Sometimes the best ideas sound completely crazy on paper. They are the ones who take two, three or even four different genres and smash them together with the reckless abandon of a child playing with their action figures. And as you might expect, this can sometimes result in a disjointed jumble of gameplay.
But on the other hand, when it works, something really special and memorable is created. These are the games that dared to mix it up, the ones that took a big, weird swing and knocked it right out of the park.
NecroDancer Crypt
Dance to the rhythm of dungeon crawling
A roguelike dungeon-crawler paired with a rhythm game is a combination so bizarre that it keeps turning into pure, unadulterated genius. Players must move and attack in sync with a pulsating soundtrack, and every missed hit costs precious impulse. The simple act of walking becomes a brilliant, complex, tactical dance.
And what makes it all work is the music. It's not just a background track; it's a game. Fighting is not just reactive; it becomes anticipatory and forces the player to feel the patterns as much as they learn them. It's a game that proves that dungeon crawling can be as much about a good groove as it is about good equipment.
Yakuza: Like a dragon
Dragons, karaoke and turn-based combat?
The Yakuza the series was known for one thing: visceral, face-smashing real-time brawler combat. Then this game came along and traded everything for classic old school turn-based JRPG battles. On paper it sounds like absolute madness, a betrayal of everything the series was. But the sheer force of personality of the protagonist, the amazing Ichiban Kasuga, makes it feel completely natural. He is the man she loves Dragon Quest is the lens through which the world sees.
The result is a wild, beautiful and hilarious mix of heartfelt storytelling and ridiculous spectacle. Criminals on the street literally turn into absurd caricatures when combat begins, and the player's “summons” include things like summoning an army of crawfish or calling a chicken delivery service. And yet, beneath all that gorgeous silliness lies a surprisingly deep and satisfying system of jobs and skills. It's quite a reinvention.
Kill the tower
Cards As Weapons, Decks As Strategy
She's the one who started it all. Kill the tower merged roguelike progression with deckbuilding to create an entire subgenre, a blueprint that countless copycats still follow today—and for good reason. It's perfect. In each run, players create a unique set of cards from scratch, fighting their way to a tower full of weird and wonderful creatures, all while managing relics and precious energy costs.
Its genius lies in how it forces the player to make hard and agonizing decisions at every turn. Do you bloat your deck with a few powerful but unwieldy cards, or do you try to keep it lean and consistent? Failure here never feels like a punishment; it's like an opportunity to go again, try a different combo. It's the perfect, endlessly replayable blend of strategy, luck and adaptability.
Monster Train
The devil runs on the tracks
At a quick glance Monster Train may look different Kill the tower clone, but it's much more than that. It adds a brilliant, beautiful twist to the formula. Battles don't just take place on one plane; they take place across a multi-deck carriage. Players must defend themselves
the engine, the “boundary”, of the waves of angelic invaders pushing up from the bottom.
It's a frantic, beautiful blend of deckbuilding and tower defense that creates incredible layers of decision making. It's not just playing cards; it's about placing units on different floors, juggling mana and relics, and trying to create great synergy. And thematically, the whole idea of literally transporting the last remnants of Hell to safety by train is as metallic as its mechanics.
Brutal Legend
Heavy metal album cover of Come to Life
This game sounds like a fever dream. Brutal legend is an open-world action-adventure starring Jack Black as a roadie who is transported to a heavy metal-inspired fantasy world that suddenly inexplicably turns into a real-time strategy game right in the middle of battle. Eddie Riggs will be crushing demons with his magic guitar one moment and commanding entire armies of headbangers the next.
The RTS elements were divisive, but they're also what make the game so unique and memorable. Double Fine went all out and went hard, filling the world with rock legends like Ozzy Osbourne and carving a landscape right off the cover of a prog-rock album. It's not perfect, but it's one of a kind.
Encryption
Cards, horror and rabbits with knives
Encryption he doesn't just mix genres. He melts them and then warps them into something new and terrifying. At first it looks like a simple, creepy, deckbuilding card battler. Then the escape room puzzles start to appear and it becomes a full blown psychological horror game. By the time players reach the end, it's turned into something that defies classification.
Genius Encryption it's how it uses constant genre switching to unsettle the player and keep them off balance. Just as you think you've mastered one mechanic, the game pulls the rug out from under you to reveal another, even weirder layer. What ties it all together is the tone: the eerie music, the mysterious narrative, and the constant creeping feeling that the game itself is alive—and that you don't have to like it very much.
Gunpoint
Stealth meets pure, unadulterated slapstick
Gunpoint is a noir detective story mixed with a puzzle platformer about rewiring electronics. And it's great. As a freelance spy named Richard Conway, players must infiltrate high-security buildings using a gadget that allows them to rewire almost anything. Players can connect doors to cameras and light switches to alarms, all in wonderfully absurd, creative ways.
Stealth isn't about hiding in the shadows here; it is about pure, systemic creativity. Maybe reroute the light switch so that when the guard flips it, it throws him through the glass window. Or maybe connect the elevator with the trap door. Its short length hides incredible layers of player expression. Players feel like a slick super-spy one moment and a clumsy, bumbling saboteur the next.
