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.
The fights can be pretty good, when they're not janked to fuck
I'm having a lot of fun playing a shadow monk with a 3 level dip into rogue for that sweet extra bonus action from thief. Just cleared a duel with an important plot boss in, like, two turns because I'm whirlwind of fists.
Having the same fun at the high levels with a gloomstalker ranger/thief rogue.
I'm clearing out rooms dualwielding some kickass handcrossbows. There's apparently a tavernbrawler monk build that regularly gives 200 dmg
I had the same level layout with my first playthrough and I can't get over how well it sold the ninja character fantasy so well.
spoiler
Stealing all of Raphael's shit and then punching him a million times in 30 seconds