Games are meant to be an immersive activity. Where a game chooses to bring the player can make a huge difference in the experience. A game with little character depth or backstory can be enriched with a good world. These are the 10 worlds that are unique, intriguing and enthralling.

The Netherworld in the Disgaea games is populated by nothing but power-hungry demons. However, none of these demons are very good at what they do. The cartoonish stupidity and anime style characters serve to bring you a demon world that is actually kind of funny. Everything from its unabashedly corrupt Congress (with an individual like/dislike stat toward the main character for each) to the presence of pop idols and bad reality shows colors in a unique comic environment.

Spoilers Ahead. Star Ocean 3 begins when Fayt, a boy from a futuristic space-faring world, is stranded on a planet that is still in the middle ages. Of course, intergalactic law requires he hides his identity, so through the portions of the game on that planet you are constantly pitying the backwards inhabitants that have no idea how small and meaningless their wars are. Well, jokes on you. About two thirds of the way through the game, Fayt and company reach the mysterious 4th dimensional gate into a new world. The "new world" is actually the real world. It turns out that this entire time the galaxy was nothing more than an online video game for a super-advanced civilization. The game is called Eternal Sphere, and is apparently losing popularity. Your journeys through the real world are a constant mind trip, as you visit the place where Eternal Sphere was programmed. Observant gamers might notice that the area names you thought had real meaning were just the names of the programmers. So in the end, you're playing a game within a game.

"I put to you this question: is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" So begins Andrew Ryan's introduction to his undersea paradise as you approach the city through the first bathysphere. Rapture was meant to be a utopia for free thinkers, but something obviously went very wrong. One of the motivators behind the game was the need to piece together the story of exactly what happened. Its art deco style is mimicked in no other game that I know of. Every area and room had a clear purpose. There are no labyrinthian hallways or catwalks that cross a giant fan. Admittedly, Ryan's belief in unfettered creation and experimentation provided a convenient excuse for a wild array deadly environments. But you have to love a city so infatuated with capitalism that when civil war broke out, ammo was available in vending machines.

Chrono Trigger's world wasn't too original in-and-of itself, but it was one of the first games to offer several versions of the same world. Each time was radically different, from medieval to prehistoric to fantasy to post-apocalyptic. Seeing how the world changes over time makes you feel like the world is one of the main characters. Chrono Trigger was the first game (for me anyway) to make it feel like the character's actions really made an impact.

Most JRPG worlds aren't really worlds. They have a dozen or so cities and towns, two to four continents, one medieval European culture and one traditional Japanese culture. In the Suikoden series, now up to number 5 plus Suikoden Tactics, the world is far richer. There very different countries with different governments. Some clearly resemble real-world countries, like the Arab-esque Armes Empire, while some like Falena are completely original. Each game focuses on another place, as the 108 heroes try to do what they think is best for their nation (and subsequently, try to define what truly makes a nation great.) Politics plays a huge role in the stories, and seldom involve a madman trying to take over the world. The Suikoden world will hopefully continue to develop, as previous games have left more than enough mysteries to be solved.

We know almost nothing about the setting of Shadow of the Colossus. We know there is some kind of god named Dormin who is trapped there, and 16 colossi that appear to hold fragments of his soul. Throughout the entire game, you will probably be asking yourself questions about the mysterious background: Who built the ruins? Why is it forbidden? Why am I killing these relatively peaceful giants? The sheer mystery and eerie beauty of this world keeps the player eager to explore new areas. The total lack of enemies (besides colossi) allows the player to enjoy the sights and ponder as you gallop to your next colossus fight.

Within the first 20-30 minutes of SMT: Nocturne, the world ends. Normally this is what the hero is preventing in a Japanese RPG, but here it is the premise. The world ends, all humans except a few die, and the ones that survive (the main character and a few of his friends) are transformed into half demons. The quest you must undertake is to recreate the world to a philosophy of your liking. The world of the Conception is meant to be vicious: your only party members are the monsters you enslave, the only NPCs are monsters, the ghosts of the dead, and the unsettling a manakins, a race of soulless doll-people. You'll never feel so alone in an RPG, but when you finally conquer the world, that only makes it more satisfying.

Liberty City is far and beyond the largest game world ever made. Every island and neighborhood are miniature replicas of real places in my native New York City. But there's more to Liberty City than the size. The completely natural way an endless stream of people walk down the street doing different things really brings LC to life. The designers could have just made them walk back and forth, but instead they're always yakking on cell phones or listening to music with their eyes closed and earbuds in place. And of course, if you choose to run through the streets, passers-by will likely scream at you in a variety of languages. Potential tourists please take note: the NYPD is far more competent than the LCPD, so don't be afraid to come here.

Cyrodil looks like a standard Western RPG world, and for the most part it is. If you take the time to explore, you will discover that the generic castle towns hold a wide array of secrets. For instance, an NPC that you come to recognize wandering around the town may turn out to be a cult member who will randomly attack you depending on where you are in the main story. Other areas like the abandoned house in Anvil and the Lucky Lady statue in Bravil will reveal themselves to be much more than meets the eye for the patient player. Cyrodil may not look like a new place, but that doesn't matter when you feel like anything can happen at any time.

I realize this isn't the most daring choice to put on the list, but my memories of this game are too fond for me to ignore. Hyrule wasn't that big, but it made you deeply care for every little area. Was anyone's heart not broken when they first entered the castle town after Link's seven year sleep? After becoming attached to the edenic world as child Link, I remember choking up as I visited each dilapidated area in the future. A lot of games make you save the world because that's the point of the game. But you wanted, really wanted, to save Hyrule.

Well, that's the end of my first top 10 list. The runner-ups were Myst, Nippon from Okami and the galaxy of Mass Effect. Thanks for reading, or at least thanks for scanning over the game titles.

List by life_gaiden