This is a followup to @SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 's recent thread for completeness' sake.
I'll state an old classic that is seen as a genre defining game because it is: Myst. Yes, it redefined the genre... in ways I fucking hated and that the adventure game genre took decades to fully recover from. It was a pompous mess in its presentation and was the worst kind of "doing action does vague thing or nothing at all, where is your hint book" puzzle gameplay wrapped in graphical hype which ages pretty poorly as far as appeal qualities go.
So many adventure games tried to be Myst afterward that the sheer budgetary costs and redundancy of the also-rans crashed the adventure game genre for years.
I don't think they were intending to surprise you with the perspective switch. Simon clearly doesn't get it, but they're trying to make it very clear just how horrifying what is happening to him is.
But yeah, I like the game and I have to say it's a much less miserable experience when you turn off the monster aggro. It's existential horror and it's a bit hit or miss at times, but I feel like when it does hit it hits hard.