Continuing Metaphor: ReFantazio. It's the most consistently polished game Atlus made (that I played) in years, though maybe SMT VV has a chance once I get to it. The only ones that come to mind are Persona 5/Royal (however much I prefer P3 and P4), and Etrian Odyssey V. Both of which had longer development times compared to their series, who knew?
My only complaint is that it doesn't have any 10/10 aspect that I'd love, most of my favourite games are somewhat flawed anyway, as long as they have that special aspect that clicks.
But then, Persona 3 had nothing like that until the endgame, so there's still time for it to surprise me.
All of my favourite games, artists, movies, and anything else I’m interested in all have something that I don’t consider 10/10 so I definitely see what you mean
To clarify, I meant that I'm fine with multiple things not being 10/10 (I was thinking of Metaphor as a 9/10 across the board, assuming a 10/10 is something I say about things very rarely) as long as some one thing is, like just the ending or just gameplay.
I'm not consisent with that though anyways, I thought that Dark Souls 1 really does have 10/10 world exploration early on, yet I don't like it because of a lot of other problems. It's all really just gut feelings in the end, it was the best way I could explain why Metaphor feels like it's missing something.
I think for me this weirdness is most obvious with books, the best novels that change you, stick in your memory and make you see the world differently are never 10/10s because that would mean they simply fulfilled the expectations you had before picking the book up.
A 10/10 novel is still awesome but it is more of a comfort food experience which while wonderful isn't the same kind of experience.
I feel that way about music. My favourite artists all have songs I don’t care for, meanwhile artists where I like every song of theirs are never my absolute favourites