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.
God of War. The one where has a son. Boring corridor game with too many upgrades
I give critical support for Dad of Boy at least trying to do some character development, at least.
I played through most of the original PS2 God of War on the strong recommendation of internet gamers before finally realizing that I found the whole genre extremely boring. I think it was good for me to realize that I wasn't going to vibe with every critically acclaimed game.