I also came to say Terraria. It has such a great progression from fantasy monsters and swords and magic, then you get a musket, then a laser gun, and by the end of the game you're using a sword that shoots Nyan cats. It's style is so distinctive, despite being a mishmash of different genres and media references. I can't think of any other game that lets you progress from nearly helpless to master of the world in such a satisfying way.

Also Hardmode is imo where the game hits it's peak. It's a bit more linear in terms of boss order, because you don't have to actually fight any bosses pre-hardmode except the wall of flesh to advance, but in Hardmode you gotta go mech bosses -> plantera -> golem-> moon lord. But I think that works well, because it means there's a few different tiers of progress you can make in Hardmode.