Games with great environments

[psychospacecow]

I've always loved the 2.5d sort of aesthetic, where an environment might be a 3D render, or it might even be a painting with 3D characters and objects overlaid on it.

My personal favorite example of this would be Chrono Cross. It did a lot of things right.

Spoiler

You're playing through the span of two worlds, two times in Chrono Cross, 8 years apart, each with changes that never occurred in the last time. I'd go into further detail but spoilers out of the everything. Regardless, there are two versions to every place, and the things you do can change the other side, for better or worse.