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SirSamVimes posted:Oh and my favourite band Poets of the Fall did three original songs (under the name Old Gods of Asgard, a fictional in-universe band) for the game and they are all sick. One of my favorite things about the Remedyverse is that Poets of the Fall also exist within it and it's not clear (to me, at least) if they are the same band there the way they are here
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Dec 29, 2023 22:37
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10. Remnant 2 It's Dark Souls with guns, but it also very much has its own take on classes and buildcrafting and ability cooldowns and tremendously interesting boss fights. While I was largely turned off by the main story, the scenery and sidequests in the places you explore are impeccable and largely make up for it. I think I've played through something like two and a half times including co-op and every single run I found some weapon or item I could use to make a new build or a new piece of worldbuilding I hadn't seen yet. Proc gen games are sometimes too compromised by the premise to interest me much but Remnant uses it sparingly. Just enough randomness to maintain interest through multiple visits to an environment while almost never making it feel like it's leading you down a dead end or wasting your time. 9. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom  Everyone complaining that this game is an extended BoTW DLC is right and I don't care, it rules. The story is better defined and more engaging, the world is three times bigger in the best possible way and there's even more Master Kohga. Every slight annoyance or roadblock that BoTW put forth is resolved in spades. Yes, you still slide down mountains when it rains, but who cares when you can rube goldberg your way up there with a rocket powered hot air balloon instead? It's astounding that they not only got all of the possible object interactions to function properly, but also that they managed to allow this much freedom without completely breaking game physics every 10 minutes. At stable framerates. On the Switch of all systems. I'm looking directly at you, Gamefreak. Don't look away. 8. Like a Dragon: Gaiden  I honestly thought this spot would go to Ishin, as this game was being sold as a bite sized prequel to LaD8. Turns out it's an extremely well paced 20 hours with an action system good enough to make you want to dive back in to gently caress around even once you're done. It's also a much more satisfying bookend to Kiryu's saga than 6 was, which I genuinely didn't expect. The new combat gadgets rule, the colosseum is better than ever, tiger drop still rules, and tossing dudes into the river in Sotenbori will never, ever get old. It may be shorter than Ishin, but it also demonstrates that there's a lot of merit to cutting out the excesses of the ps3 era of the series to focus on a tighter, better paced experience. Having said all that LaD8 is gonna be like 200 hours long and i'm gonna enjoy the hell out of that too. 7. Hi Fi Rush  Absolute banger out of absolute nowhere of the year. Just an overwhelmingly well produced, animated, fun as hell rhythm action game with charm bursting outta every seam. Dropped out of the blue from the same director as... uh, The Evil Within 2? Executive Producer Shinji Mikami? Listen I have no idea how this game came together out of a bunch of survival horror old heads but it's like, the literal polar opposite of a survival horror game in every conceivable way. It's got the trance inducing rhythm of Thumper, with the air juggle and score systems of a platinum game plus a dash of exploration and collect-a-thon and it all comes together like this is the final part of a trilogy where they've had years to iterate and perfect it. I'm sure a sequel is on the way and I bet it'll score even higher on my list when it comes out. 6. Street Fighter 6  I "only" played this for 60 hours or so because tekken will always be my true love, but capcom fuckin nailed it. World Tour is a bit primitive by general gaming standards but for fighting games it's a mind blowing revolution. I haven't had this compelling a single player experience in a fighting game since Soul Calibur 2, and the Street Fighter cast hasn't had this much personality since the animated movie came out in the 90s. It's easy to pick up, and importantly it's easy to watch and understand what's happening for a layperson. Modern controls are insanely well implemented, and open up the field to a whole new generation of people who never thought they could get into fighting games. Especially considering the tire fire that SFV was for most of its life, this is a triumph. 5. Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere  The first two Ace Combats were pretty much straight arcade ports without the wacky world building the series would become known for, and we didn't get any decent version of Electrosphere in the US until a fan translation decades later. When it showed up as an IZGC pick I moved it up the backlog and holy poo poo. I'm not sure this is my favorite Ace Combat game but it's unquestionably the most ambitious entry in the series. I didn't realize how fleshed out the gameplay already was when I played AC4, but this feels practically indistinguishable from that game mechanically except for the charmingly jiggly PS1 graphics. The real meat and potatoes is in the story, which is presented as a whole rear end, two disc anime by Production IG at the height of their powers. The story is dark and a little vague and compelling and unwraps itself over multiple playthroughs and branching paths that ultimately question your own role and agency in the story as it unfolds. It's extremely good, and if you like Ace Combat you owe it to yourself to try it. 4. Armored Core 6  You get to design a loving huge awesome robot and blow the gently caress out a bunch of other loving huge awesome robots. It loving rules. Weaving through incoming fire to blast up to some giant quad mech and shearing through several feet of steel with your pile bunker is exactly as satisfying as it looks in the trailer. Also, the story is dark and a little vague and compelling and unwraps itself over multiple playthroughs and branching paths that ultimately question your own role and agency in the story as it unfolds. Apparently I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. 2024 is gonna be the year I go play all the other Armored Cores. 3. Alan Wake 2  I'm a sucker for David Lynch ripoffs in video games, and this here's the rare vintage, high shelf poo poo. Easily the graphics showpiece of the year, and takes Best Musical Sequence in a surprisingly crowded category. While I still wish Remedy was as good at gameplay as they are at storytelling and atmosphere, the switch to survival horror fixes most of the major problems with the first game. It's certainly not the most mechanically interesting game on this list, but the sheer power of spectacle and storytelling more than make up for it. The universe Remedy created as it exists now has me completely hooked. I was a little on the fence after Control, but now I'm eagerly awaiting whatever Sam Lake and company have cooking up there in the weird north. 2. BattleBit Remastered  This game is a bizarre miracle. Three guys working in unity tried to make a milsim, failed, and then pivoted into a better Battlefield than Dice has made in a decade. The mechanical attention to detail, the almost complete destructibility of the environment, the steady improvements practically every week all show a level of care that major corporations with hundreds of devs somehow can't seem to match. The population explosion upon the early access release has led to a lot of cries of "dead game" now that the hype has died down a bit but that's loving crazy. It's not a live service game that requires the blood of thousands of souls a day to survive, it's a tiny little unity game that blew up and made millions and now has the room to iterate and evolve for years. I need a battlefield game in my life to pop in and click heads for a round or two, and even though 2 years after launch BF2042 finally somewhat resembles a functional battlefield game, it still doesn't scratch the itch for me like battlebit does. 1. Baldur's Gate 3  Nothing about this game feels like it should be possible. It feels like a trick of some sort. The choices you can make that are not just accounted for but accounted for beautifully seem infinite. The talent and direction of the voice acting are absolutely top tier all the way through. As godawful as the discourse around this game setting a seemingly impossible standard was, it was entirely warranted because it honestly does. The mechanics are solid and fun for the entire 100 hours my first playthrough took me, and they're even better in my second because larian keeps releasing meaty patches including a whole new god drat epilogue. I will be playing this for years. Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Dec 29, 2023 |
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Dec 29, 2023 22:44
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bone emulator posted:07. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty + Cyberpunk 2077 That dude is legend. Great list btw I think this might be my favorite FROM questline overall. This image was my gaming moment of 2022.
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Dec 29, 2023 22:54
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Honorable Mentions
The Top Ten 10. Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2017)  as i mentioned in the honorable mentions section for vampire survivors, this is the year i got a new laptop that could run anything with decent performance. i had seen so many youtube clips of getting over it and every single time i felt intrigued to see what all the fuss was about. couldn't be that hard, right? i've played a majority of the souls games, how hard could this stupid platformer be? turns out it's loving absolutely ridiculous to the point of being nearly (and probably definitely) bullshit at times. or most of the time! or maybe the whole game is bullshit! but i haven't felt this captivated by a game in a long time to try and prove it wrong. and it's the first game i played with a mouse in probably 20+ years, which made me feel like a kid again. i didn't finish it, but i got far enough where i feel satisfied that i gave it a fair shake. i may go back to it, but i might have a heart attack trying to pass my sticking point. i love that it's a platformer that makes me more afraid to make any move just like dark souls makes me afraid to take the next step down a new corridor in an uncharted dungeon. eventually you make a wrong move that launches you all the way back to the start and you just sit there staring at the screen in disbelief at what just happened. should you give up and call it for the night? should you keep going? and a lot of the time when you keep at it, you wind up flying past sections that you inched through on your first try. the whole idea behind the title and the gameplay mechanic of "getting over it" and starting over in times of adversity or whatever is a gimmicky but cute and i think it works. i'm excited for the upcoming ps5 game by bennet foddy which i'm sure will be ridiculous. 9. Inside (2016)  this was the first game i started and completed this year when i finalized my backlog spreadsheet to rank games based on metacritic score and time to beat from howlongtobeat.com. inside is highly rated and short enough that it wound up at the top of my list so i dove in one weekend and finished it that evening. i played limbo years ago on my phone, i think, and it was nice to see this more fleshed out experience from the same team. i love the beautiful art design and character movements. the setting is grim, dreary, and imaginative. it might not have much in the way of a deep narrative, but like other games on my list, my preferred style of game is one that doesn't hold the player's hand and just provides compelling gameplay where the story exists in the background for you to either engage with or not. glad to have finally crossed this off the list and kickstarted my journey through my immense backlog. 8. What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)  after inside, edith finch was next on the backlog, and i knew less about it going in and felt like it would be a lesser experience due to being first-person and what i figured was going to be a walking simulator. turns out it's a really innovative way to tell various overlapping stories of a family through a series of mini games. the bathtub section is like a gut punch. it's sad but beautiful and so expressive in just like 4 minutes of gameplay and achieves so much more emotionally than some 60+ hour epics do. the fish factory section had me continuously surprised as it evolved into newer styles of play while maintaining a particular theme. i've really never seen gameplay implemented like this before and it was delightful. i'll be thinking about these two sequences for many years. 7. Disco Elysium (2019)  this actually wasn't even going to be on my list until the playstation year in review thing came out and reminded me that i played a good chunk of this somewhere around Q2 of 2023. i tried playing it last year (or the year before?) and it didn't really stick. games like this are tough for me because i'm typically much more about an interesting gameplay mechanic than narrative, but i feel it in my bones that there's something here if i put in the work to extract the goodness out of it. i gave it another shot this year, and i wound up dying at the end of day two. i was flabbergasted that the game actually let me die! i was stunned. pissed. in utter disbelief. but, it stirred up something in me that very few games, if any, ever do: genuine fear. i scrambled to find a way to not lose and destroy my progress, i went into survival mode, i got through obstacles i had shied away from earlier because i needed to. unfortunately, my attempts were in vain and i was met with a game over screen. i posted angrily in the ps5 thread about it. i couldn't believe a modern game would allow this to happen and that i would have to start all over. but then it dawned on me... how many games actually make you deal with the consequences of your actions? almost none that i can actually think of. i started to feel impressed by the size of the game's balls. i usually don't like narrative games because i never feel properly immersed. but what could be more immersion-solidifying than actual consequences? maybe i'm a noob who is painfully unaware of similar games that treat the player the same way. idk if i'll have the motivation to go back and start from scratch any time soon, but i definitely know i need to give it another go at some point. also - the game over screen i got at the end of day two resulted in me getting one of the most rare trophies the game offers, apparently. i think it's neat that i tried hard to not get it, but when i looked up the trophy i saw posts on reddit and steam where people were having a hard time intentionally getting it. idk what that says about my competency but it's a neat side effect of the experience. 6. The Finals (2023)  controversial brand new entry in my list. i legit woke up like one week ago to a text from a friend of mine back on the east coast that said "yo. you know i hate fps games, but trust me, download the finals and lets play." 20+ hours later and it's dominated my time over the break from work. playing with my buddies back home and getting a local friend of mine to play has been a blast. the barrier of entry to a new game like this is super low and it doesn't feel convoluted or gatekept like call of duty or overwatch or whatever else is out there. bouncing around, zip lining, leveling buildings to the ground with an rpg and fire canisters with c4 attached to them is absolute chaos at its most fun (and frustrating in the best way) i've had with an online game in a very long time. the finals joins the ranks of competitive games i've had a blast with and didn't completely suck at like quake 3 arena, uncharted 2, killzone 2, and warhawk. 5. Diablo IV (2023)  my most played game of the year and fourth most played game on my list of games on my psn profile. this isn't a masterpiece by any stretch, but it was a really great way to pass time playing through the campaign and nightmare dungeons with some friends from back home. i loved playing as the barbarian and optimizing my character with loot and abilities that made dungeon crawling super satisfying. there's really nothing like leaping into a crowd of enemies that smashes the ground into an earthquake, taking huge swipes at a horde of those stunned enemies to inflict bleed damage, then launch them into a nearby wall with a super powerful kick that also happens to instantly recharge your leap so you can leap back into the crowd you just yeeted away from you, and chain a bunch of nasty attacks over and over to feel true berserking bliss. as soon as we all hit a certain level, my friends and i dropped off pretty hard bc the gameplay loop starts to lose it's luster, but for the time i invested i had a lot of fun. and it's hard to beat the aesthetic of bloody skeletons and demons in hell with character that exhume corpses and swing huge axes. the most metal game on my list for sure. 4. Neon White (2022)  this game was on my list last year after i dipped my toe in toward the end of the year, and i put in a good amount of hours this year as well. i still haven't finished it, and there's something about the game that prevents me from wanting to put in too much time at once. i'm really savoring the experience, and every time i jump in, i do 1-3 levels at a time where i'm finishing them, going back in to increase my score, then going back to get all the collectibles, then going back again to get an even better score. the narrative and characters are all absolutely bonkers weirdo poo poo, but it somehow works and isn't overbearing. it's all completely ignorable/avoidable, but it has a tongue in cheek charm that helps compliment the fast paced gameplay. i really enjoy precision platformers, and celeste is one of the best i've ever played. this game makes you feel truly godlike in your ability to get through levels at breakneck speeds. there are some other goons in the ps5 thread who shatter my records, but i still hold my own and it feels amazing when you're in a flow state of knowing you're going to break your previous record because you have the mechanics and level layout down in your head. 3. Lies of P (2023)  played the demo of this, and it felt pretty good to play. i enjoyed how different enough it felt as opposed to being a 1:1 souls clone, but i was also nervous that the parry mechanic would be too high of a barrier to entry for me. so after the demo, i just kinda forgot about it and didn't think about it after that. then, the positive reviews and sentiment started pouring in both here and on youtube. the real motivator, embarrassingly enough, was seeing one of my favorite youtubers putting out a video praising it for being a masterpiece. about 5 min into the video, he mentioned to not watch any more bc of spoilers and to just play the game bc it's "that good" and then come back to watch. so i did just that. breezed through the entire thing in just under two weeks, which is lightning fast for me. my experience with souls game helped make me feel right at home with a lot of the mechanics, and the stuff that was new wasn't too hard to figure out. and i wound up mostly ignoring the blade/handle mechanics anyway. that's to the game's credit that it allows for multiple ways to engage with the combat while not needing you to engage with all of it. i might have had an easier time with some bosses if i used more items/mechanics, but it was also nice to challenge myself to play the game mostly "raw." like any good souls game, some of the boss fights felt like absolute horse poo poo nonsense, but with enough perseverance and memorization, i was able to perfect block some insanely timed attacks and get through to the end. it didn't end too soon, and it also didn't overstay its welcome. there was enough variety to its story, characters, environment and mechanics to not feel like a total ripoff, but it retains enough of the souls formula to feel like it could have been made by fromsoft. eagerly anticipating the sequel (and/or dlc), and this time it'll be a day 1 for me for sure. 2. Cocoon (2023)  serendipitous that i wound up starting my year with inside since the same devs wound up forming their own studio (or one of the guys? idk) to make cocoon as their debut game. the night it came out i purchased it right away and just sat there playing it wordlessly until it was over and i had the platinum trophy. it only took a few hours, but it was pure enjoyment the entire time. the puzzles aren't so difficult that you need to stop and scratch your head for too long, but they're not so simple that you breeze through it feeling like there's not enough challenge. i love love a game that introduces its gameplay to the player without text boxes or little helper fairies floating in your face telling you what to do next or whatever. that poo poo kills me. this game has a single button and tells you basically nothing the entire time. you just play and figure it out and it's all the better for it. there are little musical cues when you solve a puzzle hinting that you've progressed, but other than that there's no "hey you've been stuck here for a bit do you need help?" or anything like that. just use your brain and figure it out and have a good time. the art direction is beautiful, the soundtrack is fantastic, the gameplay mechanic is interesting and forces you to think in ways not many puzzle games that i've played force you to. eagerly awaiting whatever comes next for this dev team. whether it's an add on or a sequel or something else entirely, i'm all in. 1. Unpacking (2021)  who woulda thought that such a simple game about taking poo poo out of boxes and putting them on shelves and walls would be so unbelievably captivating to me? unpacking is maybe close to a perfect game for me. like cocoon and inside, it doesn't tell you anything. just a game screen and a cursor. occasionally the game will throw you a hint on the cursor that you can rotate objects, and once a level is over it hints that some things shouldn't go in certain places/rooms, but that's it. there's an option in the settings to disable that mechanic, but i think that's the only real flaw of the game because that aspect adds so much to the unspoken narrative the game has to offer. i do understand, though, that some people might want to play on ultra chill relax mode and put whatever they want wherever they want, and the flexibility for that is nice. not only did i play this all the way through, i got two of my friends to buy and play through it and i sat and watched with them as they did either entirely or partially. then i went on twitch and youtube to watch other people play. how fascinating it is to watch someone else click on a box to see what the next item is and sit there wondering (almost always out loud) where to put it, or what it might be. and then watch their brain gears turning to see how they would either fold a shirt or hang it or throw it on the floor first to unpack the rest of a box, etc. a common theme when watching people play was hearing them say something like "why is toilet paper in the box in the bedroom with the shirts and pants? who would pack like that?" and it's hilarious because it never failed to illicit that reaction, but it was so satisfying to know that it was the developer "telling" the player that, in later levels, there's more than just one room without actually telling them. you play through a few levels with a single room, then, you unpack a roll of toilet paper and discover that there are more rooms to cycle through. you could have done that from the beginning if you were perceptive, but even if you weren't, the game gives you a reason to start looking around at more stuff. call me simple-minded or easily impressed, but that's the good stuff right there. without getting too negative, there are a bunch of triple-A games that constantly beat you over the god drat head with dialogue boxes and pop-ups and poo poo that hold your hand through mechanics. granted, some FPS big action games have mechanics that are much more deep than putting asswipe paper in the toilet room, but still! also there's a mode where you can replay a timelapse video of you going through a level and it's just bliss. also hilarious to watch as you picked up and put down the same mug in like ten different places in succession because you were unsure where to put it, or you put it somewhere then needed to move it to make room for something else. what a brilliant little addition that the devs absolutely didn't need to put in the game but it makes it so much more fun that it's there. the amount of thoughtfulness that went into this game overall is so enchanting. i love this game so much. basically everything about it, the way it reveals its mechanics, the way it tells a story without saying a word, the way different people will interact with it in different and unique ways, and how watching other people with different life experience will look at common objects and have different reactions to them, it's all just a joy and such a cool understated experience. ----- i'm terribly sorry to anyone who actually reads the above. it's total thought vomit and probably incoherent as hell. but yeah.. GAMES!
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Dec 29, 2023 23:34
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ShoogaSlim posted:i'm terribly sorry to anyone who actually reads the above. it's total thought vomit and probably incoherent as hell. but yeah.. GAMES! No need to apologize, I and others love reading all of these.  This thread is making me want to pick back up Fire Emblem Engage.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:04
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ShoogaSlim posted:this was the year of me crossing as many of the smaller indie titles off my list as possible, Hell yeah, this is my kind of list.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:16
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Tempura Wizard posted:2023 – The Year of the (Arcade) Rat Here's an unusual question. What's the best strategy to improve my score at Dr. Mario as a casual player? I genuinely have no idea how to bridge from single elimination into combos.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:37
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Tempura Wizard posted:No need to apologize, I and others love reading all of these. 🙇♂️ ColdPie posted:Hell yeah, this is my kind of list. it was really fun getting through some of these really great little games that have been sitting in my backlog for way too long i still have plenty more to get through. i just started chants of sennaar and i already know it's gonna be a really lovely experience. still need to take another crack at jusant, as well.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:41
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Ugh I'm almost done I swear, I just have not been mentally in one place at all this month
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Dec 30, 2023 00:41
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It’s already been said over and over that 2023 was a ridiculously good year for video games, and with good reason: it was a ridiculously good year for video games! Not only were there a huge amount of high-quality releases, but the breadth and variety of these was wildly impressive - you want horror? Adventure? Indie vibes? Large open worlds? High-octane action? RPGs from Japan? Platforming? Puzzles? Exploration? Strategy? Musical levels? Attaching several adorable forest monsters to each other and torturing them by hanging them off the back of your horse? No matter what kind of gamer you are, 2023 had at least two or three things that could easily be considered top-tier within your wheelhouse. Not only did I have an amazing time with so many great games from this year, but I also played some all-time classics from previous years, completing more games in a year than ever before and having a fantastic time with so many of them (I also put over 100 hours into a Steam Deck replay of Elden Ring, lmao). Compared to my previous year’s lists, anything in my top 20 could have been in a top 10, anything in my top 10 could have been in a top 3, and the top 5? Stone cold classics, every single one. It’s just been one of those years that makes your heart soar for the future of the medium as a whole, even while so many studios were being hit by crushing layoffs or shuttering altogether and some well-known developers made some impressively poor decisions (RIP Factions 2, bite me Neil Druckmann). The games industry will continue to survive and thrive, and passionate, talented creators will continue to make amazing games. Here are the 31 games I completed this year, all of which were at least somewhat worthwhile: The ones which I didn’t love but that still had redeemable qualities: 31. Lifeline (2015) Stranded astronaut texts you in real time about the antics she’s getting into. Had some effective moments but not super memorable. 30. Dorfromantik (2022) Put tiles down to make towns and woodland and stuff! This is very good and relaxing, just not my type of thing. Probably deserves to be higher but nm! 29. Ghostwire: Tokyo (2022) Suffers from a lot of map game issues, especially too many collectibles, poor writing, and mediocre side activities. Didn’t love the combat either. But the map is great and flying around Tokyo sucking up spirit dudes was really enjoyable for me! 28. Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk… (2020) A powerful depiction of anxiety and the struggles it causes in everyday life, but I kinda forgot about it and forgot to play the second one. I’m sorry Stux!!! 27. Viewfinder (2023) Once you get over one of the most annoying narrators of all time, this is a very clever and unique puzzle game. I do wish the storytelling had been more affecting, though. 26. NORCO (2022) Kentucky Route Zero is one of my top five games of all time, so I should have adored this, but it didn’t totally hit. While it has some great art and thematic work, I didn’t really get into the characters and found it overwritten - at least in KRZ most of it is optional. 25. Final Fantasy XVI (2023) The hottest take on this list? The titan battles are very good. Ben Starr and Ralph Ineson are very good. I found most of the rest extremely tepid, and the things I enjoyed at first - like the combat and the gradual FFisation of an initially GoT-esque plot - eventually went on for so long that I got tired of it all. Give all games Active Time Lore! 24. Grapple Dog (2022) Saw this high up on someone else’s list last year and was very intrigued. Essentially the best 2004 GBA platformer never made, it has a great retro aesthetic and central mechanic. I didn’t find it super funny and it eventually got a little repetitive, but I enjoyed my time with it. 23. No Longer Home (2021) An evocative depiction of some students’ final months at university, presented in an isometric point-and-click style. Some powerful imagery and great writing, but didn’t stick around in my mind for too long afterwards. 22. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (2022) I got this back when it came out and played a bit, but didn’t properly tumble down the rabbit hole. Now I have and it’s nuts how much they added and how funny and meta it gets. A hell of a lot of fun. 21. Final Fantasy IV (1991) I played some old RPGs from Japan this year, what the gently caress is up! This is a real good game but more dated than the others I played - as the game that introduced the ATB system it is still pretty rough around the edges, while the story feels like it’s in super fast motion with how swiftly it gets through stuff. The ones that were very good: 20. Jusant (2023) “It’s Death Stranding but for climbing!!!” - People. “Yeah that’s pretty accurate!!!!” - Me. Great central mechanics, excellent environmental storytelling and it manages to stay interesting throughout. Not sure why it has so many crappy text logs when the scenery already tells the story well enough though 19. Unpacking (2021) What if Habbo Hotel made your heart hurt? A game about putting things in areas that manages to tell a heartfelt and resonant story about the stages of someone’s early adulthood. Genuinely remarkable how powerful that one moment where you can’t fit a certain thing anywhere is. 18. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores (2023) Aloy kisses a lady!!! While this DLC still suffers from the issues I had with the main game - more frustrating combat, a little more jank - it also has an excellent and gorgeous new area, an effectively douchey new villain, and a cool new companion for Aloy to potentially do a kiss on if you want. 17. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023) Cal Kestis is just an inherently funny name, right? Imagine being worried that Cal Kestis is going to become a baddie. Bad name aside, this is a massive step up from the first game, with excellent intricate maps and a lot of fun mechanics, as well as a neat hub area with a bunch of bloody loonies like “literally Raz from Psychonauts” and “a tiny Scottish alien who’s obsessed with fish”. Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this entry after drinking but whatever! It’s a good game! The fish thing is so loving Scottish! 16. Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands (2023) Wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only person who puts this on their list, so may I recommend people please check it out!! It’s a heavily 90s-inspired turn-based RPG by the creator of a webcomic that sometimes goes viral, but with a musical twist on the classic ATB system where each side has a four-bar section at the bottom of the screen that can have various positive and negative effects added to it, which makes for a really intriguing spin on the typical turn-based style. Add to that a lot of gorgeous art, hilarious comedy, and interesting characters, and you got a prime candidate for most underrated game of the year! “Play it today!” - Me. 15. Cocoon (2023) As soon as I learned this game was from the lead designer of Limbo and Inside I got right on that poo poo, and best believe I wasn’t disappointed. The puzzle design is simply ingenious, frequently making me laugh with glee when I figured something out, while it also had an intriguing enigmatic aesthetic and some surprisingly satisfying boss battles. One of the big Game Pass winners of the year. 14. A Hat In Time (2017) I didn’t play this for a very long time because it has JonTron in it! Ok, that’s not totally true, but it was a good excuse to avoid adding another thing to my backlog. Finally played it once it hit PS Plus, and it really lived up to the hype - a superb 3D platformer with great mechanics and vibrant worlds, mixed with some funny and interesting mission design. Shame JonTron is still in it, though. 13. Final Fantasy VI (1994) Not hard to see why so many consider this the peak of the series to date - it has a plethora of excellent characters with great arcs, some really fantastic set-pieces, and is super well-paced and structured. Plus, because the Pixel Remaster console improvements had come out in between me playing IV and this one, I had a much less frustrating time with it. Kefka was such an amazing villain lmao, what a goof. After seeing the original illustrations I’d really like to see a remake in that style - them shits is gorgeous! and ok fine after reading fridge’s entry I will play V next year 12. Spider-Man 2 (2023) I understand why people can get frustrated with the state of AAA storytelling these days, especially the penchant for very safe and typical plots. Thankfully, this game is fun and exciting enough to make up for any of that! I didn’t love the combat in the first game, but the changes to controls made a huge difference with keeping it fluid and enjoyable (no more constantly going into radial menus!), and the traversal remained, well, literally the most fun movement any open-world game has ever had! Plus some shockingly beautiful graphics that set a new benchmark for fidelity. Now I have all the Insomniac employee’s home addresses I can go and thank them in person for this great game!!!!…….sorry 11. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023) Not surprising anyone by saying that the 2D Mario games had been stagnating for a long time, but this was a wonderful upheaval that brought the joy and fun back to the Mario family’s side-scrolling adventures. The graphics and animations are so full of life and energy, while the level design is as great as ever and the new powers and Wonder Flowers were fantastic additions. Only a few reasons this didn’t make my top 10: partly it’s that 2D Marios aren’t really my bag (I played as Yoshi for a lot of this), but it’s also because I wanted the game I put at #10 to get more attention. So without further ado may I please present…… THE TOP TEN: 10. Tchia (2023)  This game was not on my radar at all until it released and I realised it was a day one PS Plus thing, so I grabbed it with no real expectations besides, hey, free game! What I discovered was a charming and delightful experience that is easily my favourite hidden gem of the year. A breezy action-adventure game with a setting inspired by the Pacific nation of New Caledonia, Tchia is a joy to explore, with several funny (and sometimes surprisingly dark!) moments and fantastic traversal, not just because of the BotW-style glider but the game’s “spirit jump” ability, which allows Tchia to possess the body of any animal and several inanimate objects in the game world. You can fly through the skies as a bird, bound around as a deer, or hurl your burning log self through the air at paper enemies to gently caress them up. This was clearly a true labour of love for the devs, and their passion shows through in the beautifully-realised world and super fun mechanics, as well as a variety of customisation options and some cute musical sequences. 09. Metroid Prime Remastered (2023)  I had never played a Metroid Prime game before this year, and I decided this would be the year I finally tried it out. So I installed PrimeHack on the Deck, did a whole bunch of fuckery to get the controls working….and then Nintendo surprise dropped a gorgeous remaster of the first game with fixed controls for a good price so I played that instead. Simply put, it lived up to every expectation. It’s such a good adaptation of the genre-defining Metroidvania formula to a 3D space, while the aesthetic and music and general vibes are so great. Certainly some parts are dated - having to switch beam types to open doors after the first time is tiresome - but the overall feel of getting new powers, discovering new areas, and learning more about the dastardly schemes happening on Tallon IV remained an absolute blast throughout. Plus it was the game that finally encouraged me to buy a grip for when I’m playing my Switch handheld, which was an excellent decision! 08. Alan Wake II (2023)  Nothing speaks more to the quality of this year than this only being in eighth place. Remedy are some of the most interesting and idiosyncratic developers out there, and while I never played the first Alan Wake, I knew after Control that I was going to be interested in any of their future output. But even that fantastic and bizarre game could not prepare me for what Sam Lake and co accomplished here. Arguably Alan Wake II is not just a game but a full-on interactive multimedia experience, with several live-action sequences and a whole-rear end short film at one point, and the storytelling is just superlative throughout. The wonderfully creepy, heavily meta, extremely funny dual storylines of Saga and Alan represented a new high for Remedy’s output, with so many audacious set-pieces and hilariously annoying jump scares (at one point Saga and I said “oh, come on!” at the exact same time) and incredible pieces of music. While I ranked it a little lower because some of the core gameplay wasn’t much fun for me - I’m not much of a survival horror fan anyway, tbh - I absolutely think this is one of the biggest artistic achievements of 2023 in any medium, and I was overjoyed that it won as many Game Awards as it did. 07. Armoured Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023)  I am one of the many who got into FromSoft games through their last decade of output, and so I did approach this with some trepidation. I’ve never really been into the mech genre, and a lot of what I heard about the franchise didn’t fill me with much confidence, but From have become one of those devs who I’ll buy anything by now, and plus, the trailers made it look cool as hell. So I bought it day one and……well, you’ve seen all the lists it’s made it onto so far. Game fuckin rules. Where to even begin with this one? The combat is fast, fluid, and intense, with the Sekiro team taking everything that works about that game’s battles and translating it perfectly to big-rear end robots. The customisation is a robot nerd’s wet dream, both with regards to the gob-smacking amount of aesthetic options and the fantastic variety in the weapons and parts meaning spending time building your perfect AC is a blast. The missions are extremely well-designed (outside of a few irritating exceptions), mixing destruction, exploration, and spectacle very nicely. And finally - perhaps most surprisingly - the storytelling is just superb, with so many well-realised characters we grow to love (and love to hate) despite literally never seeing their faces, and some really intriguing shifting dynamics over the course of getting all three endings. From really did an amazing job of bringing over all the skills they’ve learned from developing the best action games ever to an older franchise of theirs, and it’s paid off in spades. Plus, it really is cool as hell. 06. Citizen Sleeper (2022)  Before I played this I didn’t know much about it besides it being a narrative-based game that was sci-fi and had some kind of dice-rolling mechanic, but it made it onto enough best of 2022 lists that I was very interested, so when it hit Game Pass I played it immediately. Slowly I got absorbed in the goings-on happening aboard the Eye, and fell in love with the cast of characters struggling along with me. It’s hard to talk about this one without spoilers, which I am not going to reveal, but as I went on I made so many decisions involving helping others over myself, which made me very emotional, and then the final decision I made had me in absolute floods of tears. Like, I think the most I’ve ever cried at a video game, and aside from maybe the movie Past Lives, the most I cried at any piece of media in 2023. The initial concept - you’re a robot who has escaped indentured servitude and is hiding out on a space station, taking on odd jobs to get by and not break down quite so quickly, while only being able to do a few things a day, all of which have a chance of failure and you wasting that time - is very strong and a great metaphor for the gig economy, but it’s really those connections you form with fellow blue-collar workers, scavengers, loving fathers, botanists, bounty hunters, and many more that lead to this being so high up on my list. That it manages to stir so many emotions with such a minimal UI just makes it even more impressive. 05. Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)  I’m not really into this style of game. I don’t care too much about D&D, or fantasy settings, or turn-based combat. I had no previous experience with the franchise, or with Larian’s previous games. Basically what I’m saying is that I would never have picked this up if not for all the ridiculous, absurd, absolutely hyperbolic acclaim from every corner of the dang internet. But here’s something you all already know…..it deserves it. Every bit of it! Baldur’s Gate 3 is an absolutely stunning achievement that is easily the pinnacle of its genre and will be delighting RPG fans for years to come. The core of this game is, of course, the companions, who are some of the most well-written and loveable characters in any game, and have moving, poignant, and powerful arcs. From Borat voice my wife Shadowheart’s struggle with her beliefs, to Astarion’s reckoning with his past, to Lae’zel’s…..well, also struggle with her beliefs but in a different way, to Literally Everything Karlach Does Or Says Ever, they’re all so memorable and phenomenally fleshed-out, so much fun to have in your camp. But wait, hang on, actually maybe the core of this game is how well it lets you be exactly the kind of character you want to me, with amazing customisation and a host of fantastic dialogue options (especially if you play as a Bard with Speak to Animals, iykyk) that let you really be your character and have them feel as real as any of the NPCs that surround you. But wait! Because maybe the core of this game is the vibrant, sprawling world, with so many interesting locations and factions. Or maybe it’s the main storyline, which has strong stakes and a bunch of intriguing twists and turns. Or maybe it’s the combat, which allows you to tackle encounters in so many different ways, with almost any crazy idea you could have for using your powers working out. Whatever the case may be, the truth is that the real magic of this game is how all these things work alongside each other to create maybe the most satisfying role-playing experience the medium of video games has ever seen. And yet I still put four games ahead of it! What a year, seriously. 04. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (2023)  Quick note that I’m including the 2.0 update as part of this ranking. Honestly, I loved this game even when it was a broken mess. I got a PS5 on launch more because I knew this wouldn’t play well on a PS4 than for any of the actual PS5 games, and I loved it, even though it crashed Over One Hundred Times, and UI elements would be stuck on my screen for hours, and there was basically no enemy AI, and it removed my hair every time I looked in the mirror. I was happy to hear that the many patches they released had led to performance improvements, and when they announced that the Phantom Liberty DLC - exciting enough in itself - was not all they had in store, but that a free update to version 2.0 would revamp many features, I knew a full replay was imminent. So I put around 125 hours into this game again over just under a month in September and October, I took and uploaded over 150 screenshots (only picking one for the image above was a loving nightmare), and I explored every inch of Night City - and the new DLC area, Dogtown - all over again. Simply put, I’m just so so happy the work was put in to help this amazing game reach its full potential. First of all, Night City is, to me, just about the most well-realised open world in any game. This time around I walked almost everywhere, simply because I loved taking in the world, especially the aesthetic and architecture. Each area having its own unique look while still being a unified whole is so impressive, and no other open world makes me just want to exist in it, without any particular objective, as much as this one. The story remains absolutely excellent and imo even better than Witcher 3’s, with so many realistically human characters who I feel true affection for, especially mother fuckin Keanu, with the relationship between him and V being one of the most well-written in any game, The gunplay is visceral and weighty and extremely fun - not exactly DOOM or anything, but super satisfying. I also chose to go the hacking route this time around, and while it is a bit surface-level, it’s still a lot of fun to completely wreck enemies’ poo poo in about two seconds with a couple quickhacks to the dome. Basically I just love playing this game, I love exploring in this game, I love interacting with the characters in this game, I love driving and shooting and all the other things you do in this game, I love it I love it I love it!! And that’s before we even get to the 2.0 upgrades and DLC. The revamps to things like the skill tree are so welcome, actually making it feel like you’re building a character and the upgrades you pick matter, and I also love the more recent additions like the dates and transit system (given what I said before, you best believe I booted this game up and rode the subway for multiple hours in the background while doing other stuff when it released). And Phantom Liberty joins the ranks of Witcher Blood and Wine and Bloodborne The Old Hunters as one of the best packs of DLC ever released, from the enticing spy thriller story (and suitably moody/excellent music), to the dense new location that adds a more chaotic element to the city, to the amazingly well-realised new characters and heart-rending potential endings, it’s an incredible addition to an unbelievably great game that is finally, finally getting the acclaim it deserves. Death to the corporats who pushed this out the door too soon! Hooray for the devs who put the years in to fix it! 03. Chrono Trigger (1995)  It’s not really a secret if you know me on these forums - or hell, if you’ve seen the placements of the older FF games in this list - that RPGs from Japan, especially turn-based ones, are not really my bag. I’m not a fan of doing combat via selecting things in a menu, and the things that the genre tends to focus on with regards to storytelling are not exactly the things I value in a good story. But gently caress, sometimes a game just nails everything it’s doing so well and has such a perfect alchemy that it cannot help but bypass these issues and burrow its way directly into my heart. Last year, it was Dragon Quest XI, but this year it was something older and even better, a bonafide classic that in my opinion outshines its peers in so many ways that it leaves even something as beloved as FFVI in the dust. Ladies and gentlemen and other assorted humans, it’s mother fuckin Chrono Trigger!!!!!!!!! What’s good!!!!!!! Above all I think this has just the greatest set of characters I’ve ever seen in a JRPG, and I love them all unconditionally. Lucca is a loveable genius! Ayla is hilarious! Marle is a badass with an amazing jumping animation! Robo (or Robbo, if you’re veeg) is wonderful! Frog is a frog, but also has a heart-rending arc! All these characters are a joy to interact with, especially when there’s no weird pervy poo poo like certain kings in certain other games I played this year hitting on an eight year old. The central concept of time travel means the game is able to visit so many different eras all with their own gorgeous visual identities, and the story is absorbing and fun, especially when you get to wrap up all the character arcs at the end. The combat is very fun, too - the multi-character techs are an excellent addition, and it’s basically the exact level of difficulty I prefer in this kind of game, not boring but not too frustrating. And the music, the music!!!!! Even in a genre well-known for world-class scores, this might be the best I’ve ever heard, with so so many fantastic pieces that elevate the rest of the game to amazing new heights. It’s almost bizarre to me how much more I love this game than any other RPG from Japan I can think of. It just accomplishes so much while being so beautiful to look at and listen to and being so well-paced and nailing everything it’s going for, and deserves its reputation as a classic as much as any other game I’ve played. Just a superb, affecting, sumptuous, hilarious, fun video game. 02. Disco Elysium (2019)  There was a recent discussion in the PS5 thread about how people can be extremely annoying when they talk about this game, heaping hyperbolic praise on it in a way that comes across as irritating to some. Well, bad news, mother fuckers, because I’m about to do the same thing!!!!! I finally, finally played this game this year, after trying to start it twice before but always stopping due to it just being generally a bad time for it or something like that (one time I got all the way to the third day and then got overwhelmed by the new area), and good lord was it just everything I wanted, needed, and hoped for. This is very possibly the most well-written game ever made, the most emotionally resonant game ever made, the funniest game ever made, and one of the best mixtures of the heartfelt and strongly political in any piece of media I’ve ever consumed. I’m doing it, aren’t I? Well, get over it! This game is genuinely that good. Disco Elysium is set in a world that creator Robert Kurvitz and his team had been developing for almost twenty years beforehand, fleshed out via tabletop campaigns and containing thousands of years of history, and despite only being set in one district of one city of one country in the world, the weight of all that history is behind every line, building, and character, and so much of it plays into the story in extremely important ways - it’s easily one of the best settings I’ve ever seen in a game. The story itself - a murder mystery being investigated by you, a bender-induced amnesiac detective - is incredibly satisfying and captivating, and all the plethora of characters you meet throughout the course of the investigation, many of whom have their own angles and secrets, are among the most well-drawn characters in the history of the medium. But the best character - yes, even better than Cuno or Kim - is you, and the sheer amount of options available to you to ensure you can make your detective whoever you want - a psychic drug-addled lunatic? A fascist lunatic? An actual good detective, but still a lunatic, and probably a communist? - is almost mind-boggling. The oil painting-inspired art style is absolutely beautiful, and the score is extremely evocative. And the humour…..I mean jfc, this game is so funny in so many ways it can make your head spin, both in the dialogue and the sheer amount of ridiculous poo poo you can get your character to do. It provokes belly laughs on a level almost unparalleled. That paragraph there only scratches the surface of the level of love I have for this game. Once I was done, I was so desperate for more, I devoured the wiki and read the fan-translated version of Kurvitz’s 2013 novel Sacred and Terrible Air, the only other piece of media set in the world of Elysium to date (it’s really good btw!), and it depresses me to no end that the current bullshit with ZA/UM means the creator of the world no longer holds the rights to it and we may never see a “true” continuation or expansion of the universe. But no matter what we will always have this remarkable masterpiece, a work of art that transcends medium and genre to become one of the best stories I’ve ever consumed, and one I know I will be replaying for many years to come, trying out different character types to see what other options are available to me. And in the meantime, maybe it’ll come across as annoying to some, but they will simply have to deal. Hell, writing all this almost made me put it in my first place, but ultimately there was one game that’s just undeniable…… 01. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)  When it comes down to it, video games are things you play. That sounds incredibly obvious and stupid when you just say it like that, but it’s true! This interactivity is what defines the medium - even with visual novels you’re pressing a button to get to the next bit - and for me the best games will always be the ones that best emphasise that spirit of play, of doing something for pure enjoyment, unadulterated fun that leaves you feeling like you’re a child again, almost refreshed in a way. No game has ever, ever, ever brought out that feeling in me more than Tears of the Kingdom did. And that it didn’t just do once, but pretty much constantly, causing me to cackle with glee, smile, and feel like my playtime was being rewarded for almost every single second of the hours I put into this. Trust me, when I say hours I mean hours - when it leaked I put something like 80 hours into it on my laptop and 65 hours on my Deck, before it then released properly and I played another 170+ hours on my Switch. Naturally, this involved doing a loving ton of the game multiple times, but I had absolutely no problem with this, because it remained just as joyous an experience every single time. Breath of the Wild was already a phenomenal, GOAT-level game, but TotK took everything good about it and amplified it while improving on the things I was less enthused about. You thought the tools in BotW were fun and allowed for killer experimentation? Here is perhaps the greatest set of abilities ever collected in a video game, allowing you to exit caves with ease, send projectiles flying back in enemies’ faces, attach a mushroom to the end of a big stick, and most importantly create any manner of ridiculous contraptions via Ultrahand, an absolute miracle of coding that propels the already best-in-show physics engine to amazing new heights. No matter what you want to make there will likely be a way to get it to work, and if not it’ll probably be hilarious when it fails. Meanwhile, this version of Hyrule has been greatly expanded with the addition of the sky islands and depths, creating such amazing verticality and adding so much variety - the sky islands are a blast, while navigating the depths was frequently such an unnerving and tense experience (I’m very grateful I got all the lightroots before learning about the easy glider, as that would have cheapened the experience too much). But also the regular overworld is different enough to remain exciting, with the changes from the previous game being legitimately fascinating and an expanded focus on character stories that helps Hyrule feel like a living breathing world in a way the previous game didn’t manage. Plus the main story, while a little too similar to BotW structurally, is overall much improved, with some genuinely excellent reveals and exciting moments - and where BotW faltered in its climax, this one absolutely loving nails it, I mean jesus, it got me so hype. There really was no competition for the top spot this year. It’s unbelievable just how much joy this game gave me, how much fun it packs into every single moment, how much it encourages experimentation and play within an existing world in a way very very few other games ever have. Nintendo - who are famously extremely rigid in many ways - really made a game where the primary focus is seeing how you can break it over your knee, and in the process created maybe the most fun game of all time. A common reason I see for people not enjoying this as much as they wanted is because they’re not into building/crafting in games, and it really baffles me, because I am usually like that but this game just makes it so fun and easy it overcame every issue I had with it. I can’t think of any other game that has made me this consistently happy over such an extended period of time. In a banner year for gaming, this still managed to easily beat out every possible competitor and become, hell, very likely my new favourite video game of all time. Just when I thought From were beginning to overtake Nintendo in my “makes the best games in the world” rankings, Nintendo went and moved the goalposts. Wow. Thank you for reading. This is always such an amazing thread, and I love reading your lists and being able to contribute myself. I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for us! Easier top 10 for rankings: 10. Tchia 09. Metroid Prime Remastered 08. Alan Wake II 07. Armoured Core VI: Fires of Rubicon 06. Citizen Sleeper 05. Baldur’s Gate 3 04. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 03. Chrono Trigger 02. Disco Elysium 01. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
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Dec 30, 2023 00:45
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DalaranJ posted:Here's an unusual question. What's the best strategy to improve my score at Dr. Mario as a casual player? I genuinely have no idea how to bridge from single elimination into combos. Combos are the best way to improve score, as scoring for eliminations increase exponentially with each successive chain in the combo. My best advice is: don’t be afraid to stack up a lot of vitamins, so long as it’s not putting you in danger of topping out. Higher order combos (four or five) are gonna look really janky. The easiest way to combo is to look for viruses further down the board where you can make a little shelf higher up, and then stack what you need to clear the stuff down below on that shelf. Then clear half the vitamin that makes up the shelf (ideally clearing a virus in the process), sending the pile on the overhang down to clear the viruses below. Even better if you can build a similar shelf on the area below and chain these two shelves together for even more clears. In the higher levels and at high speed you’ll need to thin the board out with singles in order to safely do this, keep an eye for keeping some viruses alive further up in order to make your shelves. I probably didn’t explain this well, let me know and I can take some screen caps later.
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Dec 30, 2023 01:17
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I always feel like I didn't play that many games this year and I buy so much stuff in the holidays and end up not playing most of that stuff either. RIP to last year's goty darling: triangle strategy. I need to dedicate more time to it! Biggest surprise I played in 2023:  Final Fantasy XV I said gently caress it and went back to this game on PS5 with all the added extras and DLC and fixes. The game, is a huge mess and there is so much unrealized potential hidden in its world, characters, pacing, and story and I kinda hated playing this for most of it! There is something just so sad about how rushed this game was to get out the door and the lack of storytelling just completely hurts it. BUT, something happened as I kept playing and I genuinely ended up loving the world and these characters. I just loved the roadtrip vibes and once I got to the end, that original ending killed me. It was just so well done and the game at that point had completely won me over, literally teared up. Just wow. Goddamn. I was happy I was able to finish this game and put it off my backlog. This game had a lot to say and also a ton of heart. We'll never get FF Versus 13 and we'll never have a real actual complete version of the story in FFXV either, which sucks! But it is what it is, we have to move on from this cursed game. Best 2022 games I played in 2023:  God Of War: Ragnarok This was just a loving blast. I got it for Christmas last year and spent the early parts of this year after beating FF15 playing it. I mean its just sick man, and people that hated on it for being too story driven are wild to me. There is SO much stuff to do in this game and they made it all even better. Sidequesting is fun, the main quest is fun, the characters and the story are great. GAME OF THE YEAR 2023  10. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon This is a sick game. The only reason why its so low is because I didn't play as much and haven't beaten it yet and I know if I do beat it, it probably shoots up to literal #1 game of the year. From Software are the kings of the industry in my eyes and they can no longer do any wrong. This was my first Armored Core game and it was just phenomenal. An incredible sense of scale coupled with fast and frenetic gameplay and of course the signature From Software difficulty and gate keeping bosses. No one is doing it like them.  9. Battlebit Remastered This legit came out of nowhere. After getting over the graphics, I picked this game up and had such a blast playing with friends and its wild how much this game just shattered not just my expectations, but what a small team of dedicated devs can even do. They just completely owned EA at their own game and its a roblox/minecraft rear end looking game. The shooting mechanics here are as solid if not BETTER than most AAA games in this space. Its got everything, great mechanics, great controls, responsive shootings, destructible environments, and more. Eat your heart out EA and DICE, yall got some real competition.  8. Super Mario RPG Remake This is just comfort gaming at its finest. Everything is so snappy and fast and fun. I actually never really liked the original art style from the SNES game and thought it was mostly barebones. The new fresh coat of paint just makes this so much more inviting. One of the most simple RPGs, but you don't need much more a great game. Fantastic music, fantastic graphics, updated turn based combat and so many other small quality of life stuff makes this a must have if you are a Switch owner and love RPGs. Makes me feel like a kid again.  7. Spiderman 2 I didn't think this was going to be good at all. The first spiderman game was basically a fun checklist ubisoft style game with a pretty good story, but nothing too crazy. Things change once they put out Miles Morales and now with this, they went the extra mile. Somehow this game doesn't feel like a checklist anymore and actually makes grabbing all the side stuff FUN. The story in this game puts every single MCU movie to shame as well (obviously not counting the fantastic Spiderverse movies). Insomniac cracked the code. They are the masters of not only this open world genre, but also comic book storytelling. And the web slinging is just as good if not better than ever thanks to the wingsuit. Just so much fun doing random stuff in this game.  6. Final Fantasy XVI New Final Fantasy means a new generation of consoles and means a fresh new start. After what seems like the series had undergone some of the darkest times it ever went through, Square Enix really turned it around. Fixing up FF14 made a huge boost for the company but then that team goes and makes this incredible action RPG. Controversial for sure, but I genuinely loved playing this and I loved the spectacle of it all. Its an action RPG in the vein of the new God Of War games and while I have some gripes like with certain characters and also just some performance issues, this was just a sick rear end game man. FF16 joins FF7 remake and FF14 as heralding a new era for the franchise and with it a new look and feel. Its awesome that we can have so much Final Fantasy and have it be so varied. Bravo.  5. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I'm shocked at myself at how this is at number 5, but this was one of the best years in gaming. This should not have worked. The sequel to personally of my favorite games of all time had a lot to live up to. Same map, yet new underground and sky islands. New mechanics like engineering your own vehicles and objects breathed new life into this game. Its an overwhelming experience. There is so much to do here, and yet its just so drat good. People who doubted Eiji Aonuma need to be arrested, because this man is the GOAT. Zelda owns and its awesome to see Nintendo continue to take risks with this franchise. This is exactly the type of stuff I wanted Nintendo to make after OOT/Majoras Mask/Wind Waker and especially a Link Between Worlds. They're killing the game and they're doing it on old outdated hardware. Just the general action of exploration is capital F FUN. Everyone else: take notes.  4. Street Fighter 6 Capcom has finally redeemed itself. Their fighting game division has been TRASH for over a decade. The releases of Street Fighter X Tekken, Street Fighter V, and Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite basically killed all good will this company had built up over the previous generation, and personally in my eyes killed any hopes of them ever making a good fighting game ever again. It was a dark, dark 10+ years yall. Suddenly you had games like Guilty Gear pick up the slack and showing them how it was done. I guess they got tired of making terrible games, because they really came through and delivered the best fighting game of the generation so far. Street Fighter 6 is an absolute joy to play. This is the type of game that builds on the positive characteristics of their previous games and bringing back many mechanics, whilst also introducing new ones as well. It says a lot that I've only really played as like 3 characters so far and feel like I've barely scratched the surface. The new characters are awesome, the returning ones feel so much better, and its a fast and responsive game. Punching dudes just feels good and its just so addicting. You'll find yourself in the practice room, learning new combos, figuring out what works, and what doesn't. You want to play another round if you win OR lose. Everything just feels good in this game. I haven't even touched the story mode yet! I can't believe it but they really are back. The only bad thing I can say is that the monetization model is a huge mess and I'm definitely never buying a single skin in this game. Doesn't matter to me though, the gameplay here is world class. Street Fighter is loving back dude.  3. Baldurs Gate 3 I was honestly scared of playing this game. I'm not that huge into CRPGs and this was going to be THE CRPG to end them all it seemed. It just overwhelming. And then I played it and I was shocked to find out that this was the game I always wanted Bioware to make. You see I love their old games, I even played some of the original Baldur's Gate but what really hooked me with them (like many) was KOTOR. There was just so much role playing you could do! And then this basically took all that, gave it the high level of production it deserved, and went even harder on its D&D license and it completely paid off. I would spend HOURS just talking to people. And that alone was fun. I loved it. The combat was daunting at first but started to feel second nature. In fact there was so much you could just do if you let your imagine run wild. It was just amazing what they did here and it feels like everyone had their own different personal experience playing this game. But holy poo poo it is overwhelming. I also had a TON of fun playing this multiplayer. But even that got my patience tested as I wanted to keep doing my own thing. It doesn't matter, this game was basically untouchable this year. RPGs from all around the world are so loving back.  2. Counter Strike 2 I can't believe it happened. But I got into Counter Strike this year. I always have tried to get my friends to play with me but no one wanted to because of its strict and difficult learning curve. And then CS2 dropped and with it some amazing next gen features. Genuinely changing the game with how smokes work and just I don't know great movement and more? I know it sucked a lot in the beta and its still like getting there but for my money there was no game this year that my blood pumping when you take down 3-4 dudes in a row and its just you vs 1 one more person in a 1v1 situation. This game is KINO. I found myself screaming and yelling just excited over discord with my friends over clutch situations. Folks counterstrike 2 RULES GAME OF THE YEAR  1. Alan Wake 2 When I started this game I knew it was going to be special. There are moments in this game that I legit had to pause after finishing the chapter, let the song and "end credits" of the chapter just wash over me. And hit up my group chats and call some friends and freak out about what had just happened. This is basically a western Hideo Kojima game. That's right, we are raising Sam Lake up to the pinnacle of storytelling and innovation in games and hanging him up in the rafters or Mount Everest or whatever. This was IT man. Playing as both Saga Anderson and Alan Wake was just so awesome. There were specific mechanics for both characters and they actually made a genuine scary survival horror game in my opinion. Sure there are a ton of jump scares and cheap tricks, but who cares! It was awesome! I never knew what was coming around the corner and was excited to keep playing to find out more about these characters and this story. The use of FMV was fantastic as well. Remedy is really, for my money, incredible at what they do. Control was already awesome, but the way they blended all these elements in Alan Wake 2 just puts them at a tier above everyone else now. Like this game has its own MGS2 ending sequence at the later part of the game and not only goes for it but nails it. I loved it. The whole time I loved it while playing this game. Just wow. It is the best game of the year with a bullet. NOTHING comes close. 2023 ruled List for easy compiling: 10. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon 9. Battlebit Remastered 8. Super Mario RPG Remake 7. Spiderman 2 6. Final Fantasy XVI 5. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 4. Street Fighter 6 3. Baldurs Gate 3 2. Counter Strike 2 1. Alan Wake 2 The REAL Goobusters fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jan 3, 2024 |
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Dec 30, 2023 01:30
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Tempura Wizard posted:Combos are the best way to improve score, as scoring for eliminations increase exponentially with each successive chain in the combo. Thanks, that makes sense, but screen caps would also help.
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Dec 30, 2023 01:32
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Awesome. Top 5 is all RPGs, Fridge would be proud. 
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Dec 30, 2023 01:35
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Alan Wake 2 owns so hard that even its opening menu grabbed me.
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Dec 30, 2023 01:40
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Tempura Wizard posted:2023 – The Year of the (Arcade) Rat Amazing.
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Dec 30, 2023 01:50
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Sway Grunt posted:I'm only putting this at number 6 because the story's pretty thin and the ending's a bit of a shrug, though it all gets the job done. In my memory the first game had a more substantial and involved plot though, whereas this one felt like an excuse to showcase the GOAT-tier level design. Fair enough tbh! Definitely don't sleep on Death of the Outsider, either, it's shorter than the first two games, has some nice levels (although not, IMO, anything Dh2-good), and provides some closure to the underlying mystery of "what the gently caress is going on with the Outside anyways?"
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Dec 30, 2023 01:54
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I had a great year of playing vidya games. I probably played more total games than I have since my high school / college days. According to my records, I have played 18 games to completion or at least to a point where I am very solid in my opinion of them. Honorable mentions to games I played a bit this year but didn't progress enough to feel like putting on this years list (perhaps a preview to next year :O ) hollow knight - would have been top 10 if I finished it on time Baldur's Gate 3 - would have been top 10 if I finished it on time Spider Man 2 - not sure if it would have finished top 10 Metal Gear Solid 3 - would have been top 10 if I finished it on time Though I am close to the end and it's my least favorite of the original trilogy so far. Maybe the ending will change it. 18 Dredge My favorite part of dredge was the first 2-3 hours of dredge where the spooky vibes really had you scared to fish at night. As the game progresses, it kind of loses that tension and peters out in my opinion. 17 Final Fantasy 16 I am glad this game was made and it found its audience. Its clear form other posters list that this game was well liked by may. For me though.... I don't think this game is very good for my tastes. The boss fights are some of the best ever, but the rest of the game is downright terrible. The story makes no sense, the non boss combat is tedious, the side quests are weak. This could be forgiven if the boss fights weren't so far apart, but they put way too much filler story / combat in between the good parts. 16 Catherine The story aspect of this game is one of my all time favorites. I just never really clicked with the puzzle portion of the game. If I could find a way to love that, this would be in my top 3 easily...but alas. 15 Norco The story in this point and click adventure game really had me hooked with the religious cult themes and the backdrop of a town decimated by oil capitalists. 14 Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp As games, advance wars 1 and 2 still really hold up as some of the best tactics games of all time. As a remake, this game kind of sucks actually. Art direction is worse than original, the game plays slower overall, the online multiplayer is terrible. I appreciate that an attempt to bring this franchise back was made but Wayforward really shouldn't' get another AW title. 13 Super Mario RPG Remake Having never played the OG this was a joy from start to finish. This game has the pace of an Illumination animated film, but the bits are actually good. I really appreciated how this game wasted 0 of your time and was a well thought out RPG that took less than 10 hours to play. I do wish the bosses were touch harder but I get what they were going for. 12 Pikmin 4 A delightful Pikmin game with a dog. Unless they fixed it, the coop mode is super broken a very funny way to play the game. Tandoori battles are such a great idea and hope they stay around for future titles. A must play for all Pikmin fans out there but not sure it will move the needle for anyone else. 11 College Football Revamped (modded NCAA 2014) I like sports games, some of my all time favorite games are sports games. Somewhere in the last 10 years, publishers have forgotten how to make a sports game that isn't micro-transaction dogshit. What a breath of fresh air booting up the ps3 and playing a modded version of NCAA 14 was. The mods don't really affect gameplay, just modernize the teams, rosters, playbooks, and aesthetics. However the work involved is still super impressive and they deserve a lot of credit. As far as the actual gameplay, it is striking how much more fluid and dynamic a 10 year sports game feels over modern games which relies too much on trying to use cool animations. The players in this game actually feel like they have weight to them. Its hard to explain, but modern sports games just don't' feel like they have as good of a physics model. TOP 10 10 Super Mario Bros Wonder What a delight to play this new 2d Mario. The wonder sections of this game are fantastic and some of the best platforming I've played in years. 9 Zelda Tears of the Kingdom I did not really care for botw honestly but this game fixed a lot of central issues I had with the game, namely that exploration for weapons had no point in the original. Now all materials can be crafted to make better weapons, the core game loop is much more satisfying. I still don't love the weapon durability or the combat, but this is a huge step in the right direction. 8 Tape to Tape Like I said, I like sports games. Not only is Tape to Tape just a flat out good hockey game, but the roguelike features are incredibly creative for a sports game it works really well. Every enemy team has a different playstyle and there is no shortage of abilities and upgrades to take to keep runs fresh. This game is still in EA so I do hope they add a bit more content, but I played a lot of this game and loved it. This is the best hockey game to come out in years. 7 Pizza Tower I can't really add much more than whats already been said in this thread. Peppino owns and this game has the best "attitude" of any I've played in ages. 6 Vampire Survivors This game has no right being this good or addictive, but I always want to play One More Run. 5 Triangle Strategy I loved this game a lot. The underlying tactics are good and challenging (provided you play on hard), the branching story that you can't quite 100% control, the characters, everything. This is an all time great tactics game. Ive finished 2 runs already and eventually will do the Golden Route. 4 Super Metroid This is probably the greatest metroidvania game ever made (maybe hollow knight). Outside of some of the clunkyness of the control scheme, this is a perfect game. I would be really interested to play a version of this game with Metroid Dread controls and then whatever adjustments to rebalance the difficulty of the game. 3 Street Fighter 6 SF6 is a generation defining fighting game. It has everything: rollback netcode, crossplay, functional ranked matchmaking, arcade style casual lobbies, a good replay system, quality single player content, classic and modern style controls....The only modern feature this game doesn't have is replay takeover. Because of this game and it's success, every new fighter is going to have to implement these features and everyone benefits. 2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Wow...This is truly one of the most wild and interesting games of all time. The ending is just nuts. Just go play this game if you haven't already. This probably deserves to be my #1 game, but outside the ending something just captured me more about my 2023 top game...... 1 Metal Gear Solid I played this 1998 game for the first time in 2023 and it still whips major rear end. Sure the controls are a little weird but the vibes are immaculate. The Psycho Mantis fight, the torture scene, the sniper duel....this game is a masterpiece and is maybe the single greatest game of all time.
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Dec 30, 2023 01:54
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I picked up Alan Wake 2 before Christmas but haven't had a chance to start it yet (blame Elden Ring) but all these posts are getting me really hyped for it. I played Alan Wake 1 some years back and I think I got most of the way through it but I don't think I completed it. Should I blast through that on easy first? I got a free copy of the remastered version along with AW2. Should I go back to the Control DLC after that?
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Dec 30, 2023 01:54
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Blast through AW1 on easy. The Control DLC is skippable if you want to jump straight into AW2. IMO
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Dec 30, 2023 01:57
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^^ cool, thanksPapes posted:1 Metal Gear Solid Hell yeah. Really interested to see if you think MGS3 sticks the landing. Are you planning on playing more of the series after that? Party Boat fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Dec 30, 2023 |
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Dec 30, 2023 01:59
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Party Boat posted:Hell yeah. Yes, I plan to play 4 and 5 as well. Just need to make the time.
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Dec 30, 2023 01:59
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Escobarbarian posted:Thank you for reading. This is always such an amazing thread, and I love reading your lists and being able to contribute myself. I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for us!    Every single person's list is completely valid because Top 10s are an entirely subjective thing, but with that said I'm delighted you see you put the objectively correct choice of Tears of the Kingdom as your #1 pick 
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Dec 30, 2023 02:25
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VideoGames posted:01. I see you and I raise you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpUHtDBZWyQ
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Dec 30, 2023 03:12
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If Street Fighter 6 is really a game that can get People Who Cannot Play Fighting Games into fighting games, I might have to get it. The last time I had fun with a fighting game was probably the original Street Fighter. I liked Blanka.
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Dec 30, 2023 03:15
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HopperUK posted:The last time I had fun with a fighting game was probably the original Street Fighter. I liked Blanka.  Blanka wasn't in the original Street Fighter. But nobody actually played the first one so who cares.
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Dec 30, 2023 03:26
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wash bucket posted:
eh yeah I played it on, I dunno, Genesis? I forget which one it actually was, couldn't be bothered to look it up.
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Dec 30, 2023 03:35
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Papes posted:Yes, I plan to play 4 and 5 as well. Just need to make the time. Awesome, I played MGS4 for the first time this year and it was a trip!
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Dec 30, 2023 03:35
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HopperUK posted:eh yeah I played it on, I dunno, Genesis? I forget which one it actually was, couldn't be bothered to look it up. 
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Dec 30, 2023 03:44
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Papes posted:8 Tape to Tape Heck yeah - another person who appreciates how good T2T is! I hope they keep adding content too, because it’s a legitimately fun hockey game.
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Dec 30, 2023 04:00
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HopperUK posted:If Street Fighter 6 is really a game that can get People Who Cannot Play Fighting Games into fighting games, I might have to get it. The last time I had fun with a fighting game was probably the original Street Fighter. I liked Blanka. the modern controls are genuinely very good and easy to learn, they're even viable competitively, much to the chagrin of the Purists, but who cares what they think there's some tradeoffs with using them, to keep them balanced, and those tradeoffs can be (or at least were when i was playing last) better or worse for certain characters. but overall it's worth it, the world tour RPG mode is very fun and has a shitton of content
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Dec 30, 2023 04:03
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HopperUK posted:If Street Fighter 6 is really a game that can get People Who Cannot Play Fighting Games into fighting games, I might have to get it. The last time I had fun with a fighting game was probably the original Street Fighter. I liked Blanka. It is really, really good, but make no mistake, it is a Fighting Game. If you don't like fighting games, it's not going to turn you around on the genre.
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Dec 30, 2023 04:04
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wash bucket posted:
 plenty of people played the original Street Fighter in the arcade... because they didn't pay attention and put their money into the old machine thinking it was Street Fighter 2 and cursed
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Dec 30, 2023 04:06
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HopperUK posted:If Street Fighter 6 is really a game that can get People Who Cannot Play Fighting Games into fighting games, I might have to get it. The last time I had fun with a fighting game was probably the original Street Fighter. I liked Blanka. Even if you never play against another person, playing through World Tour just to interact with all the characters is delightful. If you liked SF2, you'll almost certainly like SF6.
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Dec 30, 2023 04:23
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As many people have also noted, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising is a game very well suited to beginners with simplified controls. Both that and SF6 are very good entry points into the genre, but if even those aren't clicking then yeah, the genre may just not be for you.
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Dec 30, 2023 05:38
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 One of my first gaming endeavors of 2023 was to continue a replay of the Mass Effect trilogy through the Legendary Edition that had dropped off midway through 2. This also meant that I was going to be playing through the infamous Mass Effect 3 for the first time. And honestly, it's alright. Yes, the final final ending is a bit underwhelming and the way it's set up basically shot themselves in the foot when attempting to continue the series, but coming at it about a decade later with all the fixes and all the LE improvements, it's a pretty decent game. The shooting gameplay is, of course, top notch, and while the story is a bit wonky, I can't deny that it's a bit satisfying to have all these smaller endings to plot threads that had been present throughout the entire trilogy, like the genophage and the Geth war. And if you really look under the hood, there is actually a surprising amount of variance along the way that takes your choices in all three games into mind. Also the Citadel DLC is really fun and cheesy and a good send-off to the best years this franchise ever had.  Inscryption is one of those games that's best gone into without any knowledge outside the basic premise. A game about being stuck in some weird guy's cabin and playing a roguelike with card game combat becomes...a lot more than that! Despite running out of steam slightly in the second half, Inscryption is a really fun, really engaging, and pretty short ride, with a surprisingly deep system to its card game and tons of twists and turns.  Tears of the Kingdom is Breath of the Wild but better, most people have already said this much. Whereas I struggled to get into BotW, Tears did grab me much more successfully. Love to have a fun time building goofy poo poo and exploring a world with a lot more life and personality. If this had come out in a year that wasn't so stacked to the gills with amazing games, this would probably be on a lot more tips of tongues. As it stands, it's a good-rear end game I need to get back to sometime.  The first episode of Higurashi, the first installment in the legendary When They Cry visual novel series, is free on Steam and by God that's how they get ya. I have, of course, been knee deep in Umineko for over a decade now, but I had never really looked into the predecessor, and even in his earliest works, Ryukishi shows his almost unparalleled craft, weaving a tense, engaging, downright spooky story about a small town seemingly caught up in the curse of an ancient god, and of course since the "game" is figuring out the mystery, I can't go into too much detail more than that. Despite some pacing issues (and some pretty bad scenes that are very clearly "I Need To Sell This Thing To Comiket Nerds In 2002"), it's more than a worthwhile read.  By all objective metrics, Baldur's Gate III is the game of the year, I accept this. It's an unparalleled marvel of interactive storytelling, on a scale and with such granularity in player choice that I doubt we'll ever see it fully replicated anytime soon and it's basically the only CRPG I haven't just bounced off of. Only reason it's down here is I'm still in Act 1 and gotta play more.  The best Super Famicom RPG we never got is finally here in what is pretty much the definitive edition. A variety of bite-sized stories told all across history and different genres, a unique battle system I'd love to see more games use, and Yoko Shimomura absolutely shredding the gently caress out, what more do you want? Anyway here's a mini-rating of the 8 main chapters. 8. Prehistory 7. Present Day 6. Imperial China 5. Middle Ages 4. Distant Future 3. Wild West 2. Twilight of Edo Japan 1. Near Future  What a goddamn surprise this was. Character action games often heavily involve rhythm, so why the hell not set the whole thing to music and go all the way? Just a fun little goofy story with tight gameplay, funny characters, a sharp comic book art style, and of course a banging soundtrack. I mean, where the hell else are you gonna get a officially authorized reference to disc 2 of Xenogears to actually gloss over cut content?  I am a simple person. You give me cel shaded roller blades with hip hop and I am down. Following in the time-honored tradition of "this game I love hasn't had a sequel in forever so gently caress it I'll make my own," Bomb Rush Cyberfunk takes the structure of Jet Set Radio Future and polishes it to a near mirror shine. More fluid mobility, a deeper scoring system, and a story that goes to funky cyberpunk places set it apart from its inspiration. Also it's got the Funky Uncle Hideki Naganuma sampling the Black Panthers in a song for the third time, what's not to love?  I dig giant robots, what can I say? The mad geniuses at FromSoft back at it again with another certified banger. Using their refined action game senses from years of Dark Souls, they've returned to the series that initially put them on the map with a game that may not require you to use The Grip to even move your robot, but doesn't slack on the challenge they've become known for. Beating Balteus for the first time was definitely Gamer Moment of the Year, so much so that I saved the video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW8aRq_zEx8  Man Yakuza's so fuckin' good man. Like A Dragon was the game that got its hooks in me the most this year and didn't let go until the very end (when I was up until like 2 in the morning just WAITING FOR THE CREDITS TO ROLL). I am one of those freaks that actually likes it being an RPG way more than it being a brawler, and the series' storytelling is still unmatched, with me also being one of those freaks that played it in the dub. And as a bonus, it also comes with an amazing business management sim! Ichiban is my perfect son and no one is allowed to be mean to him. 10. Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition 9. Inscryption 8. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 7. Higurashi - When they Cry 6. Baldur's Gate III 5. Live A Live (2022) 4. Hi-Fi Rush 3. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk 2. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon 1. Yakuza: Like A Dragon
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Dec 30, 2023 05:54
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SCREEEEEEEECH HOLD IT! LAST SECOND ENTRY FOR MY LIST! #3 HOLOCURE(bumping Slay the Princess, Minecraft and MTG Arena to 4, 5 and 6 respectively)  every single one of the characters in the above image is a playable character with unique super moves and character-specific items! and the dev is planning on adding like 40 more!!!! I have not played any of the "Bullet Heaven" genre pioneered by Vampire Survivors until the last couple days when I finally gave Holocure a shot, and then proceeded to put like 8 hours into it over the course of two days. I don't really like how Vampire Survivors looks, though I did buy it since it's only two dollars. but do you know what's better than two dollars? ZERO DOLLARS! Holocure is a fangame of the Vtuber agency Hololive, developed almost entirely by Kay Yu, who previously was the animator for River City Girls. And it shows, the spritework in this game is excellent, it's soft and cutesy but powerful and punchy when necessary.   Kay Yu made this as a fangame and has ADAMANTLY REFUSED to accept money, whether it be to buy or as donations, for this game. it's kind of infuriating, really. I understand his reasoning of not wanting to accept money for it because that would make it into less of a passion project and more of an actual obligation, but still. LET ME GIVE YOU MONEY GOD drat IT   as expected, this game becomes a clusterfuck towards the end of a stage/as endless grinds on, to the point it can be hard to see your character amidst the sheer amount of enemies and poo poo flying around nonstop on screen. but it wouldn't be a Bullet Heaven without that honestly.  the music is phenomenal mostly renditions of existing hololive music turned into fantastic chiptune bops that perfectly fit into the endless levels, especially the first stage's theme, Suspect, and the second stage's theme, Candy-Go-Round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_GAxGs88jQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt9xG8w5_qg the enemies are basically all representations of a given talent's fans, and the bosses, items, super moves and honestly most other things are generally representations of memes from the various talents. the bosses in particular are great, you get a big warning circle when they arrive and then something like these slams down to cause trouble   also, there's an entire Stardew Valley-alike(I think?) as a side game that he just kinda crammed in there as a bonus, which you can use to either just play on its own as a chill thing or get buffs for the main game. And also apparently the fans you can catch as "pets" have names of actual subscribers of their given talent, which is an honestly neat touch. also, you can pet the dog. 
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Dec 30, 2023 05:54
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DalaranJ posted:Thanks, that makes sense, but screen caps would also help.  Here's an example of a simple 3 chain. Clearing the yellow with anything will send down the red, sending down the blue. Single clears would give you 600 points, but this results in 1400 points. (200+400+800)  And here's a very messy (sorry, I'm rusty) 4+ chain. A blue clear leads to a yellow clear, then the lower yellow and the blue clear simultaneously, and finishing with a red clear. Single clears: 1000 points. This combo: 6200 points (200 + 400 + 800 + 1600 + 3200).
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Dec 30, 2023 05:56
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Holy poo poo. What a loving year. I am super basic, so I think this list won’t have many surprises or say anything that hasn’t already been said. Yet, I feel I must push some of these into the final tally! First a few Honorable Mentions; I ultimately decided to keep my list 2023 releases only, so these are other games that might have made the cut if I didn’t decide on this completely arbitrary restriction. Signalis A classic Resident Evil-like in a sci-fi setting; gorgeous retro styling to boot. My favorite thing is that it doesn’t really outstay its welcome. More games should be short and sweet! (and sad and scary) Also, maybe a little ironic given my #1. Deep Rock Galactic Everyone has that One Game they always come back to; this one might be mine. My buds and I are extremely indecisive on what new multiplayer game to check out, so 80% of the time, we end up back here, and it’s always a great time with new content to check out. Rock and stone, brothers! Golden Idol I’m playing through this one right now due to a bunch of other posts in this very thread. I enjoyed Return of the Obra Dinn quite a bit, and this one is feeling just as good. I highly appreciate the short vignettes; my wife will occasionally drop by and figure one or two out with me. Holocure This is a “action rogue-like” (is that what we're calling it?) that’s even better than the progenitor Vampire Survivors. How do I know it's better? Vampire Survivors is currently something ridiculously obscene like $3.75, yet this is free. You can’t beat free. Also, I’m a loving weirdo with an EV and no way to charge it at home. This means that I have to charge it at a public station which is always full. To get around the crowd, I go in the middle of the night. It’s basically a chill-out ritual now: I breathe in the cool night air, hug my doggo close, and play Holocure on the Gaben Deck. And here's my final 10: 10. Thronefall This is such a cool little gem, a distillation of RTS and Tower Defense. You move your tiny king-on-a-horse around, and set up buildings, towers, and walls to defend against waves. It's very simple, but pretty difficult, and hits my brain in all the same spots. 9. Dave the Diver This one was a super cute game ostensibly about diving, but with a whole bunch of other mini-games. I never knew what insane thing was coming next, and literally all of the cutscenes are a hoot. Even when they start repeating, I never skipped a-one. I very rarely bother to platinum a game, much less actually finish it, but I did with this. My only complaint is that it does get a little long in the tooth near the end, and the most surprising mini game just happens once with no way to return (the idol rhythm game). 8. Wo Long This game is here just because it made me feel incredibly bad-rear end and the setting is dope. It’s essentially an easier Sekiro, which I am very grateful to because gently caress me that game was hard. More games should be set during the Three Kingdoms! More games than Dynasty Warriors please. 7. Rogue Trader I read a decent amount of the Warham 40k books, but I wouldn’t consider myself any sort of lore expert. That said, Rogue Trader gave me the 40k vibes that no other game has really been able to accomplish. I love making my adjutant introduce me with a wet-leopard growl, and then melt all them heretics with either my navigator's third eyeball or some good old fashion flamer. I’ve stopped playing just short of Act 4 since I heard it’s pretty buggy (which might have just been fixed up), so I haven’t seen it all, but what is there has been super excellent. I probably would have rated this even higher if the game was in a more complete state. I have no doubt Owlcat will deliver though. 6. Jagged Alliance 3 What the gently caress? Jagged Alliance 3 is actually good?! It’s a straight miracle from the God-Emperor himself. Jagged Alliance 2 and the 1.13 mod was one of my favorite gaming threads from SA, something I never would have found otherwise. It’s near a dear to my heart, and it’s been heartbreaking when recent attempts to recreate the magic have all utterly failed. It’s been 24 years since the release of JA2, and here is a true successor. This game was definitely my jam from the silly barks and conversations between mercs to the very well done strategic, turn-based gameplay and oozes the JA spirit. 5. Octopath Traveler 2 I actually had no real qualms with the first Octopath Traveler. For whatever its demerits with the lackluster story, I had a ton of fun in the combat alone (and the visuals were still a treat). It was a game I loved and would recommend, but with caveats. Yet, Octopath Traveler 2 made big improvements to everything on all fronts, and I think I can recommend it pretty wholly. There’s still one caveat: the party members are still not quite as linked as expected, so if that was a real sticking point from the first, it’s better–but still the same–here. 4. Slay the Princess If there’s a game I just really have to get out there and make sure people play, it’s Slay the Princess. It’s a story-based game with a lot of narrative and choices (I’m trying really hard not to scare you off and say “visual novel”), with a shitton of branching paths. I cannot overstate the sheer amount of unique paths the game has. The writing is great and the voice acting is even better. It’s hilarious, thoughtful, and spooky. These sorts of games (Slay the Princess, Doki Doki Literature Club, Stanley Parable) always surprise me since it’s not my usual genre, but they are probably some of the most impactful games I still easily recall. 3. Armored Core 6 I am a huge Dark Souls fan, but my very first From Software game was actually Armored Core 4. I have almost no memory of this game except for passing the controller around in my college dorm, and an obscenely difficult level that involved a stupid amount of missiles you had to dodge. I’m fairly sure it was like… level 3 or something. In any case, Armored Core 6 is cool as gently caress and probably way more approachable than you might think. Everything about it is excellent, but what I think I enjoy most is the flexibility to try out different builds and spec out a mech for the situation at hand, which is something you couldn’t really do in most of the Dark Souls games. 2. Cyberpunk 2077 Man, I was such a rube back in 2020. I bought the Limited Edition; I bought the fancy coffee table artbook. I built a new PC in preparation. And wow, the game was… alright, but also kind of bad? Heavily uninspired Ubisoft map clearing and an utterly dead GTA-style city. It was a real Starfield at the time. I dropped it a bit past Act 1, and felt the game was broken on a fundamental level. There would be no No Many Sky comeback here. Oh how wrong I was (and how happy to be wrong). The Phantom Liberty DLC and 2.0 update dropped out of nowhere for me, and it truly feels like what the game should have been, was promised to have been. The neon lights glitter and dance across my corneas, and I am awestruck; whatever magic was missing from before is definitely here now. It’s hella fun now and straight preem. Luckily, my PC can still run things well enough, but the driving still kind of sucks. 1. Baldur’s Gate 3 Okay. I am honestly surprised I’ve already written all these words since I wasn’t going to write anything in the first place. I have no idea how to even start, to even tackle this triumph of a game. I wasn’t going to try. Ultimately, all I can really say is that I spent about 175 hours in my first playthrough of this game. The game is not that long. It took me that long because I would resolve a situation, and then think, “Well, wait, what if I tried it this way instead?” The crazy thing is that it worked or had a reaction every. single. time. Larian Studios have put in an obscene amount of work to account for near every possibility. You can respec your companions into bards, and pick a specific ability Vicious Mockery, and there are goddamn voice lines recorded for it. Insults specifically written for the characters for this very specific instance that no one is actually going to do. This isn’t a CRPG; I have played CRPGs and grew up with the Neverwinters and such. This is something well beyond that. Also, there are a lot of cats, and if you can speak to animals, they all have the most precious voicelines. Oh my goodness. Resonance22 fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Dec 30, 2023 |
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Dec 30, 2023 06:23
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2023’s been a year with a lot of good games, many of which I haven’t gotten to yet and could easily end up on a top 10 list for 2024. Blasphemous - 10 Haven’t played 2 yet, solid experience with some minor flaws. Catholic guilt, the video game. Super Mario Bros Wonder - 9 Game was a joy to experience all the varied weird ideas the devs came up with and implemented. Super Mario RPG Remake - 8 Just like the original, it’s a fairly compact and straightforward game that keeps going at a breakneck pace. The remastered music/graphics are nice and the extra post game content was a nice addition. Risk of Rain Returns - 7Never played the original RoR1, but this was fun. Good music, a solid core gameplay loop. Runs start to feel very same-y once you’ve finished unlocking everything but that took a good 100~ hours. Terraria - 6 The base game still holds up alright, including the devs somehow still updating it with meaningful content/QOL updates. What really keeps this game going is the modding scene, Calamity was a top notch experience and I’ll check out some of the other big mods one day. Path of Exile - 5 Sometimes you really just want to obsessively minmax some dumb bullshit in between making thousands of monsters explode into loot. Game’s got an absurdly high amount of depth to gently caress around with the builds if you want to, or you can also just follow a guide someone far more knowledgeable than you’ll ever be made abusing some niche interaction involving an item you’ve never even heard of. Baldur's Gate 3 – 4 Not really a lot to say here that everyone else hasn’t already, game’s good. Doom 2 – 3 An eternal classic kept alive by the extremely active modding scene. To this very day there’s still a nearly limitless amount of quality maps and gameplay mods being released every year. One might even say Doom is Eternal. Void Stranger – 2 I went into this expecting a fun little sokoban adjacent puzzle game, and obsessively burned through it until I was finished 34 hours later. Game does some clever things with its mechanics, and goes down some La Mulana-esque paths which were a delight to untangle. Pizza Tower – 1 The best platformer I’ve played in many years. The controls are flawless and have levels of depth just sitting there waiting for you to dig in if you wish on your quest to P rank every stage & boss, or if you want you can just have a goofy romp through the weirdness of the Pizza Tower. The art is goofy and fun with almost every stage being a completely different aesthetic, Peppino Spaghetti himself is made up of over 5000 different sprites, McPig . Then if that wasn’t enough, the sound track is just absolute nonstop hits.
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Dec 30, 2023 06:47
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