Yeah it brings it more in line with the earlier games, like you need fire magic or silver weapons to damage undead and the enemies/dungeons are level locked, so you can absolutely stumble into an area that is way beyond your character to handle. It's been a while since I did a playthrough but I usually wouldn't even try the first main quest dungeon until level 15-20 and had to run around killing bandits around Whiterun for a while.

The only caveat is that you will be getting your shit kicked in for a while and it's very possible to get 1 shot by a 2h weapon, arrows do a ton of damage as well if you aren't wearing heavy armor.