Greetings, one and all! Salutations from yours truly! And furthermore, welcome to the Right Trigger GOTY Lists for 2023! As always, this is my favorite time of year simply because I love reading lists, listening to lists, and putting my own lists together. And also as always, I’m so glad to be able to share my thoughts with you about this past year in gaming. This year has been kind of a monumental one. For starters, it’s been a year in which my job has taken up most of my life from both the workload from being understaffed and the toxicity of the overall corporate structure. As such, I simply haven’t had as much time as I typically do to indulge in either this hobby or the writing I like to do about it. I started writing this article early on in December, and in the time between then and now, in the editing phase, I’ve been able to escape that job…so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do much more in 2024! But in addition to the lack of time I’ve had, whether because I passed the big 3-0 this year and I’m old now or because of how exhausted I’ve been from the daily grind, I’ve grown weary of nearly all AAA games. For instance, I enjoyed Jedi: Fallen Order in its day, but for the life of me I couldn’t get through longer than an hour or two of this year’s sequel, Jedi: Survivor. As far as I was concerned, it was just another AAA money sink with big expensive cutscenes, derivative gameplay, and absolutely zero soul. That’s just one example, and that weariness doesn’t apply to all AAA titles that came out this year, but it’s pretty indicative of my attitude in 2023. Furthermore, I’ve grown weary of sequels and spiritual successors. It isn’t that I won’t play them or I’ll exclude them from my lists by default. It’s just that these days I’d prefer to go for IPs that are either entirely new or just new to me. So, that’s kind of an overview about where my head is at this year to set expectations as we go into these lists. As always, there are a couple of ground rules we need to get through before we get started.
1): This is the golden rule for these lists: Only games I both played and reviewed will make any of these lists. If you’re reading this close to the publication date, the rule of thumb will be to look at the navbar and look at the 2023 reviews to determine what all is eligible. As I already mentioned, I put down Jedi: Survivor long before I had any thoughts worth putting in a review. So, no points for it! Furthermore, you’re not going to Starfield anywhere in here. Perhaps it might’ve been more impressive than it seemed, but it has literally never….literally never looked even passable for even a single second of a single bit of preview footage and gameplay deep dives. I was never interested in it, and though I intended to try it out, it was such a forgettable item on my radar that I never did…and as reviews came out it just kept looking worse and worse, so I haven’t even given it a chance. Beyond that, it’s possibly true that this year’s Call of Duty is the worst one ever made (and I’d be inclined to believe it, because evidently an ex-coworker who was a terrible programmer with more pride than skill got a job at Activision working on it), but I won’t ever buy a Call of Duty game, so that’s that. I also played a little bit of Bluey: The Videogame because Bluey is one of the greatest shows of all time and it would let me get to play as Bandit, the greatest of all TV dads, alongside some of my other favorite characters, such as Diddums, Telemachus, Bert Handsome, Romeo McFlourish, Ooh-ooh, etc….but it was so god-awful that I never felt compelled to put words to paper. TLDR: look at the navbar if you want to know what is eligible for these lists.
2): You’re an adult, and if you still follow me, you’re likely not a crybaby kind of adult. So, I refuse to coddle you with the usual desperate youtuber line of “this is my list, and if you disagree, that’s ok!” OBVIOUSLY it’s ok for you to have your own opinion, and OBVIOUSLY this is my take. You wouldn’t be here if not to see my take, and if you’re somehow an exception, I’d hope you’re mature enough to realize the truths I’ve already lined out. But I’m not going to pander about it like the charity money-hogging Completionist or the like.
3): You should, as always, go into these lists expecting spoilers for everything. I’ll be keeping the headlines as spoiler-free as I can, but the content of the blurbs will hold nothing back. So, if you want to avoid spoilers for a certain game, look for the title in a given list and move on to the next entry. You’ve been warned, and I’ll accept no complaints. Though I will say that with a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 coming out this year, you may want to be a bit more careful than usual, yes? It would be folly to assume you’ll avoid spoilers in that game just because you’ve completed it once or twice.
4): At the time of writing the introduction, I’m on the fence about the picture ratio. In previous years I’ve only included pictures where absolutely necessary in the interest of time, but this year I’ve started before the start of December, so there may well be time. We’ll just have to see, and no matter the case, I won’t be taking the time to edit this rule! {Editing portion note from the end of January: “HAHAHAHAHAHA, yeah, no, I’ll probably be going light on the pictures”}
5): Say what you want about Ted Cruz (I know *I* have), but he didn't chicken out and back away from a battle against Trump at the first sign of trouble like DeSanctimonious did!
Without further ado…
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The Technical Awards
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Best Realistic Graphics:
As always, I like to start this shindig off with a discussion of graphics, and for the past couple years I’ve split the graphics categories into “Realistic” and “Artistic”. This category is the more straightforward of the two. The 5 games that fall into these lists are the games that aimed for an at least somewhat realistic visual style. So, while art direction does play into my decisions somewhat, fidelity is the big thing. The 5 winning games are…
#5): Lies of P
One could argue that Lies of P could go into either graphical category. After all, to paraphrase the honest trailer for the game: “you can tell it was made by Koreans because everyone is just a little too beautiful.” But despite everyone looking like skincare in this plague-devastated world is second-to-none, the look is realistic enough to qualify. The graphics are good, but this is one example of art direction taking the list place and running with it. The city of Krat has such clear artistic vision behind it that I can’t help but include Lies of P in this category.
#4): Baldur’s Gate 3
If you read my review of Baldur’s Gate 3, you know that first impressions were absolutely terrible. Though my PC is pretty powerful and could run far more visually impressive games, I had to play Baldur’s Gate 3 at the lowest visual settings in the vain hopes of getting a somewhat stable framerate and avoiding the horrific texture pop-in. When I eventually picked up the game on the PS5, I was floored by the graphical fidelity. However, this fidelity comes at the cost of some framerate drops towards the end of the game. Not the most damning thing in the world, but that’s what keeps Baldur’s Gate 3 at spot #4.
#3): Fort Solis
Fort Solis has literally nothing going for it except for its graphics, as the game is just a walking simulator. So it damn well better look good! And it does! And that’s all there is to say about it. This one earns its spot on fidelity alone.
#2): Spider-Man 2
Of the games on this list, Spider-Man 2’s graphics are the crispest. But beyond that, the game looks exactly as good on the street level as it does above the buildings. Ray tracing is on (and cannot be turned off) for all of the buildings, and the ground-level details that you might never see are rendered with just as much care, all while maintaining a stable framerate. Really, the only thing holding the game back from the top spot is the fact that, despite aiming for realism, it does still have some cartoonish design.
Realistic Graphics of the Year: Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 is a perfect marriage of graphical quality and art direction with a capital-V Vision. Every area of the game is truly awe-inspiring to look at, and if it were just the parts that take place in the real world, that alone would be enough. However, there are also the parts that take place in “The Dark Place,” where Remedy brings the most inspired surrealist art direction I’ve ever seen to the table. In other words, when the game is rooted in the real world, it’s enough to take home the gold, and when the game takes place in a literal nightmare scenario not rooted in reality even in the slightest, it makes the package all the better. This is one of those categories where there was simply no contest and the only decisions that needed to be made were about spots 2-5. For 2023, Alan Wake 2 takes home the award for the best Realistic Graphics of the Year!
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Best Artistic Graphics:
In direct contrast with the realistic graphics category, this one is a little bit harder to pin down an explanation for. The baseline is that the games nominated in this category aren’t really going for realism, but the standard is a difficult thing to determine. So, I kinda just go with my gut on this one! However, this year I’ve decided that quality doesn’t matter nearly as much as art direction. So, it’s the exact opposite of the previous segment. The winners for the best artistic graphics for 2023 are…
#5): Final Fantasy XVI
Final Fantasy XVI is an example of undeniably top-tier graphics. Seriously. If this category were about fidelity alone, the game would take this category with no contest within Act 1 alone even though I hated it. That’s how fair I am. But unfortunately, the game has absolutely zero art direction whatsoever. Despite how impressive it looks, it’s an impressive generic fantasy world. So, it gets a spot and it earns that spot without a doubt, but just at the bottom!
#4): Killer Frequency
Some might argue that Killer Frequency falls more into the realm of the realistic, but I’d disagree. The reason is that the color palette and textures make the world look more like a nostalgic 3D animation about the 80’s. Perhaps some will disagree with me on that, but my list, my rules! As for why it only comes in just about Final Fantasy XVI, that’s simply the extent of the art direction. So while the style does pop, it doesn’t do quite as much heavy lifting as the rest of the winners from here on.
#3): Dredge
The reason Dredge comes in at #3 is so simple that this blurb is going to be minuscule. As you can tell just from looking, the game has a solid visual identity, but it’s definitely on the low texture side. That’s not the end of the world, obviously, and nobody should hold that against the game. However, it does keep Dredge from getting ahead of the next 2 games.
#2): Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
I mean, just look at it. This game is Art Direction with a capital A and capital D. Easily the most innovative art direction of the year if I had a category for that (food for thought for 2024, possibly?). Everything from the slight cell-shaded look to the character designs and the lighting choices, it all would make for an easy victory were it not for the fact that it comes at the cost of several technical issues. So, a good effort, and if this category were exclusively for the art direction, it would be an award-winning effort. But there’s one game that was more impressive in more overall ways.
Artistic Graphics of the Year: Hi-Fi Rush
While not nearly as unique as Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, Hi-Fi Rush does also have a solid visual identity. Furthermore, said visual identity is crisper than anything on this list other than Final Fantasy XVI. So, it’s a perfect balance of fidelity and vision, and the thing that puts Hi-Fi Rush over the edge to win this category is the fact that the game is, on the technical level, flawless. So, it manages to strike this balance at no cost to the experience. It was a close call this year that made me seriously think about all the nominees down to the fine details, but Hi-Fi Rush can hold its head up high as the winner of my award for the Best Artistic Graphics of the Year.
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Best Performing:
While high-quality and well-directed graphics can elevate a good game and make it great, they’re not necessary. The same cannot be said of solid, smooth framerates. A game can have the most profoundly excellent graphics ever created, but if that comes at the cost of a framerate that chuggs along, it defeats the entire purpose. The following 5 games were the ones that stood tall under whatever technical pressure they were under.
#5): Dredge
There were several small indie games that ran well, but of them, Dredge was the one with the most going on. The art style is more direction than quality and the gameplay is fairly simple, but if any of this year’s indie games would be held back on the performance department in the hands of a lesser developer, it would be Dredge.
#4): Spider-Man 2
It would be tempting to put Spider-Man 2 near the top of the list, maybe even at the winning spot. The framerate is solid throughout despite the overall graphical quality being, as I’ve said, the crispest, with ray tracing on by default with no ability to turn it off. However, the game has several technical flaws, many of which carried over from the original game. So, it’s objectively impressive, but it’s hard to forgive some of these issues given that they’ve put out a remaster of the original game and the Miles Morales DLC at the start of the PS5’s life cycle. That’s two installments between the original and Spider-Man 2 with improvements on the visuals but none on overall technical quality. It’s just not good enough to win.
#3): Lies of P
When the trailers for Lies of P first started coming out, literally everyone had the same thought about how the game would fare on the technical level. Everyone looked at it and thought it would have the phenomenon commonly called “Eurojank” (despite the game being made by Koreans). That term refers to middle-shelf games that tend to innovate in some meaningful way, but tend to do so at the cost of a laughable amount of jank (and they come from small, obscure European countries 99.99% of the time). To everyone’s surprise, not only did the game not have the Eurojank factor, it turned out to be a 100% solid technical package. That includes the framerate, which never falls below a beautiful 60 frames per second despite the developers’ modest catalog. So, part of the reason Lies of P gets this spot is from the shock of that fact, but a good framerate is also just a good framerate, so it earns this spot.
#2): Hi-Fi Rush
All games need to perform well, but Hi Fi Rush definitely needed it more than all the rest. Being not just a rhythm game, but an action rhythm game, if there were any framerate dips, it would all but ensure that the player would screw up whatever streak they had going. Needless to say, Hi-Fi Rush rises to the occasion, but that’s not the only reason it earns a spot this high up. It’s the fact that the performance holds up despite the level of detail. By that, I don’t just mean there’s a lot of stuff in the levels. I mean that nearly everything in the levels bump and shake to the beat of the level’s song. Furthermore, it seems that they do that for the entire time you spend in the level. So, it’s actually beyond impressive. But there was one game that had just the slightest edge over this one.
Most Stable Product of the Year: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
There is a lot going on at any given combat moment in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. As I said in my review, the only way to describe a gameplay moment to another person is the same way a child might describe an action scene in their saturday morning cartoon. More on that later on. But take whatever mental image you get from that and imagine how many moving parts there would be on the technical side. Now, imagine those moving parts moving two or three times as fast as you’d expect, and you have Armored Core VI. But it’s not just that in the gameplay there’s a lot going on and going on very very fast. See, if you didn’t already know, this is a mech game. You pilot a giant robot suit, so imagine the kind of engine output it would take to make something like that move as fast as I’ve implied. Every single movement you make results in multiple engines firing on multiple joints all over your mech’s body, with there being different amounts of engines depending on the individual parts you equip on your mech. And you know what? The same is true of every enemy or ally mech. In games like this where there’s a ridiculous amount of animation, it’s easy to sacrifice performance or handleability in favor of that. But Armored Core VI does what other games can’t and steps up to the plate.
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Best Controlling:
As always, I’d like to start this section off by clarifying that this award is not centered around control schemes. That aspect is recognized in the Honorable Mentions. Rather, this category is actually about a game’s sense of control. How responsive is it? Does the on-screen action happen right when you press the button? Does the character move and turn satisfyingly enough that the player feels like they’re in total control? These questions and more are what determines a game’s placement on this list.
#5): Dredge
Dredge is kind of an edge case given what I said in the intro blurb. It could be easy to think that it isn’t eligible because of the fact that the boat you pilot tends to be a little floaty (no pun intended). But that’s an illusion brought on by the water physics. In reality, the boat does exactly what you tell it to do, and the moment-to-moment movement is about making the necessary calculations to fight the sea.
#4): Like a Dragon: Ishin
The gameplay in Yakuza games (for those who don’t know, starting with this game, the saga turned from Yakuza to its Japanese name, “Like a Dragon”) is always among the most responsive examples in all of gaming. So, the same is true of Like a Dragon: Ishin! And that and that alone is why it only comes in 4th place. Impressive control is impressive control, but if it's a staple of the series, it’s a little less impressive.
#3): The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo is known for the tightness of their character movements, meaning that I should hold this game back just like I did with Like a Dragon: Ishin…but it gains the edge because of how much is going on in this game compared to its 2017 predecessor, Breath of the Wild. If I were to go into too much detail, we’d be here forever, but for now I’ll say this: you can build just about anything you want in this game. A plane? Easy. A monster truck? Doable. A giant mech? *Yawn*...Come on, give me a challenge! No matter what you choose to build, you can make it maneuver how you want. So…that’s beyond impressive…but it’s also held back precisely by how precise the physics are. Put a wheel a little too far to the left on a car, and that control is suddenly a bit harder. The game does as much as possible to mitigate this, but it’s just one of the things that comes with the level of freedom on display here.
#2): Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Take everything that I said in the performance segment, and you’ll have a good idea why Armore Core VI takes home the silver. As for why it’s only the runner-up, it’s because certain leg choices you can include in your build control a bit confusingly. Not exactly damning, but there was one game that left it in the dust.
Best Controlling Game of the Year: Spider-Man 2
For as much as I’ve held other games in this category back for taking an existing technical package and simply building on that, I must come off like a hypocrite to put Spider-Man 2 in the top slot for this list. But here’s the thing. Unlike Yakuza or Nintendo titles, the sense of control in the original 2018 Spider-Man was a brand new thing. In addition, there has been a lot added to the gameplay formula in this sequel that makes it stand out just enough to take home the gold for the fact that it all still controls as well as it did back in 2018.
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Best Sound Design:
Sound design is one of those technical aspects that doesn’t get enough attention, but it’s more important than you might imagine. If you’re a metalhead like me, compare Black Metal with any other metal subgenre for an example. Black Metal’s identity rests pretty heavily on intentionally sounding as bad as possible. Drums that sound like paper, growls that are so flooded with reverb that you can’t make out any words, you name it. Every other type of metal, though, tries to make the songs sound good in a technical sense. That’s roughly how important sound design is in games as well.
#5): Killer Frequency
Basically 90% of the game experience in Killer Frequency is based on sound. You play as a radio station host in the 80’s, so the audio had to be perfect for that context. But by that same token, that’s not a huge ask. But again, as I tend to say with disclaimers the likes of which you read in the last sentence, good sound design is good sound design, and Killer Frequency 100% meets the criteria necessary to make the list.
#4): Under the Waves
I’m not the kind of person who suffers from Thalassophobia, but the sound design in Under the Waves has the power to make someone feel what someone with that phobia might feel in the open ocean. The slightly muted tones paired with high-quality whale calls in the distance regularly had the power to make me feel incredibly small as I moved through the world in my little submarine. Again, not the biggest ask in the world, but it’s legitimately impressive that the sound design was as effective as it was.
#3): Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
While Armored Core VI doesn’t necessarily innovate that much in the sound design department, it earns its spot based on quality alone. With as much gunfire, explosions, thruster fires, and physical collisions between giant mechs as there are, the sound quality goes a long way for making a game like this feel as epic as it should. And while it’s possible that my headphones are just of exceptional quality, every bullet feels powerful based on the sound.
#2): Alan Wake 2
It’s kind of a prerequisite for a horror game to have excellent sound design, but Alan Wake 2 sets a new standard for how audio should be done in this genre. The guns are sometimes startlingly loud in the real-world segments, while every sound effect that happens in the surreal segments is timed and delivered perfectly. It’s enough to make one question their sanity. Disembodied voices chime in from all possible auditory directions regardless of whether there are shadow enemies around. And when there are shadow enemies around, each one sounds exactly the same until (seemingly) the second you let your guard down by assuming that this batch are the kind that don’t attack. But as great as that all is, there was one game that had the edge needed to take home the gold.
Sound Design of the Year: Lies of P
What earns Lies of P a spot on this list is not just the overall sound quality, but the uniqueness on display. In terms of simple quality, you need look no further than the perfect parry sound. No parry effect in any game ever made has sounded more absolutely delicious than in Lies of P. The sharp, satisfying *clang* as you perfectly deflect an enemy attack, the same satisfying *clang* paired with added bass sound when said deflection breaks an enemy weapon, it’s all excellent stuff! But beyond that, the noises that the puppets, carcasses, AND humans make are all unique to this game. Simply put, nothing in this game sounds like anything from any other game (other than the occasional bear enemy, which I’m convinced comes from a sound library that developers are contractually obligated to use if they have bears in their game). The hit impact sounds, the sound each of the three overall enemy types make as they walk (and yes, it’s different for each), the robotic noises you make as you repair your weapon, open a door, or land a backstab/critical attack, there’s just nothing in the world like it. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. It’s not even close. Lies of P has the best sound design of the year.
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Best Soundtrack:
Of the categories I historically include in this end of year wrap-up, Best Soundtrack is the second most subjective one. There’s not really that much to my decisions other than my gut feeling, but I do try to take things like context into account. For example, perhaps one soundtrack sounds better but the other fits its story or gameplay context better. Those kinds of things. Anyway, these were the best soundtracks in 2023.
#5): Final Fantasy XVI (Masayoki Soken)
The fact that Final Fantasy XVI manages to do more than one thing well is a miracle in and of itself, but the soundtrack is legitimately great. Unfortunately, there are times where that aforementioned context feels a little off. So, credit where it’s due, but it’s Final Fantasy XVI so of course it couldn’t stick the landing.
#4): Hi-Fi Rush (Shuichi Kobori/Reo Uratani/Masatoshi Yanagi)
If you read my review of Hi-Fi Rush, you’ll know that I didn’t get star-struck by its reveal like a lot of people did. In fact, it looked like the cringiest thing I’d seen since the Scalebound trailers way back in the day. And among the negative preconceptions I had was the idea that the soundtrack would be the most generic possible rock and roll tracks imaginable. I was very clearly wrong about that, but by that same token, each track is made to be played on a loop, which is an automatic detriment to the overall quality of the soundtrack.
#3): Clash: Artifacts of Chaos (Patricio Meneses)
All you need to do to understand why Clash: Artifacts of Chaos is worthy of a spot on this list is listen to the main menu theme with the context that things get even more creative from there. In fact, the only reason this OST isn’t higher is the fact that some of the tracks can be a little overwhelming for the places they’re used…but it’s all still high-quality stuff.
#2): Baldur’s Gate 3 (Borislav Slavov)
Man oh man, what really needs to be said about the Baldur’s Gate 3 soundtrack? The main theme, “Down by the River” is one of this year’s greatest tracks both in its original laid-back version and its more epic instrumental version. It’s an almost nonstop series of musical wins with this game, which has led it to receive several earned Soundtrack of the Year nods. If your list has BG3 at the top for this category, then I can respect that choice, because lord knows that Slavov earns it! However, the key thing holding this OST back for me is the fact that the game does tend to rely on that aforementioned main theme a little too much. In a different year, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the best soundtrack for this year goes to a game that does a bit more with its music than BG3.
Soundtrack of the Year: Lies of P (Unconfirmed Artists)
I can’t seem to get a straight answer when I try to find out who composed the soundtrack for Lies of P, but if I find out before this article goes up, I’ll list the composer(s) and remove what’s been written in this blurb so far. Anyway! The Lies of P soundtrack is actually a tale of three parts. Firstly, you have the standard soulslike epic choral pieces that accompany boss fights. Those are all just as great as you’d expect. Secondly, there are the in-game records that you can collect and play (which does tie into what ending you get, potentially). Those were unexpected, and nearly all of them were worth avoiding the excellent gameplay for a while to listen to. And finally, there are the level-specific soundtrack pieces. Now, I know what you’re thinking: few soulslike game have soundtrack pieces for levels! And for 90% of Lies of P’s runtime, your argument would be correct! However, once the final push begins, there’s not one, but two pieces that play.
The first part is an unrelenting melting pot of epic choral high notes and every possible note that a violinist can play in a few seconds. The context is an uncharacteristically long climb to the halfway point of the abbey that makes up the final level, which begins with an epic odyssey across a beachside populated by some of the game’s strongest enemies.
Then, the second part is a heart-wrenching choral piece that plays for an equally long time as the first part. And as for the context, to avoid spoilers, the second half of the final push takes place after the game’s most tragic low point. And having gone back to play again since writing this article, it turns out that I was wrong when I said "90% of Lies of P", in fact, most levels have some kind of soundtrack piece to them, whether diegetic or non-diegetic. So, this game not only meets the soulslike standard, it surpasses it in not one, but two ways. It simply isn’t even close, Lies of P is hands down the winner for the best soundtrack of 2023!
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Best Soundtrack Piece:
Best Soundtrack is only the second most subjective category because Best Soundtrack Piece wins that accolade by a country mile. I simply liked these pieces the most this year, so let’s get into it!
#10): Balteus (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon)
You’re going to die to Balteus a lot (or at least you might have before the patch, which is when I went up against him), but for me, the track playing in the background made the whole thing epic enough to keep me coming back even through frustration.
#9): Main Menu (Like a Dragon: Ishin)
It’s just really good, ok?
#8): Selfishness (A Space for the Unbound)
Every track from A Space for the Unbound becomes even more beautiful than it already was once you know the full story, so this one, as beautiful as it already is, more than earns a spot.
#7): Raphael’s Final Act (Baldur’s Gate 3)
In addition to being an absolute banger, this song has the added benefit of its context. Keep this one in your back pocket, we’re going to return to it later.
#6): Herald of Darkness (Alan Wake 2)
The greatest part of the original Alan Wake back in 2010 was the sequence where Alan had to fight off a horde of enemies as a rock song from the in-game band “Old Gods of Asgard” played in the background. So, this wouldn’t be a proper sequel if it didn’t try to outdo the previous game. While the song isn’t quite as good as in the original game, it happens in the midst of this game’s capital-V Vision, so it’s just a bit more effective.
#5): Within the Dream (A Space for the Unbound)
Everything I said in the previous blurb about A Space for the Unbound still applies, but this track happens as you learn the truth about the story. We’ll touch on this later on, but for now, I want you to keep these lyrics in mind:
“For a moment, my mind rose from reality/Was it heaven I touched?/As I’d half-forgotten, the truth collapsed into thin-air/And I was lost in my dreams again.
Half-awake, I see your face in reality/Was it even real?/Glowing light that fills the emptiness in me/Whispering ‘you will heal’”
And there I go, getting teared up again. So, we’ll come back to that.
#4): Main theme (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
Almost nobody played this game…but if they heard the theme song, they would! So, listen to it and maybe you’ll be inclined to give these developers the money they deserve for putting out a game this good.
#3): Down by the River (Baldur’s Gate 3)
The thing about “Down by the River” is that it comes in two forms: the ordinary version and the epic version. The ordinary version plays as you create your character, and it’s a calm, beautiful track. But in the story’s most epic moments, an epic instrumental version of the track plays, and somehow, it fits the situation just as well.
#2): Achre Abbey pt 2 (Lies of P)
Remember how I said that the second half of the final push had a soundtrack piece that fit the tragic atmosphere of its context? Well, this is the track. When was the last time you heard something like this in a soulslike?
Soundtrack Piece of the Year: Feel (Lies of P)
Unless you’ve never heard of Lies of P, you’ve already heard at least snippets of “Feel”. It brings the kind of noir jazz beauty that makes one suddenly start to take this grimdark Pinocchio adaptation seriously.
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Best Level Design:
In a world where hundreds of bland, empty, pointless open world games exist, it’s more important than ever that we call out excellent level design when we see it. Level design is made up of a couple aspects: look, variety, signposting, suitability for gameplay contexts, etc. And for these 5 games, the challenge for all or most of these aspects was met with flying colors.
#5): Dredge
The open ocean is no joke. It’s expansive, dangerous, and time-intensive to traverse. So, Dredge, being set on an archipelago, could easily have succumbed to the natural drawbacks that the ocean could have on its setting from a gameplay perspective, especially when you take into account that sailing at night isn’t a viable option at the start of the game. The ports of call are spaced out well enough that traveling between them is a full-day affair at first. But within their existing ecosystems, you can easily do what you need to do in a day and be back at the port by sunset. I could go on, but suffice it to say that the level design just gets better the longer you think about it.
#4): The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
If Tears of the Kingdom had been the first of the new Legend of Zelda games, it would earn the top spot in this category by a country mile. However, because it shares the same map as Breath of the Wild, it can’t earn any higher than this spot. But that doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom! Despite this little holdup, TotK adds two separate new areas: the sky islands and the depths below Hyrule. The sky islands largely depend on you being able to use the game's building systems to travel between floating islands, while the depths are far more challenging than either of the other two areas. So, TotK is worth celebrating because of what it adds.
#3): Hi-Fi Rush
When it comes time for me to decide on this category, I often find myself facing a question. What takes priority? Open worlds that are well designed on an overall cohesive level? Or level-based games with exceptionally strong showings in the details from beginning to end? In the end, my decision is usually the latter, as is the case with Hi-fi Rush. Every level is complex from a design perspective, yet also deceptively simple. See, each level begins with one thing: the track that accompanies it. Everything else is based around that. Everything from enemy placement to what exact moment you’ll arrive at an interactable part of the level is driven by the beat of the music.
#2): Lies of P
Lies of P is another example of a more level-based game, but it actually does overlap with the open world category in the same way that any soulslike worth its salt does. The most immediately recognizable aspect of the level design is the natural signposting. It’s easier to find your objective than it is to go exploring off the beaten path, in other words. This isn’t a massive game, so it’s not like you were ever going to be lost for hours, but given how labyrinthian some areas can feel, that feeling of naturally finding your way is important. And like any soulslike that understands its inspiration, this is a game where you can emerge from a particularly labyrinthian area, look down on your surroundings, and immediately piece together how everything fits together. Add some excellent visual cohesion between areas alongside strong visual identity for each, and you’ve got an absolute masterclass in level design. But there was one game that did more.
Level Design of the Year: Baldur’s Gate 3
For as much as I railed on open world games in the introductory blurb, it’s worth noting that open world games can have excellent level design, such as in the case of Baldur’s Gate 3. While your usual Ubisoft-style open world game is made up of vast chunks of mostly empty space scattered with countless collectibles and bland side-quests that could easily be missed, Baldur’s Gate 3 is made up of decently-sized chunks of world with exactly 0 empty space scattered with all kinds of loot (some of it fairly significant to the story depending on the context) and compelling side quests that sometimes result in getting otherwise missable party members, and just like with the Ubisoft style, all of that is easily missable. You have not one, not two, not three, not four, but five main areas, at least one of which you will miss in an initial playthrough. Adding onto this, you have the little sub-areas within each area for which every positive thing I’ve said applies equally. And in all of these places, you can miss out on even more stuff depending on the skills your party has. All of this alone would’ve been enough to help Baldur’s Gate 3 win this category, but the fact that any and all world states are saved in each region just adds to that sense that this world was literally designed with every possible player choice in mind. It just isn’t close, dear readers!
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Best Atmosphere:
In a way, atmosphere is the ultimate determination of a game’s technical quality. It relies on literally every aspect we’ve touched upon in this section of the article in order to succeed. But at the same time, effective atmosphere is more than the sum of its parts. Some games can achieve what no others can despite not being particularly notable in any one aspect. One way or the other, this is the final technical award. These are the games that had the best atmosphere in 2023.
#10): Dead Space (2023)
Yeah, I know. The remake of a game that set a new standard for horror back in its day has good atmosphere? It’s not exactly surprising, but I always give credit where it’s due. Dead Space (2023) has some of the greatest atmosphere of this year, but at the end of the day, it’s a remake. Had this been a new project, it would be a different story, but because it’s a remake, it can really only come in at this spot.
#9): Under the Waves
I may or may not have already mentioned it, but I don’t have Thalassophobia. And to potentially repeat myself again,, Under the Waves made me feel like I have Thalassophobia. The somewhat-muted and larger than life sense of place set up by the sound design paired with the visual ambiguity of a giant whale in the distance conspire together to create as accurate a depiction of the deep blue as possible. And were it not for some late-game horrific level design getting in the way, I would’ve been drawn in 100% of the time.
#8): Fort Solis
I’m feeling some deja-vu here, because just like in the last blurb, I believe I might have already said this about Fort Solis. But the show must go on. If your game has literally nothing else going for it except for its atmosphere, it damn well better excel at that. And Fort Solis does! But you can only get so many cookies and/or small parades for doing what you’re supposed to, especially if you do only what you’re supposed to.
#7): The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Breath of the Wild was known for its excellent sense of place, thanks to a cohesive visual style and standout sound design. Tears of the Kingdom continues that tradition with the addition of two new maps above and below the base map. So, it’s more of what made Breath of the Wild the game it was, but that fact holds it back from getting a spot any higher on this list.
#6): Dredge
In Dredge, there are two major components that contribute to the atmosphere. There isn’t any dialogue, so the sounds of the moment-to-moment gameplay and the visuals have to do all the heavy lifting. If you’re like me and you’ve put on ocean sounds to fall asleep from time-to-time, you’ll feel right at home in Dredge from how the sound establishes its sense of place. Furthermore, the repetitiveness of the gameplay loop makes it so that you’ll eventually not need the map to know exactly where to sail for any purpose, which further grounds the player in the world.
#5): Baldur’s Gate 3
The atmosphere in Baldur’s Gate 3 is driven by one thing: detail. Whether in a building or out in the middle of nowhere, Larian spared no expense to make the land of Faerun feel as real as possible. Indoors, you might see individual bowls, forks, candles, spoons, little pieces of food, or the odd document or two sprawled across a table (with each item being interactable). Out in the open, it’s much the same story. It’s borderline impossible to not feel drawn into the world of Baldur’s Gate 3…but I didn’t say “entirely” impossible. Unfortunately, the many technical challenges BG3 faces had a tendency to pull me out.
#4): Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
An often overlooked path to great atmosphere is uniqueness. If something can pique your interest with enough ferocity, it becomes almost impossible to look away. Such was the case with me when I picked up Clash: Artifacts of Chaos earlier in 2023. The world is so well-designed from a visual and auditory perspective that like with Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s nearly impossible to not feel drawn into the world…unfortunately, this game also suffers from some technical problems that had a tendency to take me out of the experience. However, that uniqueness I mentioned does give it the edge over BG3.
#3): Lies of P
If you’re going to try to be Bloodborne, then you had better nail it in the atmosphere department! And by virtue of the fact that Lies of P lands so high up on this list, it should be obvious that it rises to the occasion! The game seemingly takes place over the course of a day or two, so as you transition between the game’s major areas, the time of day and weather status tends to change. That means that certain segments take place in broad daylight, yet somehow, the atmosphere remains. The game’s distinctive visual identity, 100% original sound design, strong lore, and absolutely flawless technical package all make Lies of P worthy of the top spot on this list…and you know what, I’ll say it: the fact that this game runs at above 30fps gives it the edge over Bloodborne…but there happened to be two other games that were just slightly more deserving.
#2): Killer Frequency
You wouldn’t necessarily know it while playing Killer Frequency, but it isn’t a horror game. You definitely would know it even less if you played it the intended way, in VR. But that’s the game’s big trick. It desperately wants you to think it’s a horror game. It wants you to think that when you turn the corner, the serial killer you spend the game’s runtime helping people escape from is going to jump out at you. See, when you’re in the broadcasting part of the radio station, there’s a sense of security. However, the second you step out to go into a room down the hall, walk downstairs, go outside, or go down into the basement, there’s an immediate sense of danger. That’s just the inherent effect that the game has. But when you consider that there are incredibly rare, oddly loud *thump*s at certain points and an inability to determine if the walking sounds you hear are 100% yours, and you have an experience that had me holding my breath to brace for something that might make me scream every time I had to explore the radio station. I could go on, but that’s a decent high-level overview.
Atmosphere of the Year: Alan Wake 2
Unlike Killer Frequency, Alan Wake 2 actually is a horror game. So, you’d expect solid atmosphere, but as always, I don’t give out brownie points when a game does what it's supposed to. With that in mind, that should speak to how fervently Alan Wake 2 goes above and beyond what I would’ve expected in its atmosphere. To put it this way, this game has two halves shared between its two protagonists. If it had just been Saga Anderson’s story in the real world, Alan Wake 2 would’ve still taken this spot in this category. But as it stands, the game also includes the segments helmed by the titular tortured writer. These segments take place in a nightmarish purgatory-parallel called “The Dark Place.” And while I would love to go into further details about what makes these segments work from an atmospheric perspective, it’s the kind of thing that can only be experienced, not explained. So, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Alan Wake 2 had the best atmosphere of any game released in all of 2023!
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The Character Awards
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Best Character Development:
There are times when a game has excellent character development across the board, but might only have one or two characters overall, so it doesn’t get much representation on the following lists. So, I like to start off the character awards with something simple: a recognition of the games that did the most with the cast they had.
#5): Lies of P
Normally in a soulslike, character development is mostly in the background, hidden behind impossible to decipher quest parameters and menacing laughs. However, in Lies of P it’s all front and center if you care to ask for it, and I do suggest you ask for it. Your ragtag gang of humans and puppets alike are actually pretty compelling characters, which was more than I was expecting.
#4): Hi-Fi Rush
While the characters in Hi-Fi Rush aren’t the most profoundly deep characters in the world, they are this year’s most imminently lovable ones. What’s more, they manage to avoid falling into the tropes you would expect based on the art style. For instance, it would’ve been easy to have Peppermint be your standard tsundere crushing hard on Chai but being fervently and violently in denial. But instead, her initially demeaning attitude towards him transitions into a facade of a demeaning attitude based on a respect of his empathy and tenacity. That’s one example, but suffice it to say that Hi-Fi Rush is deceptively simple-looking from a character standpoint.
#3): Killer Frequency
Killer Frequency has two principal characters that are developed exceptionally across the full runtime through consistent dialogue between the two (kind of like a one-act play situation). But it also has a full suite of supporting characters that call into the radio station, and somehow, through brief bits of dialogue while speaking to any given character and from other characters who know them, the whole cast feels like a group of folks you’ve known your whole life.
#2): A Space for the Unbound
A Space for the Unbound is the one game on this list that doesn’t feature any voice acting. With that in mind, it came into the running for this list at somewhat of a disadvantage. So it should speak to the sheer strength of the writing that this game ends up in the runner-up spot in this category. And that’s where I’ll leave the discussion of A Space for the Unbound for now.
Character Development of the Year: Baldur’s Gate 3
I mean, what else could possibly take home the gold in the character development category this year? The main cast of characters is more fleshed out with far more interesting character arcs than any characters Bioware has had in their games for nearly a decade (which is saying something, truly). But that’s just the main cast of characters. There’s also a full suite of villains. And while some are better developed than others, they’re all fascinating. Then there’s the hundreds upon hundreds of other characters in each act that have varying amounts of screentime but exactly the same amount of love and care put into them. Oh yeah, and then there are the various animals and corpses that you can speak to depending on the spells or potions you have. There’s just an ungodly amount of characters in this game, and the ones that aren’t 100% fully fleshed out are at least memorable enough to be noteworthy. It’s not even close, folks, Baldur’s Gate 3 had the best character development out of any game in 2023.
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Best Voice Actress:
This year, I’ve decided to be a bit more economical with the voice acting categories. There are, after all, only so many ways to say “he or she does a good job.” So, instead, I’ll be including a link to some examples of these performers as their characters so you can hear for yourself. So, these were the best voice actresses and the characters they portrayed firsthand, click on the name of the actress to hear more.
#5): Melanie Liburd as Saga Anderson (Alan Wake 2)
#4): Barbara Scaff as Emma Moray (Under the Waves)
#3): Erica Lindbeck as Peppermint (Hi-Fi Rush)
#2): Naomi McDonald as Peggy Weaver (Killer Frequency)
Voice Actress of the Year: Samantha Beart as Karlach (Baldur’s Gate 3)
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Best Voice Actor:
Same thing goes for this year’s slew of voice actors. Here they are!
#5): Joseph Balderrama as Arlecchino, King of Riddles (Lies of P)
#4): Josh Crowdery as Forrest Nash (Killer Frequency)
#3): Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker (Spider-Man 2)
#2): Robbie Daymond as Chai (Hi-Fi Rush)
Voice Actor of the Year: Neil Newbon as Astarion (Baldur’s Gate 3)
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Best Animal Character:
Originally established to ensure that the Far Cry 6 wheelie dog, Chorizo, got a top spot somewhere (as a wheelie dog owner, I always applaud the representation), the category of Best Animal Character exists to celebrate the non-anthropomorphic animal characters who appeared in a year’s games. That means that characters in Redwall-style stories where every character is an animal in a humanistic society aren’t eligible. This award is just for animals that are animals…and this year, there could be some degree of debate on that…but my list, my rules.
#5): Jo (Under the Waves)
Seals are wonderful animals, and I love them dearly. Therefore, I love Jo dearly! A friendly seal who tends to hang out around the underwater space that Stan works in, Jo is a constant fixture of your playtime in Under the Waves. Unfortunately, she gets used as a manipulative tactic when she really, really, really tragically dies as a result of an oil spill. So, I give Jo credit for being her most wonderful self, but I can’t give the developers too much praise because of how they treated her. The only images I could find on google are from her death, so instead, enjoy this alive seal!
#4): Mayor Setter (Alan Wake 2)
If you go through Alan Wake 2 paying attention, you’ll regularly notice campaign signs and volunteers for the re-election of Mayor Setter. Each little stand calling for his re-election contains a slogan with buzz phrases like “he won't lie down” or “he’ll take a bite out of crime,” things I could easily see your average post-2020 elected Republican using to pretend they stand for something while they spend their whole time in office on their knees with their mouths open. So, I was naturally expecting that this mayoral candidate would be exactly that: some kind of political commentary. Instead, towards the end of the game it turns out he’s a dog and all of those slogans were dog-based puns. That’s the kind of plot twist I can appreciate!
#3): His Majesty (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Because you can use spells and potions to talk to animals, some might argue that any animal in Baldur’s Gate 3 is disqualified. However, I always interpreted those means of communication as a way of bridging the gap between human speech and animal speech, not making animals suddenly have human sensibilities. With that in mind, His Majesty, who you meet at the start of Act 2, is perhaps the best representation of a cat I’ve ever seen. He speaks in a posh british accent, demanding to know what your intentions are in daring to speak to him. And if you pick his brain, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s a lot smarter than he actually is. He’ll say things like “I’ve learned that the cleric…is a liar…..she offered me a bowl of milk, but do you see any milk anywhere?” It’s interactions like this that tend to drive curiosity in BG3 like nothing else.
#2): 808 (Hi-Fi Rush)
Another potential topic of debate for this list, 808 is a robot cat that people can channel their voices and personalities through. But she spends plenty of time being her own adorable self, during which time she’s such a pretty little kitty cat that I can’t help but give her a spot on this list! But beyond that, when characters are projecting through her, she adopts their mannerisms and facial expressions in adorable ways that perfectly convey what we’d be seeing if the speaker were on the screen. Plus, she spends every second of gameplay mapping out the beat for the player, so she’s useful too!
Animal Character of the Year: Max (Killer Frequency)
When it comes to the top spot on any given list, I always try to write more in those blurbs than in the previous blurbs. It just makes sense, a gold medal winner should have more to be said about it than a silver or bronze. But this category is a little different. Max is a good boy golden retriever who knows how to roller-skate and who helped his alcoholic owner break out of his addiction and find joy in his life again. Max is a good boy, and not only is he a good boy, he’s the best animal character of 2023!
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Best Love Interest:
Though I’ve never actually been accused of using this category as a “hottest girls” category, I do like to open up this section with the disclaimer that it’s not a “hottest girls” category for tradition, if nothing else. Rather, there are some characters that might not necessarily get time to shine on the other lists because they might not contribute too much to the plot besides their role as the love interest. Whether or not that’s true for a given spot winner is irrelevant. These were the strongest love interests in 2023.
#5): Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man 2)
If you’re the kind of man-baby who is still crying about how they re-designed MJ’s face from the first game, then you might take this as proof that I don’t use this as a “hottest girls” list. I, however, am not juvenile, and I’ve actually seen at least one woman in my life. Anyway. She naturally serves as a great romantic partner to Peter, but what really makes her stand out is her clear communication with regards to her needs and her ambitions. She’s supportive, but still expects to be supported as well, regardless of the fact that her boyfriend spends all his free time saving New York. Really the only thing holding her back from a higher spot is the fact that this is a sequel and she’s more-or-less rehashing her same role from the established source material.
#4): Karlach (Baldur’s Gate 3)
If you keep track of your average set of gamers in the same way that one keeps track of a nearby pack of gorillas because you find them fascinating, you’ll find that they constantly hold Japanese games up on a pedestal because they don’t shy away from nudity and the like the way the western world does…and that these gamers always have an excuse to be attracted to minors…but I digress. If there’s one thing that I’d argue such people are correct about, it’s that a lot of games these days tend to shy away from any kind of excitement when it comes to romance. It’s either exclusively titillation or it’s exclusively transactional. So, when a love interest like Karlach comes around, it’s a breath of fresh air. She suffers from an affliction that causes her to burn hot enough to kill another person when emotions run high, so she can’t so much as give someone a hug until she finds a cure. Needless to say, her questline revolves around finding a cure, and once it’s attained, she’s so excited to be rid of that affliction regardless of whether or not you choose her as your romance option. If you’re just friends, she’s beyond thrilled to be able to give a friend a hug. If you’re careful lovers, she’s even more excited for the hug and everything else on the spectrum. It’s just nice to see a romantic relationship in a game that isn’t just “give this person enough of the gift they like and they’ll say I love you” and that involves some legitimate joy. So…why just 4th place? Well…sadly, her character development ends with what I’ve said. It’s by far one of the most disappointing aspects of Baldur’s Gate 3. But still, I’ve got to give Larian credit for filling this niche.
#3): Emma Moray (Under the Waves)
We hear an awful lot about supportiveness when it comes to game relationships, which is a good thing, because that’s a necessary aspect of any relationship (not just the romantic kind). But there’s something else we don’t always hear about because it can be uncomfortable: accountability. If you know that your spouse is an alcoholic and you try to support that habit, you’re being supportive, but you’re actively contributing to their health issues and addiction. The conversations around that might be uncomfortable, but that’s the give and take of a relationship. Emma Moray, the protagonist’s wife in Under the Waves, is a solid example of a love interest that steps up to the plate in that regard. We’ll be coming back to this later, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
#2): Raya (A Space for the Unbound)
Raya earns the runner-up spot on this list for pretty much one reason (well…several reasons, but only one of which I’ll be talking about this early on in the article). She and protagonist Atma are just…really really really really cute together. See, one spoiler I won’t shy away from is the fact that Raya has godlike powers to manifest pretty much any reality she wants. But she doesn’t use that to make Atma fall in love with her. No, he’s already head over heels. What she uses her powers for is to give him little opportunities to be the hero. She might give him Bambi eyes and ask if he can buy some food for a stray cat because it would mean so much to her, and when he starts to talk about how he doesn’t have any money for it, somehow his pocket fills up with just enough extra money to be able to afford cat food. I mean, really. How cute could the situation possibly be? Your stereotypically aloof young man constantly lucking out in unexpected ways and being so excited to be able to treat his girlfriend to something she’ll really like, all while she, with her godlike powers, plays along? And if you’ll remember, I mentioned I’d only be covering one reason for Raya’s inclusion. Well, this was the end of that one reason. Stay tuned!
Love Interest of the Year: Lae’Zel (Baldur’s Gate 3)
If you were only to play Baldur’s Gate 3 for the first act, you’d likely view Lae’Zel as the exact kind of love interest I spent Karlach’s blurb ranting about. Of the love interests, she definitely seems like the easiest one to get with, after all. But that way of thinking just shows how you (and me) are used to the game industry’s less-than-stellar relationship with romance. You do indeed reach the typical final point of most game relationships within the first act, and quickly…but the difference between Baldur’s Gate 3 and other games is that finally getting with your love interest of choice actually isn’t the final point. It’s just a point in the ongoing story that is your relationship with your chosen character. Rather than a gradual build-up to sex as a logical conclusion, the logical conclusion is wherever you and the character are at the end of the story. But what about Lae’Zel specifically? Well, you may remember that I was disappointed by the fact that Karlach doesn’t develop much after her affliction is fixed. Lae’Zel is the exact opposite. She starts out as a fairly two-dimensional character with an equally two-dimensional….appeal…but as the story progresses, everything about her is challenged. Her beliefs, her purpose, her dreams, her legacy, absolutely everything. And as this happens, your relationship also evolves. I feel that the details are better experienced than read, but there’s no contest here. Lae’Zel is the best love interest of 2023.
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Best Supporting Character:
In plenty of stories, the supporting characters are the ones we end up loving the most. Normally I like to reference The Lord of the Rings to explain this, but I think I’ll go with a more hipster reference this year. Think about The Chronicles of Prydain (from which Disney’s The Black Cauldron originates). Do people come out of that story remembering their fond memories of protagonist Taran? Or do they come out of it remembering Fflewder Fflan with his constantly-breaking lyre and the always-hungry Gurgi? A good supporting character tends to be the little book you put under your computer monitor to make your display just the right height, and these were the best of the best in 2023!
#10): The Boy (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
As tends to be the case in post-apocalyptic stories involving a gruff father figure and his adopted child charge as they travel across an inhospitable land, The Boy tends to be Clash: Artifacts of Chaos’ emotional focal point. Unlike those aforementioned story types, however, The Boy is a little bird with the ability to regenerate life in one thing at the expense of life in another. So, he isn’t the most original of ideas, but he tries really hard.
#9): Shinto Priest (Like a Dragon: Ishin)
Not only does Ishin’s shinto priest sell you important items, he also is featured in several side quests that give him some depth as well as show what a complete dork he is. For proof, you need look no further than the side quest where protagonist Sakamoto discovers a teen girl’s diary and corresponds back and forth with her about being honest about expressing her feelings towards her crush. The quest eventually comes to a head, and Sakamoto decides to watch the goings-on as his presumably prepubescent female penpal confesses her love…but as it turns out, the girl was the shinto priest, and the crush was an adult woman. Little things like that.
#8): Cid (Final Fantasy XVI)
Say what you want about the characters in Final Fantasy XVI (lord knows *I* have), but Cid actually kind of rocks. For one thing, he’s the only character in this game that makes sense. As the leader of the revolutionary group trying to liberate the “branded” from the chains they’re kept in across the continent, Cid obviously cares a lot about the cause. And while he never comes out and calls for the extermination of the non-branded, he at least never gets caught trying to save them…I mean, the extermination of the non-branded is the only morally correct way to take this game’s story (because of how objectively black and white the moral questions are), so Cid is still a bit of a loser for not just turning into his giant lightning god and blowing small villages to smithereens, but at least he tries.
#7): Bancho (Dave the Diver)
Bancho isn’t an especially well-developed character, but he gains an edge over some of the competition because he’s unique and enjoyable enough. We’ve seen plenty of temperamental chef characters in games, tv, films, etc, but we’ve never seen a black would-be samurai of a chef dedicated to creating the most delicious dishes possible out of the most unsightly and unexpected ingredients found in the sea. His dedication to his craft makes for some surprisingly funny cutscene cutaways, and the character development he does get is just enough to be satisfying without weighing the rest of the story down.
#6): Gemini (Lies of P)
Not to be confused with the villain of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, Gemini (pronounced “Jimminy”) is what you’d expect from a retelling of the story of Pinocchio if you’re going off the Disney animated film. If you’re going off the book, then you might be surprised since the protagonist doesn’t brutally murder him within seconds of their meeting because he suggested that our hero get a job (I’m not exaggerating), but I feel fairly confident in assuming you’re going off the animated film. But I digress. Gemini serves as a kinda-but-kinda-not AI guide for the city of Krat, and citizens have access to him by way of a local node in his system, which is a cricket puppet in a lamp. So, take his name pronunciation, the fact that he locally takes the form of a cricket, and the fact that he, like your conscience, serves as a guide, and you’ve got an elegant re-interpretation of the Disneyfied source material. But beyond just being a fun callback, Gemini is also a legitimately pleasant companion to have around, and he helps make the story far more understandable than stories in these games tend to be.
#5): Peppermint (Hi-Fi Rush)
I’ve already talked at length about how Peppermint avoids the kinds of anime tropes you’d normally expect from a character that looks like her. But for all I’ve said about what she isn’t, I haven’t yet spoken to what she is. First off, she’s hilarious. A lot of that is due to Ericka Lindbeck’s always-excellent comedic timing, but she also fires back at Chai with some zingers now and again. Secondly, she’s useful in combat. The only reason Chai can break through laser walls and enemy laser shields is because of his ability to summon her to shoot them down during gameplay. Thirdly, she brings a lot of legitimate heart to the ensemble. Once the comedy and insults start to die down, Peppermint actually brings a lot of emotional weight, and it makes this primarily comedic game something so much more than what it seems…Now, for the caveat. Everything I’ve just said describes every member of the ensemble. So, what gives Peppermint the edge over her colleagues here is the fact that she’s the first supporting character we meet! But don’t let that cheapen the significance of her win here!
#4): Erik (A Space for the Unbound)
For the majority of the game’s runtime, Erik is treated as the game’s antagonist. He’s a bully who picks on Atma relentlessly, but he seems to have a crush on Raya, so right off the bat there’s a little bit more to him than your average bully character. It’s only as the plot progresses that you realize that when they were young, Erik accidentally ran over Raya’s cat with his bike. It was unintentional, but Raya was obviously not too concerned about the intentionality. Regardless of intention, Erik did kill the cat, and all of a sudden, he was a villain to everyone he knew. It didn’t matter how much he apologized, nothing ever seemed to be good enough, and for an early-developing mind that doesn’t have the nuance to understand that sometimes saying you’re sorry isn’t enough, that has to be devastating. And so, Erik’s bitter, antagonistic path through life was set in motion. With that in mind, he’s obviously not on this list for being a useful character, rather, he’s here because of the strength of his development.
#3): Peggy Weaver (Killer Frequency)
Another example of a character making their way onto this list because of their strength of development rather than what they contribute to gameplay, your on-air assistant, Peggy, is a person you’ll spend the vast majority of your time talking to as the plot progresses. So, she has more time to develop than a lot of other characters this year. And while this isn’t a combat-centric game, Peggy does nonetheless help somewhat with the goings on. She often serves as a way of pointing Forrest in the right direction to start looking for solutions to the current puzzle, which definitely helps on a first playthrough. However, she never leaves her station and instead sends you to do all of the searching and investigating…all while a serial killer stalks the town. Granted, it’s justified in this case because somebody needs to stay and keep an eye on the phone lines since it’s the 1980’s and they can’t exactly carry phones around, but it’s a hard thing to unsee it once you notice it.
#2): Harry Osborn (Spider-Man 2)
Anybody who knows anything about the Spider-Man mythos knows that any story that features Harry Osborn is going to be a tragic one. One way or another, Harry’s friendship with Peter ends up deteriorating for one reason or another, and Harry ends up becoming either the green goblin or a new incarnation of the green goblin (I *****don’t****** know much about the mythos…). That being said, even though you’ll know the general direction the story is going just by the fact that Harry exists, it manages to be fresh in how exactly the standard plot points get executed. The story more-or-less starts off with Harry re-appearing out of nowhere after several years missing due to a mysterious illness. In doing this, he reveals to Peter that while he’s been recovering, he has been working hard with his family’s money to set the two of them up to do what they wanted to do back in High School: run a science-based company that aims to solve all the world’s problems. All the prep work has been done, and all Peter needs to do is shake his hand and accept a position as co-founder so they can honor the memory of Harry’s mom and Peter’s Aunt May and, as their oft-discussed company mission statement states, “heal the world.” As Harry gives Peter a tour of the facilities and the initiatives the staff are already tackling, we see that there’s research underway to create crops that can grow in any circumstances (to solve world hunger), drones that protect bee nests (to solve the seemingly inevitable extinction of Earth’s bees), particle colliders (to solve any and all energy crisis), you name it. If you find yourself laughing as you read this because of how clearly this endeavor has been set up to fail in some way, you’re not alone. I did too. But it’s Harry’s earnestness about doing as much good for the world alongside his best friend in the whole world that makes the naivety of this whole venture acceptable. That, and the knowledge that this character, who has gone above and beyond for everything he cares about, is going to be the villain by the end. But that’s a story for another segment.
Supporting Character of the Year: Astarion (Baldur’s Gate 3)
They say that there’s no second chance to make a first impression. And having played through Baldur’s Gate 3 twice at this point, I can confidently say that “they” clearly don’t have the mental capacity for nuanced thought. First impressions of Astarion are as follows: he plays exactly the kind of posh victim you’d expect someone dressed like he is to be, asking you to kill the monster he sees in the nearby bushes. But when you go to do as he asks, he tackles you from behind, holds a knife to your throat, and tells you not to struggle in a seductive voice. Now…if you were in a somewhat comparable real-life scenario, what would the first impression be? Not great? That’s what I thought. But because Astarion is so clearly designed and signposted as a party member, you’re more likely to recruit him rather than kill him. And, if you do that, things only get more interesting from there. In the early hours of the game, Astarion seems to be an easy subversion of expectations: “the evil elf.” Elf party members in fantasy games tend to be goody-two-shoe types who use daggers or bows historically, so when fantasy developers want to try and subvert expectations, they’ll subvert one of these aspects. Think of Fenris from Dragon Age II being a greatsword-wielding warrior or the Thalmor from Skyrim being an imperialistic force of religious oppression. If we were to view Astarion cynically, he’d be closer to the Thalmor example than the Fenris one, as he seems to be driven by selfishness and cruelty, but he does use daggers and bows. But remember when I was making fun of the saying about first impressions? What about second ones? See, Astarion gets caught making a bad impression a second time when you catch him hovering above your neck with his teeth out in the middle of the night while you’re trying to sleep. So not only is Astarion a conniving rogue, he’s also a vampire. Talk about breaches of trust! But with Astarion’s true nature finally out of the bag and no need to hide anything anymore, he fleshes out into one of the most complex characters I’ve seen in a while and the single best developed character in an already stacked roster. But beyond his development, he’s also inarguably the most helpful party member you have. Because of his stats, he’s basically a walking lockpick. It’s basically impossible to fail a lockpicking dice roll if Astarion is the one doing it. Plus, if you set him up to take on the “Sharpshooter” abilities, he can become an unparalleled damage dealer at the cost of some accuracy. Astarion is not only my favorite character from Baldur’s Gate 3, he’s easily the best supporting character in the game.
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Best Antagonist:
In many cases, a good villain leaves a bigger impact on a story than any other type of character. Think of Vaas from Far Cry 3, Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2, The Illusive Man from Mass Effect 3, Teryn Loghain from Dragon Age: Origins, I could go on! This year was no slouch when it comes to antagonists, and these were the best of the best.
#10): Unitrench (Under the Waves)
Unitrench is an oil company drilling offshore, so you already know they’re evil. When this company isn’t busy paying politicians to scare uneducated, superstitious oil field workers into thinking climate activism is about taking their jobs away, they’re busy being irresponsible and cutting corners in the name of profit and destroying the ocean in the process. I’d like to take this time to remind you that the concept of the carbon footprint is a deflection attempt from corporations to make you feel like you have an obligation to do better for the environment instead of them! But yeah, Unitrench causes an oil spill that kills Jo the seal, so they can go jump off a cliff.
#9): Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
While Ganondorf has been Link’s archnemesis throughout the entire The Legend of Zelda series, he gets some more intimidating screentime in Tears of the Kingdom. That’s kind of it, but it just shows how despite not having that much time to shine, he shines brightly in the time he has!
#8): The Whistling Man (Killer Frequency)
The Whistling Man is really an amalgamation of a bunch of characters. Firstly, there’s the original Whistling Man: a serial killer who haunted the small town this game takes place in in the 1950’s before his death. Then, there’s all the whistling men that followed, as following the original killer’s death, it became a town tradition for teenagers to dress in his outfit and roleplay as him for fun on the anniversary of that death. Then, there’s the Whistling Man that haunts the events of this game: a serial killer that few people take seriously because the murders start taking place on the so-called “whistling night” that has become such a tradition in the town. So, this villain is actually 60% idea and 40% threat. That’s part of what makes him so compelling! And beyond that, I’ll leave it to you to play Killer Frequency and find out for yourself!
#7): Gemini (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
Not to be confused with the supporting character from Lies of P, Gemini rules over the land of zenozoik with an iron fist, but unlike with most characters of this type, there’s no resistance forming to try and take her down. Why is that? The answer is the one law that binds the land. Everyone has “artifacts” that they can put into play if they win the ceremonial dice game that comes from invoking the one law…but Gemini’s artifact, the “artifact of pain” is a little different. Take the name of that artifact to imagine its effect. That’s already an intimidating consequence for losing the dice roll, but this artifact can be used no matter the outcome of the dice game. So sure, if you were to try and rebel against Gemini, you might be able to win the dice game and have her stung by hornets throughout the ensuing fight…but you’d still feel the wrath of the artifact of pain. So, as I’ve said, there is no rebellion forming, because the very thought of opposing Gemini is 100% legitimately unthinkable under the rules this world lives by. It’s not even that Gemini made the one law up and is controlling the masses through manipulation. The one law is set in stone in the world, and Gemini just so happens to have the most powerful artifact to invoke under that law. Add onto this the fact that she’s probably the most unique villain of the year (a seven-headed woman with only two healthy heads remaining, seeking the ability to hold on to her power by finding a way to heal her other heads), and you have a shoe-in for this list! But as for why, with all of that said, she only comes in 7th…she only shows up twice in the game. At the beginning and the end. That’s it. Everything else is just people speaking in scared whispers. If Gemini had appeared a bit more or had a bit more development outside of the uniqueness, she’d be hard to beat for the top spot, but as it stands, there were a couple antagonists who hit it home just a bit more.
#6): Zanzo (Hi-Fi Rush)
Having just (at the time this blurb is being written) gotten out of a work situation where the CEO would haphazardly spend my department’s (the development/IT department) money on everything other than proper staffing and then get mad when he didn’t get what he wanted from our overworked, underpaid team, I have a newfound satisfaction for the fact that you get to beat Zanzo to a pulp at the end of his segment in Hi-Fi Rush. While not the CEO, Zanzo is the leader of Vandaley’s development team, and he meets all the criteria my now-ex CEO met in terms of absolutely terrible leadership. He makes terrible spur-of-the-moment decisions made in the heat of passion based on whatever he happens to be excited and/or angry about in the given moment, screams and throws a temper tantrum if anyone dares to question him, and he’s the sole reason that money is bleeding from his company. He’s not the best-developed villain on this list, but he’s the most personally relevant for me at this point in my life.
#5): Duchess Anabella (Final Fantasy XVI)
Another example of a villain that isn’t exactly three-dimensional, Duchess Anabella nonetheless is memorable for just how hatable she is. Despite Clive being her first-born son, she treats him like he’s nothing because he wasn’t born with the gift of the phoenix from his father. So, his younger brother Hugo is doted upon while he’s treated like a second class citizen. Eventually, the duchess betrays her nation and Clive’s father, consigning the branded of the nation to brutal cullings and selling Clive, her own son, into slavery to the empire. As the plot progresses, she further backstabs and manipulates in order to set up a new child of hers for success, and the depth of her depravity never seems to reach a limit. It’s just such a shame Final Fantasy XVI is so terrible with its tone management, because given the boss fight the precedes her death is so corny, her subsequent on-screen suicide by throat slitting after watching her newest child being killed feels more out of place than a deserved ending to a terrible person.
#4): Venom (Spider-Man 2)
Usually, the mantle of Spider-Man’s darker half is taken up by Eddie Brock, but Spider-Man 2 takes a different approach. In fact, I would say this game takes a far superior approach to this iconic villain than any other adaptations do. Why? Because what better character to become a twisted version of Spider-Man than Spider-Man’s best friend, Harry Osbourne? The symbiote that ultimately forces its host to take the form of Venom preys on Harry’s determination to do as much good for the world as possible, whispering in his ear to convince him that submitting to its will is the best way to honor his late mother.
#3): Arlecchino, King of Riddles (Lies of P)
Though not the main villain or a boss fight or anything like that, it’s hard to argue that any character in Lies of P is more menacing than the self-proclaimed King of Riddles. He appears unassuming at first: just a silly guy at the other end of a phone receiver who monologues for like two minutes about how he wants to play a game and how you’d better be ready for his riddles, only to ask the most rudimentary riddle you can possibly imagine (the first one is literally the “walks on two legs in the afternoon” one). But as you continue picking up the phones you come across and answering his riddles, you start to see his facade fade as he becomes giddier and giddier. Eventually, you learn that he is actually one of the first puppets to awaken from their programming, and he used his newfound freedom to cause humans as much pain as possible. When you finally get to confront his broken form on the Isle of the Alchemists, he can hardly contain his borderline-orgasmic joy as he talks about torturing an alchemist he found to learn the location of the island or how he relished listening to a husband and wife he attacked beg him not to hurt their little boy (and how he obeyed that particular order to prove his own free will and to see how that little boy would react to him murdering his parents in front of him). His hatred of humanity, his insatiable bloodlust, the fact that the little boy he decided to treat like an experiment all those years ago is arguably the closest friend you make on your journey, all of these things conspire to set up this year’s single creepiest villain.
#2): The Antagonist (A Space for the Unbound)
I’m still not quite ready to talk about this in depth, so hold on to this spot placement for later.
Antagonist of the Year: Raphael (Baldur’s Gate 3)
I’ve always said I have a type when it comes to villains: bootlicking snakes in the grass who absolutely wouldn’t be able to beat you in a fight, but somehow still always gains the upper edge. Well, I actually have a second type: the melodramatic, put-upon, extra, “woe is me,” etc type. Raphael is this type. Your first introduction to him goes as follows: you’ll be minding your own business, making your way to your next objective, when all of a sudden, he appears out of nowhere. He speaks in flowery language, likening your chance meeting to an old nursery rhyme about a cat and a mouse in the most extra, needlessly dramatic way possible. When you ask him if you’re speaking to the cat or the mouse, he matter-of-factly tells you he’s neither, rather, the hitherto-unmentioned fox watching the conflict discreetly from the shadows. He then suggests a change of scenery, and with a snap of his fingers, you end up in a grand dining hall and are invited to partake of the libations. Upon pressing him for answers about who he is, he finally reveals that he’s one of the universe’s devils: one of the most powerful deities ruling over the hells. And that’s just the first meeting. The next time you meet, he asks for a favor in exchange for a piece of information a party member desperately wants…and he 100% refuses to give you straight answers about what you’re supposed to do, only giving you any details if you do well enough in some persuasion checks. Why is he so vague? No reason. He’s just that extra and he likes sowing confusion and drama wherever he goes. And if you progress another party member’s questline enough, you get another set of encounters with him. In this questline, you end up raiding Raphael’s domain, “The House of Hope,” to steal an artifact. While down there, you learn all sorts of things about him: his collection of priceless artifacts is near endless, he has a special brand of torture that he reserves for those who cross him, and he has a succubus/incubus that looks 100% like him, because he’s such a complete narcissist that the only visage he finds acceptable to sleep with is himself. And then there’s the fact that once he catches you in his domain, he sings his own theme music like some kind of Disney character. He’s one of the funniest characters in the game, but he’s also a being of pure, unrivaled evil who will hurt you in ways you’d never dare to dream of, and it’s that duality that really propels him to the top of the list in 2023!
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Best Protagonist:
As always, I like to close out the character awards with a category celebrating those characters that serve as the eyes through which we view their respective worlds. The protagonist of a given story rarely leaves as much of an impact as any other character, but they’re the most important character regardless. And for 2023, these were the 10 best protagonists in gaming.
#10): Stan Moray (Under the Waves)
Perhaps the most everyman protagonist on this list, Stan is a man of little importance in the grand scheme of things. He’s just a family man and a former climate activist. However, after the death of his daughter, he accepts a job as a repairman for the world’s most evil oil company in a desperate bid to get away from the world. He doesn’t overcome tumultuous odds or save the world Captain Planet-style, but there’s a little something for everyone to learn from Stan’s underwater journey.
#9): Dave (Dave the Diver)
Another everyman, Dave is just a big old jolly, good-natured fella who loves to spend his time diving. All of his friends know these things about him, so through a swift but effective chain of events, he ends up working as an ingredients procural diver for a friend’s brand new sushi restaurant. Not only is his impeccable work ethic admirable, but throughout the course of the game, he also helps save an ancient race of mer-people from extinction. So he’s both a lovable guy and a hero!
#8): Gepetto’s Puppet (Lies of P)
The protagonist of Lies of P is a puppet, but unlike other puppets, he isn’t bound by the code of ethics all puppets are programmed with. Therefore, he has the ability to lie, which puts him in a truly unique place within this world. Honestly, the idea that this is a grimdark version of Pinocchio carries our hero to a decent spot on this list in and of itself…however, recently there’s been a pretty compelling fan-theory that jumps off the game’s post-credits scene, suggesting that we don’t actually play as Pinocchio…but rather another fairy tale character with a similar story. But more on that later.
#7): The Spider-Men (Spider-Man 2)
In Spider-Man 2, you get to play not just as one Spider-Man, but two of them! There’s not a whole lot of new development for either Peter Parker or Miles Morales, but they’re still strong enough heroes to float the experience.
#6): Tav (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Given that Tav can be whoever you want them to be, their development goes exactly as far as you want it to…no more, no less. Regardless, whoever your Tav is, regardless of whether their accomplishments are for good or for evil, they arguably accomplish far greater feats than anyone else on this list.
#5): Sakamoto Ryoma (Like a Dragon: Ishin)
Like a Dragon: Ishin follows the life of Sakamoto Ryoma, a real Samurai from a major turning point in Japan’s history. The real historical figure is responsible for putting the gears into motion that abolished Japan’s caste system, so he’s obviously an important person. However, I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt that he actually stormed the palace of the Shogun and dueled the man one-on-one to make his ideals into a reality…so, Like a Dragon definitely takes some creative liberties with history, but that doesn’t make the game’s rendition of Ryoma any less impressive in his stoic dedication to his sense of justice!
#4): Pseudo (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
Yahtzee Croshaw has rightly pointed out that ever since 2013’s The Last of Us, gaming has seen a couple too many scruff, grumpy dad characters. At first glance, it would be easy to paint Pseudo with that same brush (after asking the initial question: “what ARE you?!”). After all, he’s a hermit living in isolation who happens to become stuck with a young ward he’s in charge of protecting. But here’s the difference: the game isn’t about Pseudo coming to care for the boy he ends up in charge of after trying to get rid of him for a long time. At the start of the game, he tries to pawn the boy off on Gemini, but the second he realizes that Gemini’s intentions aren’t good, he then takes on the responsibility of getting the boy somewhere safe without any hesitation. Pseudo, despite his grumpiness, is a legitimately good person who embraces his newfound responsibility without ever once lamenting how unfair it is.
#3): Atma (A Space for the Unbound)
In my review of A Space for the Unbound, I referred to Atma as a “somewhat-predictably laid-back high school boy with a love of the arcade.” This wasn’t meant as an insult, rather, a statement of fact. He, like some others on this list, is something of an everyman. He’s just a high school kid, but what makes him such a great character is his devotion to his girlfriend’s wellbeing…another thing that will be discussed later on, so stay tuned!
#2): Forrest Nash (Killer Frequency)
Before the start of Killer Frequency, Forrest Nash was a bigtime radio personality with millions of listeners until some undisclosed event that trashed his reputation and more-or-less ended his career. At the start of the plot, Forrest is the host of the late night show on Gallows Creek’s one radio station. It’s obviously a step down, but one night everything changes. A serial killer appears in town, and as the only other person in this nowheresville who knows how to operate a phone line, Forrest has to step up and act as 9-1-1 while the one remaining cop travels to the closest city to gather reinforcements. What’s more? Radio regulations being what they are, Forrest still has to operate business as usual while he intercepts calls from would-be victims of the serial killer and guides them to safety. It’s a job that nobody should ever have to do on the fly, but Forrest is the second greatest protagonist of this year for doing it!
Protagonist of the Year: Chai (Hi-Fi Rush)
A college dropout, wannabe rock star, and colossal dorkasaurus, Chai decides to voluntarily apply for the obviously-evil Vandaley corporation’s experimental biotech product testing because of how cool he thinks it would be to have a robot arm. In this way, you could say that Chai isn’t an everyman…he’s a step below an everyman. He’s the kind of person that should never be trusted to be the hero of a story. Yet, in spite of that, when his procedure goes wrong and suddenly puts his whole body in line with the beat of the universe, a hero is exactly what he has to become. Chai is not only a character who rises above his ineptitude and solves all his problems through sheer fun-loving force of heart, he’s also the comedic bulldozer that forces the story to move alongside the humor in a way reminiscent of classic Spongebob Squarepants. We’ll be getting into some more specifics later on, but if there were an award for the funniest character of the year, Chai would take that home in 2023 with no contest.
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The Aspect Awards
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Best Writing:
Much like the soundtrack-centric awards, the award for best writing tends to be a bit more on the subjective side. There are several things that constitute good writing: overall quality, comedic quality, worldbuilding quality, the list goes on. With that in mind, I tend to go with my gut on this one, so in my humble opinion, these were the 5 best written games of 2023.
#5): Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
The driving force behind much of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos’ appeal is how bizarre it is, and this is reflected excellently in the scenarios and sentences that come up. To give an example, there’s a faction written into this game that rejects the one law and instead dedicates themselves wholeheartedly to a one law of their own choosing. One member of this faction decided that no matter what, he was going to walk in one direction and one direction only for the rest of his life. Then he ran into an ever-so-slightly-too-big plant, stopped, and starved to death. That’s the kind of stuff you can expect to find here.
#4): Killer Frequency
If you’re going to have a script that includes both horror tension and comedy, you’ve got to realize that this is a dangerous bit of balance to maintain. Thankfully, the writing team behind Killer Frequency understood this. The script will bounce from Forrest calmly telling a group of teens what each of them needs to do and reassuring them that everything is going to be ok to saying “all right listeners, this next one goes out to my good friends trying to catch the whistling man in a trap, it’s The Flow with ‘Crying for Help!’ Stay safe out there!” It’s a delicate balance, as I’ve said, but the actors’ timing alongside the excellent tonal pacing in the script make it work somehow!
#3): Hi-Fi Rush
Hi-Fi Rush would’ve earned this spot even if it were just comedy all the way through. This is without a doubt the funniest game I’ve played in years, and the quality of the humor is so top-shelf that it would warrant this spot. But as the plot progresses, the humor gradually starts giving some ground to genuine heartfelt moments that are just as well done. What’s more, the transition between those two tones is paced excellently.
#2): A Space for the Unbound
Giving translations a spot on this list can be tricky. I don’t speak a word of Indonesian, so I can only go off the English translation, and there’s no telling what might not work as well in English. But what I saw in my time with A Space for the Unbound was great…and by great, I mean heartbreaking. I feel no shame in spoiling the fact that this game has a happy ending, but the lead up to that happy ending can be really upsetting, and this is entirely due to the quality and relatability of the writing. On the other hand, however, some of the things that bullies say in this game are just…bizarre in a way that makes me think the insults in the original Indonesian probably work a little better within the culture. So, that’s really the one weakness in the game’s script.
Best Writing of the Year: Baldur’s Gate 3
Having gotten a patch recently that added something like over 3000 all-new lines of dialogue to an already over 50-hours worth of dialogue lines, there wasn’t even a contest for this spot this year. A lot of writing doesn’t mean good writing, but the writing in Baldur’s Gate 3 is exceptional. Everything from the way specific party members speak, to the way the narrator describes the goings-on, to the seemingly throwaway lines you hear NPCs say in the world that can turn into fully written, fully fleshed-out questlines if you take the time to talk to them. The game is funny when it needs to be, tense when it needs to be, intriguing throughout, and the script is at all times indicative of the love that Larian Studios has for the license. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game that stood to live or die on its script, and as indicated by the gold medal it’s taking home in this category, it isn’t just surviving ...it's thriving!
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Best Quest:
In many cases, quests serve as the building blocks that make up a game as a whole. In other cases, quests serve as the nutritional berries on the tree of an open world sandbox. Whatever way you slice it, a good quest is typically instrumental in a game’s fun factor. And for 2023, these were the cream of the crop.
#10): The Amnesiac (Like a Dragon: Ishin)
While making his way to an objective of much greater importance, Ryoma stumbles upon an unconscious man just off of the footpath. He heals the man and asks what happened, but the man appears to have lost his memory. Having more important matters to attend to, Ryoma wishes the man well and goes on his merry way. However, some time later, Ryoma stumbles upon the same man passed out on the exact same spot he left him. He heals the man again and again asks what happened, and again, the poor man can’t quite recall. This process is rinsed and repeated a couple times until Ryoma happens to stumble upon him quite conscious…only to see him slip on a hitherto-unnoticed banana peel and fall down, passing out as he does so. See, evidently bananas were entirely foreign to the Japanese at this point in history, so some immigrant must have eaten a banana there and left the peel on the ground. Now aware of the cause of this recurring issue, Ryoma steers the man clear of this hazard before peering up at the sky to catastrophize about the kind of world we may soon live in with exotic weapons such as these. Obviously it isn’t a very involved quest, but it is a suitably entertaining one.
#9): Find Grandpa (Spider-Man 2)
Being a superhero isn’t always about stopping the city from being blown up. Sometimes it means helping the common folk out with their smaller problems, such as Peter Parker elects to do when he receives a request from a civilian to help her find her grandfather, who appears to have gotten lost in central park. This isn’t a terribly hard quest, and Spider-Man finds the old man before too long, and while he waits for the granddaughter to arrive, he sits with the grandfather and lends him an ear. The grandfather confides in Spider-Man how scared he is to die, and Spider-Man takes some time to offer his two cents on the subject. By the end of their conversation, the old man is no less afraid of the inevitable, but he has more courage to face it. It’s the kind of quest that didn’t need to be included in this game, but I’m glad they decided to give our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man a more grounded bit of hero work.
#8): Shrines (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
In Breath of the Wild, the shrines had a tendency to get a bit old, but Tears of the Kingdom manages to improve upon the formula in a way that makes each one a legitimately fun challenge. Most of them will involve having to reach an endpoint with a handful of materials given to you. From there, you’ll have to construct something from these materials to overcome any obstacles in your way and reach the finish line. The creative possibilities aren’t exactly endless in the same way that there’s no such thing as true perfection, but there’s a lot of room for experimentation if you just can’t get the obvious solution right. For instance, I once solved a shrine that was giving me a lot of grief by attaching a stick to a rocket, pointing it at the pressure-sensitive button on the wall that would open the door while depressed and close the door when pressure was released, standing right next to the door, activating the rocket with an arrow, then diving in through the newly-opened door in the half-second the stick was pressed against the button. I was supposed to build a contraption that utilized spinning momentum to get the stick stuck between the button and a rotatable platform, but I wasn’t having any luck at all, so all I could do was game the system in this way. That’s the kind of experience you can expect to get out of the shrines!
#7): Zanzo’s Budget (Hi-Fi Rush)
This quest doesn’t actually behave any differently than any other Hi-Fi Rush quest, but it’s definitely the most amusing quest concept. If you read my antagonist blurb, you’ll know that Vandaley’s head of R&D, Zanzo, is known for throwing all of his department’s budget away in the heat of passion. So, in an effort to defeat him, Chai and the gang decide to stroke his ego and bait his fury in order to cause him to throw more and more resources into stopping them. All this really amounts to is going through gameplay as you normally would, but it has the amusing side effect of causing the budget to visually drain in real time. By the end of the level, Zanzo has spent so much money trying to stop you that he can’t even afford to finish the final boss, so you just automatically beat him.
#6): The Summoning (Alan Wake 2)
If I’d been doing these lists back when the original Alan Wake came out back in 2010, the quest wherein you fight off hordes of enemies during a rock concert would’ve made this list without a doubt in my mind. So it just makes sense that in this long-awaited sequel, a similar sequence would end up making this list. This quest sees Saga Anderson and the Old Gods of Asgard making a final push down to the shore of Cauldron Lake to perform a summoning ritual to rescue Alan Wake from the Dark Place, starting up a live rock show, and fighting off hordes upon hordes of enemies. So it’s basically the same thing that happens in the original game, but on a slightly larger scale!
#5): The Cult of Bhaal (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Fairly early into Act III, you stumble across a murder mystery that, like just about every plot line in Baldur’s Gate 3, expands into something far greater than it appears at first. And that’s where I’m going to leave this discussion.
#4): The Boy’s Brother (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
Shortly after escaping from Genini’s castle at the start of the game, Pseudo and the boy start out on a quest for their next best lead on a safe place for the boy: his brother, who evidently doesn’t want to see him. It’s the quest in which we get the largest amount of the game’s worldbuilding and in which the game’s systems open up to the largest degree. It’s also the most touching of the story’s quests.
#3): The House of Hope (Baldur’s Gate 3)
If you find yourself trying to see Lae’zel’s questline through to the end and you don’t want to sign a deal with Raphael in order to do so, you’ll need to get creative in order to retrieve the McGuffin you need. This involves finding a backdoor into Raphael’s domain, coming up with a plan to steal the aforementioned McGuffin, and trying to get out without getting caught. This quest is among the game’s longest self-contained quests and is 100% the most difficult of the quests I did, and it has exactly the kind of desperate-yet-epic atmosphere you’d hope for!
#2): 4 Possible Victims (Killer Frequency)
Towards the end of Killer Frequency, Forrest and Peggy realize that the Whistling Man’s next victim will be one of 4 people. Presented with a mountain of little evidence pieces, you’re tasked with weeding through newspaper articles and other items to determine which of these potential victims is next on the list and where they’re likely to be at the given moment. Both of these pieces are equally important, as if you have the correct victim in mind, but call the fire station instead of the gas station (for example), it doesn’t matter that you pieced together the next target…because by calling the wrong place, the Whistling Man will still be able to kill the target since they don’t get any warning. This is perhaps the hardest puzzle in the game, but that just makes it all the more satisfying with every “a-ha!” moment you have.
Quest of the Year: The Frat (Killer Frequency)
But as great as that last quest from Killer Frequency is, the best quest of this year is actually an earlier quest. Forrest gets a call from a woman who believes the Whistling Man is trying to get into her house. After discussing the situation, it seems like the woman is indeed in danger, so Forrest tries to determine how he can, using only his power as a radio host, rescue this woman. Through some commotion he hears in the background, he’s able to ascertain that the woman lives next door to a frat house, but she doesn’t know which frat it is or what their contact phone number is. Remember that this takes place in the 80’s, so there’s no way to use the internet to find these things out. All that the woman knows is they got a massive food delivery earlier in the night. So, Forrest and Peggy begin working together to try and deduce a way to somehow get a message to the frat house that the woman next door to them is in danger and needs their protection. As Forrest, you start scouring the radio station for promotional materials: restaurant coupons, game day ads you play, etc, to determine what food delivery places in town would have the best deals the frat could cash in on after the big hometown football game win the previous day. But beyond that, you also have to determine what kinds of food delivery would be most appealing to a big bunch of drunk frat dudes, as well as what proximity would make the food delivery the most convenient for them to order from. So, utilizing several lines of reasoning, it’s up to you to determine where the frat ordered food from, send another order of grub to their frat house, and include a message without raising suspicions. It’s just an absolutely beautiful chef’s kiss of a quest that was a load of fun to think about. I basically knew that it was a shoe in for this spot as I was taking notes on what beer discounts pizza place x had versus beer quantity deals at chinese place y and weighing the data I had. If you haven’t already picked up Killer Frequency, just know that I could easily fill up this list with just quests from that game! But for our current use case, The frat quest is the greatest quest to come out of 2023!
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Best New Mechanic:
As I said in the introductory blurb, this year I found myself tired of the same-old formulas. So, as I was doing some outlining for this article, I thought I’d take some time and create a new category to specifically highlight the brand new mechanics that were brought into the gaming discussion in 2023. In a year in which a lot of my enjoyment was driven by fresh ideas, I feel it only fair to go the extra mile to point out the extra effort where I see it!
#5): On-and-Off Beat Attacks (Hi-Fi Rush)
Rhythm games have been doing on-beat action for as long as the genre has been around…because duh. But Hi-Fi Rush is the first game I’ve seen that makes a gameplay loop out of combinations of on and off beats! The on-beat attack is akin to the light attack in your average action game, while the off-beat attack is akin to the slower heavy attack, and you’ll mix and match these two beat hits in various combinations to accompany the music and make gameplay flow with the music in different ways.
#4): Weapon Fusion (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
A major problem I had with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the absolutely massive amount of useless crap you would have in your inventory at any given moment. One of the biggest offenders was monster parts, which were supposed to be used to create elixirs, but elixirs were basically useless in a world where you could cook food that both restored health and had elixir effects. Enter the weapon fusion mechanic Tears of the Kingdom introduces! With this, you can magically fuse a monster horn to one of your weapons to give that weapon a slight damage bonus. The same can be said for elemental monster parts. You could, for example, make a spear an electric spear by fusing an electric Lizalfos horn to it. Or you could just fuse a nearby rock to the spear for the sake of the memes.
#3): Weapon Assembly (Lies of P)
In all soulslikes, weapons have two major stat components: base damage and stat scaling. For instance, a sword might have a base damage of 100 and a strength scaling factor of B. A second sword, on the other hand, might have a base damage of 120 and a strength scaling factor of D. If you’re running a strength build, then even though the second sword has a higher base damage, you’d want to go with the first sword, since the extra points you have in strength would end up adding far more additional damage on top of that base 100 attack than would get put on the base 120 attack, since the strength scaling is worse in that sword. In Lies of P, however, there’s not as much need to choose between one sword or the other. See, base damage is stored in a weapon’s “blade” (the business end, in other words), while the stat scaling is stored in a weapon’s hilt. You have the ability to mix and match any non-legendary weapon blade with any non-legendary weapon hilt to make the perfect weapon for your build. So if you really like the special attack and damage that the fire ax does but you have your offensive points into a stat that just doesn’t work with the fire ax handle, no problem! Just find a weapon with a hilt that lines up with the stat scaling you want and attach that hilt to the fire ax and you have a perfect weapon for your use case! Still not good enough? Well, you can also use a special item to increase the scaling factor of your choice up a letter grade. The amount of power Lies of P gives the player with this brand new approach to weapon selection is unheard of in any game, much less in a soulslike!
#2): The One Law (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
I’ve already spoken at length about the one law that governs the land of Zenozoik and how it applies to gameplay, so not much more discussion is needed here. It’s just an interesting new mechanic that I’d argue happens to be the single most unique mechanic added in 2023!
New Mechanic of the Year: Arrow Fusion (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
But despite the one law being the most unique of the bunch, the single greatest new mechanic introduced this year is the arrow fusion from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This goes back to my complaint about the truckload of absolute crap that clutters your inventory at any given moment, but applied in an even better way than with the weapon fusion. Different items apply different properties to arrows, giving you that aforementioned truckload of use cases for a situation. Say you’re firing at an enemy who is far away and who therefore might be able to avoid your arrow by moving a little too much. Simply attaching a keese eyeball to the arrow you’re about to fire will give the arrow a homing quality, or if you don’t have eyeballs, you could also use a keese wing to simply make the arrow fly farther and faster. Then there are the usual suites of elemental effects that you can add for greater damage against certain enemy types, or pieces of ore than can give an error a bit more base damage. Your inventory is your oyster in Tears of the Kingdom, all because of this inspired new mechanic!
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Best Enemies:
While a game doesn’t necessarily need programmed AI adversity in order to thrive, well-made enemies tend to serve as the vehicle through which a game’s combat is allowed to shine its brightest. And for 2023, these 5 enemy types were the ones that stood out the most to me!
#5): Sentient Beings (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
It should go without saying that the design of these enemies does a lot of the heavy lifting, alongside the unique context that comes from the one law. But beyond these things, the fights against sentient beings are among the most challenging in Clash: Artifacts of Chaos simply because their AI is so intelligent.
#4): Symbiotes (Spider-Man 2)
What’s worse than 1 dark reflection of Spider-Man? How about several dark reflections of Spider-Man split up into different attack classes? As Venom spreads the gift of his symbiote to the unwilling citizenry of New York, they become monsters with varying ability types that work well off of each other to successfully put the heat on the player. Some symbiotes fire projectiles from a distance, some rush you with exceptional speed but only take one or two punches to beat, etc. So, from a pure gameplay perspective, they bring a lot of variety to the table. Beyond that, the fact that these are, as I’ve already said, civilians, adds quite a bit of extra tension to these encounters.
#3): Puppets (Lies of P)
The name of the game when it comes to Lies of P’s puppets is variety. At first you basically just have domestic servant models: butlers with weaponized candlesticks, traffic cops with stop signs, etc. Then there are more industrialized labor models wearing iron overalls and uniforms sporting workshop tools. And as the plot progresses, the movesets, weapon types, lore purposes, and everything else you can imagine just gets more and more interesting. Why exactly did Gepetto and co. decide to build giant salt shaker-looking puppets with dual sawblades on one end and two spear drills on the other? Why exactly did they create dog puppets with sawblade heads and self-destructive capabilities? Why exactly did they create giant big-headed puppets resembling the classic fairy tale character the game is based on? Beats me, but they’re all fun to fight, nonetheless!
#2): Enemy ACs (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon)
Despite the fact that this game is not a soulslike, From Software is nonetheless well-known for the speed and difficulty of their simulated PVP fights in their Souls games. You walk into a room with a giant monster in a From Software game, and you could be in for just about anything…but walk into a room with one guy who looks exactly as well-equipped as you are, and you know you’re in for either a treat or a difficult time. That’s 95% of all high-stakes encounters in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. When the battle starts, all you can see is another Armored Core, but you have no way of knowing what parts make up that core. It’s only once you begin the delicate dance of combat that you can tell what kind of firepower you’re up against. And thankfully, a difficult challenge isn’t much of a roadblock in this game, unlike From Software’s other stuff. If you come up against a roadblock, it’s not necessarily because you aren’t good enough or need to level up more: it means you need to mix and match your parts some more. In this way, these enemies that might otherwise be a constant source of frustration are instead a consistent influx of new puzzles to make you think about how you build your AC.
Enemy of the Year: Security Bots (Hi-Fi Rush)
Take the visual/lore variety of Lies of P’s puppets, the mix-and-match of combat capabilities found in Spider-Man 2’s symbiotes, and the strong personalities you might find in the sentient beings haunting Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, and you have the Security Bots you spend all of Hi-Fi Rush fighting. Like the puppets in Lies of P, the various security bots each have their specific jobs that keep the Vandaley corporation running…until you start fighting the giant robot birds and tigers and armadillos and the like…but just like the puppets, even once the logic starts to melt away, fighting these enemies is fun enough that it doesn’t really matter. So, in terms of visual variety and lore, things start out simple but get more complicated as things go on. The same can be said for gameplay applications. At first, all security bots seem to be weak to the same things: killer rhythm and moxie! But as the mechanics become more complicated, so too do the kinds of security bots that start showing up. It seems like as soon as you learn to follow certain rhythm prompts to dodge special attacks, you’re met with two or three new enemy types that demand your mastery. I could go on for a lot longer on this subject, and I could go even longer if I were to commit to explaining what I meant when I brought the sentient beings from Clash: Artifacts of Chaos into this discussion. But for now, the security bots from Hi-Fi Rush were the single greatest enemies of this year!
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Best Boss:
In its purest form, a boss serves as a test of what you’ve learned about its game’s mechanics. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Think of the first boss in Demon’s Souls, for instance. That boss is there exclusively to kill you to give you an idea of what you’re going to be up against for the rest of the game. But regardless of the use case, a well-made boss can easily be a high point of a game, while a poor boss can be grounds for quitting the game altogether or putting an asterisk on a recommendation. These were the 10 greatest bosses to come out of 2023.
#10): The Antagonist (A Space for the Unbound)
I hate to keep playing coy when it comes to A Space for the Unbound, but suffice it to say that this final boss fight earns a spot on this list for its context alone. Given that this is a story-based game, it should be pretty clear why I’m ending the discussion here.
#9): Raphael (Baldur’s Gate 3)
If you were to ask me what the hardest boss fight in Baldur’s Gate 3 is, I’d easily point to Raphael before I even thought to point towards the actual final boss of the game. If you aren’t at the level cap, this is a fight that can feel legitimately impossible, and it often does even if you are. From Raphael’s individual power (he has 666 health, ha!) to the amount of backup he has to the giant power crystals in the arena that he regularly makes use of, this is not a boss fight to take lightly. However, it’s easily the game’s most cinematic fight, it’s the most rewarding boss fight to emerge victorious from, and Raphael sings his own f***ing boss theme, so there was no doubt that this fight was going to earn a spot. Plus, I haven't tried it out myself, but I've heard that if you cast a silencing spell on him during the fight, the singing stops.
#8): Gemini (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
There’s not a whole lot of discussion that needs to go into the explanation for why Gemini earns a spot here. She’s the most intense boss fight of the game, and the prep work that it takes to negate her all-powerful artifact combined with the long journey to get to this point in the first place makes the whole experience everything that a final boss should be.
#7): Colgera (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
As the first major boss you’re likely to battle in Tears of the Kingdom, Colgera didn’t have to be anything too crazy…but Nintendo decided to go crazy anyway. This battle happens in the sky, with a steady upward current making that possible. You paraglide around Colgera as it attacks, you shoot fire arrows at the ice surrounding its weak points (again, in mid-air), then dive and break the weak point before regaining your altitude with the paraglider. You’ll rinse and repeat this a couple times, and it’s far more exciting than a lot of Nintendo boss fights have historically been.
#6): Romeo, King of Puppets (Lies of P)
In the many Lies of P boss rankings I’ve seen, several folks put Romeo as their favorite boss. Realistically, just about every single boss in Lies of P deserves a spot on this list, so Romeo only comes in at #6 because I want to give some other games some space to shine. But let's talk about what Romeo does so well. His first phase sees him in a larger puppet body with noodly arms that, in the hands of a lesser developer, would be a massive source of confusion in terms of attack timing. So, phase 1 is a great example of your typical big monster kind of soulslike boss fight. Then comes phase 2, which sees Romeo in his true form: a white-haired twink with a glowing red eye and a scythe. And this second phase resembles some of the best 1-v-1 duel style boss fights in Souls games. So, Romeo is kind of the full package as far as soulslike bosses go, and his fight only marks the halfway point of the game!
#5): Demon King Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
Just like in Breath of the Wild, the buildup to the fight against Ganondorf lasts as long as you want to make it. You could head directly to the boss fight right out of the gate, of course. But if you’re like me, the buildup to this fight can last for as long as over 120 hours. But regardless of your personal buildup time, this is the kind of fight that leaves an impact. Right after a spectacular opening cutscene, you get to watch as Ganondorf’s health bar begins to fill…and extend beyond the boundaries of the screen. And then you start having your own moves used against you for the first time EVER in this new Zelda duology. And that’s just phase 1 out of 3. Ganondorf has been an iconic game villain for as long as gaming has been around, but this is easily his most epic iteration.
#4): The Voice (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon)
Keeping in mind that all From Software games have multiple endings, “the voice” is the final boss of the “bad” ending. So…imagine how a boss of a more complicated ending might’ve scored on this list, knowing that the bad ending boss came in at #4? But anyway, I’m obviously a huge fan of fast-paced gameplay ever since Doom 2016, and the battle against the voice at the end of Armored Core VI is about as fast-paced as fights come. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the niche Netflix original anime Knights of Sidonia, dear reader, but if you have, let me put this battle this way: Imagine one of the battles against the Crimson Hawkmoth in game format. For those who don’t get that niche reference, here’s what I mean: this is a soulslike dual-style boss fight in which you and the boss boost around each other at a million miles an hour trading blows in the infinite void of space. But in spite of its breakneck speed, this fight isn’t too complicated. The voice’s tells are excellent, and as long as you don’t panic, it’s actually one of the more manageable fights in the game.
#3): Kale (Hi-Fi Rush)
If we take the often-used sentiment that a boss is an exam, then Kale, being the final boss of Hi-Fi Rush, is a perfect example of what a final exam ought to be. Every little thing you’ve learned over the game’s runtime is put to the test here. Your mastery of the beat, your ability to switch between breaking different shield types, your ability to take on multiple types of obstacles at the same time, all of it. All the while, Nine Inch Nails’ earworm “The Perfect Drug” plays in the background. It’s not the flashiest boss fight on this list, so it doesn’t lend itself as well to description as some other entries, but it’s easily deserving of the top 3, and I think anyone who plays the game will agree with me!
#2): Venom (Spider-Man 2)
Of the bosses on this list, I’d say that the battle against Venom lasts longer than them all. It doesn’t test every meticulous little detail of your game knowledge, and some boss fights I’ve already talked about are better on a buildup or cinematic gravitas level. What puts Venom in the silver medal spot is the emotional buildup and payoff. And unfortunately, that’s about all I can say!
Boss of the Year: Nameless Puppet (Lies of P)
As I said in Romeo’s blurb, nearly every boss in Lies of P could win a spot on this list. But to elaborate, a good 75% of them could easily win this particular spot on the list. But when I’ve sat down to think about what the best boss of the year is, I’ve consistently come back to the final boss of Lies of P, the Nameless Puppet. After refusing to give your heart to Gepetto, he opens up a suitcase containing this boss, who certain theorists have declared is the actual wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy. One cutscene in which Gepetto puts on a magic glove that creates neon strings on the puppet later, and the battle begins. The best comparison I can think of to describe this battle is that it’s akin to the mid-game fight against Genichiro Ashina in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice if that fight were slower and more methodical. It’s a constant back and forth dance of parries and traded blows featuring the clearest attack telegraphing in the game. More-so than any other 1-v-1 style battle in soulslikes, the battle against the nameless puppet plays like a battle between equals, and I’ve only touched on the first phase thus far. After draining its health bar for the first time, you accidentally slice the puppet strings Gepetto uses to control the boss when you slice off the top of its head in the ensuing cutscene. As a result, despite the fact that the puppet should be dead, it instead goes into a berserker mode. The neat neon blue strings coming off its body at steep angles are replaced with flickering red-to-yellow strings trailing behind it like a cape, and while its attacks are still well-telegraphed, its movements are much swifter and far more erratic, causing your average player (myself included) to panic and start spamming the parry button for dear life, which only ever ends in failure. So, it’s a fight that feels great AND looks great. It’s a fight that will kick your ass many, many times, but even in the much harder second phase, it’s the kind of fight that feels doable. And the cutscene that plays after you beat it is the most epic post-boss cutscene in any souslike game, including From Software’s own work. There’s no contest in this category. While 75% of the bosses in Lies of P could win this spot, none wins this spot in as much of a landslide as the Nameless Puppet. Oh, and did I mention that its weapon is essentially a pair of scissors repurposed into a twinblade/greatsword combo? Because that’s epic when you consider that this is a puppet effectively using an arts and crafts instrument against you.
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Best Weapon:
For any game that isn’t just a platformer or a visual novel, a weapon is the tool through which we navigate through gameplay. It doesn’t matter how great the gameplay systems are, if the weapon(s) through which you engage with those systems is/are lame, then the whole experience falls apart more often than not. Take 2021’s Guardians of the Galaxy as an example. The pistols in that game felt pathetic, and as a result, the gameplay really was nothing to write home about. So, for 2023, these were the best weapons I got to use!
#5): Cantrips (Baldur’s Gate 3)
If you’re like me, you’re not a fan of how BG3 handles magic. However, not all spells are “spells” in the traditional sense. Why do you not need to use a spell slot to throw a fireball or ignore the effects of gravity? Beats me! But, these infinite-use magic abilities referred to as “Cantrips” in the Dungeons and Dragons verbiage are a godsend to casuals like myself.
#4): Shadow Stance (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
While the various combat stances in Clash: Artifacts of Chaos tend to look the same in execution and don’t really vary that much in terms of damage, it was only when I tried out the Shadow Stance that I felt like I truly had a grip on the combat. Something about the timing and, more importantly, the attack range of this style just spoke to me.
#3): Wild Dancer Style (Like a Dragon: Ishin)
Like a Dragon: Ishin features four different combat styles. Fist-fighting, sword-focused, gun-focused, and “wild dancer” style, which utilizes both the sword and gun. It doesn’t deal as much overall damage as the other styles, but it offers the most options for crowd control, allows for easier damage avoidance, and above all else, sports the fastest combat speed.
#2): Energy Swords (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon)
Do I believe even for a second that in a mech-filled future, we’ll have energy swords that are more destructive than whatever rocket technology we’ll have? Not even for a second. But such is the future we’re faced with in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Being that this game is mostly gun-based, you have basically only one use for an energy sword: piling on the damage when you stagger an enemy mech. So, you’ll shoot at your enemy until they pause momentarily, then you’ll boost towards them and hit them with your sword for the highest possible damage in the game, and that’s legitimately all the time you’ll have before the enemy becomes unstaggered. This means that if you’re like me, you’ll keep an energy sword equipped for this one use case, and the reason why this particular weapon type comes in as the runner up for best weapon of 2023 is how satisfying it is to use the sword in this one use case.
Weapon of the Year: Puppet Ripper (Lies of P)
Similarly to bosses, 75% of all the weapons found in Lies of P could earn this top spot, and that 75% contains 90% of all boss weapons. But for me, the best weapon in the game and easily the best weapon out of any game this year was the weapon you get for exchanging the Romeo boss soul: the puppet ripper. This is unusual for me, because boss weapons in soulslikes are almost universally useless…and beyond that, it’s also unusual because I don’t typically use scythe-style weapons. But that just shows how great the puppet ripper is. After buying it to make progress towards a trophy, I decided to give it a test run and was astounded by how great it was. See, this isn’t just a scythe…it’s a scythe with a detachable, cord-bound head. What I mean by that is that if you do a heavy attack, you swing the weapon as expected, but you also press a button that lets the blade of the weapon fly loose for extra range then reattach itself the same way a tape measure comes flying back to you when you press the right button. So, it looks and feels cool, but there’s more to it than that. While not the strongest weapon in the game, it does an exceptional amount of damage for its attack speed. Furthermore, both of its Fable Arts (special attacks) are among the most useful in the game. The blade fable art is near instantaneous and does more damage than most other fable arts. The hilt fable art is the best crowd control measure by a country mile. For all of these reasons, the puppet ripper is the best weapon in 2023!
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Best Setting:
While it’s 100% possible for a game to be excellent while taking place in an infinite void of nothingness with no kind of story context or aesthetics, it’s not likely. And while ultimately the design of a game’s setting and how it corresponds to gameplay is what matters the most, it’s sometimes that aforementioned context and aesthetic that puts the experience a step ahead of the competition. These were the game settings that ruled the roost in 2023!
#5): The Archipelago (Dredge)
If you’re like me, then you’re a big fan of tropical islands, non-tropical islands, semi-tropical islands, somewhat-semi-tropical-islands, etc. It doesn’t matter what the context is, the fantasy of being able to get in a boat of my own and travel a couple hours to one of several islands is enough to make me happy. Beyond that, I love marine life, and while I wouldn’t want to kill fish for a living, I’d love to know enough about fish and their habitats to be qualified for the job! So, Dredge’s setting is nothing but a fantasy of mine, but this is my list, so that’s all it needs to be!
#4): Vandaley Campus (Hi-Fi Rush)
Vandaley is as evil an evil corporation as an evil corporation can be, so it’s perhaps a little unrealistic that the company’s campus is as much of a theme park ride as it is. At least, that would be an initial take if you never heard of Activision. Now ousted-CEO Bobby Kottick had a company cafeteria on-site that none of the grunt level workers were paid enough to be able to afford to eat at. That means he was actively spending money to lose money out of nothing but cruelty. So, in reality, it’s not all that unrealistic for an Activision-level evil company like Vandaley to have spent the money to make their campus a theme park that no workers could actually have fun in. But I digress. As I’ve already said, Vandaley campus is like a theme park and it’s a lot of fun to play in. What more could I ask for a spot winner in this category?
#3): Faerun (Baldur’s Gate 3)
You’d be hard pressed to find a game setting more storied than Faerun, and by extension, the overall Dungeons and Dragons mythos. Because it’s an existing property, I can’t quite muster the willpower to give this setting a spot any higher than this, but Larian more than put in the legwork to make the setting excellent. There’s a sense that everywhere you go has been there for longer than you can imagine, and I was only thinking of the areas outside of the titular city when I started writing this sentence…once you cross into Baldur’s Gate itself, the sense of place just gets even better.
#2): Krat (Lies of P)
Krat is what Bioshock: Infinite wished Columbia was: an isolated city with a lot of pride in itself due to its technology (which has a distinctly early post-industrial coat of paint). Only, Columbia is nonsensical (they worship John Wilkes Booth and segregated because the US wasn’t racist enough, but they have people of color in the city and slavery isn’t a thing despite them worshiping the man who killed Lincoln, also women can be soldiers despite women not being allowed to serve in the US army until several years after 1912, the list goes on). Meanwhile, Krat’s dilemma makes sense: they expanded quickly after puppets started to be created. This pushed the poorer parts of the city further into poverty, as the automated help took over the jobs that were considered lower class. Unlike dystopian stories we have about AI, the puppets were bound to the grand covenant, which demanded complete servitude, so it isn’t like there was any fear among anyone in the city that the puppets might turn on them. So, automated help took over faster than anyone could’ve imagined, and with the poorer districts pushed further away, the petrification disease was allowed to spread rampantly in those parts. However, then the puppet frenzy happened, suddenly breaking down the social and physical barriers between the various parts of the city and ensuring that both the raving puppets and the petrification disease mixed to bring the city to ruin...and as I’m writing this, I’m realizing I’m getting carried away. This isn’t meant to be a giant lore dump, but I got excited talking about it. Plus I love pointing out what an absolutely terrible game Bioshock: Infinite is every chance I get…hmm…as I write this, I’m just now realizing that it turned 10 years old in 2023…perhaps a replay and a decade-later-review is in order? Regardless, Krat is just a really great setting, and it gets better the more you look into the lore..
Setting of the Year: Zenozoik (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
This category isn’t meant to just go to the most unique setting, but sometimes that uniqueness is the secret sauce that makes it all work! If you’ve been reading what I’ve been writing about this setting thus far, you already know there’s nowhere else like it…and that’s kinda it. In an industry with almost zero imagination when it comes to settings, a place like Zenozoik is the kind of thing that gives one hope for the future. So, there you go!
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Biggest Disappointment:
A word like “disappointment” is deceptively simple in this context. See, this isn’t a list of games, a list of aspects, etc. Rather, it’s an amalgamation of everything in gaming that I found disappointing this year. At times, that’s a full game. At other times, it’s one piece of a near-perfect game that deserves to be isolated and condemned. That’s the kind of variety you can expect from this category.
#5): Under the Waves Level Design
Under the Waves could’ve been exceptional….had it stuck to the open ocean. But instead, the later levels see you navigating your little submarine through tiny enclosed spaces in labyrinthine structures and taking damage every time you hit a wall. It sucks.
#4): Fort Solis’ Story
Fort Solis is a pathetic excuse for a game that owed everyone who made the mistake of spending money on it a good story. Seriously. However, graphics were the only thing it did well, and its story was as piss poor as every other thing this failure of a game tried its pathetic hand at. You can bet that I’ll scream this from the rooftops in the future: “do NOT buy the next thing this group of hack frauds makes!”
#3): Spider-Man 2 Tech Problems
In 2018, Spider-Man took the world by storm in spite of some glaring technical problems. Now, 5 years later, Spider-Man 2 came out with almost no improvements and all of the same technical problems. I’m so done with AAA studios and their excuses. Fix your game, you pathetic losers!
#2): Baldur’s Gate 3 PC Performance
My PC is good enough for everything I’ve played. It’s been good enough for everything that has come out since last year. However, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the one glaring exception. The framerate was abysmal from second 1, textures consistently took several seconds to load in whether in cutscenes or in gameplay. Certain choices seemed to be glitched as well, and no changes to my graphical settings were enough to make things workable. It says something that I purchased this game a second time when it came to PS5 so I could get a better experience, but there’s no second chance to make a first impression.
Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Final Fantasy XVI
Unlike a lot of folks, I actually really really loved Final Fantasy XV when it came out years ago. Despite being my first Final Fantasy title and thus feeling no nostalgia for the franchise, it would’ve been my GOTY for 2016 if Inside and Doom hadn’t come out. Then, in 2020, the first part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake came out and earned the exact same spot on my GOTY list in that year. So, especially given the early buzz I was hearing about XVI, I was looking forward to it bigtime. But it’s a nonsensical story with a gameplay loop best described as a “cooldown simulator”. This isn’t the last time we’ll be coming back to this topic, but this is by far the biggest dishonor I’ve bestowed upon Final Fantasy XVI….for now.
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Best Moment:
As it is every year, this is my favorite category to write about! I know that I tell you to expect spoilers in every blurb, dear reader, but this is the one spot where I get to go whole hog on that warning! So, if you’ve been blowing off my warning all this time, now is a good time to give yourself a reminder. In short, this section could also be called “Best Spoiler,” as literally every little thing in this list is going to be a story spoiler of some kind. I’ll be keeping the blurb names vague to not give things away immediately, so if you see a game title you don’t want anything spoiled for, then please move to the next blurb, because otherwise you’re liable to have something major spoiled for you! These were the best moments in gaming for 2023.
#10): Raya and Atma Cute Moments (A Space for the Unbound)
These moments are pretty self-explanatory. Main characters Raya and Atma are a pair of high school sweethearts, and the early hours of A Space for the Unbound are full of really wholesome, really cute moments between the two. As I've already said, near the start of the game, Raya wants to feed a new stray cat she found pretty badly, but Atma insists that he doesn’t have the cash for that. However, after a bit more prodding from Raya, he realizes he actually has more than enough to cover the cost for a bowl of cat food. It’s only because Raya used her godlike powers to manifest more money into his pockets, but it’s really sweet that she plays the role of the needy girlfriend and lets him feel like the hero.
#9): Post-Credits Scene (Lies of P)
Regardless of the ending you get in Lies of P, you always get the scene I’m discussing. After the credits roll, a new cutscene starts up revealing that Giangio, the timid, stammering pharmacist, is actually a man named Paracelsus, who doesn't seem even remotely timid. He’s on a train talking on the phone to some unidentified woman, and the two talk about the Krat “experiment” and the new form of humanity and new interpretation of the concept of eternal life that came from it. After a bit more conversation, Giangio/Paracelsus mentions to the woman that his next order of business is to find their next person of interest…."Dorothy."After this, the game cuts to a rooftop in Krat as a pair of ruby red slippers steps into the frame and clicks together.
So, this is Round8 telling us that their next project is a Wizard of Oz soulslike. And for me, that’s unbelievably exciting given how great this game was. A Pinocchio soulslike? That’s an easy laugh recipe. A Wizard of Oz soulslike, however? That’s a much easier sell with less pandering laughs. Take a minute to imagine it: the emerald city alone as a final level, the poppy field before the city as the setting for an incredibly epic boss fight, the kinds of NPC types that could be based on the supporting cast of the film? It’s all promising stuff!
Earlier, I mentioned that a fan theory exists about the true identity of Lies of P’s protagonist. The natural impression if you know anything about the game is that he’s meant to be Pinocchio, but a compelling fan theory has asserted that he’s actually the Tin Man. You achieve the true ending of the game by turning your metallic core into an actual human heart, like the Tin Man wished for, and it would be easy to turn this character into an NPC given that you have no character customization outside of clothing. But there I go gushing about the little details in Lies of P again, when I’m meant to be talking about the moment in question. Suffice it to say that even people who aren’t as all-in on this game as I am are at least intrigued by the promise this post-credits scene implies.
#8): Symbiote Awakening (Spider-Man 2)
Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the Spider-Man mythos knows about the symbiote and the effect it has on those it latches on to. Well, this moment is actually a series of moments in which the symbiote moves on to a new stage of awareness and autonomy. Firstly, there comes a point where, while Peter has it, a discussion is had about its origins. While talking with a scientist, Peter is told the symbiote suit needs to be destroyed, to which Peter responds “destroy us?” It’s a subtle-toned response, not an angry one, but it’s the first time that the symbiote starts to exert its control. As the game progresses, the symbiote gets more and more confident and more and more manipulative, and it’s always treated with the kind of care that the first moment was.
#7): The Summoning (Alan Wake 2)
I’ve already talked about the rock concert sequence that takes place in Alan Wake 2, so there’s not too much to say at this point. But, what I haven’t yet touched on is the fact that nothing happens at the end of this sequence, despite its importance. The whole point was to summon Alan from the dark place, but after the ritual is complete, nothing happens. After a bit of back-and-forth dialogue, it turns out that the ritual did work…but not in the way any of the characters involved expected. See, towards the beginning of the game, Saga finds Alan washed up on the shore of Cauldron Lake after 13 years with the man missing. The summoning ritual in question here is responsible for the fact that he washed up at that point much earlier in the plot. From this point, things get more complicated than I can justify spending the time to explain, but it’s still a pretty effective moment.
#6): The Inauguration (Baldur’s Gate 3)
The best way to establish an evil organization as a credible threat is to give them a moment that shows they’re a lot closer to accomplishing their goals than you thought. Throughout the first two chapters of Baldur’s Gate 3, the cult of the absolute gets established as an exceptionally powerful entity, but it’s towards the beginning of Act 3 where the true scope of the cult’s ambitions is laid bare. As you arrive in the titular city, it turns out that Lord Envor Gortash, one of the cult’s three figureheads, is about to be crowned as Duke of the Realm. Furthermore, the entire city is screaming and cheering from the rooftops about his rise to power. So, this cult is about to seize absolute control over the political resources of the whole game’s playable world, and that's enough to show any player how desperate things are. But then, during the inauguration ceremony (in which the player has to do whatever they’re told to avoid a horribly difficult battle), Lord Gortash establishes yet another clear power precedent with the player by informing them that one member of their camp is a shapeshifter employed by the cult. That’s all I’ll say on that, but suffice it to say it’s one of many high points in this story.
#5): Birth of the Demon King (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
Like in this game’s predecessor, the majority of the story is contained in unlockable memories. One of these memories shows how Ganondorf went from king of the Gerudo to being an all-powerful force of evil. Having wounded Hyrule’s first queen, Sonia, and taken her power stone (I don’t really remember what the thing is called…), Ganondorf powers himself up Goku style and summons an army of monsters. It probably doesn’t sound like all that epic a moment, but you’ll have to take my word for it.
#4): Chai’s First Plan (Hi-Fi Rush)
Fairly early in the game, Chai comes up against a security bot that he can’t seem to deal with, and Peppermint tells him that they’re going to need to try a different approach. Recognizing the truth of this statement, Chai comes up with just that: a new approach. As the lightbulb goes off, Chai retracts his weapon. Peppermint asks what he’s doing, and he, with a self-assured smile, says, “I’m gonna reason with ‘em!” This goes about as well as you’d expect.
#3): Chai’s Second Plan (Hi-Fi Rush)
Not one to have his confidence crushed when one plan doesn’t work, there’s another brilliant plan that Chai comes up with towards the end of the game. In need of a way to make it directly to the most heavily guarded part of the campus, Chai decides on a surefire way of accomplishing this, all thanks to an offhand comment Peppermint made earlier in the plot. The problem with this? Chai is such a dork that he didn’t realize that when Peppermint said “well, next time we’ll just shoot you out of a cannon,” she was being sarcastic. So…Chai decides the best course of action is to indeed get shot out of a cannon towards the building in question. And while he doesn’t land exactly where he intends to, the plan does work this time.
#2): Tricking the Whistling Man (Killer Frequency)
Throughout the night, a strange woman named Dawn continuously calls in to talk about various things, and towards the end of the game she calls in because she believes the whistling man is nearby and she’s locked out of her apartment. So, the puzzle for this portion involves finding a manual for the specific lock and alarm system to find the correct code to let her in. However, if you’re paying attention, something isn’t right. What Dawn says doesn’t add up, with the sound of a train passing by contradicting what she says about where in town she is. So, you can give her the correct code…or you can give her the code that automatically sets off an alarm. If you’re like me and you trust your intuition, you’ll give her the latter code, at which point it’s revealed that she’s at someone else’s apartment, and with that, her identity as the whistling man is revealed. It’s one of several moments in Killer Frequency that makes you feel smart for making the right choice.
Moment of the Year: The End (A Space for the Unbound)
This is the moment I’ve been alluding to this whole article, the moment where the truth of the world comes to the surface. At the start of the game, protagonist Atma spends some time speaking with a young girl named Nirmala, who dreams of being a writer when she grows up. However, after the introductory chapter, Atma falls into a river after saving Nirmala from drowning, then wakes up at his desk in school, with his girlfriend Raya in front of him. A person trying to predict the truth of the world would likely guess that Raya’s side of the story is a story penned by Nirmala, and they wouldn’t be 100% correct, but they wouldn’t be 100% wrong either. The real Atma drowned that day at the river, and Nirmala was forced to endure the horrible life she had knowing that the only person who ever showed her any kindness died trying to save her. Her father ended up beating her yet again later that evening because her nearly dying caused trouble for him, and the bullying at school only got worse. As time went on, Nirmala began hating who she was so much that she stopped going by her given name and going by a different of her names (I don’t know if that’s how its referred to in Indonesia), Raya. So that explains what the deal is between the two female characters that serve as the driving force of the story, but not the godlike powers Raya has. But as the plot reaches its conclusion, the truth becomes more and more clear. As Atma realizes who Raya truly is, faces her in a boss battle to try and force her to realize that their world is crumbling and that whatever she’s doing isn’t good for her, Raya finally lets Atma get a little closer to her. He spends time at her house just waiting downstairs until she’s ready to talk, and he supports her with no judgment as she talks about how miserable she is and how she wants to never wake up again, all while her outfit changes into a hospital gown over the course of the interactions. After this, Atma escorts Raya to the hideout they used to spend time in when she was little, at which point the song “Within the Dream” begins to play as Raya starts to ascend into the sky.Remember those lines from that song I asked you to keep in your back pocket?
“For a moment, my mind rose from reality/Was it heaven I touched?/As I’d half-forgotten, the truth collapsed into thin-air/And I was lost in my dreams again.
Half-awake, I see your face in reality/Was it even real?/Glowing light that fills the emptiness in me/Whispering ‘you will heal’”
This game was never about a pair of high school sweethearts…it was about a kid (and remember: she’s in high school, so she IS a kid) with a horrible life making the painful but worthwhile choice to live in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt. The world you spend the game’s runtime in is the life Raya/Nirmala wanted to have: she was a model student with loving parents and lots of friends, and who better for the role of her doting boyfriend than the older boy who had been her only friend before his death? [I haven’t pointed it out yet, but so as not to risk this being misunderstood, Atma and Nirmala’s relationship wasn’t inappropriate in any way. He was a high school boy who simply showed kindness to a kid, but when the time came for her subconscious to cast someone in the boyfriend role, he was the only person she’d ever known who could fit the bill.] The godlike powers Raya has in the game simply stem from the fact that this is a sort of fugue state Raya is in while her physical body lies in a hospital. And the fact that Nirmala shows up in the plot attempting to destroy the world is just the true Raya wanting to finally come out again. In this world parallel with her death, Nirmala/Raya has everything she ever wanted, but none of it is real. Her father was abusive and her mother let it happen, everyone she knew at school treated her terribly and at times encouraged her to kill herself, her misery caused her to push away what other friends came into her life, and the one person who she thought had ever shown her true kindness died so that she could live. And despite everything she had in this dream world, the only thing that truly mattered to her was Atma. Because deep down, she knew it was all fake. And even though Atma was dead, the joy he brought to her life was still real. And in the end, that very thought is what helps her to choose to go back to the world she resorted to drastic measures to escape from. Even the fake Atma she imagined wanted her to choose to live, because like the real one, he wanted what was best for her. He died so she could live, and so she chooses to.
So, Raya wakes up in a hospital bed, and there’s a small time jump. After her suicide attempt, her mother immediately divorced her father, and when the story picks back up, the two of them are just about to move to another city so as to leave all of this behind them. In her last moments in this town, she returns to the river where Atma died to thank him and tell him that she’s ok now. A happy ending to beat all happy endings, and the best moment of 2023.
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The Big Picture Awards
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Most Unique:
In a year like this one, uniqueness is a quality that means a lot. It’s not the be all and end all, of course, but in a year with SO many sequels and remakes, the unique games were the ones that stuck with me the most.
#5): Killer Frequency
I’ve never seen a puzzle game quite like Killer Frequency. It would be one thing if it were just basic logic, but take into account the fact that you have to locate relevant information to the current puzzle from somewhere in the radio station, and you’ve got a truly first-of-its-kind puzzle experience. Maybe some relevant info for this puzzle is on one of the ads we play? Maybe the food critic has something relevant to weekly deals in his cubicle? These are some of the questions you’ll need to ask yourself to figure things out.
#4): Dredge
You can trust me when I say that there isn’t much out there like Dredge…because if there were, I wouldn’t play much else. This is the only game I can say I’ve seen that simulates the life of a fisherman….and if I’m wrong on that, I can say with confidence that it’s the only one that simulates the life of a fisherman in a Lovecraftian wibbly-wobbly ocean magic kind of world.
#3): Hi-Fi Rush
With games such as BPM and Metal Hellsinger coming out in recent years, the concept of the rhythm action game is starting to really come into its own. Hi-Fi rush breaks the mold by being the first and only one with a bright color palette and an emphasis on rock and roll. It also breaks the mold by being the first of its kind with a great story, a lovable cast of characters, and an exceptional sense of humor.
#2): Chants of Sennaar
I’ve wanted a game like Chants of Sennaar for a long time. As someone with a passing interest in the study of language and how it evolves, getting to play a game where I have to translate between several pictographic languages in what is essentially the tower of Babel was beyond interesting. Using context clues to determine what one symbol might mean, how a language might handle plurality versus another language, etc, was the kind of puzzle that was intriguing to me from beginning to end.
Most Unique Game of the Year: Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
Was there ever any doubt? Clash: Artifacts of Chaos doesn’t have a non-unique bone in its body! The visual style, the character designs, the gameplay formula, the story beats, the entire existence of the one law, I mean, come on! Come on! There is no game more unique than this one in this year, and while I’d have to go and check my notes from prior years, I’d be hard pressed to name a more unique game from any of those either.
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Best Developer:
A game is quite literally nothing without a developer behind it. But what makes a good developer? It’s a question without a 100% solid answer. Talent is perhaps the biggest component for obvious reasons, but a talented team can put out a microtransaction-ladeled mess. Furthermore, a talented team can put out a great product and insult its fans. So, like a lot of other lists in this article, I’ll be going with my gut. These were the 10 greatest developers in 2023 and the games they were responsible for.
#10): Team 17 (Killer Frequency)
While the brunt of the work that goes into the gameplay experience in Killer Frequency is on the player, not the code (you can’t program player thought, after all), credit still has to be given to the team over at Team 17 for their excellent puzzle design skills and the atmosphere they were able to put together.
#9): Remedy Entertainment (Alan Wake 2)
Say what you want about the eccentric minds over at Remedy (people often do), but they literally only ever make the games they want to make, and they don’t compromise on that. And Alan Wake 2 is 13 whole years worth of ideas distilled into one ultimate product that they’ve wanted to make, but haven’t necessarily had the resources for. This is a game that I’ve consistently described as one with capital-V Vision. Really, the only reason Remedy comes in at #9 and not any higher is because Alan Wake 2 is a sequel, not an entirely new idea. There were plenty of new ideas to be found, just overall it wasn’t a new idea.
#8): ACE Team (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos)
There’s no way you would know this unless you were there when this game dropped and tried to find content surrounding it, but nobody was playing Clash: Artifacts of Chaos when it released. If you wanted to go looking for information about where to go next, you were SOL. No content was being made on youtube, no walkthroughs were being put out, there was almost nothing in the way of written reviews. And you know what the kicker is? This is the spiritual third entry in the cult classic Xenoclash saga from way back in the day. That kind of thing ought to garner lots of interest, but there just wasn’t. So, the developers put this game out with no fanfare and almost no reception, and I would be flabbergasted if they turned a profit. That’s a crying shame, but it’s so commendable that the team worked so hard on a project like this with seemingly zero support (and continue to work on it, as there were definitely updates between when I beat the game and when I temporarily picked it up again not too long ago).
#7): Nintendo (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
Tears of the Kingdom is not just an existing IP, it’s also a direct sequel. By all the usual standards, this should come in at a much less glamorous spot if anywhere at all. But the amount of gameplay innovation on display in this game is so unheard of that not being a new IP is ok.
#6): Mintrocket (Dave the Diver)
Dave the Diver isn’t technically a roguelike, but for the half of the gameplay experience that takes place in the ocean, it shares enough DNA with roguelikes to warrant an invitation to the family reunion. So, the fact that I had so much fun in those segments as someone who loathes roguelikes with a fiery vengeance shows how excellently the team designed these elements that I normally hate.
#5): Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios (Like a Dragon: Ishin)
RGG comes into this contest with a bit of an advantage, that advantage being that it’s a foregone conclusion that I purchase any and all Like a Dragon/Yakuza games that come out. So, I was always going to buy this game. And like the other games in this studio’s library, I spent an ungodly amount of time doing side stuff and just having fun in the world. But here’s the kicker…I spent well over 120 hours in just ONE playthrough of Like a Dragon: Ishin. That’s several days of play time more than any other game in this long-running saga, and the only game to come close to that amount of time for one playthrough is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. And the kicker to that? If I were to go back to Like a Dragon: Ishin tomorrow, I could easily sink several more hours into it without realizing, while I have jumped back into Tears of the Kingdom recently only to duck out before too long.
#4): Black Salt Games (Dredge)
Dredge was one of two games that I gave a perfect 10/10 score to in 2023. That ought to be enough to explain why its developers earn a spot on this list. But I will add that the developers have added a steady stream of new content to the experience including one DLC and a crossover with Dave the Diver that is evidently in the works!
#3): Round8 Studio (Lies of P)
Lies of P is the second of two games that I gave a perfect 10/10 score to. That ought to be enough to explain why its developers earn a spot on this list. However, what gives that game the edge over Dredge is the fact that the developers had a clear roadmap in mind for additional content without sacrificing the quality of the base game. Dredge didn’t do the opposite or anything, it’s just Round8 had a much clearer vision for the future. Major patches that respond to fan feedback come out consistently, the developers consistently put out new cosmetic items to thank the players for playing, and if they show half as much dedication to their next projects as they have to this one, they’ll be developer of the year next time we revisit this category.
#2): Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush)
Remember everything I said about Clash: Artifacts of Chaos? Double that for Hi-Fi Rush. Nobody on this planet knew about this game until Microsoft shadow-dropped it, at which point, it gained immediate GOTY acclaim. For those who don’t know what shadow-dropped means, it means that the developers released the game to the public the exact second the game was revealed. No marketing, no focus testing, just an announcement followed by the fact that the game is out now! This game had backing from Microsoft, and the powers that be decided it was so strong that it could exceed expectations with a surprise announcement alone. And in a rare move for Microsoft, they were right. This was exactly the kind of game that ought to make a publisher confident enough to do a shadow drop…but there was one developer that was somehow more deserving of this award than Tango.
Developer of the Year: Larian Studios (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Did I have any intention of writing anything other than “duh” for this blurb? Nope! But I’ll continue anyway. Larian scared the entire triple-A industry with this game by making them think we might start demanding quality from those AAA companies. Can you imagine that? Bobby Kottick would be slamming his face against his desk screaming and crying and soiling himself if he were forced to oversee something good instead of being evil! Andrew Wilson of EA would have to be put on suicide watch if he had a government quality mandate. And Insomniac, the developers of Spider-Man 2? They would have put out a game better than Spider-Man 2, which was already excellent as it is! When games like Baldur’s Gate 3 come out, we all win, and we all owe this fear of a shakeup to Larian.
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Best Story:
We now come to the first of the two penultimate categories in my end of year reviews.While the most crucial part of any game is the gameplay, there are typically circumstances in which a great narrative can be the tiebreaker between two equally good gameplay loops. These were the games that told the best stories in 2023.
#10): Under the Waves
A few years after the death of his daughter, climate activist Stan Moray takes a job as an underwater equipment repairman for the big evil oil company as a way of getting as far away from the rest of the world as humanly possible. While down in the deep blue, Stan finds himself alone with his grief, being forced to reckon with both that and the increasingly cut corners he has to abide by from his corporate overlords.
#9): Like a Dragon: Ishin
The Edo period is one of the most important pieces of Japanese history. With the rise in globalization, the island nation’s isolationist identity was under threat, and new ideas were making their way in alongside all kinds of other new things (like bananas, evidently). A samurai in this period, Sakamoto Ryoma, had a dream of a Japan without the class system he benefited from. A Japan where high-ranking Samurai couldn’t kill and commit other crimes with impunity. And he succeeded in establishing this radical new idea in Japan by infiltrating the ranks of a notorious group of murderers with loyalty to the shogunate. This is the real-life story that Like a Dragon: Ishin tells……..now…..do I believe for a second that the real Sakamoto Ryoma stormed the palace of the shogun with one friend, defeated the shogun in a one-on-one dual, and killed a corrupt high-ranking official who coordinated shady arms deals with England on the top of a belltower while giving a monologue about truly loving your country? No. But it’s still a fun story that does teach something about history…and if it wasn’t the Edo period, forgive me…a quick google search for “Sakamoto Ryoma time period” said Edo.
#8): Dave the Diver
One day, a diver named Dave is called up by a friend who tells him about this natural phenomenon that has just been discovered: a deep blue hole somewhere in nondescript Asian waters that houses marine life from all over the world. Furthermore, the stock of marine life in that area seems to change by the day! Being a passionate and somewhat naive man, Dave jumps at the chance to visit this place to do some diving. Unfortunately for Dave, his friend has just started a sushi restaurant in that area, and guess who the ingredients procurement specialist for that restaurant is? That’s right….Dave! So, Dave takes this opportunity that was forced on him as a way to do what you love for a living and starts delving into this special spot of the ocean catching fresh fish for each evening’s dinner service. But as more VIP guests start showing up, the restaurant’s popularity begins to grow, and as such, more and more exotic catches are demanded, and while meeting that demand, Dave stumbles across the last remnants of a mer-people society in need of a savior. And that’s kind of scratching the surface.
#7): Hi-Fi Rush
College drop-out and lovable dorkasaurus Chai wants nothing more than to be a rock star, so when he sees an opportunity to undergo an experimental surgery from a totally-not-evil megacorporation to get a robot arm, he leaps at the chance because it would be pretty cool to be a rock star with a metal arm. However, as he goes into the procedure, he forgets to take his iPod off his person. As a result, not only does he gain a robot arm, he also has his iPod fused with his body in such a way that he can now feel the natural rhythm of the world. Now labeled as a defect by the corporation since he’s an example of their procedure yielding unexpected results, Chai has no choice but to team up with a ragtag group of saturday morning cartoon characters to try and take down the corporation, perhaps while learning some lessons about what truly makes someone a rock star along the way!
#6): Lies of P
After an exceptional energy source referred to as Ergo is discovered in the little coastal town of Krat, the town becomes a hotspot of intellectual guests. On those grounds alone, the town goes from small fishing village to sprawling metropolis. But eventually, a brilliant inventor named Gepetto comes along and invents “puppets”: automated servants powered by Ergo that propel this city into a new age. However, mere days before a grand exhibition of the next wave of puppetry, all of Krat’s puppets go crazy and start attacking their human masters. This, in combination with a petrification disease ravaging the city’s poorer areas, brings Krat to its knees. However, one day, a special puppet Gepetto made comes into consciousness, and the fate of the city rests in his hands. But what makes this puppet special? All puppets except for this one are bound by a set of pre-programmed ethics by the name of “The Grand Covenant.” Lacking this hard-coding, this special puppet can do what nobody else can: it can effectively fight its puppet brethren, is immune to disease, and cannot have the grand covenant used against it.
#5): Killer Frequency
In the podunk town of Gallow’s Creek, a disgraced big city radio personality finds himself running the late-late-late night radio program on the town’s one station. It’s a night like any other night, with protagonist Forrest Nash spinning tunes and cracking jokes. But then, the deputy sheriff calls in to inform him that the sheriff has been murdered and the only other cop in town is on vacation. Fearful that the individual behind the sheriff’s death may strike again, the deputy sheriff informs Forrest that she’ll need to travel to the next town over to get reinforcements to secure the town. However, it’s a multi-hour round trip, and with nobody else in town having the experience required to run a phone line, it will have to fall to Forrest to serve as 9-1-1 until the cavalry arrives. From there, Forrest tries to keep the various denizens the killer targets safe by giving them relevant advice to help them escape. As the night goes on and more and more people are targeted, the truth behind the killings gradually starts coming to light.
#4): Baldur’s Gate 3
In the land of Faerun one day, an individual finds themself thrown onto the gambling board of destiny when they wake up on a mindflayer ship, already infected by the parasites through which the mind flayers reproduce and therefore destined to become a monstrosity. However, upon stumbling across a ragtap group of interesting characters in the same predicament, it becomes clear that something (or someone) is preventing them from transforming for the time being. As they all look for a cure, a sinister plot involving a new deity named “the absolute'' begins to surface, and as it turns out, their condition may be related to this phenomenon. Given how many hundreds upon hundreds of ways the story can go from this jumping off point, I think that’s the best way to end this blurb.
#3): Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
Pseudo lives his life as a hermit, preferring to stay far away from the cities that dot the land of Zenozoik. While he doesn’t belong to the corwids, who reject the one law of the land in favor of a one law they personally select, Pseudo simply chooses to live a solitary life free from all law. However, one day he stumbles across a young boy whose guardian has just been killed by one of the bloodthirsty, law-abiding citizens of Zenozoik, and his sense of justice won’t let him walk away. So he allows the murderer to impose the penalty the one law demands upon him, then proceeds to beat the snot out of him. He then takes temporary guardianship of the boy alongside his previous guardian’s dice set (so he can engage in the one law without having to needlessly take punishments) and sets out to meet with the ruler of the land, hoping she’ll be able to find a more permanent housing solution for the boy. However, upon reaching the capital city, he is let through security with unusual speed, and it turns out that the land’s ruler, Gemini, has a reward out for anyone who can deliver the boy to her. Sensing less-than-positive intentions, Pseudo provokes Gemini’s wrath and barely escapes from the city. The boy then reveals to Pseudo that he has the power to both give life and take it away, which would be a horrible weapon to put into the hands of a powerful ruler like Gemini. So, Pseudo and the boy take off on a grand adventure across Zenozoik in search of legendary artifacts that would allow them to circumvent Gemini’s artifact and emerge victorious under the one law.
#2): Alan Wake 2
Saga Anderson is an FBI agent recently given the lead in a case assigned to her and her partner, Alex Casey. The case? A series of murders in the small town of Bright Falls, Washington. The reason why the FBI would be called in for that? All of the victims went missing in 2010, 13 years ago. So, for some reason, people who went missing all those years ago have been showing up newly dead in Bright Falls. While investigating this, Saga discovers manuscript pages out in the field that seem to describe her every move and predict future movements. She uses these predictions as a way of planning her next steps, and it eventually leads to her stumbling across yet another person who went missing in Bright Falls 13 years ago: The famous writer, Alan Wake. And from there, the balls decisively go against the wall.
Story of the Year: A Space for the Unbound
In Loka City, a fictional city in Indonesia, a high school boy named Atma awakes at his desk at school having had a strange dream about drowning. Perhaps sensing his unease, his girlfriend, Raya, does the unthinkable for a model student such as her: she suggests the two of them skip the rest of the school day. After making a break from the teachers, Raya finds a stray cat and asks Atma if he can buy the cat some food. He insists that he doesn’t have the money for it, but after further prodding, he finds he has more money in his pocket than he thought. So, he buys some cat food, but Raya insists that the cat can’t eat without a bowl or a place to live. So, the two spend the afternoon (which they would’ve otherwise spent learning) looking for a suitable place to build a little shelter for the cat, a suitable food bowl, and the right material to keep it safe from the elements. After a long afternoon spent in this pursuit, the couple finally accomplishes their goal and decide to celebrate by going to see a movie together. However, when they arrive at the theater, it turns out Atma spent too much money getting the cat set up, and he can no longer afford two tickets. After a moment of frustration, Raya murmurs under her breath about how carefully she planned everything before a brief flash of light. Suddenly, the woman at the ticket counter mentions that the two of them had won a contest where the prize was two free tickets. This obviously confuses Atma, but like with most high school boys, he’s a bit too distracted by the fact that he can look like a hero in front of his girlfriend to think about it too much. So, the two get in to see a movie about a world full of cats, eat popcorn, accidentally hold hands, cute stuff like that. Then, after the movie, Atma muses aloud about how he wishes he could live in a world like the one in the movie, so Raya decides to reveal a secret. She snaps her fingers and suddenly, the two are transported to an alternate dimension filled with pettable cats, just like Atma wanted. She admits to Atma that she has the power to manifest her will on to reality. Almost immediately after the fact, a giant muscular angel cat appears in this alternate reality and declares that it’s time for the world to end.If you’re eager to know what happens next, you know what to do! And if you’ve read the blurb about the end of this game…well, then you see everything I’ve written for what it is.
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Best Gameplay:
Gameplay is the one thing that separates this medium from all the others, so naturally, it’s the most important of the awards (other than GOTY, of course). While it’s just one ingredient in a given game’s recipe, it is, as I’ve already said, the most important. So, the following 10 games were the ones that had the best mixture of overall fun factor and originality in their gameplay loops.
#10): Spider-Man 2
In 2018, Spider-Man took home the top spot for this award. Now, in 2023, its sequel comes in at spot #10. Why is that? Well, it’s the same excellent gameplay, but the only thing that has been improved is the already stellar traversal, which has been taken to the next level with a wingsuit and some other little tricks. So, it’s the same great gameplay that helped its predecessor win this award in its year, but it’s just that.
#9): Like a Dragon: Ishin
Like a Dragon: Ishin is a somewhat similar story to Spider-Man 2. In 2017, Yakuza 0 took home the gold in this award (For those who haven’t been paying attention, Like a Dragon is the new name of the Yakuza series), and in 2018, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life took home spot #3. With that in mind, you might wonder why this has the edge over Spider-Man 2, given that I’ve been through more iterations of this gameplay model than the Spider-Man model. The reason for this is that while the overall makeup of the Yakuza model is largely untouched, this particular entry is the first entry in the saga with the combat stances it has. Every Yakuza game has combat stances, but they’re always based on hand-to-hand combat, just at different movement speeds and special attacks. Like a Dragon: Ishin, on the other hand, has the standard fight-fighting stance, alongside a sword stance, a gun stance, and a both sword and gun stance. Yakuza cuts a LOT of corners (with one entry having menus running at different framerates because they copy-and-pasted code from existing minigames but had to create new ones for new minigames), but they did have to program entirely brand-new animations and the like for these combat stances.
#8): Dredge
Dredge gets its hooks into you (note from the editing phase: no pun intended) with a simple-yet-satisfying little gameplay loop. You’ll wake up at the crack of dawn, head out to sea, catch as many fish as possible, dredge up as many valuables from the depths as possible, then find yourself an available port when it gets dark outside. From there, you’ll sell your catch, upgrade your ship if possible, then turn in for the night. As you improve your ship, you’ll be able to travel faster, venture further out to sea, and fish in more-and-more complicated waters. You’ll also be able to deploy crab pots to passively accumulate catches while you do other things. It’s a cozy game with a cozy gameplay loop, and it’s just so cozy that if you’re like me, you won’t be able to stop engaging with the gameplay loop even after you’ve exhausted all upgrade possibilities.
#7): Killer Frequency
Obviously, Killer Frequency isn’t about action or combat or anything that might be defined as “gameplay” in the traditional sense. Rather, it earns this spot because of how excellently made its logic puzzles are.
#6): Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
The name of the game with Clash has been its uniqueness every time I’ve talked about it. But an aspect of that uniqueness that I’m yet to touch on is the moment-to-moment gameplay. I’ve discussed the one law and its effects in detail, but I haven’t talked about combat. What truly drives the gameplay experience in this game is timing, but in a different way than you might be used to. See, you have your standard suite of action options: regular attack, special attack, dodging, etc. But the momentum of combat involves chaining these things together at the EXACT moment anything you do connects with an enemy. Your dodges are meant to be executed the second your punch lands, in other words. It’s difficult to master, and the difficulty involved in the mastery is what keeps Clash: Artifacts of Chaos out of the top 5.
#5): The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Similarly to Spider-Man 2, Tears of the Kingdom’s gameplay isn’t too much different from its predecessor. What puts it in the top 5 gameplay models of the year, with this in mind, is the amount that the little changes improve things. I may have already said it in a previous blurb, but in Breath of the Wild, you’d end up with so much crap in your inventory that you’d pick up from monsters you killed….those were meant to be used to create elixirs, but if you’re anything like me, you don’t make elixirs because you prefer to create food that can have the same effects. In giving the player the ability to use these monster parts and even food parts as ways of giving melee weapons damage or elemental buffs and giving special properties to individual arrows on the fly, Nintendo has taken this already ridiculously player-choice-focused open world formula and taken it to a new high. Then there’s the building system, which improves traversal immensely. Say you’re impatient and want to get to the top of a giant cliff in front of you. What do you do? In Breath of the Wild, you would’ve had no choice but to go around or climb. In this climbing, you’d be at your mercy of both your available stamina and the elements. Even if you had the stamina to make it to the top, if it suddenly started raining, you had no hope. But in Tears of the Kingdom, you have the ability to think a bit more outside the box. You might ask yourself: what kinds of crafting components do I have at my disposal? Maybe you’ll build a hot air balloon to get as high up as possible before you start climbing. Maybe you’ll build an air motorcycle to gain that altitude in a jankier way. Maybe you have nothing you can use to make anything quite so fancy, but there are lots of trees around. In that case, you might build a progressively bigger and bigger jank ladder out of the logs with little breaks for stamina recovery or waiting out the rain. Because this is a direct sequel with not much in the way of changes, I can’t give it any higher position for this, but I do have to point out just how much impact the few changes made have.
#4): Dave the Diver
With as many types of gameplay as Dave the Diver boasts, it was bound to end up somewhere on this list because of one of them. But as it turns out, almost all of it is excellent (with the exception of some of the tamagotchi-style phone games). This game is almost a tale of two halves: diving and dinner. There’s more to it than that, but those are what I’ll focus on for this blurb for the sake of brevity. You have 3-3.5 time slots in a given day. Typically, the day will be split up into 2 time slots for diving and 1 for dinner, but as the plot progresses, you’ll have the option to take a third time window to dive and reduce dinner to half its usual length for the sake of finding fish that are only out at night. But in any case, your time slot while diving lasts until you go back to the surface or die. While underwater, you’ll spend your time surveying the available fish, catching what you think you might need for a profitable dinner service, looking for plants or seasonings that can be incorporated into dishes. It’s the kind of chill experience that is chill because of its cozy repetitiveness. Then comes dinner service, where you’ll get to come up with a new menu each night. You’ll choose the dishes you serve based on your stock of fish, your stock of other ingredients and condiments, how much you can charge, etc. Like in any high-scale restaurant dinner service, the ingredients are prepped before the customers come in and are thrown out if not used. So that’s another thing to consider…you don’t want to prepare 30 portions of an expensive dish if you’re also going to serve several portions of a less expensive dish! Then you’ll work as a waiter, drink pourer, wasabi restocker, etc for the entirety of the service. This is a piece of gameplay that lasts for a minute at most, so it’s a high-intensity rapid-fire experience that has massive ramifications on the resources you have to work with in the next day. And I’ve said this before, but the fact that the diving portions (the portions that take up the most time) are essentially roguelike sections that are as fun as they are is astounding.
#3): Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
I can’t help but feel that a bronze medal winner should get a bigger blurb than I’m about to write, but there’s really nothing for it. The only way to describe the gameplay in Armored Core VI is to say that it’s exactly how a 6 year-old boy would describe his favorite saturday morning cartoon. “And then um the big robot um pulled out his laser sword and tried to hit the other robot but um the other um other robot jumped out of the way and um shot a million missiles and um….” its so fast-paced that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of things, but it all comes together to make literally every combat experience exciting!
#2): Hi-Fi Rush
There’s something inherently satisfying about rhythm games. Perfection is not just doable, it always feels incredible, and the fact that games in this genre usually come with great music is just the cherry on top. Enter Hi-Fi Rush, which takes all these gameplay concepts and applies them to a Devil May Cry-style combo-based hack-and-slash combat experience. I could easily leave the blurb at that, but the game does something else with this style seemingly by accident. Dear reader, did you know that I have trouble with these Devil May Cry-style games? Not beating them, mind you, just thriving in them. And the reason for this is because I can never nail combo timings. I’ll press the buttons in order, but it always seems like in a 3 button combo, either the second or third press is off by some amount, and nothing I do seems to make a difference. But in Hi-Fi Rush, there isn’t the same kind of ambiguity. I can know that a combo consists of one heavy attack and two light attacks, for instance, and know exactly how to do it just by listening to the music.
Gameplay of the Year: Lies of P
In a list like this where I’ve constantly penalized games for derivative gameplay styles, I could understand if it comes off as hypocritical to put a Soulslike in the top spot. But the only DNA that Lies of P shares with its compatriots in this genre is the most basic of building blocks: physical checkpoints that respawn enemies, experience points that get left behind in a physical location when you die and are also used for currency, a healing item with limited uses that gets refilled at the aforementioned physical checkpoints, an awkward jumping system, the basics of any Soulslike. But Lies of P ONLY adheres to these basics, and everything else is an improvement of some kind. Let me explain! How many times have you wished a Soulslike would just reset an elevator before a boss fight so you didn’t have to pull the lever again to call the elevator down if you lose? Lies of P does this! How many times have you gone to try to level up only to find out you don’t have enough currency? In Lies of P, your experience counter begins to glow blue when you have enough to level up. How many times has your objective in an attempt against a boss been to regain your souls/blood echoes/etc and make an effort to die closer to the fog gate so that if you die it doesn’t take as much work and you can focus more on fighting the boss? Well, Lies of P puts your experience outside of the boss arena so you can either fall back and level up or go into the fight focused. How many times have you wanted to progress certain quest lines and wasted countless hours scouring every level to try and find the NPCs in question to progress those quests? For every single objective you pick up in Lies of P, you get an icon denoting that objective in the fast travel menu, so you know in what general direction to look. How many times have you seen a weapon you really like only to be disappointed by smaller aspects like stat scaling? Well, the weapon assembly system I’ve already spoken about fixes this! This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of quality of life improvements. Lies of P is a Soulslike with more power given to the player than in any previous Soulslike, proving that your Soulslike doesn’t need to be petty and inconvenient to pose a challenge. Beyond that, it’s just such a satisfying gameplay loop to experience. It makes you feel powerful even against less-than-stellar odds. A roster of bosses that all could’ve won Boss of the Year, a roster of weapons that all could’ve won Weapon of the Year, so many aspects of Lies of P come together to make this game what it is. To be clear before I say this: I, like many other folks, consider a Soulslike to be any Souls-style game not by From Software, whereas From Software creates “Soulsborne” games. I say this to ensure I’m not misunderstood as saying Lies of P is better than Sekiro. But to continue my thought: Lies of P is the greatest of all Soulslikes, a blueprint that From Software ought to pay attention to going forward, and the game boasting the best gameplay model of 2023.
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Honorable Mentions
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Before we get into the big list, I always like to go through my list of Honorable Mentions. However, these aren’t what you typically think of when you think of honorable mentions. Some of these winners may very well end up on the GOTY list when all is said and done. See, if you’re new here, my Honorable Mentions serve as a way of giving out more niche awards….honorable mentions for award types, in other words. So, let’s get started!
Samus Aran Award for Strongest Female Character
The original Honorable Mention, the Samus Aran Award for Strongest Female Character is one of the more self-explanatory of these. This year was pretty stacked for choice, making it a difficult decision for the first time in years. But in the end, the recipient of the award is…
Raya (A Space for the Unbound)
Taken at face value, Raya could be eligible to win this award because of her godlike powers…but if you read the blurb about the game’s ending in the Best Moment award, you know that the godlike powers are only there because of the part of her that still wants to be dead. But in the end, Raya, having failed in an active suicide attempt, makes the decision to live. In a year filled with fearsome warrior women, reporters with nerves of steel, and corporate suits who turn on their companies, that’s about the strongest feat I can think of.
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Gears of War Award for Most Raw Fun
Not to be confused with the Best Gameplay category we just finished doing, this Honorable Mention has absolutely nothing at all to do with quality. This one is all about fun, regardless of whether or not the gameplay is well designed, whether it's technically competent, or whether it’s from an existing IP. And the most straightforwardly good time I had this year was with…
The excellent writing and comedy, the excellent music, the silver medal-winning gameplay, it’s a no-brainer.
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Undertale Award for Biggest Surprise
Sometimes a game comes out of left field to hit me where I live. The first major example of this since I started blogging was Undertale back in 2015, which surprised me by virtue of being good in spite of being what I like to call a “bleep-bloop” game that seemed appealing only to those with very specific nostalgia. In 2023, the relevant game was…
Looking at screenshots of Dave the Diver gave me a specific impression of how it was going to be. Really, the only thing about it that looked appealing to me was its premise. However, that alongside several strong recommendations led me to give it a try, and it turned out to be one of my favorite games of 2023, to say nothing of how well it handled its semi-roguelike elements.
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Hyper Light Drifter Award for Actual Honorable Mention
I typically like to include a runner-up in the final list, but I’ve actually started including a traditional honorable mention to bring attention to a given year’s runner-runner-up (if applicable). The reason? I just like to give recognition to as many things I liked as possible. So, if I didn’t bind myself to top 10 and a runner up, then spot #12 on the GOTY list would go to…
I 100%-ed Spider-Man 2, which normally makes a game a shoe-in for a spot on the list proper. In 2018, Spider-Man came in at the #2 spot in the GOTY list, and Spider-Man 2 is more of what made that game the near-winner that it was. However, as I’ve already said many times, this year I found myself fatigued with sequels and existing IPs. Even though I loved my time with Spider-Man 2, I have to say it’s probably as lazy as a sequel could be, copy and pasting the existing work done in the original game, adding a teeny-tiny bit of improvement to traversal, and fixing nearly none of the technical issues. I loved Spider-Man 2 enough to want to shout it out, but it simply isn’t top 10 material, nor is it worthy to be the runner-up on the list. But I’ll say this: the strength of the experience was enough to put it above some entries you might be surprised aren’t on the final list. So, when you finish with the final list and notice some things missing, just remember that all of them were beat out by Spider-Man 2 in spite of the gripes I’ve mentioned.
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Spec Ops: The Line Award for Most Important Game
First conceived as a way of giving Depression Quest some time in the spotlight, the Spec Ops: The Line award for Most Important Game celebrates games that have something to say or that are “important” in some other way. And this year, the award goes to…
Games dealing with anything mental health-related are a dime a dozen, and in fact, they’re beyond laughably predictable at this point. These days, it’s practically a meme that all indie games are about depression and anxiety. But despite the fact that the overall events of A Space for the Unbound are rooted in these things, the game isn’t about them. Furthermore, it doesn’t depict any of its subject matter as giant metaphorical monsters or incorporate the themes into gameplay in any way. Instead, the game does what I wish every game that deals with mental health would do: It shuts up and lets the story and characters speak for themselves. In fact, were it not for the unskippable content warning when you boot the game up, you wouldn’t be able to predict that there were any mental health themes to begin with. This game, again, does what more games like it need to do: it makes a big deal out of the people, not the problems. This game in the hands of weaker storytellers would’ve had Raya admit that the world is a fugue state from a failed suicide attempt right from the get-go, and she would’ve asked us to make our way through the levels to save her. Saving Raya would’ve been the end goal, one way or another. But the game instead focuses on presenting Raya as somebody we should naturally care about, so we want to help her…and it’s only in the game’s final minutes that we realize that this whole time, we’ve been playing as the small piece of her brain that retained Atma’s words of encouragement and wants to live, and that by simply progressing through the plot, we got to help a kid (a big kid because she’s in high school, but a kid all the same) with a tragic life choose not JUST to live, but to return to life in the aftermath of her doing whatever she could to achieve the opposite result. Despite the fact that this game has possibly the happiest ending I’ve seen in a long time, I found myself feeling unbelievably depressed for days after the credits rolled, and that’s because it, for the third time, handles this kind of thing in a way that your average indie game couldn’t possibly fathom…Celeste, an absolutely excellent game, portrays anxiety as a mountain. Gris, which I haven’t played but understand deals with themes of depression, portrays its subject matter within its level design. A Space for the Unbound, in contrast to these examples, portrays suicidal thoughts and ideation as they ACTUALLY manifest most of the time:
Too late.
Most suicides take place with no notes, no grand proclamations, nothing like that…just the results and a family and cast of friends who had no idea anything was wrong or that things had gotten that bad. In saving the grand, tragic revelation for the last minute, A Space for the Unbound effectively puts us in the shoes of the family/friends of the few people who recover from situations like these. If more little indie games like these focused on portraying their mental health themes in a way that promotes empathy and treated those themes with respect, it perhaps wouldn’t be such a meme that they’re always about mental health. No contest, A Space for the Unbound is the winner.
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Kingdoms of Amalur Award for Worst Writing
Named for a game that had the following line of dialogue: “Did you hear that? It could be {local enemy type} but it could be something else…”, the Kingdoms of Amalur award for Worst Writing is the first of the Dis-Honorable Mentions, and as the name implies, it celebrates the game with the worst writing of the bunch. And for 2023, the game with the worst writing was…
Expletives thrown around like a high schooler trying to write Game of Thrones fanfiction, a nonsensical premise where people with godlike powers are enslaved by people with no magic, and an overall message that peaceful protest is the right way to do things in a society like that (where babies are literally culled if they’re suspected to have a trace of magic by their own mothers)? Every part of Final Fantasy XVI makes it the only choice for this award.
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Borderlands Award for Most Yawn-Inducing
Perhaps the worst crime a game can commit is to be boring….come to think of it, this second Dis-Honorable Mention could stand to be renamed “Most Boring” for the sake of clarity, but I’m too attached to my traditions. Anyway, the most Yawn-Inducing game in 2023 was…
At least with Final Fantasy XVI there was some excellent music and shiny particle effects. Fort Solis, on the other hand, is a story-based walking simulator where the story isn’t great and the walking is dreadfully slow. While it did sport top of the line graphics, that’s all it had, and I didn’t pay full game price for a movie.
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Brink Award for Worst Game of the Year
There are boring games, there are poorly-written games, but there’s only one worst game in any given year. Y’all can probably already see the writing on the walls, so…game in question, step up and take your second Dis-Honorable Mention of the article…
I’ve already spoken at length about how terrible the story and writing in Final Fantasy XVI are, but it’s also dreadful on the gameplay and pacing front as well. You’ll spend 90% of certain chapters going from place to place and talking to boring characters about boring things, then you’ll spend the last 10% in a giant, admittedly impressive boss fight. You’ll spend 90% of other chapters engaging in repetitive as hell combat against enemies and minibosses with far too much health so things drag out, then the last 10% in those aforementioned boss fights. Gameplay itself is nothing but a cooldown simulator: you’ll unleash every special attack you have to do a paltry sum of damage, fill the time for the attacks to recharge with even more paltry damage from basic attacks, then rinse and repeat a million times. Every battle against any threat no matter how small takes entirely too long….I mean, I’ve recently learned that the final boss takes over an hour to finish, just, come on! Shame on Square Enix for this piss-poor effort.
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Top 10 Games
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Well folks, we’ve finally arrived at the list you’ve all been waiting for! This article has already taken far too long to get done, so I’m not going to stand on ceremony too much, and the goal is going to be to keep the blurbs comparatively short. But before we get into it, I have a couple of notes:
Firstly, allow me to explain how I more-or-less come to these conclusions. I start out by calculating a “raw” score. This consists of the score I give a game in its review, then I add more and more points to that score based on replayability, whether or not I achieved 100% completion, my gut feeling, whether or not I went to look up other games in the saga or from the same developer, whether or not I would be ok with it winning the top spot, things like that. The total of all of those point values makes up the raw score, and that’s typically how I get an overview of how the lists are going to turn out. However, then the categories come into place, and a game gets points for the highest spot they win on any given list (so if something wins spot 9 and spot 1 on a list, it would get the 10 points for the top spot, not the 2 points for spot 9). This year, there were many categories I cut down to 5 spots where I already had position 6-10 winners, and those winners that got cut from the visual side of this article still got their points….so this year things aren’t quite as transparent as things usually are. Same goes for categories that I cut completely for time, everything that won a spot still got their points. Once the total of the category points are calculated, that score gets added on to the raw score and the first draft of the positions is determined this way. I still have ultimate final say on things, but I don’t typically find myself needing to move things around too much.
Second/Lastly, my first GOTY list happened in 2012. This means this is my 11th time doing this. So, to recognize the history here, I’m going to simply list the top 5 from each year I’ve been doing this starting from #5 with the GOTY in bold, so there’s a since of how the cream of the crop has grown and evolved over the years:
2012: Halo 4, Journey, The Walking Dead, Far Cry 3, Mass Effect 3
2013: Crysis 3, Rain, The Wolf Among Us, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, The Last of Us
2014: Assassin’s Creed: Rogue, Transistor, Far Cry 4, Dark Souls II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
2015: Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Soma, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Undertale
2016: Pokemon Sun/Moon, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Final Fantasy XV, Inside, Doom
2017: Finding Paradise, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Last Day of June, Nier: Automata, Yakuza 0/Persona 5
2018: Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee/Pikachu, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Celeste, Spider-Man, God of War
2019: Pokemon Sword/Shield, Jedi: Fallen Order, Code Vein, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
2020: Man-eater, Journey to the Savage Planet, Final Fantasy VII: Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, Doom Eternal
2021: Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights, Death’s Door, Impostor Factory, Demon Turf, The Forgotten City
2022: Olli-Olli World, Tunic, Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok, Neon White
Now…here we go!
Ultimate Runner-Up):
I can’t say that nobody wanted a sequel to Alan Wake, but I can say with some degree of certainty that nobody expected one. I can also say that it would’ve been easy for Remedy to rest on their laurels and make another game exactly like the original, but instead, they brought 13 years worth of imagination and care to the project. As for why it’s just the runner-up for the list, I can explain that pretty easily. When calculating the raw scores this time around, I ended up deciding to take a point tax of all the sequels or other kinds of follow-ups to existing IPs…I wasn’t lying when I said I was fatigued by them this year. And with the points taken off for that, Alan Wake 2 just so happens to come in behind the game that won spot 10. So, when you do see existing IPs in the entries to come, keep the point tax fact in mind and know that they earned their spots in spite of the tax.
#10):
It seems like every year, one game earns a spot on this list by virtue of the character and story-based awards alone, and this year is no exception. A Space for the Unbound is, in my estimation, the most important spot winner of its kind. I’ve already written at length about why that is, so this is one of the spot winners that speaks for itself.
#9):
In 2017, not only did The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild win one spot lower than this sequel, it shared that spot with What Remains of Edith Finch. This game’s predecessor didn’t even get a spot to itself. But as many people have said, Tears of the Kingdom makes its predecessor look like the first draft it was. A lot of the same technical problems remain, and Nintendo doubled down on some of the things that made the original game suffer, but this is still enough of an improvement over the original that I believe it’s worthy of the accolades, which I did not feel about the original.
#8):
I’m a simple guy: give me something with a tropical ocean setting and I’ll settle in nicely in a way I haven’t been able to since my Hawaii trip years ago. On the other hand, I’m a simple guy: present me with a thing that I don’t typically like, and I usually am not keen to give it a shot. So, give me something like Dave the Diver, which sports a tropical ocean setting with roguelike elements, and I’m suddenly no longer such a simple guy. But man oh man, Dave the Diver is exactly what I needed when I needed it. A nice cozy game about meeting, catching, and interacting with marine life that also let me live out some of my Hell’s Kitchen fantasies, during a time where my job was just beginning to make me feel like I was going to lose my mind from stress.
#7):
Every now and again, I like to scour the PS store or steam looking for hidden gems, and usually, at least one fruit of this endeavor ends up on the GOTY list. This year, one of those hidden gems is Killer Frequency: a game made-for-VR but nonetheless playable without it. Now, you wouldn’t necessarily know it from reading my end of year lists, but I LOVE puzzle games. A good puzzle that makes me feel clever for solving it is an absolute dopamine nuke for me, and Killer Frequency is, in my opinion, the best one in years. This is probably because the game also tends to rely on leaps of faith to fill in some small gaps. The frat mission comes to mind. The frat boys are probably already drunk by the time they decide to order food, and they probably don’t do too much investigation into deals, so when you’re reviewing the information you’ve accumulated, you kinda have to rely on your intuition just as much as the facts. So it’s a combination of making you feel clever for piecing together the facts alongside making you feel clever for thinking outside the box about those facts. You simply have to play this game if these kinds of games appeal to you!
#6):
Even though Yakuza 6: The Song of Life won this exact spot in 2018, I have to say that Like a Dragon: Ishin is easily the second-best Yakuza/Like a Dragon (thank you, SEGA, for the pointless saga name change…) since 2017’s co-GOTY: Yakuza 0. It’s just been such a stacked year that I couldn’t give it any higher a spot. But anyway…I spent more time in Like a Dragon: Ishin in one playthrough than I spent across multiple playthroughs of this year’s GOTY. Any game in this saga is going to have enough stuff to fill a full year’s worth of play time, but this is the first time since Yakuza 0 that I’ve spent this kind of time in Rya Go Gotaku’s flagship franchise. I maxed out every single relationship with every single confidant, completed all of the non-weapon-based completionism goals, and for a long period of time, I would spend all of my time after work unwinding by hitting the Mahjong tables. Fun fact…I’d never played Mahjong in one of these games until Ishin, and through playing for approximately 50 hours to unwind, I’ve become a respectable Mahjong player! Even if this game weren’t as excellent as it is, it helped me discover that I love Mahjong, and it helped me develop this hobby on the side. And Mahjong is just one thing I spent hours upon hours doing. I also spent more time than reasonable on the fishing and the farming minigames. If you’re like me and you love this saga, you need to play Like a Dragon: Ishin.
#5):
Remember when I was talking about Dave the Diver earlier and I mentioned how much of a simple guy I am? Well, while Dredge isn’t a tropical setting (more an amalgamation of all island types), it is a chill ocean setting centered around marine life. And while Dave the Diver let me live out some of my Hell’s Kitchen dreams, Dredge has allowed me to live out the fantasy of being the fisherman for an archipelago: keeping the citizenry’s bellies full and making honest money while living my life on the sea. You don’t see useless CEOs posting on LinkedIn about how much they hate the people that keep them fed the way you see them posting about how much they hate software engineers like myself, who give their companies all the value they pretend they bring by sitting in an office and making phone calls all day. Nor do you see useless CEOs complaining that a fisherman wears shorts or sets out to sea exactly 45 seconds late…but I’m letting this past year get to me again. Dredge is just an immensely satisfying, cozy game about spending your time on the ocean, and if you’re in a toxic work situation like I was when I was playing it, you’ll finally feel appreciated for the work you do.
#4):
I’ve already mentioned my habit of combing through the Playstation Store and Steam for potential hidden gems in my discussion of Killer Frequency. The second and final of those little hidden gems I found this year was Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. It also happens to be the most difficult purchase decision I made. When I came across it on the Playstation Store, the uniqueness of it kept beckoning to me, but everything I saw also suggested a non-trivial amount of jank that gave me pause. But eventually, I bit the bullet, and the rest is history. Let me put it this way: this is a somewhat-sequel to an existing IP that had a cult following back in the day, and yet it’s so unique in everything it does that you could be forgiven for not recognizing it as such if you look up gameplay from the original Xenoclash games. You also could be forgiven for not recognizing this game’s status as a sequel given that there was NO marketing for it whatsoever. It seems like nobody involved with this game’s production (not development, not production, not the business side of things) had any faith in it, nor did most of the gaming public. Lately, and partially because of Jim Sterling’s coverage, this has been rectified, and I’m so glad to see it happen. I was 100% correct that there would be some jank involved in Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, but it’s nonetheless something that every AAA studio fears these days: a RISK…and speaking of things AAA studios fear….
#3):
“Oooooooh, Mr. Superior! You’re too good to make Baldur’s Gate 3 your Game of the Year, are you? Ooooooh, so nonconformist!!!” These thoughts and many more are the kinds of hypothetical reactions I imagine in years like this, when I just can’t justify giving the year’s darling the top spot. I had the thought last year when I gave Elden Ring this exact spot. I had the thought when I put Red Dead Redemption 2 in the #7 spot in 2018. I had the thought when I put The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in a SHARED #10 spot in 2017. And I kinda/sorta had the thought when I gave The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt the #2 spot in 2015, but Undertale was pretty equally in talks for the top spot that year among the general public. But nothing matters less to me than public opinion, and I’m true to myself in all things. If we were going based on pure objective quality, you’ve got me: Baldur’s Gate 3 is the best game of the year. But this isn’t just based on objective quality, it’s based on the objective positives plus my own experience. Like every other existing IP on this list, Baldur’s Gate 3 had a point tax applied to it, I feel the need to remind you. But here’s the thing: My favorite game of all time is Dragon Age: Origins. For those who don’t know the history behind that game and its developer, let me put it this way: The developers of Dragon Age: Origin had a fantasy series prior to it. That fantasy series was called Baldur’s Gate. That’s right, for those who don’t know, Bioware first made a name for themselves by developing Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 alongside a couple other D&D inspired RPGs before they became the Bioware we know today. Why do I bring this up? Because I want to make a point about how much I loved Baldur’s Gate 3 in spite of how I’m holding it back not just one, but two spots from Game of the Year. Baldur’s Gate 3 is the closest I’ve felt to having that little Dragon Age: Origins hole in my heart filled since I played that game originally on Christmas Day of 2011. The sense of being able to mold my adventure the way I wanted to, the quality of the characters, it’s all so great, which is why I cheer and clap every time I see it win GOTY on someone’s list despite how predictable it is. But for me…it just didn’t make the cut. Its status as a CRPG with dice-based gameplay holds it back, not to mention the fact that I had to purchase it twice to make it work in any acceptable technical sense. If I’d had the good fortune to put it off until it came to PS5 to purchase it for the first time, it might’ve scored ever-so-slightly higher. But for now, it’s the bronze medal winner for 2023.
#2):
Say you’re a giant megacorporation like Microsoft…is there a universe in which you release a game with exactly zero marketing on the same day you announce that it exists? No? I probably wouldn’t either if I were a corpo scumbag at Microsoft…but they happened to do exactly that with Hi-Fi Rush. I mean, not only is it a brand new IP, it’s a brand new IP from a studio known for its middling horror games. On its own, this was not a safe bet, but Microsoft clearly saw this game for what it is: a guaranteed hit. But enough about Microsoft. When Hi-Fi Rush was first announced and shadow-dropped, I rolled my eyes at the trailer. It seemed like yet another wise-cracking protagonist in a music-centric plot with a rudimentary understanding of rock and roll. But the positive recommendations just kept coming and coming and coming, so I figured I’d give it a shot. And dear reader, situations like these are why I always advocate for trying games you wouldn’t normally try. If there was an award for the game that made me smile and laugh the most, Hi-Fi Rush would be the winner, and it wouldn’t be close. An immediately lovable cast of characters, an exceptional sense of humor, and the hard-to-attune wisdom it takes to transition between comedic and serious emotional writing. These alone would’ve been enough to put this game on this list. But this game also had a unique-AND-satisfying combat loop, an excellent soundtrack, excellent audio design, near-incomparable level design, etc. Hi-Fi Rush excels in just about every way you can imagine….oh, and also, my PC handled it perfectly, unlike Baldur’s Gate 3. But even beyond that, I found myself returning to Hi-fi Rush from time to time to try out the tower challenge mode or try for more achievements. As I said in the introductory blurb for this list, a big point earner for any game is whether or not I achieve 100% completion, but it’s not an all or nothing category. Trying but not achieving 100% still nets a game some points, and Hi-Fi Rush is an example of this. It doesn’t matter what metric you go by. If your metric is “in-game” percentage trackers or getting every trophy, it doesn’t matter. Either path to completion is nigh-impossible, relying on skill ceilings that I haven’t gotten close to or tenacity that I don’t have. But in spite of this, I kept trying for completion. Whether you sit down with the game for a couple minutes or a couple hours, it’s an equally good time either way. Because Hi-Fi Rush came out pretty early in the year, it held the top spot in my mind for the vast majority of 2023. However, one game came along that blew even this exceptional game out of the water for me. And that game was…
Game of the Year:
It wasn’t even close, dear readers. Lies of P is my favorite game of 2023 by a longshot. Furthermore, I haven’t loved a game this much since my 2020 GOTY winner, Doom Eternal. Nobody expected this game to be good or polished, myself included. With a laughable premise like “Pinocchio soulslike” and an overall look that suggested a not-small amount of Eurojank, nobody came into Lies of P with any kinds of positive expectations. But to everyone’s surprise, the game is more than its premise and is objectively the most polished non-From Software soulslike ever created. So, obviously the game exceeded some low expectations, but you don’t get to the top of my GOTY list with just that.
Fun fact…I played this game 11 times making up a total of 128 hours played (note: as of the editing portion, it’s actually 12 times), and I’ve started and not finished several “concept” playthroughs. I’ve had playthroughs dedicated to specific weapons, playthroughs dedicated to seeing how fast I could get through the game, etc. I fully upgraded every last weapon (legendary or otherwise), every legion arm, and you know what else? I achieved the max possible level, getting every single stat up to level 100. I’ve never done that in one of these games, but I took the time to go through enough New Game + runs to make it happen because I loved every single second I spent playing this game. One of those unfinished playthroughs is a level 1 playthrough, which I’ve never attempted in any game before…and yet I reached the halfway point boss (meaning yes, I defeated the first battle against the black rabbit brotherhood in that state) before I put the game down for a while. In my spare time, I’ve consumed plenty of content around the game including weapon and build rankings…which, again, is not something I typically do.
But even when I haven’t been playing Lies of P, I’ve been wanting to learn everything about it. I’ve never been the kind of person who could tell you “if you’re going for x type of build I’d recommend going with this set of upgrades and this weapon with this adjustment,” but while I still wouldn’t be able to give you specific numbers or anything like that, I could still give you some advice, dear reader, when it comes to things like swing speed preference vs general damage output and how you might be able to improve either of those things. To put a pretty bow on all of that, I’d already achieved the platinum trophy within the 30-40 hour range or something like that. So, that’s 80-90 hours that I spent playing after there was objectively nothing else to gain from a logged completionism perspective.
The fact of the matter is that while I believe Sekiro is overall a better-produced game, this was a game that did the most satisfying part of Sekiro (the parrying) with just a bit more of a satisfying audiovisual feedback system. And while Lies of P would be nowhere without From Software’s flagship franchise, it provides quality of life improvements that the Souls series has always needed without making any “Hardcore Gamers” ™ crap themselves about things being too easy. And while Lies of P clearly aspires to be Bloodborne from an aesthetic standpoint…well…having taken some time to replay Bloodborne recently, I can say with certainty that everything Bloodborne does, Lies of P does better.
Bloodborne has a great soundtrack, but Lies of P’s soundtrack is better AND more varied. Bloodborne has some enticing lore, but Lies of P’s lore is easier to follow and it actually has a digestible story that doesn’t take too much sleuthing work. Bloodborne has an undeniably great atmosphere ... but Lies of P has that and a framerate that isn’t nauseating! Bloodborne has one or two good levels…but Lies of P is nothing BUT good levels, with much more variety. Bloodborne has a handful of truly unique weapons….but Lies of P has a TRUCKLOAD of truly unique weapons, and get this: all of them are actually usable, unlike every non-starting gun and all non-Kirkhammer non-starter melee weapons in Bloodborne.
Look, I didn’t intend to spend so much time crapping on Bloodborne. The entire reason I went back to it is because I loved Lies of P so much and thought I’d go back to give its biggest inspiration a second full playthrough. And to be honest, I felt disappointed at nearly every turn. I actually went through From Software’s entire Dark Souls and beyond portfolio in the time between the end of 2023 and now, and I discovered a newfound love for every game except Bloodborne…which I still liked but just didn’t love. But again, I’m getting off track.
By the way…did I mention that the development team behind Lies of P had no soulslike experience before this game? They have only ever developed middling Korean MMORPGS. And yet, they decided to bet the farm on their vision of what a soulslike should be…and ladies and gentlemen, if From Software doesn’t look at Lies of P as a way to improve their own games, it’ll be a shame…but this recent sweep I did through their catalog shows that they don’t have to take Lies of P’s quality-of-life improvements under consideration for their games to be excellent. However, if anyone else dares not to use Lies of P as at least a jumping off point for efficiency in their soulslikes from here on out, I don’t have any interest in their soulslikes.
Having now said that it’ll be a shame if From Software doesn’t take any inspiration from this game going forward, there is one quality of life feature that I do think they absolutely have to consider: Lies of P’s constant sense of forward momentum in regards to player progression. A thing I noticed in the recent sweep I did through the From Software library is that you level up so much slower in these games than you do in Lies of P. This is especially noticeable in New Game Plus. Now, I’ve always said that these games are about your skill level, not the numbers you have behind you…but unfortunately for poor Bloodborne, it has to be the whipping boy again here as the example of what I’m trying to get across. You level up slower in Bloodborne than in any other souls game (except maybe Demons Souls) by sheer virtue of the fact that you can’t level up at all until you make it to a boss arena. The whole point of that is to force the player to rise to the challenge before they start upping the numbers, but what I’ve found is that without the ability to level up, there’s a disproportionate feeling of lack of progress. Bloodborne is an extreme example in this regard, but it serves as an example of what I mean. In Lies of P, if you fight everything in the journey between one bonfire and the next, you’ll be able to level up at that second bonfire 9 times out of 10. One level up doesn’t affect much, but it does wonders for the feeling that you’re getting somewhere. Hell…From Software could even elect to lower the soul cost to level up on net at the cost of tangible effects of that stat increase, and I’d bet that the little hit of dopamine that comes with just getting another level in would help a lot of folks attain the patience that it sometimes takes to, as the cringeworthy losers might say, “git gud.”
But I’ve gone off on another tangent, yet again…can you tell that I’m passionate about Lies of P and what it does for the soulslike genre as a whole? There are many metrics by which I can tell that a game is worthy of the top spot in a given year, but there’s one metric that only shows its face when I start the actual writing: the ability to write for hours upon hours, for pages upon pages, going on tangent after tangent, about literally every little thing I loved about the game. Lies of P is the most deserving winner of this award since Doom Eternal in 2020. It has the most category wins and the highest raw score of any GOTY winner since then, and above all else, I’ve felt more certain about its win than I have about any post-2020 GOTY winner. We’re already too close to February, so if I don’t shut up, this article is going to come out with record tardiness. Lies of P is not only the new standard for an overdone genre, it’s the greatest game of 2023 without any question AT ALL!!!!!
And with that, we’ve reached the end of the 2023 wrap-up! The next time you see something on this blog, it’ll be on Prince of Persia: The Stolen Crown. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again!
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