You could probably make a poptarts are sandwiches alignment style thing out of this.
Basically, any video game with an explicit goal, or set of goals is just a puzzle game with extra steps.
What buttons do you push, when do you push them, what does this accomplish, how does that lead you to your end goal, etc.
You could even argue that multiplayer tactics constitute a puzzle, a more social puzzle.
Yes, this is reductive, but this is a dumb showerthoughts post.
Yep, going through the first part of the ff7 remake and the combat is a puzzle. Don’t do it right and get your ass kicked. MMO combat is the same: stack or die/spread or die, memories this dance, etc.
MMOs are probably the most notorious genre at this point for being extremely overproduced puzzle games.
Sure, there are different builds and strats… but its all very formulaic and boring once you find something that works.
Not to mention a huge, huge amount of them are basically just pay to win, to varying degrees, these days.
Although you could argue they do not actually have a goal… hrm.
Like obviously there are quests and goals and story arcs but technically, there probably are some mmos where you could just make your personal goal something wildly unconventional.
I haven’t played many mmos in a while, but that kind of spirit seems to just only be further and further dying out, I just hope theres still some mmo it exists somewhere.