Best of 2023
The main theme this year seems to be genuinely unique gameplay mechanics or novel combinations of existing concepts and genres.
I'm realizing I kinda snubbed Nintendo this year. I did play Super Mario Bros Wonder, which was pretty cool and weird and just fun, but it just felt like a solid 2D Mario at the end of the day.
Tears of the Kingdom I dabbled with for a while; the building stuff is novel, but feels pretty shallow. It seemed like you never needed to do much beyond a few straightforward kinds of builds in the open world (some of the more focused shrine puzzles are neat though). I hope they go back to more traditional Zelda games, but I'm not holding my breath, especially with how much most folks love these recent entries. I miss when there were actually interesting dungeons and bosses...
Pikmin 4 would probably be number 11 on my list though, I enjoyed that quite a bit, especially as a long time fan of the series. It has the same satisfying gameplay loop, but added enough neat wrinkles to the formula (like Oatchi!) to feel new.
Stuff from this year I want to play but didn't get around to yet:
- Resident Evil 4 remake
- Like a Dragon Gaiden (Especially with Infinite Wealth out early next year!)
- Armored Core 6
- Alan Wake 2
- Cocoon
- Spider Man 2
- Sea of Stars