2023 Community Game of the Year

Switch shows it in your profile. But it doesn't show up for a specific game until 10 days after you first play it. Until then you get "first played x days ago". Gets very weird, especially if you beat something in under a week.

And it only shows the most recent 20 but you can just fire the game up for a minute to get it back in the list.

Looks like this, copied from an article: IMAGE(https://static1.makeuseofimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/nintendo-switch-play-activity.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=480&dpr=1.5)

On Xbox there is a way to see your playtime. Google and simple guidance out there.

I agree I can see the playtimes on the machines, it is just not information I can find from the Internet when logged into their services.

Oh yeah PS App but only for recent 3 or 4. You could remote play a game on phone to get it in the recent list for a workaround. If you really needed to know.

It is odd enough that no one has Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on their list that I looked up its release date thinking maybe it was last year I was forgetting but it was released May 12, 2023. I guess it shows what a great year this has been.

This space reserved for Baldur's Gate 3 love letter

Reconsidered post.

My list

1. God of War: Ragnarök.
2. Marvel's Midnight Suns
3. Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom
4. Baldur's Gate 3
5. Metroid Prime Remastered

Funny how stuff that I would have expected to make the list didn't even enter my mind. Horizon: Forbidden West, Fire Emblem:Engage, and Spiderman 2 were all things I enjoyed but just didn't think about again after I was done.

My list:

1) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom -- The odd thing is that I wasn't actually all that excited about this one until I finally got my hands on it. I loved Breath of the Wild, but TotK seemed at first glance to potentially be too much of a retread. Instead, I was delighted to find that it was like moving from Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask: yes, built on the same foundation, but with a whole lot of surprising refinements and new elements stacked on top. And ultimately, some of the biggest complaints I've commonly heard about the game proved to be a non-issue for me. "Reusing" Hyrule from BotW? There are so many changes to the world with the time that's passed that it is different enough to feel new. The contraption building being "required"? Well... sometimes sure, but I'll go hours on end so focused on adventuring that I'll forget entirely about building and using contraptions. The sky and underground are delightful additions to the game, the fusing system makes for more interesting equipment possibilities than BotW, the new powers create some fun and clever puzzle-solving and inventive gameplay possibilities, and so on.

I believe that Tears of the Kingdom will go down as the perfect swan song for the Switch (sure, there are more games coming, but I don't anticipate anything eclipsing it).

2) Marvel's Midnight Suns -- If it weren't for Tears of the Kingdom, this would be my game of the year. I put a ton of hours into this title, and was saddened to hear that it was considered a commercial failure and we are almost certainly never going to see a follow-up title (especially disappointing considering the sequel hook left at the end of the game, though don't let that scare you away: the story does have a proper ending, it just has a strong plot hook ready to go for a sequel). I know that the character talkie stuff between missions has been complained about often, but I actually enjoyed that content just as much as the combat and missions. It felt like a love letter to fans of these various Marvel characters. The only thing I didn't care for was the repeated puzzle-solving and running around gathering treasure/materials from the Abbey grounds, which did indeed get repetitive and a bit frustrating (since it was the only way to get materials for crafting, which I would have preferred to be acquired via mission rewards the way the mats for beefing up powers and crafting some of the mission items could be done).

The growth & development of the various characters and their powers, as well as the projects you could research and complete for the overall team, made for a fun and tangible set of progression mechanics throughout the game. The missions themselves were a blast with the inventive tactical gameplay, and some of the story & sidequest missions got very creative in forcing some tense decision-making! I was a bit iffy on the weird pseudo-freeform movement in combat at first, but once I got a few missions under my belt I wound up enjoying it quite a lot.

3) Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince -- No, I've not finished this one, which I try to ensure I do before rating a game. However, I absolutely adore the DQM franchise, and have dumped enough hours into this already to see how well-built it is. The story is nothing to really write home about, but the core DQM gameplay (recruiting & developing your monster crew and exploring a varied gameworld) is intact and as good as ever. My only complaint is that much like the previous games in the franchise, post/endgame content is rather underbaked and the online multiplayer options are egregiously limited and simple.

4) Super Mario Wonder -- Doesn't quite strike the balance that Mario World did, but this is the closest successor to that classic that we've yet seen! The level design is consistently creative and fun, and makes excellent use of the new power-up options. I am a bit disappointed to see the difficulty/challenge frequently brought up as a complaint, because IMO this feels like a trap that long-time fans keep falling into (that the games should cater to the skill level of long-time fans with an ever-escalating difficulty level). Instead, I appreciate that the difficulty of merely completing levels is a fairly low bar, while the real "challenge" is in exploration and creativity to find all the wonder fruits and other secrets in the game. There are certainly some straightforward challenging levels to be found later in the game too!

The controls are as tight and polished as ever, the soundtrack is delightful, and the art design and graphical performance are top-notch!

5) Baldur's Gate 3 -- I'm not sure when I'm ever going to actually finish this game. I hit multiple walls that frustrated me enough to set it aside, and the last one was the Moonrise Tower capstone location of Act 2 where I ran into a very frustrating major combat encounter that killed my enthusiasm and enjoyment.

The characters and dialogue/performance in this game are unparalleled. Absolutely loving this aspect of the game. Soundtrack is phenomenal as well, which is actually a pretty big factor in my enjoyment of RPG's. The story... well, the main plot is intriguing, and some of the major story threads are actually more compelling, but there's also been quite a bit of time spent on side/sub-stories that just don't really hit for me.

The bigger factor is that Larian's RPG design is just never a solid hit for me. There's always a "but..." following anything positive I find about their games.

For instance, I love how BG3's encounter design makes every single encounter meaningful (i.e. there aren't scattered crowds of "trash mobs" to bulldoze through like there are in, say, Owlcat's Pathfinder games), but... it gets exhausting when every single fight pushes me as hard as Larian's games do. Maybe I just suck at their games (ok, there's no "maybe" to it -- I just do) but I end up having to put multiple attempts into the majority of their games' combat encounters, and BG3 is worse in this regard than both Divinity:OS titles. Yes, I could just drop the difficulty, and maybe I will eventually, but dropping the game to "cakewalk" is too far the other direction. What I would prefer is a better mixture of the current challenge level of most of the encounters along with a moderate number of encounters that don't push the player quite so hard.

Larian's game design is exceptional in regard to allowing players a wide array of approaches to progressing through their games, but... the number of times I find myself with multiple possible pathways but no real understanding of how to progress any of them (and often, several of them involve combat encounters that are a solid step up in difficulty over the already-challenging encounters I've been spending multiple attempts to overcome) is both exhausting and frustrating. This is in fact the primary reason I've never finished Original Sin 2, and probably never will.

Related to this is Larian's puzzle design. No "but" here: I pretty much entirely hate Larian's puzzles. I end up Googling solutions to damn near every puzzle in Larian's games, and BG3 has been no exception. Actually, I think it's been even more frequent in BG3 than either D:OS game for me.

"Damn Farscry, why is this even on your top games list?" Well, because despite the many, many frustrations I have with Baldur's Gate 3, and a legitimate concern that I may end up eventually shelving it the same way I ultimately shelved Original Sin 2... this is a damn good game. Even if I end up shelving it, this is a game I am happy to have experienced to whatever degree I do, and I think this is one of the most important computer RPG's released in at least the past decade.

6) Yakuza 3 -- Ok, if I was just ranking the list on story, Yakuza 3 would be #1 of the year for me, full stop. My favorite story of the franchise so far (my sequence so far has been Yakuza Kiwami 1, Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami 2, and now Yakuza 3) and I'm eager to continue Kiryu's story! Yes, I've started Yakuza 4 but I know that it and 5 are chock-full of content. So why is Yakuza 3 so far down on my games of the year list? The biggest reason is the combat. Easily the most frustrating combat of the series so far -- the clunkiness of the controls was expected given that this was a remastered release but not updated/remade the way that the two Kiwami releases were, so I don't really hold that against the game. What I hold against it is how frustrating the opponents were to fight against. I suck at Yakuza's brawling gameplay at the best of times, so the way that enemies are so much more effective at blocking, countering, and generally kicking my ass in Yakuza 3 was infuriating. I actually ended up shelving the game for a few months around the halfway point, then came back to it this autumn and forced myself to brute force my way through the second half of the game.

My favorite parts of the game were actually portions I see complained about often -- in particular, the opening chapters at the orphanage in Okinawa were my favorite part of the game. I especially loved following as Kiryu met and became involved with the Ryudo family. And it was this slow burn at the start of the game that made the latter third so emotional and compelling. Great story, very worth playing despite my frustrations with the gameplay itself!

7) Age of Wonders 4 -- It's surprising to me that I kind of fell off with this one in the second half of the year, but I know I'll return to it. While the main campaign isn't particularly compelling, that's just a small part of what makes an Age of Wonders game fun! I love the custom faction building options, the whole magic tomes concept combined with the magic school "talent tree", and the way that generating each gameworld is such an integral part of the game itself!

The gameplay is top-notch, with both the 4x strategic gameplay and the tactical battles being equally fun in their own respects. There isn't much I can think of to say other than that this game was the perfect blend of fantasy Age of Wonders and Planetfall that I didn't realize I wanted.

8) Starfield -- This one kinda hurts to rank so low. I love Bethesda's games, and I actually have dumped a ton of fully-enjoyable hours into this game. In fact, in direct contrast to Baldur's Gate 3, I have enjoyed nearly every minute I've spent with Starfield. However, unlike the polished masterpiece that I can recognize in BG3, Starfield is the weakest Bethesda RPG title since.... well, it may just be the weakest Bethesda RPG title they've yet released. Sure, it was the most stable in a technical sense that we've seen from them (for example, in 100+ hours -- yes, really -- I've only experienced a couple of crashes to desktop), and the level of polish in the combat control is surprisingly high (the gunplay is a major step up over Fallout 4), and there's a wider base of mechanical foundation to the game than I expected. However, while the moment-to-moment gameplay is so great, there are many ways in which the game is at odds with itself. The story is pretty damn weak and internally inconsistent with the worldbuilding of the wider game, the history developed for the game is interesting but they completely fail to put it to effective use in the wider game experience, the "NASA-punk" approach falls apart under even the most basic scrutiny, settlement/base-building is even more undercooked than it was in Fallout 4, shipbuilding is fun but essentially pointless, etc etc etc.

I enjoy the game. It's fun and relaxing to immerse myself into it. But it's a pretty disappointing showing and not nearly as solid as Bethesda's previous offerings. I'm left finding myself fairly concerned for the design of the next Elder Scrolls title.

9) Diablo 4 -- I'm really torn on this one. The game itself is honestly rather well-polished. Controls are tight, I love the addition of the evade mechanic to classic Diablo gameplay, the classes are distinctive with interesting and fun abilities to pick from, there's a surprising amount of late-game character building yet to do even after you run out of skill points to distribute at level 50 with the Paragon Boards unlocking and becoming your second progression system, there's a nice variety of enemy types throughout the gameworld, the pace and style of combat pulled back from the overly-arcadey style of Diablo 3 to instead be more in line with something between Diablo 2 and the original Diablo (starts somewhat like Diablo 1 then as the game progresses becomes much more like Diablo 2), the campaign feels a bit less railroaded despite still being wholly linear... on paper this should be a slam dunk for me.

However, I just can't quite put my finger on what it is that keeps me from being truly drawn in. I've actually been replaying Diablo 2 (again...) late this year to see if it's just nostalgia goggles, and I still can't figure it out. There's just something about the mechanics and design of Diablo 2 that is truly timeless in a way that I can't explain, to the point where it's just as compelling or more than Diablo 4 is, despite D4 on paper being a superior game to D2.

At least it's still a solid "good" game on my list, unlike my final entry for the year...

10) Pokemon Scarlet/Violet -- There's a lot that I like conceptually about this game. The truly open world is, IMO, a solid improvement upon the Wild Area concept of Sword/Shield. The multiple parallel story progression paths are a great idea, allowing players some degree of choice and agency that's not previously been present in a Pokemon title. Peppering the gameworld with things to pick up (items, TM's, etc, a mixture of randomly generated and manually placed by the designers) is a great way to add incentive to explore beyond just "go fight/capture critters". The different gameplay mechanics to the different progression paths are a nice touch too.

But so much is just so unpolished and rough. First and most obvious is the poor state of the game's optimization. I'm pretty forgiving of performance being a bit rough for titles on the Switch compared to other platforms, but this title is one of the worst I've personally experienced on the platform -- it might actually be the worst, but I don't care enough to do any real testing of the worst-optimized Switch games I've played to come up with a ranking of which ones suck the hardest. The gameworld may be broad with varied landscapes to make it visually appealing and interesting, but this is no Breath of the Wild here -- the gameworld feels barren and lifeless despite the pokemon roaming around on it and the items strewn around to pick up. The towns and cities far no better -- if, like me, you found the cities and towns of Sword/Shield to be depressingly empty with far too few buildings to enter and explore, prepare to be even more disappointed by Scarlet/Violet. Not only are there few -- if any -- buildings you can enter in any given town, even the shops are reduced to nothing more than a menu screen that pops up when you enter a shop. The devs could have just made the towns a 2d sidescrolling segment with flat propped-up Old West movie set style building fronts.

They crafted this great big open world for the game, but they simultaneously reduced the gameworld to a lifeless, surface-level husk of set dressings. This is a pretty solid indictment of the game overall: nice to look at initially, but lacking in depth. I haven't even finished it and I've been playing it off and on throughout the year. And like Diablo, this isn't a matter of me losing interest or enjoyment in the franchise -- I've been replaying Soul Silver (the DS remake of the GBC gen 2 game, Silver) and while it lacks in the grand open world in which to roam with relative freedom of Scarlet/Violet or the parallel-but-separate story progression paths, the design and experience of playing Soul Silver is more polished and detailed in basically every other regard.

I hope for the next main franchise "generation" of the Pokemon series, they take a hard look at what worked so well for the old games and consider how to blend that with some of the series' modern game design sensibilities (like how Dragon Quest Monsters, Monster Hunter Stories, and even Pokemon Legends Arceus have done so).

This was the best year of gaming in my lifetime, and I started with Pong. Perhaps I should say the best year of my adult life, since there’s really no replicating the degree to which Atari 2600 games like Combat and Pitfall took hold of my child brain, or the delirium of spending an entire afternoon in a garish arcade, feeding quarters into games and thinking the employees had the coolest job ever. There were so many fantastic games this year that would have been my GOTY if they had been released in another year. How can it be that Starfield or Diablo IV don’t occupy the #1 spot on my list? Blame my top pick for the year, which I’d like to think will land the GWJ Community GOTY.

Honorable Mentions:

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – Honorable mention only because it’s DLC. Had this been released as a standalone title, it would have been in my top three. A thirty-hour adaptation of Escape from New York, with amazing graphics and super flexible gameplay? Hell yes.

Lies of P – A grimdark adaptation of Pinocchio? It’s so ridiculous that you know it’s going to be complete trash or a resounding success. Based on what I hear from fans of Souls-like games, it’s definitely the latter. It’s not for me though, but just because my old man reflexes and unwillingness to spend my precious gaming time re-doing fights make such games largely unapproachable.

Spiderman 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder – I didn’t actually play any of these, but I watched my son play them a lot, enough to know just how good they are.

The Countdown:

10. Kentucky Route Zero – I’ve heard about this one since it was released but never got around to playing it. I haven’t finished it yet, but it quickly became my favorite game to play on the Steam Deck. Outstandingly atmospheric.

9. Dead Island 2 – Goofy, gory fun. Looks terrific and can be surprisingly difficult.

8. Counter Strike 2 – Looks great. I’m still terrible at it. I keep playing it anyway.

7. Modern Warfare 2 – Big budget, dumb dialog that appeals to 13-year-olds. Shooting bad guys, what else do you want? I always have fun with these, even though they are short experiences for me since I only play the campaigns. I’ll skip the expensive, glorified DLC that is Modern Warfare 3, though.

6. Assassin’s Creed Mirage – Back to basics is so nice, both in terms of mechanics and game length. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was so massive that I know I’ll never finish it—the Ireland DLC gave me pretty much everything I wanted wrapped up in a 20-hour package--, and while there was a lot of killing, there was very little in the way of stealth and assassination.

5. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – Lightsabers are the best kind of sabers, and any game that lets you play with them is automatically fun. It’s beautiful. It’s Star Wars. What’s not to like? Not quite as grand as the first game, but it’s clearly setting the stage for an epic trilogy finale. That this barely makes the top 5 for is another testament to what a bonkers year in gaming 2023 has been.

4. Diablo IV – That itch, that one right there. Yeah, scratch that. I forgot I even had it, and scratching it feels so good. Am I taking crazy pills? How can a Diablo game be so far down my top 10 list? It’s not a slight on the game itself but rather a reflection of just how great 2023 was for video games. Really toxic fanbase though, almost as bad as The Witcher fanbase. What a bunch of whiners. I played the whole campaign from launch through multiple patches with a sorcerer, supposedly the most “broken” class, and I had plenty of fun smiting evil. But then I’m not a minmaxer, which seems to be D4’s core demographic.

3. StarfieldStarfield is the most relaxing game I’ve played in years. It’s like getting under a warm blanket. Maybe that’s because I grew up watching sci-fi TV shows and movies like Space: 1999, Lost in Space, The Black Hole, and of course, Star Trek. If you’re like me, you spent hours and hours in Skyrim ignoring the quests and just wandering around, picking flowers, and occasionally having to kill whatever’s trying to kill you. Well, here’s a whole game of that, but in outer space. While it may not live up to everyone’s expectations, I love it. I’ve been playing it on PC Game Pass but will probably repurchase it on Steam once the modding community really gets going.

2. Alan Wake 2 – I don’t play a lot of horror games, because I’m a big chicken. If it’s far enough removed from reality, okay. Vampires and werewolves in Resident Evil Village? Good, gory fun. Cannibalistic hillbillies in Resident Evil 7? Hell no. I’ll never finish that game. Alan Wake 2 is an exception in that it’s set in a seemingly real world that is genuinely creepy, like a Stephen King novel with hefty doses of Twin Peaks and True Detective. Graphically the best-looking game I’ve ever played.

1. Baldur’s Gate III –Is this what it’s like to be a mindflayer’s thrall? I cannot stop playing this game, or stop thinking about it when I’m not playing. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” I imagine this question coming up thousands of times during the development of most games, but Larian actually made their crazy ideas work. While some may say it’s just a reskinned and refined Divinity: Original Sin 2, to me it feels like D&D, with some creative players and a really good DM. No game has given me this much joy since I was a kid. It’s like they took the best parts of Planescape: Torment, Dragon Age: Origins, and the Might & Magic games (especially the density of hidden items and locations), and somehow kept it true to the Baldur’s Gate series. It is a gorgeous banquet and quite possibly the greatest game I have ever played.

Farscry wrote:

7) Age of Wonders 4 -- It's surprising to me that I kind of fell off with this one in the second half of the year, but I know I'll return to it. While the main campaign isn't particularly compelling, that's just a small part of what makes an Age of Wonders game fun! I love the custom faction building options, the whole magic tomes concept combined with the magic school "talent tree", and the way that generating each gameworld is such an integral part of the game itself!

The gameplay is top-notch, with both the 4x strategic gameplay and the tactical battles being equally fun in their own respects. There isn't much I can think of to say other than that this game was the perfect blend of fantasy Age of Wonders and Planetfall that I didn't realize I wanted.

I'm sorry to say that I have yet to really grok and AoW game, despite buying them consistently. They get such good player reviews that I'm sure the fault is mine. I keep hoping AoW4 will be the one that does it.

For the first time in years, I have 10 games to rank!!!

Also, for the first time in years, I am adding minimal text!!!

Am I going to go back and edit that text for typos and clarity? Probably not... am I going to go back and add pictures in because pictures are cool? Depends on how bored I get at work tomorrow.

Spoiler:

1. Baldur's Gate 3
2. God of War: Ragnarok
3. Citizen Sleeper
4. Venba
5. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor
6. Viewfinder
7. Star Trek: Resurgence
8. Norco
9. South of the Circle
10. A Short Hike

Honorable Mentions (Games I didn't play enough to rank, but will probably make my list next year).

Marvel's Spider-Man 2: I loved the first game and the Miles Morales expansion, so I have no doubt I will love this.

The Expanse: A Telltale Series: Fun story: I watched the show and read all the books to get ready for this game. And now I don't have time to play it.

Super Mario Wonder: My wife loves it, so I will play it sometime when I can get the Switch from her.

Disney Illusion Island: See Super Mario Wonder, with more mice, ducks, and dogs.

THE LIST

10. A Short Hike: A fun short game I played while my wife was in surgery last January. It kept me from worrying about her.

IMAGE(https://i0.wp.com/waytoomany.games/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Fishing.jpg?ssl=1)

9. South of the Circle: An interesting game that explores cold-war (and anti-communist) Britain. An interesting story that was almost ruined by the game getting decisions I made wrong.

IMAGE(https://www.slantmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/southofthecircle.jpg)

8. Norco: Do you like Twin Peaks? What about Kentucky Route 0? This game is that, but somehow with more Southern Gothic horror.

IMAGE(https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cd5594f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/1200x675!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd8%2Fab%2F1782c929442093fa5f9ed0f16348%2Fla-ca-norco-video-game-213.jpg)

7. Star Trek Ressurgence: The best Star Trek story in years, sadly hampered by terrible TT-style gameplay and bugs. Still, if you want Star Trek, this is as good as it has been in decades.

IMAGE(https://www.startrek-resurgence.com/static/2767127cfe16b8832db97f27f162279d/87706/STR_Jara_Tylas_Mines_184dcfb67b.png)

6. Viewfinder: Some of the most interesting puzzles I have played in a game since Portal.

IMAGE(https://image.api.playstation.com/vulcan/ap/rnd/202212/0110/XkpHEihS6J2jgXnkRo5GW3mi.png)

5. Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor: A: great: game: with: too: many: colons. But if they make another one of these the same quality as the first two it will be the best Star Wars trilogy in 40 years.

IMAGE(https://www.hindustantimes.com/ht-img/img/2023/05/01/1600x900/star_wars_surviver_jedi_1682948146179_1682948175095.jfif)

4. Venba: I didn't think I needed a story about an Indian-Canadian woman's struggle with family as told through cooking. I was wrong. This is incredible.

IMAGE(https://assetsio.reedpopcdn.com/Venba-(3).jpg?width=1200&height=1200&fit=bounds&quality=70&format=jpg&auto=webp)

3. Citizen Sleeper: One of the best science-fiction stories I have experienced. Not just a game, but through games, movies, TV, novels, short stories, etc. I wish there was a mode where I wouldn't have to worry about the dice, but maybe hating the dice is part of the reason I love the game.

IMAGE(https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/full/public/2022/05/23/c31ebe92/citizen_sleeper_review.jpg)

2. God of War: Ragnarok: The me from a long time ago loved those old ridiculously violent, misogynistic PS2 (and PS3) showpieces. The me now loves how the game is trying to explore what happens after that. And free DLC awaits me as soon as I get a chance to play it.

IMAGE(https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2022/11/God-of-War-Ragnarok-PC-9a16340.jpg?quality=90&resize=980,654)

1. Baldur's Gate 3: I hate this game right now. You can explore the game's thread, but I lost my entire campaign due in part to my stupidity and in part to a buggy patch. So I lost 50+ hours into a game and probably had 30+ hours to go. But I can't stop thinking of the game. It made me invested in the world, its characters, and the story it is telling. And I want to start again. I want to undo all the things I did wrong or didn't know I could do. I want to rebuild my characters with better builds for better combat. I want to find all the stuff I missed in the first 50 hours and then retell stories with better endings from Act 1 and Act 2. I want to know what happens to my character, my evil cleric girlfriend, and the monster that has been puppetting my character since the game told me to design them. And if I don't have 10 games for this list next year, it will be because I put so much more gods-damned time into this. And that makes it my GotY.

IMAGE(https://images.pushsquare.com/54c46160dd2b6/baldurs-gate-3-guide-the-beginners-resource-guide.900x.jpg)

First things first: Persona 5 Strikers and Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden are my favorite games of 2023, but since I played a substantial amount of both last year, they are not eligible, so they are not my GOTY… except that they are. But they are not. That said, these are my ten favorite games of 2023:

1. Tinykin
This game is super chill and fun. You have to collect all of everything in several rooms in a house while platforming, going on mini-quests, meeting eccentric characters, and simply having a great time. The graphics are cute, the music is catchy, the level design is ingenious, the gameplay is always entertaining, and the whole game sings. I can’t emphasize enough how much fun this game is.

2. Lost in Random
A girl named Even is looking for her sister Odd, who was taken by the evil queen of Random, a fairy-tale land where dice reign supreme (hence the subtle name). On her quest to save her, Even encounters waaaaaay-too-chatty characters she can choose to help, and she collects cards with different powers she will be able to use in battle against the queen’s minions. She can collect up to 34 different cards, but she can only have 15 in her deck at any given time, and those 15 are drawn randomly on each round of each encounter, making each battle quite unpredictable and… yes, random. Also, they make each fight super fun, because in order for Even to use her cards on any given round, she has to cast a die, and that number (1-6) determines the number of points she has at her disposal, and of course each card costs a specific number of points to use (1-3), which forces the player to make constant decisions every few seconds. Add to that an undeniably Tim-Burton-esque look to the world and characters, and a Danny-Elfman-esque (or Chris Vrenna’s work in American McGee’s Alice) flavor to the soundtrack, and you have a winning combination. I wouldn’t say the game is great, because the inane chatter is as overwhelming as it is disposable, and all the textures in the game seem “hard,” whether you are looking at hair, stones, or flesh (I don’t know how to explain it, but maybe you know what I mean), but I had a wonderful time with it. And for the $2.99 it cost me on the Halloween sale, I definitely got my money’s worth!

3. Little Nightmares II
I loved the first Little Nightmares when I played it a few years ago, and I might have liked this sequel even more. This is the kind of horror I like: very creepy, very atmospheric, with a pervasive sense of dread that comes from the music, the lightning, and your inability to do anything else other than run and hide. Throw in some twisted creature design, some light platforming and puzzle-solving, and some horrifying themes, and you have a game I am bound to love.

4. A Monster’s Expedition (Through Puzzling Exhibitions)
A very simple yet very engaging puzzle game. You control a monster hopping from island to island to visit different exhibits that shed a light on the way humans used to live back before they went extinct. Needless to say, the plaques on the exhibits hilariously misrepresent what human daily-life objects were and what they were used for, so the player is frequently chuckling throughout the entire game. And where are the puzzles, you might ask? Well, it’s all in the way you move from island to island. You have to knock down trees and push them around to use as bridges. Simple, right? Yes. Easy, right? Yes… until it’s not. I spent hours upon hours playing this game, which proves that a simple concept, if well executed, can provide fantastic entertainment. If you like puzzle games, check this one out.

5. Dreamfall: Chapters
A point-and-click adventure game that is split between a sci-fi world and a fantasy world. Crazy, right? Even crazier is the fact that there are a couple of games in the series that precede Dreamfall: Chapters, but I have never played them, cause why would I start a series with the first entry? Dummy that I am, I was clearly missing lots of background, context, and histories of many characters, but the game did a good job of recapping and giving me the necessary information when I needed it, so I did not feel lost at any time. The story itself is interesting, especially due to the constant hopping between the sci-fi world (which was my favorite) and the fantasy setting. I don’t want to spoil anything about the story, so I’ll just recommend the game regardless of whether or not you have played previous entries.

6. Yesterday: Origins
Here’s another point-and-click adventure split between settings, but this time the player spends time in the modern world and the Middle Ages. And just like Dreamfall: Chapters, this is not the first game in the series… but it is the first one I’ve played. I was also missing a shared past between the main characters, but the game helped me out when I needed it, so I could enjoy this adventure mixing the Inquisition with old relics and a supernatural mystery. And just like Dreamfall: Chapters, it cost me under two bucks, so I could deal with some missing information without complaining too much. It was an enjoyable adventure that kept me entertained for several hours. Who could ask for more?

7. Ghost of Tsushima
Ghost of Tsushima is the kind of game I love, and the kind of game I don’t have time for anymore. The story was interesting, the characters were fun to hang out with, the setting was beautifully rendered and realized, the combat was fun, and the map was sprawling and full of quests, subquests, miniquests, requests, and… you get the idea. I had been wanting to play it since it was announced many years ago, and by the time I finally got to it, I sadly did not have a ton of time to devote to it. I played it exclusively for two months and only got about halfway through the game… and then I lost my save file. In an ideal world, I would go back to it and start all over because I liked the game and enjoyed the exploration and the moment to moment gameplay, but I doubt that will ever happen because there are just too many other games. But I loved the time I spent with it; so much so that I decided to break my rule of only including games I’ve finished on this list so that I could mention it. Ghost of Tsushima, you were great, and I wish I could give you the time you deserve!

8. Lake
Super chill game: drive the mail truck and deliver letters and packages in the morning, then hang out with people and try to romance some characters in the afternoon. Lake is a short game and there really isn’t a lot to it, but I thought it was pretty sweet and fun to play, so it gets to be on my list.

9. Papetura
Another puzzle game, but this one has a very cool look to it because everything was physically made out of paper, scanned, and put in the game. It isn’t even two hours long, but the aesthetics are unique enough that I confidently recommend it to any puzzle lovers.

10. House of Ashes
In my opinion, this is the weakest entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology (caveat: I still have not played Devil in Me), but I still found it enjoyable because I like horror, making decisions, and pretty much anything Supermassive Games does. The underground setting in Iraq was very atmospheric and oppressive, and I had a good time trying to get every character to survive Until Dawn… I mean, Until the End of the Adventure. I wish there had been more decisions to make, because I felt I was watching a movie for the most part (and yes, I know this is a Supermassive game, but still), but it was still fun.

Mario_Alba wrote:

5. Dreamfall: Chapters
A point-and-click adventure game that is split between a sci-fi world and a fantasy world. Crazy, right? Even crazier is the fact that there are a couple of games in the series that precede Dreamfall: Chapters, but I have never played them, cause why would I start a series with the first entry? Dummy that I am, I was clearly missing lots of background, context, and histories of many characters, but the game did a good job of recapping and giving me the necessary information when I needed it, so I did not feel lost at any time. The story itself is interesting, especially due to the constant hopping between the sci-fi world (which was my favorite) and the fantasy setting. I don’t want to spoil anything about the story, so I’ll just recommend the game regardless of whether or not you have played previous entries.

Definitely check out The Longest Journey and Dreamfall if you can get them working on modern machines and don't mind how they've aged. The whole saga is one of the best in gaming.

beanman101283 wrote:

Definitely check out The Longest Journey and Dreamfall if you can get them working on modern machines and don't mind how they've aged. The whole saga is one of the best in gaming.

Absolutely no lies detected.
Except for the rubber duck.

Farscry wrote:

However, I just can't quite put my finger on what it is that keeps me from being truly drawn in. I've actually been replaying Diablo 2 (again...) late this year to see if it's just nostalgia goggles, and I still can't figure it out. There's just something about the mechanics and design of Diablo 2 that is truly timeless in a way that I can't explain, to the point where it's just as compelling or more than Diablo 4 is, despite D4 on paper being a superior game to D2.

Agreed. D4 is a better designed game in most ways, yet for some reason it doesn't feel as the coherent bliss that Diablo 2 still feels like to this very day.

I'll keep that in mind! Thanks for the advice!

Yesterday is also good, although... you know some of the twists now. I'm a bit surprised you liked Origins and Dreamfall Chapters without the background. Although to be honest, I can barely remember anything of the plot of those games.

These lists have been fun to read! I'm moving some games up on my queue like Tinkykin, Lost in Random and Yakuza 3.

I am excited to try the new Zelda game, but I don't have a switch.

conejote,

Lies of P also looks good, but is very intimidating! There is a good YouTube video by Iron Pineapple and I'm just not sure if I can handle that after all the coop and AI buddies in Elden Ring.

And, I have that same reaction to horror. I'm just now going through Resident Evil Village since I can play in 3rd person and Alan Wake and Control are silly enough I can handle them. I can't imagine playing 7.

I'll tell you one thing about Diablo 4. In Diablo 1, 2, 2R and 3 you didn't need to level to ~45 to complete the campaign. And it doesn't take you nearly as long to get to level 45 let alone 50, 70 or 100 in the other games.

You can beat the original campaign in Diablo around level 25 which is about 10 hours or less.
You can beat the original Diablo 2 campaign at around level 23 in about 8 hours. The expansion campaign at about level 30.
You can beat Diablo 3's campaign by level 30. And I am guessing the expansion by level 35. In adventure mode you can hit level cap solo self found in less than 9 hours with any class.
In Diablo 2, you can beat the campaign on all difficulties by level 65. And in probably around 20-25 hours.

Diablo 4 only gets more plodding once you beat the campaign too.

PikaPomelo wrote:

Yesterday is also good, although... you know some of the twists now. I'm a bit surprised you liked Origins and Dreamfall Chapters without the background. Although to be honest, I can barely remember anything of the plot of those games.

I credit the developers with well-placed info-dumps, character bios, and other smart ways to deliver the information I needed to know to progress and enjoy the games. Also, as a long-time comic book reader, I don't mind getting to a story in media res and figuring things out as I go.

Natus wrote:

I'm sorry to say that I have yet to really grok and AoW game, despite buying them consistently. They get such good player reviews that I'm sure the fault is mine. I keep hoping AoW4 will be the one that does it.

Part of the reason I haven't posted my list yet is that I'm playing more AoW4 just so I can figure out where to put it. Like you, I loved the idea of Planetfall but I never stuck with it.

Agathos wrote:
Natus wrote:

I'm sorry to say that I have yet to really grok and AoW game, despite buying them consistently. They get such good player reviews that I'm sure the fault is mine. I keep hoping AoW4 will be the one that does it.

Part of the reason I haven't posted my list yet is that I'm playing more AoW4 just so I can figure out where to put it. Like you, I loved the idea of Planetfall but I never stuck with it.

What surprised me, given how much I loved the older fantasy AoW games (1, 2, Shadow Magic) but didn't quite gel with AoW3 for some reason, is that I wound up completely gaga over Planetfall despite the sci-fi trappings just not quite feeling right for the franchise. A lot of the elements that gave Planetfall so much replayability found their way to AoW4 in modified forms. Genuinely great game, but somehow the factions seem to lose a bit of their flavor with too much (?) riding on the mixture of tomes selected during gameplay, moreso than the factions in Planetfall did with the tech choices available.

PikaPomelo wrote:

Lies of P also looks good, but is very intimidating! There is a good YouTube video by Iron Pineapple and I'm just not sure if I can handle that after all the coop and AI buddies in Elden Ring.

And, I have that same reaction to horror. I'm just now going through Resident Evil Village since I can play in 3rd person and Alan Wake and Control are silly enough I can handle them. I can't imagine playing 7.

Right? And some people play RE7 in VR. I would literally die of a heart attack.

Short list:

Spoiler:

1. Baldur’s Gate 3 - PC
2. Returnal - PS5
3. Cocoon - PS5
4. 7th Guest VR - PS5
5. Moss - PS5
6. Armored Core 6 - PS5
7. Hardspace Shipbreaker - PC
8. Age of Wonders 4 - PC
9. Timberborn - PC
10. Diablo 4 - PS5

Baldur’s Gate 3 - I think everything that needs to be said has been said about this masterpiece. When I played the early access I knew this was going to be amazing. I hope we get more of this in the future.

Returnal - Though I was never able to beat it I really enjoyed the difficulty and mechanics. I still have no idea what’s going on in the story but the visuals are excellent. It takes a certain type of rogue-like to get me interested and this pushed all of those buttons.

Cocoon - I typically enjoy puzzle games up to a point and then get stuck or frustrated and give up on it. Cocoon does such a great job of visual cues and gradually introducing mechanics that I was able to enjoy it start to finish. The worlds within worlds was a really cool idea that worked mechanically throughout.

7th Guest VR - This is the VR game I wanted as a kid. The original 7th Guest was that game of my childhood I wanted to like but the puzzles were not intuitive and really just scattered around a FMV mansion. This new VR version kept only the good parts - spooky mansion, good bad guy and a murder mystery. Everything this game tries to do it does very well. The puzzles are intuitive and they fit the theme. The murder mystery comes together at the end with a good puzzle that ties all of the acting parts together. It manages to be both spooky and inviting. There’s never a time where it’s too scary to go investigate something.

Moss Book I and II - A little mouse in VR is the most adorable thing I’ve seen in a video game. I’m pretty new to VR and I figured most or all of the VR experiences had to be first person. It was really cool to play a Zelda-lite style game in a virtual space. I put both games together since they’re so short. I wish it was one long game so the complexity of the world traversal didn’t have to reset at the beginning of Book II.

Armored Core 6 - Not my typical kind of game I was talked into buying it and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I still haven’t finished it but I do plan on going back and trying out new builds.

Hardspace Shipbreaker - I ended up absolutely loving this game and playing it end to end without touching anything else. It’s a simple concept and execution that just goes so well together. I would put on some music and tear down ships all evening.

Age of Wonders 4 - There’s been a lot of games in this genre over the past 8 or so years I’ve wanted to like but felt lukewarm about them. AoW4 puts the formula together in a way that clicked with me right away. It’s a game that makes me wish I had days of no responsibilities as I could just play it from the moment I woke up until late at night.

Timberborn - Another game in a genre I’ve been lukewarm on that clicked with me. The game definitely needs more content and it’s getting it. I like the vertical building and spatial decision making.

Diablo 4 - I didn’t expect to buy this right away but the beta was really fun. I played through until the end of the story which was a decent length but shortly after that my interest quickly dropped off. It’s a very high production game that burned hot but not long for me.

Honorable Mentions: Aliens: Dark Descent - PS5, Dave the Diver - PC, ENDLESS Dungeon - PC, Tactics Ogre: Reborn - PC, Horizon VR COTM - PS5

Mrwynd, how long did your play through of D4’s story take? I think that’s all I will play of the game.

chooka1 wrote:

Mrwynd, how long did your play through of D4’s story take? I think that’s all I will play of the game.

I don't remember exactly, I played it back at release but I'd say 50+ hours. You could power through it in less or go with more side quests and double that length. I started doing a lot of side quests but after about halfway I focused on the story.

Thank you!

Hard agree with others’ sentiments that 2023 was a very strong year for gaming! The games in the 6-10 slots of my list this year aren’t there because they were middling; they’re all great!

Platforms listed for each game are the ones on which I primarily played the game. (Not necessarily the full list of platforms on which each game is available.)

1. Baldur’s Gate 3 (Windows / Mac)

There are so many facets to this game that, on their own, are exceedingly well done, and joined together, make for an incredible game. The adaptation of D&D 5E combat and mechanics. The overall story. The individual party members, and their stories. The smart way in which the game’s world and characters realistically respond to your actions. It speaks to BG3’s quality that it is the first long-form game in a very long time that I played through from start to finish -- and then immediately made a new character and started a second play-through.

2. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

It ALSO speaks to Baldur’s Gate 3's quality that when I played Tears of the Kingdom, I felt that TOTK was the best game I’d played in several years, and a lock for game of the year! A more-than-worthy sequel to Breath of the Wild (my 2017 GWJ GOTY). Hyrule is once again super fun to explore -- this time with the additions of caves, the sky, the underground, and more things to do. The construction system managed to successfully achieve making me feel like “I’m not just a fantasy warrior, I'm a fantasy warrior engineer!”

3. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)

The best new 2D Mario game in 32 years(!!) (Super Mario World, SNES, 1991). The combination of more traditional-style Mario 2D gameplay with the “wonder” sequences in the various levels made for a great combined experience. The pseudo-multiplayer real-time “ghosts” of other players that you can see -- and to a limited extent, interact with, but very importantly, not in any toxic way -- was also a neat (optional) addition which I ended up being quite glad that I decided to leave enabled.

4. Cobalt Core (Steam Deck / Windows)

This recently-released, spaceship-battle-themed roguelike deckbuilder came out of nowhere for me to claim this high spot on my crowded list this year. It adds to the traditional Slay-the-Spire-like ability to block incoming damage an ability to move laterally to dodge incoming fire (or to take it on more-armored parts of your ship). Battles are quick and punchy. Even though Cobalt Core is mostly not mechanically similar to FTL, it did give me some of the smartly-designed vibes of that game.

5. Infernax (Steam Deck)

A solid, 8-bit-style platforming action game in the tradition of Castlevania 2 (NES). The tight gameplay and fun progression were enough to keep me engaged straight through from start to credits.

6. Dave the Diver (Steam Deck)

A scuba-speargun-fishing main game mashed together with restaurant management sections, complete with a perfect-beer-pouring minigame? Why does this work so well? Once again, it's because all of the individual pieces are so solid! The charming character design and pixel art certainly don’t hurt, either. The first game in this year’s list that I haven’t actually finished yet: I played mostly in Early Access, decided to set it aside until the 1.0 release -- and haven’t picked it back up quite yet due to the strength of all of the other new games on offer this year.

7. Octopath Traveler 2 (Switch)

This year’s turn-based JRPG comfort food. An interesting battle system, combined with a story that was decent enough to keep me playing straight through to the end -- albeit for only some of the characters, not all 8. As with the first series entry, my wish would be for better interaction between the 8 protagonist characters.

8. Outer Wilds (Steam Deck)

After having this game on my wish list for years, I finally had a good way to play with my acquisition of a Steam Deck in the early part of this year. As others have said in previous years, worth playing without being spoiled on it! I will say to give it a try if a first-person, solo exploration game where you board and fly your own spaceship (while still in the first-person perspective) and explore a small solar system sounds appealing. I did admittedly eventually get stuck on how to progress further (and didn’t want to consult a guide) -- but not until after quite a few hours of really interesting exploration and discovery.

9. Tunic (Steam Deck)

I’m not sure whether this game has already been described this way elsewhere, but for me, Tunic created a vibe of being a kid back in the pre-Internet days, and having a new Nintendo cartridge to play -- but there's no real in-game help, and the instruction booklet that came with the cartridge (which in Tunic's case is discoverable in pieces within the game itself) is mostly in Japanese (a language I can't read) -- but the booklet's bits of English text, plus illustrations, allow for puzzling out the less obvious parts of game's mechanics and objectives. Add that to some overhead-view Zelda-like combat -- except tricky, with some Souls-like aspects -- and Tunic ends up being pretty cool and unique experience.

10. Alina of the Arena (Mac / Windows)

A last-minute list addition! Another roguelike deckbuilder hybrid -- this time with Into-The-Breach-like tactical positioning, with a solo character you control facing off with one or more enemies on a small hex grid.

Honorable Mentions: A few of the other games I played which were good, but didn’t make this year’s Top 10, in approximate descending order of where they would have appeared on the list, had there been room: Retro Bowl College (iPhone), Diablo 4 (Windows), Pinball FX (Windows), 30XX (Steam Deck), Tinykin (Steam Deck).

Previously: 2022 (GOTY: Persona 5 Royal). 2021 (Metroid Dread). 2020 (Hades). 2019 (Super Smash Bros Ultimate). 2018 (Slay the Spire). 2017 (Zelda: Breath of the Wild). 2016 (Stardew Valley). 2015 (Super Mario Maker).

WolverineJon wrote:

3. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)

The best new 2D Mario game in 32 years(!!) (Super Mario World, SNES, 1991). The combination of more traditional-style Mario 2D gameplay with the “wonder” sequences in the various levels made for a great combined experience. The pseudo-multiplayer real-time “ghosts” of other players that you can see -- and to a limited extent, interact with, but very importantly, not in any toxic way -- was also a neat (optional) addition which I ended up being quite glad that I decided to leave enabled.

Yeah it's what the NSMB on Wii tried and failed to do years ago, because you could run into each other and it made the game harder. This ghosting way and reviving each other when you die, it's only helpful, never getting in the way. So much better.

WolverineJon wrote:

Honorable Mentions: A few of the other games I played which were good, but didn’t make this year’s Top 10, in approximate descending order of where they would have appeared on the list, had there been room: Retro Bowl College

I had a great time with Retro Bowl for a few months in '22.

Stele wrote:

I had a great time with Retro Bowl for a few months in '22.

If you're a fan of Retro Bowl and of college football, it's worth checking out Retro Bowl College just for the hilarity of how conferences, bowl games, and certain teams are renamed in order to avoid stepping on any copyrights.

In Retro Bowl College, my own team, Michigan, for example, competes in the "Large X Conference".

Ah it's a sequel... interesting, I'll check it out probably. Got some Play store credit I think.