I've seen many posts by people who defend the ES game where they found their nostalgia. But mostly subjectively, sometimes evwn denying facts. So that why I made this post. I played the latest 3 ES titans (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim). I don't know about Daggerfall or Arena, so don't post answers like: "Daggerfall was better, hands down." Give me reasons WHY you liked it. Other posts are welcome, as long as they follow the topic, and they are fair answers. Let's start, first things first.

Title song:
Morrowind: Good work. The song was so good, that Jeremy decided to put the elements of this song in the next two title songs.
Oblivion: The song gave some people the shivers when they first heard it. Good song, but not Jeremy's best work.
Skyrim: Awesome song. People liked it so much, they even used it for other purposes. You can find elements of Nerevar Rising in this song, as wel as a very small part of the Reing of the Septims. Definitly one of Jeremy's best songs.

Background music:
Morrowind: Great. I liked it because it gave you such a warm feeling. The use of Nerevar Rising was nice too!
Oblivion: Great work. A lot of songs were almost the same like Morrowind, but much warmer. Good work Jeremy.
Skyrim: I don't know why, but I didn't like the background music at all. It wasn't medieval-ish, and very 'skinny'. Except the battle music and the song of Sovngarde.

Combat:
Morrowind: I can't say I liked it, but I liked the way you were supposed to think, otherwise you'd be fighting a bandit for 7 minutes, and keep casting restoration spells xD. My first days of Morrowind were very painful.
Oblivion: Great work. It was more button mashing than strategic thinking. Mages were the only strategic thinkers, and the other two archetypes had to use the enviroment, and reflex
Skyrim: A real step forward since Oblivion when we talk about enviroment, melee and magic. A step backwards for the thinkers. Now magic is just like melee. Summon and cast Stoneflesh, then it's up to restoration and destruction.

Levelling:
Morrowind: It was good, but you needed at least 1 of your weapon skills at least to be level 50.
Oblivion: Horrible. Your level up was depending on 7 skills, and then you had to keep counting levels, so that you could have 3 +5 attributes. You also had to sleep to level. Not a good idea in vampire lairs.
Skyrim: Very good. I really liked it. It was simple, smooth, but sometimes a bit too easy. They could’ve made more use of perks.

Physics: (I mean things you can activate. So chests and such.)
Morrowind: None! xD I think I don't need to explain. In Morrowind people have extremely heavy feet.
Oblivion: Jumping like you were on the moon, speed could be ridicioulously high, and the ragdolls were bad.
Skyrim: Amazing. Jumping felt like jumping. Ragdolls were very good. And they simulated the real gravity force very well in the game.

Animations:
Morrowind: It was very bad I guess? It definitly wasn't the best they could offer. A real con of Morrowind. Npc bodies looked bad, and their animations too. It was done cheaply in ways of economy, or in ways of PC performance. I don't know. Many games around this time had much better.
Oblivion: Much better. It wasn’t the best, but the lip thing, the walking, but the combat stances and moves could’ve been better.
Skyrim: Very good. Just like the physics. The sprint animations were a little annoying though.

Graphics:
Morrowind: Well….It is an old game. And for It’s time it didn’t have the best graphics. Morrowind pretty much loses this one.
Oblivion: Great improvement. Still….The lighting, NPCs and self shadows bad.
Skyrim: Much finer graphics. But it seemed like the ground graphically stayed on the same level. The lighting was improved, but they put tints in it. I didn’t like those, but It’s just my opinion.

Landscapes:
Morrowind: Very old school RPG-ish. Since I like those, I like the Morrowind landscapes. I could understand that not everyone would like it.
Oblivion: Amazing. So much colors, the good hills, the nice sky. The only thing that messed it up was that there was no sun glare, and the lighting in Oblivion was horrible. Especially outside. Still, the best landscape I’ve ever met.
Skyrim: I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I liked it. Correction….I liked the Rift!

NPCs:
Morrowind: NPC chats weren’t Morrowind’s strongest points. The ideas of the enemy NPCs was great though. And the NPCs were much more informative than any other game.
Oblivion: I really liked the more audio thing. Every NPC could talk. And they mostly told other things than the rest. The monologues were much more unique. The idea of the looks were worse. I liked the idea of old school fantasy monsters like Morrowind’s. The looks themselves improved.
Skyrim: Much, much better! The lip sync was bugged though. The dragons were cool, and polished their movements polished enough.

Plot:
Morrowind: Great! It was interesting, but the fact that Morrowind is a slow game is depressing. Mostly for people that couldn’t game for more than an hour per day. Reading a book in short parts over a long time isn’t fun. Luckily I found a mod later on that improved speed.
Oblivion: Great idea, bad performance. The idea was interesting of having to fight back against a daedric lord, his army and his cult. The thing was that going through Oblivion Gates was supposed o be epic, but the planes looked just like all other dungeons, too much the same. The loot you found in there wasn’t good until you reached a level high enough to meet daedric armor. But, after all that, everything seems to move along with the MQ. And the ending was very satisfying.
Skyrim: The idea wasn’t the best, the performance was boring, and too much politically. It’s like they forced the political influences the player had in FO:NV, in skyrim. And you were supposed to be a real chosen one, a unique person. It was cool in the first playthrough, but once you want to RP, it’s not going to work as well anymore, but they catched that up with the open beginning. The end of the MQ was painful

Questlines:
Morrowind: Somehow, I couldn’t lose myself into the questlines, with the exception of the small quests of the house Hlaalu. I don’t know why.
Oblivion: Probably the best quest lines in the Elder Scrolls. They were interesting, pretty long and rewarding. And I mean all four of them.
Skyrim: Just like in Morrowind, I couldn’t lose myself in these ones. Except the College, which was interesting in my first playthrough.

Memorable NPCs: (Every game had a kind of same thing in here.
Morrowind: A fair amount. I’m not good at remembering names of the Dunmer culture though.
Oblivion: A good amount too. The coolest was that you had to witness the emperors death.
Skyrim: Good amount too. Not as much as the previous games.

Cities and places:
Morrowind: Great! There were so many places, but it never felt like totally open world, until you got the levitation enchantment/spell. The cities were made by awesome architecture, and exotic coatings. The landscape was awesome, especially the north, and the foot of the red mountain.
Oblivion: Every city looked so different, yet the same. And the best of all: Every city was important. There was no city that you could miss during a playthrough Oblivion. The west coast had amazing sunsets, the Golden road was magical etc. etc. In short: Oblivion had the most amazing places.
Skyrim: Just like Oblivion, so many amazing areas. The rift, the reach, blackreach, skuldafn, sovngarde etc. Amazing. Good job Beth. But the cities were a bit left out. I mean, I didn’t see Falkreath until I had spent more than 100 hours on it. I even forgot it existed. And the worst of all: Winterhold… I’m not going to talk about that one.

DLC:
Morrowind: Bloodmoon and Tribunal were so exotic and the story so epic, It kept me busy for at least 40 hours.
Oblivion: Probably the best DLC ever. I heard that one of the expansions of WoW got close to it many years ago, but Oblivion still stands on top for delivering one of the most epic DLCs ever. We all know what I’m talking about. Shivering Isles was amazing. The mushroom trees of Morrowind with the colors of Oblivion. The ideas of the NPCs were amazing, and the plot could keep you busy for a very long time. The DLC was also pretty big. The other DLCs weren’t that special, except the Knights of the Nine, that one was fun too.
Skyrim: Dragonborn brought in what we missed in Oblivion and Skyrim. It gave us the feeling of Boss Battles, and returned us to Solstheim. And Dawnguard was just as fun as the Knight of the Nine. It also returned us the crossbows.

Immersion: (last but not least)
Morrowind: Once you start the game, you feel that the game is trying to svck you into the world of the Elder Scrolls. The NPCs gave you a lot of interesting information, and the books almost immediately informed you about Nirn. The immersion Beth created here is just magical.
Oblivion: It’s hard to get into the Lore in Oblivion. Only if you read the books. Very disappointing.
Skyrim: You can see that Beth put their effort to recreate the immersion of Morrowind. Though they did not succeed, they still did a good job. Much better than in Oblivion.

Own opinion:
My first game was Oblivion. I spent over 600 hours on it, and I’m going to tell you why. The most flaws of Oblivion were able to be fixed through mods. So, what I only installed mods that would remove flaws. The first flaws I restored was the lighting, the sunglare and the atmosphere. Believe me, I have a low end PC, and the landscapes looked magical after that. So whenever I’m in need to see another landscape, I played Oblivion. Together with the background music, and tada! You reached the level of nostalgia. Again. Of course my nostalgia began even before I met the option of modding. And leveling, faces, economy too, are fixable through mods.

Morrowind was fun too. It kept me playing, but the combat wasn’t catchy. The slow travels were annoying and fast travel really is handy sometimes. I missed it here. Going from Balmora to solstheim wasn’t fun. And the cliff racers would become really annoying at higher levels. Still, the immersion got me playing. That’s the magic of Morrowind.

Skyrim was very open. Very simple. And had much variety. The combat was awesome, as well as many other gameplay elements, but something…something was wrong. It felt like Half Life 2. I don’t know why. Skyrim felt much more an action game than an RPG. But, Half Life 2 is a very good game. And Skyrim belongs to the best games. No doubt.

If you asked me what ES I enjoyed the most: Oblivion
If you asked me what ES I find the most memorable: Morrowind
If you asked me what ES I would choose to play for the next 10 years on an abandoned island: Skyrim