I'm curious what you guys have to say about this. Are there any games you consider perfect? Can a game even be perfect?
My example of a perfect game is always Portal 1. Portal 2 has more going on, but in 1 there just isn't anything to shave off. From start to end, there is nothing I'd change about the game. It's short, infinitely replayable, great pacing. I like Portal 2 a lot in concept, in concept it should be a perfect sequel, but it just doesn't keep the extreme tightness of the original game.
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.
Magicka is one of those rare games where it being technically borked actually made it more memorable. One session i was hosting for friends somehow I ended up in a mirror dimension in the boss arena but I had no boss in mine. But I could drop mines and blow them up which did damage to the boss in the dimension that it existed. I've never seen netcode do such wacky things especially when I'm the host.
That sounds busted as hell, but also extremely fun