• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Have you ever played a PERFECT game?

I think the only games I could put into this category are Nintendo made games. Namely Super Mario 64 and Paper Mario TTYD come to mind.
 
For me, Dragon Quest 8 comes pretty close. But even after thinking about it for a couple minutes more, they could have definitely improved the monster fighting, alchemy and the skill progressions systems to make them less obtuse. For the monster fighting and alchemy at least, it would have been damn near impossible to master or make them reasonably useful without the strategy guide.
 
Zelda LTTP is as close to perfect as I've played so far. Nothing touches it as far as I'm concerned, although Ys: Oath in Felghana and Super Metroid come close.
 
Towerfall: Ascension is pretty much flawless to me. Not my favourite game of all time or anything, god damn if it isn't pretty much perfectly executed.

Damn. I need to play some more Towerfall
 
Chrono Trigger is the closest thing for me.

The thing that seals it for me is that it is still very replayable today, a lot of other games that I would've given 10/10 at the time haven't held up well. Ocarina of Time is the most prominent example that hasnt held up well at all for me.
 
I did play Perfect Dark, so will say yes. (bah dum tcsssh)

Seriously, I don't even know what perfect would mean, because a lot of the games listed in here have serious flaws which were not readily apparent at the time they released.

And several of them have bad glitches that people are glossing over. Perfect is a very difficult word to achieve.
 
Tetris.

Games that are my favorites have tons of flaws, I don't even really care for tetris.
Megaman X is perfect. All the sequels have flaws.
Like, Megaman X is my favorite game, probably ever, and it puts the dash boots in Chill Penguin's stage which, if you don't know that, is awful.
 
Seen Tetris and that's the correct answer.

Anyone can pick it up.
I have yet to meet Anyone who disliked it.

I have come close to a perfect game but Tetris is it.
 
That framerate though...
PAL version was running at 16fps if I'm not mistaken. Stopped playing after a few hours. Started again when OoT3D released, not a perfect game but solid 30fps took it up to top 10 at least.

Super Metroid is very close to perfection for me. My personal greatest game of all time.
 
For me the following were perfect at lauch (in that I don't believe there are any flaws in their design nor execution and they represent perfect achievement of their design goals at release):


  • Elite - original release gave you the galaxy for less than the storage requirements of a small texture today
  • Half Life 2 - FPS gold standard for single player, no cut-scenes, perfectly judged variety and execution (including the vehicle sections)
  • ICO - flawless execution and the single most impressively consistent location yet in a videogame
  • Flower - flawless and best played straight through in one sitting to gain full emotional response
  • Journey - ditto as with Flower
    Super Mario Galaxy - all game and all great

That's it for me. I'd love to include SOTC, Deus Ex and many others but I believe they do have genuine flaws even if minor and even if no more than some performance issues (SOTC on PS2's only flaw is the fps issue and on PS3 it seems to have some grip timing issues).

I would include Dear Esther but I see it as an interactive narrative not a videogame (and that's not a knock as I love it but it's not a game).
 
I mean literally perfect (having no mistakes or flaws).

I have played one perfect game in my 15 years of gaming, and that game is Metroid Prime, everything about it is perfect.

NPTt1jX.jpg


In fact, Metroid Prime is the only perfect thing I have ever seen in my whole life. It got me questioning that popular saying "nothing is perfect".

So now I'm here creating this thread: have you ever played a perfect game?

And once again, I mean LITERALLY perfect.

I finished Prime 2 weeks ago and just finished Echoes 3 hours ago and when I read the title of this post I immediately thought of MP2. Prime is a superb game game, but in my opinion Echoes surpasses it. Prime had awesome atmosphere, but Echoes really hits it out of the park from the very first moments with that eerie scene when reanimated marines attack you. The new powers are perfect: the screw attack really seems like an improvement on your way to travel and the spiderball is used in masterful ways with the addition of the turbo to jump from track to track. The showdowns against Dark Samus are memorable and the Light-Dark World mechanic adds a lot of depth to the already meaningful exploration.The Sanctuary Fortress may be the best level ever, period.

I can't say it's perfect as there were some things I didn't like much (the light-dark beams depending on ammo didn't resonate with me, I would've prefferred a different system and more original weapons) but it's one of my top 5 games ever. Prime is...top6 :)

Now, to beat Corruption!
 
Perfect? Nothing really, but in my head:

The Last of Us

Journey

Knights of the Old Republic (I know it's flawed, but back then it felt perfect).
 
Seriously. In before more "Your perfect game is not my perfect game, therefore it's not perfect. Because what I say is perfect is perfect, but what you say is perfect is not perfect."
This kinda is a conflict of interest as far as this topic goes, since, objective perfection is seriously easy to disprove.

If "perfect game" means subjective, it may as well be favorites, right?
 
I'd say a perfect game is a game that succeeds at basically everything it tries to do. Therefore MGS3 fails because of the control scheme and camera pre-subsistence, but The Last of Us is perfect because all it tries to do is a story and a linear game. The biggest problems are nitpicks (Companion AI and Summer being slightly too long).

Journey too is perfect because there's so little for it to fuck up.
 
Oh i forgot to mention Super Puzzle Fighter 2. Man, that game. So incredible. There's not a lot of stuff out there like it. The recent Puyo Puyo Tetris is pretty great though.
 
The Last of Us
RE4
Kotor
Mario 64
Metroid Prime
Journey
Goldeneye - I don't care how it has aged, in 1997 it was perfect.

This is not my top 7, but I do consider each of them to be absolutely flawless in every way. Bioshock would be there but it's combat is a little wonky, Shadow of the Colossus would be there but it's controls let it down.
 
Seriously. In before more "Your perfect game is not my perfect game, therefore it's not perfect. Because what I say is perfect is perfect, but what you say is perfect is not perfect."

There is a difference between a favourite game and a perfect game. Most of my favourite games are far from perfect, but merely do a limited set of things I enjoy really well, while maybe messing things up that I don't care about so much.

Persona 4 is no doubt the same for some people. That doesn't stop it from having flaws (like say, pacing issues or awful non-existent dungeon design) that make it a hard sell in a thread like this.
 
I mean literally perfect (having no mistakes or flaws).

I have played one perfect game in my 15 years of gaming, and that game is Metroid Prime, everything about it is perfect.

NPTt1jX.jpg


In fact, Metroid Prime is the only perfect thing I have ever seen in my whole life. It got me questioning that popular saying "nothing is perfect".

So now I'm here creating this thread: have you ever played a perfect game?

And once again, I mean LITERALLY perfect.

Metroid Prime's controls are garbage. One example: you have to hold down the right trigger to move the camera vertically. But to be fair obviously first person games have been completely revolutionized since 2002. Metroid Prime's backtracking also fluctuates between brilliant and padding. Still a fantastic game though. Obviously, there's no such thing as a perfect game because in every game (or in any product) there are always trade offs made, and the effectiveness of the game is a reflection of how successful those trade offs were. Dark Souls is my favorite game of all time. I think it's absolutely perfect the way it is, but its the whole package that I think is perfect. Not every single aspect of it is perfect, not even close.
 
UZImQKZ.png


Game you could play literally play forever.

First thing that popped into my head.

The more I play it the more im inclined to call it the best game ive ever played, and the best platformer of all time.

I literally could not think of one thing to change about it, and the only thing more I want from it is a secret, secret set of levels.

The last of Us has plenty of flaws and is nowhere near perfect. This is coming from someone who double dipped on it and loves it.
 
The closest game to perfect, in the literal sense, is probably Journey. The soundtrack is phenomenal and works perfectly in concert with the game. The story is simple, yet extremely compelling and told in a mostly non-intrusive way. The co-op and seamless with the game and perfectly compliments the themes of the game while also being fairly innovative. The art aesthetics are beautiful, and convey good context for the emotions the player is feeling at the time. The gameplay is very simple, for some far too simple, yet it's fluid and helps keep the momentum of the game moving forward while still merging with the tone and feel of the game quite well.

Of course, Journey is a very simple game, which is why it is perfect.

The classic game that comes closest to being perfect for me is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The modern game that comes closest (that isn't a small or simple game) is The Last of Us.
 
Top Bottom