I believe The Beatles: Rock Band came the closest to being perfect. Eveything about that game was just beautifully done and the only things missing was Pro Drums, an option for Keys, and a few more Beatle songs (Hey Jude, Strawberry Fields Forever, Yesterday etc. etc.)
Outer Wilds. I consider it the best video game ever made and I’ve spent quite some time thinking about if there’s something I could add, change or remove that would improve it and so far I’ve yet to come up with anything of substance (beyond tiny QoL changes or reeeally nitpicky stuff).
I’ve just joined beehaw, this is my first browse, and one of the first comments I see is for Outer Wilds… Feels good. One of my favourite games / stories / media / art pieces ever. I love it and all of the brilliant minds behind it, I’ve never thought so about a game once finished anywhere near as much as this one.
Chrono Trigger. It’s basically the evolutionary peak of the NES-era console RPG. Every aspect, including the story, art, game mechanics, and music, are best-in-class, with no obvious room for improvement given the technical constraints of the time.
Holy shit Chrono Trigger rocked my world so fucking hard. I played it on an emulator in like 2000. I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff yet I still remember the impression this game left on me. It was like holding my breath at the end there goddamn.
I have great expectation in Sea of Stars exactly because I loved Chrono Trigger suo much.
Had the same expectations for I am Setsuna, but from what I saw in gameplay and reviews, it was disappointing. Hopefully Sea of Stars will be a good one
Setsuna had a lot of cool throwbacks to Chrono Trigger, but ultimately, it was just okay.
I found myself more excited for what would be the next reference in the game, more than being excited about the game itself.
Maybe Tetris? Such a simple concept, and it’s one of the most popular games of all time.
Minecraft for similar reasons. Even if it has become more complex in recent years, the core of it is just…you can break everything and build anything. It’s hard to say that isn’t a perfect sandbox.
More personal opinion though, maybe Super Mario Odyssey. Just incredibly polished and varied with an amazing movement system.
Tetris is a game that just doesn’t get old.
It’s really you against your previous self, rather than you against the game.
It’s the same reason why I enjoy Mini Motorways so much!
My vote is for Slay the Spire. Invented the deck-building roguelike genre and did so with an interesting setting, simple but appealing artstyle, memorable soundtrack, and very tight balancing across 21 difficulty levels.
Also Tetris, but that’s already been said.
I would interpret “perfect” as “i can’t find anyhing negative to say about this game”. So for me the candidates are:
- Portal 1&2
- Factorio
- Outer Wilds
- FTL
- TowerFall: Ascension
- Dishonored 2
- Prey (the Arkane studios one)
- Minit
- and maybe Nidhogg
For a game to be perfect I think it’s got to be absolutely pinpoint in achieving what it sets out to do. Doesn’t matter if it’s a small game, or an expansive open world.
I’m gonna go with Superhot. For my money it took an idea, and ran with it to its natural conclusion. It’s laser focused on that one core mechanic and pulls it off so well that I don’t think anyone else has even tried to replicate it.
Can we go really old with these?
Because Zelda Link to the Past is a perfect game.
I know how ubiquitous it is, but I still replay it on a regular basis. Its perfectly designed, balanced, simple… Im not saying its superior to modern games or something stupid, I just think its pretty flawless. That is all.
1000% agree. Im a huge fan of all things Legend of Zelda and this one still stands as a masterpiece to me as well.
Gotta be Portal 2. The puzzles are fun, the difficultly curve is reasonable, and the writing is fantastic. Truly the only complaint I have is that I wish there was more of it.
The original Deus Ex. The storyline, the way the game world reacted to your actions and made it feel like your actions were relevant to the world around you instead of just being a static place where stuff happened to you…
It’s hard to define perfection but Return Of The Obra Dinn has very few flaws IMO. I can only complain about relatively minor UX problems. Everything else is incredible. I still think about the story years later and the music gets stuck in my head to this day. It is such a consummate achievement of game dev and its design achieves maximum results with the limited resources of a solo gamedev.
Factorio. The game automatically adjusts difficulty based on your speed and familiarity. Pros scaling rapidly are going to have a harder time with biters than a noob learning the ropes on the exact same difficulty settings. Difficulty settings can be scaled up for a true challenge. Mods are supported damn near as much as first party devs. It’s a very well optimized game. It’s just technically impressive, psychologically fun, and fundamentally well balanced.
Guild Wars, especially for the PvP mode. I loved the visual feeling of the game, it felt sharper and less cartoony than a WoW.
Some classes were kind of novel too at the time.
And the feature I loved was the limited skillset you had to chose : you could be lvl 20 (max) and know 30 spells but you could only pick 5 in your active bar. It made for so many interesting builds and combinations !
Guild Wars
Aaah, that game really left a hole in my heart that was never really filled again. Build crafting during school, playing in the evenings – those were the days. I also loved how the game forced team play much more than other MMORPG’s. And then there’s the lore, the beautiful zones… Truly pretty close to perfect!
I have to agree with you there. The music, the scenery, the plot, just the general aesthetic of the game was incredible. It created an experience in play. I can’t tell you how many times I restarted characters and classes to play through in a slightly different experience. I still pick it up and play occasionally, even though I’m the only one from my guild who has logged in for the past 3 years, it’s nice to just see and experience the game again.
Lots of contenders for me: Resident Evil 2, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of time, Goldeneye, Half-Life, Diablo II, Skyrim, Alien: Isolation, Borderlands 2, Mario 64
But I gotta go with Runescape
Control seems pretty good at what it wants to do. Nice graphics and soundtrack, fluid movement in combat (closest description I could think of) and cool, intriguing story. It also has one of the best video game quests I’ve played: Ashtray Maze
Skyrim (despite the numerous bugs) is another one I will say is close to perfect. Really good game and the community is pretty great as well.
My vote goes to Shadow of the Colossus. The story, the mood, those damn creatures. Just enough frustration to keep you going and enough variation to not make it boring.
