My favorite aspects of this game:
1) all npcs have their own daily schedules.
2) you can take over any building as your home (though npcs don't notice if you do) or even kill anyone, even if it makes the game unwinnable,
3) it's very open from the beginning without a lot of artificial "you're not ready to go here" quest gates,
4) you can build and equip a party of up to 8, and
5) you can exploit the game using its own rules against it, a special way to get more of a certain item being a classic example of it. I find I often enjoy the exploits I find in games, more than I enjoy the normal gameplay.