Shadow of The Colossus. Archetypal hero type fights 16 giant monsters to save his dead love. There's literally nothing else in The Forbidden Lands save for lizards and platforming puzzles. You're playing to see what the next colossus looks like. It's a game pared down to its barest essentials.

Outer Wilds is my favorite game, it's just so tight between the narrative and the gameplay, there's not a second wasted and everything ties together appropriately and it doesn't overstay it's welcome so long as you're moderately competent at the sleuthing. Better yet is the DLC they released was equally satisfying while remaining a standalone narrative with it's own themes and mechanics, while still managing to tie in nicely with the base game narrative. I would suggest holding off on playing it until you've completed the OG, but theoretically you could do it anytime during the playthrough.

I guess the only downside I can think of is re-playability, being a mystery/puzzle game once you've acquired the prerequisite knowledge it's a bell that cannot be un-rung and experienced again with the same novelty. Maybe someday I'll go back, but until then I'll suffice with the tear-jerking OST of both game and DLC, as I'm reminded of the most humanistic and existential game I've ever played.

It’s ironic, because the first place my brain goes with the prompt “perfect game” is Hades. In terms of what it sets out to be, the combat, the gameplay loop, the art, the story, writing, voice acting, music, the game doesn’t miss a mark.

However, I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest game I’ve ever played. Often times the great ones have flaws, sometimes deep ones, but that’s part of the nature of pushing limits. It’s rare to do something novel and untested in a medium and also do it perfectly.

Zelda - A link to the past: Set the Zelda formula for the next two decades. Aged imho better than OoT, because it stayed within the capabilities of the SNES and the pixelart is timeless. Wonderful vibes, great pacing and just so much fun.

I consider Shovel Knight to be a perfect game, in that it perfectly achieves what it sets out to, and it does so with enough flourish to push beyond being only adequate. S-tier sound track, flawless pixel art, charming characters and plot, clean controls with interesting gameplay for the genre... it's one of those games where if you don't like it, it's probably because you don't like side-scrollers, or pixel art, or whatever.

Undertale. I can't find fault with this game that i can do it with my other favourite game. Not Prey, not FO4, not stardew, not half-life 2, not darksouls 3, not monhunt 4u/world.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is a game that has incredible gameplay, perfect controls, tons of content, and stellar graphics (that got even better in the SNES remake).

HADES

HADES YOU HAVE TO PLAY HADES.

It's the closest a game ever got to perfection without being some barebones abstraction like Tetris or something.

Ocarina Of Time because I'm old and I still think it holds up. Dark Souls 1 probably for the same reason even though it is janky.

The first thing i think of in terms of a perfect game is Link to the Past. Its a perfect excecution that still holds up like over 30 years later

The only game that has truly achieved perfection is Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque

• Half-Life (the original). First game that legit made me jump back from my PC, screaming, "Ahh!" It was a very tense moment--I was out of ammo so that meant my only weapon was the crowbar... Others that have played the game will know what I'm talking about. I was playing that moment in the middle of the night--probably 2AM-ish--with my headphones on in a basement room lit only by the light of my (1024x768) CRT monitor.
• Final Fantasy 7. The first and only game that made me cry actual tears (of sadness; not like that time the house lost power in grade school after a long and eventually successful boss battle which is another gaming moment I'll never forget).
• Minecraft. Well, it's not perfect on it's own but here I am playing modded Minecraft with my kids again. We've been playing this game together like this for almost ten years! We'll play until we've learned every major/popular mod that exists for any given version then stop playing for a while then a year or so later we'll be at it again for a month or two 😁. Aside: Myself and my kids are like absurdist experts in cross-mod overpowered combos and nonsensical things like how to combine nuclear power with mana generation and all the steps/progression necessary to get there (LOL).
• Baldur's Gate 3: It won GOTY in so many places for a reason. Absolutely fantastic and one of the big reasons why is because it doesn't dumb things down for laymen or children (or child-like people aka game reviewers hehe). It's a game made for geeks that are adults and can understand and appreciate adult themes and scenarios where it's impossible to save everyone (and having to play the rest of the game living with the consequences of your actions). Aside: You could say it's a game that teaches consequence culture! Haha. BTW: If you haven't tried modding BG3 yet it's totally worth it. Even if just for some of the QOL improvements and cosmetic stuff 👍
• Before EPIC bought Psyonix, Rocket League. Oh man I spent like 3,000 hours in that game and never got bored. I was happy to pay for Rocket Pass every time it came up for renewal because I was just having way too much fun and wanted the game to do well. Then EPIC bought Psyonix and they ended support for Linux (I got a temp ban from the Rocket League subreddit and the associated Discord for saying that was going to happen!) and at that point I stopped playing. Then they made it free to play and way too quick and easy to get a new account and that's when my friends stopped playing too (because it ruined ranked play which was the only way to play people that were near your skill level).
• Beat Saber. Truly the perfect VR game. You burn loads of calories while listening to awesome music (your choice of music if modded) and having fun. Mod it to make it truly next level. I mean, the BeatLeader mod saves the entire replay of you beating any given map and posts it online where you can re-watch and share your amazing speed/accuracy and cool dance moves! Example: https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=7668607 (watch it, you'll smile... That's one of my replays and it's "replay of the year" 2023 👍)

If I think of more later I'll try to remember to come back to this thread and edit my post.

Aside: There needs to be more high speed competitive games like Rocket League that use 120HZ event loops (that aren't just twitch reflex FPSes). I miss playing a game with the controller where careful and precise control would make you feel like you had a superpower compared to the average player. Like, if you practiced enough you could keep the ball on your car (aka dribbling) and flip it up in the air just before an opponent tried to take it from you (making them feel sooooooo inadequate haha). Also, expert mid-air maneuvering could have you completely crushing your opponents with them feeling like they didn't stand a chance... Not because you got lucky and/or bought the best equipment but because of your sheer skill at the game.

I also miss the feeling of being an impenetrable goalie, haha. Even facing off against pros I could lock them out of scoring unless they coordinated their attacks. It felt sooooo good to block a well-executed, amazing double touch ceiling shot and then... "Calculated" followed by another block within a second from their teammate, "Calculated". Ahahaha. Good times.

Ori and the Blind Forest and especially its sequel, Will of the Wisps, are both games where I genuinely don't have any critiques of the gameplay or story. There are some games that I like playing more, like Elden Ring, because they have more things to do and choices and such, but those two games for me have immaculate vibes and perfectly execute the vision of the developers.

It's very easy for sequels of games to become overloaded in the quest to add more stuff so that they feel like different games, which usually comes in the form of adding lots of discrete subsystems which can be interesting but often not very intuitive for new players especially in aggregate. This is not so for Will of the Wisps, where there are new abilities but all of them feel like completely natural things that you should obviously be able to do, and are very simple. The most "complicated" addition is an improved combat system with more choices especially for boss battles, but the first game relied on chase sequences rather than battles, so it's not as if you could critique the first game for not having a better combat system for boss battles when it doesn't even have them (it would be like critiquing Portal for not having a hunger system or something). And the combat system in WotW is kept pretty tight and simple and the animations and how they chain together have the correct physics and weightiness.

A game like Path of Exile on the other hand is really my nightmare game, where it feels like the whole thing is just a shitload of discrete subsystems duct-taped together without a strong skeleton holding it together. Most games fall on a spectrum between the "streamlined, simple, tight" design and the "chaotic, complicated, expansive" design though.

StarCraft brood war is the perfect convergence of bugs and intentionally difficult mechanics that kicked off the entire e sports industry and it consumed my entire teenage years.

Diablo 2 similarly was a perfect accident by Blizzard. I can go back and play it or the remaster any time and have a good time, even if the remaster has new questionable content

Time to start a struggle session.

In terms of the graphical-technical, musical, and narrative achievements, I consider Genshin Impact as a "perfect game".

I consider Factorio very close to perfect. It does what it wants to do very well and has a functional but pretty visual look.

Morrowind

Half life Alyx for me. I've played hundreds of games in every genre and nothing has ever given me such a visceral emotional reaction as that game. From beginning to end I was drawn into the experience so much I forgot how to use my hands in real life.

I like a podcast by the Crashlands devs, and instead of talking about great or perfect games, they talk about games that "nailed it" vs "missed the mark." There's no such thing as a singular perfect game, but games that flawlessly execute their devs' vision or games that click with you, personally, in a way that other games just don't.

My personal example is Magicka, because it's incredibly janky and flawed and has the worst fucking netcode I've ever seen that still technically works. But the free-flowing spellcasting and globally-enabled friendly fire, it's a combination that hit me so perfectly it actually shifted my taste in games ever since. It feels like something is missing now when a game doesn't trust me enough to give me enough power to be a danger to myself.

Outer wilds.

It's the perfect length (8-14 hours), it's not too difficult nor too easy, provides satisfying movement systems that are responsive and just make sense logically/mentally.

The story isn't spoon fed to you but isn't so cryptic that you're lost and its puzzles are incredibly satisfying to solve while depending entirely on your knowledge so they feel fair.

The vibes that the soundtrack, soundspace, and aesthetics all come together to engross you in are just impeccable.

It also just sticks with you for so long, a good game makes you think about it while not playing. OW has you thinking about it for years after being done with it.

gotta go with tetris here just for the addictive and pure mechanics

Tetris

Half-Life (1998), Deus Ex (2000), GTA San Andreas (2004)

All three games that are great writing, plot and gameplay wise, while also being actually finished (which is shockingly uncommon among the GOAT games)

People are going to say Tetris, but they are wrong. There are hundreds of variations of Tetris all with different mechanics and gameplay elements, from the way the pieces move, to the way the next random piece is selected, most people just don't notice them. I'd recommend anybody who likes Tetris to play a round of Tetris Grandmaster 2 Plus and you'll see that the "standard" Tetris we get copyrighted from the Tetris Company is far from perfect. TGM really just feels fantastic and after playing it it genuinely feels hard to go back.

Two games I'd consider as-close-to-perfect as you can get are Outrun 2006 and F-Zero GX. Outrun 2006 is just perfect arcade fun, drifting at 200mph through those extremely varied environments with those cheesy vocal tracks is a complete blast (the minigame mode adds great variety as well).

F-Zero GX is just mechanically incredible, with the manual boost, boost pads and your cars energy providing a perfect risk-to-reward system with incredible tracks that feel perfectly designed to take advantage of the mechanics and all feel different. Then there's the games infamously high difficulty which turns every race into a High-Speed-high-adrenaline-rush. Not to mention the fantastic music, the story mode with really characterful cutscenes and and the dozens upon dozens of unlockables. I don't think there has ever been another racer that feels als fully featured as F-Zero GX, it truly feels like a swan song for the series, it's as perfect as games get.

Latest Hitman series and the Yakuza JRPG.

FF7 was the peak of JRPG development and nothing has really hit that peak since.

Neon White is a perfect game. Unparalleled soundtrack, perfect gameplay loop, replayable, great voice acting, immaculate game feel, and it's single player. If you like speedrunning and trying for the "perfect" time, I highly recommend it on keyboard and mouse. I'm not even a shooter guy, but I still like it.

You collect cards in level, and you can either use them as guns or discard them for mobility, which provides a lot of flexibility and room for creativity. You can also rotate through the cards and save them for later.

The design of the three tier time scoring system is addictive, and then after that, you can try to climb the online leader boards.

Portal 1 and Metroid Prime 1

maybe Wind Waker too

I love the feeling of an open world game but I'm sorry I don't want my video game to be a boring-ass simulation of real life where the map is the size of fucking Pennsylvania

TF2 is probably a perfect multiplayer shooter (some of the Halo games qualify too)

Age of Empires 2, i played that game for years and never got bored, now with the new expansions i could play it for another decade

Empire Earth + expansion, Age of Mythology + the expansion, starcraft + broodwar, star wars battlefront 2 (2005), star wars Galactic Battlegrounds + expansion, Star Wars Empire At War + expansion, Final Fantasy 6, and I particularly enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 1&2 but they're not perfect

Sega and UGA's Rez.

spider solitaire for the windows xp

the cards... the spiders... the fireworks... what more can you want from a game on the computer?

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and its a damn shame FromSoft never did anything with it