The Best Games That Don’t Fit A Genre

Summary

• Genre-defiant games like Pokemon Snap, Mirror’s Edge, and Katamari Damacy challenge traditional classifications.
• These unique games push industry boundaries, inspiring developers to think creatively for new experiences.
• Genres like environmental puzzle in Death Stranding 2 and aerial adventure in Nights Into Dreams keep players intrigued.

A neat way to determine how a new video game is going to play is by checking what genre it’s in, as this usually provides players with everything they need to know before jumping into their latest adventure. However, while this is easy to do for most games, over the years, there have inevitably still been a few misfits that are a little more difficult to classify as just one genre.

While they might seem slightly reminiscent of a first-person shooter or puzzle game, for example, they’ll still steer far enough in a direction to feel like something entirely different.

This is far from a bad thing, though, as breaking the mold like this can push the industry into some pretty interesting directions, encouraging other developers to also get creative with the experiences they can offer the player. With that being said, these are some of the very best games available right now that don’t slot into any particular genre.

Pokemon Snap

Pokemon Snap Removes The RPG Elements To Focus Entirely On The Pocket Monsters

Considering how immensely popular Pokemon was back in the mid to late 90s, it was only going to be a matter of time before the mainline games would start receiving spin-offs, but Pokémon Snap is one of the most bizarre. This game removes the battling system entirely to instead focus on the Pokemon themselves, giving players the opportunity to snap a few pictures of these pocket monsters while they roam around in the wild and go about their daily business.

The game ultimately feels like a fun and relaxing minigame, which was clearly made with a lot of passion and creativity, especially when it comes to its gameplay, where players can score points by capturing the best pictures possible of the Pokemon. It can start to feel a little repetitive after a few hours, but Pokemon Snap is still a beloved game among the fanbase, primarily because of how strange and different it is from the mainline entries.

Mirror’s Edge

Mirror’s Edge Focuses On The Thrill Of Racing Across Skyscrapers At Lightning Speed With Parkour

Mirror’s Edge is one of those games that people have been clamoring to see return for many years now, and it’s honestly not hard to see why, considering how utterly unique it is as an experience. It would be easy to simply class Mirror’s Edge as an action adventure game, but since the game’s combat is extremely limited and clearly not the main focus, it’s actually more of a parkour simulator which places a heavy emphasis on realism and immersion.

While it may not be open world, the game still features plenty of colorful and vibrant areas that players are tasked with navigating by utilizing Faith’s mobility while moving at lightning speed. The story and cast of characters may not be anything to write home about, but the parkour-focused gameplay ensures that Mirror’s Edge is still a game that is able to stand on its own as something fresh and unique.

Nights Into Dreams

SEGA’s Unique Platformer That Removes The Platforms Entirely

It’s a real shame that Sega hasn’t seemed too bothered about bringing back the Nights series, as this is undoubtedly one of the most creative IPs they have ever come up with. Rather than replicating the success of Sonic and going for another fairly standard platforming game, Sonic Team instead decided to carry over the fast pace of those games, while also making it so the protagonist, Nights, is able to fly. Because of this, it’s hard to call the game a platformer since there really aren’t any platforms to begin with, as the aim of each mission is simply flying through rings and collecting resources to chain up combos.

The bubbly and colorful aesthetic makes playing Nights into Dreams feel like stepping into some sort of hallucinogenic fever dream, which allows the game’s visuals to still stand out even 20 years after it was originally released. It’s a challenging game to jump into, considering how fast-paced it is, but it’s well worth trying out for anyone who wants to try out a game that can’t be compared to anything else in the industry, even today.

Katamari Damacy

Roll Around A Giant Ball And Consume Everything In Sight

The aim of the game in Katamari Damacy is to try and make a ball as big as possible by sticking every material and item in sight to the adhesive boulder by rolling over them. This sounds strange on the surface, and it’s because Katamari Damacy is a very weird game, but one that is still oddly addictive because of the moment-to-moment gameplay. While the Prince’s ball starts off as a speck on the floor, as the hours go by, it will eventually become much larger until, eventually, it is able to turn into a star.

Some might call Katamari Damacy a puzzle game, considering players still need to pay attention to what items they are picking up when traversing each area, but it’s straightforward in how it plays, which would prevent it from being seen as a true brain-teaser. If anything, the game would need a genre of its own to define what it even is, which is essentially its main draw, as back in 2004, and even today, people are still eager to figure out what makes this game tick and why it feels so different to play.

Portal 2

Portal 2 Stretches The Puzzle Genre By Incorporating Plenty of Bizarre Mechanics

At first glance, it can be easy to assume Portal 2 falls into the puzzle category of games, but when digging into the gameplay, this isn’t exactly true, at least not really. While much of the game is based around solving riddles and challenges to progress to the next area, what really separates it from other puzzle games is that players take on a first-person view where they can also fire out portals that can be used in all kinds of weird and wacky ways.

Again, it definitely invokes the basic feeling of the puzzle genre, but it’s also just so downright strange in its gameplay that it could just as easily be considered an FPS at certain points, or even a platforming game. The first Portal was already an excellent title, but with a longer story and also the addition of co-op, the sequel stands as the superior of the two, and it has gone on to become yet another classic for Valve.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There’s Nothing Quite As Peaceful And Cozy As Animal Crossing

It can honestly be hard to describe to a person who’s never played it before what makes Animal Crossing so much fun to play, especially with New Horizons – the latest game in the series, and in the eyes of many, the best that has ever been released in terms of quality. Animal Crossing isn’t exactly a farming simulator, since it doesn’t necessarily follow the same gameplay loop of raising crops and harvesting them over the course of a few days, though players are still free to do this if they so wish.

In reality, Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives the player an unlimited level of freedom to do virtually anything they can think of. At its core, though, the game acts as a very relaxing escape from the real world, where players are encouraged to mingle with their fellow villagers while also customizing their islands to suit a specific theme or design scheme. Simply put, there’s no specific genre that Animal Crossing truly fits into, but that doesn’t take anything away from how much fun it is to jump into New Horizons, especially now that it’s been updated to include a staggering amount of extra content to enjoy.

Nier: Automata

Yoko Taro And The Team Mashed Together A Plethora Of Genes To Create A Fresh And Memorable Experience

While there was a lot of buzz leading up to Nier Automata’s release in 2017, nobody could have expected that it would end up becoming as successful and popular as it eventually did. What makes the game so special, aside from its compelling characters and philosophical story, is the way it constantly switches genres on the fly, ensuring players never get bored or uninterested in the core gameplay.

One moment, players will be free to hack and slash their way through a swarm of robots in the same vein as Devil May Cry, while the next, they’ll be taking on arduous platforming sections to enter the next area of the world. There’s simply no telling what is going to be around the next corner with Nier Automata, so while some might call it a hack and slash game or simply an action adventure title, the truth is, it’s a lot more than a simple term can describe.

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

Kojima Has Created An Environmental Puzzle Franchise Which Is Unlike Anything Ever Seen Before

The first Death Stranding was a game that many people had a hard time wrapping their heads around. It wasn’t uncommon to hear some call it little more than a walking simulator, but in reality, Kojima once again managed to create a game that felt like no other, being more of an environmental puzzle game than anything else. Death Stranding 2 took what made the original so interesting and added in plenty of additional mechanics and an extremely deep story full of emotionally rich and compelling characters.

In terms of the gameplay itself, though, for most of the playthrough, players will be delivering packages from one area to another. This might sound simple on the surface, but along the way, there will be plenty of environmental hazards and obstacles that Sam needs to overcome by using his array of tools and gadgets. The slow and methodical pace of the game is a big reason why so many people have come to love it so much, but despite Death Stranding 2 receiving critical acclaim across the board, people are still scratching their heads as to what genre the game even fits into.