2023 In Games
It's that time once again! Time to look back at all the games I played in the previous year, and reflect on my life choices. Well, I mean, it is 2023 we're talking about. That's the best year for video games ever! Tears of the Kingdom! Baldur's Gate 3! Alan Wake 2! A year so packed full of amazing sequels has to be special right?
Nah, fam. 2023 was not for me. I have been reeling in the latter season of the year trying to come to terms with why this year just did not land for me. And when I look at what I played compared to previous years, (heck, even just compared to 2022!), it's clear the issue is that I did not discover enough new to play. Everything this year felt like retreading covered ground, and of the games I played that were truly new, only a couple stood out. It was the year of the Sequel! The Remake! The RPG! The Oh God I've Played This Game For 200 Hours And Still Haven't Beaten It!
~sigh~
Well, let's get on with it. As always, my rating system:
⭐ =Play If You're Curious
⭐⭐ = Generally Recommended
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~JANUARY~
I began the year wrapping up my journey through Paldea in Pokemon Scarlet. What an incredible Pokemon game! Sure the game runs fairly poorly, but there really is a great experience behind it. The joy of free exploration means there is always something fresh to discover, though it does mean that the early game is much stronger than the late game as rewards have diminishing returns. I think what the game could really use is more narrative-driven quest-lines throughout the world. Another fun thing is that Scarlet is the third time I have been excited to complete the Pokedex after Silver and Let's Go!: Eevee. After beating the game in January, I returned in April to complete the Pokedex, and again in November to trade for the Violet exclusives. Actually, speaking of the ending, the final bit where you are journeying with a party was amazing! I want a party based Pokemon game! Despite my disdain for Pearl back in 2007, I loved the bit near the beginning where you travel through the forest with a companion. More of that! The whole ending segment in Scarlet was so great, I truly haven't been this captivated by a Pokemon game since the first one all the way back in 1998. Nemona is the best rival ever! Arven's story made me cry! The Gym Battle themes made me shout! The truth behind the professor genuinely surprised me! If this is what Game Freak is able to deliver now, I am all in on the Pokemon train again, but let's maybe lengthen out the generations going forward so these games can have more thorough QA.
⭐
Demon Turf has been getting a ton of praise in Platformer circles since its release, and when a physical edition from Limited Run was announced, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to try it out! I immediately disliked it. Aesthetically, the game rules. It has a Paper Mario-like visual design where the world is 3D, but the characters are 2D, and the music feels very similar to something out of Splatoon. However, when you jump, you are surprisingly heavy? Like, you rocket toward the ground like Fox in Smash Bros. when falling. It's weird. I didn't like it. I gave my copy away.
⭐ ⭐
Save Me Mr. Tako originally released in late-2018. At the time I said, "the
game is too frustrating to be saved by the wonderful aesthetic and surprisingly
solid story." The Definitive Edition alleviates some of this with better checkpoints and re-balanced difficulty. Sections that gave me trouble on my first run were far more engaging and fair, and I was actually able to finish the game! I didn't get everything though, as one single challenge was a little too tough for me to master. There is an extra bit if you collect every hat, but alas! That said, even though the idea of injecting a deep, serious story into a cute, mascot Platformer is certainly not a fresh idea, Tako pulls it off really well, and weaves a genuinely compelling story about war with a satisfying resolution. If you like Game Boy games like Kirby, this one is worth checking out!
~FEBRUARY~
⭐⭐⭐
Haven is an incredible experience from start to finish, and the best game I played in 2023. You play as a couple escaping arranged marriages, and trying to start a life of their own on an uninhabited planet. You can choose the gender of each character, and the game is co-op! The gameplay is also simple enough, that this is a solid recommendation for couples where only one person plays games regularly. The writing is fantastic, showing a level of maturity and sexuality that you rarely get in the video game space. I absolutely can not recommend this game enough. Everyone needs to play it.
⭐⭐
I finished another Picross game! Not much to say about this one. It's Picross with the characters from Overlord. I've really slowed down on Picross playing in recent years. Anyway, that means it's time to start another one!
Picross S: Genesis & Master System Edition
⭐⭐
"It's Picross with Sega!"
"Is it good?"
"It's PICROSS. And it's SEGA."
⭐⭐
OH SHOOT I FORGOT ABOUT FROGUN. So I got my copy of Frogun from Limited Run alongside Demon Turf and KAO the Kangaroo (a game I have still yet to play). I booted up Frogun, played a couple levels, and moved on to something else, meaning to check back in on it later.
I FORGOR
⭐⭐⭐*
OH SHOOT THE ESHOP IS CLOSING HURRY HURRY BUY BUY BUY
So in a panic I realized I had a month left to play this cult hit, since you have to purchase the minigames as paid DLC by haggling the price down with the shop owner from $40 to as low as $16. It's uhhh... It's actually super good! The writing is punchy and smart, and the baseball minigames are all a lot of fun! It's a shame you literally can not play this game at all unless you've already purchased it. Like, really, this is the most "Nintendo" game to ever exist, and really captures the weirdness of the 3DS/WiiU era perfectly.
*I put three stars, but you literally can not buy and play this anymore.
⭐⭐
This is a fun little puzzle game where a bunch of random clutter is strewn about, and you have to organize it properly.
WHAT I'M SAYING IS THEY MADE A GAME SPECIFICALLY FOR ME YOU GUYS
Anyway, it's fun! They added some extra levels recently, but I haven't had time to check them out.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
(GB, G&W - GBC, 3DS, NSO - Switch)
⭐⭐⭐
Any excuse to replay my favorite game of all time is good enough for me.
⭐⭐⭐
On the same weekend, Metroid Prime, Octopath Traveler II, and Kirby's Return to Dream Land released. Ultimately, I decided Metroid Prime was game I should prioritize first. When I first played this game on the GCN, I was not impressed. I hadn't really explored the Metroid games yet at that point, and the controls just reminded me why I didn't like first-person games (I also had yet to play Halo). After it released on Wii, I had come around on both FPS games and Metroid, and with the updated motion controls, I was completely blown away by this game. I played it twice in a row in 2011, and eventually played Prime 2 in 2020. It was a ton of fun revisiting Prime 1 after so long, and the remaster was stunningly gorgeous. I don't know what their plans are for Prime 2 and Prime 3 on Switch, if any, but I am looking forward to whatever they do!
⭐⭐⭐
If I had to pick a GOTY from the games that released in 2023, Octopath Traveler II would unquestionably be it. There was a lot to love about the first game back in 2018, with the engaging battle system, stunning art direction, and enthralling soundtrack, but the writing and overall gameplay loop left a lot to be desired. Octopath Traveler II improves on every single one of these aspects, the good and the bad, and delivers possibly the absolute best turn-based RPG I have ever played. Impressive camera-work brings the already impressive visuals to life even more, and the stellar voice work continues the recent Square-Enix standard of amazing acting in their games. Some of these performances gave me chills. The game still separates each character's stories so that there is not much party dynamic happening during the story scenes until the final chapter, but without fundamentally changing the point of the game, this is something that will not change. But it's perfectly okay! The eight disparate stories are all great, and the way they tie together is so much more satisfying than in the first game. In fact, the only flaw I can really levy against it is that is a bit too long. I clocked 115 hours on a near-100% run. A story-focused run would probably still exceed 60 hours. Even so, if you love classic RPGs, you must play this game.
~MARCH~
⭐
As I scoured the 3DS eShop in the final month, I decided to go ahead and pick up the second Senran Kagura. I like these games fine, and anyway, have you seen the price on the physical cart for this? I should have kept it when I had it.
~APRIL~
⭐
A lot of March-May, and I mean a lot of March-May is just me playing Octopath Traveler II. So here and there I'd take a break for a few days or a week and play something else. Pupperazzi popped onto the eShop, and it was a charming little diversion where you take pics of cute doggos. I mean, what more could you want, right?
Kirby's Return to Dream Land: Deluxe
⭐⭐
I finally made time to boot up this Kirby remake in April. It's solid! But I've played this game twice already, and honestly, it's not super interesting to revisit. I do need to finish it and get through the new epilogue, so hopefully I can find time to do that this year. The best thing about this game for me is the huge collection of minigames accessible separately from the main game which includes Checkerboard Chase from Kirby 64, which is one of my all-time favorite multiplayer minigames. Seriously, I bust out Kirby 64 every time I have a game night. I'm so glad there's an updated version of it!
⭐ ⭐
I don't play it often, but I do really enjoy Magical Drop, a drop-based puzzle game that I typically describe as mixing Puyo Puyo with Puzzle Bobble. This one is just as fun as any, though I haven't spent much time with it. Speaking of Puzzle Bobble, that series got a new release around this time as well, though I skipped on picking it up. Maybe some day!
~MAY~
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
⭐⭐⭐
I have complicated feelings about Tears of the Kingdom. After finishing the game, I posted a blog on this site with stray thoughts, so I'm not going to prattle on here. Ultimately, TOTK feels like a bloated Breath of the Wild. It improves on BOTW in a ton of smart ways by adding: sky islands, caves, abilities like Ascend that really make you think about the world in compelling ways, significantly better shrines, a much more rich and lived-in feeling world with fantastic quest-design and well-written character dialogue, and a building mechanic that completely upends what type of game this even is.
Unfortunately, TOTK comes together to create a game that is far weaker than the sum of its parts. There is just too much of it. BOTW was already enormous, and now we have, not only caves and sky islands, but an entire second map beneath the surface. And honestly? It just feels like empty space. There are things to do in the Depths, but largely, it is just a vast wasteland with enemies and bosses. Useful for farming, but I would rather have forgone it entirely for more elaborate caves. The game absolutely does not need to be this big.
So aside from the size, my primary complaints about this game that I enjoyed so much I played for 200 hours and plan to go back and get 100% completion on are: the absolutely wretched main story, and the reuse of BOTW's map. It's not bad that we are back in BOTW's world, I just don't like playing in the same space as a previous game. But the story? Easily the worst they have ever done. I can't believe that once again we are side-lining Princess Zelda. This has happened in nearly every game. In fact, Zelda has been an active participant only twice (and a half point for Skyward Sword) out of sixteen games where she is present. It's tired. I'm tired.
~JUNE~
We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie
(PS2 - Switch, PS4/5, Xbox, PC)
⭐⭐⭐
There is a shortage of perfect video games in the world. It would be a shame if you didn't play this one.
⭐⭐⭐
Finally! I can play as Amy in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles! I took a break from Zelda to do that.
But I never actually finished the game. Oh, well.
~JULY~
~AUGUST~
⭐⭐⭐
Venba is a lovely game about immigration, family, and cooking. It's breezy, at around two hours long, but after Zelda, this was the palate cleanser I needed. If you like intimate stories about family, I really recommend this one.
⭐
I picked this one up at Momocon, and modded it to play on my N64. It's Bomberman! So you kind of know what you're getting here. I'm down to my last two NTSC Bomberman releases for my collection, one of which is Saturn Bomberman ($450 as of 1/1/24 on a console I do not own), so I'm onto looking at Japanese releases now. Yay!
⭐⭐⭐
So this is one I was really looking forward to. Viewfinder is an Adventure game where you take photos and the contents become interactive when placed in the world. Think something like Superliminal, if you're familiar with that. It's an incredibly impressive game, though the narrative doesn't quite land. I highly recommend this one if you like Puzzle/Adventure games like Portal, or if you played and enjoyed Superliminal.
⭐
I adore Inti-Creates and the games they make. Nobody does pixel-art Platformers quite like they do, so I was excited for their new Metroidvania. At least until I played it and realized it isn't a Metroidvania, and is more like Castlevania III or Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. And that might have been fine, but the gameplay just didn't quite land for me. The character swapping ala Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is cool, but not quite enough to keep me engaged. The game also seemed to be built on multiple replays, rather than a single run. I didn't really have time for that, so I stopped playing after a few levels.
(PC, Wii, 360 - Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC)
⭐⭐
I loved the Fox Kids cartoon of Sam & Max, but never actually read the comic or played the game. Well, both of them were super cheap on the eShop one day, so I picked them up and played through the first two chapters of Save the World. And it's just as funny as I remember the cartoon being. I'm looking forward to playing the rest of these games as I have time.
⭐⭐⭐
I picked this game up thinking, "Oh, this will be a good litle game to play before bed." This turned out to be a Not Great Idea. Anyway, the game is good. Real good. Too good?
Dangerously good. Proceed with caution.
Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils
⭐⭐⭐
I have not shut up about this rad game since September, and look, I'm only just a little bit sorry. But you gotta undertsand, this game is rad as shit. The Platforming, the pixel art and animation, the music, the writing... It's all great! Very nearly on the level of Shovel Knight, though just barely missing the mark by having content that is too obtuse to discover without a guide. Still though, the game is worth playing whether you do everything or not (though you should do everything). Actually, I still have a little more to do in this game. I hope it gets a physical release at some point! It super deserves it.
⭐⭐⭐
Sea of Stars is, on paper, the perfect RPG for me. A very clear SNES-inspired art direction, with music by the composers of Chrono Trigger and Sabotage Studio's previous game, The Messenger (a very good game!), a battle system that combines Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG (Timed Hits!), and a single, shared experience gauge for the party (INCREDIBLE). This game gets so much right, from the engaging story and fun battle system, to the perfectly-paced story progression, and rewarding sidequests. In fact, it really only stumbles in a couple places, primarily with the protagonists. Valare and Zale are just... not interesting. In fact, literally every other character in the game is more compelling than them. There is enough good here to make up for it, but it's still a shame they couldn't do better with the characters you spend the whole game playing as.
~SEPTEMBER~
⭐
Y'know, I am glad we have Bomberman back. From 2008-2017, the only Bomberman games that released were a single Arcade spin-off, and a couple online multiplayer-only games. That said, I wish we could get a Bomberman with a decent single-player campaign. R1 in 2017 was super basic, barely innovating from the first SNES game, but I forgave it for being the first game in so long. R2's campaign is just training for Castle Mode. Which is a shame because it looked in trailers like it was revisiting the larger spaces of the Bomberman/Max or Story style games. Instead, the stages are fairly bland, though there are some really cool puzzle rooms. There are a few worlds, but I never even cleared the first one. Maybe it gets better, but I doubt it.
Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC
⭐
Sonic Frontiers is not a great game. But it is a fun game, with a lot of good ideas that are glued together rather poorly. So frankly, it's kind of a shock that Sonic Team took all the goodwill they had gotten from Frontiers' reception and managed to blow it on a DLC campaign that highlights the absolute worst parts of Frontiers. I played a few hours of it, but couldn't stomach the terrible level design any longer. Even the Cyberspace stages, the most consistently good part of the base game, are rubbish in the DLC. Honestly.
It was free, but I feel ripped off.
~OCTOBER~
The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails
⭐⭐⭐
God, I love Nihon Falcom. I picked this up on a whim, having never heard of it, just because it reminded me of Ys Seven, and let me tell you: It rules. Fast and fun battles, a great soundtrack, and the kind of fun, emotional anime story that anyone who plays a Falcom game will know. If you miss old DS/PSP era Action and RPG games, you absolutely have to pick this up. It still played great, and boy am I nostalgic right now for chonky low-poly 3D models.
⭐⭐
Sonic Superstars is not a bad game. It's just not compelling. And I am having a tough time putting my finger on why. The level design is solid, and we have multiple playable characters. The Special Stages aren't great, but those are more miss than hit in the series anyway. The soundtrack is just kind of... there? There aren't any real memorable tracks from what I've played so far. And given that it's Tee Lopes and June Senoue, that's super surprising. It might be the art direction? The visuals feel a little flat. I wouldn't call the game lifeless, that's too harsh, and there's plenty of personality. It just doesn't quite land for me.
I don't know, Arzest did seem to do a decent job here, but I just keep losing interest after a level or two. Something I can not qualify is missing.
⭐⭐⭐
People are too hard on the New Super Mario Bros. games, but I agree that they blend together and are visually indistinct. Wonder more than addresses this, and if someone told me it was the best 2D Mario game they've played, I would be hard pressed to have a legitimate rebuttal. The game is full of surprises, and is consistently delightful. I think the game starts to run out of steam in the final two Worlds, but even then, the bar for quality and fun is incredibly high. I adored the smaller stages and challenges. The final stage might be my new favorite "final challenge" of any Mario game. But what really surprised me playing this is that I chose to play through the entire game online. Look, if you don't know, I never play games online. I just am not interested in online multiplayer. I want to play games by myself, or with friends in the room. But the online interactions were so charming and delightful, that I just kept it on for the whole game. It's the main experience I'm going to remember this game for.
~NOVEMBER~
Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery
⭐⭐⭐
I have been jealously eyeing this games as they have released on PC. Not that I can't play PC games, I just don't. Anyway, these games rule. The dialogue is consistenty funny, and it takes 4-5 hours to play through the whole thing. Highly, highly recommend this.
⭐⭐
This one is a very charming Adventure game where you solve puzzles by placing stickers in the world. Sort of like Paper Mario: Sticker Star, but in practice much more like Carto. It's a lot of fun! The story is very endearing, and the puzzles are just engaging enough. I think this game took around 4 hours to finish? I love breezy games.
⭐⭐
November is the month of breezy games! Y'all, listen, I am so exhausted of long games. I need more games I can finish in under 5 hours. Mail Time is a fun 3D Platformer where you deliver mail to little forest creatures. If the aesthetic catches your eye, it's worth your time.
⭐⭐⭐
WE ARE SO BACK. Look, Super Mario RPG is one of the all-time greats. A near-perfect game that barely needed any work. But after a fresh coat of paint, a re-arranged soundtrack, a fresh localization, and a couple extra bosses, this game shines like it first released in 2023. This comfort food was exactly what I needed, and reminded me that I should be revisiting old games more often, rather than constantly trying to consume every new thing right as it comes out.
Perfect game, 10/10, no notes.
~DECEMBER~
⭐⭐
I ALMOST FORGOT THIS GAME CAME OUT. I like Don't Nod. I love climbing stuff in games. So naturally, this game spoke to me. And it's pretty good! It has a very unique take on climbing that fans of games like Breath of the Wild, Tomb Raider, and Uncharted should really check out. Each trigger controls a hand, and you use that to scale handholds as you climb. I had a lot of fun with this one, and really recommend it.
⭐⭐
I never have played Samba de Amigo before, though I do own the Wii version. But for $15, how could I say no? Anyway, this game is really fun. If you can get it for a good price (under $30), it's a great little rhythm game with, honestly, a really solid line-up of songs. And Sonic DLC!
⭐⭐
Short, cozy Indie games forever please! This is another forest-themed 3D Platformer like Mail Time, but this time you have a glider! And we gotta help Smushi get back home to his younger siblings! It is very, very cute, I super recommend this one.
⭐
Meanwhile, I super do not recommend this one. While the game is visually stunning, the gameplay really lacks. The Switch port performs super poorly, which is mostly fine, but there is an optional boss at the end of the game that is unbeatable because of the abyssmal framerate. As a Metroidvania, it is fairly linear, and not super compelling. The game has one really good idea, which is a power-up swapping mechanic whre you equip a specific suit to interact with puzzles in the game. That part is really good! But the lack of fast-travel, poor performance, uninteresting story, and sudden change in the health system for the final fight makes this a game I can not recommend, and kind of wish I had skipped playing, especially being my last game of the year. Oh, also, I wasn't able to beat the final boss. Like, I could probably power though it, but the health change really messed me up. So I'm moving on.
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And that is 2023 in the bag! Typically, I like to wrap up the year with an artsy Indie game, and this year it was going to be Abzu, but I ended up not having time. So instead, I'll play Abzu sometime in the next week. Yay! My goal for 2024 is to play more retro games, and have a better balance of the kinds of games I am playing throughout the year. Variety is the spice of life, after all!
Beat: 24
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