Top 10 Games of 2023

 

My Top 10 Games of 2023. These were originally written for my Backloggd account and have been adapted into this blog post

#10 - Star Ocean: The Second Story R

Star Ocean 2 was the series entry that I've always heard about. It’s been the one entry I’ve seen fans universally agree was the best one, meanwhile every other entry was divisive at best. So, when they announced a remake for SO2, I was incredibly excited. Finally, I could experience what fans considered the best entry after playing The Divine Force last year. Star Ocean 2 was good! The remake added much needed QoL features that I felt were sorely missing in SO6, like marking Private Actions and streamlining some crafting stuff. Speaking of which, all of the crafting systems are insane and let you break the game in really fun ways and the new visuals and art are amazing. Unfortunately, I felt incredibly underwhelmed by the story and it has some really bad antagonists (that also have cool designs). Claude and Rena were great but every other character just stands in the background for a majority of the run time only offering the occasional sentence of dialogue. I can see why it’s considered the best; I just hope they take the great additions and parts of this remake and write an actual good story for Star Ocean 7.

#9 - Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Gaiden feels like something RGG Studio has been building up to with the small Majima campaign in Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Kaito’s DLC in Lost Judgment, a smaller game that can come out between the major releases. It sometimes feels a bit ham-fisted, since it has to work around the contentious ending of Yakuza 6 and the plot of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but I think it comes out pretty great. Reading interviews and the team saying this was a DLC expanded to a bigger game within six months makes sense. There are times where it feels padded, but in the end, it has one of my favorite antagonists in the series and the ending is incredibly good. I haven’t had an ugly cry in a while, but the ending of Gaiden managed to get it out of me.

#8 - Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Marvel’s Spider-Man is one of the few Western AAA games that was actually able to grab me. The fun combat and swinging mechanics brought me in and the story was fantastic. While the Miles Morales standalone game wasn’t great, I was still excited for Spider-Man 2. Luckily this is just bigger and better than the first, the gameplay is tighter and there’s so many more fun mechanics that made it a joy to play. I was a bit disappointed that Miles felt sidelined for a majority of the story, but the plot beats were generally really good. It’s a bit of a step up from the first in some spots, and a bit of a step down in others.

#7 - Theatrhythm Final Bar Line

This is without a doubt one of the best rhythm games I’ve ever played. The sheer number of songs included in the base game is already insane, and the DLC adds even more from franchises outside of Final Fantasy. Catching up with the mainline Final Fantasy games this year was a great time and getting to hear all of the music I listened to in them was a treat. I would put this higher, but their selection for Final Fantasy XIV is really pathetic and you can tell this is primarily a port of an arcade game from 2016.

#6 - Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

I’ve been a big fan of Jet Set Radio and Future for years. It’s a series I’ve always wanted more of whether it’s just a simple port of Future or a new game. Luckily Team Reptile decided to make one themselves. I wrote a review earlier this year for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and I absolutely loved it. They sand down a lot of the jank the Jet Set Radio series had while also understanding the core appeal of the series. This game moved higher once they patched in some light QoL stuff in the menu’s, like marking stuff on the map. It’s an incredible game that Sega’s new Jet Set game is going to have to live up to.

#5 - Octopath Traveler II

Octopath Traveler II is without a doubt the biggest surprise for me this year. In 2018 I tried playing Octopath Traveler and was incredibly underwhelmed. The story and characters did absolutely nothing for me and them not interacting what so ever really killed it. I grabbed Octopath 2 on a whim and ended up loving it. The stories are way more interesting and characters will now have light interactions in battle, in their crossover quests, and are all together in the game’s final chapter. Its battle and job system clicked way more this time around and I dumped nearly 100 hours into the game doing every quest and piece of side content possible, aside from the super boss. The final boss was also incredibly good and capped off a fantastic journey with everyone. Not to mention the music, which is absolutely astounding and the final boss track in particular has not left my head this year.

#4 - Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XVI was easily my most anticipated game of the year, and I’m really glad to say it mostly exceeded my expectations. In my review I wrote earlier this year, I was incredibly positive about the game and I still feel that way now. The gameplay was incredibly fun, albeit easy, but I’ve never found that to be a negative. As long as it’s satisfying to play, I can get down with a game that’s a tad easy. All of your moves work really well together and I always found fighting the bosses thrilling, in and out of the large eikon fights. The story and characters were gripping, and I overall loved the game. I go more in depth in my review, but I’m also excited for the upcoming DLC chapters.

#3 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie

In 2022 I decided to just chug through the rest of the Trails series that I hadn’t got to yet, and that unfortunately included an incredibly subpar fan translation for Trails into Reverie. While I had loved the game, it was definitely a poor way to experience it so I was excited to dive into the official release. I can’t really talk specifics since it’s an epilogue to the four-part Cold Steel series, but I’ve appreciated the game even more with the English version that came out this year. Each of the three story paths were great, especially C’s, and the ending is one of my favorites in the series. The plethora of side stories and content kept me busy for quite a while, and was made all more enjoyable by finally playing a version of the game with a good translation and the English dub cast that I like. Trails into Reverie slotted its place as my favorite entry in the series, but not one that I could recommend standalone because of how it wraps up the Cold Steel 1-4 saga.

#2 - Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

Xenoblade 3 was my GOTY in 2022, so I was very excited for its forthcoming DLC. In my review of Future Redeemed I offered a ton of praise towards this DLC chapter, the way it wraps up the Xenoblade series and puts forth interesting implications for the future of the series and Monolith Soft made me ecstatic. The gameplay in the DLC is still as good as the base game, but it didn’t make itself more unique in the way Xenoblade 2: Torna the Golden Country did which was a tad disappointing. But I think this is a great piece of supplementary material to Xenoblade 3, and I’m glad they saved their references to the greater series for this entry rather than the base game. I’m feelin’ full of beans.

#1 - Alan Wake II

After the music performance by Old Gods of Asgard at the 2023 TGA’s, I decided it was finally time to dive into Remedy’s games. I marathoned through Alan Wake, Control, and both of their DLCs, then I could finally try out Alan Wake II. Now here’s the thing, this game had two personal barriers to break through. The first is that I generally don’t like horror media, and the second is that I don’t like survival games where you’re always strapped for resources. Alan Wake II is both of these, but it’s still my GOTY because it’s just that good. I was enamored by the storytelling, characters, and the mix of other media that were used to make something that can only be a video game. The gameplay was great too, it controls really well but I do wish the sprint was a bit faster and I don’t think Alan’s sections are as fun to play as Saga’s but the core here is still really solid. Alan Wake II has some of the most memorable moments I’ve seen in a game, and as someone who really liked Control and Alan Wake I am now fully a believer in Remedy as a developer. The storytelling and mixed media this studio does is honestly second to none and even if the NG+ stuff was incredibly disappointing, I won’t be forgetting this game for quite some time.