Games I played on 2023
The "Best Year in Gaming History" has come to a close.
2023 has games, or rather, had. You can ask any journalist in the video game industry about this year and they will call it "one of the best years in gaming since 2017" or something like that. Despite missing most new releases, I’m happy about the games I played this year. Even the ones I didn’t particularly like offered something for my entertainment and I rarely felt I was wasting my time. That being said, I did spend 6 months playing Tears of the Kingdom, so this list will be shorter than other years (I usually do this on my twitter account).
Pokemon Scarlet (2022)
Playing Pokemon Legends Arceus last year gave me an idea of what to expect on an “Open World” Pokemon game, but to my surprise, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is a completely different game that manages to distance itself from Hisui, in a good way. They managed to transition the world of Pokemon into an open world setting beautifully, conveying the feeling of freedom that, until this point, could only be experienced watching the anime.
Giving the option to tackle gyms and other story bits in any order made my 50+ hours feel like my own personal journey. Paldea’s map is well crafted, capturing that same vibe from Breath of the Wild where you could always see something new in the horizon and just go there.
And yeah, I encountered tons of bugs during my playthrough (bugs that Game Freak refuses to address), and there are tons of problems with character customization and balancing. But none of it detracted from the fun I had exploring Paldea. This is the most fun I’ve had with Pokemon in over a decade.
Hi-Fi Rush (2023)
Hey, look at me playing games released this year! And boy, what a surprise this was. A developer that only makes horror games made an action rhythm game that shadow dropped on a random Xbox direct? Sign me up!
Hi-Fi Rush feels taken out directly from the Dreamcast/Gamecube era, with flashy, cartoonish graphics. It’s 100% centered on rhythm, as the entire world bops to the tempo of the song currently playing, and you are encouraged (not forced) to time your button presses like a metronome as well, which compliments well its hack-and-slash mechanics.
And hey, if you suck and rhythm-based hack-and-slash games like I do, you can always enjoy the hilarious dialogue, fantastic visuals and colorful characters.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (2007)
I’ve tried to finish this game for YEARS, as it constantly gets interrupted by other things in my life. This year I was actually able to beat it! and what a wonderful experience! It’s the perfect continuation of Curious Village, with fun puzzles and new mechanics (shout out to my hamster, Himbo).
Can’t wait to play Unwound Future this coming year!
The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve (2017)
I was already in love with the first game, but this one cemented my love for this series and the entire franchise. The twists and turns the story takes are unexpected and always, always enjoyable. Even after the 40 hours it took me to beat this game, I wanted so much more (so much that I started reading fanfic).
I don’t even want to spoil a single thing about this game, do yourself a favor and play The Great Ace Attorney series.
Hope we get a third one one day…
12 Minutes (2021)
Hey did you know Netflix has games? Like lots of well-crafted, high-quality games? If you ever get bored of watching Stranger Things on your phone, switch to the Games tab and download 12 Minutes to play an even stranger story.
The concept is simple: you are stuck in a 12 minute time loop where a cop comes in to arrest your wife, and you have to use information you learn from one timeline on your next loop. The writing is stellar, and the big “plot twist” is genuinely shocking. The only sour point is the very famous actors they hired to do voice over, not even good writing was able to save the poor performances and poor audio editing.
Before your Eyes (2021)
Have you ever controlled a game with your eyes? Well now is your chance. Before Your Eyes is an interactive story that you control by looking around and blinking, the premise is that you’re watching your live play through your eyes, and every blink time-skips you into a future portion.
It’s not very engaging, even a little janky, but the story hooks you up very quickly. My only regret is not playing it in VR.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (2023)
Despite being a literal april fools joke, it was my favorite Sonic game of 2023. It’s super short and charming, the character interactions were better than any Sonic game in recent memory. And hey! it’s free! If you like visual novels, Sonic, or both, do yourself a favor and spend a few hours on this silly, fun adventure.
Pokemon Sleep (2023)
It literally made me sleep worse.
Jokes aside, there is a lot of potential for this sort of game. The only reason I stopped playing was because I don’t like sleeping with my phone on my bed, but maybe an integration with smart watches could take me back? who knows.
The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom (2023)
And then I played Zelda for 6 months.
It was so refreshing coming back to this iteration of Hyrule after 5 years. Places were familiar but different enough to keep things new and exciting. Just the technical aspects of this game deserve all the awards: being able to render sky, land and underground without load screens, the physics system, and whatever black magic they used to create the Ultrahand.
And yet, they managed to make the world beautiful, filled with vast regions to explore, all of this accompanied with a beautiful story filled with mystery. When you start getting the pieces of the story together, it fills you with joy (for figuring it out!) and dread (for realizing what you figured out).
The building mechanics are a work of art. It, truly, just works. If you have an idea in mind and you build it, it will very likely just work as you expect it (at least if you know your physics well). This applies to both natural resources you find in Hyrule and the new Zonai devices, that conveniently look like wheels, fans, rockets and other common items in the real world.
All of that is impressive, yes, but my absolute favorite thing about this game is that it takes every moment to teach you something new. Never thought of combining a mushroom and a sword together? Well, enemies will do it, and you will immediately learn the effects of that combination. You learn by looking at the world, the NPCs and even the enemies. They all use the same resources you have, so if they can do it, you can as well. Even the less-than-pretty Yiga clan schematics teach you the fundamentals of Zonai devices.
Tears of the Kingdom is fantastic game overall, probably one of the best games ever, period. Mechanically and story-wise, this game packs so much content (too much sometimes), and the sum of all of them creates a Masterpiece of a game. The shiniest star of this game is the way it organically teaches you about the world and the mechanics without a single line of dialogue.
Garden Story (2021)
Decompressing from Zelda, I played a smaller-scale game, much smaller, minuscule in comparison: Garden Story.
Garden Story is a cutesy little game where you play a tiny grape named Concord, who has been appointed the new Guardian of Spring Hamlet. In this game, you fight “the rot”: goo-like creatures that are destroying the tiny land and their inhabitants, and it is your job to defeat them.
The premise is simple, and the gameplay is too. The game is reminiscent of classic Zelda games, with a top-down perspective and a little sword you can use to destroy the rot. The game packs plenty of mechanics, such as gardening, fishing and crafting, but it doesn’t quite do much with them.
Garden Story constantly hints at being something greater than it actually is, though. It gives hints of an increasing difficulty, with stronger rot creatures appearing at night and a Souls-like stamina bar, but doesn’t actually deliver. It hints at clever Zelda-like dungeons, puzzles and boss battles, but they never quite reach that level of quality. It introduces crafting and farming, but are rarely needed outside a couple of story bits. Even the story hints at a darker tone but it just never gets there.
So, in a game filled with potential that doesn’t actually deliver, what can you do? well, tasks! and I love doing tasks. Every in-game day you get 2 or 3 tasks to help the people of one of the four towns you can travel to. They are usually very simple, such as defeating a number of rot creatures, or providing the villagers sap to fix their tiny houses. Helping the inhabitants of this minuscule land gives a lot of satisfaction, and it’s the reason I kept playing until I rolled credits.
I wish Garden Story was more than what it actually is. And maybe that’s a me problem. It showed a lot of potential and hits at being something greater, but it never quite got there. Still, It’s a good game that’s worth playing only for the cute art style, silly dialogue, simplicity, and tasks! so many tasks! :)
Smushi Come Home (2023)
My absolute favorite game of all time is called A Short Hike, and I’ve been desperately looking for that same high ever since: Small, sandbox-y games with lots to explore in a little world. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Smushi Come Home is just that. Even though I started playing it just 6 days before the new year, it became one of my favorite games this year,
Smushi Come Home tells the story of a lil mushroom called Smushi that taken from his home and wants come back. What? do you wanted a deeper plot? this is everything you need. Gameplay is simple: you explore some tiny worlds, help its tiny inhabitants and do little tasks. The worlds are small, but packed with things to collect without being overwhelming.
Why is this game so special to me? because it’s short and simple. It leans towards freedom without having a bloated open world. The writing is funny and the puzzles are clever and quick. You can do great things with minimalism and this is what this game excels at. Most of what you do is help out the tiny people of this land with their little problems, which usually revolves around a platforming challenge. At your disposal, you have a few key items that will help you glide and climb through each world.
You can beat this game in a few hours, but I can assure you, you will have a smile on your face the entire time.
2023 was a good year for games and for me. While I only played a handful, I had tons of fun this year with HiFi Rush, Zelda and Smushi, and I can’t wait to go back through the 2023 backlog to play all the games I missed, such as Resident Evil 4, Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, Sea of Stars and Alan Wake 2.
My backlog keeps being endless and this year made it way longer. Let’s hope 2024 is kinder to it.