Would you believe it that another year is about to pass? Time flies. 2023 is a year of introspection for me, as it made me do a lot of thinking. It is undoubtedly the best year of video game releases, but at what cost? Game developers are losing jobs left and right. And looking at Gamer Matters, we’re on a good roll, the strongest we’ve ever been as a video game website. The stats I’ve been seeing looks good. We’ve more connected with various video game publishers. Things are on the up and up.
It doesn’t help that 2023 isn’t the best year for various groups of people around the world. I cannot believe that in this modern age, there are still unfortunate folks becoming victims of war, of a political ambition that cares more about their beliefs and willing to put down human lives for it. It’s depressing that such atrocities are allowed, and in a connected world more than ever, our small voices of anger seeing such acts be allowed to continue.
I don’t blame people who chose not to engage with news about the many, many conflicts that are currently happening right after we’re all relatively safe to go outside now. Sometimes it’s nice to disengage with the horrors of the world and retreat to our little safe space like a curated social media, or video games. I should know better, I’m guilty of doing that too. What’s happening outside right now, it’s just too much. (Though I do implore you seek more information about the plight of the people in Gaza, of Palestine.)
Personally, 2023 has been a trying year. Whether that is borne out of myself (self-doubt and impostor syndrome are tough demons to come to terms to) or the circumstances I’m in, it’s just been tough. There were definitely occasions where I contemplating on taking a different turn in life.
But I dunno, I feel like I still have that drive, that passion, to share stories about the hobby I love, seven years on. Whether that be reporting on upcoming games, or critiquing games and gaming products. This little hobby of ours can only be an art form if there continue to be more discourse, more words being used to elaborate on its beauty. And I intend to keep doing so so long as I am able to. Or until a different opportunity to make better money out of my passion arrives.
With that long pre-amble aside, here are the games that really moved me in 2023. And unlike last year, we’re back to a Top 5 with a selection of honourable mentions this time.
Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
Not gonna lie, I didn’t intend to play this game at first. Of the two Like A Dragon Games released this year, but the allure of that Infinite Wealth demo was too strong.
As a collection of the best mini-games this series has to offer, Like A Dragon Gaiden is just great. Race toy cars, race cars in Daytona USA 2 (could you believe we unironically put this game in this year’s Best Racing Game?), golf, arena battles. It’s all good.
What really moved me is the penultimate story of the Dragon of Dojima, the legendary Kazuma Kiryu (given name, family name). I may be the resident Like A Dragon fanatic, but I’ve only been sporadically playing the mainline series. Yet with just enough knowledge here and there about the series’ longest-serving leading man, I was deeply moved by that ending scene. It’s a technical marvel that deserves more attention. But it’s also a touching scene where a macho man drops all his guard down, showing how much love he has.
Men have notoriously repressed their emotions for fear of not showing enough masculinity (and the peer pressure that reinforces this), but in this age where gender is less hard-coded, it’s good to see the most macho of men in video games show the world that he too has feelings, and can express it in the right conditions.
Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name Review
Star Wars Jedi Survivor
If you ask me to describe this game in a sentence, that sentence will use the words “action adventure” and “platformer” before the word “soulslike” appears. Because to me, that’s the defining aspect of Jedi: Survivor. It’s not that it tries to be Dark Souls with lightsabers. But it tries to be Ratchet & Clank with lightsabers.
Not that I dismiss this game’s quality of a soulslike, but that’s the aspect of the game that shines bright the most in my eyes. It’s been a while since I play a game where you can just wander about and find secrets. Not in the “here’s the optional path with a secret in it”, but really going out of the critical path to find something interesting. My curiosity has been rewarded time and time again exploring the handful of worlds we go to in this game.
Plus, Cal gets to rock a mullet and moustache and go full redneck and I find that, in a Star Wars game where your hero is a redhead, really funny.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review
Against The Storm
As far as mechanical brilliance, Against The Storm is my top pick. Roguelite and city-builder are an odd flavour pairing that works, turns out. It’s a challenging city builder that combines the stress of a survival city-builder, but didn’t go full narrative heavy like Frostpunk did, but also weaved in elements of logistics and factory builders ala Factorio in that there’s a supply chain that you need to manage.
Against The Storm will take a while to get going, there’s a lot of game knowledge require before you it clicks. But as far as city-builders go, this is the best. Ask any reputable city-builder aficionados and they’ll say the same thing as well. This is one brilliantly designed video game.
Hi-Fi Rush
From the day it launched, Hi-Fi Rush was easily my favourite game of the year. And it retained that spot from January till August. That’s how high I rate this surprise hit by Tango Gameworks, a studio not known for character action games.
I always wanted a game that incorporates elements of rhythm games but not be a game where you just press the matching buttons as prompted. Hi-Fi Rush is that- the world moves to the rhythm and you’re encouraged to fight to the rhythm. As a result, the combat flows in an audio-visual synesthesia. There’s a flow to it, and when the flow is to the rhythm of The Prodigy’s “Invaders Must Die”, where you fight in a cafeteria (because the song was released under the indie label Cooking Vinyl), it’s just a fun time. Quite the needle drop, some may say.
On that note, Hi-Fi Rush’s writing is witty and its comedy really got me some laughs and undoubtedly some chuckles (though the one joke at the end about everyone’s favourite Scottish lass Korsica and her role as Head Security really got me lmao-ing in real life). What a show this was. We got an encore with the some game mode updates, but I will sure be attending another Tango gig if they’re not making horror games next.
Honourable Mentions
Street Fighter 6 added a whole RPG campaign in a fighting game and it got me into playing fighting games for quite a long run. (Review)
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is the first soulslikes (or “masocore action RPG” if you ask Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo) I beaten. And I will never forget playing fireball ping pong with my boo, Lu Bu. (Review)
I have so many gripe about Starfield, but that game caught me off guard with its portrayal of religion, death and multiverses. It’s a low bar since I don’t rate any Bethesda game’s story, but colour me impressed. I personally won’t have given a 10/10 score, but that’s what we gave and I stand by score because for some people, for better or worse, it just works. (Review)
Final Fantasy XVI started so strong. I wish it ended as strong story-wise once I finalised my fantasy. The ending’s good, it’s just that I don’t vibe with the how the story funnels down in the end. Its soundtrack can be poignantly beautiful and heart-thumpingly based, though so it evens out. (Review)
Armored Core VI Fires Of Rubicon
It should come to no surprise that this is my favourite game of the year. I was a FromSoftware fan pre-Demons’s Souls. I was excited for this game in last year’s Top 5 list. And now I can safely say I am FromSoftware fan again since they made a new Armored Core.
For years, decades even, Armored Core remained a niche B-game that can’t quite attract a mainstream crowd. But it was the game series that gives FromSoft an identity of sorts, as they were a jack-of-all-trades developer. They’ve made RPGs, horror games, a fantastic and devious co-platforming game called The Adventures Of Cookie & Cream (otherwise known as Kuri Kuri Mix). But Armored Core was their flagship series, until Dark Souls was released.
It’s so nice to see the team revisited this old series, and deliver an experience with the polish of the current iteration of FromSoft is capable of. The painful start of the game was all but forgiven after that. And there’s definitely design elements that uses ideas from the recent soulslikes. That level where you jump down a hole is a clever repurposing of a design trick, I approve of that.
Yet a lot of the core of Armored Core is retained in Armored Core VI. The many stats require balancing when you pick parts to equip. The characters only appearing in either their mechas or their emblems with voice lines. Fast-paced combat where you spend less than a minute in arena battles (despite spending an hour just tinkering with parts selection). A visceral action game that’s getting its dues.
Before we did our GOTY Awards, I was already conceded that Armored Core VI will be hard to contend for our Game Of The Year- that side award “Mecha Game Of The Year” was me saying “if can’t win GOTY it can be MGOTY”. And it was indeed my personal game of the year. Yet looks like the crew really rallied for this game about giant robots to be our pick for Game Of The Year. I guess we all dig giant robots, huh.
Armored Core VI Fires Of Rubicon Review
Here’s To 2024
And with that, we’ll bid 2023 goodbye. 2024 is already looking stacked in the first three months alone.
And hopefully the video game releases is still peaking, because when it goes tumbling down after this, as a side effect of all the layoffs and other consequences of events that emerged out of this year, it won’t be pretty. Brace for impact.