10 Best Spectacle Fighter Video Games Of All Time

5. NieR: Automata

NieR's accolades come just as much through story and narrative as combat or general playability, but it's the latter I'll be focusing on here. Because what Platinum Games achieved with Automata's opening is groundbreaking; indicative of where they're heading as the pioneer of action in gaming.

How? By framing an introductory sequence around multiple genres, and tying them all together under one control scheme.

Though the entirety of the game - a story split across three separate playthroughs and three separate characters - is more than recommendable, this intro sequence is something else entirely. Starting as a top-down bullet-hell sequence where you dodge showers of projectiles and wipe out foes with return blasts, you then switch to standard hack n' slash combat with launchers, combos and evades, only for the camera to hang to the side and suddenly you're in a side-scrolling platformer.

The game continues like this for the entirety of its first level and at choice parts of the story overall, truly showcasing the genius minds at work at Platinum Games.