Games that I put in this category: The first spyro game (not sure about the later ones, havent played) and A Link Between Worlds are both very fun and rewarding to complete and never feel like a chore to do so.
One game that is very much NOT in this category, as is often said, is DK64 lol. But everyone says that. I've also heard people say Super Mario Oddessy is fun to beat but not fun to complete, same with BOTW because of the Koroks. People usually say this about SM Sunshine as well but I dont really mind it in this game.
Sidenote complain about the world: Sandbox games combined with my autistic obsessive compulsive need for completionism lead to me playing them with very frusterating habits lmao. No Man's Sky is the worst for me. I LOVE that game but god the respawning ROCKS ruin the experiance kind of. If the rocks stayed gone, I could use them to gradually explore the worlds I'm on in a completiony way. (Even knowing that like even a single planet is kind of impossible to fully explore let alone the entire fucking universe lol). But I cant!!!!!!
Sorry I need to shove that rant into everything. Completionist mindset also limits me with games like Terraria, Minecraft, and Starbound as well but not as badly because I at least can keep track of exploration in those (Or just dig deep pits in minecraft as I enjoy doing to waste time while I watch streams lol).
I also get myself caught in absurd goals that NOONE expects you to do and the game doesnt keep track of (no achievemnt for it or anything) sometimes like doing all coin runs in Mario 64 or marrying, seeing the 14 star event, and then divorcing every spouse in Stardew Valley lol. (I acutally havent started the second thing but it is sort of in my head as a goal).
This turned into a general rant about how my completionism effects me lmao but anyway thoughts.
It's been a while but I remember enjoying filling out the Assassins Creed 4 map and doing all of the side quests.
I like when I can unlock the fast travel towers for a region and it will tell me where all of the side stuff is. Also love LotR: Shadow of War for similar reasons.
Yeah Recent Asscreed games seem to just have TOO MUCH open world stuff and exploration to really be fun but a smaller scale of that would probably be enjoyable to me. I haven't tried 4 but it is in my steam library. Thanks!
This is kind of where I landed on Odyssey. It has the bones of a decent Witcher 3 clone, but dear god it is tedious as fuck if you try to 100% the Steam/UPlay achievements. It's almost the No Man's Sky problem due to the sheer scope, even though it's not an infinite/procedurally generated world. Still, the initial exploration is pretty chill, especially if you get one of the women's choir ship's crews. Sometimes all you really need out of life is a gaggle of sirens or Ares cultists singing a song to remind you not to piss off Poseidon.
AssCreed Rogue works a little bit better since it feels like the maps are a bit smaller.