Oh my! If you ever get the chance to build a wand with a spark bolt triggering multiple chainsaws, give it a try! It's so wicked!

(But now I'm afraid of screwing up)

roguelite

I was already interested in it but yeah, I really need to give it a go sometime, it looks like a lot of fun. Thanks for the examination!

To me 'the best roguelike' reads like a self-contradiction. Like 'the best annoyance' or 'the best boredom'.
Shouldn't it be 'the least annoying and least boring rogue-like'? ;-)

Yeah, some game genres fails to draw us in, for whatever reason. Personally, the typical AAA rpg games just feel too much "on rails" for me. Have this dialogue, do this quest, etc. I patiently waits for the tutorial to end, only to realize that I'm actually playing the game.

I can't tell why roguelike doesn't work for you. But I have given some thought to why it works for me.

Mostly, it's about the stakes being real. When I carefully descend towards the exit, with one single life point left, knowing that any hit could end my run, and I jump towards the exit and see shots comming at me ... it feels exiting. Or when I jump into acid to get a single coin ... yes, I died, but I learned something today. Don't jump into acid, duly noted.

So there's this sense that your choices matter. Do you hang around looking for some more loot, or head straight for the exit? You have to ballance the risk (of death!) versus the (potential) reward. Same with whatever wand your craft or what traits you pick. With most of your death, there's this sense that you could have avoided it, if you had just made different choices.

Also, with good Roguelikes and certainly with Noita, you gradually build up this character which seem so unique. So there's an element of creativity, of building something from scratch.

To me exactly this mechanic doesn't feel exciting but only annoying and frustrating. I play to relax, not to be challenged. I have plenty of challenges in my real life. For the same reason I detest Souls-likes. I don't need the artificial success of overcoming a pointless, artificial challenges in some game. For me a game should entertain me and tell a good story. I have all the challenges and successes I need IRL.

I can understand that there is an appeal to artificial challenges. I used to like NetHack. But that was when I had way more time and patience. I lost interest in that kind of game, when I started to have challenging jobs. Now I prefer story-heavy, well crafted games. Not some procedural challenge generator.

same, especially if dying punishes you very much
with all the good games out there, imho replaying a part over and over is just a waste of time