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It's not midnight yet here, so I'm hoping I'm getting in under the wire. I blame my #1 game for making my list so late: 10. Resident Evil 4: Remake I first got into the Resident Evil series with 4 only about 5 years ago now, so while I was interested in the remake, I also hadn't been as excited for it as I think longer time fans were. Nonetheless, the remake did a great job leaving most of the charms of the original intact while improving on some of the slower parts of the original game. While I will miss the goofy codec call format, the game is still a good blend of excellent action and camp. 9. Final Fantasy: Pixel Remaster I never would have expected to have the one that started it all on my list in 2023 but here we are. The first Final Fantasy took me by surprise with its story and how enjoyable the pixel remaster made the game as a whole. The remastered and original music were delightful and I was really impressed with how the formula held up after 25+ years. While not on my list, it got me to play through Strangers of Paradise as well and I appreciated the cleverness of how they wove the new story in with this original. As someone who picked up FF14 hardcore this year, I'm glad I finally understand who Matoya is. 8. Dead Space (2023) The second remake on my list, Dead Space is more of a straight remake than RE4, but it mostly shows how good the bones underneath are. From its claustrophobic corridors and lighting to its stress-inducing sound design, Dead Space has consistently been a breath of fresh air into the somewhat crowded zombie 3rd person horror genre and the remake only serves to exemplify what made the first game such an amazing experience in the first place. Necromorph babies can still eat poo poo. 7. God of War: Ragnarok The sequel to the 2018 game which rebooted Kratos from God of War to Dad of War, I was extremely excited for this game which was my personal GotY in 2019. Ragnarok builds on the foundations of the first game with an excellent story and plenty of twists and turns to keep you invested. One thing I really appreciated is that they didn't take the easy way out in terms of new weapons and instead built something new and unique for the series. The performances for Kratos and Atreus continue to do an outstanding job at portraying a complex relationship between the characters. One of the hallmarks for games of the year for me is that they tend to sink their hooks into me and get me to play for several hours at a time which is difficult these days. GoW: Ragnarok sunk its claws in deep and had me coming back for hours at a time for even small side quests. Truly a masterpiece and I can't wait to check out the new Valhalla mode. 6. Live a Live The fourth and final remake on my list, Live a Live gave inspiration to some of my favorite games from years past and I never even knew it existed until last year. As I played through it, I couldn't believe that this was a game that came out in the 1990s. Its ever-changing mechanics, the intricate nature of its storytelling, and some clever writing all had me convinced that they'd done more than simply remaster the game but lo and behold they were all in the original. As a big fan of stories that seem disconnected but ultimately link together, this game was a huge hit for me and I was delighted to see how each character would end up playing and developing over the course of each of their stories. 5. Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers This was the year of Final Fantasy 14 for me, and I capped it off with Shadowbringers near the end of the year. I'd always resisted getting into MMOs, but my best friend assured me that this one would have a story with checking out and I'm happy to say he was right. After the somewhat mediocre Stormblood, Shadowbringers delivered with high stakes, body horror, and the best villain I've seen in a final fantasy game. While the post-Shadowbringers content didn't have me as excited as I might've hoped I would be, it's still some truly excellent and emotional storytelling that makes me feel like all the time I've spent meeting and learning about all these different threads is finally coming together. I can't wait to see where it all end(walk)s up. 4. Evil West A holdover from last year and the first game I beat this year, Evil West asks the important question of "What if the old west, but vampires?" For those unfamiliar, Evil West puts you in control of Jesse, the son of a leader of a group of vampire hunters in 1800s America. The game starts you off with a revolver and an electrified gauntlet to punch vampires and says "get to it", letting you wail on monsters with some of the most satisfying combat 3rd person combat this side of Bloodborne or DMC. The game offers tons of tools to handle increasingly complex combinations of enemies and my god you just feel like the baddest motherfucker in the world when it all comes together. The story, while not necessarily surprising, does a good job of keeping you at least tuned in as you pummel vampires into paste. Everything in this game just feels so satisfying and I can't recommend it enough if you're a fan of 3rd person melee/action combat. 3. Lies of P Speaking of 3rd person melee action combat, this game asks a similarly important question to Evil West: "What if Bloodborne, but puppets?" Nobody expected this game to be good when it was announced and my god among souls-likes this is truly cream of the crop. The key mechanic of the game, the parry mechanic, feels so satisfying as you get into the swing of things. Regular combat, from the most basic of enemies to the wildest of clown-shaped puppets, can be equal parts exhilarating and frustrating as you learn to time your your blocks and attacks to crush enemies' guards. I spent 3 hours fighting the King of puppets after I hosed up on my second attempt when I could have finished him off and that's when I knew this game was going to be in my top 3. While the Bloodborne comparison is easy to make, the developers have done a lot to expand on the basic mechanics to make combat build customization more interesting and involved without getting overly complicated. If you're a fan of soulslikes, you owe it to yourself to give this game a try. 2. The Case of the Golden Idol (+ DLC) The main thing I'll say here is that if you enjoyed Return of The Obra Dinn, or have ever liked a mystery game, then this is the best ~$20 you can possibly spend. Case of the Golden Idol is a mix of point and click adventure and mystery as you explore small scenes to uncover words that you can use to plug into descriptions of what happened in any given scene. Everything centers around the titular "Golden Idol", which has mysterious powers that varying individuals are willing to kill and be killed for. The game's art style takes some getting used to, but once you're in you're in. My partner and I played through this and each of its DLC's in about 1-2 days each and couldn't put it down. The mysteries can be challenging, but not to the point where you have to guess and check yourself, and tell a really fun overall story surrounding the mysterious artifact. If you've played the base game, then I can definitely say the DLC's are worth the price of entry and I really can't wait to see what the studio does with the sequel next year. 1. Octopath Traveler 2 To kick things off, I should state that I loved the original Octopath Traveler. Everything about it just clicked for me, but I know it had its flaws, both mechanically and narratively. This game though is truly something else. Square Enix took the basic formula and have improved on it in every possible way to create one of my favorite RPGs of all time. For those unfamiliar with the series, Octopath Traveler's main conceit is following the stories of 8 separate characters whose tales carry them across the land and lead you to recruit others of the main cast. Outside of combat, each character has two abilities they can use to interact with NPCs, such as guiding characters to assist you in combat, in your shopping, or in completing side quests. Other options include stealing equipment, challenging NPCs to gain new combat skills, or asking for information that can lead to new items or town-specific buffs such as new equipment for sale. The combat is a fairly standard turn-based RPG that leverages a boost system where you can spend points accrued each turn to increase your number of attacks or power up skills, combined with a job-based system that allows you to acquire new in-battle abilities as well as passives that you can combine across jobs to create different powerful combinations. The combat has expanded since the first game with new character-specific passives and skills that add a fresh layer of paint, but the biggest improvement for most people is related to each character's story. Characters' stories are more varied than in the first game and the connections between said stories are more apparent, with some new chapters added that have pairs of characters directly interact to explore some mystery in the world. Again as someone who really enjoyed the first game, this game is a huge step up in terms of writing, with interesting twists in characters' stories that I didn't expect and a much more deeply connected overall narrative that kept me hooked. This game is singlehandedly the reason I'm so late posting my top 10 because I've been playing it obsessively over the last two weeks and just barely got it finished in time to put it on my list. On top of everything else, the soundtrack is phenomenal and I love the HD-2D/3D style that these games have used. In a year crowded with great games I should have been playing more of (looking at you, TotK and BG3), this game kept me hooked and combing back to it to 100% it. Simple format list: 10. Resident Evil 4: Remake 9. Final Fantasy: Pixel Remaster 8. Dead Space (2023) 7. God of War: Ragnarok 6. Live a Live 5. Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers 4. Evil West 3. Lies of P 2. The Case of the Golden Idol 1. Octopath Traveler 2 Bad News Panda fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 05:13
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I have lurked this thread for years and years and to my shame I have posted maybe once or twice. A bunch games I pick up each year are a result of seeing them in this thread, so this year I'm trying to contribute 10. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective A cute game where you're a poltergeist and you try to help people solve a crime and figure out how you died. It's light and good fun and doesn't overstay its welcome. The ending is great 9. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood VN about being a fortune telling witch. I was really enjoying this until it turned into Witch Election Simulator, and I almost dropped it there, but I'm glad I didn't because it really stuck the landing. If you asked me 10 years ago if I thought witches or fortune telling were cool I'd probably have laughed but this game has shown me the error of my ways. 8. Chants of Sennaar Puzzle game where you decipher languages and translate. I'm not very good at puzzles so I suspect it may be on the 'too easy' side for serious people, but it's nicely put together and has a kinda Obra Dinn feel to it. Unfortunately, I did go through good chunk of the game where I had only my unconfirmed guesses for three symbols in first language since I missed a NPC trigger for a journal page. It has a stealth section I did not like but it was mercifully short. 7. Slay the Princess There's very few elements to this game, a few characters and a knife, but this means they can fully realize all the different choices you can make. It's very reactive and sensitive to different motivations and timings. Kind of a Stanley Parable vibe 6. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist Best game with a dumb name. Crash land on a planet and things go downhill from there. I find it hard to talk about why I like it without spoiling it but I think I'm a sucker for this kind of story. The gameplay is mostly making choices of where to spend your time and dialogue options and exploring the consequences. There's a card based minigame for resolving situations where your cards represent the memories and experiences you have accumulated. 5. Furi My go to for a quick 10-20 minute filler for years now. I still haven't beaten all the encounters on the hardest difficulty. Bullet hell boss rush action game that's a fast paced test of your reflexes, dodging and pattern recognition. There's good variety in the encounters and they are all enjoyable. Except fish guy, screw him. "The Burst" and "The Beat" are my favorites. 4. Perfect Tides Point and click adventure game about being awkard and growing up in a small town/on the internet that I think might have been laser targeted at me. Got this on recommendation from last year's thread and it didn't disappoint. For me it's more about the vibes rather than the gameplay which is the usual adventure game fare of the go to place-get the item-combine the item sort. 3. Baldur's Gate 3 Incredible reactivity to both your character and your choices. Often games will surprise you when you can do something out of the box, BG3 tends to surprise you when you can't. The later acts are a slight step down quality-wise but they really caught lightning in a bottle here. I think Mask of the Betrayer was the last time I enjoyed an RPG this much. My one quibble is that the party banter isn't quite there 2. Against the Storm Surprise last-minute entry, I had a feeling I was going to like this game and I have played it like a madman for the last few days. I'm not very far in so I might be getting ahead of myself. If you described a roguelite city builder to me I probably would have thought you were joking, but it works really well. The focus is on building new settlements and getting them up and running and this gives it a lot of room to mix it up every time with different resources, economies and challenges. Scratches the same itch as Banished 1. RimWorld I hadn't played since 1.0 and decided to fire it up and check out the DLC, and they really enrich the exprience. I thought this game was incredible to begin with but it's come a ways since and it instantly sucked me back in and a month of the year just vanished without a trace. The core of the game is setting up your colony and building it nice, making sure your needs are provided for etc. but the real draw is all the insane stuff that happens. The game touts itself as a "story generator", which is an apt description. I was too much of a chicken to post last year but I think it would have come down to a fierce battle between Sekiro and Elden Ring for the #1 spot, they are both incredible games. I have not gotten AC6 yet, I was skeptical of a mecha-action game but after reading a bunch of similar things from people who got it and liked it I will definitely be checking it out. I'm glad to see Elsinore get some recognition, I did not play it this year but it's one of my favorites. If time loop shakespeare sounds like your jam I encourage you to check it out.
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Jan 1, 2024 05:20
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I'm looking forward to reading everyone's recommendations. Here is a quick list that I hope to expand upon. EDIT: Has been expanded upon. Games Played but Not Ranked: Rain Code, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Octopath Traveler 2  10. Dredge (Switch) Looks more interesting and complex than it actually plays. If you are looking for a simple game that gets the job done, then you'll have a good time. It has one good plot reveal.  9. Affogato (PC) Tries really hard to look like Persona. But the real star is what they call reverse tower defense. It helps that the constantly playing battle theme In Your Mind is awesome.  8. Dave the Diver (Switch) Diving and restaurant gameplay are serviceable. But the most fun comes from the wacky plot elements and characters. Stars Not Michael Bay and Not Kyo Kusanagi.  7. AI: The Somnium Files (Switch) You dive into minds to solve metaphysical representations of mysteries. The game captures the dream-like logic of these mindscapes and they are all unique. Like me, the character also gets confused about the branching paths of the plot. But it's still a great way to get to know different sides of the cast.  6. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (PS5, Switch) The game so nice I bought it twice. Super complex and easy to screw up. But immediately engaging and has strong character writing. Features the most epic level up selection I have ever experienced. Mythic rank 3 amirite?  5. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (PC) Similar to the above since they are both made by Owlcat Games. However, this is more approachable and similar to my favorite CRPG, Wasteland 3. Unlike most games, you will face resistance to being neutral good.  4. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) Doubled down on the features from Breath of the Wild but added the amazing Sky Islands and Depths. Has the best story for a Zelda game and I haven't felt intimidated by a Zelda villain since A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time.  3. Fire Emblem Engage (Switch) Having started with Three Houses, I took a look at the game and thought, "What the hell is this poo poo?" However, the gameplay and character building are vastly improved. The plot loops around from bad to laughingly bad if you watch Excelemblem's plot summary.  2. Chained Echoes (Switch) This is what all "old school" JRPGs should aspire to be as it rids itself out outdated game design. The plot is constantly moving, and the characters are engaging. Even the ending has plot reveals. Manages to pull off a satisfying conclusion where the battle is won but the war continues.  1. Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) Good news, the people behind FF14 are making FF16. Bad news, the people behind FF14 are making FF16. It ended up more like Nier: Automata than Final Fantasy. The character writing is great but the overall plot is heavy. The music was restrained to gothic fantasy but still runs circles around everyone else. The side quests are badly designed but later ones have huge emotional payoff. Has the best action battle system in an RPG yet. Clive May Cry several times. Super Inactive fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jan 3, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 05:38
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Hi folks! I wonder what the turning point was for games that they suddenly became across-the-board good, and especially in the indie game sphere? Maybe 2015 or 2016? Last year, the lowest score in my top 50 was 71.5, and this year, it's the same. The craziest thing is that I missed out on several huge games this year and still have a solid, sturdy list of 50 cool games and many honorable mentions. Just a few of the games I missed out on: Armored Core VI, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Blasphemous 2, Oxenfree 2, Amnesia: The Bunker, Lies of P, Spider-Man 2, Wo Long, Remnant 2, Cassette Beasts, Drainus, Sludge Life 2, Vengeful Guardian Moonrider, Void Stranger, Little Goody Two Shoes, Small Saga, En Garde, Viewfinder, This Bed We Made, Zeno Clash 3: Artifacts of Chaos And honestly, many more than that, even. There are just too many good indie games nowadays, and I don't have the money or the time to play them all. But I did have the time to play through the entirety of almost everything on my lists (some JRPGs excluded), and I don't regret my time with, well, 95% of them. So I'm happy with what I played this year and I hope you find some possible future favorites from this list. Let's start with the top 50, and then I'll have an honorable mentions post later! As a small sort of guide to my grading, I weigh five different categories differently (gameplay loop, variety, art direction, sound design, UI/UX) and bring their scores together for the final number. I don't give any game 100. I've only given one game a score above 90 (Psychonauts 2) which I consider "once in a generation" quality. 80s is my "Great!" tier, and that's usually how my lists top out. 70s is 'Good' tier ALTHOUGH it is a bit flexible. Anything above a 75 I consider "pretty good" and anything from a 70-75 is "good-ish with flaws". Then the 60s are my "fair" tier, where I'm kinda meh about several aspects of the games or I think they just aren't 100% fully realized, or maybe a first step for a developer that will deliver something better next time, and that's usually the games in honorable mentions. I don't really finish games that I don't like playing, unless it's something truly unhinged like Afterfall Insanity. But if I did, the 50s would be "Mediocre", the 40s would be "Bad", and anything below a 30 is just "Broken/Unplayable".  Maybe one of the best games I've ever started a bottom of a GOTY list off with, The Roottrees are Dead is a, frankly, pretty good deduction game in the vein of Return of the Obra Dinn, where you are tasked with putting together the details of a large and convoluted family tree using only the information you have at hand, which includes a computer (with fake google, periodical search, and book search) and the items that a stranger keeps leaving at your door. And that's all you need, really. In fact every detail needed is hidden somewhere, so you shouldn't ever have to guess. It's pretty brilliant stuff, so why is it at the bottom? Well, it's just a personal gripe, but the game uses Midjourney for all of its art. And I really don't like AI art. So I had to dock the game a bit for that, even though the game isn't being made for a profit. It's just my own principles here. But that shouldn't dissuade you from playing the game. I mean it's FREE. And it's gonna take you at least 5-6 hours to run through, so you'll want to make sure you have a full evening open, as it's a browser game and I would hate for anyone to pause it for the night and come back to the site the next day to find out their data is gone or whatever. Do give it a play, it's pretty cool.   RPG Maker's a lot more flexible than you might think. Yeah, this has got the stock RPG Maker art for the most part, but this is a completely different genre: shopkeeping! You start off with just a small little shop and eventually bring your act to the big city, and finally get so large that you deal in real estate. It's a game that should appeal to Reccetear fans, though there's no haggling. Instead the game is built around a crazy amount of upgrades. Getting a new item in the shop involves helping someone in town out, and then that item has several additional objectives that trigger once you pass a certain amount of sales, which gives you an opportunity to increase the sale price. Naturally there is automation as well, and even the customers themselves have upgrades, and you can configure how they shop. A little creepy sure, whatever don't think about it too hard. Like Cache Grabbers this is a really chill experience, and it's a very addictive gameplay loop that is hard to quit. I absolutely get why this was on certain IDGF voter's lists.   #48) Zortch (GL 7.3, VAR 7.5, AD 7.5, SD 6.5, UI 7 = 73 SCORE) fps The nice thing about a large-scale retro revival of a genre is that beyond the obvious nods to that genre's flagship games, you get games that aim for very specific vibes. How about a FPS that evokes the spirit of the Nintendo 64? That's exactly what Zortch offers, and it's bang on. It is exactly that weird late 90s/early 2000s console shooter -- sometimes cavernous rooms and confusing map design, slow-falling low-poly enemies, sci-fi lasers as not to upset a theoretical 90s Nintendo... it's all here, and yeah, that makes it a flawed game by virtue of chasing a flawed scene, but it's also very nostalgic all the same. It's also dirt cheap too, and you can get it in a two-pack with Chop Goblins for a fun afternoon and evening of retro shootin and hollerin.   Speaking of N64, four of the next 7 entries are 3D platformers going for that PS1/N64 era vibe (and there's a 5th 3d platformer that isn't!). Cavern of Dreams is meant to be a gentler take on Banjo Kazooie, with friends to help, puzzles to solve, and new abilities to get as you go from area to area. Similar to BK/BT, levels can be interconnected with exits, so you will sometimes go from an exit in level 3 to a gated-off area in level 1. So you do get some exploration here. It's the lowest entry on the list mostly because it is simpler and more all-ages friendly, but as you'll see from the scores, it's not marked down by much. This one is $13 and you'll notice quite a few of these 3D platformers are pretty inexpensive. But first, we gotta briefly shift from jumping to shooting...   Auroch Digital's over-the-top rip & tear take on Warhammer should appeal to both fans of DOOM and Warhammer alike, and it's got very visceral gore for the amount of damage you're dealing. That said, I played this on Switch and had a worse experience because the Switch hardware can't handle the game, with a bad framerate and an adaptive resolution that took a pixelated look and made it more resemble a mosaic. The gunplay is mostly fine even if enemies get a bit too much health as the campaign progresses. But the level design is probably the weakest of any of the shooters I played this year, with several levels inducing confusion and disorientation as to where to go. On the bright side, the as-always deadpan serious storytelling I usually experience from WH games now feels as silly as it should, with the retro look and your weird gibberish-chanting skull friend. The difficulty also feels right as you'll be managing your health and armor pickups judiciously going through the various arenas cleaning house. gently caress the bosses though.   I'm not AS high up on this (eh? ehh?? because you jump a lot in the game?? eh.) as others are, but I want to recommend Pseudoregalia for its game structure and design. There are a lot of Metroidvanias these days, but few of them offer the non-linear sandbox approach that Pseudoregalia does. Outside of the tutorial section, you're not confined to a specific path (except for, of course, the ability gated areas you can't reach), and there are a lot of different upgrades that you can grab in any order, and that will inform your route through the game. It's possible to reach platforms and doorways with multiple movesets, and that's I think where the game really shines. I wish that environments were more detailed and that there was more to collect, but for $6 it's a no brainer if you like 3D platformers and Metroidvanias.   If you still want more technical and demanding 3D platforming but in a more nostalgic shell, then you'll probably like Corn Kidz 64, a 3D platformer from BogoSoft, the developer of 2000's indie cult classic Lyle in Cube Sector. Like Cavern of Dreams, it's influenced by Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie, but it demands a lot more from you than that game, with many pickups and quest items requiring you to string multiple moves together in a row, and timed events being REALLY tight. But if you can handle that challenge I think you'll like the game quite a bit (just maybe turn the music volume down because it's repetitive and quickly annoying). It takes place in one very large level (along with a separate tutorial level and bonus mini-levels that test your platforming skills) with buildings and treeholes to enter, and locked doors that require leveling up to open. This is accomplished by collecting the many XP cubes litered around the world, which is the primary collectable. Like Pseudoregalia I wouldn't have minded more to collect, but these cubes do demand a lot of precision and movement chaining to collect, so at the very least I was kept engaged. This is another cheap game at $7, making it another easy recommendation. There was no Tinykin-level super 3d platformer this year, but plenty of these smaller ones filled my appetite enough, while still looking forward to 2024.   Okay, enough about 3D platformers, how about city building? That kind of game doesn't usually show up in my GOTY lists, but I do like a builder game, going back to my childhood playing Coaster, and then Bullfrog's Theme Park, then Rollercoaster Tycoon 1-3... actually I guess mostly I liked rollercoaster games. But hey, I liked the town building aspects of Dark Cloud and My Life as a King! I liked DQ Builders! That has to count for something!! Well, Steamworld Build is what I'd consider half-cozy half-stressful, which is I guess the general state of zen builder games want to achieve. You'll be building out your robotic city on the surface, while sending miners underground to mine the resources you'll need to upgrade those houses and bring in new kinds of citizens, each with their own needs you'll have to manage with proper proximity placement of restaurants and shops, to keep them happy and increase their population. With each milestone of population, more services unlock, and with each layer of bedrock underneath, there are rocket parts to find, as you look to build a way off of the planet for your colony. I won't lie, the managing of happiness is not perfect and can get a bit grindy as you have to just build out more and more and move things around. But there is a certain zone I got into when playing that felt good and kept me invested. I wouldn't put Build at the top of the Steamworld franchise, but it's entertaining and doesn't besmirch the name either.   Haha just kidding here's more 3D platformers!! While the other 3D platformers are going for retro vibes, Skator Gator 3D has decidedly modern (though cute and simplified) visuals and is more about speed than exploration. The closest comparison I could make is the Toree 3D series, but with the addition of rail grinding segments similar to Ratchet & Clank where you hop back and forth between rails to avoid danger and pick up all the collectables. I actually really like this short-form format, it makes me want to 100% every level and replaying a level doesn't take very long. If you like games like Toree or Lunistice, you should like this one, and guess what? It's also cheap, at 5 bucks, and will only take you an hour or so to clear. Yes, it's spelled "Skator".   So, back at the beginning of the year, Steam held their typical February "Next Fest", and there were two games demoing simultaneously that had references to each other as sort of a collab effort. Mail Time was one of the two, and Smushi Come Home was the other, and I definitely consider Smushi the better game. We're back in the realm of PS1-ish visuals and exploration-based design, but I thought that the actual exploration was just more fun in Smushi than Mail Time. In addition to sucking up all the typical collectable currency, you also get entries added to your journal of each of the species of mushroom you come across, with a little 'fun fact' for each of them, and I thought that was cute. It's still a pretty gentle game-- there's no combat and the only weapon you get is just to open blocked passageways-- but I had a good time with it. And this one's only-- well, okay, this one is $20, so it's not as cheap as the other games. But it's already been in a humble bundle (which is how I got it) so you might be able to get Smushi for cheap in 2024.   Do you like Flashback? Were you highly disappointed in (or resigned to the fate of) Flashback 2 by Microids? Well, there are two actual cinematic platformers that I think you'll enjoy. One is called Full Void, which I have only played the demo of, but reminds me a lot of Another World and Heart of Darkness. And Lunark is just straight up a new Flashback game, with tuck rolling and shooting, tense animation-lag platforming, and puzzly stage design. There's some really pretty rotoscoped cutscenes throughout the game, flexing the creator's skills, but the levels themselves have plenty of eye candy to enjoy in their color design. The back half of the game doesn't really iterate on the first half, so the gameplay stays fairly the same throughout, and there aren't the kind of set pieces that Another World had, but Lunark is one of the first modern cinematic platformers to actually nail the look and feel of the originals.   Y'know, for a back of the list FPS, this one's pretty solid, which I guess goes to show you that this year is absolutely slammed and/or jammed with good games. It's a cyberpunk retro shooter, but not THAT one. Yes, Turbo Overkill is cranked up to 11, and this is the "at home" version, but that doesn't completely demerit Sprawl, which is honestly a good time. You're a little fragile, but this is made up for by giving you Bullet Time and wallrunning abilities (the latter of which come into heavy use as you navigate several tall-rear end arenas, rooftops and complexes). The story is nothing to write home about but the guns feel fine and the way that enemies spray out health and adrenaline (the bullet time juice) for headshots and glory kills means a constant rhythm of going in and out of slo-mo, popping enemies, and running to evade. It's just nowhere near as balls-to-the-wall as Total Overkill is (a game which I've played the demo of but not played the full release, so I do know how cranked up it is). It's less power fantasy, more "keep moving and shooting to survive", and some rooms feel a bit unfair in how they stack enemies against you, but you could do a lot worse than Sprawl for the $15 asking price. It also helps that Sprawl was released completely finished (as I still wait on Viscerafest, Wrath, Beyond Sunset, Extraneum, and Hyperviolent to hit 1.0...).   There's always at least one free game that slaps hard and gets on my lists, and this year there were a couple. If it wasn't for the AI art, Roottrees would probably be right around here, and WUTAH is, honestly, a surprisingly high effort free JRPG that is definitely inspired by Earthbound but does not show its inspiration through blatant copying. You play a baseball-bat wielding lesbian out to save her niece from a town that has been overtaken by cosmic horrors and ripped out of the world. The art is a little 'webcomicy' but not in an unpleasant way, and all the tiling, spritework and portraits seem to be completely original. I like the combat system and its heavy focus on weakness exploitation, I like the character moments between the main cast as well as the people they know in the town. It's also a big long adventure, nearly 20 hours, which is... well, actually not unusual for a free RPG Maker game, but it's still crazy that something like this is absolutely free.   While there's nothing particularly special that Dread Templar does to set it apart from other first person shooters, it's still a very well put-together game, with fun movement, a combo of sword and guns that feel good, and decent level design. Props to the developer for seeing this game through to a 1.0, rather than it languishing in Early Access hell forever-- that's right, I'm looking at you Wrath: Aeon of Ruin! (uh.. hope everyone there is doing alright after all the layoffs) I don't have a ton to say on this one as I played it back in May, but I'm definitely a fan of Dread Templar.   I will easily forgive a game's flaws if it engages in wacky genre alchemy. One of my GOTY entries last year, Sunday Gold, mixed RPG combat with investigation segments and careful management of action points. The Bookwalker similarly combines point and click adventuring with lite RPG combat, but it also has an additional framing layer set in what is essentially a first-person walking simulator. In this outer layer, you're a writer on house arrest doing shady work on the black market to cheat your way out of debt. This involves traveling magically into several books that are each a pastiche of classical literary works/settings, recovering a specific artifact from each of them, and taking them out of the book to deliver to your client. Inside the books the game becomes an isometric adventure where you go around talking to NPCs and doing quests, using inventory items (automated, mind you, not asking you to merge random rear end items until you figure out a puzzle), and getting into small fights. The RPG aspect is by far the weakest, and there isn't any aspect that is done super incredibly-- and in addition, there's a fair amount of jank you have to deal with too. But like I said at the beginning... I love the mashup! I was deep into this from start to finish despite the problems.   For the people who sat silent and cold as every Nintendo Direct and Xbox Showcase ended without a mention of Silksong, there's a lesser but still enjoyable Metroidvanian experience with Lone Fungus, a demanding platformer who places its difficulty in the strings of moves you'll need to put together to get around rather than the combat (though there are still plenty of bosses to test you, none of them are on HK's level). Like HK, there are equippable relics, and some of your abilities are elemental in nature, which I thought was an interesting way to do it. As one of the few Guacamelee stans, I do like platforming involving chaining moves together, so I was pretty happy playing this one. It's nothing spectacular, it definitely has that look and feel of a game made in Macromedia Fusion (which I think it is) so it's a bit dated in appearance I suppose. But I dunno, I still think it's pretty good.   Sandrock improves upon My Time at Portia in almost every conceivable way. The combat has been upgraded from a heinous crime to average and serviceable. The quests are all focused on the series' strength of building projects, including relationship quests. The mining is no longer a nightmare. The townspeople are less creepy looking. The load times are.... okay they're still unbearably long but they are a LITTLE better so it's still an improvement. The game also integrates an interesting desert setting, where devices are water-powered, but the drought means water has to be carefully rationed, and you can't chop down trees. These restrictions may seem a bit severe but as you play the game, it's really not that hard to power your workshop and afford water. The eventual goal is to help make the town a thriving oasis community, and it will take a long time to get there. Seriously. I put 70 hours into this game in Early Access and that just got me to the end of the pre-1.0 content. There's another dozen or so hours of epilogue afterward. It's an insane amount of content.   It's the end of the pre-rendered Falcom era, and I'm sad about it. I don't like Trails of Cold Steel, I probably won't like Reverie because it has the Cold Steel cast in it, which means that if I carried on to the brand new series (Daybreak), it's gonna be... well, a very different beast, so many generations past. I wish I could say that Azure ends the old era with a bang, but that's not quite accurate. Azure is still a solid JRPG, but its story suffers from what I would call 24 Syndrome (hopefully this isn't actually the name of something else that's terrible). The first season of 24 was a tight thriller, but every subsequent season was obsessed with having to top the previous one, and so the show went all-in on relentless plot twists and traitor reveals. And that's basically the problem with Azure. It just keeps throwing more and more plot twists and catastrophic events at the cast, and you're just never given a chance to chill. Which is far from the cozy vibes that other Trails games have fostered up to this point, but might run parallel to the kind of storytelling of the later Cold Steel games (which, as I understand it, take place around the same time as Azure). The near-end plot twist surrounding the child makes sense with what I thought was odd in Zero, but IDK if that plot twist is a satisfying justification for dozens of hours of interactions between the cast and the kid. I dunno. I just prefer Zero. This is still fine though. And the remaster allows for super fast turbo both in and out of combat, and I loved that, and I definitely used it! I'm probably going to have to split this into two posts again because I can't stop typing!!!   Atomic Heart is certainly rough around the edges with its writing and its need to overly sexualize women to the point of absurdity, but that doesn't make it a bad game. In fact, I find a lot of the internet's conspiracy posting around the game about whether the flower pots are secret fascist code to be tedious and dull. I really didn't mind the dub acting either, I thought fake Spike Spiegal read the lines perfectly fine and with decent charisma. So with all that said, the real issue with Atomic Heart is that it doesn't really know what kind of game it wants to be. It has the narrative presentation of something like Bioshock Infinite, with gorgeous environments, lavish set dressing and fantastical dream sequences, but it also wants to be kind of open world, but it also isn't open world at all, as the majority of the game is spent in more linear complexes underground. It just makes me think they should have trimmed from one to give more love to another. The open world in particular serves no real purpose and it has one of the most obnoxious sequences of the game, where you are introduced to the open world by being forced to stealth your way out of a village with only a couple of viable paths and security EVERYWHERE. I was not immersed by this part of the sim. I think I spent like 90 minutes failing over and over before finally escaping the village and getting on with the game. But I think there is a good game in here, despite everything against it. It's beautiful, it's always fun to shoot robots, the music is great, and after a while, at least for me, the bizarre tone of the writing grows on you. Even if the objectification of women never does.   Okay, that was too much talk about a AAA game, I need to recenter with a game so indie that it's not only made by one person, but is an ode to the incredibly niche Love-de-lic game philosophy/group who gave us Chulip, UFO, and Moon Remix RPG Adventure. That means it is baffling, strange, focused on forming bonds and friendships, and it's as derivative of those games as it is fascinating and unique. Like Moon, you start off pretty weak and can only be outside for a short period of time, but as you form friendships, your time limit increases. You also will gain the ability to take pictures of your new friends, which allows you to transform into them and use their ability to traverse even more of the island you inhabit. I think that's as best as I can explain without getting into all of the insane jargon that is thrown at you over the course of the game. You'll eventually understand... a decent amount of it. But some of the inscrutability is intentional of course. Moon was my top game of 2020, and this... isn't, but that's no shade on 24 Killers. It's a really good imitation and interesting in its own way.   Terra Nil came as a part of my Netflix subscription, which is certainly not the way I was expecting to get access to a cool indie game before 2023 happened. And, that may color my impressions a little bit, as I didn't pay a cent for the game, so its short length and its minor frustrations did not bother me at all. But if you have Netflix, there's no reason not to try the game if you have a compatible phone, it works just fine with a touchscreen interface. Okay, the game itself, it's a reverse builder where you are restoring life to a planet by placing devices that irrigate the land, create grass and rivers, plant trees, etc. And then when the land is restored, you pack up and ship off to another part of the planet, until the whole of Earth has been healed. There are actually times where you'll have to cause damage to the land in order to get the resources needed to heal it, which I found an interesting concept. I liked the different biomes and challenges that came with them, and it was a laid back game that hit me at just the right time when I was feeling very down. So that's why I rank it close to the top half.   I'm always a fan of a game that either imitates the Gameboy Color or Gameboy Advance in its aesthetic-- I guess it's obvious what consoles were popular when I was in high school/college. You'll see an example of the former later on in this list, but LunarLux called out to me with its GBA vibes and unique combat. It's a sci-fi JRPG where you play a protector of the peace in space who has to deal with an imminent existential threat to the colony. For most of the game you are taking on enemies by yourself, but that's ok because you have quite an extensive roster of abilities and passive perks (3 of which are chosen at random for you to choose from when you attack). Each attack has its own Paper Mario-esque minigame to determine strength, which combined with the perk you choose, can land some devastating damage. The game itself has somewhat simple execution outside of combat, since it's obviously made by a small team, but I did enjoy exploring the various territories and finding all the chests with permanent upgrades. It's a neat little game.   This one went under the radar for being on Gamepass while it was still in Early Access, but it hit 1.0 earlier this year and I was surprisingly into it. The best way I could describe it is Diablo meets Ys. The dungeons are generally procedurally generated like Diablo, while the combat is fast and furious carnage on par with the PSP Ys games, especially with daggers. When you get into the zone it's very visceral and you're a literal whirling dervish (I mean one of the abilities is a whirlwind spin) as damage numbers fly out everywhere. It's a little repetitive for sure, and there's more loot than every Nioh game combined, but it's cool!   A shmup in my list! I don't really go for bullet hell games so I always respect a dev going for the more old-school Gradius or Turbografx 16 style of shoot-em-up. There's a lot of indie shmups that I need to get to at some point, but ProtoCorgi had a cheap price point so that's the one I played. And I like it! It's got absolutely banging music, cute 16-bit art, and the ability to bark out the letters B A R K, which actually serves a function to scoop up all the enemy drops. In the second to last stage there's a fully orchestrated tune that goes really hard. The stages also have secret routes if you pay attention to details in the level design. The reason it's not in my top 10 has to do with the way lives/continues work, which is this kinda lame meta progression concept where you unlock a higher life count by playing the game for a certain period of time. And getting more than one continue requires you to finish the entire campaign! I don't get why they did it like this. It's not like an NES game where the developer put restrictions on lives/continues to encourage game renters to keep going to the arcade to play the original. I'm not a fan of this at all, but that doesn't take away from how fun the game itself is. Definitely a better dog-based shmup than Dogs Throwing Swords II: Three Barks To The Wind.   I always had an interest in Gujian 3 but the always-online aspect of the game scared me off. So when I found out the same developer had just put out a Metroidvania with no online check, I had to give it a go. And I guess you could consider this one the Souldiers of 2023 (or the Pheonotopia Awakening of 2021), a Metroidvania that is absurdly large with a ton of bosses and expansive biomes to explore. It's not quite as good as those games, but it's still pretty good. It's got nice hand drawn art and pretty backgrounds, decent combat, and like I said, lots to explore! Not the best Metroidvania but all-around good. Honestly, in some ways it's better than the top Metroidvania on my list!   This will probably be the most complaint-filled paragraph for a game I have in the top half of my top 50, but it's all story-related. As a game itself, Sea of Stars is incredibly good looking, competent and confident, and its combat is fun enough even if it gets to be a bit repetitive near the end. It also, like its predecessor The Messenger, has a couple of fun meta moments. And Garl is a legitimately great character-- even if he at times feels a bit like a self-insert, he gets to do and say all the things you wish characters would do or say in this kind of setting. I can't get into my biggest gripe of the game without spoiling major aspects of the story, so I'll just say this. This game is a tribute to Chrono Trigger. And I mean capital T, capital R, capital I, capital B, capital U, capital T, capital E. I typed that out without ctrl-c/v. If you are AT ALL familiar with most of the plot beats of Chrono Trigger, there are moments in this game that will make you roll your eyes so hard they'll keep spinning until you lose consciousness. Look, I get it, Chrono Trigger was a neat game, but stand out on your own! Have something to say yourself!   There are games I keep learning about even at the end of the year, like did you know Toho published an Into the Breach style Godzilla game? DD Gaiden was in a Fanatical bundle and I had to give it a try because it came from the developer of an underrated indie brawler Streets of Red: Devil's Dare. And it's pretty darn good! For some reason it claims to be a roguelite, but I don't know that I'd actually call it one. The game structure involves taking on four gangs in whatever order you want, and as you complete levels, the other gangs fortify their home base, which makes each subsequent level longer and encourages multiple playthroughs. The fighting is fun, and there's a tag-team mechanic where you can take two characters into battle, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. One character I went with (whose name I forget because they're not Abobo or the usual main characters) was a giant tank of a man, while the other was Marian who literally has a gun and rocket launcher. Having played the original 3 Double Dragons on NES (yes I know they were in the arcade first, shut up), Double Dragon Neon, and now this one, I think this might be one of the best in the series. It's just plain fun and none of the platforming nightmares of those early games. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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  I know that Void Stranger is the current hotness in the puzzle scene, but have you considered: bunny rabbits. Paquerette is a game about chasing bunnies into dead ends and capturing them, with increasingly devious level designs the deeper you descend. Now if, for some reason this stresses you out as a pet owner, you have the option of releasing them later, and there's actually a reason to do it even if you don't particularly care. See the game has an additional secret mechanic and stages need to be completed twice for 100%. In addition to that, the stages you see are not the only stages in the game. Don't just assume that you're confined to every room! That's all I'll say. I'm sure that Void Stranger will be amazing when I do get around to playing it, but PDTB is a worthy consolation prize of a puzzler and worth talking about in its own right.   After yet another disastrous breakup and a three year absence, Jala has come back to her hometown to start making some changes and figuring things out. But her six exes all find out in a mix of rage and curiosity. Because some have never really gotten over it, and some think they still have a chance. The only way to set everything straight is to fight them one on one. That's right, this is another genre mashup game, the kind I take extra fancy to! In addition to the turn-based RPG battles, you also have a skateboard and can skate around most locations grinding and doing tricks with a very accessible control scheme (Skate 3 this is not). In addition to reconciling with your former partners, you also have the opportunity to gain some approval from your very disappointed mother via cooking minigames (which also produce healing/buff items you keep with you for a future battle). And your grandma has decided to send a bunch of suitors at you as well. The game is, like Jala's life, a little bit of a mess... even on the Xbox Series it has some inconsistent framerate, and the game's skateboard friendliness is almost TOO friendly (your combo never ends until you go to a 'combo finisher' landmark on the current map). But it's worth giving a look for its unique set-up, the over-the-top character animations, and the flair of the inner world segments of ex battles.   They did it. They made a roguelite I actually wanted to play and complete. It doesn't happen often, I have kind of a bias against the subgenre (can it even be called a genre when it is a format that applies to multiple genres?) and its reliance on procedural generation and (often) meta progression. But Wall World hits a lot of things just right for me. It has the excavation and upgrade loop of something like Terraria, with the weaponry and upgrade paths of a tower defense game, and an actual goal that feels reachable if you can just get a little bit further, upgrade a little bit more. I was hooked on this game for hours, reaching both the bottom of the wall and the top of the wall (where the actual ending is), and though I have some frustrations with the ever-roaming boss that invades after certain intervals, that didn't keep me from enjoying everything else. I guess I can learn to love roguelites if they're all as niche and specialized as this.   Well... I wasn't expecting a Game Grumps game to place this high. Homebody is a time-loop puzzle game themed like a PS1 survival horror. You're visiting your friends for the first time in a year at a remote cabin, when suddenly a slasher tears through the house killing everyone. As you keep getting brought back to the beginning of that night, you start to wonder, why can't I talk about this with anyone else? Why is the house so over-elaborately strewn with gadgets and keypads? Why did one of the friends never show up? Did he even actually exist? There's no simple escape in this game, as you'll have to explore every inch of the house, both above and below, unpacking each mystery one at a time. As far as the puzzle design and the time-loop structure goes, it's solid stuff. None of that 12 Minutes bullshit where you're forced to spend the entire game trying to figure out the correct order of things to do. Each loop gives you plenty of things to check out, helped by a memory log that remembers passwords, important notes, and even puzzle solutions you've worked out already, so you can quickly enter them next time (the game is even smart enough to auto-solve certain puzzles after you've repeatedly solved them for X amount of loops, for your convenience). It is true that there is one order of events that you do have to do, in order to reach the final act of the game, but otherwise the game gives you the freedom to explore and experiment as you please. Even the final objective in the climax is designed in a way that you technically could approach it in whatever order is most convenient to you. This is how time-loop games should be designed universally, but unfortunately that's not always the case (DEATHLOOP. STARING AT DEATHLOOP). There is some jank in the game, and conversations don't necessarily flow naturally (I guess to some extent there is a narrative reason for it, but it still is awkward)-- to give an example, when the power goes out in the house, there is no cutscene of people reacting, they just kind of wait for you to come to them, and then they'll say something like "this is creepy" or "something's not right here", which... doesn't really make sense, because it's just the power going out briefly? Later conversations feel a bit more organic, but I wish the writing overall was given one more pass. Still, Homebody is a memorable experience and paints a better picture for the development team than Dream Daddy ever did.   Folks, we're in banger country at this point. These are all easy recommendations going forward with few caveats. Slayers X is what happens when you take the concept of "check out my house" levels on old DOOM map pack CDs, and make an entire satirical game out of the concept. Yeah, some people really like the creepypasta myhouse.wad, but that game doesn't have the Idaho State Fair, or a minigolf course. The game is a spinoff of Hypnospace Outlaw and features former web troll Zane living out his teen fantasy of being a self-insert edgelord that everyone loves. It's got some seriously strange enemies, weird but highly novel weapons (like a weapon powered by broken glass that fills up on ammo whenever you destroy windows), and manages to take the concept of banal real world locations and makes actually fun level designs out of them. And much like Sprawl, this one came 100% finished, no waiting on Early Access! Kudos to Jay Tholen and team.   There was no super incredible Metroidvania this year, as several got delayed and some released to disappointment, but 9 Years of Shadows is still pretty darn good. It's not the most original, definitely more of a meat & potatoes release that sticks to what works, but boy howdy is it gorgeous. Other than Mario Wonder, I don't think any other 2D game is as pretty as this one in 2023. Massive bosses, vibrant environments (well, after a certain point, it isn't colorful when the game starts!), traversal abilities that don't break the mold but are still fun, and an interesting risk/reward system that utilizes the same lifebar for both your shield and your bear's abilities. Afterimage might be slightly better overall, and the UI could be better, but 9 Years of Shadows is the one Metroidvania I looked forward to this year that actually released and (mostly) lived up to my expectations.   Venba is a narrative game about the healing power of cooking, as well as the challenges and struggles of first and second generation immigrants in adjusting to their new live as well as holding on to their culture. It's a well told, if short, story, with warm moments, bittersweet moments, and the foods you cook all look delicious. I'll try to avoid going on another rant, but if more games like Venba existed then I wouldn't have as much of an issue with the "wholesome" descriptor. There are stakes in this game (but not steaks), there is conflict, there's some tragedy, but it is still heartwarming and sweet. With this one on Gamepass and running at about a movie length, there's no reason not to give this one an afternoon spin.   The game that surprised everyone at the start of the year, is the game I played right at the end of the year. It's got fantastic character animation akin to some of the top 3DCG anime like Trigun Stampede or Beastars, it's got great sound design that swells as you rank further and further up in combat, the cast is likeable (except for Chai, who feels like a point and click adventure protagonist; the kind that steals everything and acts like an rear end in a top hat to everyone), and the companion skills work nicely as a way to keep combat engaging in the back half of the game. BUT! I unfortunately don't vibe with the rock music... it's kinda meh to me. The licensed music is good, but the regular level music just doesn't knock my socks off. I also think that the level design could be better... it reminds me a bit of early Ratchet & Clank which was more corridor-heavy. By level 8 the arenas finally stop being largely featureless and start including hazards; I just wish that came sooner. Some very inspired level setting decisions, though. My favorite is a music festival level that detours you through a propaganda filled museum, which also has my favorite stage music in the game. This one’s an obvious labor of love.   Similar to Homebody, The Tartarus Key looks like survival horror but is actually just a puzzle game. Unlike Homebody's time-loop structure, Tartarus Key has more of a traditional Resident Evil-style mansion and its puzzles are of the escape room variety, with all relevant inventory items kept within each room so as not to clutter up your pockets as you roam around. There's no terror chasing you here, just pure puzzling. But that doesn't mean there's no stakes. There are several characters to rescue if you want the true ending (which isn't exactly a Good ending, per se, but finishes the story) and they CAN die in their respective predicaments. Unfortunately you only get one shot to save each one, so be prepared to force-exit if necessary if you really want that true ending.   I wonder if Journey would have been as successful if it came out in 2023? Would it have cut through the many other narrative games to catch people's eyes? Is it a pointless exercise since many narrative games were themselves inspired by Journey? Similarly, I think that had Jusant released in the 2000s or even 2010s, it might be seen by gamers and journalists as being on the level of Journey and Ico, instead of just a very good indie game in a crowd of them. But I do hope that today's generation finds Jusant because I do think it's a special game. Its interface is brilliant, capable of allowing both steady and ponderous climbing as well as rapid-fire Ninja Warrior climbing pace. I love a setting that has a layer of magic to it, and it's an interesting intersection with a post-apocalyptic setting that is as bleak as it is banal. And yet very colorful and calming! It's at times meditative, at times a puzzle, at times an investigation, and altogether it's a journey as important and meaningful as its destination. Possibly Don't Nod's best game since the original Life is Strange.   I am a casual rhythm gamer. I don't go to arcades and play the spinning record game, or slap my hands around like crazy on some pop'n music. I'm uh more of a theatrhythm, guitar hero, parappa the rapper rhythm gamer. And Rhythm Sprout is for people like me. It's not overly complicated or shooting at me at 250 beats per minute. No note more complicated than a dotted sixteenth note. And, well, the music absolutely loving whips. I know Hi-Fi Rush is the biggest rhythmic game on the block this year, but Rhythm Sprout's intense EDM really works for me. There's 20 stages, and then 5 prequel levels that unlock, and then 5 bonus stages after that. There's also a hard mode that unlocks after clearing each stage. I won't lie and say there's endless content-- in fact specifically there's three hours of content that then doubles if you do the hard mode-- but the content that's there is really good.   Everyone knows Pizza Tower's good. It came out early in the year and blew audiences away with its crazy Nicktoons-esque animation, Wario Land gameplay and bizarre sense of humor. The game's big enough that people make models for GMod, content mills on Youtube have occasionally thrown Peppino into their terribly copy-paste cartoons, and I'm sure there'll be merchandise sold in stores next to Bendy and the Ink Machine and Hello Neighbor toys. So there's not much for me to add here, except that, hey, I do like it. The escape music is a crunchy snack, and the speed of the game is ridiculous (and encouraged at times). It's almost more like Sonic the Hedgehog than Wario Land. Which in some ways is why I don't put it higher, because it's maybe TOO manic for me to concentrate? Boss battles also feel a little clumsy to me and maybe not this game or engine's strong suit. But just the amount of effort put into the game is incredible. Title cards for every level, unique animations for every rank achieved, a parry feature which has like a dozen different poses/drawings, and lots of secrets and surprises to find. I couldn't get to this until the very end of the year but it was worth the wait.   gently caress, what a year for the first person genre! Not that that's gonna stop people from claiming Doom Eternal was the last shooter to ever exist, but those goofballs can live in ignorance. Quake is dead! Long live HROT! A one-man effort with a custom engine, HROT is like "we have Quake at home", if "at home" is Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. It's got great level design, fun-feeling weapons (except for the SMG), silly enemies and insane bosses. Urban environments don't necessarily make for great levels, but HROT makes it work, with its unique sense of architecture and design. If you have a low tolerance for brown gray and tan color schemes, you might stuggle with this one, but then, you'd also struggle with the original Quake as well. For the rest of us, enjoy one of the best shooters since Dusk.   Mega Man's cousin brought a grappling hook with him! This GBC-palette action platformer lets you take on stages in any order, and it's a real treat, replacing the usual x buster with fast punches and kicks as well as special moves, plus the usual Mega Man X moveset like dashing, wall jumping, and the occasional giant robot to ride. Great level design, great colors, great music. No real complaints from me!   People have been waiting for the true spiritual successor to King's Field, and that's almost what Lunacid is, but that's underselling it a little. The reality is that From Software has made some Kings Field games, and some vibey games like Echo Night, but Lunacid is VIBEY King's Field. With chill and edm music from artists like ThorHighHeels, and relaxed/passive enemy AI, Lunacid is less about death at every step and more about chill exploration... with some traps and fiends to slash. This is even further emphasized by your home base, which has a colorful group of NPCs including straight up an anime girl, and a jaunty skeleton regaling you with tales of the past. This is KIND King's Field, a King's Field where the friendships you make along the way are the true bonfire. Of course there are still shortcuts to unlock, the occasional boss, esoteric NPCs in the world, more than one ending, weapons tied to stat checks, and spending a soul currency equivalent to level up, so all those FROM-isms are still here. But this is not the brutal, weapon breaking, rage-inducing games your grandad played... on his PS1 (he was a cool grandpa). It's about as accessible an entry point as you can hope for.   Mario Wonder is not the best 2D Mario of all time, or even the second best (personally, I think that people vastly overhate on New Super Mario Bros U and its superlative Luigi U dlc campaign), but it lives up to its title with the sheer amount of visual and conceptual creativity and novelty on display. Every level presents a new idea, and almost every wonder flower is a new crazy concept. ALMOST, since due to the large amount of stages, the concepts do repeat occasionally. It's obviously a game patterned after Super Mario World, although I think that comparison draws some scrutiny on the game's weakest element, which is its actual level design. Nintendo are usually masters at creating fun playgrounds in their 3D games and rhythmic gymnastics excercises in their 2D games, but I was surprised at just how FLAT a lot of the level design was in Wonder. Difficulty levels did not seem to mean much of anything outside of Special World, and verticality is significantly limited. Now, some of that has to do with designing around co-op play, but I also felt like the rhythm and flow of the levels was off as well. It's a bit hard for me to explain but a lot of the best Nintendo platformers have a certain flow to them that makes for really elegant running and jumping without slowing down often-- they even showcase this in NES Remix with the auto-run SMB1/3 levels, but you also see it in games like NSMBU, DKC Tropical Freeze, etc. I just don't feel it here, it's just kinda... off. A bit herky jerky. I think that the elephant and drill powerups are neat, but they don't necessarily move the needle in terms of elevating the actual platforming. But Mario's still Mario, and the game is inventive in every other respect, and I don't think any 2D game from Nintendo has ever looked as good as this one. Every background is an absolute treat, the vfx are great, and the sprite animation and restylization of the characters is something the Mario series has been sorely lacking for years. Oh, one last thing, for some reason you can't remap the ground stomp on sideways joycons even though the left trigger isn't used. Kinda dumb! If your joycon has any drift, the ground stomp might trigger at really inopportune moments. Happened to my roommate several times. But also, Nintendo c'mon, it's 2023, you've got to allow for complete button remapping in your games, this isn't the 90s anymore.   It's probably going to be a little while before we see a new Uchikoshi visual novel/adventure, but we got a very good imitation from Square Enix this year, another of their tiny projects that they randomly announced and dropped within a month with little fanfare, much like last year's Voice of Cards series. The game makes use of full 360 degree panoramas to great effect, not just for the purpose of investigation but also to gently caress with you. What starts off seeming like a firey death game anime ends up cooling off into a paranormal mystery. Yeah, there are bad ends for characters, to be sure, but the ultimate goal of the game is not high stakes "who will survive?!" but instead "how did this all come to be?" If you like the way the flowchart worked in Uchikoshi novels, you'll like it here. The cast is fun, and the art is really cool, as high budget as some of MAGES' works (Famiclub, Steins;gate). I'm really looking forward to what this team does next, if Square lets them stay together.   Two VNs back to back! Unlike Paranormasight, which could be considered an Adventure Novel, Misericorde is pure kinetic. You may have noticed the different criteria on VNs, and I think it's only fair. Many of them will use very similar engines and features, and the gameplay on kinetic novels is just reading. And what exceptional storytelling there is on display! A monastery in the 1400s is the perfect setting for a self-loathing protagonist with massive imposter syndrome and extreme faith-based hangups to have to solve a murder mystery while blending in amongst a bunch of gay disaster nuns currently in the throes of what I would describe as a mixture of grief and shitposting, one or more of whom may have committed the murder. These are very loveable and insecure characters who have the kind of friendship where the knives could come out at any time. But the best character is obviously Darcy, a potion-maker with visions who speaks in all lower-case letters and is the chillest nun to have ever lived. But is there perhaps something supernatural at play? Is this a secret Umineko in the making? That's for future parts to decide...   Tears of the Kingdom is no doubt a better game experience than Breath of the Wild. I don't love the open world approach to Zelda, but there's no denying that Nintendo hit a homerun with the Nutz & Bolts approach to sandbox game design. It just makes getting around in the world fun, and the newly added underground is an extremely cool addition. In fact I'd say more than half of my playtime was spent charting out that underground, placing light flowers as I treked around looking for the light roots to fill out the map. When it comes to the actual Zelda adventure... hm. I dunno. I think the story is flat out bad and boringly told, with the least interesting version of Ganon to ever grace a Zelda game. A couple of the dungeons are really cool, and a couple are honestly kinda forgettable. The ship in the sky was pretty cool! But Nintendo has still not yet found their footing on dungeon design in this new paradigm. But in terms of everything else there is to do, it's great. I like building my home, finding the tiny puddles in the painted glyphs, the new powers are awesome, and the koroks are a bit more fun to collect now. I like fixing the signposts, I like building a vehicle to get band members around. The next game isn't going to have these powers or this experimentation but it is going to be open world again, and I'm not sure I'm going to like it near as much as I did TOTK. Not unless Nintendo can shape up the actual main quests of their game to be on par with the classics of the series. As a sandbox, though, it's as good as anything Nintendo's made.   If it isn't already obvious, I love deduction games. And I was a fan of Heaven's Vault, the inkle game about translating ancient glyphs. Now comes Chants of Sennarr, a game that mixes these two together into a package that is even better (with one very obvious flaw). In terms of setting, it's a show stopper, with lovingly designed civilizations that all live isolated from each other on a giant tower, each with their own language that you'll have to learn and interpret. Much like Obra Dinn, filling out a certain number of glyphs correctly in your book will confirm them (and also replace your guess with the actual proper word), although these pages have to be triggered by exploring around, talking to people, and interacting with the world. It's sometimes overwhelming to start out on a new floor and have absolutely no grounding from which to start puzzling out the language, but eventually you will crack away at it until the floodgates eventually open and it's extremely satisfying. That flaw, though. The game has these stealth sections that break up the action, and they're uniformly mediocre. You'll figure them out and get through them with a bit of frustration, but there's not a single one of them that feels necessary to the game. By far the worst of it is the second floor, where doors will get blocked if you get seen, so there is nothing to do but wait to get caught. But that's the only blemish on this masterful game, so try to stick with it and you'll be rewarded!   Many people will tell you that Octopath Traveler 2 is a much better game than the first, but the reality is that Octopath Traveler was always a good game! The combat is as good here as it was then! But it is true that the characters in the first game did not interact together much. I didn't really view that as much of a problem, personally, but it has been partially rectified here by not only having double-character chapters/vignettes, but a full epilogue that has the entire party talking and working together, with a very worthy final boss that really brings that collaboration together. But what really elevates the second game is its even more enjoyable and memorable cast, each of which could rightfully star in their own full length game, from literal Disney Princess Agnea to capitalist buckaroo Partitio to sherlock constantine Temenos. That was the missing piece, I think, that ascends the sequel to being one of the best JRPGs of the 2020s. The music is, of course, still crazy loving good (it's wild that the composer has only really composed for Octopath for Square Enix), and the boss sprites continue to be incredible. For a long time this was my #1 of the year, until two indie games came along and stole my heart...   The top two games share the same score, so whether one is #1 or the other is not really that important. But finally I have an opportunity to put a game at the top that is flat out the Most Pure Fun Game of the year, which Vividlope is. As if it arrived from a time portal from the Y2K era, Vividlope is like if Nintendo made a maze runner arcade game for the Sega Dreamcast. Your simple goal is to paint every tile in the stage by running over it, while avoiding or jumping over enemies, with levels that rotate around like a Mario Galaxy planet. And I had a smile on my face the entire time I was playing. It's kind of silly to say but I kept thinking "man this game is good" a lot. The style is straight out of 1999, with geometric character designs and turn of the centry edm and drum & bass music in the background. It has silly/stupid 5 second skits before each new world. It's got over a dozen stages per world with a ranking system. And it goes by the Qix design philosophy of "just get a certain % to win", but then it activates bonus time and gives you one last chance to get the final tiles, as long as you don't drain the meter too quickly by stepping over already-painted tiles. Guys, it's such a good game. I'm sure people will play it and go "what's the big deal", but I've played through arcadey indie games before (like Annalynn) and not liked them as much as this one.   I guess it's only fitting that a list dominated by indies would end with a game from one of the premiere indie designers. Limbo and Inside launched a cavalcade of side-scrolling narrative platformers (for better or worse), and I'm glad that the designer didn't go back to the same well again. Instead we have a recursive puzzle game, similar to Patrick's Parabox or the aptly named Recursed, but with a higher budget and a bit more emphasis on atmosphere and vibes. Is Cocoon a trickier puzzle game than Patrick's Parabox? No. There are still levels in Parabox I haven't finished, because I'm a moron. But do the puzzles in Cocoon make you feel clever for solving them? Yes they do. And possibly moreso than its competitors. Whenever you have a game in the vein of Parabox or Baba is You there are definitely a few puzzles where you end up finding the solution by accident just by constantly moving things around... but Cocoon is just a lot more graceful about it. I never thought "how was I supposed to figure that out?", or "ughhhh" at the end of a puzzle here. Even my second favorite puzzle game on the year (Lingo) had more than a few moments like that. I also thought the game was really well-paced, introducing new mechanics and environments at just the right time. It's of course, beautiful, and a puzzle game doesn't NEED to be, but when it is trying to put across an artistic vision like Cocoon does, then good execution does matter. Sorry to beat up Lingo some more, but the art in that game is so plain and featureless that the teleporting becomes a major detriment. And I found that the visual and spatial design of the game actually helped to guide me to solutions just by directing my eyes, without needing to actually have a hint system or guide. My only regret about 2023 is that I just didn't have enough time to find even more games to put on Cocoon's level. And yes, my list has 68 entries. But that still leaves out so many! But I don't feel any shame or regret in placing Cocoon here. It will never top Inside's insane ending, but as a game, I think this is Jeppe Carlson's best work, and I say this as someone who played it on a loving TRAIN RIDE. My next post (tomorrow? Later tonight?) will have my Honorable Mentions, which this year includes DLC and certain remasters, so the honorable mentions category actually just as much variation on scoring! See you then! The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 05:56
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Ugh I always start a writeup and then get distracted and don't finish it in time. Here are the (mostly bad) games I liked this year idk. 10. Control Glad I can finally be part of the conversation on that hot new Remedy game! I’ve picked this up a couple times previously but it didn’t really stick until this year. I’m not sure if it was the platform (I’d tried it on PS4 before but played through it on PC this time) or if I just wasn’t in the right mood for it, but regardless, I’m glad I stuck with it. The overall ~v i b e~ of the bureau and the Oldest House feel so singular and so fully realized, it’s a perfect marriage of bizarre and mundane that’s bursting at the seams with enticing little details and flavor text. My eyes tend to glaze over at the sight of intel files and lore dumps, but they are arguably the best part of Control and I was reading through every file I found right up to (and past) the endgame. That said, while the game does feel great in the hands and I appreciated the metroidvania-style level design, the combat itself wore thin for me by about halfway through the game and kept it from being an all-timer for me. 9. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow I was really late to metroidvanias in general - I didn’t play SotN until a few years ago, which immediately skyrocketed them to one of my favorite genres and sent me down a rabbit hole. On one hand, I could kick myself for not getting into them sooner, but on the other hand, it’s been great having such a huge well of content to dive into between all the indies and the classics that I completely missed. Case in point, the GBA Castlevanias just weren’t even on my radar for whatever reason until I’d exhausted most of the ‘big’ modern indies - I think I had a bit of lingering handheld bias from not owning one since the original Gameboy. Joke’s on me, because Aria of Sorrow owns. I’ve seen discussion about it feeling a little dated or clunky in TYOOL 2023 but that wasn’t my experience at all - it feels like a bite-sized Igavania greatest hits album. I don’t think it’s quite as strong as SotN overall but it’s drat close. 8. Golf With Your Friends I don’t care about golf. I don’t care about minigolf. I’d have a hard time calling this game particularly great, really - it plays totally adequately, there are a bunch of cosmetic unlocks that I don’t care about at all, and the course design is imaginative but leans a little too far toward frustrating for me a lot of the time. BUT, it found its way onto our Xbox and became a family game night pillar sometime in 2022 and never left. It’s just kinda good enough to act as a hub for spending some Quality Time™ passing the controller back and forth with my wife and children, which has led to some of the best times of the year that just happened to involve gaming. A perfectly competent game that never rises to anything more and doesn’t really need to 7. A Short Hike What an absolute joy. I’m a little burned out on “cozy” games these days but I tried this on a whim when it landed on Game Pass and loved it. Just a super breezy, relaxing game with satisfying but low-stakes exploration and traversal, pleasant graphics and a pretty chill and likable atmosphere. It has plenty of that indie game quirkiness without veering too far into overly cutesy twee territory. Just a nice time all around. 6. Forza Motorsport We’ve entered the “critically-meh” stage of my list, wherein I enjoyed a lot of games which have middling-to-poor receptions that nevertheless seemed laser-targeted to my specific tastes in a way that made it easy to ignore the flaws. Aside from some questionable performance design choices and some frustrating performance issues on PC, this is very much business as usual for Forza Motorsport, which is totally fine by me. For my money, it’s the single best driving series around - or, at least, the one that I’ve had the most fun with - by a wide margin. This is an incremental improvement in all the ways that matter to me, plus it’s the first Forza that lets me drive my real-life car (MKIII Supra) on my ‘local’ track (Mid-Ohio), which is enough to wash away a lot of sins for me. I actually kinda like the controversial car XP progression system in the career, I appreciate the spirit of the penalty system even if the implementation could use some work (granted, I never touch public lobbies because yuck), and Rivals is as strong as ever. Basically, it’s everything I wanted, even though I totally recognize the shortcomings. 5. Starfield Another disappointing title that still managed to get its hooks in me. Starfield has a lot of problems which are very well documented, but that didn’t stop me from dumping a cool 80 hours into it and enjoying the vast majority of them. For all the stilted dialogue, questionable writing all around, lack of consequences, partially-integrated systems, etc, the game just kind of… worked for me. For one, even though “NASApunk” is one of the dumbest words ever conceived, I’m an absolute sicko for the semi-grounded sci-fi aesthetic. The combat is improved from Fallout 4/76 just enough to be actually pretty fun in its own right, and there are just a bunch of fun ideas and interesting things to do. It’s all pretty janky and lacking in cohesion, but despite it all I found the weirdly-sterile vaguely-optimistic PG13 world super comforting and enticing. It kind of feels like the ultimate realization of a game a 90s developer would have wanted to make, with all the good and bad that entails. I’m probably done with the game until there are some substantial overhauls or significant new content, but I really did enjoy my time with it. 4. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint More bad games? Hell yeah. Actually, Breakpoint was a bit of a dumpster fire on release (although I would argue it was less of one than the internet treated it like), but it’s come around to being genuinely good in most ways. Or at least, Ubisoft has slowly added enough extremely granular options to let you tweak it into whatever your idea of a good game is. It still has a lot of issues (the story and overall tone are uhhhh), but the core gameplay is fantastic and the rest of the game is at least decent enough to not get in the way too much. I’ve played this off an on since release, but this year it came back into my regular rotation as my One True Map-Clearing Game. Chasing down icons and clearing outposts is the most overused trope in gaming, sure, but the specific flavor of it works perfectly for me here and it’s a super easy game to just relax with and Tacticool your way through a few bases a couple times a week. 3. Max Payne I picked up MP3 for cheap and liked it a fair bit, but it mostly just made me want to replay MP1 and 2. I didn’t expect this to hold up as well as it does - the gameplay is still some of the best in a third-person shooter, the story and presentation are still immaculate, and the overall atmosphere and vibe haven’t been matched to this day. Hell, with an HD texture mod and widescreen fix, it even still looks pretty great to my old man eyes. 2. Vampire Survivors This was near the top of my list (that I didn’t finish in time) last year and I thought I’d gotten everything I needed from the game, but then I got sucked back in and 100%’d it (plus all the DLCs) again on iOS. Still rules. 1. Hollow Knight Ugh, Hollow Knight seems laser-focused at everything I love in games and I’m kinda bummed that it took me this long to get into it. I tried it a few times over the years and kept bouncing off of it until I grabbed a Steam Deck and started it again this year, and was completely enraptured beginning to end. The atmosphere, art, exploration - it’s all perfect (even if I’m very bad at the game and some of the bosses took me way longer than I’d like to admit). 10/10, GOTY. Silksong when?
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Jan 1, 2024 05:59
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you have Ghostlore's rating there twice in place of the corgi shmup game's
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Jan 1, 2024 06:07
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I am constantly in awe of how many games you manage to play (and how succinct but informative your write-ups for them are) and I'm in awe of this list 
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Jan 1, 2024 06:11
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Every year I say to myself I'm going to do a thorough write-up, every year I leave it to the last minute (Even though I had my list on lock about a month ago  )10.) The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Would probably be Top 3, but I've only just started!  9.) Spider-Man Remastered  8.) Spider-Man Miles Morales https://i.imgur.com/ZgDL8VU.mp4 7.) Hi-Fi Rush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2sDMvEuvDQ 6.) Super Mario RPG https://i.imgur.com/41Au2HM.mp4 5.) Pizza Tower https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyBKcikfLU 4.) Baldur's Gate 3  3.) Super Mario Bros Wonder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoXB6MCcP8A 2.) Spider-man 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry5s1mW1xEM&t=2s 1.) World of Warcraft Dragonflight First expansion since Wrath of the Lich King where the game is actually good enough that I've stayed subscribed the entire expansion First expansion since Legion where I enjoy the game enough that I'm back at Cutting Edge raiding level The old guard of game designers have made way for a newer team - all the endless grinding "this is a 2nd job" treadmill poo poo has been removed They added in a monthly Trading Post, which gives you access to an ingame rewards shop filled with new mounts pets and transmog each month via a limited free ingame currency - and it rules Bobby Kotick has finally hosed off, and the upcoming expansion looks amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErQvb3dLcNE Bonus, my favourite Transmog set I made this year https://i.imgur.com/4xHid8w.mp4
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Jan 1, 2024 06:15
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Easy to parse version 10.) The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom 9.) Spider-Man Remastered 8.) Spider-Man Miles Morales 7.) Hi-Fi Rush 6.) Super Mario RPG 5.) Pizza Tower 4.) Baldur's Gate 3 3.) Super Mario Bros Wonder 2.) Spider-man 2 1.) World of Warcraft Dragonflight
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Jan 1, 2024 06:18
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Infinitum posted:7.) Hi-Fi Rush This NEVER stops being funny to me, I love it so much 
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Jan 1, 2024 06:21
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Is there still time? Its still three hours to midnight here (west coast bitchesss). Here we go: 5. Marvel's Spider-Man 2- its not that this is a bad game, its legitimately good, but I was certain it would be my number one since I absolutely loved the first two, and it is a bigger and better version, but it almost feels lesser because of it? Like they made it so much bigger that it gets a little too far away from Spidey's roots of punching local drug dealers and goes all in on cosmic world-ending threats. The fact that it's still so good despite the misses is why it still makes the list, but drat, let's lower the stakes next time, guys. 4. Resident Evil 4 Remake- I never played the original, but I ran through RE2make and 3make in short order a Halloween or two ago and loved them so this was a day-one purchase and absolutely lived up to my expectations. Leon's parry timing was burned into my brain for weeks and a special shoutout to Ashley for getting a non-combat stealth section that was actually fun to play. Nighty night, knights. 3. Hitman Freelancer- I already loved Hitman, but adding a roguelike to the mix made it rewire parts of my brain. The fact that this was a free update and it probably added a hundred hours of replayability to an already amazing game is nothing short of incredible. I would never have thought grinding assassinations to unlock new bathroom cosmetics would be so addictive, but here we are. 2. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor- a bloated budget AAA sequel to a Disney-owned property that actually gets it right. This one's a late entry since this was a Christmas gift so I'm probably a little less than halfway into it, but even with a lot of game left to go I'm prepared to call this game an insane improvement over the first in every respect. Tighter combat, significantly better level design, stronger characters, more Star Warsy stars and wars. In a time where consistently terrible Star Wars shows and movies have been the norm, its nice to see them get it right for once. 1. Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name- as someone who came to the series a few years ago and have slowly made his way through nearly every Yakuza since, this was like a culmination of everything the series has been. It's got nearly all the series' strengths and none of its weaknesses: it's got Yakuza 6's pathos without the middling combat. 0's money-pumping leveling system without the completionist grind. 5's convoluted twists without being 80 hours long. 3's orphans without everything else about 3. And, for the first time in the series, you can wear a new jacket whenever you want instead of just after you beat the game. I love it. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 06:27
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Jerusalem posted:This NEVER stops being funny to me, I love it so much She really should not be as fine as she is in the rest of the game
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Jan 1, 2024 06:53
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cheetah7071 posted:I was gonna write up a top 50 but then it was so intimidating I never started it and now here I am scraping in at the last second with a barebones list. Alas. strongly agree with your good metroid opinions, keep preaching the good word about Castlevania III as well Skjorte posted:(I'm not sure my bottom 5 or so could've withstood a year in which I'd played releases like BG3, TotK, AW2, Mario Wonder, and Mortal Kombat 1. Fortunately for them, this was not that year!) Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen MK1 on many if anyone's list. Did it really fall that fast in the mind's of those that played it?
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Jan 1, 2024 06:56
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Getting a quick list in before the year ends. 12.Jackbox Party Pack 10 11.We Love Katamari + Royal Reverie 10. Helldivers 9. Cadence of Hyrule 8. Suika Game 7. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk 6. Super Mario Wonder 5. Super Mario RPG 4. PIZZATOWER 3. Advance Wars: Rebootcamp 2. Deep Rock Galactic (ROCK AND STONE TO THE BONE!!!) 1. Pikmin 4
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Jan 1, 2024 07:11
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Getting my list in under the wire! I've never participated in these threads before, but it's always great to read others' lists every year and the passion behind their favorites that I felt I should finally get off my rear end and write up my list too. I played and completed nearly 30 games this year (with countless started and incomplete, naturally), but I'm going to limit my top 10 to games released in 2023. This year was just chock full of new releases, and I wasn't able to play everything I wanted to so they'll have to wait 'til next year at least (looking at you BG3 and Alan Wake 2)! 10 - Remnant 2 (Xbox Series X) I didn't play the first game, but seeing as this one dropped recently on Gamepass and hearing good things about its unique blend of genre and gameplay (Soulslike third-person shooter with roguelike elements), I had to give it a try. And it turned out to be pretty great! I ended up doing a single player run so I don't have any insight to how it plays in co-op, but the difficulty was A-OK without co-op buds, tough but generally fair. I loved the combo of shooting and dodging and it felt pretty great throughout, barring some jank and bugginess to some fights here and there. The game makes up for these flaws with inventiveness in the environments and the boss fights, and the worldbuilding was surprisingly fleshed out, although I wasn't a fan of the verbose text logs strewn throughout and the endless NPC dialogue for this type of game. I liked the few classes I played, and the roguelike elements are fascinating and will likely have me returning to the game for another few runs. 9 - Dead Space Remake (PS5) It was difficult to rank this compared to RE4 Remake because I love both the original versions of these dearly, but I figured the original Dead Space would not exist without RE4, so here we are. It feels less like a remake and more of an modern polishing of the original game, considering the original is barely 15 years old (and still looks pretty good today). As others have expressed, I agree this version makes the original nearly obsolete, improving on areas that were clunky (Zero-G traversal), beefing up boss fights, and replacing the most outright awful part of the original (Asteroid shooting!) with something much more enjoyable while still making sense in plot terms. The main protagonist Isaac Clarke getting full voice acting also improved the story a lot for me, although I'm interested to give the original another go around just to see how the silent protagonist affects the feel of the game. Shooting still feels great and the new weapon modes are extremely welcome, and the environmental visuals, effects and sound design are second to none. 8 - Resident Evil 4 Remake (PS5) The first and best of three new remakes I played this year. The original RE4 is a stone cold classic for me that I like to replay every once in a while, and I have been a fan of Capcom's Resident Evil remakes of the past few years, so anticipation for this game was high, and it absolutely delivered! My only qualms were some of the more ridiculous set pieces were cut (Giant statue) and the general tone was not nearly as goofy as the original, but I can give that a pass given that it might not have worked with the more realistic modern style. Also a big thumbs up to the Ada DLC chapter, it made revisiting the game a joy with Ada's new tools, weapons and some sweet set pieces brought back from the original that were absent in the main remake campaign. 7 - Cocoon (Xbox Series X) Completely off my radar until release, Cocoon was a scrumptious package of great puzzle design, simple yet elegant controls, wordless narrative and a gorgeous alien aesthetic. It also was perfectly paced and didn't overstay its welcome, although I would have been more than happy to play more of it! 6 - Lies of P (Xbox Series X) I was skeptical of this game all through its previews and demo, thinking it to be a low-rent knockoff of FromSoft's soulslike style, with the puppet/Pinocchio angle not doing much to excite me. Boy was I wrong; thanks to its availability on Gamepass and trying it on a whim one weekend, I ended up playing through the game 2 and half times for over 100 hours before I moved on to other things. The developers have nailed a look and feel similar to FromSoft's works while offering their own spin in a cohesive dark Belle Époque setting. And in some aspects they may have surpassed FromSoft, such as the inventive weapon mix and match system. Difficulty-wise it felt a bit overtuned, and I enjoyed the challenge, but some patches since then have smoothed things out. Definitely in the running for one of, if not the best of non-FromSoft soulslikes! 5 - Octopath Traveler 2 (PS5) The only game in my top 10 that I did not finish in 2023 (although I'm certainly close, at the obviously telegraphed final section of the game right now), having played most of it I can confidently put this in my top 5. A lovingly crafted retro-style JRPG experience, this game got me hooked straight away unlike its predecessor, which I didn't even finish due to boredom. Octopath 2's main characters are all interesting in their own ways, with some standouts (Castti, Partitio, Throne and Temenos being my faves), and are bolstered by great voice acting (both English and Japanese). An exceptional soundtrack rounds out the experience, featuring some of the most gorgeous video game music I've heard this year, rivaled only by FF XVI's OST. Although the music is lavishly produced and orchestrated, the tunes themselves have a highly melodic and looped feel that recalls classic JRPGs of the 90s. As for the gameplay, the mechanics were compelling at first, but I will admit that around two-thirds of the way through the game, fights became far too breezy and I was awash with broken ability combinations and equipment, which removed a lot of the challenge in boss fights. There are so many cool mechanics and abilities that it's a shame you are rarely required to leverage them, so for that main reason this game ended up lower on my list than I had expected early on while playing it. Still, it has been a pleasure to play and I'm eager to complete my playthrough and find the rest of the game's secrets. 4 - Hi-Fi Rush (Xbox Series X) The game that came out of nowhere and immediately ended up at the top of my GOTY list for me in this stacked gaming year. Hi-Fi Rush melded two genres that I love, rhythm and character action, and wrapped it in an amazingly atmospheric and cel-shaded world with not one, but two killer soundtracks. I don't often listen to rock much these days but these tracks fit perfectly with the game's vibe and style and felt incredible to time my attacks, movements and dodges to. Great characters, writing and voice acting rounded out this sweet game that I'm sure to return to before long. 3 - Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) I had a hard time ranking this one as I was totally enamored by that "new FF smell" when it came out and was just blown away by the spectacle, combat, characters and music, so much so that after finishing it the first time I immediately replayed it in NG+ on Final Fantasy mode (aka Hard mode). After beating the game the first time, I just couldn't stop thinking about these characters and their story. Several months later, looking back my enthusiasm for the game is a bit deflated in that I can see a lot of the flaws that I had been feeling while I was playing but chose to mostly shrug off because of the strength of other areas. Boring and excessive side quests are a bit too high in number and ruin the pacing at times, and the story peaks pretty early on. The action gameplay is tremendous fun and well crafted but, similar to Octopath 2, the game is just way too easy to be forced to use any advanced tactics and combos. But the highs are just so drat high! As much as you can rightfully criticize this game for removing so many RPG trappings of the earlier FF games, it pulls off that classic Final Fantasy cinematic spectacle so well. Also, the new DLC reminded me of the reasons I love FF XVI, with one of the coolest boss fights and themes in the whole game. Can't wait for the next DLC! 2 - Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (PS5) It's a little shocking how high I'm ranking this in my favorite 2023 games, but I found myself returning to it over and over throughout the year. I spent over 200 hours playing this game and have mostly loved every minute of it. As a lifelong fan of Final Fantasy and video game music in general, and a frequent enjoyer of rhythm games, it was a match made in heaven, and the first game of the year that I was truly hype for. It's not going to appeal to everyone, but for folks like me who this is laser-targeted to, it's a sort of gaming nirvana. The RPG mechanics, in which you can level up and form parties from dozens and dozens of FF characters, are the icing on top and make for interesting counterplay to the typical rhythm game style accuracy scoring. Not every song choice is perfect (I could have done without dozens of Battle on the Bridge remixes) and many of the Supreme charts are sure to cramp your hands, but there is a huge range of songs and difficulties to keep you busy. I have no doubt I'll continue playing this one in 2024! 1 - Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (PS5) It's probably not a coincidence that my favorite game this year was directed by Masaru Yamamura, the lead designer of one of my favorite games of the past decade, Sekiro. Having never played an Armored Core before this I didn't know what to expect other than FromSoft's insanely good track record and that the previous Armored Core games always looked cool and interesting. Turns out it was a complete slam dunk! It delivered on lightning-fast, challenging, highly mobile and customizable mech gameplay, but the most surprising aspects of AC6 ended up being the characters and story. These aspects tend to get backgrounded in a lot FromSoft's modern soulslike games, so it was incredibly refreshing that this stuff was front and center. Shockingly there are no portraits or faces to go with all the character voice work, but it absolutely works in the setting. Combined with the mission structure and the alternate branching paths of several cycles of NG+, I was blown away that a mech shooting game could be so engrossing story and character-wise. FromSoft continues to fire on all cylinders with their meticulously crafted world design, atmosphere, SFX and music, and it all adds up to my favorite game of the year. Give me more Armored Core!! TLDR Top 10: 1. Armored Core 6 2. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line 3. Final Fantasy XVI 4. Hi-Fi Rush 5. Octopath Traveler 2 6. Lies of P 7. Cocoon 8. RE4 Remake 9. Dead Space Remake 10. Remnant 2
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Jan 1, 2024 07:15
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Been busy moving so I completely forgot to make a list so it’s gonna be short write ups! 10. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - was in a constant rotation throughout the year wish it had the adventure mode from the 3DS version but it’s a solid entry otherwise.  9. Bayonetta Origins - when this was announced I predicted a cheap cash grab but it turned out to be a beautiful Zelda esque action game. Biggest surprise of the year for me by far  8. Pizza Tower - a terrific platformer with great humor and phenomenal humor. Game feels like a labor of love  7. Street Fighter 6 - Game feels great and looks great a grand return t form after the kinda stiff SFV  6. Super Mario Wonder - Imaginative and fresh, a bit on the short side but being left wanting more is not the worst feeling  5. Pikmin 4 - This is Pikmin 2 - 2 with all the positives and negatives that implies. I miss the time pressure from previous games but it’s a grand journey with a load of variety and fun challenges. Has some nice water too  4. Octopath Traveler 2 - I was a fan of the original but this one blows it out of the water. Great music, fun job system, story that balances between being goofy and heart wrenching without missing a beat. The game is the whole package  3. Fire Emblem Engage - been a Fire Emblem fan for two decades now and this might be my new favorite. The story is light and kinda goofy and the gameplay is top class for the series. Love all the characters and their goofy catchphrases and the MC’s Pepsi hair, the game just makes me happy  2. Armored Core 6 - I dig giant robots, I dig shooting rockets at giant robots. I dig boosting towards giant robots at 500mph and kicking them in the face. I’m glad FROM still knows how to make an AC game and that they made one that feels like it’s made specifically for me.  1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I almost didn’t want to give this the top spot because it seemed too obvious. Like is the game I put 200 hours into within 40 or so days really my goty, is it that easy? I suppose so. Take my goty 2017 and one of my favorite games ever Breath of the Wild and fix all of its flaws and enhance things I already loved you create one banger of a game  10. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line 9. Bayonetta Origins 8. Pizza Tower 7. Street Fighter 6 6. Super Mario Wonder 5. Pikmin 4 4. Octopath Traveler 2 3. Armored Core 6 2. Fire Emblem Engage 1. Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
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Jan 1, 2024 07:22
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Here we go. I am a Year Purist and only rate 2023 releases, as it really helps me think about the year in gaming. Sometimes that means something that would have obviously been on my list last year gets no points then and no points now, but that’s the path history has taken I suppose lol. So I start with an award that grants no points: Honorary Award to Old Game of the Year: DANCERUSH STARDOM (Konami, 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhKchIC-ilU This game is a gem. I was huge into Dance Dance Revolution and the Guitar Hero lineage back in the day, but I hadn’t really gotten big into any rhythm games recently – it’s just not the same playing them on standard interfaces. But this was the Year of the Rhythm Game for me (as you’ll see in the list), and this game was the centerpiece. I basically encountered it by chance exploring since the mall I went to go see a movie at happened to have a Round1 arcade, and this was there… I never saw the movie lol. DANCERUSH STARDOM is a joy to play – the step charts seem simple in comparison to high-level DDR but that’s what makes it work. There’s enough of a framework to give the game-playing part of the brain rules and goals to follow, but there’s enough freedom, and the charts are designed similarly, to encourage using real shuffle dance moves. The dancepad also makes it feel like you’re not just hitting buttons and are encouraged to move around. At the same time the system is precise enough that it doesn’t feel as loose as the pose-based dance games like Just Dance or Dance Around: it really feels like showcasing your skill to nail moves on a high difficulty song. It made me look up real dance tutorial videos to get better at it lol. Other Old Games Played: Aperture Desk Job, Spyro the Dragon, Dino Crisis, Bell Park Youth Detective, Dead Cells, Legends of Runeterra, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Frog Detective 3 Corruption at Cowboy County, Elden Ring (lol this would have obviously made my list last year but oh well, I’m not going to break my own rule for it), Synth Riders (Year of the Rhythm Game!!!) 2023 Games I played some of but will not finish this year: Humanity, Stellaris Ghost Signal VR, Wallace and Gromit in the Grand Getaway, The Lamplighters League, Asgard's Wrath 2, Persona 5 Tactica, Tren, Mobile Suit Baba, Dune: Spice Wars 2023 Games that are being pushed to next year: Octopath Traveler II, Baldur's Gate 3, Rogue Trader, Spider-Man 2, Super Mario RPG Remake, Pikmin 4, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, In Time and Stars, Vampire the Masquerade Justice, Pizza Tower, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Alan Wake 2, Thirsty Suitors, Against the Storm, House Flipper 2, 7th Guest VR, Last Train Home, Cocoon, Lies of P (god this was a big year huh) With that out of the way, let’s focus on what I played in 2023.. The Rest (not ranked in any order) Astra and the New Constellation was a fun bite-sized platformer obviously designed for speedrunning, which I will never do but still found really neat  . The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog could have simply been a throwaway goof for marketing/meme purposes but it was actually a funny visual novel (the platforming segments got a bit repetitive though). Baba Files Taxes really was a throwaway goof but it did remind me to do my taxes, lol. The Roottrees are Dead (goon game apparently!) was a great way to kill an evening; deduction in the vein of Obra Dinn was really interesting. There were some issues with the AI-generated art both hampering the game’s visual identity and causing some puzzle-solving issues, but for a one-person free project I completely understand the necessity and still highly recommend it. Backpack Hero’s roguelike inventory management puzzling was fun enough, but I definitely couldn’t gel with all of the characters nor the 1.0 campaign mode, and when I saw what I had to do to get the “True Ending” to that I politely declined lol, still worthwhile to check out, though.Venba was the more serious of the visual novels I played this year, telling the story of Indian immigrant experience through food; the cooking interactive gameplay was slight but also essential to getting into the headspaces of the characters, so it worked very well alongside the soundtrack to give it a clear, unique identity. On the unique soundtrack front, the Scottish music in A Highland Song was key to some of the best moments of the game, running across those highlands with a little rhythm game felt great. The writing and voice acting set it apart (it’s from Inkle Studios so the narrative is its strength), but some frustrations with the climbing gameplay (ambiguity on where you can actually climb or how places connect) means that it is not the “Kid Climbing game of 2023” that ranks, unfortunately. You also climb in Chants of Sennaar, but in this adventure game it’s more linguistic rather than acrobatic, as deciphering languages is the key to solving puzzles. When you’re actually doing that, it’s amazing, but I almost gave up on it because a major early roadblock involves doing really annoying stealth sequences that almost made me give up; I’m glad I didn’t because the next areas were really interesting to explore. Another indie game with a distinct aesthetic was World of Horror; the roguelike “dungeon crawler” where the dungeon is a Japanese town with a bunch of cases to solve has some amazing 1-bit art and evokes its horror inspirations really well. The actual gameplay mechanics wore a little thin, especially once the shallow pool of events starts repeating too much. Gunhead was another fun enough roguelike; I never played Cryptark which this is apparently a 3D update of, where you take your mech and board space vessels to salvage parts while being under attack by security drones and other threats. It felt really smooth to jump in and start blasting, and really reminded me of Heat Signature, especially with slingshotting myself out of an airlock to zip around to the other side of the ship – that never got old. “Games where kids climb” was one recurring thing for me this year; the other was “minigame collections.” Best Title award goes to Yeah! You Want "Those Games" Right? So Here You Go! Now Let's See You Clear Them! which made good on the promise of playing those games you see on YouTube ads that don’t actually exist… the pin-pulling and number tower ones were true to life and OK, the subway surfers one had annoying controls, but the game did make me actually enjoy a Towers of Hanoi-like and the Rush Hour car parking game was actually legit fun. Super 56 was the better one, though – a bunch of WarioWare style minigames that just require one button to play, wrapped up in a lo-fi aesthetic and absurdist British humo(ur)... it made the vaporware nature of UFO 50 bearable for another year lol. OK I lied, and there is a bit of a ranking; these near misses what I thought could have made the Top Ten but there was too much stiff competition… Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Final Bar Line was an immediate buy for me because this series has just had a murderer’s row of genius composers over the years and the music is so good. Year of the Rhythm Game… I enjoyed playing through it (and will do the 150 DLC songs next year lol) but the actual rhythm gameplay is pretty much “functional” and I did think to myself, am I just doing Subway Surfers-style attention stimulation because I can’t just listen to music and do nothing else, lol? I loved Yakuza Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name because it’s a Kazuma Kiryu game and he might be one of the greatest protagonists in video game history? I went in thinking that maybe it might have been superfluous to make a game about what he was doing during the events of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but honestly it justifies its existence pretty well, and the moments in the game’s ending are spectacular. Maybe I’m rating it a little lower just because it is the tried-and-true RGG formula, gameplay and structure-wise it doesn’t really break from that, and I’m already anticipating they are going to outdo themselves in just a month? El Paso, Elsewhere gets the unkindest cut… Probably completely interchangeable with my #10 but I wanted to shout that one out a little bit more because it has less visibility than this? This is clearly an homage to Max Payne, PS1-aesthetic bullet time action shooter. It’s not as skill testing as the Remedy game but I still felt drawn to keep going because charging through the levels “breaking poo poo” was satisfying, and the story woven into the interstices is perfect for this game, augmenting the experience without killing the momentum. Also the soundtrack whips hard and is worth the price of admission alone. The Top Ten Games of 2023 #10   (OST: “Menu” by nervous_testpilot) The Banished Vault (Nic Tringali, 2023) The cold equations. Yeah the screenshot I chose for this game is the in-game manual lol, it also contains the things I thought most about with my hours in this game. This is basically a single-player version of those Euro board games where you have to maximize resource collection with a limited number of actions, which you don’t often see outside of that space so it’s already refreshing on that front. It is also impeccable in its style, with the buildings you plop down on alien planets looking so much like the pieces of those board games, while the Gothic black and white line illustrations capture the feel of your doomed journey through the cosmos and a struggle to survive, and the haunting soundtrack is something that you’d want to keep on so you can think. You have a limited number of turns in each star system before the “Gloom” destroys everything, and so you have to make the best use of your characters to do what you need to do in time. The beauty and the pain of this game is that all the information is laid out in front of you: the cost in resources and time, how the production chains work, the difficulty of completing your objectives. You just need to plan… and planning is difficult, lol. Minor mistakes compound, ships get stranded in space because you didn’t budget your fuel properly, the terrain of the planet won’t let you build all you need to build and you have to adapt on the fly. It’s a game that feels like homework, in the best way… I once spent an hour making a strategic plan before taking a single in-game action lol, and things still fell apart. I still have much more to go with this one… #9  (OST: “Escape from the City” by Jun Senoue and performed by Ted Poley and Tony Harnell) Samba de Amigo: Virtual Party (Sega, 2023) Amigo means “friend.” Maybe I’m rating this higher because I impulse-bought a Quest 3 and this was one of the first games I bought, but it was really worth it. In the Year of the Rhythm Game, this was something that makes perfect sense for the VR hand controllers, and wouldn’t have felt the same if I just played the flat Switch version. Swinging your arms around feels essential to get into the rhythm and the groove, which is quite important especially for the non-Sonic songs! I think among the rhythm games I’ve played this year, this hits the best balance of music that’s fun to play with mechanics that feel like I’m “doing” something with the music, while also having a track list that I actually enjoy listening to (I’m leaning on the Escape from the City meme here but the Latin pop music is catchy and not something you otherwise see in rhythm games). This is apparently Sega’s first full VR game release, and hopefully it leads to more (CHUNITHM VR, perhaps?) #8   (OST: ”Estran” by Guillaume Ferran) Jusant (Don’t Nod, 2023) What lies above? A game about a kid who climbs. This is a Journey-like, in that you keep going towards your destination and though there isn’t a fail state, there is still plenty of tension to be had. In this post-apocalyptic tower, you have to navigate all sorts of treacherous terrain and hazards, and though the climbing mechanics are reminiscent of the Uncharted or Tomb Raider way of handling things, there is actually some puzzling finesse to actually undertaking the climb, hammering your pitons, and assessing your environment. I am really glad, actually, that the system is designed so that you can’t die from messing up; you simply fall back to the last safe spot. The game truly was stressful enough for me and provoked my fear of heights in ways that made me sweat more than any horror game; if I had to deal with fear of death on top of that it might have been too much. The fact that this takes place in a beautiful, artfully realized world with a haunting environmental story to tell, wrapped in a package that doesn’t overstay its welcome, made it one of the perfect capstones to this year. #7  (OST: ”Overworld” by Shiho Fujii, Sayako Doi, and Chisaki Shimazu) Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo EPD, 2023) Badge me up. More than the tried-and-true Mario formula, it surprised me how inventive and playful this platformer was. What makes it memorable for me is that previous games had themed levels and different styles in each world, but here it’s granular, down to each level having some specific gimmick or unique element to play around with that surprises you, and before you know it there’s another one, and another one, and another one… The way it felt to me was that experience I got from the “Jump Up, Super Star” sequence in Super Mario Odyssey, but a miniature one of those with every level. It’s the character action game design structure where you base the journey on stringing together “holy crap” moments… and then it pays it off with a finale that ties all those things together. I crashed up against the Special World challenge levels and so put them off to see credits, but I’ll definitely be back to them in the new year… #6  (OST: ”Fete Foraine” by Haruki Yamada) Street Fighter 6 (Capcom, 2023) Featuring Luke from streets. Simply a phenomenon. Life stuff meant I didn’t get a chance to delve too deeply into the crunchy mechanics nor play as much competitive as I wanted, but I thoroughly enjoyed the World Tour story mode – by no means a fully-fledged RPG or Yakuza-like, though the inspirations are certainly there. It had a breezy fun story, and encountering all the Fighting Masters in their elements were all great moments. Since this isn’t my main fighting game, I look to it more for how it will improve the FGC event watching experience, and based on this year’s Evo, it’s definitely doing the work. The art and character design are so much better than V, the convoluted V-Trigger system has been replaced with the more legible Drive system, and everything about the presentation and flow lends itself to snappy, quick matches. Looking forward to seeing it grow! #5 https://twitter.com/cleargatewest/status/1702946414496796986 (OST: ”Fires of Rubicon” by Kota Hoshino and Takashi Onodera) Armored Core VI Fires of Liberation (FromSoftware, 2023) You’ve got a job for me? FromSoft on all cylinders. What a world we live in, and a year this was, that a seemingly-niche franchise like this could ascend. The core mech movement and combat felt great, the bosses and encounters were stylish and memorable, and game’s momentum kept driving me forward. I’m less familiar with this series and I’m writing less about it because I’m also sure it’s covered far more eloquently by other knowledgeable people in this thread, but it reminded me of another “AC” series I have a lot of fondness for: #4  (OST: ”Fast as You Can” cover by Elsinore feat.Kayla Brown, Original by Fiona Apple) Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks, 2023) Year of the Rhythm Game. Perhaps the most lovingly-made game on this list… everything about the style, art, characterization, and atmosphere about this game is stellar. The melding of rhythm gameplay with character action combat works really well (the platforming less so but that’s mostly forgivable). I also have to give bonus points to 808 for Best Pet Character of the Year (yes, even above Torgal). I really appreciate that in the character action genre which is pretty dominated by bombastic dudes and ladies that destroy everything in their path single-handedly, this is a game which tries to tell a story of a journey with a whole party, and with them coming together to overcome the obstacles in their way. It’s tied into the mechanics, it’s tied into the soundtrack, and I think it’s why it feels so uplifting – a game that should be remembered for sure. #3    (OST: ”Find the Flame” by Masayoshi Soken) Final Fantasy XVI (Square Creative Business Unit III, 2023) Active Time Lore, you say? Legitimately when the previews for this game showed a great deal of attention to examining geopolitical maps and relationship charts, I knew this was going to be a banger of a Final Fantasy. The stewards of Final Fantasy 14, who managed to right a sinking ship and make it one of the company’s greatest successes, getting to play with a bigger budget? I don’t know if this is a game for Final Fantasy first-timers, but it certainly is one for fans. The iconic summons, the well-worn series tropes spun up in interesting ways, the globe-spanning heroic journey – this is certainly the best-produced game of the year. I will say that I wasn’t expecting this to NOT be the top game of the year, as I am a superfan of the series and could easily just throw it up there without thinking. It, however, might not end up one of the more memorable entries in the franchise – the game is pretty light on the minor moments and experiences that linger with me from other FFs: the minigames, the goofy side stories, the larger cast and the exploration that help make FFs usually feel like a grander experience. Everything is laser-focused on creating a cinematic, spectacular critical path – but that path is absolutely worth experiencing. And who knows, maybe DLC and follow-ups will help grow this world. XVI-2 would be something to see lol. #2    (OST: “Choke Hold” by Idris Elba) Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (CD PROJEKT RED, 2023) The game is fixed. Things have come a long way from the original Cyberpunk, which I never finished in time for GOTY lists and wouldn’t have ranked in its original state anyway. But they really put in the work, and this year’s culmination of all the improvements and iterations in the form of this expansion should be lauded. If it were a simple DLC and patch maybe I wouldn’t have thought about considering it, but Phantom Liberty as both a self-contained story and expansion of the game fits so perfectly, like it should have been there in the first place while being a unique experience all its own. It is something that really builds upon the base game, the existing conflicts and factions disrupted by foreign intervention (and thus lends a deeper consideration of the politics of Night City and the world it exists in). Solomon Reed and Songbird are richly developed characters that really shape how you think of V and Johnny as they plunger deeper into a completely hosed-up spy story that ends exactly how cyberpunk fiction should (whichever path you choose, and you should see both of them, also holy poo poo the DLC main story ending is one of the most existentially cruel things a AAA game would dare to do). Both the bombastic action setpieces and the tense interpersonal espionage leverage how much money and how much tech is propping up this game; finally in 2023 it really has paid off. #1    (OST: “Introduction” by Francis Mechner (C64 version)) The Making of Karateka (Digital Eclipse, 2023 [Original Game by Jordan Mechner, 1984]) The gaming Criterion Collection. This is an absolute landmark in, and of, video game history. I really liked Digital Eclipse’s previous release, Atari 50, which cataloged playable versions of so many Atari games, but more importantly put them into context in documents, interviews, and other materials. Really, there is a limit to how much interest there is to pull from retro games unless you have a specific mindset. I know I couldn’t spend an hour playing one of those games, but reading and watching things about them to help inform the experience of actually interacting with them? That is my jam and something I didn’t even know I really wanted until Digital Eclipse. That said, Atari 50 was like a neat museum exhibit: really interesting to wander through, but because it had to cover so much, you pretty much just scratched the surface of what there is to talk about. With The Making of Karateka, they have shown that it is possible, interesting, and fun to do a deep focused dive on a specific aspect of game history. It helps that Jordan Mechner’s Karateka was perfect for this – the meticulous documentation of Mechner’s diaries, the various well-preserved prototypes of the game and his previous attempt at development, Deathbounce, and all the production materials that went into Karateka all come to life here. There is a really fascinating segment where you delve into how Mechner was one of the earliest to use rotoscoped game animations, and you actually get to play around with the filmed reference footage, the scanned images, and the final sprites in a simulated editing suite, it’s really cool! This level of thoroughness extends to every aspect of the game. There’s a whole podcast breakdown of the game’s music, which was composed by Jordan Mechner’s father, Francis. There’s a great commentary on the original version of the game where you listen to the two of them walk through the game, which is a wonderful mirror to the commentary and discussion of the remake version made for this program. Remastered Karateka would be whatever on its own as a downloadable game, but playing that game, and being able to clearly see it as a response to the history of it all, and the impact the game has on contemporary game design, is really awe-inspiring. There are so many fun details and stories about this game that Digital Eclipse have brought to life here. I’m already sold on their follow-up about Jeff Minter games, which is sure to be great as well. But I was really just amazed at how well it came together, and how perfect this was as a story – the story of father and son that unfolds in the making of this game is just wonderful to see, and actually getting to see them really makes Karateka, and The Making of Karateka, more than just some games. The List for Tabulation, hello VG #10: The Banished Vault #09: Samba de Amigo: Virtual Party #08: Jusant #07: Super Mario Bros. Wonder #06: Street Fighter 6 #05: Armored Core VI: Fires of Liberation #04: Hi-Fi Rush #03: Final Fantasy XVI #02: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty #01: The Making of Karateka CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 07:27
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Quick and dirty top 5 list just to say I participated this year: 5. Chorus Fantastic game that I’m still missing a couple of endgame trophies to plat, but the first game of its kind since Star Fox 64 that made me enjoying dogfighting aerial combat. The story made less than zero sense to me but it didn’t really need it to scratch that itch for me. 4. Returnal Loved this game but bounced off the fourth biome pretty hard shortly after release and didn’t pick it up again until this last winter, when I tried again and finished it except for the lore trophies that require umpteen runs. Like Chorus, I’ll probably go back and finish this one off for the plat someday. Super-tight controls and gameplay. I really hope this gets a sequel someday. 3. Hollow Knight Still haven’t beaten the final boss, but this was one I replayed on PS4 both for the trophies and to experience this world again. Silksong will never be released. *sigh* Bapanada. 2. Lost Judgment Started this, set it down for almost a year, and then picked it back up this summer. Yagami and friends are always a treat and like the other Yakuza games I’ve played, this does a great job weaving a complicated story with fantastic action. 1. Rogue Legacy 2 I waited for years for this to be released on PS5 and then it not only shows up, but for free on PS+. I’ve sunk a hundred hours into it and will likely sink a hundred more chasing everything there is to see. A stellar example of the genre and a game that’s more than deserving of my top spot this year.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:29
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AceOfFlames posted:Time flies and I have a NYE dinner to get to so hopefully I can sneak this in. Alas, I didn't have time to do a wrap up for each of them: Geo Fixer posted:Getting a quick list in before the year ends. in order for these lists to count you would need to write a short blurb about each game in the next 90 mins. cheerio!
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Jan 1, 2024 07:29
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~LAST MINUTE ENTRY TIME!~ Honorable Mentions The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Despite there being a couple open world games on my GotY list this year, I’m not the biggest fan of open world games. I got bored pretty quickly when I played Breath of the Wild, and I never finished it. Still, I gave Tears of the Kingdom a shot, and they basically solved my issues with the game. Between the ultra hand and them bringing Dungeons back, I actually really enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom, so it feels bad to keep it off my list. Still, this was a year full of killers, so I just wasn’t able to find room for it. I’m excited to see where the Zelda games go in future entries, which is a huge turnaround from how I felt when they announced the game. Cassette Beasts: This game was really, really good. The writing was sharp and the monster collecting mechanics were great. I really liked most of the characters, and I loved my Tokusect. That being said, it wasn’t the best monster collecting game I played this year, and I couldn’t find room for it on my list. Don’t overlook Cassette Beasts, it’s a fantastic indie monster collecting game. Game of the Year 2023  10. Atelier Ryza 3: The Alchemist of the End and the Secret Key: I played all three of the Atelier Ryza games this year, and while I think that Ryza 3 isn’t the best of the three, there was a lot about the game that I really enjoyed. The overall story was quite nice, and I appreciated that they managed to cut out a huge number of the loading screens between the various areas in the game. That said, the localization had issues, and I felt like a lot of the scale of the game worked against it. The game was huge, but there were very similar materials to gather in a lot of the areas in the game, which ultimately meant that exploring wasn’t as rewarding as it could have been. Still, I’m really glad I finally played the Ryza games, they were a lot of fun. I look forward to continuing to play Atelier games as they continue to release.  9. Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless: After Disgaea 6 didn’t really hook me, I was tentatively excited to play through Disgaea 7. It didn’t have the immediate number bloat that made playing the game feel bad, they brought back a lot of the classes that were unfortunately cut from Disgaea 6 to facilitate the shift from sprites to 3D models, and I connected with the writing in this one a lot more than I did Disgaea 6. It’s still not one of my favorite Disgaea games, but it was a great reminder why I love these games. Pirilica is wonderful.  8. Star Wars Jedi Survivor: I’m not the biggest fan of Star Wars as a franchise, but I love metroidvanias. However, I’m also getting kinda burnt out on soulslikes as a subgenre, so I really had no idea how well I would connect with this one. I liked the first one from watching other people play it, so I decided to give it a shot. The story wasn’t quite as good as Fallen Order, but I appreciated that they gave you the first game’s full kit right from the word go and only gave you more tools as you went along. The combat was pretty fun, and exploring felt generally rewarding even if most of the time all you found was one of the game’s currencies, which it definitely has too much of. Movement in the game was tremendous fun, and they really nailed the fun of exploring previously blocked out areas with your new powers. I heard that the PC version had issues at launch, which is a huge bummer, because the game is great.  7. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: Despite being called Spider-Man 2, this is really the third of Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, so there was an open question of if the formula would still work, but as it turns out, I’m not burned out on this particular game’s formula yet. The ability to swap between Peter and Miles basically instantly, or to fast travel from one corner of the map to the opposite corner without any loading time at all is simply incredible to me, even though I almost never fast traveled. Swinging and gliding through the map was still a ton of fun, the new powers were great, and the writing was very good (even if it felt like Miles got the short shrift for a solid chunk of the game.) This really was a great game.  6. Alan Wake 2: I’m going to be blunt: I didn’t finish this game. At the end of the year, I found myself playing four or five games simultaneously, almost all of them excellent, and I found it difficult to find time to play Alan Wake 2. Still, the blending of in-engine gameplay and FMV, the writing, the light-shift mechanic and plot board, almost everything about Alan Wake 2 is spectacular. That being said, one of the main reasons I found it hard to continue playing Alan Wake 2 while happily grinding away at the other games is that I don’t really love the actual combat in the game. Enemies respawn infinitely when you get too far away from them, and I’ve come to realize over the past few years that I don’t love games where your character is fragile, and unfortunately Alan and Saga die in a single combo from basic enemies. Still, the atmosphere is stellar, and I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy the writing in the game. I was absolutely bowled over when We Sing happened, and I can’t wait to finish this game in 2024.  5. Resident Evil 4: This game raises an interesting question: how do you reimagine one of the best action horror games ever made? As it turns out, making a modern Resident Evil game using the original game as a framework goes a long way. The game was pretty hard, but I never found myself wanting to stop playing because it was just so fun. It wasn’t the best horror atmosphere this year - that has to go to Alan Wake 2 for me - but everything else about it was tremendous fun. Capcom had an impossible challenge in trying to make a worthy remake to Resident Evil 4, and they absolutely knocked it out of the park.  4. Dragon Quest Monsters 3: The Dark Prince: I’m not the biggest Dragon Quest person, in fact I haven’t played a mainline numbered Dragon Quest since 3 (though I’m looking to change that soon.) However, I am a mark for Dragon Quest Monsters. I have enormous nostalgia for the old Dragon Quest Monsters games on the gameboy, back when they were still named Dragon Warrior Monsters, and I was incredibly excited when I saw they were making another one that would release this year. I wish it was available on PC so I could play it on my Steam Deck, but the game runs fine on Switch, so it’s not a huge deal. The core Dragon Quest gameplay works fantastically well for a monster collection game, and between that and fusion mechanics ala Shin Megami Tensei, I’ve been having a blast playing this game. The story is mostly just there, but that’s fine; its main purpose is to get you to new areas to collect new monsters and fight bosses, and it’s all a ton of fun. Dragon Quest Monsters is an absolute top tier monster collection game, and I hope that more people give The Dark Prince a shot in 2024.  3. My Time at Sandrock: I love farming games like Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, and Stardew Valley, but recently I found it difficult to click with any of the new ones that have been coming out. That changed with My Time at Sandrock. This game isn’t technically a farming game - while you can farm, the main gameplay loop involves refining resources and building projects - but it’s close enough. Making new items and machines to fulfill commissions and progress the story - which is surprisingly in-depth and compelling for this style of game - is a lot of fun. The characters are diverse and generally very well written, it caught me off guard how much this game sucked me in. I’m considering playing My Time at Portia once I’m finished with this game, it’s that good.  2. Final Fantasy 16: I’m a big fan of Final Fantasy 14, and the writing and character work is the number one reason for it, so when I heard that Creative Business Unit 3 was going to make a mainline Final Fantasy game, I had extremely high expectations. I was admittedly a little worried when it came out that the game was going to be an action RPG, but they found a great middleground between the action game and the RPG mechanics (by basically making an Ys game, which is absolutely the right thing to do if you’re going to make an action RPG.) However, as expected, the mechanics were not the main draw for Final Fantasy 16, it was the writing. The writing for Final Fantasy 16 was exactly as good as I expected, with the character work done with Clive and Jill, and with Ben Starr’s spectacular performance. As I continued to play the game I fully expected it to be my GotY with a bullet, but unfortunately the game failed to stick the landing. After speaking with some friends about the ending I felt better about it than with my initial reaction, but even then I feel like the ending they chose conflicts with the rest of the story they wrote. Everything else was so spectacular, so perfect, whether it was the relationship between Clive and Jill or the Asura’s Wrath style epic fights between Eikons, but at the end of the day, they screwed up the ending pretty dramatically, and that’s really sad. I hope the Leviathan DLC opens the door for them to fix the ending, because that is the only thing holding the game back in my opinion.  1. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon: Armored Core is back. It’s been a decade since the last Armored Core game, and while I heard Verdict Day was good, Armored Core 5 had issues, so the last Armored Core game I’d played was For Answer. Still, I loved For Answer, and I was thrilled to see that not only was From Software bringing the franchise back, they were focused on maintaining Armored Core’s identity. The game came out, I played it, and they delivered more than I could have ever hoped for. It was mission based, the mecha felt as good to pilot as it always did. There was a ton of customization options, giving you the option to build a missile boat, a tank, or varying levels of lightweight and middleweight machines that felt completely different in play. The story was good for what it was, and I absolutely adored crushing other ACs with the pile bunker and the laser lance. The Ibis fight was spectacular, like fighting against the Qubeley or any number of funnel using end bosses in Gundam. What’s more, the game gave you funnels to use yourself, and they felt exactly as good as you’d hope. The game has three endings and it expects you to play through the game from front to back three times to get the final one, and not only did I do that without a second though, I’ve recently found myself considering doing it again. Armored Core is back, and I couldn’t be happier. King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 07:30
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2023, the year of the sequels. 10 Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - I love these games, and Mimimi had the formula down pat. This one wasn't as good as their previous titles, and I felt like they went quantity over quality, but still worthy enough to squeeze in at number 10. 9. No More Heroes 3 - More Travis! Much like the other NMH games, this one has its own flaws. Even so, the gameplay is fun, and the world of NMH continues to entertain. This is the cheesy action movie of video games. Dumb and crude, but a total guilty pleasure. 8. Bayonetta 3 - Bayonetta, but with yet another new haircut. Same great gameplay. 7. Everspace 2 - I've wanted a game like this for years. Just a simple, story driven, mission based, space action game. This filled a niche I've craved for since Freelancer. 6. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - The animations are sublime. Fun story, unique gameplay concept. Felt like a great remake of game previously trapped on an ancient platform. 5. AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES - nirvanA Initative - A worthy sequel to a great detective VN. 4. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - It's more Zelda BOTW. In another year, this one might be number one. I wanted a BOTW sequel right after finishing BOTW. This delivered, even if some of the BOTW novelty had worn off in this one. 3. Grounded - Absolute blast to co-op through. Multiplayer bugnautica. 2. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - They did it. They salvaged the game. The phantom liberty characters were fantastic, and the story and gameplay felt like the Cyberpunk 2077 that I expected in 2020. 1. Baldur's Gate 3 - Easy pick for #1. I was excited about this one from the moment it was announced. It delivered on every expectation I had.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:34
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I completed a lot more games than I expected to this year. A lot of them were just pleasant experiences that I don't need to rank. A handful that stand out are: Kirby's Dream Land 2: I'd never played this before. This might be one of my favorite Kirby games! Loved experimenting with power/buddy combos, like a prototype Kirby 64. Final Fantasy XIV: I had a goal to solo Eureka Orthos, and that kind of sucked. I ended up soloing Palace of the Dead afterwards and it was weirdly fun. Lunacid: Super charming King's Field throwback. I just wish I could have discovered some secrets on my own without licking every wall I walked past. Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line: God I wish I could just get an arcade controller for my home, then this game would be perfect. Yakuza 4: Started with 0 and working my way through the franchise. This might be the dumbest plot I've seen in one so far but it kind of looped around to incredible. There are also a lot of games that came out this year that I'd have loved to play, but just didn't have the time: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Hi-Fi Rush Star Ocean: Second Story R Super Mario Wonder Final Fantasy XVI Catch some of these on my list next year, maybe? The actual list: 5. Sifu Mastery through repetition in video game form. 2022 was kind of a slump year for me as far as gaming was concerned, and Sifu was the reminder I needed that I like to be challenged. Hour after hour of punching at a brick wall. Surely, this will be the attempt that gets further into the level... the attempt that beats that boss. Thoughts of "this is so hard, how is this even doable," turning into beating the game in a single sitting, at a pace so gradual you don't even notice how far you've come until you turn around to see how much of that brick wall you've punched through. I got all achievements in this game before the big content updates, and I desperately need to go back to it to push myself a little further. 4. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective I played this on DS back in the day and thought it ruled. I picked up the Switch rerelease to see if it was still good a decade later. Not only is the ending stretch just as hype as I remember, but the game is even funnier the second time around when you can pick up on subtle jokes you'd only catch if you've beaten the game before. Absolute god tier storytelling. 3. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate I bought MH3U back when it came out and returned it shortly after. I didn't get it at the time. Since then I've become a Fifth Fleeter and proudly so. World introduced me to this wonderful franchise, and Generations Ultimate was my ticket into understanding the world of old generation Monster Hunter. I've been dabbling in other entries. A little Freedom Unite here, a little 4 Ultimate there. I didn't expect to like 3U. "It's the one with janky underwater combat," they'd say. ...but there's something about it that just clicks with me so hard. It's the vibes. It's Moga Village. It's the stereoscopic 3D of my 3DS. I'm taking a break from it before plunging into G-rank, but I can't wait to see how far into it I get. 2. Baldur's Gate 3 I was completely glued to this game for 80 hours over two weeks. I rolled credits, thought "wow, that ending loving sucked", then immediately started a second playthrough and planned a third. This game is so good dude, literally what could I possibly add onto this that millions of other people haven't already said. 1. Neon White I love speedrunning so much. I love bite-sized, accessible speedrunning even more. I got gold medals on every stage. Then I found out there were red medals and I got all those, too. I completed White's Hell Rush and I have not been able to stop thinking about doing it again for no reason. I just learned there's a community mod for even harder medals, so maybe I'll go for those! I love the music. I love the aesthetic. Everyone in this game is a loser and I love them so much. Genuinely a top ten game of all time for me.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:35
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Getting in under the wire. Thanks for taking this on VG! 10. Roadwarden - I'm honestly not sure where I happened upon this, possibly a steam review from a friend? It has a compelling and engaging story with enough content that you'll probably need multiple runs to see everything. I also enjoyed the pixel art style they chose to go with. 9. FTL: Faster Than Light - FTL is like comfort food to me. I can always rely on this to provide me with a good time and it helps that it can run on just about anything. 8. Total War: Warhammer III - Hard to put this on the list given how awful the developer has been with handling the game this year but I played it a lot and had fun when I did. The modding community is one of the best around vastly increasing the longevity and quality of the game. 7. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist - Picked this up based on last year's thread and glad I did. I appreciate how LGBTIQA+ friendly the game is and have had a lot of fun exploring the possible paths you can take on your journey. I can't bring myself to befriend Vash, gently caress that guy. 6. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon - Pretty shocked a FromSoftware game is this far down my list. I had a lot of fun with the game but it didn't sink its hooks in me like other FromSoft games have. 5. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - This game is a lot of fun with friends and has come a long way from its release. They seem to be making an honest attempt at a live service game and their recent updates have been packed full of great stuff. This is the closest I have gotten to a successor for L4D2, if only there was an 8-player versus mode... 4. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - I haven't paid attention to CD Projekt Red's redemption arc but I must admit the final version of Cyberpunk 2077 is a lot of fun and the DLC a worthwhile expansion. I am cautiously optimistic for the sequel. 3. Fear and Hunger 2: Termina - This is a gem that a group of friends clued me in on and I'm glad they did. The original is awesome but I ended up mainly watching Super Eyepatch Wolf play through it which was immensely entertaining. This is the type of RPG I'm here for, something that is merciless, weird, and compelling as gently caress. 2. Starsector - I had seen the thread for this game for years, this was the year that I finally dived in and am I ever glad I did. The game is loving incredible. I love that the developer has been working on this for ages and refuses to list in on Steam until they are satisfied it is ready. I can't think of any game that really scratches the same itch and the countless mods only elevate the game to greater heights. 1. Baldur's Gate 3 - What's there to say that hasn't been said already? I'm glad I waited for the full release. I started my second run immediately after finishing my first which is incredibly rare. Levin fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Jan 5, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 07:44
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Captain Invictus posted:you have Ghostlore's rating there twice in place of the corgi shmup game's
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Jan 1, 2024 07:52
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Now that the pressure is off after posting my list, time to go back and read everyone else's, especially the ones that are coming in under the wire like assignments at the end of the semester. You can do it, lolMode 7 posted:
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Jan 1, 2024 08:10
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A lot of people have talked about the very many all-time great games coming out this year. With maybe one or two exceptions, I've managed to avoid playing any of them. Here's what I played instead: ---- Honorable Mention: Tiny Rogues I started playing this earlier today. It's why this list is so late. I already kinda want to put it on the list, but I probably shouldn't. ---- 10: HUMANKIND Historical 4x. Competent but feels a bit too safe. Would rank higher if the always-online integration didn't randomly lock me out of playing it or corrupt save files. Actually quite fun when it possible to play. 9: Slipways Space colonization strategy/puzzle game. Despite what the marketing might claim, definitely not a 4x. Fun, chill game that provides some interest as an optimization problem, but ultimately lacked the depth to hold my interest for the long haul. 8: Pathfinder: Kingmaker Fantasy CRPG. Mechanically deep and much better written than I'd expected from reviews. However, the game is much too long and really doesn't respect the player's time. I spent about 100 hours playing this and didn't come remotely close to finishing it. There's a 10/10 game hiding somewhere inside here, but it's just surrounded by so much bloat. 7: Age of Wonders 4 Fantasy 4x. A lot of interesting systems and well done style. Wide range of viable strategies despite some questionable balance. Surprisingly competent AI for a 4x, which often suffers in that category. I'm honestly not sure why this game didn't appeal to me more, as it seems exactly like the sort of thing I should like. For some reason I just fell off. 6: Marvel's Midnight Suns Card-based tactics game. Fights are quick and snappy but nonetheless feel deeply strategic. Story/characterization sections between the fights are completely done, but the overall pacing is hurt by their length compared to the quite short gameplay sections. A good game that felt longer than it needed to be. 5: Starcrawlers Sci-fi dungeon crawling RPG. Interesting ATB battle system. Some pretty cool art, especially for the enemy designs. Really good music, if in limited variety. A more involved story than I'd expect from this sort of game. Starcrawlers felt to me like a little less than the sum of it's parts, but those are some pretty good parts, so it still gets ranked here. 4: Cobalt Core Sci-fi roguelike card game. Very charming art and character design. Solid gameplay. Good music. A lack of run-to-run variance means that the game runs out of reasons to play it past a point, but I felt well-satisfied with the time I spent with it. 3: 30XX Action roguelike heavily inspired by the Megaman X games. A very good game, but I struggle to say much about it. It's exactly what you think this game should be. It's not more than that, but it's certainly not less. 2: Slay the Princess Visual novel. Short, focused, this game is basically the antithesis of some of the sprawling messes earlier on this list. I really appreciated a game that did a thing without trying to draw it out or make more of it than there needed to be. Nonetheless, that lack of ambition is probably why it only ranks #2 on the list, as the #1 game is, in its own way, maybe the most ambitious game I've ever played. 1: World of Horror Horror-themed roguelike. This game has the most focused and intense style of any videogame I have ever seen. I don't just mean visually, the entire game is extremely focused on creating a specific vibe thought everything at it's disposal, including the gameplay itself. If this looks like a game you would like, you're probably going to love it. If the vibe isn't what you're looking for, the rest of the game is probably too abstruse to justify it, but for me it really hit the spot. instantrunoffvote fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 08:12
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I hate writing  This year sucked rear end in every respect other than video games. Here's ten I played and three I didn't:
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Jan 1, 2024 08:46
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), it feels so good to get hype as gently caress over something and then have it not only deliver on the hype but transcend it. I love the originals and I love this one just as much. Perhaps... even more? 
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10 - Waves of Steel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC6oL3uf66E Made by a fellow goon, TooMuchAbstraction, this is a fun little game inspired by Koei's Naval Ops games on the PS2. While those games were already fairly fantastical, combining WW2 era technology with an isekai premise and gear progression that eventually led to sci-fi weapons as you take on increasingly implausible enemies, Waves of Steel takes that as a baseline and goes even further. You are tasked with bringing down entire armadas of warships, some of which are paradropped right in your location, and you face off against absurdly colossal, and colossally absurd, superweapons. The reason you can do this is an advanced mobile shipyard that allows you to customize and design your ships along extremely generous guidelines, with nitro boost, ramming drills, and the ability to do sick kick flips and barrel rolls with jumpjets. This is basically World of Warships if it were a Dynasty Warriors made by a tiny team on a one person budget. It's also compatible with the Steam Workshop! And unsurprisingly, a bunch of the mods are for hull types (both new and ported from other games) that allow you to make really buckwild designs that wouldn't be or if place in an Armored Core. Just, you know, one of the old ones on the original playstation. You too can save the world with the power of God, anime, and a full complement of 16"/45 caliber naval guns on your side. This game is quite good in its own right but unfortunately did not make back its budget in sales, which is a shame because it's very fun and very clearly one nostalgic nerd's passion project. This has a particular place in my own memories, however, due to a matter of simple timing. When my mother lost her battle with cancer earlier this year, this helped keep me busy from my grief, at least long enough to help process it at a pace I could withstand. Thank you, TooMuchAbstraction, and best of luck to you and your next game. I'm looking forward to it! 9 - Against the Storm  (Instead of a quote, insert the sound effect of lumberjacks working) If you've ever played a city builder game, you probably already know that the most interesting part of a run is the very beginning, where you have to assemble a functioning town or settlement from scratch and make decisions on the fly that may determine the trajectory of your settlement moving forward. Against the Storm, having recently come out of early access, is at its heart a game all about that specific point in the process, using its roguelite framework to let you experience that moment again and again as you manage expeditions to gather resources for the one city in the world safe from the toxic and magically corruptive storms from whence this title is named. It's a fiendishly clever gameplay loop that laser focuses on the best bits of its genre with an immediately compelling narrative framework. Your job is to establish settlements and bring them to a baseline level of prosperity and sustainability, or at the very least fame and profitability, before you are tasked with moving ever onwards. While your settlement will continue without you, at least until the end of the decades-long Storm Cycle, you must continue to push forward to find the broken Seals in the wilderness and reforge them, so that the world may stand some chance of surviving. This may involve bribing people with biscuits. 8 - Stray Gods  "You will both sit, and you will explain. There will be tea." Classicists and theatre kids, unite! This is one of many visual novel-type games I've played and streamed for friends this year. Or, really, more a CYOA Musical. Like many musicals, the actual songs themselves are hit or miss, but on a technical, structural level, this game is an achievement. Where many of the finest RPGs are reactive in terms of decisions made in the course of pursuing plotlines, Stray Gods is reactive not just on a song-by-song basis, but choices made in songs past will affect your options in songs moving forward. An urban fantasy centered around a young woman named Grace, who inherits the powers and station of Calliope, the Last Muse. And she has to try to prove her innocence when Athena, current de facto leader of the Olympians, accuses her of Calliope's murder. This game is an impressively ambitious, thoughtful, and heartfelt interpretation of Greek mythology in a modern context. And unlike a number of urban fantasy or otherwise fantastical stories set in the real world, Stray Gods is absolutely unafraid to address uncomfortable questions. Questions like, what were [insert fantastical setting element] up to during World War 2? Well, it's a major plot point and explains why both Ares and Haephestus aren't present for the story. This game is chock full of references and jokes to various stories from myth and legend, even some relatively deep pulls like their aesthetic cousin, Supergiant's Hades. And the art style does look a bit like Hades-in-New-York if you think about it, which isn't a bad place to be. I'm told you can take quite a few different paths through the story. Even the structure of the plot itself, while being standard to videogames as a medium, even feels like a bit of a fun take on Greek prophecy in context. The end result is set, though not in the way you might expect at first glance, and you can take quite a few paths to get there with many different consequences for the people, and gods, you meet on your path. This game has a lot of heart, and soul, and song. 7 - Warframe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrQtsLVa504 "I regret to inform you that all of my good jokes... argon." If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, just by actual time spent this is the game that defined my year. If you were to check my post history in the Warframe thread, you'll find a good half of my posts there are from 2016, a smattering of posts after that till 2018, and then nothing until summer of this year. Which about tracks with my time spent with the game. I came back to this game after a long hiatus to find a swathe of new features, new places, new faces. Back when I first played, the game was a bit threadbare, a strong enough proof of concept and addictive enough gunplay and acrobatics that I actually got up to Mastery Rank 22 before they even added the first open world area. I was one of those early players who put in almost a thousand hours into this game, only to suddenly be presented with a character creation screen. The Second Dream was, to my surprise, an incredibly moving questline from a game that, up to that point, had very little story to speak of. And they've only added more from there. More story, more features, more experimentation. Not everything has worked out, obviously, and some of the less supported features (like Archwing flight) were folded into content better able to support them (like open world zones). Alternate modes of play were also added. Long ago, when Warframe was new, people used to say, I think this game feels floaty, a bit light really. Not a lot of weight or impact to the movement. And when you're playing as a Warframe that can be a bit true. But that's intentional. Warframes are incredibly deadly, fast, and nimble. They are very much unlike conventional fps/tps player characters, even those of faster-paced shooters. Content was later added where you could play as non-warframe characters, with soldiers and engineers who moved with the heft and sense of body that you would expect, like from Gears of War or Dead Space. Players hated it. The contrast between a conventional third person shooter character and the freedom of movement and speed you experience as a Warframe was just too much to bear. That lightness of step, that smooth and relentless speed, that is the essence of the game. And that's what you're here for if you're playing Warframe. That or the magical girl with a hoverboard.  6 - Misericorde: Volume One  "sword women" This is the story of a German-born nun, Hedwig of Trier, anchoress of Linbarrow abbey in a remote corner of England. As an anchoress, she is a hermit set apart from her theoretical peers, and she has known nothing of life outside of her cell save for contemplation and the deliverance of other's prayers, a living conduit of faith and not much else. She knows very little about the other nuns with whom she has lived nearly her entire life, and they know nothing of her aside from her voice, attenuated through a small hole in her cell. As someone whose movements and motives are a known factor, she was selected by the abbess to leave her cell, in full breach of her anchorite vows, to serve as the abbess' eyes and ears in a most delicate matter. A fellow nun has been murdered, an innocent man framed for the deed, and as the only person in the abbey completely free from suspicion, she has been forced by the abbess to help her solve the mystery of Sister Catherine's murder. Unfortunately Hedwig is utterly unqualified for the task on a number of levels, and much of the story is simply about her learning how to live as a person rather than a religious recluse, and exploring the lives of the women of the abbey, many of whom were forced into this life through various circumstances out of their control. They do not all cope well with their situation and the answer to these tensions is a place of respite, the misericorde, a room where the strictness of a monk or nun's vows are relaxed, up to a point, and where one can be a human again. But this is also more famously the name of a kind of dagger. A weapon of execution, mercy killing, and murder. As a episodic story with a thoroughly unreliable narrator, faced with a variety of scenes the reader is expected not to trust, backed by an incredibly stylish soundtrack, Misericorde is very openly inspired by Umineko. Even more obviously so, for me, when I stumbled onto the secret scene that only unlocks after you finish reading through it at least once. The triphop lesbian nun game is very good. I streamed it for friends on discord. Top marks. 5 - Umineko When They Cry  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENL0nPskSao "It's useless, it's all useless!" What a cumbersome English name this one has. I also streamed this one for friends after we finished Misericorde. When I was done with that I thought, drat, they would probably be up for Umineko actually. Turns out I was right. A lot of people online, especially on these forums, are already familiar with this at least in passing but for the sake of courtesy I will give a précis. In 1986, an incident on Rokkenjima Island ended with the deaths of almost the entire Ushiromiya family. According to some theories, they were murdered by an entity called the Golden Witch, Beatrice. The second-eldest grandchild present on the island, Ushiromiya Battler, denies her existence and must find a way to explain the murders of his family that refutes the supernatural using his knowledge of the mystery detective genre. His objective is not to find the real culprit. He is here to deny the existence of witches and magic. This is no Sherlock Holmes or Ace Attorney. This is Fantasy vs. Mystery [ed note: Friend A found my post and clarified that it's specifically Anti-Mystery vs Anti-Fantasy]. A battle of wits between an incorrigible troll in a sumptuous dress and a hot-blooded dumbass who can't even bluff his way out of a paper bag. Phoenix Wright he ain't. Arguably the most famous visual novel outside of Japan, Umineko is a series of eight episodes, four of which are murder mysteries with the same cast of characters, and the series as a whole is a broader supernatural drama and commentary on whodunnits in general, including how readers and fans interact with them. It's creator and main writer, Ryukishi07, may not be a great writer, or even really a good one, but he's a fiendishly clever and fun one. Even when he's being sloppy, or belaboring a point for a few paragraphs more than he really needs to. Nobody's perfect, especially not that guy. The first episode, which establishes the bulk of the characters and the basic timeline of events common to the following Episodes, is actually presented as a horror story. Each subsequent Episode builds on the last, remixing events and showing new perspectives in a way that keeps things fresh. And this story really, really goes places. To say anything further is to spoil really far too much of it. The mysteries, and solving them, are only half of the story. The rest is about the sordid and tragic story of the Ushiromiya Family, Japan's wealthiest westaboos, and their ultimately lethal squabbles over a ten-billion yen inheritance. All of their dirty secrets, all of the pain and trauma. All delivered in a medium filtered through incredibly unreliable narration and your only clue to figuring out the truth is to learn the rules that the mystery is actually operating under, and they're not the same as Van Dine's. The world's most unfair whodunnit, packaged with a real life riddle that took fans around the world working together the better part of a decade to figure out. And it all looks like this: https://twitter.com/silenttakedown/status/1506028334949486600 It's ultimately a story about magic. That said, the common definition of that word is not what I'm using here. The truth can only be be achieved with understanding and sympathizing with the characters making their mistakes, these poor lost souls forced to endure a twisted Divine Comedy. Without love, it cannot be seen. (Weirdly, I've been streaming a lot of murder mysteries over discord this year. And actually, previous years too, now that I recall I've shared Ace Attorney with friends as well. And Obra Dinn. And also Golden Idol. This is turning into a bit of a thing with me now. Maybe I'll give Tyrion Cuthbert a shot next year.) 4 - Baldur's Gate 3  "And to think I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards. Apologies." I hate D&D5e and even I think this game is an achievement. I'm also still just in Act 1 because I only started this Christmas. If not for that this would probably rank higher, but even just as far as I am, I'm very impressed. Larian Studios really knocked this one out of the park. They do "immersive sim" gameplay better than those studios that put 0451 as a password in their games. I'm told that Act 3 onwards is less polished, and of the three returning characters from BG1&2, one is pointless fan pandering, one is active character assassination of a fan favorite, and only one is actually pretty decent. Even before I started, the memes had me pretty on board right from the off. People love this game and the enthusiasm was infectious. Actually having the game in my hands and getting to play it, I can tell that Larian has much better sensibilities for design than the entirety of the team that actually wrote D&D5e. The encounter design is top notch and your ability to prep battlefields and gently caress things up is equally solid. And in Tactician difficulty, practically required. And the game's turn-based, not real-time-with-pause, so you know it's good. This feels less like a sequel to the Bioware Baldur's Gates and more like a successor to Divinity: Original Sin. And that's a good thing because those games are a masterclass in tactical thinking and sheer full mischief potential. Speaking to those sensibilities, when you create a character your Alignment never comes up. Because, like anybody who's played a tabletop rpg written by someone who isn't a moron blinded by nostalgia could tell you, Alignment makes for dogshit roleplaying. It's a good source for meme templates and that's it. It looks like Larian agreed. Two of the first companions you meet, assuming you didn't choose to actually play as one of them instead of making your own character, are characters who would probably have been shoved into the Evil Alignment cupboard, a Cleric of Shar and a Githyanki Warrior. That is, had they been in a worse-written game. I love both of those idiots. Shadowheart is clearly actually a softie and Lae'zel is an rear end but she's funny sometimes and she tanks hits just fine. And that rear end in a top hat vampire almost killed me once. Bless his shriveled heart, I love that dipshit too. All of the origin character companions are utterly charming, even Wyll, the poor guy the fanbase has been sleeping on this whole time. Well, Gale is decent enough I guess. Karlach really is the best though. I wonder if I would enjoy the game as much if I didn't have a mod that let me have all party members out at once. If I had to go back to camp to switch people every time I needed someone's specific expertise I'd probably be driven up the wall. The only reason I don't feel comfortable ranking this higher is because I've really just started, and I don't know if that's just recency bias or not. That, and also I really dig giant robots. Also, as it turns out, Sisters of Battle. Well, a Sister of Battle. One Sororitas, singular. 3 - Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader  "Abelard, introduce me." Hey, so. You know what I hate more than D&D5e? That's right, Warhammer 40K. You know what I love more than I hate 40K? That's right, XCOM and having Abelard announce my presence. I'm not going to lie, while this game has a mere fraction of the production values of BG3, in terms of having an actual game system I want to interact with, this is exactly my jam. I love fussing about with builds, I loved realizing how broken it was to have three Officers ordering Sister Argenta around, killing everything. And then I realized maybe perhaps no one Sororitas should have all this power. Or, at the very least, shouldn't have to shoulder all that responsibility. So I hired a merc to fill some of that niche, just using Warrior as a baseline for Arch-Militant rather than Soldier (better mobility, somewhat worse ballistic skill accuracy). Balance is shot to hell because of how many synergies you can stack on, and how busted action economy powers are in this game. No, really, Officer, one of the four core archetypes of the game, entirely specializes in breaking the action economy! This uses the Fantasy Flight Rogue Trader TTRPG as a baseline, but Owlcat diverges even more from that game system than Larian did from RAW D&D5e. In tabletop, Dark Heresy was on the lower end of the power scale, Rogue Trader in the middle with starting characters on par with promoted Dark Heresy characters, and Deathwatch was the high-powered Space Marine ttrpg line whose baseline level of overall combat impact was simply far and above what ordinary humans, even exceedingly skilled humans, were capable of. Owlcat's interpretation of RT has you start near the lower end, analogous to a Dark Heresy Inquisitorial acolyte, only to ramp things up dramatically to the point where it takes a full team of Chaos Space Marines to even approach the point where they could challenge you. The characters here, too, are charming and well-developed. It's a shame that a much bigger and fancier game has overshadowed the conversation in the genre, but Cassia is adorable, Argenta is the Bolt(er) GOAT(er), and Yrliet, the Eldar Ranger, is one of the most well-developed companion characters in a game I've played, much less this year. If you ever get the opportunity to have Abelard or Pasqal introduce you, make sure to do so. This game does a great job of really selling the "class fantasy" of being a Rogue Trader to you. You feel like a major player in your corner of the galaxy and the scenarios and dilemmas presented for your consideration all make you feel the weight of your decisions. You are not just an adventurer, even one with a great potential destiny. You are the monarch of a spaceborne dynasty and your castle is a warship the size of a city with guns scaled to match. The gravity of the decisions in play, the difficulty of the morality of the 40K universe, and the willingness to both punish and reward the Iconoclast for seeking to do genuine good in a setting where such a divergence from the norm verges on apostasy, this makes Rogue Trader one of the most compelling games I'm glad to have taken a chance on. It's also buggy as hell, and I'm not talking about Tyranids. I'm told that's just an Owlcat thing, and it'll probably be fine come next year. I never played the Pathfinder games, I really, really dislike Pathfinder. The only tactical ttrpg systems I actually like, LANCER and Fragged Empire, don't have videogames attached to their names. Well, okay, maybe LANCER. A little bit. Tom Kill Six Billion Demons has gone on record as saying that one of his major inspirations for that game were his half-remembered vibes from a youth spent playing Armored Core 4/For Answer. 2 - Armored Core 6  "Welcome back, Raven." The only other Armored Core games I'd ever played prior to this were AC Master of Arena, the third game in the entire franchise on PSX and Armored Core V on the PS3. I was hooked on Master of Arena as a kid. Getting good enough to beat it, and that means wrangling those janky classic AC controls and beating Nineball Seraph. Hot drat that was difficult, but satisfying. Meanwhile ACV felt a bit bland and I bounced right off of it. In some ways, I was coming to Armored Core 6 fresh. In other ways, however, I was a long-lost series veteran, the sort of player who remembers when mercenaries were called Ravens and to know fear when the soundtrack busts out the piano. In a way, when ALLMIND greeted me, after playing Master of Arena over two decades ago, it felt like I was coming home. Goddamn this game is hard though. I know Miyazaki repeatedly tried to temper people's expectations to say, no, really, this is not a Souls game. It kinda feels a bit like a Souls game. (Positive) This is a high-speed giant robot action game made by a studio with loads of experience making finely-tuned difficulty engines, with a fanbase that is fully prepared for the worst the devs can muster. Even the framing of the missions feels like it was designed for veterans. In Master of Arena, you spent a lot of time trying to build your rep in Raven's Nest, doing a lot of relatively small-stakes jobs before the corps felt comfortable with offering you the juciest contracts. In AC6, you do maybe three low-stakes jobs before Handler Walter manages to get you a big opportunity to Climb the Wall and prove you're the real deal. And hot drat can you do that. Despite never seeing a single person's face, the characters ooze personality. Even if the only face you can put to a name is either their comm icon avatar or the robot they pilot. Rusty stands out as a fan favorite and when he says he won't miss, you better believe it, buddy.  And the gameplay itself? Just to play? It's the tightest action game of the year. Even my friend who hates Soulsborne games was fully down to fight robo-a-robo. The NG++ Final Final Boss is also some of the funniest poo poo, swear to god. Saltiest man on the planet refuses to die, hijacks the villain's scheme to try and fail to kick your rear end one last time. https://twitter.com/XuanyiRuna/status/1711310087556587881?s=20 1 - ASTLIBRA ～生きた証～ Revision  "Oh destiny, is this... the world you wish for?"     Another friend of mine gifted this to me ages ago and I never got around to playing it. Then a different friend streamed some of it on discord for me and I was immediately intrigued. In my defense, if friend A really wanted me to play they gifted me sight unseen, they should've demo'd it a bit. That said, I'm thankful to the both of them. If I had to say there was a game I've played this year that I had the least amount of expectations going in, yet managed to get me Extremely Hype in the course of playing it, it would have to be Astlibra. The action platformer with a talking bird that does your supermoves and a time travel story that starts off incredibly bittersweet, swerves into tragedy, only to climb, phoenix-like, from the ashes into sheer cathartic joy. Its art style is a weirdly eclectic mishmash of bespoke sprites and portraits painted by a Vanillaware artist and a bunch of stock photo assets. It's funny, it's charming, it's often quite melancholy, it's probably too horny by half, and its music goes inexplicably, incredibly hard. This is the music that plays when you're beating up slimes in the starting forest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvRNjuoKvlI This is the music that plays while you're fighting your way through far future Tokyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w8ppfp9KD4 I actually forget the exact context of this track tbh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUTL9JpgK4A&t=114s This feels like the theme of the hero's Determination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbDphFU3hsY This is also the game I've repeatedly posted about in the RPG Thread. To repost my own words from there: I still love how Astlibra's demo and first chapter play with your perceptions to keep you disoriented while you're unsure of what even is going on, with the demo even being presented as a prophetic dream which winds up coming to fruition in a way I definitely didn't expect. It all lends an air of mystery, danger, and quiet tragedy to the early game. But that sense of disorientation, unreality, and manipulated perceptions comes into play less and less as time goes on. As you become more aware of your situation, the world around you, and the capabilities of the powers in play, you become harder to get taken off-guard by the truths you're confronted with. And this awareness all comes to a head in a scene at the start of the post-game. You wake up from the dream as a child again, just like you did in the demo of the game, just like you did in the prologue of the game, and your crow companion greets you, again, saying what a long and vivid dream that must've been. And then immediately calls bullshit on the very idea of it at about the same time you, the player, probably are. Because he knows drat well what's going on and so do you. Now that the two of you've been yeeted way, way back it's time to get to work. This time for good. It's a very funny bit that cleanly segues into a tone of stirring determination, one of my favorite scenes in a game chock full of strong moments. Astlibra's first half is incredibly bittersweet, a story of constant trolley problems where your time travel shenanigans, mostly involuntary, lead to results that are somewhat better than the situation you started with but at some cost. And then things turn out far for the worse as the entire system begins to break down. The story goes into some pretty dark and depressive places, which makes the "postgame," or rather the true third act of the story, so intensely cathartic. It's a delight. This is a story about breaking through time itself in order to make sure that, no, gently caress you, everyone lives. We're going for the golden ending, even if we have to relive an entire lifetime to make it happen. And we're going to do some really hinky nonsense to make it possible, but when all the pieces fall into place, it's gonna rock. This was the game this year that made me laugh, cry, and hoot and holler in excitement. Sometimes all at once. Of all the games I played this year, this one made the biggest impact on me. Even if I have to sheepishly admit to friend A that they were right to gift it to me. Courtesy List: 10: Waves of Steel 9: Against the Storm 8: Stray Gods 7: Warframe 6: Misericorde 5: Umineko 4: Baldur's Gate 3 3: Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader 2: Armored Core 6 1: Astlibra Revision Runa fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 08:50
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If I hadn't procrastinated to the, like, literal last ten minutes the formatting would've been a bit cleaner E: King of Solomon posted:Lol same. I had to edit my post three or four times to actually get it formatted properly. lmao late buddies Runa fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 08:54
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Runa posted:If I hadn't procrastinated to the, like, literal last ten minutes the formatting would've been a bit cleaner Lol same. I had to edit my post three or four times to actually get it formatted properly.
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Jan 1, 2024 08:56
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hi yall heres my top 7 list for 2023 (done at the last minute again as per tradition…)!! some of these i haven’t beaten yet but i got a pretty good idea about them so 😊 7. Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) this is the first 2D metroid i’ve ever finished (sorry og super! you’re just too clunky) and i liked it a lot more than super metroid redux/zm/fusion because there was quite a lot more polish (but mainly, because of not needing to hold down a shoulder button to fire missiles), even if the later metroid fights kinda sucked!!! 😔 6. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom im only like 2 dungeons in but this games pretty cool  some later plot stuff sounds kinda Eh to me tho and im unsure as to why they just copied botw’s format wrt memories again??5. Mega Man Battle Network 2 (non beaten) this is the first time i’ve played a battle network game (besides 4, which i got stuck in real early and quit as a kid) in any real capacity and i liked it so much i got the legacy collections!!! i guess i should finish this first tho…?? 4. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow i beat this earlier in the year from the advance collection and it was real fun!!! tbh i started sotn and haven’t actually beaten it yet (p close tho) and, i think aria might be better??? 3. Fire Emblem Engage (non beaten) im only like 12 chapters in this so far but i really like the lighter story compared to all the arguments over 3 houses, the chars are fun, and the artists and modellers remembered that colors existed!! also i can actually read the text in handheld mode vs 3H having the world’s tiniest font 2. Deltarune it remains to be seen if this will surpass toby fox’s magnum opus but with dialogue choices like “Point and hearts come out/Eat Moss” i have a good feeling about it… the party dynamic rules so far, the musics still really good, writing and characters are still great to read, and while chapter 1 was a tad lesser than 2 it was still a very good start for a whole new time!! 1. Undertale i finally played this on my switch like 3 years after i got it on there and this is probably one of the best games i’ve ever played??? the music is incredible, the characters are all lovable, and the writing owns!!! you Will learn to love dancing robots, fish ladies, and skeletons. 💃 Numbered List: 7. Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) 6. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 5. Mega Man Battle Network 2 4. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 3. Fire Emblem Engage 2. Deltarune 1. Undertale Honorable Mentions: Etrian Odyssey III HD: im only like 7 hours in this game but its sick and making me remember the good times with 4…!! the art all looks super nice and crisp and im glad they even added extra portraits! i do wish the automapping didn’t draw walls around the front and back of shortcuts though 😔 Star Ocean 2: The Second Story R Demo ok so this is just a demo but this game looks sick???? also the new art looks super good too!! Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (HD Trilogy) i finally beat the last case after stopping for like 4 years at the very start of it and it loving owned?? that poo poo rocked hard!! Mega Man ZX (Legacy Collection) i finally cleared that awful letter sidequest after stopping partway through for like 3 years and then beat the rest of the game and, eh, it was fine i guess even tho the main bad guy is, incredibly boring?? also the superboss was wayyy too hard for me so good thing the LC had those link bosses!! also gently caress the area K subtank aaaaaaaa i gave up on that.......
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Jan 1, 2024 08:56
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also happy new years to allBooky posted:Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (HD Trilogy) gently caress yeah Ace Attorney! I know it's not on your list proper I just wanted to say that
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Jan 1, 2024 09:02
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Booky posted:Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (HD Trilogy) "I'm going to bring your magnificent vengeance to fruition, just as you want it." is in my top 10 all-time moments in gaming. It's such a great culmination to the trilogy.
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Jan 1, 2024 09:11
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Thank you to everyone who entered! I am no longer accepting new entries. Happy new year lovelies!
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Jan 1, 2024 09:13
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Can we still post silly lists like top ten music tracks and stuff that won't be part of the proper listing tallies
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Jan 1, 2024 09:17
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Ok so what game won goty?
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Jan 1, 2024 09:19
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 tbh, I'm gonna post a list of hon mentions and stuff when I get the chance and if it's good enough for Ms A it's good enough for anyone!
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Jan 1, 2024 09:21
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Captain Invictus posted:Can we still post silly lists like top ten music tracks and stuff that won't be part of the proper listing tallies
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Jan 1, 2024 09:23
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| # ? May 25, 2024 00:15 |
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Honorable mentions… participation trophies
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Jan 1, 2024 09:24
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