Ah, I'm so late.
#2 - Dark Souls
Dark Souls. I might be the only person (mad) enough to put a Souls game up this high. You may wonder, what makes Dark Souls so good that it's the 2nd best game of all time? In terms of game design, Dark Souls is almost perfect. Dark Souls starts you off in a dark and hostile world, even the tutorial, only tells you the controls before unleashing it's punishing difficulty on new players. There is a degree of customisation, gender, class, etc. When you chose a class however you're not limited to that specific task, a pyromancer can still use melee and switch into a heavy melee style if they so choose. You can also level up like any other RPG, although you only have one ability point per level and you will soon figure out that leveling is not as effective in Dark Souls as it is in other games, especially since you use Souls to level up which you also use to upgrade your weapons and buy equipment.
In terms of equipment, Dark Souls is very versatile, you can use practically any weapon or armour you find and carry through with that to the end of the game, each have their own specific pros and cons that balances out the different equips and prevents any one weapon or armour being the absolute best and only way to play. It's definitely fun to try another playthrough with a different loadout and play style and definitely extends the life of the game.
Once you get out of the tutorial, you are placed in an area which works as a hub to access the other areas of the game in a pusedo-open world way. New players will find that there is only really one way to take without getting destoryed by the powerful enemies, but experienced players can take these dangerous paths for greater rewards such as certain weapons, spells or other items. The game design is built around all types of players and experience/skill levels which despite the high difficulty of the game, it's still accessible. Death in Dark Souls might seem punishing at first, when you die, you lose all of your humanity and souls. However you can recover if you make it back to the place you died, and on top of that, there are no game overs. The better you become at the game, the less punishing deaths will become.
Really that's what makes Dark Souls so much fun. Without any superfical elements, you become more powerful in the game by learning the patterns of enemies, bosses, tricks and tips. You'll be able to completely destory bosses, in the same way they destoryed you and this all varies on your level of skill which is definitely in my opinion one of the most rewarding feelings you can have from a video game, especially a game which is known to be very difficult.
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