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Escobarbarian posted:I’m sorry but if you don’t order your list 10-1 you are literally a cop 9: Postmodern Warfare 4: The Scrimblo Bimblo Conspiracy 1: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV 8: Transformers: War for Oil 5: Marvel's Contenders 7: E.T. the Extraterrestrial 8: The Wonderful 100 3: Calzone Obelisk
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Dec 4, 2023 16:13
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Shard posted:If 5 is the minimum here is mine. In my defense the rules were really long! And also fine I'll put it in descending order because I don't want to be a cop. 5) City Game Studio - I sunk a lot of hours into this game. It dethroned Mad Game Tycoon as my favorite game dev sim. And the best part is it keeps getting new features added to it and has a pretty robust mod page on the steam workshop. 4) Super Mario Wonder- easily the best co-op Mario that's ever come out. A ton of characters to pick from, new animation, fun to play, you don't get in each other's way. I had a lot of fun playing this with my son. 3) Street Fighter 6 - A fighting game so good that I bought it day one even though I haven't done that for a fighting game ever. Modern Controls made it so I could actually learn strategy and the amazing netcode actually let me play like 100 online matches quickly. 2) Pizza Tower - the most unique game I've played in years. Feels hand drawn. The sprite work is immaculate. It feels like something you would watch on cartoon network in the late 90s in the same vein as cow and chicken. Soundtrack bangs so hard. Going for P rank was a ton of fun and challenging. My son got this before me and we played it so much together that it made it into my list. One of my favorite memories of the year was going for a p rank and my son and daughter cheering me on as they watched. 1) Baldur's Gate 3 - my favorite RPG of all time. It's arguably got too much content but despite that I have finished it 3 times and have 5 different save files going between the copy I bought on my computer and ps5. The support it has gotten is probably the best of all time. I can't think of any other company that has done as much as well or as quickly as Larian. It will be the rpg I judge all others by until it is dethroned if it ever is for me.
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Dec 4, 2023 16:16
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Shard posted:In my defense the rules were really long! And also fine I'll put it in descending order because I don't want to be a cop. 
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Dec 4, 2023 16:23
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Shard posted:In my defense the rules were really long! And also fine I'll put it in descending order because I don't want to be a cop. It is wordy, and thank you for expanding!  I appreciate it!
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Dec 4, 2023 16:32
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50:Final Fantasy II 49:Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 48:Mirror's Edge Catalyst 47:Final Fantasy I 46:Xing: The Land Beyond 45:The Entropy Centre 44:Ghostwire: Tokyo 43:Wipeout 2048 42:Knack 41:Sonic Frontiers 40:Like a Dragon: Ishin! 39:Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars 38:Forspoken 37:Honkai Star Rail 36:Endling: Extinction is Forever 35:Oxenfree 34:Untitled Goose Game 33:Sackboy: A Big Adventure 32:Furi 31:The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me 30:Knack II 29:Final Fantasy IV 28:Live a Live 27:Severed 26:Cult of the Lamb 25:We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie 24:Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores 23:Ninja Gaiden Sigma 22:Psychonauts 2 21:The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 20:Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion 19:Humanity 18:Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name 17:Super Mario Wonder 16:Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty 15:Hitman 3 14:Final Fantasy XVI 13:Disco Elsyium 12:Citizen Sleeper 11:Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 10:Sayonara Wild Hearts What can I say? This music game just really impressed me and touched me a little bit. It was fun going after all the trophies/achievements as I had to replay the various stages in different ways. I have never played a music game as well put together and visually impress me as much as this did. 9:The Surge Okay, finally, I played a souls-like that was getting close to as fun as the original From Software games. The sci-fi settings were great, but I will admit the gameplay is a little stiffer than it should be, and the level layouts is really confusing at first. Can’t wait to play Surge 2 and Lies of P next year as my next souls-like adventures. 8:Resident Evil 4 (2023) Of course, one of the best horror games got a straight up remake, and looks and plays better. Easy win here. Keep in mind, I’m a sucker for horror and scifi as you go down my list. 7:The Talos Principle 2 Okay so if you remember Talos Principle 1? Great little puzzle game. Well, it just got better. The environments are amazing to walk around and look at. The puzzles do feel more balanced and fair. Story is just as good, if not, even better. I honestly love it more than the first game 6:Blasphemous So The Surge, impressed me with how much I had fun with a sci-fi souls-like. Well here’s a 2d Spanish Castlevania-Souls-like. And I loved it! Great bosses, and I did all the trophies as well. It was really fun to do the challenge of beating every boss without using my healing flasks. 5:Marvel's Spider-Man 2 And here we are, probably the best PS5 exclusive that people have been waiting for. 2018’s Spider-Man captured the attention and hearts of millions, and we’re back with a duo of Peter Parker and Miles Morales as Spider-Mens. I won’t touch too much on the story, because I think it’s best experienced, but let me tell you, they have the best portrayal of some familiar plot-lines executed before in the comics/movies. This game is worth your time. 4:Signalis ACHTUNG! SCHWERER AUSNAHMEFEHLER! Survival horror makes a big comeback in Signalis. It is a top-down game but it plays very similar to hardcore survival horror games like the original RE1. The visuals in this game were insanely creative and the atmosphere was incredibly tense. I think this is worth your time if you love sci-fi horror games. 3:Alan Wake II Initiation 4. That should be all that needs to be said. But look, I enjoyed 2010’s Alan Wake 1 and I have been waiting for over a decade for this. And it did not let me down. Let me start off by saying this isn’t that impressive of a game, but it is an impressive experience. If you’re a tv series fan, especially of stuff like Twin Peaks, you own it to yourself to experience AW2. Sam Lake has done it again and I cannot wait for more in the Remedyverse! 2:Dead Space (2023) Remember how I said I loved sci-fi and horror? Well here’s one of my favorite games of all time, from 2008. They just took it and made it better in every single way. It controls better, it looks better, it plays better, it’s more tense, it’s even got a bit of added content and fleshes it out more. There is no reason to play the original anymore. 1:Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon And now we arrive at #1. Last year, Elden Ring won GOTY and I’m hoping From Software does a double-header and AC6 wins GoTY this year. From Software has taken one of their oldest franchises and finally created a new modern entry (their last one was from 2013!). And oh boy, this plays amazingly well and has even more fun bosses and looks great and the environments are a wonder to behold, and I think even Souls-like vets will find some enjoyment in playing AC:VI. But I will end this by saying I am probably the forum’s biggest From Software fan and that is why, without question, I nominate Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon as my number 1 game I played in 2023.
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Dec 4, 2023 16:36
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Shard posted:In my defense the rules were really long! And also fine I'll put it in descending order because I don't want to be a cop. nature is healing
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Dec 4, 2023 16:38
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Jay Rust posted:tbh... the rules aren't SUPER clear, they're really wordy. Some bold might help? Put the important part in bold at the beginning of the rule imo. Only ten games count: not important. Five game minimum for your post to count at all: very important.
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Dec 4, 2023 16:38
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Captain Invictus posted:10: Baldur's Gate 3.2 lol
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Dec 4, 2023 16:40
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wait theres a DoW IV?!?!
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Dec 4, 2023 16:40
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Escobarbarian posted:BP like “I just moved fridge….with my freaking posts!” BP always moves me with his posts 
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Dec 4, 2023 16:44
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See Aipsh, somebody put FFXVI on their list!!! ....at number 14???!?  Nice list Ineffiable!! 
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Dec 4, 2023 16:46
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Ineffiable posted:10:Sayonara Wild Hearts I play it every year and love it more. Just a perfect little package. Can't wait for their new game.
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Dec 4, 2023 16:50
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Jay Rust posted:tbh... the rules aren't SUPER clear, they're really wordy. Some bold might help? The rules for lists for example, was put in later. That wasnt there when I last looked at the OP. But regardless I intend to update my original post further (with more lists) (im kidding, will write something).
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Dec 4, 2023 17:10
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morallyobjected posted:the same people not including FF16 are also anarchists who don't read the rules post, so I'm not worried Spoiler: Final Fantasy XVI is currently number 11 on my list.
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Dec 4, 2023 17:30
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I think the rules should clarify how the scoring works and I guess just be more upfront that the point is celebrating your top 10, not just your #1 Also disqualify ascending order lists 
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Dec 4, 2023 17:40
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I'm still playing FFXVI and don't really have a good sense of how much is left (I've done 3 mothercrystals) but it will definitely be on my list big Clive fan here
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Dec 4, 2023 17:53
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VG, I updated my top 10 list with some words for each.
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Dec 4, 2023 18:03
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It's time for the best thread of the year every year. I included games that I rated a 3.5 or higher out of 5.0, acknowledging that games underneath that score are closer to skippable than not in most cases. 47. This Way Madness Lies (3.5/5) 46. Ghost Song (3.5/5) 45. Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (3.5/5) 44. Vision Soft Reset (3.5/5) 43. Patrick's Parabox (3.5/5) 42. Yakuza Kiwami (3.5/5) 41. Videoverse (3.5/5) 40. Picross DS (3.5/5) 39. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (3.5/5) 38. Returnal (3.5/5) 37. Melatonin (3.5 /5) 36. Detective Grimoire (3.5/5) 35. Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer (3.5/5) 34. Axiom Verge 2 (3.5/5) It seems like AV2 received less positive reviews than the original Axiom Verge due to significant changes in the gameplay. The first game called back to the original Metroid’s lonely and tense atmosphere, placed combat first, and introduced glitches as a power-up function. I didn’t have much fun with AV1 but a plenty others did. Axiom Verge 2 comes along years later with lackluster critical acclaim and why play a worse version of a game I already didn’t like? I took the chance and found a great Metroidvania that emphasized exploration over combat and replaced the dark laboratories with bright outdoor environments. Your player’s hacking abilities and cross-over play with a drone expand the exploration elements even further, driving you to consider the environment carefully instead of blasting through. To me, that incremental study and discovery of the world map is the best part of Metroidvanias and it’s exactly what Axiom Verge 2 emphasizes first. Just remember that it’s a significant departure from AV1 and don’t hold your evaluation against expectations. 33. Lies of P (3.5/5) 32. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked (3.5/5) 31. Slay the Princess (3.5/5) 30. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood (3.5/5) 29. Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane (3.5/5) 28. COCOON (3.5/5) 27. Little Nightmares 2 (3.5/5) 26. A Space for the Unbound (3.5/5) 25. Persona 5 Tactica (3.5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEUqLL8J4gI Here's a weird question: Is Persona 4 and 5 defined by the group of friends that come together to solve problems or is it more about the troubled people who get their problems solved? If you answer the second, have I got the game for you. Persona 5 Tactica is a little like viewing Futaba's mind palace from Persona 5 taking Futaba's perspective. The Phantom Thieves are here on contractual obligation but it's not their story or character development. It's the story of two other people who take a little too long to reach their interesting story beats. You can see a odd parallel to those 90's/00's romantic comedy movies like Garden State or 500 Days of Summer. Toshiro spends an enormous amount of the game as "boring man acts boring" while Erina essentially plays the role of manic pixie dream girl.. Is the gameplay good? Well, it has a fun all-out mechanic that promotes good strategic maneuvering but lacks any other ideas. It's a big step behind Mario + Rabbids, the tactical spin-off where chaos reigns in the best way possible, but is a serviceable tactical RPG otherwise. It's not a bad game, but you can see why people hope there isn't another spin-off between this and Persona 6. 24. Orbo's Odyssey (3.5/5) If they just made the rocketing bullet spin thingy easier to control with the camera controls, this would've been higher on my list. A great example of a small goofy idea leveraged well for a small goofy game. 23. Echo (4/5) 22. Metroid Prime 2: Echos (4/5) 21. Hi-Fi Rush (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6HAVF_Yb9M Some people said this about Baldur's Gate 3 in this thread but I think it applies to my experience with Hi-Fi Rush: Do you ever play a game that you know is the perfect type of a specific game, but it still doesn't really connect with you? I don't normally enjoy hack-n-slash games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, but here's a version with great music, a utter devotion to rhythm-based gameplay/world/characters, beautiful cel-shaded graphics, and an over-arching sense of genuine fun. But it's a hack-n-slash, it's repetitive battle arenas that fatigue my interest, It's letter grades for your battles that never help the experience, it's still not my thing despite offering so many aspects that I love. But it might be truly yours. 20. Venba (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEyPQ8Xb35k As good of an indie cooking game that you could ask for, keeping the cooking gameplay always story-relevant while not lasting long enough for the gameplay to become stale (~2 hours to beat). I had the odd experience getting stuck on a level because I fundamentally disagree when garlic should be added to a certain dish. 19. Tangle Tower (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncbCn2HXbnQ&t=240s 18. Citizen Sleeper (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNKU1PevYcg I love a good story, especially when it carries such a beautiful theme: Despite how rough the world can be, the people can be kind to each other. However, the game’s content was surprisingly bare given the comparisons to other games with adored & reactive writing. Each day’s activities are limited based on your dice rolls but there are no difficult choices when tasks are simple to resolve and time limitations are unlikely to overlap. Citizen Sleeper is a significant improvement over the developer's previous game, In Other Waters, but there's still room between CS and the top-tier of comparable games. Citizen Sleeper 2 was recently announced and I'm looking forward to how the sequel builds on this success. 17. Diablo 4 (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKKNFSpfUok For context, I just play the story of Diablo 4 and don't get involved in the seasons or long-term grind. I was perfectly happy with the story and gameplay as it sits today, a satisfying click-click-click action RPG where my necromancer throws an undead army at hellish monsters. 16. Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKyDDmkgkeY 15. Cassette Beasts (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF2LtqVBWe0 Clear your throat, tap on the microphone, and with deadpan tone, say "Pokemon but different". Monster collection games all fall in the shadow of Pokemon and Cassette Beasts is no different. You can view the game as a grab-bag of someone's ideal combination of Pokemon concepts: You primarily level up your trainer rather than your monsters, allowing more experimentation between parties instead of locking yourself into whichever Pokemon has the highest level. Type advantages take more interest in bizarre interactions, like melting a plastic monster with a fire attack to produce noxious fumes. It's all a chance to learn fun type interactions from scratch, and how many years ago could you say the same about Pokemon? But the main Pokemon comparison to acknowledge is how both games treat you, the player. In Pokemon, the player character is a kid who's always lived in the Pokemon world but recognizes that the player could be any age. Everyone in Pokemon has always lived in simple moral terms. Cassette Beasts throws you into the world Link's Awakening style, washed ashore to an unfamiliar land, with the open fact that this is an alternate universe and you're likely an adult. You don't encounter classmates so much as twenty-somethings who found their life's calling but still feel self-conscious about their weird hobbies. Those little changes makes all the difference. Cassette Beasts knows you and every other NPC wants to leave this little world of monsters but, considering the real life that you leave behind to play this game, why don't you take your time here where things are simple? Yes, the tone is more grown-up and archangels and dungeons are scary, but this is a story told inside a nostalgic-imbued magic circle, where you can make friends by exchanging first names, join a rangers core that helps others, defeat enemies with your knowledge of type advantages, and enjoy a soundtrack that remains pleasant, comforting, and warm. Cassette Beasts is Pokemon realized as an adult's escapist fantasy. Just like the song playing in the cafe says: It's okay to be uncertain cause I'm certain it's fine to be floating here for a while. 14. Tales from Off-Peak City (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yVs2E4aldg&t=604s The perfect Cosmo D game would resemble a super-packed version of Tales from Off-Peak City but the game lacks the same volume of self-directed interactions that make Betrayal and Norwood such endless thrills. For example, delivering pizzas to apartments sets up a great series of jokes but the pizza baking becomes tedious as the same long joke plays out multiple times. I also encountered some game-breaking bugs, one of which occurred right at the ending sequence. It’s still a fantastic game worth your time but I’d recommend playing it third of the three Cosmo D games I’ve tried so far. 13. Live A Live (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSwEXTR1FIg&t=11s 12. Rain Code (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPkw6sw3LOk After a half-dozen games and anime series, The Danganronpa team walked away from their desks to figure out what new adventure they would do next. They came back to something new: In Rain Code, unlike Danganronpa, you play as a teen boy detective investigating a series of murder-mysteries starring a cast of colorful & extreme personalities inside a closed-off environment, where a deeper earth-shattering secret explains the bizarre status quo. At the end of each case, you insert pictures of the crime in a manga-esq comic to prove you understand the event in full. No, wait, hold on. Unlike any other high-ranking game on my list, you play as a high school-aged boy who discovers secret superpowers soon after moving to a city corrupted by the local police, diving into stylish-neon-bright mind palaces shaped by the distorted desires of a criminal culprit, where finding the secret at the end tears down the mind palace effectively ends the culprit’s lives. You are joined throughout the game by a cute talking companion that bystanders don’t hear and offers expert opinions about the mind palaces. Xanthe Huynh voices the English dub of a sheltered rich girl in your party and the soundtrack is a banger. No, wait, hold on. Let me jump to the most important point of this review: Danganronpa fans should play this and you will be satisfied if that sounds like you. I rate it just under the three main DR games for reasons I’ll get into but Rain Code is not nearly enough to disappoint a longtime fan. For all the detective games out there, nothing quite hits the same level of goofy-fun entertainment as DR or this spiritual successor. It’s as if other mystery games want to give you a case while Rain Code / Danganronpa wants to give you memorable cartoon characters who, by the way, are involved in murder mysteries. I love it. I read all the optional side conversations, bought the DLC, and read the flavor text. Give this team all the credit deserved for writing characters and scenes that are legitimately fun because god knows how many games have no interest to be interesting. Seth Burroughs sums it up for me: what a dumb idea for a character who I loved every time he appeared. Danganronpa starts with a large collection of characters, then widdles the numbers down over time as murders and executions take place. Rain Code silo’s their cases with a new batch of suspects and locations each time. This change sounds refreshing, isn't that Ace Attorney in a nutshell?, but you lose a ton of interaction time with these characters. Danganronpa’s set-up is a great way to build strong connections with characters as you become familiar with their quirks and tendencies over hours of multiple cases. Rain Code keeps the fun characters going but how invested could you possibly be with the third or fourth crowd of a half-dozen suspects, each with a bare minimum screen time? You also have to groan at some of these minigames and scenes for fan service: there's no way you can let someone watch you play if a certain barrel minigame is expected to show up. Well, there’s one major exception with Shinigami, the perpetual comic relief of the story. There’s lots of reviewers who find her annoying, and I can see why with her constant one-liners over the course of 40-50 hours. But you know what? I think the bigger problem is with Yuma, our antenna-haired main character, and the lagging buddy-cop duo. Just like Danganronpa, we play as a player-insert character with no personality, but Rain Code makes Yuma carry a large number of scenes himself, as if he was interesting enough as an individual and not a bland straight-man. It’s no surprise that Shinigami has the frantic try-hard energy of two characters when her character has to compensate for Yuma. Rain Code made a bold move to a fully-3D open world on the Switch’s aging hardware, away from the stylized 2D sprites in the 3D world of Danganronpa. The good news is that the trademark character art translates to 3D perfectly in Rain Code. The downside is the framerate, which manages to slow down speaking animations enough to occasionally de-sync from the audio tracks. 11. Blasphemous 2 (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmNVWkYoHl8 Blasphemous was an unpolished diamond in the Metroidvania genre that was weird and strange enough to still be memorable, even if you found the platforming too difficult or the quests too obscure. For the sequel, Blasphemous 2 refines the formula to include Metroidvania’s tried-and-true successes. The platforming is still difficult but ground spikes no longer insta-kill you. You have three weapons to select that each offer combat customization and special movement abilities. When the game starts with a godly character introducing five bosses you must defeat, the game may as well sigh and say “I’m a metroidvania, you know the deal”. But is it still weird enough? You’ll still encounter some disturbing imagery but I don’t think this sequel matches the original game’s dedication to the Spanish catholic imagery and atmosphere. There’s no boss here quite like Exposito or Melquiades. The game also pushes up it's boss difficulty in unfortunate spikes: one boss near the end is already infamous as an absurdly hard fight, far too punishing and quick. Maybe Blasphemous 2 is best summed up by the changes in cutscenes: The crude and janky pixel-art cutscenes of the first game are replaced by smoothly-animated scenes that are better quality in every way. But I remember the first game's opening and brutal cutscene, where the pentiment one fills his hat with blood from the first boss, far more than the cleanly-tweened scenes of the sequel. 10. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M718nE96mw Years ago, I tried playing Jet Set Radio and felt immensely disappointed. My years of playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater may have set too high of a bar for action sport games and I wasn't receptive to the gameplay JSR offered in it's place. So, back it went to my collection of games that may have been critically acclaimed at one point but didn't age well. Fast forward to this year when one of the goofiest game names crosses my path: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Just say it out loud, you hope no one is around to hear you say something so explicitly not cool in 2023. But in the world of this game, it's the coolest thing ever. So cool. And with the high review scores and discounted price, why not give it a try? Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a love letter to JSF and maybe a little annoyance that no game truly captured the spirit of JSR/JSRF in the modern era. The graphics and OST carry the clean futurism of JSR but with all the modern touches and experience possible: the world is enourmous and all the unsubtle characters are wonderfully realized. But most importantly, it's absurdly fun to play. Open levels of handrails, stairsets, pedestrians, and rival gangs who battle via breakdancing all contribute to this bizarre but cohesive world. The makers wanted an evolution to the JSR formula and they reached it. I still bristle a bit at the trick system that rewards leaning into corners during grinds more than actual tricks but it rewards you for your environmental knowledge. Lots of games want to be unambiguously fun but Bomb Rush Cyberfunk hits the mark over and over again with aplomb. 9. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (4/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIFyjc3PbSU I bought Mario Maker 2 a few years ago with a sad bit of realization: this must be Nintendo tapping out on Mario 2D game designs. This must be the developer throwing their hands up and admitting there's not much else to explore for our favorite jumping plumber in 2D so why don't you build these games yourself? You can spend a year on a desert island with all the content generated from Mario Maker 1 alone, and then Mario Maker 2 comes out with a sizable number of additional set pieces and gimmicks, and then what? Are we looking into the void of boring Mario 2D games, retreading the same ground from here on out? Wonder shows that the team still has their 2D levels down to a science but, more importantly, has enough juice left in the tank to deliver a fresh twist per level like rhythm games, body transformations, or escape sequences. It's to the game's credit that you look forward to these moments and seek them out, they're always worthwhile. A data scientist will be able to inform me why they levels aren't as ideal as past games but, as a tired gamer, I think it's the most memorable side-scrolling Mario since the early days of Mario 3 and World, and that's an unbelievable accomplishment to reach all these decades later. 8. Perfect Tides (4.5/5): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHOkNZEKpys When I have a kid of my own, I no longer have to brace myself for the question “What was high school like in your day?”. I can now throw a copy of Perfect Tides at them and let them experience it. Actually, let’s not do that. They don’t need to know all the gory details. I’ve never seen a game that nails a teenager’s mind as well. Mara’s attempts to socialize lands so flat and so often. The internal discouraging monologues, willingness to go along with people she perceives as authoritative, erupting emotional swings that she doesn’t truly mean…they feel so real. Perfect Tides understands that Mara and the others lack life experiences and make horrible assumptions. They don’t have a baseline for what romance is, the right thing to say at the moment with other people in mind, and how to keep their social connections healthy and happy. They’re still in the process of figuring out how to live their lives, and too many teens and adults found their answer in selfishness or cruelty. Mara in Perfect Tides accurately parallels a gender-swap of my own experiences growing up in the early 00’s: watching TRL on MTV, posting online to supplement fading real-life social connections, and fighting for the agency of adulthood with my family. Hell, I even wrote and uploaded fanfiction like Mara. It’s online, somewhere, the worst Simpsons episode in the world written by yours truly in seventh grade. I tried looking for it online just now and couldn’t find it, but it’s out there alive, I know it. The parallels keep going: did anyone see that Perfect Tide’s developer/writer came back to the SA Forums to answer a few questions about the game…in which Mara posts on an online forum that loses popularity but the surviving users age out of their edgy teen angst? Sounds familiar. And best of all, there’s a Perfect Tides 2 coming out in the near future! Where Mara moves to New York City after high school…just like I did all these years ago. Huh. If Mara sublets half of a one-bedroom in the East Village, I'm checking if my phone is tapped. With this much glowing praise, I do need to caution that the game remains an old school Point-n-Click adventure. You will often feel lost, confused about next steps, surprised that a puzzle exists, and if a certain need is even answerable by your character. Some next steps are intuitive while others, especially the side quests, are frustratingly time sensitive or difficult to parse. It’s annoying to learn about the garden in the Fall and plant seeds, only to see the winter freeze the ground in the next time skip. I played this game with a guide which I feel is the only way to play old school PnCs happily. PS: Perfect Tides would make a good double-feature with the Kate Beaton book released earlier this year "Ducks". Both stories follow women through difficult coming-of-age stories, one during high school and one during post-college employment. The fact that both authors became known for webcomics doesn't capture just how linked, or universal, these painful experiences can be. 7. Norwood Suite (4.5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXpYP1oQvRA The first Cosmo D game I played was Betrayal At Club Low last year and I immediately fell in love with the bizarre experience. I ranked it higher than other classics that year such as Pentiment, TUNIC, and NORCO. Unbeknownst to me, Betrayal was the fourth release in a series of very similar games that share the same graphics, characters, and bizarre universe. Cosmo D found a vibe and they’re sticking with it. Norwood Suite exchanges the dice rolls of Betrayal for inventory fetch quests. This removes the game’s tension, there’s no “failure” in Norwood Suite, but the emphasis on exploration gives more opportunities for hilariously bizarre guest interactions and environment secrets. It feels like exploring a Dishonored level with all the secret passages and side quests waiting for you to discover. I can’t say enough great things about the sound and music of this game. People talk in Banjo-Kazooie-esq blips of a central instrument that blends together in beautiful ways. Go jump around in that YouTube video in this entry, I challenge you to find one minute of mediocre music in that whole soundtrack. Although I still prefer Betrayal at Club Low among the Cosmo D games, any fan should immediately play Norwood Suite right afterwards. 6. Misericorde Volume 1 (4.5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va2t-_pXSCE Everyone wondered what new trend would follow Pirates, Zombies, Superheroes, and now we have our answer: Anchoresses. We will look back on Pentiment as the first Iron Man movie of the modern era, the start of our obsession with nuns locked in sealed rooms. Misericorde is the Thor, the one that broadens our Enough of that and onto the visual novel. Mystery VNs are popular but Misericorde separates itself with memorable characters, brooding black-and-white visuals, and an absolutely beautiful Trip-Hop soundtrack. So many VNs place a first-person perspective of someone with no personality and an equally-uninteresting tone, but Misericorde may have one the best VN narrators in Sister Hedwig: naive and frustrated at her new circumstances, yet spiritually devoted to the point of friction. If you ever write any fiction, please take this lesson to heart and write a narrator who's flawed and shares an interesting perspective. It's like a cheat code on making text fun to read and Misericorde weaves a fantastic tension between Hedwig's honest reactions and her appointed need for deductive reasoning. Although we don’t know how the story ends, Volume 2 will come out soon, you have to take a jump at stories and characters this promising. It's not that I don't like the first scene or the bonus scene found in the backgrounds tab after beating the game, but I think I have too good of an theory about the underlying conspiracy and fear what supernatural sprinkles are coming our way. 5. Pizza Tower (4.5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gGq0FoOFWg The following was posted in the last GOTY thread as a reply to my list and I cherish it and also do you even know what you unleashed: Escobarbarian posted:Wario Land II is an amazing game. There is a platformer called Pizza Tower coming out early 2023 which is hugely Wario Land-inspired and looks sick Everything in the game is great but more importantly, there’s nothing in this game that’s normal. The graphics are the initial insanity, Ren & Stimpy if it was drawn in MS Paint with that Nickelodeon art style that believes nothing is funnier than a cow falling on your school’s principal. Peppino is insane, the enemies and bosses are insane, the levels are insane, the overworld is insane, seeing Peppino in a TV within your UI is insane, the sound effects are insane, and your movement tech is insane. Wario Land games feel like a crazy character making their way through a normal world. Pizza Tower feels like a crazy character in an equally crazy world, so players need to act crazy to be normal. That means making Peppino sprint and shinespark (yes, the Metroid shinespark) like a charging bull through levels that reward movement comprehension and memorization. I can’t wait for the speedruns of this game to drop because they will be magnificently chaotic. It all pieces together into a unique speed-rush platformer that it feels wrong for Wario Land comparisons alone, it’s more like a Sonic game that’s actually good (shots fired). That’s also one of the downsides of gameplay since your first forays into levels will be exactly like your first time playing a Sonic level, when you clumsily bonked into every wall possible and struggled to maintain momentum. Or it’s like your second time playing Sonic, where you tried mapping out the environment with a momentum-heavy character not built for careful exploration. I prefer the speedy platforming of games like Celeste, Neon White, or Grapple Dog to Pizza Tower but there’s no comparison which game is the more singular auteur vision. You also have to applaud the level of restraint the game takes to keep the experience fresh the whole way through. You get six-to-seven hours of platforming but Pizza Tower constantly changes gimmicks and challenges. The level WAR in this game is an incredible high-tension level with heavy timing pressure but in retrospect, imagine the restraint needed to keep the mechanic to just one level! Every other platformer would love to repeat the gimmick for each world, maybe introduce the rockets in the second iteration, really stretch out the concept over and over. But Pizza Tower has the confidence to make just one level of WAR, one golf level, one sneaking level, and one city level. You get the impression the developers wanted to make the best possible game and the best possible game wants you to have six perfect hours, not twelve hours with repetition. It’s a fantastic choice. Pizza Tower is destined to join the rare audience of cult classic indie games. It’s exactly the type of polarizing/incredible gem that generates a dedicated long-lasting fan base like Undertale, Hylics, Omori, LISA, all the others. It’s hard to describe, but I played this game near to it's launch and just knew a hardcore fanbase has already built the wikipedia for the Pizza Tower Extended Universe (PTEU). I fully expect a Pizza Tower subreddit filled with fan art and fanfics of Peppino’s reaction to the Chiefs winning the super bowl, his first day as defendant in traffic court with Pizza Face as the plaintiff, or if he found the authentic original Mona Lisa in his attic and it was pizza. I wrote “Fangamer will one day sell a Peppino doll” and then checked Fangamer and saw a Peppino doll on the front page. So go grab this game and find out what all the fuss is about, you will either fall in love or at least respect the singular vision. PS: Youtube's end of year wrap let me know my most played song this year was Thousand March from Pizza Tower's WAR level. Like Metal Gear Rising last year, a video game OST became my background music for gym PR attempts. Octopath Traveler 2 has the best OST of the year but, if I'm just picking just one song, I have to go with Thousand March. The perfect song for the perfect mood of the perfect level. The mood of course being AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!! NOOOOO!!! AHHHH!!!!!! 4. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (4.5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSbUPaLTTUg It’s March 12, 2023, and I am in the lobby of a hotel in Tokyo’s Ginza district trying to hide behind rolling luggage. My wife and I have to get to the airport but, priorities here, I need to unlock Tears of the Kingdom on our Switch before our flight. Thanks to time zone differences, the game's unlock time is mid-day Tokyo only a few hours before our flight departs. But it's not working: the hotel WiFi is spotty and I can't get this Switch to connect online. If there was anything to cap off this incredible vacation, it's delivering TOTK ready-to-play to my wife in time for this long flight. In fact, all the stress right now is a simple translation about the game's hype and how much we want to return to the world of Hyrule. It can't let us down, absolutely no way. TOTK must be so good, that this small delay is unnecessary pain. The solution comes when I connect the Switch to my phone's hotspot and finally, the game is ready to play when, if, we're ready. Sitting at the airport lounge, we split a pair of earbuds and play the opening together, walking through the underground caves of Hyrule. We don’t skip the text and listen to all of the voice-acting. Although my wife intended to play TOTK first, she falls asleep on the flight early and leaves me to play the game alone. And not just "alone" like we usually think, alone like playing a brand-new game on a long international flight. Fourteen hours with no internet, no guides, not even an idea about how others react and solve this game. Just a comfy reclining seat, a power outlet, and an awareness of the stellar metacritic score. What does playing TOTK look like when you truly have no idea or help? If you're like me, it's immersive and difficult. For all the lateral thinking that video games have taught me, TOTK's training plateau caused me to die more often than end-game areas of past games and, at the same time, try every possible option at my disposal. Plummeting off the TOTK plateau feels monumental and an even larger sense of baffling freedom than leaving BOTW's plateau. The meditative and peaceful mood remains just as powerful as BOTW when exploring the land, albeit with less surprise as you recognize the general layout even if the map changed around a fair amount of details. Where was a Zelda sequel supposed to go after BOTW? Do we pretend that the format could be reversed, that the series from here on out could be anything else but “BOTW with more”? The only other thing that would fit the series is to break our expectations with a super-linear story but the Link's Awakening remake launched fairly recently. Nintendo must venture forward with the path laid out by BOTW. There’s no escape. If you’re old enough, you still remember the negative reaction to Wind Waker’s announcement and cel-shaded graphics. That knee-jerk reaction feels quaint in modern times. Following-up OoT and Majora’s Mask seems easy compared to following-up BOTW with something better. Give this team all the credit for somehow surpassing our lofty expectations. TOTK heard your BOTW complaints about the lackluster final fight and the minor involvement of story. All the proof I need for TOTK's improvement is the wide-eyed jaw-drop about that one particular dragon flying high above. The team knew they needed a strong story after BOTW's minimalism and, despite the relatively weaker characters and beat-by-beat flashbacks/cutscenes, delivered on some truly satisfying ending moments. Despite all the game’s successes, I can’t escape the thought that TOTK’s content is a step too far into the overstuffed approach and away from BOTW’s simplicity. The screen litters with your friend’s avatars guiding you or popping a notification into your UI, or you happen upon randomly-generated side-quests to hold up a sign. Fun the first few times, but easily becomes repetitive. BOTW gave you the surprise of incredible immersion; TOTK takes an unfortunate step away from immersion to expand the world's content. As if you brushed some dirt off a rock in one of the towns and discovered a Ubisoft logo. I still love it, but would love it more with the engagement dial turned down a tad. It’s a few weeks after that fateful plane ride and we have the game playing in my in-law’s house. My wife and I play TOTK but my sister-in-law walks in and ask if this is the new Zelda she’s heard about. It is, and she’s just in time to see me build a hot-air balloon from parts not meant to levitate. I try to light three balloons at the same time but mistime it so badly that my platform wobbles left to right, throwing burning wood everywhere. We’re laughing at the chaos. I stand next to a burning pile of wood with my contraption about to squash me and, gently caress it, I open the menu and select "wait until morning." Now we’re dying laughing. Video games are art, don’t let anyone else tell you something different. 3. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26w76OmzEKI When playing Xenoblades Chronicles 3, it doesn’t take long to think “this is the game Xenoblades Chronicles 2 should’ve been”. But after a while, you think “this is the game Xenoblade Chronicles should’ve been”. Blasphemy, but it doesn’t stop there. This is the game every other action RPG should’ve been. This is what every game that wished you to immerse in a gigantic adventurous world, build a small team of lovable young adults to defeat gods with the power of friendship should've been. You should've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 makes the leap to all-time classic that this grandiose series always desired. Like previous games, the world is enormous and the story holds 100+ hours of bizarre plot twists but finally, here are the well-written characters and thematic plot beats you wanted in a Xenoblades game. The overwhelming and confusing combat systems from XB2 are replaced with ones intuitive and fun for experimenting. XB3’s numerous side quests build out the world’s inhabitants and themes just as constructively as the main plot, a far cry from the hundreds of rote fetch quests offered in XB1. It’s not about doing something completely different so much as it is a perfectly-made refinement. Xenoblades previously asked a little too much of you. Now, you delight asking for more. There’s too much to cover on the game’s content so to cut down on text, what summarizes XB3’s incredible experience to me is…Riku. Nipon have been a staple of XB1 and XB2, memorable Nipon existed before Riku, but any XB3 player could tell you Riku is miles better as a character than any other Nipon in this series. But how are you supposed to convey that all the little changes to XB3 that Riku embodies lead to a game so good, you could play for 150 hours and not get bored? Or maybe the better summary is the end of a certain chapter where, I kid you not, you have three hours of cutscenes and boss fights in a row. You may have shivered at that last sentence but I can tell you, it’s the best. You walk out of that sequence hitting a well-deserved save point and your mind races to put everything together in a way that only Xenoblades dares to try and that only XB3 executes well. But there’s something else I need to talk about XB3’s incredible experience and it may not be positive. The feeling XB3 gives is familiar and you may have felt it before but it is The MMORPG Call. You know it when you’re in it. The Call brings you back for another quest and a deeper detail in the world to learn, week in, week out. I don’t want to leave the world of XB3 because it’s still interesting and my lore knowledge is incomplete. It’s such a good game that it becomes a problem to disconnect. It’s XB3’s credit that a single-player game can inspire the same level of player attachment to its battle-weary world, and I simply warn you as you start one of the best RPGs you’ll ever play. Actually, two warnings: it’s very anime. Ok, now you’re good to go. 2. Octopath Traveler 2 (5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23F7lA8jbTE I’ve had a nagging thought since the beginning of this year and I want you to have the same internal debate. You’re strong enough, you can think about it without accepting it. Octopath Traveler 2 is the greatest traditional JRPG ever made Wooo okay, hear me out. There are a lot of RPGs out there but there’s a little bucket of games you recognize as traditional JRPGs: turn-based combat, job systems, saving your game at a old-timey pub, a lot of text boxes, a hero’s journey played mostly straight, a LOT of text boxes. You think of Dragon Quest but not XCOM, Final Fantasy V but not Baldur’s Gate, and Chrono Trigger but not Paper Mario (or maybe you do? I dunno). The first Octopath Traveler was a love letter to this genre but had too many glaring issues to be a recommended experience for most (not me though, that battle system was top tier from the start). But here comes Octopath Traveler 2 to fix so many of the past gameplay/writing complaints, you end up with a similar-looking game that delivers a far more satisfying experience. Here’s an example: The merchant story in Octopath Traveler 1 follows Tressa, an upbeat inexperienced traveling trader looking to find a valuable journal, who learns “the real treasure are the friends I made along the way.” There’s quotes around that last line because it’s a real unironic line she says at the end of her chapter. It’s only memorable in the worst possible way. Twice in my life I've joked about the worst possible story beat happening and then it actually happened seconds later: Game of Thrones when Bran becomes King and Tressa's ending in OT1. Octopath Traveler 2’s merchant story on the other hand follows Partito, a swaggering wheeling-and-dealing guy from a dying mining town with the strongest well-I-reckon accent you’ll ever hear. The guy’s an instant fan favorite as he defeats the game’s John D. Rockerfeller stand-in on his dehumanizing factory island over the invention of steam engines and beats the poo poo out of his megatrain. The willingness to make interesting characters and locations, vary the story’s tone, and stand on a political belief (it’s no Disco Elysium but give credit) makes Partito’s story engaging in ways OT1 could never imagine. And I can’t mention Partito without his 80’s guitar-and-sax theme. When that guitar riff kicks in, fitting like a glove against all logic of time-appropriate instrumentation, how could you not love this game? And know that there’s seven other characters with similarly quality stories that I’m not even touching on? We need to talk about the music here, oh my god. I would completely understand if this becomes your favorite OST of all-time. The default Partito theme would be the most memorable track on every other game’s soundtrack and here, it’s maybe top ten? Top 15 depending on how you divide these tracks? I started this review with the hot take of OT2 as the best traditional JRPG, but I don’t think it’s a hot take to say the same about the soundtrack. Chrono Trigger had a good run, but OT2 smokes it. It’s the pinnacle of bombastic & dramatic operatic music that other RPGs like Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem strive to compose. It's absurd that Song of Hope, Those Who Deny The Dawn, Critical Clash II, Crestlands Night, Cait Theme, and all those unique character-specific variations of The Journey for Everything Ends all came from one game by one composer. Put this soundtrack in the same instant-classic tier as Undertale, Nier:Automata, Persona 5, and Ocarina of Time. If you’re an NBA fan, maybe this parallel will work better: Octopath Traveler 2 is the Giannis Antetokounmpo of traditional JRPGs. There are more influential NBA players, players that have won more titles, scored more points, players that were the face of the league for longer periods of time. But if you could pick the best player outside of time and context to win a game of one-on-one, you aren’t picking 1960s Bob Cousey, someone who dominated the game in his era, you are picking Giannis because you know in your heart Giannis could kill Cousey by dunking his six-foot-one body through the rim. So play Octopath Traveler 2 next opportunity you get. It’s simply better. 1. Persona 5 Royal (5/5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaUzYISKKAI Just like that song by The Wipers, Persona 5 is really long, wants the youth to get angry and tear poo poo down, loses steam in the middle, and still ends up being a classic. I used to play guitar along to this song in high school, not totally understanding “scales” and “timing” but I swear my commitment was solid and I could make feedback noises. Even Persona 5 knows being a teen is not as fun as being an adult but there’s a sense of rebellion that you can’t quite replicate anymore. There’s tons of media about high school, some of it targeting nostalgic adults and some towards teens who are in the thick of it currently. P5 might be my favorite story in the latter group: the game that puts a hand on the adolescent player’s shoulder and says “You’re right: adults are bullshit and they’re lying to you about everything.” So what are you to do? “You go out there and change things.” What things? “The things that piss you off!” and then Persona 5 spray-paints a Banksy on your school gym of the Monopoly Man hugging the Instagram logo. There's room for improvement but I admire the attempt. My replay of Persona 5 was specifically for the new content in P5 Royal, a rare replay for me given my preference to try a new game over a past one, and the replay gave a new perspective on how the individual parts combine for the total experience. I still can't get over the amount of options presented to players during each free time: You can hang out with confidants, you can infiltrate a mind palace, you can explore Momentos, you can boost your personal stats, you can read books, play games, workout at the gym, fix equipment, eat, play, sleep. But all of it relates to the wish fulfillment of a real teen, the massive options a video game could present that real life never seems to allow you to act upon fully. What does your optimal afterschool time look like without parents breathing down your neck about college applications? The world is yours, and it's even more staggering when you're a teen superhero with a to-do list a mile long. The truth is, any young adult would have the same feeling of overwhelming options available regardless of Persona ownership. What's stopping you from calling a friend or visiting an independent bookstore? It's technically possible, Persona 5 makes the options and downsides tangible. The replay also surfaced the writing quality of this game which, even if this game is #1 on my list, tends to serve the overall narrative well but never feels great during individual scenes. It's easy to skip through confidant dialogue and not miss much value despite how you feel about the holistic message. Persona 5 Royal feels better summarized than it does word-for-word, the most pressing change I wish for in Persona 6. The other critique that comes up around Persona 5 is the friend group, the Phantom Thieves themselves. I agree that the Persona 4 team is a more believable rag-tag group of friends but want to recognize what I think Persona 5's meant to accomplish. Each friend represents a unique social clique but always reflects the non-popular students, those on the outside looking in. It seems untrue at first: Ryuji is essentially a jock bro, Makoto is class president, Ann is literally an international model, Haru's family is worth billions, but none of them feel like they're accepted fully by their peers. That's not a new positioning in High School stories, but I want to encourage you to see the Phantom Thieves as the game's attempt to find a relatable image to any player. By presenting such a diverse group, maybe you find pieces of yourself in each member. Although I'm not any character fully, I was the Ryuji track & field team captain, the art snob of Yusuke, the SA forums poster of Futaba, and the overachiever of Makoto. Persona 5 presents a wide funnel for relatability, and this gives the game the ability to pivot that connection across players into the wish fulfillment of changing the world's order. If you relate to anything occurring in Persona 5, you know something is inherently wrong with the way we expect people to grow up and survive. I wish Persona 5 would commit to a leftist stance since the game beats around the bush with a deliberately vague "everyone better listen to the youth" message, most obvious with the Sun Confidant, but I'm happy players could run with the message when the game shies away from commitment. So that brings me to something outside the game itself. Earlier this year, my wife and I went to Japan for two weeks, the biggest vacation I’ve ever been on. I didn’t grow up traveling and the concept of two entire weeks of international travel seemed impossible as a kid. We spent half our time in Tokyo, walking around various neighborhoods with a few locations in mind but ultimately, letting ourselves walk and wander. To be frank, I live in a big city and love walking around big cities most of all. There’s an energy and upbeat vibe that makes you feel like you’re in the middle of the world. We walked through Shibuya twice, once during the day and once during the night, and yes, we took pictures that P5 fans would appreciate. Construction prevented a truly accurate "thief's hideout overlooking Shibuya" photo but our attempt was close enough. We walked through Harajuku and Ann would absolutely wait 40 minutes for a Crepe here. We entered a Bic Camera store and finally realized why all those geeky-tech Futaba events took place here. On the subway, my wife leaned in my ear to say “that’s the stop where the Persona 5 school is located”. I swear we didn’t come to Tokyo for the game but I can’t deny it helped us become familiar with the city and make it a little more special. Walking around Tokyo in real life hammered home a theme in P5 that flew over my head initially: the game is an enormous call to action for kids to explore the city around them. Persona 3 and 4 take place in tangible-yet-fictional locations, SMT games often take place in Tokyo, but Persona 5 prides itself on the thought “Imagine yourself having realistic fun in Tokyo!” You, yes you the person playing this, YOU can walk through the fashionable streets of Shinjuku, check out the tech & anime stores of Akihabara, spend too much money in Ginza, and pedal a swan boat in Inokashira Park. They are not fictional, they are real! And they are fun in real life too! This is living! Think about how often your confidants remark about their location. They talk to Joker but c'mon, they’re breaking the fourth wall and talking to the player. If you like the swan boats here, you’ll love pedaling them in reality. Now think about how it feels to play a video game back home to boost your proficiency stat. A little lacking of an experience, isn't it? Persona 5 Strikers takes the same promotion to other cities and, arguably, a little too bluntly when using the Phantom Thieves as encouraging travel guides. Persona 5 strikes a good balance as you may not live in Tokyo but maybe you haven’t been to a specific neighborhood near you yet. Maybe you need the extra push to find yourself somewhere new and exciting. I love the irony of putting “touch grass” as the theme of a 100+ hour RPG but it fits well. The people who need to hear this are the people who willingly play 100+ hour RPGs. They are the ones who need to have a protagonist level-up their friendship at a ramen restaurant to encourage actually visiting a ramen restaurant with a friend. I’m no different I guess, I did end up going to Tokyo in real life. The last day that we were able to explore Tokyo, in real life and not the game, we went to Odaiba to check out the seaside and the shopping district. We took selfies in front of the Unicorn Gundam, ate soft-serve matcha ice cream, and walked along the shore. I saw plenty of high-school aged cliques just hanging out with each other in lunchtime chatter. I don’t get nostalgic about my teen years, read my Perfect Tides review for a recap, but I get happy when I see the next generation trending in the right direction. Just like P5, It could’ve been so easy for these students to stay home but they made the optional effort to come out here and enjoy their time with each other, the best way to spend your limited time. Live fully because the calendar is all-too short and life’s a beautiful thing. Wake up, get up, get out there. DMCrimson fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Dec 4, 2023 18:27
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I said come in! posted:The rules for lists for example, was put in later. That wasnt there when I last looked at the OP. But regardless I intend to update my original post further (with more lists) (im kidding, will write something). ??? The rules have not changed. They are copied from the 2022 GOTY and I even originally forgot to change the 2022 to 2023.
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Dec 4, 2023 18:28
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VG posted:??? The rules have not changed. They are copied from the 2022 GOTY and I even originally forgot to change the 2022 to 2023. That is my bad then for completely overlooking that originally! I have corrected my mistake in my original post.
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Dec 4, 2023 18:32
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DMCrimson posted:We need to talk about the music here, oh my god. I would completely understand if this becomes your favorite OST of all-time. The default Partito theme would be the best track on every other game’s soundtrack and here, it’s maybe top ten? I started this review with the hot take of OT2 as the best traditional JRPG, but I don’t think it’s a hot take to say the same about the soundtrack. Chrono Trigger had a good run, but OT2 smokes it. It’s the pinnacle of bombastic & dramatic opera music that other RPGs like Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem strive to compose. Put this soundtrack in the same instant-classic tier as Undertale, Nier:Automata, Persona 5, and Ocarina of Time. Yeah I instantly wanted to buy the physical soundtrack after I beat it in March but it was a crazy high price. I don't really listen to music on its own but there's been a few times where I've gone on a youtube binge after getting any song from the game stuck in my head. I will say that while the song you listed is amazing and I'd thought about putting it up for my own GOTY post (still debating which song), I do think it'd be more impactful for a new player to be surprised by it rather than going in knowing it's coming? That's just my own hangup though. FireWorksWell fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 18:37
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DMCrimson posted:10. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (4/5) This is amazing  Also I love the idea that Persona 5 was actually a stealth tourism campaign for Tokyo! Your review gave me very pleasant memories of taking my own rare international travel vacation and wandering blissfully around Tokyo a few years ago 
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Dec 4, 2023 18:47
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Since there are already plenty of votes for Baldur's Gate and such, I'm going to be a bastard and go instead for my top 10 games of the year NOT already on all the lists. (May still be on some lists.) 1. In Stars and Time Probably my overlooked game of the year. The premise is simple: You join an end-game RPG party as they prepare to fight up to the final boss. However their rogue is killed by a trap moments after entering. They are revived at the start of the day and quickly realize that they are looping back to the start every time they die. Now they have to find a way to the top and to defeat the evil boss! It's a cute premise but what really sets the game apart is how well it leans into the concept of being trapped in a time loop, the amount of reactivity and flexibility it has, and the gradual way it follows the protagonist as they become increasingly dull and numb to the otherwise charming and delightful world. It's a genuinely excellent and incredibly well crafted game and is probably my non-BG3 game of the year by far. 2 Cassette Beasts One part Pokemon, one part Shin Megami Tensei, this incredibly charming indie monster trainer/collector game is probably among the best I've ever played. You wake up on a mysterious island where the floatsam of time and space all collects itself and where the people can use cassette tapes to transform into cute marketable monsters. Your goal is to find a way home by gradually finding and defeating mysterious Archangels while turning into adorable things like "A candy monster" or "A sheep demon." It sounds simple but it's incredible well executed and manages to capture the fun and excitement of Pokemon while being far more tightly designed, with absolutely phenomenal music and just a ton of charm. 3 Backpack Hero This has been in early access for ages so it's not necessarily new but it finally hit its full release, complete with Story Mode, and so I'm counting it. The basic concept is simple: It's a roguelike built around Resident Evil 4 style inventory tetris. You find and collect items and have to position them for optimal effect in your increasingly busy backpack. Nice and to the point. What makes it shine is how deeply varied it is. Some items only work when next to other items, some require you to keep them distant, some items move and in moving trigger other items, some items transform, some have strange shapes, and more. There are multiple playable characters, each with their own gimmicks. One for example can create separate 'pockets' instead on one big backpack, one uses temporary magical artifacts instead of permanent items, one is a robot who automatically follows a set path of actions, and more. It's cute, charming and absurdly addictive. 4 Small Saga The polar opposite of Backpack hero, Small Saga is a very simple and by the basics RPG that shines in presentation. You take control of a small mouse whose brother was killed my the mysterious "Yellow God." Armed with a weapon of the gods (A switchblade), he sets out on a mission of vengeance to do the impossible and slay a diety. It's a simple RPG with no random encounters, but it makes up for its simplicity with absolutely phenominal artwork, tone, and probably the best soundtrack of the year. 5 Octopath Travellers 2 This is one I expect to see on some lists but it is niche enough that I'm willing to put it on mine. The sequel to Square-Enix's oddly name 8-protagonist RPG, Octopath 2 is a rare game that is a straight improvement over the original in every way. More engaging stories, more enjoyable combat, an absolutely fantastic soundtrack, it all embodies exactly what a good RPG should be. I won't say too much about this because I'm sure it is on other lists, but I wanted it to get a mention. 6 Meg's Monster Similar to Small Saga, Meg's Monster is a simple RPG, arguably more of a visual novel with RPG trappings than a true RPG. Players take control of the titular Monster. A young girl named Meg has fallen into a monster-filled underground, seemingly abandoned by her own people. The reason why becomes clear: If Meg cries too much, the world ends. The monster on the other hand is absurdly powerful and can easily defeat any foe. So combat (and the plot) revolves around figuring out how to overcome challenges without upsetting Meg. It's far more of a story than anything else but it's incredibly charming, with beautiful sprite work and a lovely overall tone. 7 Paranormasite: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo The odd name doesn't do this particular game favors, but it's a pretty effective horror/mystery title. It follows the events of a mysterious ritual that takes place in the Tokyo. Seven curses, each based on a mysterious urban legend, have manifested and found hosts. These hosts are destined to find and kill one another, with the winner being able to gain the right to resurrect one dead person. Each curse however has a special activation condition that must be met, turning encounters between the cursed into tense meetings where both attempt to maneuver the other into triggering the curse. The player actually doesn't control any of the characters directly but instead is an odd spirit, capable of not only flitting between and influencing the curse-wielders, but also moving back and forward in time to change the fate of characters. It's a really compelling and interesting horror title that suffers a bit for letting the curses not take the front and center as much as it should, but it still was one of the best experiences of the year, 8 Bayonetta Origins:Cereza and the Lost Demon This game was doomed from the start. A weird poorly marketing spinoff of a notoriously raunchy and violent action game series which reframes the story as following a child version of Bayonetta through a magical fairytale forest? The game sold about 5 copies and I'm not surprised. However it's also one of the absolutely most enjoyable and creative games of the year, mixing Bayonetta and Zelda into a remarkably atmospheric, creative and intensely cool puzzle/dungeon game where players have to control both the young Cereza and her big brutish ally Cheshire the demon. It's a much better game than I would have guessed and honestly I prefer it to Bayonetta 3, but it's also stand alone enough to work well. 9 The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog wait don't go I swear!! It's a goofy little visual novel released for April Fool's Day that follows the Sonic cast as they attempt to solve THE MURDER OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. (Not for real, of course.) It's simple, fun and does a great job of making Sonic' increasingly busy friend circle fun and likable characters, and it was released at the discounted price of frigging free. 10 Dave the Diver This little indie ti... oh, wait, I'm being formed it isn't an indie title? Loudly and repeatedly? Well, Indie or not, Dave the Diver is one of the most charming and enjoyable games of the year. You play as the titular Dave, a rotund and pleasant diver, who is tasked with singlehandedly keeping a sushi restaurant in fish by diving into the mysterious Blue Hole. It's a simple game that combines semi-roguelike diving for fish with a lovely little upgrade loop and some of the best sprite work in the business. It was one of my favorite games this year and the only reason I don't rate it higher is that I expect to see it on plenty of lists.
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Dec 4, 2023 18:50
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DMCrimson posted:The following was posted in the last GOTY thread as a reply to my list and I cherish it and also do you even know what you unleashed:  Funnily enough, I actually ended up not being super into Pizza Tower and not finishing it. Not because of anything wrong with the game, you understand! - it’s a work of art with an utterly incredible style and amazing visuals and music - but the focus on speed and combos ended up not being what I was looking for, and I was really struggling, especially with the bosses. Still, very happy I put it on your radar and it could make it onto your great list!!
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Dec 4, 2023 19:01
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VG posted:In the past the expansion counts as seperate if you played it seperately. On this point, I did the same thing (replaying the entirety of Cyberpunk and doing the expansion). If I want to maximize the effect of my vote, would I be screwing Phantom Liberty by listing just Cyberpunk? Feels weird to have to split the vote. Conversely, I did actually just play the HFW Burning Shores expansion without replaying the whole base game, so for that instance my understanding of the current rules makes sense.
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Dec 4, 2023 19:08
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Owl Inspector posted:disqualify ascending order lists
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Dec 4, 2023 19:10
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ShakeZula posted:On this point, I did the same thing (replaying the entirety of Cyberpunk and doing the expansion). If I want to maximize the effect of my vote, would I be screwing Phantom Liberty by listing just Cyberpunk? Feels weird to have to split the vote. This is something you will have to decide. I played HFW and Burning Shores, so I would be listing it as one game. If this means Burning Shores gets fewer votes then so be it. Last year I played Echoes of the Eye, but did not put it in my list because it was merely DLC and I would not have put it in for the whole game. Go with your heart I said come in! posted:That is my bad then for completely overlooking that originally! I have corrected my mistake in my original post. That is OK, I was just worried I had completely missed something and I had done editing without even realising it.
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Dec 4, 2023 19:12
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DMCrimson posted:Wake up, get up, get out there. This was a really cool review of Persona 5. When art can inspire you in real life and get your brain juices flowing and making new neural connections it is a truly beautiful thing. Sounds like you guys had a fab time in Japan! What did you get up to outside of Tokyo?
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Dec 4, 2023 19:22
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ShakeZula posted:On this point, I did the same thing (replaying the entirety of Cyberpunk and doing the expansion). If I want to maximize the effect of my vote, would I be screwing Phantom Liberty by listing just Cyberpunk? Feels weird to have to split the vote. Personally, because I replayed Cyberpunk and only played Phantom Liberty for the first time this year, I’m gonna list the expansion. If I had played both for the first time this year, I would list the main game. So list PL with me and let’s get dem points up
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Dec 4, 2023 19:25
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I'm gonna include a mod AND its base game as separate entries in my top ten
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Dec 4, 2023 19:27
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Thank you, and I agree on the surprise factor for the Song of Hope. I'll update my review accordingly with the Partitio theme.
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Dec 4, 2023 19:30
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DMCrimson posted:Thank you, and I agree on the surprise factor for the Song of Hope. I'll update my review accordingly with the Partitio theme. That's a very satisfying replacement!
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Dec 4, 2023 19:41
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Escobarbarian posted:Personally, because I replayed Cyberpunk and only played Phantom Liberty for the first time this year, I’m gonna list the expansion. If I had played both for the first time this year, I would list the main game. So list PL with me and let’s get dem points up Yeah I think this is where I'm leaning as well
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Dec 4, 2023 19:45
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Octopath 2 definitely has one of the best soundtracks of the year and it's a shame the digital OST isn't available outside of japan.
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Dec 4, 2023 19:57
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I wrote way too much, TL;DR at the bottom. Honorable Mentions: Baldur's Gate 3: I've played some of it, it's obviously absolutely incredible, lots of depth, you can gently caress a bear etc but honestly I found it pretty overwhelming especially in combat. I bought it to play while recovering from surgery but I ended up either being too out of it to really grasp the mechanics or healed well enough that I had other poo poo to do. I'm absolutely going to come back to it and I'm sure it will click with me more, I saw they just added a big patch with some epilogue content so that might inspire me. I played the Pokémon Violet DLC which was Okay (I caught a shiny Arbok though :3) and allegedly the second part of it will be harder, but I doubt it's making my top ten regardless. Please Game Freak, I promise you can take a little more time on your games, we have so many already. Pokémon Infinite Fusion is a fangame that saw a lot of interest this summer which got me to pick it up, I never got super far in it and mostly just giggled at the fusions I found but it's pretty fun and cute and I still pick at it every so often. Pokémon Emerald Rogue is a romhack that, as you might imagine, turns Pokémon Emerald into a roguelite. It's quite well done, you get some metaprogression as you go with being able to start with different items etc, I recommend checking it out if it sounds interesting. Pokémon Elite Redux is a challenge romhack that I actually like. I mostly find them difficult for their own sake and not actually enjoyable, but this one is hard but in a way that feels rewarding when you beat a challenge. It has a mechanic where mons have multiple abilities at once which surprisingly opens up the challenge space. Octopath Traveler II is basically a total improvement over the first game, which I played because I liked the characters but ultimately flamed out on. The second game has more interaction between characters (by which I mean any), better balance, more variety, and doesn't lose any of the charm of the first. I'll admit I didn't finish this one either, but I actually see myself going back and doing so (it's not my fault they released so many good games this year!!) Lone Fungus is a metroidvania where you play as a cute lil mushroom. It's notable for having a lot of optional Celeste-like platforming challenges. There are a lot of mobility options and upgrades, and generally it's quite high quality especially for a first release from a solo developer. There's a sequel in the works which I'm quite excited to play next year. Slay the Princess is a very neat horror visual novel with Lots of Layers. I enjoyed it a lot while playing it, and I plan to go back and unlock all the possible aspects, but I think ultimately it felt like a little less than the sum of its parts. I'd still recommend checking it out, the vibes are meticulously crafted. Groove Coaster Wai Wai Party!!!! is a rhythm game for the Switch that I absolutely adore, to the extent that this year I started occasionally making the hour+ long trek to Long Island to go to the Round1 that actually has a Groove Coaster arcade cabinet. I like rhythm games a bunch even if I'm not incredible at them, but this has about the perfect balance for me. It's stylish as hell and I recommend checking it out if you're interested (specifically the switch or phone versions, though, the steam release is...mixed.) Speaking of rhythm games, let's start the top ten with: 10: Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Final Bar Line I played the 3ds iteration of this extremely briefly but it didn't really grab me at the time. This, on the other hand, I played for at least 50 hours. The quests, challenges, unlockable characters to level up, and multi-player enhanced the urge to replay even beyond the basic fun of hitting buttons and smashing sticks to the jaunty tunes of various Final Fantasy games. I still boot it up occasionally, it's just a good time. 9: Risk of Rain Returns I loved the original game back in the day; I remember not having any disposable income to back the kickstarter but playing the demo they released over and over again. Risk of Rain 2 didn't really hit me the same way since I tend to be less into 3d games, since I'm one of those poor bastards who sometimes gets motion sickness from them. Risk of Rain Returns takes that original game and beefs it up with actually functional multiplayer, a wider variety of characters, items and loadouts, and a side challenge mode with plenty of fun unlockables. A really excellent blast from the past. 8: Super Mario Wonder I'm a little surprised to find this so low on the rankings, since I adored almost every minute of this (except some of the final final level, and by some I mean that goddamn spring jump section). The multiplayer aspect where you can leave standees to revive other players or touch their ghosts to give them a second chance at life was really charming, and I loved the hidden treasure levels where players would jump up and down highlighting hidden spots until everyone figured them out. The different wonder effects were wild and I was always excited to see what they would turn out to be in every new level I unlocked. I 100%ed the game in about 25 hours, according to the Switch timer, and it oddly felt shorter than that, though again several of those hours were on that final level. I'm not really one to rank games on a dollar per hour basis or anything like that, but ultimately I don't really see myself going back and replaying this ever, and that feels like a bit of a shame. 7: The Void Rains Upon Her Heart This is still technically in early access, despite feeling like there's enough content for a full game and a half. It's a roguelite shmup with unlockable characters, monsters, and items. You get different colored currencies as you play through the game that allow you to "radiate" monsters and items to get more information about them, use them or battle them in quick play modes. There's story modes, endless modes, quick battle modes allowing you to practice against a specific monster, and all of that in a range of difficulty options that add new attacks and shot patterns as you increase them. There's incredible depth here, in a way that kind of reminds me of Binding of Isaac (though with as different an aesthetic as you can imagine). 6: PowerWash Simulator I mentioned above that I get motion sickness from 3d games at times. PowerWash Simulator was relaxing yet engaging enough that I actively tried to find ways to power through it, and when they patched in an alternate washing mode that almost eliminated the issue for me I cheered. This is the ultimate chillout game; you have dirty things and you have to clean them, and that's all there is to it. There have been expansions covering everything from SpongeBob Squarepants to Final Fantasy to Back to the Future with more in the pipeline, because it turns out any environment is conducive to roaming around in while spraying water and cleaning chemicals. It's just a good time, I recommend checking it out if this sounds at all appealing. 5: Super Mario RPG Remake I played a little of the original SNES release on an emulator a while ago, but I didn't have any particular nostalgia for it. It turns out that's not necessary, as I thoroughly enjoyed the goofy charm of this world. It's extremely easy until the postgame, but you're not really playing for the challenge. It's got lots of random minigames like riding minecarts through mines and barrels down a river in that way you used to see in RPGs of the era, little sidequests you can find in towns, and overall a really cozy sense of place. I could definitely see myself replaying this over a long lazy weekend in like 6 months. 4: Crystal Project I got this a while ago and bounced off it a few times, but PurpleXVI's LP inspired me to give it another go. For whatever reason, this time it stuck, and I've been joyfully finding job crystals and jumping around to find new areas that I end up being far too weak for. Crystal Project is an RPG with a fairly perfunctory plot that serves as an excuse to explore the world. One of the main hooks is that the game involves a lot of platforming, and with a little care you can find ways to sequence break into areas you aren't meant to be in yet, or find secrets by jumping from a treetop to a roof and down the chimney. You also have a wide array of classes you unlock and can switch between, and unlock various abilities for. I've heard it's like Final Fantasy V's job system but I've never actually played that, though if this is any indication maybe I should. You have almost perfect information in battles regarding what enemies will do, who they'll target, how much damage will be dealt etc. so you can make the best strategic choices. You also get various mobility upgrades throughout the game, each unlocking even more areas to explore. I've spent many evenings chilling out and finding more areas to explore. 3: Siralim Ultimate My playtime in my current save file, with cross save across mobile and Steam, is 389 hours. Siralim Ultimate is an incredibly deep game. It's a monster battler, where you have teams of up to 6 monsters battling dungeon encounters also containing up to 6 monsters. Almost every monster you encounter can be summoned by you, and they each have their own innate abilities. They have five different types with a fairly basic rock-paper-scissors type advantage system, and health/attack/defense/magic/speed stats. You can create artifacts and socket them with various gems to increase given stats, spells that will cast on turn start/spellcasting/defending/attacking/provoking depending on the type of artifact, items adding more intrinsic abilities, items that have a chance to cause buffs/debuffs on an action, and powerful legendary gems that drop with random combinations of any and all of the above traits. You can fuse any two creatures to get a fused creature with the type of one and the species of the other, and the abilities and blended stats of both. You can have various classes that affect your creatures, from the Monk that turns your creatures into dodge tanks that retaliate after dodging to the Pyromancer that stacks burn debuffs on all enemies to the Witch Doctor who can confuse enemies into attacking one another, and dozens more. You can change your class at any time and build separate teams for each of them, so you don't need multiple saves. The story is fairly silly and meaningless, but beating the story campaign is basically just the tutorial. There are so many strategic layers I haven't even really gotten into, but if you're into this kind of game then this can suck you in incredibly deeply. 2: Tears of the Kingdom I'm sure anything I say here will have been echoed more eloquently by a dozen people by the time I finish this post, but I was utterly blown away by this game. I really liked Breath of the Wild and adored the open world concept, but I was also one of the people turned off by the weapon durability implementation and almost found it too unbounded, and I never finished it though I might still go back someday. Tears of the Kingdom managed to take that feeling and amplify it a hundredfold while addressing all my complaints. Fusing weapons immediately solved my issues with weapon durability, since I could slap powerful item drops onto even weak weapons and churn through them without a care in the world. I didn't build the kinds of ridiculous contraptions that I've seen posted online, but I felt like a little kid playing with a Lego set when I realized how much freedom I had to build. I've got plenty of saved videos of flying vehicles going hilariously awry or of rocket-powered carts careening across the countryside. There's something inherently joyful in having this amount of freedom to simply play, and I truly can't imagine where they can go from here—but then again, that's what I said after Breath of the Wild. 1: Dwarf Fortress This feels like cheating, because on a fundamental level Dwarf Fortress is my game of all time. It's a game I think about even when I'm not playing it. I have a Dwarf Fortress pin I wear on my vest almost everywhere, a Dwarf Fortress pint glass, a Dwarf Fortress T-shirt. I've played this game for thousands of hours over the course of my life, and there are fortresses I abandoned a decade ago that I still remember the stories of. It's gotten me through some of the lowest points in my life; I still vividly remember the night after I finally got out of a deeply unhealthy and abusive relationship to discover a new major release version, and throwing myself into it and feeling like maybe some good things could still exist in the world. Dwarf Fortress has been continuously developed for over two decades, but it received a Steam release with lovingly designed graphics and a new soundtrack (the free game is ASCII based, although there are several fan tilesets you can use if you like, and has a single song that was written by one of the creators that somehow never gets old). The Steam release primarily exists because the creators—two brothers—realized they needed to have enough money for health insurance as they age, and that the fan donations that funded full time development for all that time might not be enough. The free version is still readily available on their website along with all older versions, and they've committed to having them both up to date with one another. Even knowing that, so many people were excited to purchase the game and support them that their first month of sales, even after Steam/publisher cuts, made them both millionaires. I could describe the game—there's Fortress Mode, which is a colony builder, and Adventure Mode, an open world roguelike that will be implemented in the Steam version come April next year. I could talk about how the game is famously complex and how it simulates everything down to teeth and toenails of individual dwarves, all of their relationships, their personalities and dreams and memories, as well as various other civilizations with their own ethics that may bring friendly traders or sieging armies. I could share any number of playthroughs that document the level of emergent gameplay that Dwarf Fortress offers. Ultimately, though, I don't think I can fully describe the full depths of this game and what it means to me and its most passionate fans. I encourage you to check out the free version if anything I've said here appeals to you, maybe read or watch some let's plays, and you might find that this game fulfills a desire you didn't even know you had. TL;DR top ten list: 1. Dwarf Fortress 2. Tears of the Kingdom 3. Siralim Ultimate 4. Crystal Project 5. Super Mario RPG 6. PowerWash Simulator 7. The Void Rains Upon Her Heart 8. Super Mario Wonder 9. Risk of Rain Returns 10. Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
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Dec 4, 2023 20:11
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I loved Elite Redux but I've been waiting to sink in because they keep updating it every couple weeks. And I'm only 25 floors in on siralim ultimate but it's definitely a contender for my top mon games.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:13
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Captain Invictus posted:put pizza tower in the list of notable releases for January you charlatan Pizza Tower? I hardly know 'er!
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Dec 4, 2023 21:06
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1. Vermintide 2: they gave it to me to free and it turns out it was dogshit at the release but by the time they handed it out it was basically the true heir to LFD 2. TOTK: Fun game, never finished it tho. 3. DS1: I got around to playing it for the first time, pretty clear why it was the diving board that spawned the rest 4. Battlebit: You won't believe this somebody realized they could make money by remaking battlefield without the bullshit 5. Corekeeper: The only one of these type of games to catch me, typically hate them. The graphics pwn as well. 6. Lethal Company: Only tried it out a bit but its clearly going into the roster of "game you can play at the drop of the hat anytime" sort of like ultimate chicken horse, which makes it way more valuable than most on this list 7. RE4VR: It kicks rear end 8. Richard Burns Rally: It's my driving sim of choice, its free. Feels like its got more updates in the last year than in like the previous 4 years before that combined 9. fORtnite: self explanatory e; 10. lol of course.. bg3 how'd i forget
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Dec 4, 2023 21:49
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I've beaten 50 games in 2023 and played maybe a dozen that I didn't beat. The Deck was an amazing buy, being able to take my save off the computer onto a mobile device with sleep mode is a gamechanger. 10. Resident Evil 4 Remake - Great remake with solid gameplay, if you're nostalgic for the original you won't be let down. 9. Darktide - I'm a fan of Vermintide games, and they're managing to turn around a disappointing release in record time. 8. Mario Wonder - Giving it time after playing it has brought Mario Wonder down slightly from where I initially had it on my top-10 list, but only slightly. It's a great 2D platformer and a fun experience, there's a few things I'm not the biggest fan of, but they're minor when compared to what Nintendo pulled off here. 7. Curse of the Golden Idol w/ DLC - Solid story with solid DLC. This, Obra Dinn, and "Don't Feed the Monkeys" are really carving out this genre. 6. Remnant 2 - Went in blind with a friend and ground the poo poo out of it. We're fans of difficult gameplay, puzzles and secrets and Remnant 2 caters to all of that. I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone, but I found it great. 5. Talos 2 In many ways Talos 2 is a direct and amazing upgrade to Talos 1, which some people consider one of the best puzzle games of all time. I'm not that person, I hated Talos 1. After playing the demo for Talos 2 I started thinking about why I'd never managed to beat the original, went and did the thing, and realized the designers must have hated the same things I hated because they changed all of it. Gone are the puzzles with elements that make you wait (or die, restarting the puzzle). Progress constantly unlocks new and interesting mechanics which far outshine the tools from the first game. I personally found the story very compelling. The only step backwards is how shallow and repetitive the "secrets" are. In other years, this game would be on everyone's top-10. 4. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Holy poo poo someone actually made a legit follow-up to Jet Set Radio. This game is great, and I think it's the perfect size for what it is. The music fits, the characters rock, there's secrets to be found and apparently people managed to get multiplayer modded in. The combat is the game's low-point, but as a fan of JSR I have very few complaints. 3. Hi-Fi Rush Great and unique gameplay, filled to the brim with heart and character. There's an entirely separate quality soundtrack for streamers worth its own playthrough. I will be buying any sequel in a heartbeat. 2. ToTK They made GMod, but with reasons to build. I always liked GMod type construction, approached ToTK as such, and had a great time. If you don't like that style construction I have to imagine you'd hate ToTK, and I do think the game suffered for featuring the mechanic so heavily. But as having always been a fan of that kind of gameplay, I'm not complaining. 1. BG3 Four straight months of playing this game with my wife to get through it. We've played tons of other RPGs, or games where imo "choices matter" more than in BG3 (Alpha Protocol certainly a fast example). Nothing's come close to the poo poo we were able to get up to in BG3. We were lucky enough to barely get any bugs in our run, so I don't have some of the annoyances I've heard about. Such a tremendous amount of work and content, so many unique and niche things to discover, and incredible acting. RPGs will be compared to this for years to come. 2023-specific games I liked that didn't make the list for various reasons: Void Stranger, Payday 3, Diablo 4, Pizza Tower, Dave the Diver, Halls of Torment, Deadlink, Cocoon, Ghost Trick Remake, Blasphemous 2 I haven't gotten to (and probably won't before 2024): Alan Wake 2, Deadspace Remake, Pentiment, Armored Core Edit: Rain Code? poo poo I'm a big fan of the Danganronpa games and completely missed that this came out, this year has been nuts. Atoramos fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 22:10
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Not top 10. Final Fantasy II PR (PS4): Praise Jesus for the qol features added in the Pixel Remaster, otherwise I would not have finished this. Some of the most grueling dungeons in the series and the neverending metagame just to level up is exhausting. Prince of Persia (SNES): Played at least a few minutes of many PoP ports but the SNES game is new to me so here's a separate "shout out". Entirely too long and sadistic - the levels where you spend 5-10 minutes following one path only to take a wrong turn and have to start over were anti-fun. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice(Gamepass): Five hours of detective vision while zonked out on Scarecrow gas is a little long, but this was perfectly okay Gamepass fodder. A couple of the trial levels (inferno and darkness) were very cool. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Gamepass): Wacky top down Zelda-like, this could have been really good if they'd used all the controller buttons, instead of having you swap 3 items on one button for some reason. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (Gameboy Color): Sword & Shield is a masterful troll of of dungeon, one of the best in the series. It's a bit longer than it needs to be, just like Ages - too much overworld and too much questing in between dungeons. Like a Dragon: Ishin! (Gamepass): Showed up on Gamepass at a very unfortunate time, as I was still drowning in chapter 5 sidequests when LaD Gaiden dropped, and was in no mood to go back to sword Kiryu after playing as Joryu. I'll get back to it someday but man is this game dense. Top 10! 10) Final Fantasy III PR (PS4) Fun to go back to where the job system started. Magic users are badly shafted by no ethers (even FF1 PR had these!) but they're not needed thanks to the mighty Bard. 9) 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3) The second best Zelda game I played this year, it's actually a secret love letter to Dragon Quests I, II, III, IV, V, and probably other games that I missed. A couple of troll (derogatory) dungeons later on knock it down a few spots (I still can't believe the eyeball that knocks off all but 1 health), but this was mostly a delight.  8) Ancient Domains of Mystery (PC) Finally won after uncountable years, and then ultra won! No other classic roguelike does worldbuilding the way ADOM does, except for maybe Omega, which I haven't played, so maybe I'll do that. 7) Inscryption (Xbox) The first few hours of this game are really something special, and the card game was a lot of fun throughout. But [redacted] didn't do anything for me, and the magic faded a little more every time it got in the way. What a pity. 6) Loop Hero (Gamepass) Okay, by now roguelite developers are just throwing poo poo at the wall to see what's going to stick. Luckily "Carcassone autobattling deck-and-town-builder" is a heroic combination, and building up to your unkillable army of skeletons is always incredibly satisfying. 5) Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Gamepass) I expected Okami but turns out it's mostly Link's Awakening, and either way that's good news for me. Cute but not cloying. 4) Lyle in Cube Sector (PC) A compact master class in search action design, and thanks to theft, the greatest soundtrack of all time. 3) Romancing SaGa 2 (Xbox) It took me years of play to get more than a couple of generations in, but when I finally said "gently caress it" and decided to just roll with the party wipes I had a great time. But the termite queen scenario can go to hell. 2) Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (Gamepass) I really wasn't expecting much out of this but it's one of the best games in the freaking series. Deliberately picking fights on Bishamon Bridge just so you can web throw three mooks into the river ftw. 1) La-Mulana (Xbox) Sure, the hitboxes can be frustrating (gently caress you, giant fish), and some of the traps are overly cruel, but I spent drat near a month solid either playing this or thinking about it, and I'm sad that I can't go back and play it again for the first time, but glad because now I can play the sequel. What a game!
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Dec 4, 2023 22:47
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