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This year I “only” completed 20 games, which is down from my peak of 37 in 2021 but up from 18 in 2022. Not that I try to focus on quantity, as it’s usually other non-game Real Life factors that have the biggest impact on how many games I can get through. This year was certainly another year, with some personal challenges and an extremely high-maintenance elderly cat taxing my quality of life, but overall I can’t complain. I’m thankful for my family and friends and everything. My self-imposed rules: I personally rate every game I finish on a scale of 1-10, despite hating review scores on principle (not gonna get into that rant here). Because I tend to play and finish games that I like, my personal scores this year all skewed very high. No surprises there. I think I rated everything on my top 10 list either an 8 or a 9. No 10s this year but I’m very selective with giving those out. “Finish” for me generally means seeing the ending and credits, though I typically try to go for the “best” ending or even multiple endings if that is possible. I don’t usually engage in NG+ cycles though there are some exceptions this year. Because of this, my list of top 10 games this year is heavily skewed towards certain types of games and even a specific series. I’ve been playing catch-up on this series the last couple years so that’s just what ended up happening and the reason why the list is 40% made up of those games. I feel a little funny about that but also this series rules and is easily one of my favorites of all time so I’m not fussed about it. iykyk As you might be able to tell from my picks, I tend to value gameplay and especially good combat mechanics, but also good cinematic storytelling and writing and performances. 10. Inscryption My introduction to the Daniel Mullins universe. I really enjoyed the whole experience and the meta narrative through it, but not enough to grind out everything after getting to the game ending, so I YouTubed the rest. Trying not to get into specifics since a lot of the experience is probably spoiler territory, but suffice it to say I am now a fan and will try to go back to his past games when I can, and I anticipate whatever he makes in the future. 9. Final Fantasy XVI I don’t have a lot of experience with the Final Fantasy series as a whole. I beat FF6 way back in the day, and after that the only other one I’ve beaten is FF7R, which I loved. I quite liked Final Fantasy XVI/16 and enjoyed the story and the combat, which both end up being a bit shallower than the first act would have you believe. Not necessarily a negative point for me, just that it gives the impression of being maybe like a grand Game of Thrones political epic and instead turns into something more traditional for the genre and series (as I understand it). As for the gameplay, I thought it was a fine take on the Japanese action-RPG genre, one of my favorite genres, and also a surprisingly good primer on the basics of character action combat. One interesting side effect of playing through this game is making me curious to play games like Devil May Cry 5 and Bayonetta again, to see how I can apply what I learned here. 8. Judgment Here we are, the first of four appearances of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Judgment extended universe on this list. I enjoy the comparatively grounded take on the Yakuza universe in the Judgment games, and Takayuki Yagami is a good protagonist if a little more muted compared to other leads in the other games. I really appreciated that this game and its sequel try to have a pretty serious conversation about power structures and corruption in policing, the legal system, politics, business, and the interactions between all of those. I didn’t love everything, like the Mortal Wounds mechanic that I was happy to see gone in the sequel, and the endgame plot point swerve with the pharmaceutical drug was a little goofy but also consistent with the tone of the overall series. The improvements to the Dragon Engine and the combat refinements overall are excellent and it has been such a joy to see the growth of the dev studio across the decades. (I was one of the rare few who bought the original Yakuza 1 and 2 on PS2 on their launch days, so I’ve been there since day 1 and have been an evangelist and long-suffering diehard fan through the drought years in the west.) 7. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Movement in this game is pure joy. I also have to give it props for allowing you to make web tightropes pretty much anywhere you want, because stealth takedowns are one of my favorite things in games and this gives you a lot of freedom in how you approach those encounters. The models, acting, and performances are top-tier as expected from Sony’s AAA first-party studios, and this game also has some of the best setpieces of the year. Thematically, I loved that this game has a heavy focus on criminal reform and redemption, and the opportunity to turn your life around no matter your history and circumstances. Excited for whatever Insomniac makes, especially if the leaked lineup is true. 6. God of War Ragnarok + Valhalla God of War Ragnarok and its free DLC Valhalla are a meditation on self-improvement. As a fan of the original PS2 and PS3 games back in the day, I was a bit embarrassed by their content even back then as an edgy teenage or twenty-something. It’s been clear since the 2018 God of War reboot that the folks who made those games also grew up and wanted to reevaluate the past. The reformation of Kratos from the God of Misanthropy and Masculine Angst into the God of Regret and Personal Growth has been incredible to witness and so well executed, pun intended. The new games don’t shy away from the reality of Kratos’s history, but instead use all of that context to give weight to genuine conversations about loss, regret, hatred, forgiveness, legacy and the impact you have on the next generations, and how to grow as a person. Stellar stuff. Oh yeah, and the combat is super fun and one of the best of the generation too. I beat Ragnarok at the beginning of this year, and finished the Valhalla DLC at the end of this year for a nice bookend to 2023. 5. Lost Judgment + The Kaito Files My second adventure with Yagami and crew, and I liked it even better than the first. A lot of that probably has to do with the refinements to the combat system, but I also enjoyed the extensive school story side content and the mystery and drama of the main story and villain in this one. There’s much to say about how strongly or coherently Lost Judgment makes its thesis statements about bullying and retribution, but as with other great mysteries, sometimes the questions it raises are more interesting than the answers it provides. 4. Yakuza (7): Like a Dragon The reboot entry in the long-running Yakuza series, reimagining the games as a traditional JRPG through the eyes of its fantastic protagonist and heir apparent to the Like a Dragon legacy, Ichiban Kasuga. The combat isn’t super deep and maybe turns into a bit of a slog in the last third of the game, but the main story and the relationships between the party members and supporting cast are so good, so sincere, and so heartfelt that I couldn’t help but love it all the way through. Did you love EarthBound as a kid in the 90s and want to experience a JRPG about the travails and tribulations of midlife adulthood? This one is unmissable. 3. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name The final Yakuza game on my list, and the freshest on my mind. It feels so good to inhabit original series protagonist Kiryu Kazuma again after his hiatus, and this is about as good of a swan song as one of gaming’s most undersung protagonists could ask for. A concentrated package of the Yakuza experience, this one is still generous with the side content and distractions. Though you could summarize the bulk of the content in this game as filler, I was happy to lap it all up and earn the reasonable platinum trophy, relishing every last moment we may get with Kiryu before whatever happens next in January’s Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth. I’m finally caught up, and I can’t wait. 2. Lies of P A big surprise for basically everyone, and one of the best almost-debut titles from a studio I’ve ever seen. This is by far the best true Souls-like that’s not from FromSoftware, and honestly rivals and perhaps bests some of their entries. Fantastic character and world design, an interesting and engaging story told with much more straightforward methods (something I appreciated), and the superb and meaty combat I love in action RPGs. A game that from every pore exudes confidence and a deep understanding of the mechanics that drive engaging combat encounters and boss fights. I replayed it immediately and cleared NG+ to get the platinum trophy. I’m always happy to see a new studio succeed so strongly, and especially happy to see a big success from a South Korean studio. I’m so excited for whatever they make next. 1. Resident Evil 4 Remake Maybe not the most exciting pick for my favorite game of the year, but it is the game that probably engaged me the most, absorbing me for maybe more than 100 hours as I played and replayed and replayed to unlock everything and get the platinum trophy. It’s also easily the hardest challenge I conquered in a video game this year, as those Professional rank runs are no joke. I’m not one for horror in general, but like the original RE4 before it, it hooked me for the entire rollercoaster ride and I loved every minute, even when I struggled against some of the game’s hardest content. An excessively generous and polished package from start to finish. And for some additional fun, here are some shouts from my picks and other games I played this year.
Notable games I played in 2023 but didn’t finish, either due to lack of time or interest, in no particular order:
Notable games that released in 2023 that I didn’t get to play but really want to:
Top 10 again: 10. Inscryption 9. Final Fantasy XVI 8. Judgment 7. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 6. God of War Ragnarok + Valhalla 5. Lost Judgment + The Kaito Files 4. Yakuza (7): Like a Dragon 3. Like a Dragon Garden: The Man Who Erased His Name 2. Lies of P 1. Resident Evil 4 Remake
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Dec 31, 2023 22:45
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Lemon Award I was pretty excited for this one, but it ended up being the worst game I played this year. Glad I didn’t pay for it! –Callisto Protocol Multiplayer Mentions These were fun with friends, but not as much when solo. –Diablo 4 –Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 –Dead Island 2 The List  10. Trombone Champ - Switch The Good: Giggling as my mom and sister frantically flop their arms to find the notes to Ode to Joy. The Bad: Maybe frustrating for some and my family is truly terrible at this game. The Ugly: Realizing that lack of coordination might be hereditary.  9. Demeo - PSVR2 The Good: Rolling dice in VR is somehow even more satisfying! The Bad: Replayability is not as enticing as it seems. The Ugly: Holding the figures an inch away from my face to inspect the 3D models made me go cross-eyed.  8. Cobalt Core - Steam Deck The Good: The quirky quips of your shipmates breathes life into the story. The Bad: It could use more run-to-run variance in bosses/enemies. The Ugly: Foolishly thinking I can take on the shopkeeper.  7. Dave the Diver - Steam Deck The Good: Impressing a stubborn customer by sending them into a blissful animation is absolutely heartwarming. The Bad: Later into the game, the management of all the additional systems really wore me down. The Ugly: Ordering take-out sushi in real life and realizing it does not look as good as what I prepared in the game.  6. Luck be a Landlord - iPhone The Good: Provided me the dopamine levels I needed to stay sane on the train. The Bad: I beat all the floors and now I’ve lost my will to live. The Ugly: The regret of not owning a guillotine for my own landlord.  5. Gran Turismo 7 - PSVR2 The Good: Feeling the simulated heat of the virtual sun on my face as I cruise around the track bends. The Bad: Why is the menu system not adapted to VR too?! The Ugly: The eyesore of the VR headset and steering wheel + foot pedal setup in the living room.  4. Super Mario Bros. Wonder - Switch The Good: Getting high on that sweet sweet Wonder Seed and wondrously gawking at all the beautiful animations. The Bad: It would be nice if the online multiplayer was more engaging for playing with a friend. The Ugly: Playing online and watching other random players leave me in the dust as they surpass my platforming abilities.  3. Baldur’s Gate 3 - Steam Deck, GeForce Now, and PS5 The Good:I love that the gameplay rewards inventive out of the box thinking. The world is like a playground! The Bad: I still run into bugs and issues on a consistent basis. The Ugly: My campaign with my friends might run into 2025.  2. God of War: Ragnarok - PS5 The Good: The weight of your axe and the weight of your actions in the story are equally momentous. The Bad: Backtracking for collectibles still feels painful. The Ugly: I beat the base game on the toughest difficulty, but returning to the DLC has humbled me again.  1. Spider-Man 2 - PS5 The Good: Swinging around the buildings in NYC is just marvelous. It never gets old. The Bad: I would have appreciated a few more enemy types. The Ugly: Me, crying through the Howard mission. Short List 10. Trombone Champ 9. Demeo 8. Cobalt Core 7. Dave the Diver 6. Luck be a Landlord 5. Gran Turismo 7 (PSVR2) 4. Super Mario Bros. Wonder 3. Baldur’s Gate 3 2. God of War: Ragnarok 1. Spider-Man 2
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Dec 31, 2023 22:53
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Oof, deadline fast approaches! Ok, I'll bang these out. I've kept going back and forth with myself over what criteria I'm applying to my year's assessment (published 2023? finished games only? no remakes?), and breaking my own rules as I try to get them in list form. Now, with time run out, here's where I came down on what I played: 10: Dredge - Leapt out in march as my favorite game of the year right away, so peaceful and serene and all the while unnerving. Every day was a race to safety after the draw of one more pull, one more salvage kept me on the brink of madness setting in, never completely sure that I had the right way home fully committed to memory, and definitely sure that when the sun set and the fog moved in I couldn't trust my eyes, let alone my memory of the sea. I loved the tension of that deadline and the thrill of just occasionally flaunting it and seeing what was out there at night. 09: Spiderman 2 - The mobility added to the original couple of games with the wing suit and the air current tunnels, the massive slingshots and the new boroughs added to NY were such an improvement over the original two games, they really overshadowed the weaker story in this edition. Also carrying the game, the improvements to the radial control systems for switching between powers and tools. Kept everything feeling smoothly transitional and fast. Still bogged down a bit by side character stealth missions, but goddamn if they didn't just make MJ a straight up killer. 08: Chants of Sennar - I'm one of those that bought into the Obra-Dinn/Golden Idol cycle and this game just kept scratching that itch. As the complexity of the puzzles ramped up and the world became even more interwoven I found every little puzzle to set off a tiny happiness bomb in the back of my brain when my typed suspicions about the meanings of words proved out correct. Such a great time exploring all the castes of this weird, trapped society. 07: Talos Principle 2 - Still in puzzle-town, I played the first Talos Principle for the first time this summer after seeing that the sequel was coming up, so this placement in the list represents a bit of both of them, playing them so closely together. The balance between wandering about trying immediate puzzle solutions to having to sit with the various philosophical quandaries between locations is something completely different than I get out of any other game on this list. Comparing the two games, I think I come down more strongly on the side of the second game. The more difficult puzzles were entirely optional and it was a bit less confrontational on the moralistic arguing than the first game wanted to do. That said, as much as I enjoyed some of the enormous set pieces in TP2, I'm well worn out on the ancient greeks by now. 06: Resident Evil 4 Remake - Last year I played through the RE2 remake and enjoyed it as the first RE game I'd completed in memory. Somehow, I bounced off RE4 on the gamecube and never actually played beyond the first village. Playing for real now was revelatory. I can't really shrug my shoulders and just not get why people rave about this game anymore. It's clear on its face why it's the go to example of action and tension pacing in video games. On top of that they threw a whole VR mode at us for free at the end of the year, and I can't wait to dig in to that. 05: Lies of P - Breaking one of the rules I set out with, this is the only game on my list this year that I have not completed, but enjoyed so much of the setting and the smooth control, the visceral parry system, the variation and possibility of builds, the story that was being laid out and the opportunity that a creative team seems to be taking that story. I've only got a few From titles under my belt, and not a lot of From-likes, and as much as I'd like to ignore those completely and play something like LoP as its entirely own creation, that's just not possible here. That said, it fits right up there in that small list of games with Bloodborne and Sekiro as an experience I truly enjoyed smashing up against and eventually overcoming (at a date to be determined). 04: Street Fighter 6 - I'm not an online player. I don't compete. I play fighting games locally or solo-dolo exclusively. I can't judge a fighting game based on community or latency or anything approaching what those games, in large part, are designed for. That being said, I can only really say that SF6 struck me at the time I started playing it, and still does at the end of the year, as the most exclusively joyous fighting game I think I've played. The art direction and the character animation and the decisions around announcers and color commentary and the single player mode all point to a roster of fighters who are happy to be there in the moment. It feels good to play, like there's elation in the conflict not just on the player level, but it comes across in the world so clearly. They made a whole world of background characters to fighting game stages and you can just walk up and pick fights with them and everyone's glad about it. That's awesome. Oh, and of course I have to mention the incredible gremlins that can come out of that character creator. Chef's kiss. 03: Octopath Traveller 2 - I bounced off the first game pretty hard. This one knew exactly which parts to pull to draw me right back in. Gorgeous world, beautiful sprites, various intense and intriguing characters, complex (but not burdensome) combat systems, a banger of a soundtrack. I didn't click with every traveller, but man, if I didn't just grin every time I got to dive back into a story that had been sitting dormant for a few clicks and check back in on what these people were up to next. Suddenly Prospero's theme is sweeping in and you're off to new and exciting places. Such a great improvement over the original and I can't wait to see what Square does with this RPG model moving forward. 02: Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I'm a Zelda mark. I loved BotW, and was skeptical when they went back to that same map. But the freedom of exploration and locomotion in the new tools of TotK just bowled over any opposition I had. Early on when I descended into the depths the game immediately hijacked my OCD and I knew that I was going to have to find and light up every single corner of this new and dangerous place. Navigating it was completely new and mysterious and addictive atop all else, and figuring out how it related to the other parts of the world, how you could use those worlds together? Incredible. I had to force myself to stop playing, to move on to another game. This was definitely my game of the year, until... 01: Baldur's Gate 3 - I am not going to be able to add anything about Baldur's Gate that has not already been said a few dozen times. The game has in it so much possibility at a scale yet unseen in video games. That I can play a hundred, twenty hours of this video game to completion, turn on a television commercial for it, and not recognize 65% of the cutscenes shown in that commercial? That my game can be so completely different from a friend playing right alongside? That it can do so while delivering a thoughtful and challenging combat system that is so unbelievably open to creative behavior. That it can present you with such interesting companions and threaten you with losing them by what comes across as genuine moral/personality conflicts in so many instances. I loved Baldur's Gate 3, all technical roughness aside. And with as much as I know is in there already that I have not discovered, and as much as I know is going to be fixed and changed by the time I inevitably will play it again (not something I do a lot of, replaying games), I know it's going to be something wholly different and keep that feeling of discovery around nearly every corner and I can't wait. I mean, I guess I'm going to have to wait. 2024 does not seem like it's going to let up on the pace of good-assed video games coming out. Such is our curse. Happy New Years, all! e: Oops, sorry Veeg. Easy tracking list follows: 10: Dredge 9: SpiderMan 2 8: Chants of Sennar 7: Talos Principle 2 6: Resident Evil 4 Remake 5: Lies of P 4: Street Fighter 6 3: Octopath Traveller 2 2: Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 1: Baldur's Gate 3 Fix fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Dec 31, 2023 |
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Dec 31, 2023 23:17
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10. PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo A slightly clunky VN with an interesting premise. Some of the character writing is one of its stronger points, and the main ending left things on a good point. But then the 'true' ending imo was... not great? (Also good luck finding it.) Still, big points for the mere existence of my main, PI Richter motherfucking Kai. but why are all the characters constantly making duck faces 9. DREDGE Loses points for crashing on me a bunch. But the atmosphere of this game is delightful, and there were some legitimately very tense moments of the horrors of the deep chasing after me. One day I'll have to go back: I wonder how the Dave the Diver crossover DLC will turn out? 8. Arcade Paradise As someone with nostalgia for old school arcades, this... well, isn't quite it, but it's a good way to scratch those memories close enough. The core gameplay loop does start to get a little long in the tooth, though thankfully around the time that upgrades let you automate most things. Decent spread of games as you slowly continue converting the old laundromat into an arcade. also a good "actually, no, gently caress YOU, Dad!" simulator 7. Triangle Strategy What a silly name for a game. All that said, it was a pretty solid and neat execution of a tactics game. Some of the endings outside of the golden path are a little ehhh, but overall the cast of characters was solid but the satisfying tactical experience is what mostly makes it for me. 6. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective It's Ghost Trick! Play Ghost Trick. One hell of a charming little story and puzzle game, with one of the Best Dogs out there. Absolutely would have scored much higher on this list if this was my first encounter with it. 5. Powerwash Simulator Okay I'll admit it, I scoffed at the idea of this game originally. But eventually after seeing it while scrolling through Xbox Live at some point I finally gave it a shot. It's a fantastic game of turning your mind off/listening to something in the background sort. Also the story, light as it is, is pretty ridiculous in a good way. 4. Talos Principle 2 Caveat that I haven't finished it entirely yet, but Talos 2 has otherwise been a mostly interesting series of puzzles. I do think some people will be understandably turned off by the core question in play in how it differs from the first game. Also, while the environments are very pretty, they're a bit too big and... empty at times? The signs for directions definitely help though. Also, the lack of recorder puzzles thus far remains a big point for it!! 3. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Originally I thought TotK would be my GotY, easily. And then the rest of the year happened. My top three were a close fight I found myself going back and forth on. Personally, I think TotK improves on BotW in almost every way, or is at least on par in the few places it falters. The world is more fully stocked with things to find, and turns out smushing BotW and Banjo Kazooie's Nuts and Bolts was a secret for success? 2. Baldur's Gate 3 I have fond memories of playing Baldur's Gate 2. I don't even remember how or why, but I had (and still have) the CDs for 2 and the ToB expansion. I only played through 1 earlier. Playing the entire thing through is quite the investment, but starting in 1 being afraid of wolves going all the way to being so immensely powerful by the end of the long journey is still I think one of the best power curve advancements out there. So, BG3 had a decent legacy to live up to, and at least in my opinion it solidly knocked it out of the park. There's just so much stuff to do and see, and while it is far from perfect, I think it is clear a lot of care and attention went into making it the experience it is. Many of the characters are a delight, or at least have solid voice acting that sells it. The game was fairly good at enabling and allowing for harebrained schemes. I do think there are a few missteps, particularly in Act 3, but overall the experience was simply phenomenal. 1. Void Stranger Void Stranger, with all its mysteries and weirdness, with all the strangeness going with the game got its hooks in me deep. I marathoned VS hard over a couple weeks, and my notes for the game are an absolute mess. To stress, not everyone will enjoy Void Stranger: the game has a significant amount of repetition running through the same puzzles over and over, and while you gain ways to potentially make life easier or various shortcuts, much of this tends to come further into the game. And to anyone who gets bored with the repetition: I don't blame you! Normally that's me in most games like this, but VS is probably one of my favorite thread unravelings in a game I've experienced in quite some time. Plus, the soundtrack is pretty drat rad. gently caress you snake puzzle, though. One thing I suggest if you try the game: there are videos with spoilers/story content cut out with puzzle solutions. Even the game's description in the Steam store mentions reaching out for help, and imo, no shame in that. (Or if you're going back through and don't want to have to remember a particular puzzle solution or two.) Short List 10. PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo 9. DREDGE 8. Arcade Paradise 7. Triangle Strategy 6. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 5. Powerwash Simulator 4. Talos Principle 2 3. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 2. Baldur's Gate 3 1. Void Stranger
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Dec 31, 2023 23:17
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ColdPie posted:What on earth CUBE Especially in Definitive Edition, the positioning of certain resources and walls can be difficult to interpret quickly for a game requiring as high APM as Age of Empires II does, so the cubemod makes it so that certain visual aspects of the game are rendered as cubes instead. This is useful to ensure that say... you haven't accidentally cut a hole in your woodline (represented by the green cubes) by early Castle Age without noticing and walling it up, leaving the back of your base open to assault by a bunch of enemy Knights. Also the cubes are pretty cool. And yeah, glad to see another person put AoEII on their list! Jossar fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Dec 31, 2023 |
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Dec 31, 2023 23:21
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10. Sniper Elite 4 I've never played one of these before and I ended up having a blast sneaking around, setting traps, blowing up gun emplacements, and putting an endless surplus of bullets through oh so many noggins. It delivers a heck of a power fantasy, even when the levels get more difficult you always feel like you have the upper hand and will take down the whole drat Nazi war machine in Italy single-handedly. 9. theHunter: Call of the Wild This is one I really didn't expect to become infatuated with for a few months. I'm not a hunter in real life and am not really interested in becoming one. However, I do love hiking trails and being out amongst nature in a nice quiet area. When you first start playing theHunter you'll spend a lot of time walking around and thinking "huh, are there animals in this game?" There's a lot of time spent waiting for a chance to take down a deer or other animal. After playing for a bit you really develop the technique, you start to recognize when to pursue versus hunker down, which direction a sound came from, and ponder philosophical questions like "where the gently caress is this loving coyote? It's responding to my calls and it sounds so close but it's so skittish and if I emerge from this bush it'll definitely run away I hate this stupid coyote, why is this plodding hunting and nature simulator so loving frustrating?!" I think the thing I like about the game the most is that it's mostly pretty uncaring of whether you're having a good time or not. Playing it often feels like developing a skill. The game gives you incredibly little help along the way, it's very self taught. Give it a try, you might really like it. Also the bloodhound dlc is very handy and you can pet the dog and give him treats. 8. Super Mega Baseball 4 I like baseball. Super Mega Baseball 4 is this great idealized fun version of it full of some of the greatest fake sports names ever. I really can't say enough about the names. They're great because they match what that player is good at. I bet you can guess what Hammer Longballo is good at, and Volt Bolter, and unfortunately one of my relievers is named Lou DaBaziz. The game gives each player various traits that help/hurt in certain situations like you may have a guy that hits extra hard when he has no strikes, or a pitcher whose accuracy plummets when the bases are loaded. It gives just the right amount of personality to your team, especially if you're playing in a franchise mode where you use the same group for many games. The players get on hot/cold streaks and you really feel it. Your star is in a slump, do you bench them for a few games or keep them in and give them a chance to pull themselves out of it? It's an excellent game. I was worried after the studio who makes these games was gobbled up by EA but fortunately this game feels like it has maintained its purity and fun and keeps getting better. Highly recommend if you're even a casual baseball fan. 7. Blasphemous 2 I am a huge fan of the original Blasphemous and this one is excellent too. Beautiful visuals, challenging bosses, and haunting music, it's a treat. This one is a bit more streamlined than the first as far as what to do and where to go, but it still has a lot to explore and discover. I have a few small complaints with it, namely, the animated art style used for the cut-scenes really clashes with the aesthetics of the rest of the game and one of the final bosses is blisteringly difficult and features a 30 second long unskippable midfight scene. Aside from that oversight, I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it and the original Blasphemous if you're looking for a top shelf metroidvania. 6. Resident Evil 4 Remake They remade one of the best games of all time and wouldn't you know, it's still really really good. I loved all of this. It's familiar but new, it feels great to control and explore. The parry is a great addition. The visuals look incredible. I thought they (early game) the dog dirty but then BAM, the dog is back baby! I haven't played the Ada DLC but I'm definitely looking forward to it. 5. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I haven't finished this one but have really enjoyed getting lost in the world, puzzling out the shrines, making basic-rear end cars out of stone slabs, and grinning every time I run into my coworker Penn. At some point I'll travel to the Gerudo desert and maybe I'll find the Master Sword too. I'll just do it once I'm done exploring this cave, and that sky island I marked when I was up there, but first I should finish upgrading this hat, and I gotta find that mask salesman again, and was that a star fragment that fell over there, I should grab that before it disappears, and and and... 4. Cocoon Excellent puzzle game. This one felt perfectly balanced where every time I felt completely stuck, the answer would dawn on me just a few moments later. I was also very impressed with how independent of written language this game was. Anyone with familiarity with a controller can sit down and have a similar experience discovering how the world here works and how they can interact with it. It's also incredible just how much there is to the game despite consisting of just movement and a single button. Just the right length too. Cocoon was incredibly cool. 3. Dredge I loved the tone and the setting. This game had such a great gameplay loop of catching fish, selling them, taking on quests, upgrading your boat, and moving on to explore a new area. There was a week or two early this year where I was playing this every single day and I didn't stop til I'd filled out the entire compendium of fish. 2. The Exit 8 What a surprise! I read Chris Person's article about the game and immediately knew I had to check it out. I roped a friend into playing this collaboratively over discord and it was one of my favorite game experiences of the year. The pitch is that you're stuck in a Japanese train station that is looping infinitely. The only way out is to pay close attention and turn back anytime something is different. It's such a fun exercise because you're constantly questioning your own perception "are those lights always like that? was that vent there last time? was that guy wearing socks before?" The game also keeps things interesting by not repeating any of the anomalies until you've seen ALL of them. If you notice something funky about one of the posters, you'll check that every time from then on but it won't be different again in that specific way for a long while. Such a cool game. Subtly creepy without being an outright horror game. I can't wait for enough time to pass that I can play through it anew without remembering each of the anomalies. Highly recommend, it's only $4 and an hour or two long. It rules. 1. The Case of the Golden Idol Loved Obra Dinn years ago and this is similar to that but tells a story over a longer span of time. I adored this game. Unraveling the individual stories and the motivations of the characters involved was magical. I am an absolute sucker for this sort of game and this is the best of its kind if you ask me. While playing this I remember thinking, "drat, this will be hard to top" and in a year with a new Spider-Man, Diablo, Zelda, and Resident Evil (kinda), Golden Idol still stands as my favorite game of the year. It's my GOTY. It's really really good y'all. Honorable Mentions: Killer Frequency You play a radio DJ who has to help people in a small town when a masked killer reappears. It plays a little bit like a single player Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes where someone is trying to escape the killer and you have to consult a map or a manual or something to give them specific instructions to make it out alive. It's really cool. I thought it was gonna fumble the ending by having a forced stealth sequence where you hide from the killer, but nope, they avoided that and the game was even better for it. It's a good time. Just the right amount of funny and creepy to evoke those classic slasher vibes. My biggest nitpick with the game is that the game is set in the 80's but people are constantly talking to you via a phone while moving around outside. It happens throughout the whole game and you kinda just have to pretend like it's a version of 1987 where everyone has cell phones. Not game breaking but a pretty funny oversight. Overboard You play a lady on a cruise ship who murdered her husband and is trying to get away with it. It's kind of a choose your own adventure where you travel around the ship and chat with people and try to make sure your story checks out and you've covered up anything to give you away. It is reminiscent of games like Majora's Mask, Sexy Brutale, and Hitman, where the characters and the world progress on a schedule and you learn how to manipulate it in different ways. It's cool. American Truck Simulator If I had started playing this earlier in the year it'd definitely be on the list. It's chill. I like seeing the map fill out with towns I've been. I like slowly (extremely slowly) getting better at understanding how to back up the trailer. Games I thought would be on the list but weren't: Spider-Man 2 - It was fine. Definitely a fun game but felt like so many other big budget Sony releases in a way that felt kinda soulless. Diablo IV - Really fun for like 10 hrs and then I just stopped having fun with it. Final Fantasy XVI - Incredible music, beautiful game, but the story fell flat and it felt like there was gonna be another 20-30 hrs and I bounced. Top 10: 10. Sniper Elite 4 9. theHunter: Call of the Wild 8. Super Mega Baseball 4 7. Blasphemous 2 6. Resident Evil 4 Remake 5. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 4. Cocoon 3. Dredge 2. The Exit 8 1. The Case of the Golden Idol Jolo fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Dec 31, 2023 23:58
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ok, fine, I'll buy Street Fighter 6
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Jan 1, 2024 00:06
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Top 3 Most wanted - Games I know I want to play but did not play yet because 2023 is overloaded with good games.
I just purchased Lies of P because it sounds intriguing, but there's just not enough time left in the year for me to make any progress with it. My Top 10 Games of the Year 10. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I was disappointed in this game, but it’s still deserving of a spot on the list. TOTK fully leaned in on poo poo I don’t care about and find tedious, like the building, collecting resources, and so on. I want dungeons with puzzles, I want an unexplored world. How about engaging combat? TOTK gets on the list due to the Depths, the shrines, the characters and my enjoyment of exploring the world, despite being a retread/revisit. This could have been so much more, instead of an iteration in a direction I don't enjoy when it comes to game mechanics and combat. I’m glad people enjoy this game, but it was an alienating experience to have one of my favorite game series fill me with disappointment as I played the latest long awaited entry. I may retry playing it again in the future, given that I also didn't enjoy BOTW when it first came out but warmed to it a bit after a couple of years passed. I don't love BOTW, but I enjoyed exploring, even if the environments were a bit empty. 9. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 A very competent game. It did have some open world nonsense that caused it to overstay its welcome. Please don’t make me pilot drones around and shoot bees. This is a very “safe” game. The design decisions are all incremental over the past game. They're not swinging for the fences here. I have some gripes with other aspects of this game's "safety". So many of the characters feel blandly positive and socially adept and are just uninteresting to me. Wouldn’t mind some edge and some gently caress-up characters a la Sam Raimi’s Spider-man. The characters all feel so sanitized and polished and boring. My WTF moment in gaming this year was Harry touring Peter around the new save the world horseshit company. C’mon, man. 8. Super Mario Bros. Wonder This is the first 2d Mario I haven’t been disappointed by since SMW. Wonderfully creative, tight platforming. A bit short and easy, but what’s here is worthwhile. 7. Hi-Fi Rush This was a total surprise when it came out, but it was a joy to play. Really enjoyed the characters, the writing, the art direction. A PS2-rear end game in the best way possible. 6. Monster Hunter: World I played Rise on the switch as my first Monster Hunter game and I hated it. Everything was way too easy, there were too many systems that had nothing to do with hunting or fighting, the act of monster hunting itself was thin, the environments sucked and were lacking detail. The wirebug seemed gamebreaking and totally trivialized what were already braindead combat encounters. The overwhelming amount of stuff to learn was at odds with how mindless and unchallenging the hunters were. Well, I decided to try again, as I knew that MSW was the formal entry for this gen and Rise was a bit controversial, and hot drat. These environments are spectacular! I love wandering around and gathering stuff. Or just walking around and observing the creatures. The monsters have so much character. I felt like I was truly hunting monsters in this game. I like eating food prepared by cats. I haven't beaten the main game yet, but I can't not include this title. I think I’ll be wasting hundreds of hours on this game going into next year. 5. The Talos Principle  I’ve had this in my backlog for forever. The puzzles are really good. It made me feel smart but also challenged me. Play this game if you like solving puzzles. The audio logs and surrounding story were fine, not exactly my cup of tea. Lots of philosophy navel gazing about what it means to be human, along with some AI stuff. Whatever. Give me the good puzzles. 4. Armored Core 6 /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72587342/armoredcore6_guide_balteus_header.0.jpg) I knew this game was going to be special early on as my jaw dropped and remained hanging during a particularly sandy moment on something that strides. The mech customization loving rules. The combat kicks rear end. Just such a slick, badass game that is demanding and rewarding. No one does it better than FromSoftware. If you’ve been on the fence somewhat and didn’t jump in on Elden Ring, and you like mechs, definitely give this one a go. You can pretty easily break this game over your knee with cheese builds if you’re so inclined. 3. Baldur’s Gate 3  This game feels like video games finally delivering on the promise of what a role playing game should be. I'm not much of an RPG type of guy, but this game, particularly in Act 1, impressed the hell out of me with how much agency was afforded to me, and how no matter what hair brained schemes I wanted to get up to, the game seemed to anticipate and encourage more. This game, out of any other this year, felt most like a huge advancement forward in the medium, but I don't think it can be easily replicated. Unforunately, I wish I had waited until more recently to play this, as I was beset with performance issues and quest breaking bugs towards the end of Act 2 and beyond. When I manage to come back around to this game next year, it's feeling like a contender for #1 GOTY. 2. Marvel’s Midnight Suns  I came to this game late. I was initially put off by all of the middling reviews and the criticisms of the writing, the extracurriculars, but picked the game and its DLC up while it was on sale. The tactical combat is the best I’ve played in any game. The hero decks are all well balanced, and the combat produces so many satisfying situations where I feel like I won a victory by the slimmest of margins. This game challenges me but also makes me feel like a genius with almost every mission. This is my “cozy game”. This is the closest I’ve come in video games to experiencing the joy of reading comic books. Unlike with Three Houses (which I tried and put down), I want to spend time with these characters. I want to run around the spooky Abbey grounds and read about witches and the occult. Having been a former MCU hater before playing this game, I even came to really like the Avengers. The Suns are still cooler though. The writing is funny and the voice acting is terrific. What a disappointment that they’ll never make another game like this. 1. Street Fighter 6  They knocked this one out of the park after such a disappointing SF5 release. I don’t have any suggestions for improvement. It is a perfect game, made for everyone. There will be fighting games before SF6, and fighting games after SF6. My only complaint is that my old man hands hurt after putting hundreds of hours into this, and I need to figure out a way to cope. Hot Take: This is the canonical 2023 GOTY if not for the fact that fighting games are niche. Easy Top 10 List: 10. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 9. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 8. Super Mario Bros. Wonder 7. Hi-Fi Rush 6. Monster Hunter: World 5. The Talos Principle 4. Armored Core 6 3. Baldur's Gate 3 2. Marvel's Midnight Suns 1. Street Fighter 6
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Jan 1, 2024 00:12
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 10) DOOM (2016) I've played my share of first-person shooters in the past, including some games in the Doom series. I enjoy them, but I'm not as fanatical about them as a lot of people are. That being said, this game is truly amazing in the way they crafted what feels like a fresh spin on the old FPS formula. There are a few new ideas and systems to play with, including glory kills and weapon upgrades. There are hordes upon hordes of enemies, just like classic Doom levels, but the scope of the arenas combined with the smooth movement and the fantastic weapons gave me an experience that I've not quite had in any other game. The Heavy Assault Rifle with the scope upgrades feels incredible and it has probably become one of my favorite weapons in any shooter. I love the way the music is integrated; whenever the gameplay gets more intense, the soundtrack steps on the gas pedal and matches the action beat for beat. There was also an element of exploration in order to find upgrades and other cool secrets, which I liked a lot. This game satisfied both my appetite for a traditional FPS and my desire for something new.  9) Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows I finally played Shovel Knight and most of its DLC this year. I made it through Shovel of Hope, Plague of Shadows, and Specter of Torment. Maybe I'll come back for King of Cards next year. Anyway, Plague of Shadows was my favorite of the lot. In this expansion, you play as Plague Knight, who controls quite a bit differently than Shovel Knight. He has not only an innate double jump, but also a triple jump with the help of his Bomb Burst mechanic. He can float temporarily by throwing bombs, too, so he's able to stay in the air much more effectively than Shovel Knight. I should note that triple jumping took a lot of getting used to, as the Bomb Burst is very strong and can send you too far if you're not careful. But once you get the hang of it, you can pull off some really miraculous saves, which feel great. You can also purchase ingredients from a character named Mona in order to customize your basic attacks. If you want to change your bomb trajectory, explosion type, or fuse length, just buy the parts and you can swap whenever you want. Constantly going into the menu to change your bombs can be a little cumbersome, but just having the choices available was very nice. It adds a lot to the game, and gives this campaign a unique feel. I also enjoyed the story and characters quite a bit in Plague of Shadows, which is odd since they didn't do much for me in Shovel of Hope. But I was invested in them, and it has a sweet ending which I liked very much. If you're like me and you have a copy of Shovel Knight sitting around unplayed, I say: check it out.  8) Mushihimesama This year, I continued my quest to play more shooters by picking up Mushihimesama for the Switch. I heard that it was Cave's most accessible shooter, so it would be a great place to start, right? I haven't tried their other games, but I know that they're a pretty high profile studio in the eyes of shmup fans. In this game, you play as a forest princess who rides on a golden beetle through five vertically-scrolling stages while shooting up wave after wave of giant insects. There are a few different modes available to play: Novice, Original, Arrange, and Version 1.5. Original mode is the version that appeared in arcades, and it's definitely a bullet-hell mode. There's also an easier Novice mode, which is where I spent most of my play time. I don't know if Novice would be considered a bullet-hell by shmup experts, but it was definitely more suited to my level of play than Original. It felt like some of the really solid Toaplan shmups that I've tried, where you're always under pressure, but it never feels insurmountable. There are also three levels of difficulty: Original, Maniac, and Ultra. I'm sure it gets much more strenuous on Maniac and Ultra, but I had fun just trying to clear Novice Original on one credit (which I did, eventually). What really impressed me about this game is the overall design. Everything feels perfectly tuned to create the most fun experience possible. You always get a powerup right before a tough enemy shows up, and every boss battle is a fight on razor's edge, where survival depends entirely on your dodging and bomb reflexes. The music is impeccably timed to the stage design as well. When the miniboss shows up, the song changes, and there's this unbelievable drumfill on the boss track that hits right as the bullets start flying every time. Even the length of the game is perfect; five stages, with an excellent difficulty curve that eases you into the action. This game is really well-done, and now I feel like the bar has been raised for any shmups I play in the future.  7) Panorama Cotton After trying out Space Harrier 2 and enjoying it, I started looking for similar titles and came across Panorama Cotton. Like Space Harrier 2, it's on the Genesis/Mega Drive, and it uses pseudo-3D effects to simulate flying through stages and shooting at enemies from a behind-the-back perspective. The version I played is a port that was released on modern consoles, which is wonderful, because the original costs an arm and a leg on eBay (as you might expect). It's the third game in the Cotton series of shmups, but the others are all horizontal scrolling shooters, so this one is quite different. It has a very silly story, where the queen of the fairies notices that one of the plants in her kingdom is missing exactly one of its 256 petals, and this is evidence that the world is falling into chaos. She decides that she must save everyone and rides on a dinosaur thing so fast that she teleports into another dimension, and the other fairies can't figure out where she ended up. One of the fairies is Silk, who played the sidekick to protagonist witch Cotton in the previous games. Silk relays the story to Cotton and mentions that the cause of the queen's strange behavior might be due to a burnt "Willow", which are magical candies that Cotton loves to eat. Cotton decides that the monsters who are responsible for burning her precious Willows must be destroyed, and that's how the game starts. I've gotta say that the cutscenes are incredible to me; this is a Mega Drive game, but the intro is comparable to some of the CD-based games that were coming out at the time. There are so many unique frames of animation, and it's all very expressive. If you're into goofy slapstick anime from the 80s and 90s, you should definitely watch the cutscenes, because you'll love them. The game itself has five stages of Space Harrier-style shooting, with a fun little "TeaTime" minigame at the end of each stage where you try to catch cups of tea for big points. Like similar games of this era, it runs at a slower-than-ideal frame rate, but it's at least consistent. It can be quite chaotic, with lots of different things flying at you, and it's not always easy to determine what to shoot at and what to avoid due to the low resolution. But the color palette is very nice, and there's an abstract quality to everything where your imagination fills in the blanks and makes the game feel very creative. To me, it feels like much more than just a Space Harrier ripoff; it uses the genre that Space Harrier established to make a really imaginative and funny spinoff, and that experimental approach is something I always love to see in games.  6) Brandish Brandish is the first game in a series of dungeon crawlers that I think is really cool. My interest in it started when I got a used copy of this game for Super NES a long time ago, not really knowing anything about it. I didn't get around to finishing it when I was younger, but I liked it, so this year I decided to see it through to the end. The game has a concept that I like and an appealing, if a bit confusingly portrayed, antagonist in Dela Delon (localized as Alexis for some reason). The story is separated into two parts, divided by a large gap of time. The first events involve a greedy king that sought power beyond his comprehension and consequently cursed and literally buried his entire kingdom. A thousand years later, a wanted criminal named Ares (Varik, in this version) is surveying the massive hole where the ancient kingdom lies when the aforementioned Dela Delon catches up to him and threatens his life as revenge for killing her master. Predictably, they clash while standing at the precipice and then plummet downward into the ruins. And so, you (as Ares) must start at the bottom of the cavern and climb up the same tower where the king attained the forbidden power so long ago. It's a great story, and I love that the history of the ruins is of so little interest to either of the main characters. They're just trying to get out alive, and I found that I was able to see it from their perspective. In typical dungeon crawler fashion, you're just trying to find the next staricase upward. Ares is also a mute protagonist, so there's certainly no time wasted on his part talking with the people that live down there. You're even looting every treasure chest that you come across, just as Ares would be. The hands-off approach to environmental storytelling is something that I appreciate, but the game happens to play very well, too. The controls are snappy and responsive, and even with the challenges of porting this game that was originally mouse-controlled to being playable with a Super NES controller, every action feels easy enough to pull off. Be careful if you get motion sickness from games, though -- this game is notorious for giving people headaches. Since the player is forced to always face the same direction, when you turn, the entire dungeon rotates instantly. This makes it a bit disorienting for some people to watch, but at least you can enjoy the story sequences that break up the gameplay. The few cutscenes that are shown during the game all involve Dela Delon thinking that she has the upper hand, only to get owned by some trap. The bumbling act, while perplexing, is endearing, and brings to mind other examples of comic relief villains, like the lovable Team Rocket. It also serves a purpose in showing the player what kinds of pitfalls to look out for. Aside from all of that, just like with Falcom's other games, the music is fantastic and really sets the mood. There's a final battle in this game that is such a chaotic nightmare that it has to be seen to be believed, but it's somehow still a lot of fun. Just don't fight it with the game speed maxed out. If you like tile-by-tile dungeon crawlers or action RPGs, I would suggest you give this game a look and see if you like it.  5) NieR: Automata The End of YoRHa Edition NieR: Automata is another banger from Yoko Taro. It's an action RPG set far into the future after the events of the original NieR in which you play as 2B, a combat android who is a part of the "YoRHa" squadron. YoRHa forces are fighting a war on mankind's behalf against robots who have taken over Earth. In simple terms, the gameplay consists of watching cutscenes, exploring the open world, battling enemies, and talking to NPCs, but the focus is on the story that this game delivers. The narrative is compelling to watch as it unfolds because of the stellar direction of the pivotal scenes. You can piece together what's happening and why, and it never gets bogged down with too much explanation. There is room to form your own interpretations and let your imagination do it's thing, and that's why these kinds of stories stick with me. It's the kind of game that can spark a passionate discussion easily, so I can see why it has the legacy that it does. The combat is very fluid, and it gets the job done, but I wouldn't say I was particularly engaged with that aspect. Similar to my experience with the original, I was sort of coasting through the fights, occasionally equipping stronger weapons, installing new memory chips, and dodging whenever I felt threatened. It's not that I wasn't entertained; maybe I'm just not hard to please when it comes to that stuff. I ask myself, what if I had been more engaged with the combat? What if it was more demanding of my reflexes or forced me to strategize more? Well, maybe that hypothetical game would be higher on a list like this, but as it stands, the game that exists already made an impact on me. It didn't need any of that stuff to win me over, and that's where my thoughts on this game conclude. If you're looking for a story that will stick to your brain for a long time afterwards and leave you pondering what this or that meant, then look no further.  4) Elevator Action Returns S-Tribute Elevator Action Returns S-Tribute is pretty much the most awesome game ever made. It's a port of a Sega Saturn game, which itself was a port of the arcade sequel to Elevator Action. In this game, you play as one of three different characters who are part of a paramilitary group trying to take down some nasty terrorists who have nuclear weapons. The main bad guy wants to, as he puts it, "crush the old order and create a new society!" The action, as you can probably guess, revolves around elevators. Timing your ascent and descent is crucial to your success, because getting caught underneath one when it's going down, or on top of one when it's going up, will pancake you. Enemies can also control the elevators, so you have to be aware of your surroundings at all times. There's tension in this game when you have to deal with enemies quickly, but at the same time have to wait for elevators to arrive. Both of these things, together with the alarm that starts blaring if you don't get to the red doors in a timely manner, put you into a frantic mindset that really adds to the experience. The atmosphere of this game is incredible. The gritty, crime-infested setting along with the synths in the soundtrack make it feel like John Carpenter meets Judge Dredd. If you're not familiar with this game, check out the music; you might be convinced to play it based on that alone. If that doesn't do it for you, it's also got some wonderful pixel art, superb animation, and some truly memorable voice clips. Never have I wanted to get good at an arcade game as much as I did with this one. I was determined to run through it with the default lives and credits, time after time, until I saw the ending. It gets very chaotic at the end, but it's a fitting climax for the game. If you think you might enjoy an inventive and incredibly stylish arcade game from the mid-90s, you should absolutely play this.  3) Trials of Mana (from Collection of Mana) I'm so glad that I finally played through Trials of Mana. I found it to be a extremely charming action RPG, and without getting into my opinion on Secret of Mana, let's just say I liked this game much, much, much, much more than that game. When you start, you pick a party of three from a total of six heroes and heroines. I loved Angela's design, so I started with her. I picked Riesz and Hawkeye to complete the party even though I knew that they would have no healing abilities. That decision made a few parts fairly challenging, but it was never so difficult that it affected my enjoyment. Not only can you select your party, but you can eventually change your characters' classes! I thought that aspect was awesome, though I felt compelled to look up what the various classes were capable of. Your choice of party and each of their individual classes are permanent, which makes the whole experience feel meaningful when you ultimately succeed in your quest. In this game, I had the freedom to wander anywhere if I wanted to, and yet it was always clear where I needed to go in order to progress the story. The Collection of Mana that I played this on had some really nice features that I took advantage of, like save stating to grind ??? seeds. Great music, great spritework, and beautiful environments made every session tons of fun. I should mention that it felt like the game was bursting at the seams and ready to glitch out or crash at any second. They must've really pushed the hardware to the limit, because it also had some crazy-long load times for a cartridge-based game. The penultimate dungeon was a little long and arduous, but the final sequence was very cool and didn't make me want to pull my hair out. For an older RPG, that says a lot about the game.  2) DEMON'S TILT Not really being a pinball guy, I hadn't heard of DEMON'S TILT until I came across some in-development footage of the sequel. So I picked up the original game, and I can't think of another time when an impulse purchase like that has paid off so handsomely. It's heavily inspired by Devil's Crush, an occult-themed pinball game for the TurboGrafx-16. It also has monsters to kill and bullets that can block your ball, which sounds annoying but ends up being very addicting. There's a three-tiered board in normal mode (a Cathedral, called "La Cattedrale di St. Bagattele" in the supplemental DLC materials), and each tier is home to various characters such as LEO THE CHAINED GUARDIAN and LILITH THE HIGH PRIESTESS, who is also the announcer. Lilith's voice really adds to the personality and style of this game, whether she's saying how impressed she is or laughing maniacally when you lose a ball. If you're able to withstand Lilith's jeers and keep playing, it has super jackpots, ultra jackpots, mutiball, and many more secrets and objectives to keep you coming back. The key to success, though, is mastering the "nudge." You can nudge the ball to hit a ramp or make a split-second save to avoid falling into the drain, and that level of control really puts your fate into your own hands and encourages you to get better and achieve a higher score. Games like this that take a traditional genre and get really creative with it are my favorites, and if any of what I've said about this game interests you, you should check it out.  1) Elden Ring I avoided watching other people stream or even talk about Elden Ring as much as possible before I was able to play it myself. I'd say that I was able to remain relatively unspoiled, which was great, but I had somehow formed a few expectations based on what little I knew. I was expecting this game to be tuned a bit easier than From Software's previous titles because I knew that it had a big, open world. They would need to dial some of the challenge back in order to ease players into the grand adventure, right? Well, no, it turns out they didn't pull any punches at all. In fact, some enemies have attacks with ridiculously drawn-out wind-up animations seemingly designed to throw off the dodge timing of seasoned players. When I realized that this was happening, my frustration subsided. They made this game so that even someone like me, who has been in the trenches and played all of the Souls-adjacent games, is going to have their skills put to the test. The fact that I was still able to experience those familiar feelings of discovery is pretty amazing. The massive world was the icing on the cake for me. I really like pushing around every corner of these games to see what I can find, and they never disappoint me with endless amounts of secrets. There were so many mysteries to solve, and the rare moments when I put something together on my own really made it special. There were so many grand foes to encounter and so many spectacular locales to behold that I really felt spoiled. There were even some great characters that I met along the way, and I wanted to help them survive and succeed in their own quests. And of course, who can forget the bosses? This game had some great fights, including probably the most difficult boss I've ever seen. But even with all of the failed attempts, I never once felt that I was being cheated out of a win. Elden Ring gives you a mountain to climb, and if you just take it one handhold at a time, you'll be at the top admiring all that you've accomplished before you know it. This game gives you the opportunity to go on the ultimate adventure, complete with everything that will make it memorable to you. When you play, you'll create a journey that is meaningful to you because you did it all on your own (or with the help of friends that you've summoned). That's why this game is incredible. Beautiful, enigmatic, and challenging, it represents the best of what gaming can offer.
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Jan 1, 2024 00:25
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5 - Hogwarts Legacy. This was a fun game to play, because Harry Potter was one of the most important stories my daughter and I shared when she was younger. The game was a little let down by the samey enemies, and while the combat was solid, it was repetitive well before the end. But the setting was excellent and the castle felt amazingly well done. Too much combat, and not enough puzzles to really fit with the books, though. 4 - Discworld MUD It shames me to admit it, but I've wasted so many hours on this over the year. In 2005 everyone left the MUD scene for WoW and I was left occasionally playing this one. I've deleted my character because if I didn't, I would go back. 3 - The Case of the Golden Idle Really super fun puzzle game in the guise of a murder mystery/conspiracy story. A little on the easy side compared to Obra Din, and sadly short. Still was the second most fun I had in a game this year. 2 - Minecraft The game I played the most in the first half of the year. My daughter is at university, and this was the excuse for us to hang out 1 night a week, playing and chatting and catching up on our server and building silly things. Not my favorite game, but a game that can bridge a gap of hundreds of miles and give me an excuse to hang out with my daughter, well that makes it one of the best games ever. 1 - Baldur's gate 3. It took a while, but after a couple of restarts it clicked. It's doesn't quite live up to BG2, but it's very close. And being almost as good as BG2 makes it easily ahead of anything else made this year.
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Jan 1, 2024 00:31
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vogonity posted:
Remember to apologize next loop. This one’s gonna be on my list next year for sure. e: I also think I have been convinced to get Alan Wake 2.
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Jan 1, 2024 00:50
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Wait poo poo I thought I had more time Okay let's go 10: Front Mission 3 After not playing this since around release in the late 90s, I decided to see if it was as good as I remembered. In terms of writing and plot, no, not even close, the game's primary value in that regard is some old-school Blind Idiot Translation. But in terms of gameplay? Actually, yeah, if anything it's even better than I remembered, with more depth in developing your characters and some seriously impactful choices in how you assemble your mechs. And the aesthetics are top-notch too, interesting levels that range from heavy industrial facilities to urban cores to forested highways, with good music. Plus, the gamefeel can be phenomenal when things line up right, proccing multiple skills and tearing an enemy the gently caress apart will never not rule. 9: Hitman: World of Assassination They have spent years on the New Hitman trilogy starting in 2016 and it has only ever seen refinement, polish, and expansion. The formal conversion to the 'World of Assassination' title came with addition of a quasi-roguelike, randomized mode that has made things truly bonkers in terms of how much content there is. I had already put maybe 400 hours into the series already across the three titles but now? All bets are off. This game now has a wide number of diverse, meticulously designed, deeply intricate levels for exploration in a dozen different ways each, where you're taking on everything from terrorist militias holed up in rural Colorado to an extremely solid cyberpunk caper in Chongqing to an isolated English manor house that serves as a reference to Knives Out, and you can even supplant the actual investigator and solve the mystery yourself. All these levels are huge puzzleboxes that come as close as any game I know of to giving you a true array of options in killing targets. There are the classics like sniping someone from half a mile away, poisoning their food, knifing them, but every level also has multiple story elements that you can involve yourself in in order to give yourself opportunities to get close to targets. Even that's only scratching the surface though because there are a stupid number of Gadgets and Contraptions to use in more esoteric ways, all while being a six-foot-plus bald dude with a barcode tattooed on his head who can be convincing in any disguise, anywhere in the world. 8: Fights in Tight Spaces: Weapon of Choice This game is my Slay the Spire. A deckbuilder, FiTS also involves positioning and movement as central elements of gameplay, with you trying to make sure you use your limited options carefully and wisely in the eponymous tight spaces in order to take out an array of enemies that range from the simplest of thugs to people with a great many tricks up their sleeves. It feels absolutely great when you manage to combine attacks, defensive options, and clever movement to tear apart a whole room full of armed mooks without taking a scratch, and maybe causing a couple of them to knock each other out in the process. Weapon of Choice is a DLC that dropped this year adding what you'd expect, a campaign with some twists and a different finale, a set of new cards centered around what basically amounts to Gun Kata, and a handful of new enemies that can be real motherfuckers; plus an infinite mode. 7: Street Fighter 6 They made a new Street Fighter and it's not just good, it's great, in fact it's the best fighter I've played in years and years. It's not my genre the way it used to be in the days of Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur but I can still deeply appreciate what's been done here, and this thing was master crafted. There's love in every frame, I never felt like I was getting screwed over by anything except my own shortcomings or an enemy who was plain better than me, and the expansive story mode has you make a custom character and going around various locations learning from the series's greats and new characters alike (The roster is pleasingly extensive even in the base game!), while sparring with and fighting all kinds of people. 6: Resident Evil 4 Remake I doubt I need to tell anyone much about Resident Evil 4. It's widely and rightly regarded as one of the greatest games ever made, a defining title of the mid-00s that influenced a great deal of what was to follow. Now, Resi has been on a pretty good run lately, with several highly regarded titles in 7, 8, and REmake 2, but REmake 3 wasn't quite as well received so there was some doubt about how REmake 4 would do. As it turned out our worries were unfounded. This game is as solid as they come, and the only shortcoming I can direct at it is that it's necessarily impossible for a faithful remake to also push the frontiers in the same way its original edition did. But what an adventure this is, with extreme polish, Capcom's now-commonplace superlative graphics, fantastic gunplay, classic enemies that have some new twists, a plot that is cleaned up and made more coherent, and in an act of tremendously welcome fanservice a lot more screen time for everyone's favorite rogueish Spaniard, Luis. The game is more than a simple retread of the original, rather it uses the locations and set pieces brilliantly while adding in some changes, twists, and some entirely new things as well. Oh, and there's Mercenaries and Separate Ways as well. 5: Project Zomboid One of the world's most perenially Early Access games ever, yet even in its current state PZ remains for my money the absolutely definitive zombie survival experience. I say this every year but this is the zombie game you dreamed of as a kid, where you're challenged to find a way to survive in an overrun Kentucky where any slip up can bring your doom banging on your doors and windows. The last major patch added multiplayer and that seems to have given the game a huge new burst of life, and we have seen a rapid expansion in the playerbase as well as the modding scene in the time since; the next major update is bringing a total overhaul of the crafting system, new additions such as basements and a much greater height limit to allow true skyscrapers, and plenty more. After that we should finally get to the NPC updates, and that has the potential to change things utterly. Long live Project Zomboid. 4: Star Ocean The Second Story R When I was a kid, Star Ocean The Second Story never quite cracked into my absolute top PS1 JRPG ranking. This is not shameful, because that list includes things like Suikoden II, Breath of Fire III, and Final Fantasy VII - some of the greatest games ever made. SO2, however, did manage to secure its place in the highest echelons of my second tier of favorites, with a grand and rich adventure to go on with either Claude or Rena as the lead character, giving different perspectives and scenes depending on who you chose. The devs chosen for this remake, GEMDROPS, have provided us with what can only be called a premier example of "They understood the assignment". Almost everything about this remake is judged brilliantly, bringing things out of the late 90s into a modern age of much greater convenience and different expectations, without losing the charm or depth. I played through it twice and got every achievement and just about the only thing I can say that's a negative is that I don't think they're empowered to, or interested in, make any expansions or DLCs because I would gobble that poo poo up like Ms Pac-Man gobbles dots. 3: Armored Core VI Sometimes, a series gets brought back after an absence because it's seen as an easy way to cash in on nostalgia. And sometimes, a series gets brought back because the devs want to remind you that they can make a video game that fucks. AC6 absolutely fits into the latter camp. You pilot a big mecha and you go around a post-apocalyptic planet having fights with other big mecha, other vehicles, and some absolutely humongous enemies. The game is fast paced as hell and has some seriously tough bosses, but it makes more concessions to convenience and quickly getting back into the action than the series used to, or which FROM's other games over the last decade have. And this is a welcome, well-considered shift, because keeping up the pace is essential to the feeling of this game. You're not in a big slow stompy bastard like Battletech or something here, these are the fast boys, and like most FROM games it takes time to get your bearings at all, let alone start to attain mastery, but like most FROM games once you have your poo poo together it will feel loving awesome, you will absolutely be doing the "gently caress yes this is the best boss fight ever!" meme. 2: Hi-Fi Rush Out of nowhere on a cold January day, Tango Gameworks - the guys who made The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo, released a game. There was no forewarning. There was also no reason to anticipate they would be doing something so radically different but holy poo poo did they drop a banger. Hi-Fi Rush is a character action rhythm game where you do all your moves and combos to the beat. In retrospect, one of those ideas that is simultaneously so obvious and so genius that you can't believe it took this long. The game is utterly non-serious, with a cartoony look, preposterous attitude, and God's Perfect Himbo in the lead role. So, here's my dirty secret: I'm terrible at rhythm games. Always have been. Refunded Crypt of the Necrodancer because I was so bad at it. But this game? This game presents things so clearly and well that it didn't matter much, I was soon bopping around with the best of them fighting a whole buttload of robots at once with ridiculous moves. Also, I have a robot cat called 808 and I would die for 808. And the other supporting cast, frankly. So it's fun from top to bottom basically, every moment is great, and when it gets into its real heights - like the scene where you bust into enemy HQ and start tearing poo poo up while Prodigy's Invaders Must Die bangs out and intensifies as you fight harder - it's like nothing else. Even more badass than some of the poo poo in AC6. Also of note is that there is the option to use alternative music that isn't the licensed soundtrack, and this music is also exceptional. 1: Baldur's Gate 3 When Baldur's Gate came out in 1998 it was feted as a bold new entrant in a somewhat moribund genre. The time where gaming was being pushed forwards by the likes of Ultima seemed to be in the past, but here BioWare delivered such refined and pure gold that it was soon being credited with revitalizing the genre and proving it could still stand up to the onslaught of JRPGs as well as other genres that were in ascendance at the time. Only Fallout the previous year seemed to be able to keep pace with BG's accolades. So a sequel seemed inevitable, and in a couple of years Baldur's Gate II arrived. And somehow it was... better. Much better. BG1 was a seminal CRPG; BG2 regularly takes a place high on a "Best Games Of All Time" list even to this day. Bigger, grander, more thoughtful, with more choices and options and characters, it's one of the most definitive sequels in modern times, not just in games but at all. It does absolutely everything a sequel should do. So Baldur's Gate 3 coming some twenty-odd years down the line had a mountain to climb. It would be impressive if it managed to be a good, solid CRPG. If it matched the original, well that sure would be something. It would not be matching BG2. Until it released. And it did. Others have said more, so I'll keep it brief and add an anecdote that sums it up for me: Beautiful, vast, deep, considered, funny, with characters of all types, a grand and twisting plot, an astonishingly intricate and deep combat system with more options than can be kept track of. The first time I reached the end of act 1 I had to try fighting the boss about a dozen times - I didn't want to Long Rest because it moved the plot in a direction I didn't want - so I was going into the fight half-dead and with a bunch of moves and spells used up. It was agonizingly difficult. But eventually I managed to figure out a combination of items, abilities, and what spells I did have on hand, and I prevailed. And I have not tasted Victory Wine so sweet in years. They don't make 'em like this anymore, but somehow, Larian did. In one of the best years for gaming ever, they delivered something so definitive that for me this list is really "Top 9 Games That Aren't Baldur's Gate 3".
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Jan 1, 2024 00:51
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Foul Fowl posted:surprise ryu from streets top 5 finish? lol this would be great if it happened. Top ten looks pretty plausible already
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Jan 1, 2024 00:57
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Cutting it close so my top 5 write-ups are pretty bare, I'll aim to add more detail later on. 2023 releases I want to play that I didn't get to: Alan Wake 2 Talos Principle 2 Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer Lunacid Pizza Tower Void Stranger Chants of Sennaar Dead Space Lies of P Honourable mentions (AKA games outside the top 10 I want to comment on): Baldurs Gate 3: Started it, but haven't played enough yet to give it an evaluation. Only had time to play one stupidly massive game this year, so I'll get to this one later. Doom (1993): Replayed this on it's 30th anniversary earlier this month, game is still great as always. It's incredible how well John Romero nailed FPS level design so early on, to make maps that feel as effortlessly fun as the E1 maps is more difficult than you might think. Fortnite: Played for the first time this year, it's pretty fun and incredibly polished so I can see why it's popular. It's basically “Video Games: The Game”, like they made something you would see someone playing on a TV show into a real game. Didn't have a lot of staying power though, if I actually cared about getting any of the (kinda predatory) cosmetics maybe it would be different, but I got tired of it fairly quickly. HROT: A member of the “boomer shooter” revival movement, and a decent one. It obviously takes a lot of inspiration from several 90's shooters, but it was most reminiscent of Quake II to me for some reason. Something to do with the movement feel and the aiming I guess. It does get frustrating at points with it's stinginess on health pickups, resulting in what feels like a bit too much save scumming. Possibly this is making some sort of thematic point considering the setting? Spider and Web: A neat little IF game. Has some cool twists, but also a fair bit of frustration with railroading and parser interpretation. Still, if you enjoy IF and haven't played this yet, I'd recommend it. Onto the top 10: 10. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty  Wo Long would probaby be in the top 5, if I stopped playing after the first half. I really enjoyed the parry-based combat for the most part, and the first boss is a great gatekeeper – if you can beat him, you understand how the game is meant to be played. The game peaks at the first Lu Bu fight, which is a true highlight, one of my favourite game moments of the year. Unfortunately though, it drops off heavily after that. Like the first Nioh, there simply isn't enough enemy variety to keep combat interesting throughout the entirety of the game. And where the first Nioh could at least rely a bit on it's bosses, here the boss encounter also suffer in the last half, because they can all be solved using the same strategies. The only real differences in how you deal with bosses are their elemental strengths/weaknesses, but it's trivial to build your character so that you have access to any element, which renders that part obsolete. Still, I enjoyed most of my time with it, and I'm hopeful that it can act as a base for a much improved sequel, like the jump up in quality from Nioh 1 to Nioh 2. 9. Spiderman (2018)  I started playing this back in 2018, but got distracted for whatever reason and never finished it. But, I took the opportunity to pick it back up when I had some time off this year so I could finish it before Spiderman 2 released. Looking back, I think part of why I abandoned it initially was that the story starts off a bit too slowly and doesn't really get interesting until the back half. Once it gets going though, the story is really quite good and I appreciate that it had the restraint not to have the Green Goblin involved. On the gameplay side of things, the combat and traversal are really fun and exactly what you would want from a Spiderman game. Although the combat does wear thin after a while and the many large combat arenas become more tiresome than fun by the end, in what is a relatively short game. This is not helped by the overuse of the “enemy base” side missions, you start off with Fisk construction sites in every zone and that would be fine enough, but then you also get the Sable bases and bases added on top of that and it's way too much of one mission type. There are also some underbaked stealth mechanics bolted on to spidermans arsenal which are for the most part completely pointless as you can only take out a few enemies before new waves start spawning in. This feels like a token addition just included because the Batman Arkham games laid that expectation, but the stealth system in those games was much more integral to the gameplay loop and was implemented much more thoughtfully. There are also some dedicated stealth missions where you play as other, non spiderman character, and these work a lot better. The one mission where you play as Mary Jane sneaking through Osbournes apartment is actually one of my favourite parts of the game. 8. Cuphead  I've played and finished this a few years ago in co-op, but I went through it solo for the first time this year, and ended up enjoying it more than the first playthrough. Once you learn to focus on only dodging instead of attacking, it becomes a zen experience. The little progress counter you get when you lose is also a great motivator to try again, it's great at giving you that “just one more time” experience. Oh yeah the animations and character designs are also amazing, but you already knew that. 7. The Roottrees are Dead  A free online puzzle game in the style of Obra Dinn, where you have to piece together the details of a large family tree. It's made by one person and that sometimes comes through in the production values, but it's well polished for the most part. And the most important aspect, the actual puzzle itself is, implemented extremely well. The leaps of logic you have to make to get solutions are always reasonable, and there are multiple ways to deduce the answer for most of the puzzles. There's also a hint system that just tells you how many unfound solutions a piece of evidence is related to, but without revealing any more detail than that, which is perfectly in that satisfying zone of being helpful without giving away the answers. The pace of the puzzle solving never really lets up either, unlike in Obra Dinn where the last part really drags as you have to walk around the ship to re-watch clues. Highly recommend, with the only caveat being that AI was used to generate the photos of the family members. I think that choice is acceptable in this case given it's a free game made by one person, but I hope that the creator gets enough attention from this game that they'll get the opportunity to put some more resources towards their next game to make it AI free. 6. Team Fortress 2  Game still slaps. I was a bit worried going back that after like 10 years, the game would've moved past me and been incomprehensible. But no, it was easy to slip right back in like I had never left. Yes there are a whole bunch of new weapons and maps, but thanks to Valves decision to balance around the stock weapons and keep them (for the most part) the most versatile choice, it never felt like a disadvantage to not have all the new stuff. 5. Resident Evil 4 Remake  RE4 absolutely did not need a remake but if we had to get one, I'm glad this is what appeared. The gameplay is mostly unchanged from the original save for some new knife combat options (including an extremely useful parry) and a crafting system, which just demonstrates how well the original still holds up. The knife parry and crafting are powerful additions to Leon's capabilities, but the ganados have been made that little bit more quick and aggressive to make up for that. The game pulls a nasty trick and suggests you start on Hardcore difficulty if you've played the original before, so I was having a harder time of it and dying multiple times per chapter. But I can see why they did it, it really helps keep the tension up in what could otherwise feel like a too familiar game. Of course it also does a good job of changing some things around and expanding some areas so it can still surprise old veterans of the original version. 4. Mario Wonder  A nice return to form for 2D Mario after being stuck in the NSMB template for far too long (Mario Makers excepted). You can feel the sheer joy that was put into every aspect, and particularly the new animations. 3. Returnal  The gameplay loop is really fun, and challenging. This is a game that also shines on co-op, and actually requires real communication and co-ordination with your co-op partner to manage the various risk reward systems of corrupted items and parasites. 2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom  Breath of the Wild was an enormous step forward in open world design when it released in 2017, this is basically a better version of that. In some ways, it's what BotW should have been all along. 1. Street Fighter 6  I've been interested in fighting games for a long time, but I could never get over the barrier of entry for them to really enjoy them. That's until Street Fighter 6 came along, that is. Street Fighter 6 is so welcoming, with it's lengthy World Tour mode that gradually teaches fighting game concepts, to it's Smash Bros like Modern control setting, that I knew I had to give it a try. And it worked! It got me in, and I didn't even end up using the new modern controls either. But just having them there as a fallback option was enough of a mental liferaft to get me to stick to the game. Weird Sandwich fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 01:05
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Was gonna make this a bit prettier but I feel like poo poo today, so whatever! DISQUALIFIED The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: Great game! But I’ve been slowly poking away at it since last year so it doesn’t count for ‘23. Clone Hero: Was actually going to be my third place for GOTY, but on further consideration it’s not really the game itself that’s good, it’s being able to play a shitload of Rock Band pro drum songs again, Clone Hero is just kind of there. Highly recommended regardless, and YARG is an open-source alternative that looks to be worth keeping an eye on too. Adventure Capitalist: It’s really fun but it’s also basically just a vehicle for advertisements and microtransactions. Easy recommendation because it’s free but I’m not giving it any points. Jedi: Fallen Order: Started in 2022 so it’s DQ’d for this year but after I came back to it and decided to not treat it like Souls Wars I had a great time with it. Somehow they made me care about Star Wars a little bit again! I’ll probably pick Survivor up at some point. THE HONORABLE MENTIONS Kimulator’s Films (Developer): During one of the first PSN sales of the year a buddy and I stumbled upon I’m In Love With Your Dead Grandmother and it’s all been downhill from there. John Fart: Text-iverse of Craziness may be my favorite. If you’re a fan of extremely low budget terrible FMV comedy games then this studio is right up your alley. (Canada Warning: They’re from Quebec.) The PSVR2: No, it’s not a game, but it came out this year and some of the less standout stuff is worth tossing out there as a good time. Horizon was a nice tech showcase, Kayak VR is extremely chill, Runner is a lot of fun, and the hardware in general is really nice. Games that got ports from the original hardware are also well worth revisiting now too. (Thumper!!!) It’s a worthy successor to the original PSVR, and hopefully gets even better with time. NON SCORING GAMES IN NO SPECIFIC ORDER Two Point Hospital: While I put very very little time into this, it made me really happy to play Theme Hospital again. Atari 50: Atari’s older games don’t entirely hold up, but this is more of a documentary collection with games in it than anything else, and it’s a lot of fun to comb through it and check out all the artwork, history, and interviews that they put together for it. Dragon Ball FighterZ: I absolutely adore how this game is heavily simplified but still feels like a true fighting game. It’s immediately accessible but loses zero of the fun of a much more technical game. DJMAX Respect: If you were ever a fan of the series this is a total must have. High res background videos, uncompressed audio, and a stunning amount of songs even before you start throwing DLC into it. The only downside is it’s a real fuckin’ chonker of a download at 70 gigs for the base install, but it’s pretty well worth it. Quake 2: Nightdive knocking it out of the park again with another incredible remaster. Runs smooth as butter on console and the improvements they made are subtle and tasteful, or in the case of self-lit textures even feel like something that the original game should have had. And the objective finding compass is a great addition, it’s just one small thing that modernizes the experience immensely. Prodeus: Slowly chewing through this a level or two at a time and it’s really growing on me. Dusk: I’m really on an FPS kick, aren’t I? Dusk especially stands out for being as old school as it gets, but it feels like a lost genre cornerstone instead of just a throwback. It’s not just a retro FPS, it’s a GREAT one. Metal Hellsinger: What if Doom 2016 but you rip and tear to the beat of death metal. What’s not to like? Callisto Protocol: I actually really ended up liking this game, far far more than I ever expected from its reception. I don’t think the criticisms it got were invalid, but if you engage with the game as it is instead of expecting it to be what it isn’t, it’s a pretty fun time. I even got the DLC! It’s understandable that we’ll probably never get a sequel or even any other games from the studio, and that’s kind of a shame because I think their second attempt would have given them some real time to shine. Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters: I actually beat all six of these this year and I still feel kinda weird about it. Great remasters though in my opinion, I’m not intimately familiar enough with the mechanics of the originals to notice if they hosed anything up in terms of gameplay, but they all seemed great to me. Was a real treat getting to finally play an official version of FF3 that wasn’t the horridly tuned mess of the DS remake too. It Takes Two: Loved this, Plat’d this. Wasn’t GOTY material for me like for a lot of other people, but it’s really something special and I’m glad I picked it up. Deep Rock Galactic: ROCK. AND. STONE!!! Teardown: This game ruled my life for a couple of days. I was expecting a lot of smashing, but I wasn’t expecting to spend hours setting up elaborate escape plans involving pre-parked cars that I swap between in a mad rush to the exit. It’s technically fascinating and somehow manages to be a really good game at the same time, which is always nice. Everhood: “Undertale but nihilistic” sounds like a recipe for incredible cringe and disaster, but they managed to pull it off I think. It’s weird, it’s difficult, it’s ponderous, and it has an absolute banger of a soundtrack. Pistol Whip: This game hurts my legs and spine. I love it. FF16: The award for most Clive goes to…Cid???? I think I miscalculated something here. But for real this was a very, very good game and the way they managed to make a Final Fantasy story actually serious was a nice change of pace. Also, how the hell did I beat seven FFs in one year? Madness. THE PART WHERE I START USING NUMBERS 10- Return of the Obra Dinn: I wish I could forget this game so I could play it all over again. You can say that about a lot of games, sure, but it’s more true here than almost anywhere else. Unraveling the fate of the entire ship and its doomed journey was just so cool to get into, and piecing it all together afterwards was a fascinating challenge. 9- Spider-Man 2: The highest ranking game on my list with the least to say about. It’s more Spider Man, which I loved! That’s all it really needed to be and they nailed it. 8- LAD Gaiden (and Ishin): Gaiden gets the points but I’m gonna talk about Ishin too. Gaiden is maybe one of the best playing games in the whole series, the story is excellent, the ending’s a huge gut punch, and it’s nice and bite sized so you can get right through it. The lack of Legend mode and NG+ threw me off a bit, but not that big of a deal. And it was awesome being able to finally play Ishin in english, which is right up there with Yakuza 0 and 5 in quality. 7- Armored Core 6: Not only is Armored Core back, it’s significantly improved! It controls great, it looks great, big robots are always great, and it also gave us a bunch of Zullie videos to show off how stupidly huge everything in this game is. 6- FF Theatrhythm Final Bar Line: Never played the DS versions but I loved this in the arcade, and having a home console version has been awesome. The season pass DLC of non-FF music has also been great, like a nice little bonus every few weeks reminding me to fire it up again. 5- Resident Evil Village VR: Village was my 2021 GOTY but the VR mode is gonna get its own place here because daaaaaamn. Everything just looks so cool in VR, it plays great, and the VR exclusive weapon adjustments added a nice bit of variety to a game I was already super familiar with. 4- Anodyne 2 (and Anodyne): Anodyne 2 should honestly be GOTY all years every year. Yeah I put it as my number four, but that’s just a technicality. Give it its own GOTY award, the award for being Anodyne 2, which no game can hope to live up to. (The first game is also fun but very different, much jankier, and definitely doesn’t hit the same highs. I think it’s worth playing if you’re going to pick up A2 though.) 3- Resident Evil 4 Remake: We knew this was coming and somehow it turned out about as perfect as one could hope for. And then the bastards went and managed to get the VR mode out in the same year, for free? My god. 2- Gran Turismo 7: ok this HAS to be a mistake. A car game, in my top three? I don’t even like car games! But I LOVED this one. It really eases you into the experience and does a great job of teaching driving concepts and how you need to play, plus the ocean of assists mean you can really customize it to your own liking. I bought it when I heard it was going to be fully playable in VR and got myself hooked for weeks before the headset was out. And with the headset on? It’s like I have a car museum in my house. Every one of the hundreds of cars in the game is meticulously detailed and you could easily lose dozens of hours just gawking at paintjobs and tail lights. Plus you can shove a Porsche 911 engine into a VW Sambabus, and it’s hilarious. 1- Alan Wake 2: Masterpiece. Wonderful. Awesome. Scary. Hilarious. It’s everything I loved about the first game but better. I really need to finish the NG+ run to see how they changed things around. RIP James McCaffrey.  Short List: 10: Return of the Obra Dinn 9: Spider Man 2 8: Like a Dragon Gaiden 7: Armored Core 6 6: FF Theatrhythm Final Bar Line 5: RE Village VR Mode 4: Anodyne 2 3: Resident Evil 4 Remake 2: Gran Turismo 7 1: Alan Wake 2
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Jan 1, 2024 01:44
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I was gonna write up a top 50 but then it was so intimidating I never started it and now here I am scraping in at the last second with a barebones list. Alas. 10. Tearring Saga: Champions of Yutona Fire Emblem's original creator, Shouzou Kaga, helmed the series in the NES and SNES era. Nintendo owned Intelligent Systems, so when the next console generation came out, it was only natural they'd make games for that too. (In the end, there was no Fire Emblem 64, though Intsys wasn't idle during the generation). Kaga wanted to make games for the Playstation, though, and left Intsys to found a new company, to make Fire Emblem for the Playstation. His lawyers were able to convince him that he couldn't literally make Fire Emblem, but he started work on a very blatant Fire Emblem copycat, named Emblem Saga. Nintendo sued. This case is apparently the seminal case in Japanese law on what exactly intellectual property covers with regards to video games; all your kickstarter spiritual successors like Bloodstained owe their legal footing to it. In the end, the courts ruled that Kaga was free to make the game as close to Fire Emblem as he wanted gameplay-wise, but that the name 'Emblem Saga' was, perhaps, a bit too much; it got renamed to Tearring Saga. That's a long bit of history but the point is: the game is basically just a lost Fire Emblem, on the Playstation. Whereas Intsys decided to return to their roots and their next FE (Binding Blade, for the GBA) was very similar to the series' debut, Tearring Saga goes in the same direction FE had been going on the SNES. An overly ambitious story with the seams of where cuts had to be made still visible lends an air that this is a living world, where things happen that are related to what we see, but which our protagonists aren't part of. drat near every character has some sort of secret relation to two or three other characters; sometimes revealed in a climactic dramatic moment, and sometimes just dropped casually with no fanfare in the ending. Characters are designed, mechanically, with more of an eye towards what would be cool than game balance. So you'll have one character who is just some guy with an axe who you bench five seconds later, and then some other guy with a sword that automatically revives him from the dead, because that sounded cool. And it is cool! The list of characters with some insane trait, or mechanical hook, is dozens long. It's a feel that actual FE mostly abandoned; contemporary FE had characters who mostly stuck within the relatively safe bounds of game balance, and modern FE gives you opportunities to build characters, rather than giving them strong mechanical identities pre-built. Anyways it's a really unique experience. I wouldn't play it unless you're already a fan of the SNES FEs, but if you are, this is a cool look into an alternate timeline of the series you love. (Do look up a content warning first, though; the game is mostly inoffensive but there's one really Really bad scene). 9. Master of Orion II This game has what every other 4X I've tried lacks: a simplistic enough AI that the game can process their turns nearly-instantly. Your average Civ game is 20% making decisions and 80% waiting for the AI to crunch the numbers. 60+ second waits after hitting 'End Turn' aren't unknown. Not in MoO2! You can mash that button as fast as you want and, on a modern machine at least, the game will keep up. Meaning you're able to actually play the game, instead of waiting for the game. The game would be up there just as a 4X that's actually playable, but the game design is also really good, and somewhat unique as well. At least, I haven't seen anything like it. The tech tree has a really interesting property that techs are mutually exclusive. If you research Biospheres, you're giving up the ability to research Hydroponic farms, forever. (You can still obtain it via diplomacy or espionage, but you can never research it). Almost every tech in the game is like that, where you pick one of several mutually-exclusive options. The game balance is kinda wonky so sometimes the choices are no-brainers, but sometimes really interesting and nuanced. And even for the ones with a clear best pick, it gives you the option to have a bit more variety in future games by picking the other tech. It also has a full ship-designing system which, while not super deep, is pretty fun. You don't research new unit types; you research new ship parts, and then have to design ships that use them to actually benefit from your new technology. One of the fun parts of 4Xs is the building up of your economy in super-cities (or planets, in this case). Giving you control over not just the quantity but the design of your military gives it the same feel. Macro-level military decisions are fun, instead of rote, in the same was as for economic decisions. 8. Metroid Fusion This year, I played every Metroid game. None of them were duds, but I played so many great games this year that only a few cracked the top ten. Fusion is a bit of an odd pick, and from what I understand, putting it over Zero Mission, Dread, or any of the Primes is a hot take. (I thoroughly enjoyed all of those, but none of them made top ten). I think a lot of the complaints I hear, though, stem from thinking the game is something that it isn't. I can easily imagine a fan in 2002, who has been waiting 8 years for a sequel to Super Metroid, being intensely disappointed that this game is so different. But, with the benefit of not having to wait 8 years for it, and trying to look at it for what it is, rather than comparing it to its more illustrious predecessor, I find there's a lot to appreciate. At its core, Metroid Fusion isn't what we think of as a Metroidvania in modern parlance; it's more like a Zelda. You're guided by the story from zone to zone, and then the zone is a little maze unto itself, with maybe a new item and a boss, and when you finish it, you're whisked away to the next zone. This world design works well in Zelda, and it works well here. The fact that you know, in no uncertain terms, which zone you're supposed to be in means that the developers felt a bit more free to make the zones more confusing. I really appreciate the puzzle of finding my way in each area, but it would be hopelessly overwhelming if it was in a fully open game. A traditional Metroidvania can't make progression too obscure without becoming extremely difficult, because of the risk the player will conclude that it's impossible to progress here, and wander off to another area. Sectioning the world off removes that worry, and Metroid Fusion ran with it. Of all the Metroids I played, I think Fusion has the best individual rooms, mostly because of this. On top of that, it has truly amazing vibes. Metroid has always been a bit horror-esque; with its aesthetics directly inspired by Alien. Exactly how much they lean into that varies from game to game. Fusion leans all the way in. You're trapped in a space station which is slowly breaking down, and slowly being filled by horrible monsters. You spend most of the game being hunted down by one that has taken Samus' shape, and fights with her fully-powered suit. The tense feeling is pitch-perfect. I truly recommend that anybody who has dismissed Fusion--or been convinced without playing it that it's a black sheep--give it another try, and try to appreciate it for what it is, rather than what you imagined it would be. 7. Baldur's Gate 3 Yup. It's as good as they say. 6. Metroid II: Return of Samus Another Metroid hot take. Metroid 2, the one for the Gameboy, is not exactly maligned, but it is a bit forgotten. Games for the original black-and-white (or, well, black-and-green) Gameboy tend not to be talked about as much as other consoles. And Metroid 2 has a few things that might make someone instantly drop it without really giving it a chance: the Gameboy screen is tiny, so the draw distance around Samus is quite small; and it doesn't have a map. Plus, there's a remake for the 3DS, and a fan remake for PC. Surely one should just play one of those? I talked in Fusion about how Metroid likes to play around with being horror games; Metroid 2 is one of that group. It's a game about descending deeper and deeper through dark, claustrophobic caves, hunting down monsters who might be hiding anywhere. The tiny screen means you can't really see what's coming; your visibility is as low as might be expected in the depths of a cave. The lack of color hammers it home as well; though imo it looks better on an emulator with true white instead of Gameboy green. Most of the game doesn't really have music; instead you have weird electronic noises playing. (Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM7U-DlbjPM) Are they the sound of Metroids, echoing through the caves? Whatever they are, they're spooky. The lack of a map is similarly disorienting; you never quite know how deep you are, or how much further the current cave extends. But, fear not; the game is designed to not need a map, and if you give it a chance, you'll find that you can navigate without one, and that doing it this way enhances the feeling of exploring an unknown, hostile world. It's an unsettling game for an unsettling story: Samus' mission is to exterminate a species, to wipe out every last Metroid. It's not a story that should make you feel heroic, and the game does not make you feel like a hero. Quick, five second reviews of the remakes. Samus Returns, for the 3DS: it's an extended tech demo for Metroid Dread which completely misses the point of the original and tramples all over everything that made it special. AM2R: It's Metroid Zero Mission with Metroid 2's map; this is fun because Zero Mission is fun, but again, it fails to replicate the atmosphere which is the strongest part of the game. 5. Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out This is a sequel to the spiritual successor to cult classic King of Dragon Pass, which ultimately means only like 5 people even heard of it and only half of them actually played it. In theory, there's four more coming (it is called Six Ages), but at the rate they're being made I despair they'll be done before the creator retires. King of Dragon Pass and both Six Ages games do what very few video games do: they ask you to think like a member of another culture. To succeed, you need to immerse yourself in how these people think. You navigate the management of a bronze age clan, trying to help them survive and thrive. In the previous two game, the emphasis was on thriving; once you get the basic game mechanics down you're pretty unlikely to actually starve to death. They encourage multiple playthroughs, and the core mechanics are fairly similar between games, so the learning portion of the game where death is truly a possibility is a relatively small portion of your overall playtime. Not so in Six Ages 2. In typical sequel fashion, it introduces a twist: the world is ending. In about thirty years. The earth is close to dead; most of the gods are dead; your magic is weak compared to your ancestors'. Just getting enough food to make it through the winter is a struggle and an accomplishment. Internal struggles are tearing your clan apart. Your neighbors are dying off just as much as you. Horrible monsters roam the world, forcing you into no-win situations. Just surviving long enough to make it to the end of the world is a triumph. It's a game about the grim struggle for survival, and it's a masterpiece. 4. Europa Universalis IV Don't play this game. You'll spend the first while going 'this game is alright' and then suddenly it's all you can play and you look at your steam playtime and it's 700 hours. Stay away! 3. Super Metroid And here it is. I don't need to sell you on this one; to explain it's misunderstood and unfairly maligned. It's a classic, and for good reason. This game being so goddamn good is why Fusion is a black sheep, because it wasn't enough like Super. Everything about the game is a joy. The controls are the perfect balance of being difficult to master and satisfying to execute. The pacing is excellent. The game defined a genre, and still has lessons to teach modern design. 2. Castlevania III After running out of Metroids, I played a bunch of Castlevanias (though not all of them, that would be insane). None of the 'search action' ones made my top ten, though all of them were good (Circle of the Moon excepted). But here, in the silver medal slot, is one of the classicvanias. Classic Castlevania is a game about planning. If you try to play by twitchy reaction you'll just be owned every time. Your whip has a windup before it comes out. You have no air control at all; every single jump you make has the exact same arc, and once you press the jump button you're locked into it until you land. None of these are technical restrictions; compare the similar Ninja Gaiden, a contemporary game for the same console. But it all adds up to give a very different feel to how you play the game. People say classic Castlevania games are brutally difficult. They're right, but for CV3 at least, there's a bit more to the story. Because the controls are so hostile to playing on reaction, it means you have to play pre-emptively. You need to know which candles to break to get the subweapon you need to have an easier time in a given section. You need to think through what path you take in an area with multiple options. You need to think about when to use your subweapon and when to use your basic attack. You need to think about when to switch to your other character, who has their own host of similar decisions. None of these are really things you can figure out on the fly, in the heat of the moment. As far as I can tell, you're supposed to die, go 'hm, I wonder what I can do there', and then come back and try something different, until you find something that works. You're not learning the level the way one might learn a Dark Souls boss, you're solving it, like a puzzle. It feels brutally unfair only if you try to bruteforce it with good reactions. In reality, the number of rooms that remain difficult if you enter them with a good plan is probably single digits, and mostly involve randomized infinitely spawning enemies (especially those loving frogs). It also has just really good pacing and aesthetics. It's just an incredibly polished game, and certainly the most beautiful NES game I've played. 'Good music' is practically a free square in a Castlevania game, but this one goes above and beyond; the Japanese version has a custom chip in the cartridge solely to add extra channels to the music. (This was removed in the overseas version and for that reason alone I recommend playing the Japanese; it's not like there's a lot of text). 1. Fire Emblem Engage People feel the need, even in this thread, to constantly pre-empt the criticism that it wasn't like the previous game in the series, Three Houses. To that, I say the same thing I said in Metroid Fusion: judging a new entry by how similar it is to the previous entry is foolish, no matter how beloved that entry is. You have to judge it for what it is. And what it is is the best SRPG maps I've ever played. These games are always at their best when there's always something to do besides mashing numbers together; some strategic-level consideration forcing you to view the map holistically. That's almost the entirety of what Engage is. It hands you powerful but limited tools and forces you to answer the question of how best to use them. It's rare to have a game truly give you something that feels busted, even when used in the intentional way, and still leaves the game fun. It's a rare selection of games that give you the feeling of pulling a fast one over on the devs without moving into the realm of glitches and exploits. And Engage holds up remarkably well to thorough attempts to break it. There's some cheese strats people found months later, but I can almost guarantee on a blind playthrough that if you look at a tool, go "That's obviously busted. There's no way there's any fun challenge left if I use this," you're wrong. It's the most fun I've had in an SRPG in a very long time, and it's my game of the year.
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Jan 1, 2024 01:54
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lookit all these lists poppin right before the deadline
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Jan 1, 2024 01:55
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Coming up to 7 hours remaining...
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Jan 1, 2024 01:56
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veegy must be buried alive in lists like a head sticking out of the sand. and lvg will use the head as a chair
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Jan 1, 2024 01:56
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I very nearly beat CP2077 in time to add it to my list. Alas, looks like it'll go on my 2024 list.
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Jan 1, 2024 02:00
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Hell yeah comin in under the wire for my first time participating. Two things to mention here: I play everything like 5 years late, because I'm a deals whore and busy, so a lot of my stuff is old. I also generally measure games by how much they stick with me after playing, and/or how much they emotionally resonate. This is why Disco Elysium is gonna be on a yearly list for me for the rest of my life. Etc. Honorable Mentions/DNF Lethal Company My three closest friends and I have had a standing weekly game night for the last 6 years. This game might be the most I've laughed while playing stuff with them. The proximity audio and other sound mechanics are incredible and completely make the game. There's still not a ton of content and it's also really hard but I look forward to seeing what the *singular* dev continues to add into this. Really fun and challenging and unintentionally hilarious every single time we play it. Sonic Mania I'm a closet Sonic fan. Sonic 1 was probably the first video game I played as a child, and Sonic 1 through SA2 are still really special and nostalgic to me. I did not bother playing basically anything since then, but Sonic Mania looked rad, especially with the involvement of Christian Whitehead and Tee Lopes. It is so loving fun and the closest thing I've felt to Sonic 3 + Knuckles. The pixel graphics are great, the music is exceptional, the level design actually feels good and not just "hold right, avoid pit", it's everything a Sonic fan could want in a new 2D game. It's so good and it's often like $5! Fire Emblem Engage Like every other post in this thread and the FE threads, this is the best gameplay the series has ever had, and great colorful, fun, gay characters. Unfortunately they're all idiots and the story is just *bad* ("Saturday morning cartoon", a label given a lot, is actually too high a bar for this game) and after finishing it I felt no desire to pick it up again or buy the DLC. Maybe in a few years. Yes I am also a Three Houses obsessive and Edelgard did nothing wrong. Diablo IV I played hundreds of hours of D3 with friends and solo, loved the end-game content, just a great game for a group and getting satisfaction from number go up. However, Blizzard sucks rear end and I refused to pay $70 for D4 on principle. Our group ended up getting it anyway, we burned out on it after a month or two and beating the campaign once, everyone else ultimately didn't like it compared to D3 and couldn't put their finger on why. I ended up playing many more hours solo with my Necromancer and having a lot of fun. The fact I didn't want to get it at first but then ended up the only one really liking it says something, I guess. Also: great cutscenes and art direction, Lilith rules, why can't I just be on her side? Alan Wake II (still in progress, didn't feel far enough to rank) I found Alan Wake I to be a complete slog despite enjoying the narrative, storytelling, and setting. The gameplay sucked, the flashlight was annoying, combat was infuriating. But almost every other Remedy game (not Quantum Break) is among my favorites of all time, Max Payne 2 was a massive part of my adolescence, Control ruled. Alan Wake II so far (like 5 hours in) still has kinda lovely combat, but the setting, story, vibe, graphics, ambiance, and insane number of Remedy Universe references and other meta-bits are all amazing. Unbelievably beautiful looking game, when I first got to NYC as Alan I spent minutes just looking around and admiring the environment. Remedy rules. Disco Elysium DE is my emotional comfort game now, after three runs and over 100 hours. I still haven't done all the content or the different political quests. I just love being this moron putting his life back together and finding the beauty in just being alive, trying, day after day against all odds. At my own worst times I remember stuff from this game and it makes me feel better. I think about the Phasmid and the soul-crushing payphone call all the time. Game of the year every year. TOP 10 10. Balatro Demo This game.....this *demo*...is addictive. I'm not a huge cards player or huge card game player (other than Slay the Spire) but something about this game is magnetic. You make poker hands to get points, based on strength of hand, powered up by joker cards with various skills and other card enhancements to strengthen hand point values. Then it gets insane with all the combinations and game-breaking methods, secret hands (5 of a kind!), and has real off-the-rails potential. It also has extraordinary sound design, pixel graphics, and atmosphere. Every single sound in the game is so satisfying and full, from clicking cards, playing hands, the shuffling deck sound, activating buff cards and jokers. The card designs are so pretty, the various bonus effects (holographic, gold, shiny, etc.) look and feel great to get. Makes the game feel really good even just clicking through cards for 5 minutes. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) you can break the demo pretty easily (Flush build is OP), so I'm looking forward to what the full game has in store. I'm amazed I've spent 20+ hours on a demo of all things, but it's my go-to game to play during meetings or on calls for a few minutes. Very excited for the full thing. 9. A Summer's End: Hong Kong 1986 I'm not really a VN or eroge guy, and this definitely is the former and I guess a little bit of the latter (optional "adult" patch which I incorrectly installed, then played the game and genuinely thought the "adult" content was tender sapphic handholding), but what caught my eye is the really stunning retro and PC-95 inspired art, excellent synth and vaporwave soundtrack, and really well-crafted, tight aesthetic, atmosphere, and a touching lesbian love story set in 1980s Hong Kong. Even got to learn a bit about 80s Hong Kong culture, film, politics, and East Asian LGBT history throughout the story. I continue to think about it a lot and really looking forward to what the indie devs, just two Asian-Canadian women, do with their next, similar project. I've been trying to consume more queer-focused games and this was a great place to start. 8. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim I hate tower defense games and the combat gameplay in this was the most fun I've had in a while. Once learning all the systems and leveling up skills and characters, the battle chapters were super fun to play (and replay!). I was very impressed by how it managed to actually be fun, interesting, challenging, and not just boring and lovely. The narrative side was a blast to play through, all the characters were interesting and different. Starts a little slow, depending who you pick to explore first, but somewhere in the middle things started syncing narratively and the differences in each story kept me wanting more and playing more. I still don't fully understand the story, but it was huge and ambitious and I loved it. Great voice acting, great art, another Vanillaware banger. I think I played this cause SA wouldn't stop talking about how great it was, too. 7. Citizen Sleeper I was extremely impressed by what this game managed to pack into a small indie size. The gameplay mechanics were fun, challenging, and interesting. But the writing and art blew me away and imbued a ton of heart into the game's concept, characters, and story. I did not expect to care this much about all the side characters and their backstories. The devs really crafted a beautiful, cyberpunk world and nailed the political and social messages they were trying to convey. Just a masterfully designed game, tight and deliberate in any way, very confident about what it's doing and saying. Very excited to see what they do with CS2. 6. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 + Future Redeemed Xenoblade 1 is one of my favorite games of all time, nearly 100%ed it on Wii, adored everything about it and especially the quality of life features to make doing quests not a slog. Each subsequent Xenoblade title was a step backward in including that QoL stuff, but had other great qualities. I hated Xeno 2 at first, but now look back on it fondly. I loved Xenoblade 3 but was often overwhelmed by the amount of content, especially the number of classes and the encouragement to use and master all of them. There's just so much to do in this game, but the great cast, great story, great music all made it a blast to play. It would be lower on my list if not for Future Redeemed, which is a perfect DLC and incorporates all the QoL features I thought were missing from the game, tracking every quest and collectible, great menus and interface, that thought into player experience that was so prominent in Xeno 1 finally came back. It's such a great, compact, perfectly paced epilogue to the series with great new characters and a lot of insane stuff going on. Matthew rules, A rules, Glimmer rules. I hated Rex in Xenoblade 2; I love Rex now. A beautiful send-off to a beautiful series, and now I'm sitting here thinking I should play the old Xeno games. 5. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade I stayed up til 3am finishing the final boss of this game and then sat there in awe for a bit, that doesn't happen a lot anymore. It's weird how many polarizing opinions I saw about FFVIIR and from friends who thought it was boring and repetitive. There's so much love and care put into this insane game that I can't help but love every single part of it. Every cutscene is gorgeous, the character designs are great, the voice acting is great, they nailed every aspect a fan would be worried about in a reimagining/remake. And it was just really fun to play. I loved the stagger meter system, swinging around giant swords, and even playing as Tifa, Yuffie, and Barrett was super fun. I cannot wait to see what they do with the story, world, and other playable characters when I get to play part 2 on Steam in 5 years. 4. Persona 5 Royal The Phantom Thieves are my friends, and P5R is the gold standard for JRPGs. I played P4G a year before this and similarly got obsessed, but I wasn't prepared for how much P5R improves on the formula and delivers an even better experience. Great story, great characters, yes the game is easy but I like breaking Persona systems over my leg and steamrolling dungeons. The Royal content really brought it over the top and gave it a great, impactful ending and farewell for the characters. P4 and P5 both gave me that bittersweet feeling after finishing spending 150 hours with your best digital pals. I still need to play Strikers. 3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Not much else to say about it that hasn't been said, but what did it for me is the series' continued ability to just make time disappear. I picked this up and when I put it down it was July and 150 hours later, and every single one of those hours was fun as hell. I did every single shrine, something I absolutely did not do in BOTW. And they were all fun. I lit up the entire Depths, and it was fun the entire time. I don't know how Nintendo does it. 2. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty I love cyberpunk as a genre, but I was not psyched for CP77 at launch. I told friends "in a year nobody will be talking about this game" cause I'm a contrarian cynic about some stuff and the game just seemed overhyped. Years later, it's one of my favorite games(even pre-2.0!) and I've been begging friends to play Phantom Liberty, which is such an achievement and swansong. 2.0 is a big achievement itself, but PL achieves a lot (all?) of what I felt CDPR promised in the original game. The story is great, well-structured, well-paced, the characters are great (and awful), the side content feels like Witcher 3 level good with impactful, different choices. The story could be a cyberpunk novel, and I loved how bleak it was, perfectly in tune with the genre. Played every ending, loved everything about each of them. I will continue to beg friends to play it and see how good the game has gotten. 1. Baldur's Gate III I'm 70 hours in and just got to Moonrise Towers. There's so much to do, so much to see, fun character moments around every corner. Everyone who's said it's like a real D&D game is exactly right. Every single design choice and gameplay element is cool as hell and super fun. I have not had a single un-fun moment playing this so far. It's incredibly impressive what Larian has done and the amount of love and care put into this game. Some of the best voice acting I've ever heard? I know I want to play it a second time but I don't know where I'll find the 100+ hours to do it. Such a pleasant surprise that came out of nowhere (I was not paying attention until it blew up at release).
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Jan 1, 2024 02:10
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:veegy must be buried alive in lists like a head sticking out of the sand. and lvg will use the head as a chair excel spreadsheet burning with data... cpu clocking out....
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Jan 1, 2024 02:14
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I don't really think I played enough games this year, and I won't have time to create a list, but I wanted to say that this thread is a pleasure to read. Thank y'all for the great contributions.
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Jan 1, 2024 02:26
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I need to edit my post to say that BP is in AC6 as Rusty and that’s why it’s a game of the year
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Jan 1, 2024 02:37
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If I'd known Balatro was gonna get traction even as a demo, I would have dumped Apollyon into honorable mentions and picked that instead. Might still go back and list it without a number, even though that means nothing mechanically.
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Jan 1, 2024 02:41
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VideoGames posted:Coming up to 7 hours remaining... Better get started on my list then 
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Jan 1, 2024 02:43
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I played so many 2023 releases that I'm going to stick with those for my list this year (sorry, Trails from Zero, Motorsport Manager, and Murder By Numbers, but I can't imagine my snubbing you is going to affect your 2023 year-end placement much at all). I had screenshots + write-ups ready for most of these games, but my list-making has been sabotaged by my going away from my home computer to do Christmas/new year'sy stuff for several weeks. I always really enjoy reading these lists and watching the final result unfold, so here's my poorly-formated and very last-minute contribution. (I'm not sure my bottom 5 or so could've withstood a year in which I'd played releases like BG3, TotK, AW2, Mario Wonder, and Mortal Kombat 1. Fortunately for them, this was not that year!) 10. Wanted: Dead Although it comes nowhere near nailing any of the things it’s going for, it hits you with enough weirdly executed and undercooked ideas that it almost becomes endearing. For better or worse, this is undeniably in the top 5 for most memorable 2023 releases I tried, and so I feel compelled to squeeze it in ahead of much better designed games like Dredge and Fuga 2. 9. WWE 2K23 If its management mode had been even a teensy bit decent to play, 2K23 might’ve been a dangerous time-stealer. As it is, it still comes the closest to nailing the feeling/weight/pacing I’ve been hoping for from a non-management simmy wrasslin’ game since the Nintendo 64 era. 8. Star Trek: Resonance Slightly annoying busywork gameplay aside, this is a surprisingly good ~choices matter~ sci-fi release. 7. Octopath Traveler 2 I Game Pass’d the original for a short while but dropped it because the cast, NPCs, and the writing in general left me cold. I don’t know if the systems play better or largely identically in this one, but whatever the case, OT2 hooked me immediately by showing off the kind of personality I felt was missing from the original, 6. Vengeful Guardian Moonrider After it mercifully provided me with a “you can’t get an A ranking with this thing equipped, but you won’t die quite as easily” trinket early on, it became possibly the most fun ‘90s-style side-scrolling action platformer experience I’ve had. 5. Paranormasight I enjoyed these stylish spookerations. 4. Theatrythm Final Bar Line I had slight buyer’s regret after cooling down on and then completely abandoning the 3DS one after just a few weeks. This version feels slightly more agreeable to my hands in terms of game feel, but, more importantly, is so aggressively packed with content that I expect it’ll stay in rotation for at least another few years. 3. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor A great sequel that decreases the annoyances and exacerbates the strengths of its predecessor. I don’t know how earned the returning character moments feel for people who waited years for Survivor to come out– and who might therefore best remember the original crew for its contentious bickering–but as someone who jumped into Survivor only a month after Fallen Order, I found the camaraderie surprisingly touching and cozy. 2. Street Fighter 6 The most fun I’ve had with the series since they sold Street Fighter bubblegum w/ character artwork stickers in stores back in the ‘90s. The character tutorials helped me have a bit of fun with almost every character, and thanks to Modern controls, I was finally able to annoy real 2D players with spinning piledrivers and other fun stuff. I’m really happy with how the game feels and will definitely check in on it again in the future. The Tekken 8 beta felt so good that I almost have to pencil that one in as an automatic top 3 game for 2024 already, but even if I fall head over heels for that one to the exclusion of every other fighting game, I won't forget how fresh and fun my two 2023 'seasons' with Street Fighter 6 felt. 1. Trails to Azure I played this and its direct prequel, Trails from Zero, almost back to back in 2023, after taking several years to play through Trails in the Sky 1-3. The Sky trilogy is real good–and I probably cared the most about the parts of Zero/Azure that related directly to those games–but Zero/Azure has enough QoL improvements and such a tightly designed structure that they felt much easier to digest in short order. Incredible localization, one of the best JRPG towns I’ve gotten to run around in, and a culmination of 5 long games that lives up to the build-up and manages to set up expectations for more cool stuff to happen. Excited to finish the series in the latter half of the 2030s.
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Jan 1, 2024 02:49
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Dewgy posted:Atari 50: Atari’s older games don’t entirely hold up, but this is more of a documentary collection with games in it than anything else, and it’s a lot of fun to comb through it and check out all the artwork, history, and interviews that they put together for it. My favorite interview is the one where Al Alcorn confirms the famous 'broken Pong cabinet' rumor.
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Jan 1, 2024 02:51
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roomtwofifteen posted:
Wh.... what have you done to meeeeeee!?
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Jan 1, 2024 02:53
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Gaming is good. If you want to read my list in the normal forums-style manner, please proceed. If you wish to walk around it a little, take it in a more of a small tour, then please visit my GotY 2023 exhibit just outside Seyda Neen: Or rather, that’s what would be here if I hadn’t hit late tech issues that prevented me from finishing the mod. I would have tricked you into reinstalling Morrowind and you’d take my goty books with you in game until you eventually got overencumbered and dropped them in the woods somewhere.  10) Alien vs. Predator Arcade The thing is this game just whips rear end. Pick up a katana, whoop some alien rear end, eat a pizza you find on the ground. You know, when games were about things people liked. 9) Dino Crisis Despite loving Resident Evil forever I never sat down and played Dino Crisis. Thanks to a monthly retro game club I joined, I finally got around to it and it is an immensely charming game. One of my favorite thing about retro gaming is finding stuff that you missed, and when you go back to it now you can see how you would have played a ton of it had you chosen differently at the used game store as a kid. 8) Final Fantasy Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line A few weeks of my year was playing this for “an hour” before bed, and then getting to bed several hours after I intended. For me, this is the right combo of rhythm game and bar-filling numbers go up game to keep me glued to it. I also possess immense nostalgia for Final Fantasy as a whole so it’s a treat for me to get these sort of window-shopping revisits to the games. 7) Resident Evil 4 Remake It’s a blessing that we get to live in a world with 2 great versions of RE4. This one plays so great too, and while to many people’s disappointed they did dial back the silly a little, they game is far from lacking in charm. They even made the same mistake of making the third act a little too long, and I can’t help but appreciate that level of attention to detail. 6) Street Fighter 6 SF6 is a great fighting game in its own right, but it places on my list even moreso because I got to meet cool new people and game with them. This is also a sort-of spot for just fighting games this year in general, new and old. It’s been a blast playing more and more with more people. The grind continues next year… 5) Lies of P The stupid rear end Pinocchio game rules and we all just have to learn to live with it. Sometimes the games that copy From’s homework too closely don’t always seem to get why a choice was made, they just copy it. Lies of P has tons of details - the most obvious being the change to the HP recovery system vs. Bloodborne - that read to me as the designers really getting what made that game work. They don’t seem bound by those choices, and have almost entirely wisely changed things in a way that works better with the game they actually made. While I won’t say it’s the most original it’s also night to get one that isn’t knights or samurai. 4) Star Ocean 2 R The scars I bear from years of defending Star Ocean 2 are innumerable. I took up the banner on MSN Messenger, on AIM, on forums, and on Discord. And now I’ve been rewarded. R is, save for perhaps what is going on with FFVII, is the new high bar for updating games. Every section of it was touched, every section was improved, and all of it with an eye to keeping how the original game felt to play. I would have been happy with a port of the psp version to PC/Switch just so I could be lazier but this is more than I would have dared dream of. 3) Alan Wake 2 I love Remedy’s style, and this game is just a blast to experience despite a little bit too much backtracking and honestly fairly middling combat. It’s just a treat to see this game. It’s self-indulgent and not a little hacky, but I love it for that. 2) Baldur’s Gate 3 The Baldur’s Gate trilogy was a regular play for me, I’ve been through the campaigns many times by now. When I heard Larian was going to make a new one, I was careful not to get my hopes up. They’re good, but I didn’t love D:OS2 as much as many. As you know, they knocked it out of the park. I have to be careful to keep my steam deck too full to download it because if I can play it mobile I will fall down the hole forever. 1) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Tears of the Kingdom just hits different. Generally in open world games I hit a point where I think, “ok time to wrap this up” and I drop whatever I’m doing and beeline to the end. The best thing I can say about TotK is that this never happened. In fact, it took several sessions of sitting down to actually beat it to actually beat it. I would get sidetracked by one thing or another and suddenly I spent an hour hunting down Tingle’s pants and made no forward progress. Even after playing it for dozens and dozens and dozens of hours, the shine still hasn’t worn off. It still feels like a game where you could bumble around a corner and find a completely new something even after that long in. It’s beautiful, it’s serene, it’s got great comedic timing. Have a high score '24, gamers.
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Jan 1, 2024 03:20
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First off, I love this thread every year. Thanks to VideoGames, Rarity, and all you goons. I started this year with this in mind to help motivate my gameplay, taking pictures, and noting quotes I could add in anticipation. Of course my lazy rear end dropped the ball to post until the last minute, so I can't add the pictures right now, but plan to edit later!!! Onto my list... 10. Ori and the Blind Forest - "Remember those who have passed, and they will forever live on "" Beautiful game with an amazing story, which is why it made the list, but it helped me realize I do not love platformers. After dying 15+ times in a row trying to move less than 2 inches to the left almost broke me, but glad I rose to the challenge. Definitely never going to play Celeste though. 9. Super Mario Wonder - "Wowee Zowie!" Amazing game, beautiful visuals, with amazing twists, but still a platformer. Once again, dying dozens of times because I can't bounce off the ennemy the right way isn't my type of challenge. Though I will say, the amazement of the rules they were able to break using the Wonder Seeds definitely achieved the sense of wonder they were aiming for. Was so blown away seeing the initial trailer during the Nintendo Direct. 8. Harvestella - "Grow a silver blossom." Admittedly I didn't finish this game since I got busy while playing it, but I definitely intend to. The vibes of this game are immaculate. It's hard to explain, but imagine if Stardew Valley, Dragon Quest, and Nier: Automata had a baby, and you'd get somewhere close. The story probably could be scrutinized, but if you just strap in and enjoy the ride, it will be an amazing one with touches on AI, religion, and anime tropes. 7. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor - "Your name was Masana Tide. It's time to set you free." What an amazing dive into the Star Wars universe. Everything a space opera needs, heroes, villains, robots, magic, betrayals, spaceships, cowboys...the list goes on. Close enough to Dark Souls where I feel skilled, even if it is much easier (I've never played those games so I can't tell). Really a level up to from the first game. While the first felt more claustrophobic with weird traversal, this felt so much more like an open world where your traversal tricks blended in more seamlessly. Also loved the more advanced cosmetic options with your Lightsabers and BD-1. P.S. Still hate you Oggdo and your spawn too! 6. Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout - "I lived an extraordinary life, and fought to protect an ordinary one." Finally played this game since buying it in early 2021 after buying the sequel being told it's standalone (it wasn't). When I first played it the gameplay loop threw me off. Tried again and almost fell off after losing progress since I wasn't used to the lack of autosave. But once the alchemy loop click, I was hooked. Spent dozens hours collecting the right tools and setting up the exact right alchemy path to get the most value out of my weapons and armor. Really amazing loop there for those who like that type of thing. Let's just say, I made final boss hilariously easy. 5. Pokemon Violet - The Indigo Disk - "Thank you, treasured friends!" The Pokemon DLC pulled me back in. I never finished the full game after beating Nemona, and what.a mistake that was. Area Zero was so amazing the first time with the visuals and Akira-esque music. Really appreciated the character stories as well, one of Pokemon's strongest I'd say. Then came the Indigo Disk. Headed to the rural Kitakami and catching a whole new team to carry me was super fun. Shoutout to Turbo the Yanmega, Jessse the Arbok, Digital the Ambipom, Zaggy the Mightyena, Ignyte the Inefernape, and Chai the Sinistcha. Had fun with Kieran and Carmine, I'm a sucker from the zero to antihero storyline with Kieran. Still completing Blueberry Academy, but the whole aesthetic of a futuristic battle school with an underwater terrarium (with starters), is super awesome. Set up a team to fight in the Kitakami Prologue, and had more wins than losses! Also made several Tera Raid Pokemon, and caught myself a Mewtwo!!! I also collected my Mew, one of my favs. Poke-fan for life! 4. Fortnite - "Mom's Spaghetti." After watching Kyle Bosman steam Fortnite several times, I finally decided to check it out. Funnily enough I joined the first day of the OG season. Completed the Battlepass and everything, and was welcomed soon after with an Eminem Concert Event and 3 new game modes. Definitely chill playing Fortnite Festival nowadays, even if I never played Guitar Hero before. It's just mind-blowing to think I can play in a band with Frieza, Spider-Gwen, Lewis Hamilton, and a Banana, then go shoot at each-other. Playing with the styles now to really express my personality before. I get headshot by someone much better than me. But when I do get those Victory Royale, they are sweet. 3. Spider-Man 2 - “I Didn't Bring Any Honey.” Was so hyped from this game from the first announcement. Devoured the game and platted it in a little over a week. And after that I still kept playing through December, that traversal and fighting loop was just that fun to chill and kill time. I think I found all the weapon caches around the city, lol. Love Spider-Man (both of them) and loved the game. 2. Octopath Traveler - "So journey forth, friend, into this great world we live in...and find an adventure all your own." Yes, the first one. 160+ hours tracked can't lie. I played this game before during a tough time in my life, so it resonates with me. But I never beat the post-game super-boss. Well, this year I rectified that. Started again from the beginning to fully enjoy and understand all the stories. It was just so fun exploring the world, playing with my team make up, learning every NPC's story, and overall just enjoying the beautiful artwork of 2.5HD (or whatever they call it). Happy to say I beat the superboss first try (loved the music), but it was definitely touch and go a few times. 1. God of War - Ragnarok - "Open Your Heart To Their Suffering." Real fond memories staying up all night at the beginning of the year to complete and Platinum the game. Slammed my desk at least twice trying to beat the Valkyrie Queen, but finally didn't, to soonafter wish I could rematch her. Amazing experience overall and I truly appreciated the different builds you can use on your character that all seemed viable. It definitely dragged in some places, but the gameplay and heart shone through for me. Still getting actual DLC too! I need to go and conquer Valhalla.
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Jan 1, 2024 03:29
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Yearly Picross update: Picross GB2 Picross 3D-2 Picross s9 As usual Picross games are not ranked because it would be like ranking sudoku but if I had a deep psychic connection/addiction to sudoku. Only one new Jupiter Picross so I had to start digging a bit, finally played through the sequel to the game that got me hooked in the first place (which is probably the best of the pre-DS Picross games) and replayed Picross 3D 2, which is an absolute A-tier puzzle game even if you’re not normally a add-pict. Another Wonderful Year To Be A Picrosser Dishonorable mention: Redfall (XSX): how the gently caress did the people who made Prey make this. It’s so bad. The shooting is underwhelming, the magic is lame, the skill tree is the most useless I think I’ve ever seen in a video game, the storytelling is underwhelming at best and non-existent at worst, and it’s a loving squad based shooter. I repeat, how the gently caress did the people who made Prey, one of the best games of all time, make this piece of crap Honorable mentions: Mother 3 (GBA): this is probably the most shameful of the games that I started and didn’t finish, although that’s mostly because of a surprisingly frustrating battle system. I hope I’ll get back to this in the new year. Vampire Survivors (Switch): I played it for about 10 minutes in 2022 on the iPad where I could feel rhat it was good but also being held back by not being on the Switch. Since they remedied that problem I was able to go back and get more thoroughly into it. It’s deeply addicting but I almost stated to resent the slot-machine nature at a certain point. I’ll go back in again when the Amongus dlc drops. Metroid Prime Remastered/Advance Wars 1+2/Pikmin 1/Pikmin 2/Super Mario RPG (Switch): Absolutely perfect treatments of old games, even old games as perfect as MP or P2 or SMRPG. I wish Nintendo would do even more of these, there’s no shortage of Nintendo games that could use some love. Axiom Verge 2/Solar Ash/Cocoon (PS5/PS5/Switch): a trio of wonderful little indies that were competing for my 10 spot. Axiom Verge 2 is one of the more unique and engaging indie metroidvania games I’ve ever played, Solar Ash was a fun if occasionally frustrating speed-based platformer and Cocoon a perfect weird little puzzle with impeccable design philosophy, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. All highly recommended. Resident Evil 4 (PS5): actually the first time I ever played through this and it’s wonderful although I stopped when the VR mode was announced in the hopes that I’ll play through again in Virtual Reality. (I know this one doesn’t count but I wrote it before realizing that I forgot something I played back in January so it’s going on my list as the most honorable of honorable mentions because it really is wonderful) 11: Harvestella (Switch) - my dirty secret: I keep bouncing off of Stardew Valley whenever I try it. For some reason the game almost universally renown for its ability to chill people out has the opposite effect on me and I always feel like I’m falling behind within weeks. The lesson of Harvestella is that for me to properly enjoy farming stuff, it needs to be in service of something else, another whole mechanic/genre. Harvestella would probably a boring action RPG if that’s all there was to it but the farming allows it to pace itself and feel more full than it would as just an RPG. The characters are all fun too, there’s more sci-fi to the story than you’d initially guess, and it just has the perfect balance of story/RPG and farming. My Top 10 of 2023: 10: Tinykin (Switch) - at first glance the most obvious comparison for Tinykin is Pikmin with the way your little guy has a bunch of even littler guys follow him around and the way they team up to carry and take down things, but deep in its soul, Tinykin is a collectathon platformer, and a really great one at that. The levels are all massive without ever being super hard to maneuver around, you get a nice steady drip of new abilities, and the game has the exact right number of things to collect, including the Tinykin themselves. The story was more touching than I expected as well. You’ll be able to figure out the broad strokes of what’s going on pretty quickly but it still built to an ending with solid emotional impact. This was the best short/indie game I played this year, the perfect amount of playing around with some fun mechanics and very polished as well. 9: Octopath Traveller 2 (PS5) - After playing through Live a Live very early this year, OT2 really felt like the game that most closely treads LAL’s path, blowing the best part of that game out into a whole narrative. OT2 is a wonder of game construction, able to be played through in thousands of different ways and combinations without ever breaking. The individual stories of all of the characters are all well done and provide a nice variety from happy and inspiring tales like Partitio’s battle against the free market and Agnea’s playing a dance-battle anime storyline perfectly straight to much darker and more intense stories, especially Oswald who literally starts the game on a freezing island imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. The battle system is very lively for a turn-based RPG, not quite reaching the pace of something like Persona 5 but easily holding my attention, and it’s the best kind of RPG system because by the end you can shatter it into a million little pieces with pretty much every character if you have the right build. The music is also wonderful and graphically it really pushes the HD-2D engine to its limits. OT2 is perfect comfort food for people who love classic pixel-RPGs. 8: Dead Space (PS5) - Possibly controversial that this ends up on the list and RE4 doesn’t but I think when it comes to horror I prefer a little more survival and a little less action. This remake is really exactly what I want from a horror game. It’s gorgeous and terrifying, takes place on a space station with all these awful little grotesqueries and all of the action and movement feels very visceral. 7: Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - I think this is the pinnacle of Sony’s suite of single-player cinematic action games. The writing is pretty great (aside from a few quibbles with some plotting stuff re: Venom), the action is tons of fun and hits the sweet spot of not being overwhelming, and there are very few missions or collectables that felt unnecessary. All of the quest chains led to solid conclusions or fun teasers for (presumably) upcoming DLC and at no point did I start to think “god how many more of these do I have to do”. Insomniac seems to have learned from the comments people had about the pacing in the first game and it’s much better midquel Miles Morales. Insomniac has figured out how to make a game that makes me want to play through all the way to the end and is the only game on this list I platinumed/100%ed on this list. It also must be said that it’s a technical marvel too, you never ever see a load screen after you boot up the game and the seamless nature of the quests and random action is so amazing to actually play, it really feels next gen in a way that almost nothing else on the PS5 does. You can feel the budget in this one. 6: Super Mario Bros Wonder (Switch) - A 2D Mario game that feels fresh and innovative and exciting in a way that 2D Mario hasn’t in a very long time. I plowed through this game within a week of release because every new level felt like it could contain anything and everything. Just pure joy. 5: Alan Wake 2 (PS5) - As recently as a week ago this was likely going to be my number 1 game, all I had to do was go back and finish, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to. This happens a lot, and it’s entirely possible that a year from now I’ll have finished it and I’ll bemoan its low placement on this list. (This happens occasionally, I think if I were to go back to last year’s list Signalis would be much higher.) The way it tells it’s story is so appealing to me, I love metanarratives, I love the instantaneous switching between the world and mindspaces of the PCs, I love all the synth-pop everywhere on the sound track, it almost feels like a game written for me specifically, especially when you get a musical number level one of my favorite things whenever it happens in a game. The atmosphere is properly oppressive but I almost think this is what kept me from wanting to jump back in right away. I hope in a year I come back and say I hosed up but this is where I’m at right now. 4: Live a Live (Switch) - I could have sworn I finished this before making last year’s list but I decided to wait until I played all the way through before putting it on a list and that was the right call. Live a Live is something very special. After 2 generations of the JRPG genre being built and refined and polished to a spit shine on the Super Nintendo, Live a Live is those same people going “alright now that we’ve made it perfect, let’s make it weird”. The episodic, non-linear nature of the chapters, the grid-based action, the wildly different settings and writing styles, it all feels like game designers having fun messing with convention, and the most amazing thing is that they made it fun and meaningful. Live a Live’s final chapter is really special and you can feel the roots of the game as a whole in every 3rd RPG that has come out since then. This game has become stuck in my head and will likely have a little home in there permanently. 3: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) - As recently as a few days ago this was likely going to be my number 1 game. Objectively speaking there is not a game this year I spent more time playing, and unlike some games where you rack up over 100 hours and think “oh god why did I do that?”, I know exactly why I did that: Tears of the Kingdom is a miracle. It takes one of the masterpieces of this extended generation of games and builds upon it in so many different ways, any one of which could have overwhelmed the game as a whole but the people at Nintendo are regularly able to work miracles like this. TotK is Nintendo’s greatest flex as game designers, proving that everyone over the last decade that has questioned their authority or their ability is still incredibly wrong. Also Zelda is peak girlfriend. 2: Pikmin 4 (Switch) - At the beginning of the year, if you asked me, this was likely going to be my number 1 game. After all, for the second year in a row the power of my will summoned a game into existence, and ironically, for the second year in a row the game I summoned ended up finishing in second place. That’s not for lack of trying, though. Pikmin 4 returns to my favorite entry in the series (Pikmin 2) for inspiration, meaning dungeons are back and better than ever, but with a much more gradual build up to full 100-Pikmin-Army power than any previous games. There were a few moments early on where I thought the game was going to end without really challenging me, but the most amazing thing about Pikmin 4 is how much game there is. Every time I was worried I was reaching the end something else popped up for me to do, whether it was a P2-esque extended post-game, a series of challenge levels, or a whole remix campaign starring Olimar that pushed your Dandori to its limits. I replay the Pikmin games regularly, they’re all among my favorite games of all time, and Pikmin 4 has more than rightfully earned its spot in that pantheon. 1: Cyberpunk 2077/Phantom Liberty (PS5) - If you had asked me at any point in the 2 years after Cyberpunk’s launch in 2020, this was never ever gonna be a GotY, ever. Here’s what I wrote in this exact forum during GotY talk 3 years ago about Cyberpunk and why I was giving it a Frowny Face dishonorable mention: “I could write a big long thing here but it’s crashed more than any other game I’ve played on a console and despite this I’ve put probably 50 hours into it because the combat (specifically swords and time-stopping) is hella fun. I dunno if I would go back and drop $60 again if I had the choice of a do-over but I certainly got enough out of it and maybe in a year or two it will be the classic everyone expected, but they’ll never be able to completely wipe this disastrous launch off the record.” I was 100% right then. It took a long time for me to finally accept that CP2077 was the best game I played this year, and in my heart of hearts I’m still a more than a little pissed off about that launch. They never should have launched that game in that state, and god willing they won’t ever gently caress up that bad again. But I also knew that there was a good chance that eventually they’d get the game into the state they wanted from the get-go, and they did, and then they kept going. I played Cyberpunk for the first time in almost 3 years when the 2.0 update came out and despite taking a whole different build (trading swords for mind exploding tech-wizardry) the game more than held up, and without the constant technical issues and with many years of bug-squashing and rethinking various entire systems, I think it’s probably the best of this kind of RPG that has ever been made, and I think the biggest reason for this is the world they’ve crafted. Night City feels real, built more to the actual scale of a city. it feels overwhelmingly large in a way that real big cities do, which is something I’ve never seen realized in a video game before. You can travel around it like a real city (even more now that they’ve added trains), the neighborhoods feel authentic, it just feels like a place that I can go and exist. If CDPR is smart, they will know what they have and just keep making Cyberpunk games in this city they’ve made forever, there’s no other way to go but down. The writing is still the same, which was always a love it or hate it proposition. While I never got to sit with it enough during my launch play through to really have it hit (I was too busy thinking “god I hope this doesn’t crash”), getting to go back and relive that outstanding first act, play through the wide range of little side missions and bigger quest lines, I think the game’s writing is brilliant science fiction. It’s clearly not all written by the same people and there are some lines and missions that are better than others, but I think this is a strength rather than a weakness. There’s something for everyone here, and even if the main storyline doesn’t appeal to you there will be little missions that hit your interest no matter who you are as long as you have a base interest in cyberpunk or dystopian sci-fi in general. Phantom Liberty fits into this patchwork snugly, with a perfect little tech-thriller that touches on a lot of the key themes in CP77, but with more tight storytelling. PL was the reason I came back to the game in general but this entry is for the game as a whole. It made me think and feel. The themes of dealing with terminal illness, identity erasure, leaving a legacy, it all hits very hard. The voice acting and animations are all amazing as well. It’s finally the complete package it was supposed to be.
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Jan 1, 2024 03:51
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So glad to see Pentiment getting some 2023 love, I will be thrilled if it manages to repeat 2022 and beat Elden Ring in the GOTY stakes again!
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Jan 1, 2024 03:55
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Jolo posted:
hell yah another Golden Idol at #1 
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Jan 1, 2024 04:00
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Usually the games I pick up from these lists are the lesser known ones but for whatever reason I had written off fire emblem engage and now it’s wild seeing so many people praise its gameplay. I play my switch most on plane trips and I have one coming up and was trying to decide between smrpg or pikmin 4 but now there’s a challenger.
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Jan 1, 2024 04:04
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Here is my list for 2023, The Year of Too Many Games. With how many major games came out near the end of the year, I've had to include a few in the list that I haven't finished yet, and left off several others entirely. Honorable(?) Mention: Starfield It's about what I expected from a Bethesda game in 2023, or maybe a bit worse. I put about 90 hours into it and more-or-less enjoyed most of them. It kept me entertained enough for that long, but it's not a great game and it has some serious issues. The game has bad problems with some of its quest design, where you need to do repeated fetch quests to progress the main plot, which just consist of fast traveling to a planet and then running in a straight line for a few minutes to get to a point of interest to do a minigame. This happens a bunch, and if you want to max out your character you'd need to do this hundreds of times over many NG+ runs. The skill system also has serious issues. It seems like it's also designed to be filled out over many NG+ runs, to the point that it's frustrating and tedious through your first (and likely only) playthrough. Skills are gated in several ways--not only do you need the skill points to unlock the skill, you also need to do some tasks to unlock the next skill point. Often, your ability to complete these tasks is also gated by money, technology, other skills, your playstyle, all of the above, etc. So, you'll often find that you're unable to progress some given skill because there are 3 different blocks in the way, beyond just needing the skill point itself. The main NPCs are not great. They'll often challenge you on your decisions in ways that don't feel like they make sense, or that you aren't given options to adequately respond to. Their quests are mostly uninteresting. I would say that the main story is more interesting than it's been in any of their games since probably Morrowind, though I'm not sure that's saying much. The story really does deal with the implications of people having the ability to transfer to an infinite number of other dimensions and how that'd dehumanize them and all in an interesting-enough way, at least. The game does have its moments, too. Going through a ship where the gravity is cycling on and off periodically or fighting through a zero-g casino for example, and some of the faction quests and sidequests are pretty good. Overall it was good enough for me to play through, but it feels like a big misstep for Bethesda. I'll probably still play the DLC when/if it comes, but I really hope they don't make any similar mistakes with the next Elder Scrolls. 10. Final Fantasy IV I mostly played this because of the recent FFXIV storylines. It's good, but I'm probably never going to bother beating the Lunar Subterrane. 9. Horizon: Forbidden West: Burning Shores A solid addition to Horizon: Forbidden West. It's more Horizon--no surprises, really, but it's all well done and it builds on the series and characters well. 8. Case of the Golden Idol It's a great deduction game influenced by Obra Dinn. The DLC released this year added some much more complex cases to solve while elaborating on the original game's story. It's just a fantastic puzzle game and the DLCs only improved it. Really looking forward to their next game. 7. Alan Wake 2 I'm around halfway through this right now. Just like Control, I love the atmosphere and the story and everything, but hate the combat. It'd be a much better game without any combat at all. That one level almost makes up for it, though. 6. Final Fantasy XVI This is the first Final Fantasy game I've ever played at release. I enjoyed it. It did a few things I didn't like--too many trash fights, primarily--but had a good story and good gameplay overall. It was also was amazing in its spectacle. Things like eikon fights that level cities or fighting at the bottom of a parted ocean. The game's just fantastic visually. And its gameplay and story were good enough to keep me engaged throughout. 5. Ghost Trick I hadn't played this before the remake. It's great, like everyone has always said. The story's fun and surprising throughout, the characters and the animations are fantastic. Definitely worth playing. 4. Armored Core VI I haven't finished playing it yet, but it's a lot of fun. 3. Jagged Alliance 3  They somehow made a real sequel to Jagged Alliance 2 after all these years. It manages to capture the feeling of JA2 while modernizing some bits of gameplay here and there. I was never able to get into the modern X-COMs or games that followed after it, but JA3 managed to hit exactly what I loved in JA2 and similar old school tactical games. Also, this year's Witchiest Witch of the Year award goes to Kalyna. 2. Baldur's Gate 3   The truth is that we're probably never going to get a better spiritual sequel to Baldur's Gate 2 than Pillars of Eternity 2 (which is one of the best RPGs of all time, and you're missing out if you haven't played it). The actual Baldur's Gate 3 is something different, but it's something good. Definitely an instant classic. The game is huge and consistently feels high-stakes, even as the stakes ramp up from determining the fate of a small group of refugees to determining the fate of Baldur's Gate/the world. The party characters are all fantastic, with good stories, good character arcs, fantastic voice acting (Astarion's VA winning the Game Award was well deserved) and animation. The major antagonists, too. They even did a good job with the characters they brought back from the originals, which I really didn't expect. The story's reactivity is astounding, with some things you do early in the game still having story impacts at the very end. Characters can be killed or ignored or whatever and the game handles it all. They accounted for all sorts of crazy possibilities, it's really impressive. I feel like the game does suffer a bit from being tied to the D&D system, but at least it was better than the systems they used in D:OS and D:OS2. However, despite being an instant classic, BG3 is only this year's second-best game about a brain-devouring parasite, leaving: 1. Cyberpunk 2077    I'm one of those who enjoyed even Cyberpunk's original release, giving it my #1 vote in the GOTY thread when it came out. It definitely had issues, but at its heart had great characters and a fantastic story and setting. With 2.1 they've addressed pretty much all of the issues the original release had. The bugs are (mostly) fixed, the skill system is much better, there are options to modify your character's appearance, they even added the metro, etc., etc., etc. It's still one of the best-looking games I've ever played, and only improved by the new/upgraded RTX settings they've added. Phantom Liberty is fantastic. It starts off with a ridiculous (in a good way) 80s action movie kind of intro but soon gets into some great spy intrigue and some serious cyberpunk kind of stories. The main story is incredibly good throughout and the new characters are all fantastic. Even all of its side gigs are well done and memorable, with extra voiced characters, relatively large areas, several paths to completion, etc.--a step above the base game where the majority of the side gigs felt much simpler, where you'd get into a location and just quickly kill/kidnap/sabotage/etc. someone or something. To be clear, I always thought those were underrated in the base game (if you want Deus Ex-style gameplay, there's tons of it in smaller bursts in those side gigs), but PL's are still much better. Phantom Liberty spoilers: Songbird's story is such a great parallel to V's own story, being stuck in a desperate situation and trying to find a way to save herself. Then being given the choices in the end over how to deal with her, having learned everything you've learned--it's just a great, intense moment (or set of moments, given the different paths). It's well worth playing both the Songbird/Reed paths and also both of the choices you can make at the end of each path. You learn a lot on each path that you miss on the other. The new ending added with PL is fantastic. It's simultaneously one of the bleakest and one of the most hopeful endings in the game, which is a feat considering the other endings. Anyway, with 2.1 and Phantom Liberty, I think Cyberpunk can finally rightfully be called one of the all-time great RPGs. Extortionist fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 04:09
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I forgot I played God of War Ragnarok a month ago and didn't have it on my list, but thinking about it I probably wouldn't put it there anyway. To me it shows that all the production money in the world is outdone by genuine talent. The combat system that is competent but forgettable, the story can't grow out of its sub-Last of Us sad dad trappings (but Odin was fun), and between this and Horizon FW I think big Sony games need a real shakeup because they're all big budget unremarkable adventures that look very nice.
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Jan 1, 2024 04:34
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My first year posting a list, I usually just lurk 10) Bombe - This is a Steam game where you are creating rules for how to solve minesweeper. You start off only having numbers for rules (if a cell contains a 1, and there's 1 empty space, mark it with a bomb), then you get variables, then multiple variables. I have 576 rules that solve 91% of the hexagon grids, and performance gets worse from there. There's a ways to go, and I should get back to it someday. 9) Katamari Damacy REROLL - A remake of the first Katarami Damacy game. I love the music, I enjoy being able to relax and roll up the things. I found the failure message from the King frightening when I was young. 8) Powerwash Simulator - Another game where I can just relax, clean up the things, and listen to music/podcasts. Helps me relax/destress at times 7) HUMANITY - A good puzzle game where you are a dog, directing the humans to the light. I think I did most of the first world, again, another game I need to get back to someday 6) Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone - The first rhythm game on this list. I like rhythm games, I'm good at them, I enjoy the challenge. There's lots of music, plenty of difficulty. 5) Honkai Star Rail - My motivation to play this comes and goes, it's currently there. Not sure how long it will stay. I enjoy the story, I mostly have battles on auto. It would be interesting to have a version of this with the Gambit system from FF XII, since, as indicated from my #10, I do enjoy writing rules and doing AI stuff 4) Slay the Princess - a latecomer to my GOTY list, I played this a week ago. You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world. I've really enjoyed my time with this, the game is very reactive to your choices, all the voices are distinct. There will be a free content update expanding some of the routes in 2024, I'm looking forward to it. 3) Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - the second rhythm game on this list. I love rhythm games. This also has plenty of challenge, both with charts, and building out a team for the RPGesque challenges. The one thing I don't like about this is when you have a run of 16th notes, needing to hit all, and you get off-beat, it's close to impossible to get back on-beat and successfully hit the notes. Feels like those charts (13+) are not really designed for a PS5 controller, not in the mood to look into a custon controller for this. 2) FF VII Remake - I just started this this year, I've been enjoying my time with it. I'll hopefully finish before FF VIIR releases in 2024. I have never played FF VII, though I know a fair bit of what goes on from this, from the urspoiler, and from being spoiled by using Cloud in Theatrhythm. Even with some things spoiled, I'm looking forward to continuing my playtime with this and sequels. 1) FF XVI - I have not finished this yet. I just finished the bahamut fight. From what I've heard, it goes downhill after this. We'll see how I feel. I do have issues with this game, how gear is just numbers go up, pacing of sidequests, how there's no real point to crafting and most drops. Overall, I'm still enjoying my time with this game, it's the furthest I've gotten in a Final Fantasy game so far. I aim to at least complete the main story, not sure if I'll go for plat trophy. I'm not that great at the action combat, but I manage. TheMathyFolf fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 04:45
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What a year! A lot of pretty good games overshadowed by a handful of big, big games. Lots of big franchise sequels, but the ones that hit big didn't rest on their laurels, they're great games that dragged the state of the art forward. 10. Cocoon - A great little puzzle game, you're a cute bug carrying around orbs with levels in them and you can go into them. Other games have done the recursive levels-inside-levels thing more thoroughly, but none with as charming a presentation. 9. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk - It wants to be Jet Set Radio a little too much, but is that a bad thing? 8. Final Fantasy XVI - Final Fantasy's been trying to have decent action combat for a few games now, and they finally pulled it off. 7. Cobalt Core - Slay the Spire for babies (me) with a charming spaceship duels theme; juking back and forth to dodge enemy volleys and their weak spot works really well. 6. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising - Bad netcode during the pandemic stifled the previous game before it could really get going, but their second outing (with real netcode this time) has hit it out of the park. Granblue's got a great look and Arcsys are masters of translating those into fighting games. The gameplay is still streamlined but version 2 has made it bigger and flashier while also making it deeper. It's only two weeks old; I might've ranked it higher if it had been around longer. 5. Super Mario Bros. Wonder - They wanted to make a game that would surprise people who've been playing Mario for almost forty years, and they pulled it off! The Wonder Seeds transform the stages in delightful ways, yes, but they've also found new shelled animals and fungi for you to step on. 4. Armored Core VI - Mechs deserve their time in the sun again! I admire the efficiency of its presentation. There are no cutscenes, there are no humans at all, just call signs on the other end of the radio. And it works. 3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - When I talk to people who really dug deep into Breath of the Wild they're like "eh, it's got some minor improvements", but for me, who admired and appreciated BotW but only played it a moderate amount, it's exactly those improvements and a larger, more lived-in world that make it a more engaging game. I particularly like the way they kept weapon durability but not really. 2. Baldur's Gate 3 - Disco Elysium was a wholly new concept in computer RPGs, and an amazing game, deserved its spot as GOTY 2019. It turns out the other way to make an amazing computer RPG is just put an absolutely colossal amount of work into it. It's so big, with such attention to detail. 1. Street Fighter 6 - Strive was the kick in the pants fighting games needed; now, a year later, everyone's bringing their A game. There were too many good games this year to give them all the attention they deserved, but if I'm honest it wasn't Zelda or Baldur's Gate that stole that time. I was fighting in the streets.
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Jan 1, 2024 04:55
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Snooze Cruise posted:5. Mechabellum I love mechabellum, I debated putting it in my top 10 but I think mostly I just liked Backpack Battles more (though I'm a Fang forcer) ColdPie posted:What on earth You heard me. https://www.ageofempires.com/mods/details/2698
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Jan 1, 2024 05:00
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