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Write as many words on the games you like as you wish. There is nothing lovelier than seeing posts from people with joy in their hearts and gushing about games is one of my favourite kinds of posting.
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Dec 5, 2023 18:59
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I hope you guys don't mind but Polygon did a top 50 and I think it's well worth a read https://www.polygon.com/23648669/best-video-games-2023
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Dec 5, 2023 19:28
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this is my favorite thread of the year and I'm reading every god drat word
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Dec 5, 2023 19:56
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:this is my favorite thread of the year and I'm reading every god drat word Dr. Pissopolis
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Dec 5, 2023 20:01
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FireWorksWell posted:E: ^ Yeah it really did come in handy, most of my gameplay was on ps5. Sometime I could do without on the total playtime, don't need to know I spent 150 hours in star rail already, hahaha. Yeah I got a real good network of found family so in spite of it all things are good. And looking upwards! The worst is past. I would've picked Song of Hope for OT2 but didn't want to spoil that whole moment.
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Dec 5, 2023 20:15
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Ineffiable posted:I hope you guys don't mind but Polygon did a top 50 and I think it's well worth a read I disagree with Starfield and Diablo 4 even being on a top 50 list. Otherwise good list.
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Dec 5, 2023 20:58
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I don't necessarily play current games enough to come up with ten. #1 - Baldur's Gate 3 <Spoilers cover act 3 stuff> loving hell I haven't seen a game so well executed in many, many years. It stands out particularly given the increasing number of triple-A disappointments. Characters actually have character and depth, almost all the main ones are either likeable or interesting. Storylines are compelling, both big and small, and I never felt "loving hell, why am I doing this". I loved how many things there were to do, particularly with animal speaking especially the dog kennels in act 3, and the strange ox. Another thing that impressed me was how many ways one could go about things, and how quests adapted - like when I killed someone, any quests they were involved in managed to still proceed without them. It manages to be funny - Gerringothe Thorm, creepy - Balthazar, and alluring - the Drow in Moonrise Towers who wants your blood - don't judge me. I can see myself playing through this a great many times. #2 - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I've never liked Zelda games but I felt like trying this one. I tried Breath of the Wild first and wasn't interested, but Tears of the Kingdom kept me occupied for a long time. I enjoyed the mechanics, the quality of life stuff, the environments, and most of all the building. Trying to get to all the places in the sky was really satisfying and I held off completing the story for a long time because of it. #3 - Dredge The main reason this game occupies this spot is how well balanced I felt it was. I like relaxing games and this was an excellent example. The story and atmosphere were great. The characters, while minimalist, were well conceived. The gameplay loop was rewarding. To me, this represents an ideal indie game. #4 - Chants of Sennaar This is on my list because it felt so original. I loved the language mechanic and how it was consistent through the stages. I also enjoyed the story and the setting, how different each stage was but also how they were all linked. I particularly liked the hierarchy. #5 - Jusant I loving wish this game was three times as long. The climbing mechanics were really satisfying and the environments were both beautiful and atmospheric. I want more climbing puzzle games. It too ticks my relaxing box. #6 - Viewfinder Another satisfying puzzle game with interesting mechanics, this one reminds me a lot of Superliminal. Also very interesting environments, with creative problem solving.
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Dec 5, 2023 21:06
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YoshiOfYellow posted:I would've picked Song of Hope for OT2 but didn't want to spoil that whole moment. Yeah, amazing as it is, going in blind would hit harder especially if you really like her story. I was surprised Dancer and Merchant were some of my favorite plotlines when I figured they'd be lower on a surface glance going in.
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Dec 5, 2023 21:10
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Similarly the Apothecary ended up being my favorite way against my expectations. What a ride.
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Dec 5, 2023 21:43
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Ineffiable posted:I hope you guys don't mind but Polygon did a top 50 and I think it's well worth a read "Polygon did a Top 50" "Of all time?" "Of this year." Really hard to emphasize just how bonkers '23 has been for gaming.
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Dec 5, 2023 21:47
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Jay Rust posted:Dr. Pissopolis didn't say i'd like every word
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Dec 5, 2023 21:58
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5) Baldurs Gate 3 I'm the oddball in that I hate top-down strategy games, can't stand D&D mechanics, get a headache from inventory management and felt like this game was pretty undercooked on release. Its also easily my favorite CRPG since Bloodlines and I'm looking forward to replaying it for 20 years. Unlike Bloodlines, the game was as successful as it deserved to be and is being patched heavily enough that it will probably be my GOTY for 2024, even if the 2023 experience I got was a bit rough around the edges. 4) System Shock Remake I love the original and love the remake even more, especially since it let me show others how loving good this game is. My husband has only played like 2 FPS games in his life but immediately fell in love with this for the same reason he loved Dark Souls. It absolutely does not gently caress around, hold your hand, or make it easy to explore. There were a lot of high-quality remakes this year but this one stood out from the pack by being totally dedicated to what made the original work without any asinine additions. 3) Armored Core 6 This may have some of the best controls of any action game I've ever played and the best soundtrack of the year. I love the plot, the way the story is structured and the insane level of customization that is freely available. 80% of the experience is way, way too easy, but it's novel enough and controls well enough that its never a bore. The key thing is that the controls are outstanding, and as someone who remembers using the shoulder buttons to look up and down in the Armored Core, I know that a lot can be built on what was set up here. 2) Lies of P This was for sure the sleeper hit for me. Picked this up because the premise was too silly to ignore and proceeded to play it non-stop. It is easily the toughest game I played this year, but also the quickest to beat just because I could not stop playing it. A souls-like that takes a little bit of inspiration from everything, but executes it perfectly and with its own sense of style. The most impressive aspect is the pacing, aside from the final level (which really just suffers from being visually dull until the end) everything just zips right by and never gets the chance to drag. Just a rock-solid tight action game experience with perfect balance. 1) Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom This just feels like the next natural step in open worlds, a natural evolutionof the formula that no other studios are going to attempt. Add in minecraft / gmod elements to a massive open world, and then add 2 more layers of elevation on the open world to let the player flex it. It's unquestionably boldest game on this list from a technical and developer perspective. I mostly just want to recognize how hard this game doubles down on the concept of intrinsic rewards. Most games use either a carrot or a stick to push you, but TotK just sits back and let's you roll with it. There are some generally rewarding things, but the more you play the clearer it is that the game is built from the ground up to just be fun to interact with. It reminds me of being a little kid and fooling around in Mario 64, not because there was anything left to collect, but because it was always fun to throw gay bowser into a bomb. I mostly like challenging games these days and did not expect this to make the list, but the dedication to satisfying player feedback mixed with endless possibilities really tickled the childlike part of me that just absolutely loves to run around and mess with stuff.
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Dec 5, 2023 22:26
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Ineffiable posted:I hope you guys don't mind but Polygon did a top 50 and I think it's well worth a read saw that lies of p was all the way down at number 49, immediately closed tab
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Dec 5, 2023 22:32
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Saw pizza tower and hi fi rush didn't even crack top 25, immediately discounted rest of list. Also suika game is a clone itself so it's funny seeing people gushing over it and decrying the clones of it
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Dec 5, 2023 22:57
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Ineffiable posted:I hope you guys don't mind but Polygon did a top 50 and I think it's well worth a read 50 games and they still didn't mention Six Ages 2...
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Dec 6, 2023 00:05
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7. Forspoken Originality and risk-taking are pretty hard to come by in the AAA space, so when Square-Enix of all people lets one of their studios leverage their resources to take an absolutely wild swing like this it’s always worth checking out. The game they come up with is a bizarre amalgam of the vast and the personal, about a surly New York foundling who gets swept up in a crisis engulfing a magical world. And what a world it is- it’s rare that an open-world feels like it really earns its divisions into territories and regions, taking seemingly eons to cross despite an extensive set of movement powers that let you run and climb at tremendous speed. In this world, you will fight monsters with maneuverability and range and beautifully flashy magical attacks, adopt cats, put on nail polish you stole from an ancient tomb, and gradually learn that emotional bonds aren’t scary even though your previous life had taught you otherwise. 6. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor  The other really good force pokin’ game of 2023 was a case study in a studio taking criticism to heart and growing their design in all good ways. Jedi Fallen Order was just short of greatness, and Survivor managed to fix its two biggest issues: Cal Kestis was kind of a dork, and lightsabers didn’t really feel powerful. Then they added an enormous main planet to explore and a bunch of really slick set pieces. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a four-quadrant AAAA Gaming Product, but a good team with a good vision can transcend this and make all the requisite puzzle sections, side activities, and lore dumps appealing and contributing to the larger whole. Star Wars has had a good string of games recently, let’s keep it going. 5. Neon White  When I first played this game, early in the year, it corrupted my save at about 75% campaign completion. I was mad about that for most of the rest of the year, until November, when I decided to forgive it, accept that the past cannot be changed, and grant it a second chance, only to discover that this sort of thing is exactly what the game is actually about. And I’m glad I did, because it’s a blast. Someone in a different thread described it as a game a 14-year-old would doodle in the margins of his math notebook, which is very accurate. You play as a damned soul, summoned from hell to cleanse heaven of demons with your cool badass parkour skills and awesome magical weapons, and also to hang out with your similarly tryhard crew and get up to puerile shenanigans. The parkour and weapons really are pretty great - every level is a timed challenge designed to get you into a speedrunner’s mindset of spotting shortcuts and figuring out what can be safely skipped - and the story and characters are deeper than they first appear. Fantastic music, too. 4. Resident Evil 4 Remake  I dithered pretty hard about which 2023 over-shoulder action-horror remake to put in this slot, but in the end I had to give it to the one that the other cited as a major influence. There was nothing really wrong with the original, I could have put in any of its 500 ports and re-releases and still had as great a time as I did back in the day. But there were also places where it could be so much more, and things that wouldn’t hurt it if they were cut away, and Capcom found almost all of them while preserving the feel and spirit of the game. Leon has a parry move that works on bullets! Ashley has more agency and gets creeped on less! There are sidequests and hidden treasures and new encounters and secret weapons! All of it adds up to a package that upgrades the game from a legend to a modern masterpiece that no longer needs any caveats about its age. 3. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon  Before launch, I was convinced there would be a cost to the fanbase that From had built with a decade of slow, menacing dark fantasy dungeon crawlers being presented with a fast and chaotic mission-based mech brawler with a heavy focus on equipment tweaking. I shouldn’t have worried, because it’s also very smooth to get into and get your bearings in, at least until you get to the familiar end-of-first-mission difficulty wall boss. This is not From’s first rodeo in this genre (the Armored Core franchise was their bread and butter for the decade preceding the decade of Souls) but it’s been informed by their evolution and rings familiar in a lot of ways even though your moment-to-moment experience is extremely different. Your giant mech is blazingly fast, incredibly nimble, and armed to the teeth with futuristic death-cannons that can level city blocks, but so are your enemies, making every fight a frantic tumble of missiles, bullets, and sword swings that ends in a deliciously rendered slow-motion explosion. It’s definitely a From game, but it’s at the same time definitely not a Souls game; losing the exploration and gradual narrative submergence in a rotten, collapsing world means it doesn’t have the staying power or ability to redefine whole genres in the same way the Souls games did. But it’s absolutely a blast to play, three times, before the tight and opaque requirements for S-ranks get to be too much for you. 2. Cocoon  The best puzzles games are the ones that lay out some very simple rules and then proceed to spin out every permutation of those rules imaginable and plenty that aren’t. The rules in Cocoon are simple. You are exploring a world and you find a ball. You can pick the ball up and move it around. You can plug the ball into various machines. One of these machines lets you enter the ball. Inside the ball is a different world. You can explore that too. While in there, you find a second ball. And it goes on from there, into a series of absolutely mindbending puzzles involving balls in sequences and combinations and nestings that are at once deviously challenging to approach and brilliantly obvious in hindsight. It also does a welcome and fantastic job of subtly cutting down on wild-goose chases without ever feeling like it’s leading you by the hand. Once you use a machine for its intended purpose, it quietly shuts off as it scrolls off the screen. If backtracking is not necessary to solve a particular puzzle, your way back just happens to be go away as a natural consequence of beginning to engage with it. It instructs you in all this and also tells a story about a little lost alien looking for his friends and what happened to the world(s) without using a single word. Cocoon was made by a designer known primarily for games in which scared lonely children die gruesomely; it’s good to know he can also make something this upliftingly beautiful. 1. Lies of P  If you had told me at the beginning of the year that there would be a Souls clone in which you play as a twinky Pinocchio who fights monsters, I might have thought you were joking. If you had told me at the end of the year that the Pinocchio Souls game was actually so good that it compared favorably to some of From’s own output, I might have thought you were insane. And yet here we are. A lot of studios have tried to copy the Souls formula, but this may be the first one to really succeed, and not just succeed, but add their own unique spins on it that make the game more than just a copy of a formula but something that doesn’t only play within the sandbox From built but ventures beyond into a new and original place. You’ve got a weapon in one hand and a gadget in the other, but now the gadget can be more than just a parry button- there’s a mine layer, a gun, elemental debuff applicators, a grappling hook, and more. You can still parry, and block, and regenerate health you lost with a flurry of attacks, and a perfectly timed parry can be extremely powerful and swing the fight in your direction, but now you can do this with weapons that can be customized and tweaked in new and deeper ways. You’re in a sick world in the process of collapse, but you have an active role in the course it takes, and so do the others you associate with. The easily derided Lying System starts out as simplistic Bioware-esque “hurtful truth or dishonest comfort” choices and evolves into surprisingly deep moral dilemmas with no right answer, in service of a story that evolves a basic Bloodborne rip with puppets into something much more even as it tacks even closer to where Bloodborne was to begin with. On top of all this, the art direction, enemy designs, audio and music, and pretty much everything else is top-notch. It also takes far more than you probably think from the original book (not the movie)- I didn’t actually know there was a crew of rabbit undertakers in there, but here they are as a gang of rabbit-themed toughs whose ultimate threat is to stuff you into a coffin. It’s not perfect- the final chapter is too long and too dull-looking, the parry window could be widened a bit, and there are too many bosses whose second phase is effectively a totally new boss- but it’ll be very exciting to see what this studio does in the future (especially if it follows up on the even more bonkers post-credits stinger). Honorable Mention: Destiny 2  Destiny is entering its endgame after nine long years, and while it’s looking wobblier than ever and it may have cracks deep in its foundation that it’s not clear if Bungie is capable of fixing, I’m still having fun with it and they keep releasing content drops that are for the most part good. Even if sometimes it feels like I’m Major Kong riding the bomb, I’ll most likely stick with it until the end, whatever it turns out to be. haveblue fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 00:26
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6. Little Goody Two Shoes. A German Lesbian Horror Dating sim is an interesting enough premise for a game and the presentation is gorgeous. The gameplay is rather poor but the storyline is interesting enough and the artwork surprised and delighted me throughout. 6. Bayonetta Origins. Another game that really excels based off it's presentation but where Little Goody Two Shoes has poor gameplay, Bayonetta Origins is decent. Splitting your controls between Bayonetta and Chesire works better than expected and I really enjoyed watching their relationship and teamwork evolve throughout the game. The lore snippets and Wisp descriptions are also very good. Biggest problem I have is that the game is a bit too easy. 4. Super Mario Wonder. I typically like the 2D Mario platformers more than the 3D ones so this game was delightful. The Wonder effects allow the level designers creativity to shine through. I wish the levels were a little bit longer because as is they don't tend to have much of an identity beyond the central wonder effect. This keeps it from being on the level of my favorite Mario Platformers but it is still excellent. 3. Super Mario RPG Remake. It's a little difficult to judge the Super Mario RPG Remake compared to some of the other games on this list. It is an incredibly faithful remake so much so that even the timings on a lot of the timed hits are the same. Its difficult to determine how much credit should be given for the remake compared to the original game. That being said, it is a gorgeous remake and the changes that were made are good. It has also helped bring a terrific game to a lot of people who have never played it before so that gives it the spot here. 2. Octopath Traveler 2. I bounced off of Octopath 1 but the improvements in 2 lead to a truly incredible experience. The stories are excellent. The game world is gorgeous. The boss fights are grand. I 100% the game and spent a good 12-15 hours adjusting my strategies and team for the superboss and enjoyed every moment of it. 1. Fire Emblem Engage. Fire Emblem Engage is a bit of a divisive title. A lot of peoples introduction to the series was 3 Houses, and while Engage's plot is fine, it is a bit of a narrative step backwards. The gameplay however is the best the series has ever been. I've already played through it 4 times and am working on a 5th playthrough. The addition of emblems adds so many customization options and further enhances replayability. The map design is superb and the game is not afraid to use the emblem powers against you. The Fire Emblem series is one of my favorites and this game is easily my second favorite behind Radiant Dawn.
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Dec 6, 2023 01:18
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Honorable Mentions: Forspoken – As has been mentioned, this game is really underrated. The biggest problem with it is definitely the main character and her painfully 90's reluctant hero shtick, but the movement abilities and spells are really fun to play around with. Also the banter does get better, I chuckled a few times. The Sekimeiya – An interesting form of mystery, I thought this had a lot of potential and I love the quality of life features such as a full reference system and section to write notes about each scene. The writing is good and the mysteries are genuinely really loving difficult. If you want a measure of how good this year was, I was fairly sure this was going to be in my top 3 when I finished it and it somehow didn't even make the top 10. The Painscreek Killings – I love the idea of this, exploring a deserted town uncovering the truth behind the murders that drove everyone away. It's very atmospheric and while it can be a little frustrating at times, it truly lets you experience the joy of piecing everything together like a real detective. I also managed to make the game twice as scary for myself as it was supposed to be which was a huge plus. The Lamplighters League – Like Marvels Midnight Suns last year, this was a cool squad-based tactics game. The characters are all really distinct from each other, there's some good challenge to be had from the enemies and I love the pulp cthulhu feel of this game. On to the top 10: 10. Lords of the Fallen - If another game hadn't come out this year, this would stand as the best Soulslike I've played to date. They managed to capture the thrill of figuring out lore, the world is nice and interconnected, there's a ton of good spells and abilities, I love the addition of the block and ranged mechanics and there's some really cool fashion to find which is the reason you play Souls game anyway lets be real. It's a really solid game and I hope they can continue building on it. 9. Alan Wake 2 - Having only played Control myself and watched parts of the first game, this was my real introduction to Alan Wake. In terms of presentation and plot, I think this was top-class stuff. Other games really need to be taking notes on how to present a story from this game. The plot itself was quite engaging, and the little TV ads and radio broadcasts you can find were incredible in their own right so if you're a fan of Twin Peaks-esque horror mysteries you should take a look at this. 8. Misericorde Vol 1 – This is the part where I admit that I am a massive mystery fan and Misericorde really loving did it for me. This is a visual novel and only the first part of it is out right now, but what is there is incredible. The characters are all distinctive, intelligently written, and engaging and the mystery has been set up as a true knot to untangle. Also, the prose is just really good, the nunnery setting is a fantastic setting and the music is amazing. I really recommend this to anyone who is a fan of mysteries, visual novels or anyone who thinks a bunch of nuns getting drunk and rowdy sounds like a good time. 7. Raging Loop – Another mystery visual novel. This one is a bit more similar to games like 999 and Virtues Last Reward where you make decisions that lead you to different branches in the story, but you will see everything eventually. Said story is essentially a big game of Werewolf, so if you're a fan of social deduction, you might like this. The big draw for me is definitely the characters, which are very strong in this one. Especially the main character, who is usually the most boring and generic character in a visual novel, is incredibly good in this game. This guy is an absolute blast, I love him so much. 6. Gnosia – Speaking of social deduction, that is what this game is in its entirety. It's also a game of Werewolf, but on a spaceship this time and you're much more active as it's essentially a series of debates around who to trust and whose the one getting tossed out the airlock. The gameplay loop when it gets going is really engaging. It's very satisfying when you realise that you just "get" a character and know when they're bad or not very early into a run. The plot slowly develops as you access new events and was surprisingly emotional in its conclusion. 5. Final Fantasy 16 – Man, Clive is such a good character. This is definitely one of the stronger FF games in my opinion. It definitely has some flaws (the fetch quests ugh) but holy poo poo the high points in this game go harder than any other game from this year and maybe decade??? The combat is really drat good, world is interesting, the plot is solid, the villains are hateable.. this is a really dang good game. 4. Armored Core VI – This is my first Armored Core and holy balls am I a fan now. From did it again. The controls and mechanics are incredibly tight in this and for once the plot and characters are kind of front and center, which was fairly refreshing. The mech combat definitely has the feeling of a souls-game, as much as they tried to stress that it's NOT a souls-game. But it still does have the same fast, frenetic energy of the recent From entries that I love. I honestly can't think of a single real criticism I could make of this game. 3. Baldur's Gate 3 – I was expecting this to be number 1, which just goes to show how strong this year was. I hardly need to say why this is here, Larian made a truly outstanding sequel to the first two Baldur's Gates, the two games that made me love games in the first place (them and Warcraft 3). And I love this game. They somehow made 5E combat actually good! And you get a lot of really cool items! And the characters are loving great! And the world is so dense and filled with interesting things to do and creative ways to solve problems! I have a lot of nitpicks with the plot and writing but like all good criticism it's just because I love the source so much. This is truly outstanding and probably should be Game of the Year, but personally I liked two more... 2. Lies of P – Wow was I not expecting this. A Soulslike somehow beat a From game in my estimations. And not only that but I really think this is on the same tier as Bloodborne and Sekiro as the best of this genre. I doubt anyone suspected the silly Pinnocio game to be this drat good. The world is incredibly thought-out and rich, the atmosphere never falters and my god is the combat just so, so good. It honestly improves on a lot of things that From haven't, I like that the quests aren't so horribly obtuse that the only way you'll ever experience them is by reading a guide. I like that the plot is actually clear and central to the players journey. Weapon durability is actually an interesting mechanic in this! So it is stamina, blocking and parrying! I could gush about this game all day but honestly, I am super excited and deeply impatient to see where they go from here. 1. Hogwarts Legacy – Controversial as it may be and while it may be more flawed than the last few games, I simply had the time of my life experiencing this game. My brother and I took turns playing it and we would excitedly compare what we'd done and the things we'd found at the end of each day. Hogwarts itself is packed with things to find and do. I'm not usually someone who spends a ton of time exploring but I spent hours just running around the castle and finding things in this game. I refused to look up secrets, when usually I crack almost immediately and I eventually 100%'d this game. And the combat was a huge surprise. I wasn't expecting something so robust and fun, the spells are really cool and the combo's you can pull off make you feel like an absolute badass. And that's ultimately what made me love the game so much: It's just really, really fun.
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Dec 6, 2023 02:02
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VG posted:Write as many words on the games you like as you wish. There is nothing lovelier than seeing posts from people with joy in their hearts and gushing about games is one of my favourite kinds of posting.
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Dec 6, 2023 02:18
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:this is my favorite thread of the year and I'm reading every god drat word ty this is my first year posting in it. ive only lurked prior years
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Dec 6, 2023 03:56
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Spoiler Top 10: 10. Payday 3 9. American Truck Simulator (PC) 8. Diablo IV (PS5) 7. Lethal Company (PC) 6. It Takes Two (PS5) 5. A Short Hike (PC) 4. Tape to Tape (PC) 3. Gran Turismo 7 (PS5) 2. Elden Ring (PS5) 1. Hunt Showdown (PS5) Other Games I've Played Jurassic World Evolution 2 (PS5) I love the idea of a Jurassic Park manager game, but this one missed the mark. Playing the console version certainly didn't help, but the actual gameplay and features weren't enticing enough for me to continue playing long. PGA Tour 2k23 (PS5) I played a lot of the prior PGA Tour game and rated it fairly highly. I guess I was worn out, so didn't put as much time into this one. If you like golf games, you'll enjoy this one a lot. Otherwise its a pass. F1 Manager 2022 (PS5) I waited until I could try this game out for free, as I'm generally skeptical of new entries to sports management games. This game got fairly consistent mediocre reviews, and after 25 hours it's clear why. F1 Manager provides a lot of options for developing your team, including improving different parts of your car, training your drivers, and upgrading your facilities. However, its hard to tell how successful those efforts are, as it would take 1-2 seasons to actually enjoy the fruits of those labors, and the game isn't enticing enough for most players to stick with it that long. The bulk of your time is spent in race weekends, completing practices, qualifying, and the actual race. I enjoyed the practices the best, as you complete a sort of mini-game to figure out what's the best setup for the car for each of your drivers. Qualifying is fairly straightforward, but occasionally you can qualify much higher than you normally would due to weather, because the NPCs seemingly don't realize that if rain is coming soon, they should complete a qualifying lap as quickly as possible while the track is still dry. And the race itself was fairly boring. You pick a strategy and rarely do you need to stray from your selected strategy. You can either micromanage your drivers to get the most out of their race, but if you just let them do there thing and fast forward through the race, you'll get pretty consistent results that are at or above your team expectations. The worst part of racing is the very few crashing, and most crashing involves a single car just sliding off, instead of there being a balance of single car and multi-car crashses. The animations for these events are also incredibly bad. Overall, a very weak game that I've typed more about than anyone here is gonna care to read about. Control (PS5) This was one of my favorite games two years ago, but on trying to return to it the polish has worn off. Gameplay was hard to get back into and fights weren't as fun. Dropped it pretty quickly. FIFA 22 (PS5) It's FIFA. Trackmania (PS5) Enjoyed this a lot, as I used to play Trackmania on PC probably 15 years ago. Glad the new one made it to console, but it isn't nearly as good as other racing games. Meet Your Maker (PS5) This was free on PS5 + on release, and was fairly fun for the time I played. As I expected, the gimmick got old quickly and really lame base designs were typically the best for defenders, as you could take advantage of just overloading players with nearly impossible to defeat designs. Actual creative design was few and far between, and there's only so many places you can hide traps so most bases became predictable after a few hours of gameplay. Fun game considering it was free. Peggle (PC) I occasionally return to replay this game and its such a classic, short marble shooter. Disney Speedstorm (PS5) My 2 year old is really into cars, and this game was a great download to let him pretend to drive while I race. It's a fairly competent, albeit very basic, karting game with basically every Disney character ever. Free-to-play with option to pay to buy characters or upgrade current characters faster. Can't wait until my kid is old enough to beg for money to shovel into 'free' games like this! Super Mega Baseball 4 (PS5) Fun, arcadey baseball game that simplifies other baseball games for more casual fans like myself. Far Cry 2 (PC) I loved FC2 back when it came out, but owned it on a console that I sold a long time ago. Was excited to play it on PC for $5 and it holds up fairly well. The AI design leaves something to be desired, especially since their detection system is sensitive and they can hit you through foliage like they have eagle eyes. Really fun game, but Far Cry 3 was a clear improvement on FC2's design in so many ways, even if it quickly led to mostly soulless sequels filled with bloat. Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) Made my top 2 last year, so I didn't play it very much this year. Great sequel to the Horizon games, but I don't think I feel enticed to return to it much. Squad (PC) Really fun tactical shooter. theHunter Call of the Wild (PC) Decent hunting game that can be purchased during Steam sales for incredibly cheap. Offers a lot of options for weapons and animals to hunt. You can pet your dog, so 10/10 for that. My Top 10 Games 10. Payday 3 (PS5) I was fairly hyped for this game, as I enjoyed the last two Payday games. However, the release was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. Only a few maps to be played, a couple of which are pretty bad. The leveling system is complete garbage (level only through completing lame challenges, instead of through completing missions). The lack of strong autoaim on console is also very noticeable, which I consider a necessity for console co-op games, especially one like Payday where playing on the harder difficulty levels is an expectation after leveling up a lot. I had fun playing it, but did not get my moneys worth out of the $40 release price. 9. American Truck Simulator (PC) I have put a lot of hours collectively into ATS and Euro Truck Simulator 2. The creators put a lot of heart into this game series, and its such a relaxing game to play while listening to music, podcasts, or watching shows/movies. They continue to expand the game by adding states as paid DLC. 8. Diablo IV (PS5) Never played a Diablo before this one, so I can't compare the game to past editions or similar style games. I played through the campaign and then continued playing a little bit beyond that, totaling ~65 hours. By that time, I was feeling burnt out on the game and most gameplay became repetitive. It sounds like a more recent update added some good gameplay and improved on some features, but by the time I stopped playing some of the worse features of the game became apparent. I also just don't understand how someone can pump hundreds (or even thousands) of hours into playing this game over and over for how repetitive the game play gets, but to each their own. 7. Lethal Company (PC) I haven't put too much time into this, but its a really fun, basic, and cheap ($10) early access horror co-op extraction game. Voice chat is only heard by teammates nearby, unless you purchase a walkie-talkie. But talking can also attract monsters to you and you don't have any weapons to defend yourself (mostly). Each 3 days, your team must meet a quota or you get fired into space by the company. As this is very early access, there's a lot of room for the devs to expand on the gameplay. 6. It Takes Two (PS5) This was on my list last year, but my wife and I still haven't finished the game and its still really fun and creative. I'm amazed in each level how they can continue to introduce new gameplay mechanics without it feeling burdensome, and instead a lot of fun. 5. A Short Hike (PC) Goons and others had a lot of good things to say about this game, so I gave it a go and it's a great, artistic, and fun exploration game with a bit of a small surprise ending. Very short overall, but the gameplay is crisp, the art-style is a lot of fun, and I found myself enjoying every minute the game had to offer. Highly recommend! 4. Tape to Tape (PC) If you enjoyed arcade hockey games of the 90s, this game is great for you. Each campaign allows you to make some choices in how to upgrade your team through various abilities and skills, upgrade points, and powerups. You compete against various teams that each have their own gimmick abilities and design (for example, one team is disco-themed and has an ability to force nearby players to dance for a few seconds). Game is in early access and the dev team regularly comes out with gameplay improvements and plans to expand on the game in the future. Rounds definitely start feeling repetitive right now, as you face the exact same line-up of teams each campaign so I hope they add more and more variety in the future. 3. Gran Turismo 7 (PS5) I'm not a huge car person, so I can't quite appreciate the detail the team puts into each car. But you can tell the makers of GT love cars and are excited to show off the history behind each vehicle you can drive (and there are hundreds). This game is the perfect balance of arcade and realistic driving for me, as there are a lot of new-to-driving features available like traction control systems and automatic shifting that the better drivers can easily turn off. There's a lot of locations to race on, with a variety of true-to-life tracks as well as real-life inspired tracks. Over a year after release, GT recently added a free update that included another track, more cars, snowy track modes, and other QOL improvements. Overall, a fantastic racing game. 2. Elden Ring (PS5) Last year, I avoided playing Elden Ring because I never played a Souls game before, didn't like Bloodborne when I tried it very briefly, and was more excited for Forbidden West, having played (and loved) Zero Dawn a few months prior to release. I finally decided to try out Elden Ring and I am so glad I did. What a fantastic game! The expansiveness of the game is incredible and I've enjoyed every minute of it so far (yet to be beaten). I've definitely gotten frustrated at parts, but looking up guides online has helped a lot, especially since I'm new to the series. It took me until 50 hours in to learn that carrying a heavy load is penalizing my dodge rolls and stamina... Anyways, the bosses and enemies are generally pretty creative and fun to learn how to defeat. I'll definitely say that the AI is overall pretty weak as far as pathing goes, so a lot of enemies and some bosses can be killed cheaply by exploiting some of their designs. I know some of the style of Souls-likes is to learn how to defeat bosses through learning their weaknesses, but there's a difference between (1)learning a bosses moves so you can more easily dodge and time your attacks and (2) taking advantage of bad AI design of an enemy. Truly a fantastic game though, and now I understand why so much love was thrown its way a year ago and still today. 1. Hunt: Showdown (PS5) For the second year in a row, this is my number one game. Hunt can be infuriating sometimes when things don't go your way for a few rounds in a row, but Hunt is amazing for its late 1800s/early 1900s Louisiana setting, both because of the atmosphere created and the gun play with older guns. Its refreshing to play a shooter that isn't filled with machine guns spraying with nearly zero recoil, people jumping a sliding around like maniacs, and everyone being a bullet sponge. Hunt is filled with a variety of weapons, some of which are objectively better (and more expensive) than others, but any and every weapon is viable as long as you outshoot your opponent, with enemies dying to 1-3 bullets from basically any gun depending on distance and where you hit them. The atmosphere was already great, but this year also saw the addition of rain and storms to some rounds, which adds a whole other level of atmosphere. The graphics are showing their age, but in the next few months, Hunt will be upgrading its engine for free, which will upgrade the graphics and make some UI improvements. However, this also means that the prior console generation will lose the ability to play Hunt without buying a new gen console. I also appreciate that Hunt does not have any autoaim, even for console players (this is apparently changing with the engine update, but I'd imagine for a hardcore shooter, the auto aim will be fairly minimal and only effective in shorter ranges against enemies who aren't moving much). Compare this to COD or other shooters where autoaim has gotten so strong that many pro players are dropping K&M to gain the advantage that autoaim brings. So I truly appreciate Hunt not including autoaim, even if that makes aiming on console a little janky feeling sometimes. Lastly, other extraction and battle royale shooters focus a lot on scavenging for gear throughout the round. Hunt's gameplay is entirely focused on getting you into engagements with other players, with respecting a players time by having you fully kit up before entering a round and the only thing to extract is a bounty for the target (and your own hunter, since death is permanent for that character). That's my Top 10 of the year!
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Dec 6, 2023 06:22
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Forsythia's Games of the Year 2023 5. Cassette Beasts: Pokémon normally dominates the niche of RPGs revolving around monster-taming, but now and then someone else takes a notable stab at the formula. I gave this one a try, and while I enjoyed it for a while, it didn't stick with me. 4. Baldur's Gate 3: This game's gotten a legendary reputation for being packed full of detail and quality, and I'm glad I experienced it myself. It impresses on so many levels, from its meaningful story choices to its ability to account for clever details. In execution, though, parts of it are rough for me since I'm not very familiar with the workings of DnD. I feel completely lost in many of its systems, especially the extended fight sequences with many units on the field. It's strange knowing that a product is objectively stellar, but yet at the same time I often struggle to enjoy it.  3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: This is a game I'm deeply torn on. I'm in awe of its sheer size and level of detail, and its physics system is a technological marvel. At the same time, its early game is full of so many irritations such as poorly balanced enemy scaling and unnecessary and unfun gating for vital features that I almost put it down several times. Once I had some features unlocked, got more familiar with what the physics system was expecting of me, and wasn't dying to a light breeze, I could finally settle in and relax. It's an incredibly rewarding experience once I got over that hump, but it features the sharpest learning curve I've ever overcome in a video game. TotK let me stable a horse in my living room for some reason...  2. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker: Another year, another time FFXIV deserves a spot on my GotY list. In 2023 I had a great time focusing on a "softer" aspect of it; the community involved with the game. The base game is an extraordinary RPG stuffed to the brim with interesting things to do, but it's enhanced even further with the creativity and warmth of the game's famously friendly and helpful players. It was a pleasure participating in and contributing to player-made gatherings and events, and I'm very glad I explored more of that part of it.  1. LISA the Painful Definitive Edition: I was thrilled to see that LISA got an expanded and revised release this year. Though it's been polished up a little, it still feels like playable outsider art in the best possible way. It's unforgettably uncompromising, hilarious, and brutal, and I'm glad I had an excuse to go through it all over again. Forsythia fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Dec 6, 2023 08:10
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Sir Sidney Poitier posted:#1 - Baldur's Gate 3 God, can't believe I forgot to mention Speaking with Animals in my write-up for BG3. Every day I woke up at camp I immediately chugged a potion of the stuff, I can't imagine playing through the game without taking every opportunity to chat with the animals and hear what they have to say. ESPECIALLY the cats.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtBE4JxTOmE
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Dec 6, 2023 11:26
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Jay Rust posted:tbh... the rules aren't SUPER clear, they're really wordy. Some bold might help? Thank you for this, I slightly changed it up and you helped me 
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Dec 6, 2023 12:15
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Jerusalem posted:God, can't believe I forgot to mention Speaking with Animals in my write-up for BG3. Every day I woke up at camp I immediately chugged a potion of the stuff, I can't imagine playing through the game without taking every opportunity to chat with the animals and hear what they have to say. ESPECIALLY the cats. Play as a bard wake up cast speak to animal and detect thoughts and speak to the dead.
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Dec 6, 2023 14:24
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Forsythia posted:
I'm going to steal this word for word when I do my list, I've been struggling to put into words how I feel about the game and this is it. Thanks for being my brain.
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Dec 6, 2023 14:55
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Jerusalem posted:God, can't believe I forgot to mention Speaking with Animals in my write-up for BG3. Every day I woke up at camp I immediately chugged a potion of the stuff, I can't imagine playing through the game without taking every opportunity to chat with the animals and hear what they have to say. ESPECIALLY the cats. Exactly - it's the sort of mechanic that might come up in games but you'd run into loads of examples where just nothing happens. Like a metaphorical invisible wall. The fact that they bothered to make so many of them interact, incorporated it into quests, it was yet another way that it felt like you could conceive of so many different ways to approach things. Whenever there was a quest with animals or corpses nearby I'd fire up the relevant spell and get the true story.
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Dec 6, 2023 15:24
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Forsythia posted:5. Cassette Beasts: Pokémon normally dominates the niche of RPGs revolving around monster-taming, but now and then someone else takes a notable stab at the formula. I gave this one a try, and while I enjoyed it for a while, it didn't stick with me. Yeah, I must have been around the 80% mark before I just stopped. I'm gonna finish it eventually because I've heard great things about the ending though I also gotta say its soundtrack is phenomenal, especially how it feels when you get a song's lyrics to kick in. It gave me persona 5/TWEWY vibes.
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Dec 6, 2023 17:19
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Played quite a lot of games this year, my taste in games is mainly about gameplay so you will not see many non gameplay/combat focused things. I still haven't gotten to some games like FFXVI, RE4, Dead Space Remake, Star Wars Jedi, Lies of Pi, Lords of the Fallen which I am sure some of these would make my list. Zelda TOTK I loved but I didn't complete so I wouldn't put it here but maybe next year. I had issues with performance on Switch for that so thats why I dropped it but I absolutely think its a GOTY tier or even one of the best games of all time. Fire emblem engage is another game that I would add to my list but I didn't finish. 1. Baldur's Gate 3 This is only my 2nd CRPG game ever after Pillars of Eternity. I loved every second of it. If anyone told me the best part of a turn based game would be it's combat, I would call you crazy. But here we are. The interactivity between the game's world and the player's ability makes it so you are only limited by your creativity. Want to create a cloud of darkness, hide in it and just snipe enemies while wearing gear that buffs you while in shadows? You can do that. The whole barrelmancy thing can completely change the combat. I am not big into D&D but I really was roleplaying as my vengeance sworn Paladin and being a mighty moral prick about every small issue. The characters are memorable right up there with Mass Effect and some FF cast members. The visuals are also quite nice which doesn't get brought up enough. I do think on replays you can tell how much of the decisions actually all have the same outcome, which in the original run gives you an illusion of choice greater than there is. But I still think it's an amazing game and you should play it regardless if you aren't the biggest CRPG fan or turnbased combat person. 2. Metal Gear Rising Revengeance What a game. I finally played this because I played Bayonetta last year and I instantly thought I am missing out I need to play everything by Platinum games. This game is just pure adrenaline, it's so short and it has the crazy zaniness of Platinum Games while still being a Metal Gear game with the usual political commentary. For me I know I love a game when I instantly replay it. I played this I think on 2 more difficulties got upto the Revengeance difficulty and man it was a blast. Usually you don't hear people talk about the parry system but imo this game has one of the best parry systems once you get the hang of it. The normal attack + the direction of the attack. It's so loving genius because it gets rid of the flaw in Sekiro's parry system i,e : fighting multiple enemies. This makes it so you don't have to be facing the enemy's direction to parry them and take on multiple foes. The bosses are so loving well designed. One of the issues games like Ninja Gaiden/DMC had back in the day, you never knew when your "turn" was to attack. If you think of these games like turn based it helps so much in higher difficulties. That being said this game's bosses are so well designed it's clear when it's your turn to attack. It makes the boss fights more mechnical than say a Souls boss fight but they are still super fun and great spectacles. Also the soundtrack, do I have to even say anything about it? I love metal/rock so it was just the cherry on top for me. 3. Final Fantasy Stranger of Paradise This must be a mistake right? You thought this game was just a meme and funny because of Jack's obssesion with saying chaos every 30 seconds. I am going to say this don't look at the visuals, performance issues and get rid of your party. You will realize how deep this game's combat system is, I think Code Vein had a similar issue where it was too hard solo and too easy with party members. If you play with party members you can ignore 99% of the mechanics of this game. That's the dev's fault but I still think people need to give a 2nd chance to this game especially if it's on sale. This is from the same studio that made Nioh which was a great push forward in the repetitive simple combat of many other Soulslike. So what's so different in this game from Nioh or other Souls? Well it goes more into the looter ARPG concepts, builds really matter and they completely change how your character plays. The other thing is because you get so many points you can have multiple classes level up, I forgot how many classes there are but they are like 30 or something crazy and they all feel very different. In one of the DLC they added the gambler job/class which just has a ability that spins a roulette which can give you crazy buffs. What makes this game crazy is that you can switch jobs/class mid combo and the other job/class has a completely different moveset/weapon equipment. So you could be doing a basic ground combo with a warrior throw the enemy in the air, switch into a mage and channel a full spell while the enemy is in the air. The possibilities are literally endless. So you don't have the stances of Nioh but you can completely change your equipment set/class mid fight. Also this game added an ability called soulshield which is just genius. Basically all the bosses special abilities that aren't unblockable, you can catch with your soul shield and store it there to use yourself. There is a parry button on top of that, so you can parry basic attacks, catch spells from the bosses/enemies and switch classes mid combo. It's just a really deep game in it's combat. Jack is also a lovable idiot and the story genuiely gets interesting. 4. Hi Fi Rush I will say this and people can call me what they want but if this game was made by Playstation Studios people would not shut up about this game. This is one of the very very few games that has done comedy properly and the other is Ace Attorney series. It's a game that's all about rythmn, whether it's combos, boss attack patterns, level design. It all goes with the rythmn of the music of that level. The art design is one of the best cell shaded I have seen, sometimes cell shaded games have some bluriness or anomalies but this looks perfect almost always. I wish they gave more airtime to the characters other than Chai, because they were actually likeable. Peppermint has one of the best character designs this year and many of the other characters(minus Chai) look great. The combat feels great because when you get the timing right, the music, everything feels right. This is definitely Xbox Studios's best game yet in this generation. Excited to see more from Tango Gameworks. 5. Lost Judgement After I played the first Judgement, I thought this game is better the Yakuza series and has potential. I think I've been proven right. This is one of the most grounded RGG Studios stories. A story about suicide and bullying which is practical common in Japan. I think they handled it really well, it did have ridiculous twists in the end like a typical RGG story but I think the first 50% of the story is mindblowing good. It's intense and sad because bullying is horrible. It's not a fun story because of the subject matter but it's done so well. Also I said this for the first Yakuza, I prefer Yagami to Kiryu but I think in this game he regressed a bit in terms of character, he didn't have that carefree energy of the first one. The gameplay is better than Yakuza too because Yagami's breakdance/acrobatic combat style is much more fun than Kiryu's more martial art/brawler style. 6. Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma Remastered This game is one of the best action games of all time. The main difference in the NG series compared to Bayo/DMC/MGR is that the enemies are ultra ultra aggressive. They might loss all their limbs they still got explosive shurikens to throw at you. The enemies literally don't die unless you chop their heads off. Its a super frustrating game until you get the hang of the combat and man the combat hurts you fingers because you have to press buttons nonstop to keep moving. But Ryu is literally a killing machine once you get good with him. Played this on multiple difficulties and enjoyed every second of it. I think I got to highest difficulty which just sends armored goons at you in the first level and it's unfairly hard so I didn't bother that difficulty. Series might be dead because Team Ninja are focused on Soulslikes but happy we got the collection on PC. 7. Wu Long Fallen Dynasty Probably you can tell I like action games by now and especially Team Ninja poo poo, there is 3 Team Ninja games on this list. This is basically Team Ninja's take on Sekiro. It's nowhere as good as Sekiro as a overall package but it does have awesome boss fights and the minute to minute combat imo is as good as Sekiro. But Sekiro has insane regular enemy variety and the greatest bosses in gaming such as Ishin/Guardian Ape/Lady Butterfly/Owl. Would recommend those who enjoy soulslike + action to give it a whirl. It definitely got lost in a superstacked year but it's on gamepass and Koei puts everything on sale quite often so pick it up! The first Lu Bu fight is an all time great soulslike fight for me. 8. Armored Core 6 Coming into the year, I would think easily this will be my GOTY because it's Fromsoft, they never miss do they. It's still an amazing game and the build variety is out of this world. Finally a proper fast paced mech game and it's fun. It does have some amazing boss fights as usual, the sound design is a masterpiece too. The only reason this is lower in my list is because I didn't like the missions. I don't mind games with missions but I felt like a lot of the missions were annoying/frustrating for no reason. It wasn't the boss that was hard but the extra space lasers or w.e bs they threw before that. It made it so I didn't really finish to replay this. Although I did replay most of the missions multiple times just for farming money. 9. Street Fighter 6 SFV was one of my most played games of last year. I became addicted to the online. This was my 2nd most hyped game for 2023 after AC6. I think the drive impact is great but I preferred SFV. Overall SF6 is a much better game than SF5 but I preffered that. That being said I still put in 45 hours into SF6 so it's not like I hated it. Another thing is I really didn't find a character I gelled with like I did with Ed in SFV. Ed is suppose to be coming next year so this could easily be my most played next year. 10. Battlefield 2042 My main multiplayer game use to be League of Legends for many years but I have barely played it this year. The friends I had stopped playing it and I don't have the time to grind ranked anymore. I prefer something casual, tried out BF 2042 on Gamepass and absolutely loved. I don't know why I never tried it before since I am big battlefield fan but I guess it was a good thing because apparently the launch was horrible. It's still missing basic poo poo like server browser, server continuity, map vote, that every other shooter for last 30 years has had and previous BF games had. The new element in this is game is natural disaster but they are just annoying and I have only seen tornados so it's just repetitive. Its in a better place now but it just feels patched up and not what it was intended to be. Still a blast though because there is nothing with this production level and this scale. Ulio fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 17:40
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Anyone who posts their list 1-10 should be banned
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Dec 6, 2023 18:38
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A fair compromise might be to have the 1-10 lists subtract points for their games
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Dec 6, 2023 18:44
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10. Final Fantasy XVI Beautiful, loaded toe to tip with spectacle, featuring some great character writing, some interesting worldbuilding, and fantastic combat. On the other hand, its JRPG trappings were vestigial at best; there was nothing really marking this as a 'Final Fantasy' game apart from summons and chocobos. You could easily have stripped out leveling and equipment entirely and had more or less the same game, the open world was effectively useless, and there were zero real party members. A tiny bit of retooling could have had this as a perfectly linear series of setpieces with a base to return to between levels and still had just as much fun. On the other hand, the basic combat can't be praised enough. Quick and fluid and endlessly replayable, mixing and matching your favorite eikon abilities to create your ideal playstyle. Even after the credits rolled, I was still ready for more fights because the combat was just that drat fun. A gorgeous game that I certainly had a lot of fun with, but hardly a PS5 killer app. I'm excited to have it reach other platforms so more people can experience it for themselves. 9. MedianXL  A mod for the original Diablo II that I've played on and off for years, but it wasn't until 2023 that I really sunk myself completely into it and started tackling the endgame challenges. MedianXL takes the base Diablo II game and amps everything up to 11. Every class is completely redone with more and expanded skills, eight skill trees per class. Thousands of new items, new uniques, new sets, new runes and runewords. New leveling challenges and a couple dozen endgame dungeons and bonus bosses. Its only downside is that it's not available for the remake, but anyone who's used to the original should absolutely give this one a try. I know goons are generally more fond of Eastern Sun but Median blows it out of the water in basically every respect. 8. Halls of Torment  Vampire Survivors inspired an enormous amount of clones, and on paper Halls of Torment is just another one of those. You're plopped down into an endless field of infinitely respawning monsters, you get weapons and upgrades that all attack automatically, and you survive 30 minutes. However, I found Halls of Torment to exceed not only every other clone, but Vampire Survivors itself. VS is a lot of fun, but very quickly becomes a solved game where every run basically feels identical, despite the incredible number of options available to you. HoT has far fewer total weapons, upgrades, and characters, but they all feel far more distinct. Each class plays and feels differently from each other, and the addition of individual equipment pieces can shore up weak spots in a character but not to the point of homogenization. Where Halls of Torment excels for me also is how difficult it is. VS gets extremely easy to the point of being nearly impossible to lose once you have a certain base of upgrades, while HoT forces me to actually pay attention throughout every run. Additionally, the later stages get more and more difficult, instead of effectively being a different tileset with identical gameplay. Also, it looks and sounds like a mid-90s game in all of the best ways. The big red globe for your health, a gauntlet as your cursor, everything has that very 90s prerendered look, the delightful sounds of skeletons collapsing into bones, it's like a long-lost Diablo prototype. 7. Super Mario Wonder  I have a hunch that this is going to show up on a lot of other lists, so I'm not going to go too deep on it. It's 2D Mario, it's gorgeous and fun and wildly inventive again and again, it's an incredible time. Feels great, looks great, plays great. Wahoo! 6. corru.observer This one might need a little explanation. corru.observer (stylized that way intentionally) is what initially appears to be a weird internet art project, but turns out to be a kind of ... visual novel, I guess. The premise is this: in the future, aliens made contact and made a base here on earth, seeming to be largely friendly. At some point however, 'something' happened and the aliens retreated into their base and the whole place went dark, and they haven't been heard from since. Years past that event, an artifact of those aliens is found and you're brought in to examine what turns out to be basically an alien hard drive containing the memories of an alien in the base when the event happened. You explore this alien's memories, seeing her interactions with humans and her own kind, and then going through the event firsthand. It's extremely dialogue-heavy but the worldbuilding is utterly fascinating, and the presentation is unique, basically presenting everything through the alien's terms and perspectives. Also, the whole thing looks like this:  Without spoiling too much (as I desperately hope people will see and read this and decide to try it out for themselves) the game shifts genres radically throughout the experience, and doesn't just stay an interactive web story. I was enthralled by the characters, the visuals, the worldbuilding, everything. I played up through everything that was available a few months ago and haven't checked back since, so I don't believe it's finished just yet. Still, there's a ton to explore, and I encourage everyone to do so. 5. The Talos Principle II  I've long thought of The Talos Principle as both "criminally underrated" and "like if The Witness was good". It's one of my all time favorite puzzle games, doing so much with so few moving parts. Gorgeous for its day, inventive, maddeningly difficult, and overall just a great experience (apart from the recorder puzzles but everyone hates those). Talos II is, thankfully, more of the same. A bunch of new puzzles with a bunch of new puzzle toys, an even more beautiful world, and similar philosophical themes to mull over. There is a difference in tone, however; the first game was tremendously lonely, with you in this enormous computer civilization all by yourself, guided by the voice of god, messages from those who came before, and sometimes an AI in computer terminals here and there. Ultimately, you were on your own. In the sequel, however, there are others of your kind all over the place. Walking around, talking, joining you. There are always conversations you can have and social media you can read; it's a lot less lonely, and the world feels remarkably more lived-in. I didn't mind that shift in tone, but I've heard some people say they definitely preferred the more lonely feel of the first game, and I can understand that. Still, it's first-person puzzling at its absolute best. Croteam should really stop loving around with Serious Sam, since they're never really good and haven't been since the early 2000s. Plus, no recorder puzzles this time! 10/10 4. Super Mario RPG (Remake) Thirteen-year-old me was immensely disappointed to rent Paper Mario and find out that it wasn't a sequel to Super Mario RPG, or in fact even remotely like it other than also being a Mario-focused JRPG. I never beat Paper Mario 64, never played TTYD, never really bothered with the Mario + Luigi series beyond cursory attention, all because I just wanted more like SMRPG and never got it. Nothing really captured the charm, the appearance, the gameplay, the world. Thirteen-year-old me was stupid, because I do know all of those games are good and I'll probably play them one day, but that disappointment and resentment never really went away. I assumed Nintendo just forgot entirely about SMRPG and I'd never get it or anything like it again. Lo and behold, this year I got the best remake I could have asked for. The game is perfectly translated into modern graphics, and the game is an absolute joy to play. Best of all, they somehow ensured all of my timed hits muscle memory is still perfectly accurate, as I was able to pick up the game and carry on without missing a beat. Sure, the game is short and extremely easy, especially with the additional bonuses in battle. Sure, some of the re-translated lines don't quite have the same charm as the original, but those little flaws are more than made up with the delight I felt revisiting all these locations from my childhood. The post-game bosses are a very welcome addition, adding a bit of extra difficulty to an otherwise trivial experience. 3. Final Fantasy XI  A couple years back I played through every mainline Final Fantasy start to finish, but skipped over XI because "it's an mmo, it doesn't count". That never sat well with me, and finally this year, seeing it on sale, I decided to pick it up and take the plunge. I figured I'd gently caress around with it but it would be too old and janky to be any good these days. After all, I never played an MMO before World of Warcraft, so I assumed that old style of MMO just wouldn't hold up or be palatable to me in 2023. gently caress, was I ever wrong. FFXI is now one of the best games I've ever played, and I'm kind of glad I never played back when it was current and I was younger, because it would have devoured my every waking moment. As it is, it still devoured a couple months out of my life. Finally I understand all of the people who were disappointed that XIV wasn't at all like XI; I do enjoy the newer MMO as well, but there's something really special about eleven. Yeah, it's old and janky. Yeah, it's drat near impossible to figure out some of its systems and mechanics on your own. Yeah, it still goes through PlayOnline, and what a mess that is. Beneath the jank, however, is an incredibly engrossing world, tons of great characters, surprisingly deep (if very slow) combat, and enough content to keep a person busy for years. I didn't exhaust the content -- far from it, there's so much -- but I completed most of the base storylines, leveled my main job (Monk!) to 99 and some extras to 50-60 or so, and dabbled in a variety of the endgame activities. I spent a few hundred hours played, and I still kind of feel like I only scratched the surface of things to do. It helps that it's much more solo-friendly than it used to be with the addition of AI-controlled party members you can collect and summon, though they won't be good enough for the highest level of endgame activities. It was when they started to taper off in effectiveness that I decided to let my sub lapse, though I already know I'm going to go back sometime and dive into the endgame properly, because the world is just too compelling not to. FFXI is a game from the days where just figuring the game out was part of the appeal. Finding out how quests work, where they're from, how to do them. Seeking out secrets, exploring a colossal map, on top of mastering your chosen job and learning its role in a group. I get it now. FFXI rules, and we will never again see an MMO like it. 2. Star Ocean 2 R  PS1 JRPGs are some of my favorite games, and Star Ocean: The Second Story has long been extremely high on that list. Pity none of the other Star Ocean games are any good, and while the PSP remake had some good additional quality of life upgrades, it had an equal number of huge step backs in charm to the point that replays were always done on the original. I never expected it to get any other attention, and certainly not a full ground-up remake, but much like SMRPG, my dreams came true this year. SO2R is much more radical of a remake than SMRPG was, but all of the changes it makes are enormously for the better. For one, the world is beautifully rendered, while still somehow managing to keep that prerendered charming look. The characters are still sprites, but they look perfectly at home in their new world. The portraits got an update from the original and thankfully don't look like the mid-00s generic anime bullshit we got in the PSP. QoL changes aplenty. Fast travel! Enemies visible outside of combat! New skills to cut down on tedium! Greater challenge to encourage you to utilize the myriad systems available! SO2R knows exactly how difficult and punishing it can be, and so it points you to the variety of ways that exist to utterly break the game over your knee. New postgame challenges in a game that already kind of set an early standard for them are completely welcome. SO2R is a game that is full to the brim with stuff for you to do, secrets to discover, new characters to find. It's a game from an age of esoteric mechanics, updated in quality and presentation but not to the point of losing the sheer weirdness that drew me to the game to begin with. On the other hand, they got rid of the cool wobbly item morphing from the PS1 so it's terrible actually. 1. myhouse.wad  I've been playing Doom for nearly my entire life. It came out when I was six years old, and my dad brought home a then-state of the art laptop from his work and said "check this poo poo out," setting it in front of me with Doom open. Up until that point, I'd been playing stuff like mario and the NES TMNT game, so a first-person shooter blew my tiny mind. I was absolutely hooked from moment one, clumsily killing imps on the easiest difficulty, but it was a real awakening for me. That was what video games really were, I thought. I have continued to play Doom very nearly every single day since. It's my favorite game of all time, and the endless custom maps and mods have provided more than enough variety while the base gameplay, speed, and experience are flawless to this day. I invented challenge modes for myself, I did speedruns, I tackled the hardest content out there. This is all to make it very, very clear that I love Doom, I've played every famous WAD and thousands that you've never heard of. Honestly, I thought I'd never be really be impressed by another map; the Doom engine, even GZDoom, can only be pushed so far, after all. Even the newer games entirely spun off from the GZDoom engine, like Selaco and Supplice and all the others, are still recognizably Doom at heart (and don't get me wrong, I'm way hype for Selaco). But overall, I've seen pretty much everything you can do with Doom, and the odds of there being something truly original again were slim. Enter myhouse.wad. As a longtime lurker of the doomworld forums, I saw it extremely shortly after it was originally posted, and didn't think anything of it. After all, "myhouse" is one of the oldest templates for Doom maps. Nearly everyone who has ever tinkered with Doom editing has made one at some point. It was only a couple days later when I saw the topic lingering with new posts, and these in particular:  I figured I should check it out. Is every trick in it brand new? No. Is it the first wad to seem like one thing on the surface but then unfold? No, of course not. But it was the sheer quality dripping from every bit of doomcute, the insane levels of detail and reactivity, secrets compounding on secrets compounding on secrets, making you feel like you were SURE you'd seen everything until another person came into the thread saying "holy poo poo guys, try doing [x]" and you realized there was still so much more to see. I explored it right alongside the people in the thread, caught up in the heady haze of every new discovery. My March 9-10 were utterly devoured in scouring every inch of this map, seeing everything there was to see, reading the excited, breathless reports of what the other explorers had found. It was one of the most memorable, exciting gaming experiences of my entire life, right up there with first booting up Doom back when it released. It's a masterpiece of design, visual and mechanical. More than that, it's also an incredible love letter to decades of Doom mapping. From the base template of being a myhouse, to the evolution of Doom decorative mechanics as the map progresses, including community-made monsters ... everything about it simultaneously is classic Doom and something still so original and new. From the moment I played it, I knew it would be my game of the year. Nothing else comes close.
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Dec 6, 2023 19:02
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The Dark Souls of Posters posted:Anyone who posts their list 1-10 should be banned They are just keeping me on my toes.
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Dec 6, 2023 19:04
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If a post has 1-10 just reverse all the ratings A lot of surprise underdogs this year
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Dec 6, 2023 19:06
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anyone who complains about list layout should be stuffed in a locker until january 2nd like the loser nerds they are
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Dec 6, 2023 19:07
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I believe the GOTY 2023 thread is a place where both the ascenders and descenders can coexist peacefully.
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Dec 6, 2023 19:09
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I love how many people are voting Talos 2. It has exceeded the original in every way possible (except average puzzle difficulty and that's not a bad thing IMHO) I'm actually replaying the first on steam deck and I can say I hate how much they use the mines/sentries in it. It's so annoying and auto fails you back to the start of the whole puzzle. In talos 2, you can almost never fail and have to restart. You can almost never get completely stuck and even if you do there a restore checkpoint function
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Dec 6, 2023 19:12
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exquisite tea posted:I believe the GOTY 2023 thread is a place where both the ascenders and descenders can coexist peacefully. evidently you believe incorrectly
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Dec 6, 2023 20:20
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haveblue posted:If a post has 1-10 just reverse all the ratings I really like this idea! Obviously, if someone is listing their games that way, they mean that 1-10 is how many points they should get!
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Dec 6, 2023 20:26
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An Actual Princess posted:
This is really neat! This is why I love this thread. I'm glad you brought up SO2R as well. I've always felt kinda bad about bouncing off of the series, like I'd just started in the wrong place and never gave them a proper chance. I've sorta been waiting for someone to give one a glowing appraisal that wasn't mostly caveats. And, yeah, myhouse.wad is pretty dope.
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Dec 6, 2023 20:46
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