In short: Enderal is an incredible work, clearly designed by a team passionate with Skyrim and Bethesda, but lucid on their defects. Hence Enderal improves on all the issues Skyrim had, in my opinion achieving one of the greatest RPG experiences out there, full stop.

In length:
Enderal's success mainly starts with a focus on quality over quantity. The world is slightly less large than Skyrim, with fewer dungeons and quests, but each are of significantly greater quality than Skyrim, so a playthrough on Skyrim isn't really longer than on Enderal.

Then Enderal borrows from Morrowind's un-scaled difficulty system to create a dangerous world where exploration and questing are truly challenging, hence far more rewarding. Similarly for skills and XP, which were overhauled cleverly to prevent Skyrim's leveling exploit, bring novelty and extra challenge.

The level of detail and polish is worth praises: each town, dungeon, and area in general are crafted meticulously with plenty of charm, uniqueness and complexity when needed.

Finally, the story and character building are miles beyond what we're offered in AAA RPGs nowadays. I can hardly express how deep the storylines are, we truly go through complex moral and ethical dilemmas that will make you think! So rare in a game nowadays.
This is supported by an excellent acting, genuinely superior to Skyrim and other AAAs in many instances.

For a few final highlights: Very good sound design and music (no reuse from Skyrim), fascinating world design / lore, very good balancing and difficulty (quite tough at start though, be prepared), varied content and characters (also quite inclusive)

Lowlights:
I try my best to be critical here, but I'd honestly rate this game a solid 19.5/20 so here goes:
- Enderal is excellent 90% of the time.
Okay that's a bad start for a lowlight but hear me out: You know how in most games, if you explored an area ahead of time, then have a quest in this area, everything will happen as if you never went there, maybe an NPC will even have the audacity to guide you?
Well 90% of the time, Enderal will actually acknowledge that you already went there / know the people (letting your character voice that, or having an NPC acknowledge), and even let you lead the way!!
What? Oh right, the lowlight: Well for the remaining 10% of the time this doesn't happen, and you'll have the regular experience like every quest in Skyrim or other RPG.
I'm trying alright?!
- Early game is rough, but it's also a "git gud" thing. If you expect to play a mere Skyrim mod, you're heading there with the wrong mindset. Think "Dark Souls meets Skyrim", where in combat you have to move carefully, dodge attacks, and have a decently well built character (usage of talent points), or you'll struggle. You can even turn the game into full Dark Souls mode in max difficulty, where dodging each attack becomes crucial. Difficulty scaling is also done better than og Skyrim... so yeah this point is actually a highlight, if you're looking for a rewarding RPG experience. (Not an effortless one)

Final comment
- It's free. If you're so far into reading and still aren't sure, just download the damn thing and give it a try!
- My first game: 90 hrs playtime, enjoyed 100% of it.
- Specialize in a handful of skills, don't try to do everything like Skyrim. If your main combat skills are below your character's level, you won't progress.

Skyrim gameplay, but the story feels more like Planescape Torment, very appreciate that. I really amazed how much work was done on non-commercial base by SureAI team.

Amazing

This game will make your balls explode. Play it suffer at the start then become a bad ass and witness what most AAA games could only dream of.

One of the best RPG games Ive played for a long time. Despite it being a mod, the game surpasses the original game it was modded from!

Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind were some of the long great games with massive exploration and RPG'ing galore. However, I find this game had a much more deeper and interesting main storyline which sorta reminded me of the game Mass Efect's storyline.

Whereas a sinister secret is discovered which spans several 100,000 years (or maybe more) effecting several civilizations thru out time.

Great dialouge, and even some decent voice acting, great graphics, and the skillsets all are great. But the biggest (IMO) skillset that I thought was useful was the "werewolf" skillset. Used it every time to get out of a hard corner or when your overwhelmed with upper level enemies.

Although it would have been nice to get a few more NPC's to help along the way. But for most of it, I played solo only using the NPC's when doing main quests.

All I can say, is that its a great game to try. And remember, all this as a MOD! Dont know why the company didnt jump on it and made it an actual game to sell.

Skyrim but not skyrim but skyrim

Insane quality and substance for essentially a Skyrim modpack. Highly recommended if you enjoyed TESV.

How Skyrim should be.....

simply amazing