Even in a year packed full of incredible new games, I managed to squeeze in plenty of time to either catch up on old games or continue to play live service games that I keep up with. But those games don’t usually get mentioned in end-of-the-year retrospectives. Likewise, there are many HD ports and remasters that are often hard to justify putting on the list of 2023 releases.
That’s what this is for, to shout out those games that don’t otherwise get a chance, starting with:
Sonic Frontiers
Another chapter in my long-running exploration of the question “Do I actually like Sonic games?”. I’m still not sure what the answer is, but I do know that what I played here is a good starting point. Though rough in a few key spots, I can see how, with some refinement and polish, a direct sequel to Sonic Frontiers could go a long way toward rehabilitating the reputation both Sonic and Sonic Team have been squandering over the years.
If a game leaves me smiling while I’m in the driver’s seat, it has to be doing something right, and that’s exactly what this one did.
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
The original Resident Evil 4 is such a milestone in the history of video games that it’s almost blasphemous to say this, but I’ve only ever played about an hour or so of that version. I know my time with this remake (which you can watch right here) is no replacement for that, but it’s going to be the closest thing I’ll likely get to it.
Capcom has thus far done excellent work with these remakes, capturing the vital essence and tone of the original work while modernizing it with the innovations in game design and presentation that we enjoy in today’s context. This one was no exception, especially since the original work was (in)famous for both being a large escort mission and popularizing quick-time events for the generation to come.
This was the one they absolutely couldn’t afford to get wrong, and though I don’t have first-hand experience with the original, those that do seem mostly happy with it. That tells me everything I need to know.
System Shock (2023)
Similar to Resident Evil 4, this is a remake of one of the most influential games in the history of the medium. The genre we now refer to as Immersive Sims, niche as they are, all share a common ancestry in the original System Shock and its sequel. While I have experience with System Shock 2, I never played this one.
Just like with RE4, I know this isn’t a replacement for the original version, nor should it be. However, my understanding is that the original version is from a time before WASD movement was standardized. It’s the kind of experience that is rough for someone in 2023 to go back to, so I instead took this chance to play through the history of one of my favorite genres on my own terms.
And I’m happy I did, because I felt the nostalgia despite my lack of direct experience, more of the era this game represents than the game itself. It was comforting in a way, like going back to a diner you remember from years ago and ordering the pancakes you had as a kid. That was System Shock for me.
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
People who know me know that I’m not a big fan of Star Wars. I don’t hate the franchise, but I can’t say that it excites me the way it does many others around my age. So when others with similar views of the franchise to my own were saying that despite their disinterest in Star Wars, they were having a great time with Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, I did what anyone in my position would do.
I looked to see if I could get the first game cheaply and found that it was already on my account because it was free on PlayStation Plus. Imagine my surprise when I found that I started to grow fond of protagonist Cal Kestis and his little robot BD-1. Their story was well told, well executed, and surprisingly effective despite my relative unfamiliarity with the finer details of the world and fiction.
Imagine how that fondness grew further as I returned to the comfort food that is From Software’s Soulsborn formula. Sure, it may be a Star Wars skin on top of those mechanics, but that skin works.
The whole experience comes together well, and now that one of my friends has gifted me Jedi Survivors, I look forward to continuing with this series in the new year.
Marvel Snap
Though I have my qualms with the way the economy for Marvel Snap has been developing, the fact remains that I still enjoy spending my early mornings at work jamming enough matches to fulfill my dailies.
I’ve a mostly complete collection of cards at this point, and from that perspective, I enjoy watching each new patch and release impact deck building environment. Even when the game starts to grow stale, I can trust that the dev team will start to take action to address the problem cards swiftly.
I don’t know how gentle the game is for people who don’t keep up the way I do, or for players starting out, but for me, Marvel Snap is still going strong.
Dead Space (2023)
If I had a quarter for every time a remake of a beloved horror game was released in 2023, I would have two quarters. That’s not a lot, but it’s strange it happened twice. And both releases resulted in well-constructed video games.
Like the Resident Evil remakes, the team responsible for it made the wise decision not to create a 1-for-1 adaption of the original work, but with higher-resolution graphics, an updated script, and rerecorded performances. Instead, they chose to preserve the spirit of the original game, going through similar beats and keeping the tone and atmosphere while modernizing the experience with new level and set designs. Additionally, since protagonist Issac Clarke was a silent lead in the original and a voiced character in all subsequent works, the script was adapted to give him a voice and a more active role in conversations and decision-making.
Though horror games don’t frighten me the way they once did, I could feel the suspense that permeated every single encounter in Dead Space (2023). Every single drop of healing, ammo, and other resources felt controlled. Most major fights and encounters pushed my stash of supplies to its limit, and yet at the same time rarely can I say I ever ran out. Resource management, from both a player and designer perspective, is crucial to the fundamental gameplay loop underpinning the genre, and this team took care and attention to tuning that loop.
There’s no denying that between this and Resident Evil 4 (2023), fans of the horror genre ate well this year.
Star Ocean: The Second Story R
It would not be hyperbole to call Star Ocean: The Second Story one of the best RPGs to hit the original PlayStation. Though it doesn’t have the long-lasting cultural impact of its peers in the Final Fantasy franchise, fans of the genre hold it in high regard. While I didn’t play it at the time of its original release, I did play it via the PSP port from 2009, when I was still in high school. Even at the time, I understood that the hype surrounding it was well-founded.
So imagine my surprise when not only is it remade this year, in 2023, but said remake goes to great lengths to modernize itself for a new audience while still holding true to the core principles that made it so beloved in the first place. This is one of those rare updates to an old game where every single change they made significantly improved the overall experience. Random encounters are replaced with enemies that spawn to be fought or avoided. Instead of forcing players to manually travel to places they’ve been to previously, this version has a Fast Travel system and a map that handily marks which cities contain side stories to complete. Even the combat feels smoother than I remember. And for those in the know, they even made it easier to give Claude the “Nimble Fingers” trait so that players have an easier time crafting his most powerful weapons.
There was a love and care put into this version that is obvious from the moment I hit Start, and that held throughout my entire time with the game.
Vampire Survivors
It’s hard to argue with the combined 129 hours I’ve sunk into Vampire Survivors. Clearly, the dopamine machine continues to trigger that sweet sweet rush of hormones with every single run. Had Vampire Survivors simply sat on its laurels and done nothing, odds are I would still be more than happy with the end product.
But they didn’t. Since December of last year, the dev team has released three different DLC packs, each as readily affordable as the base game and each adding so much to a masterpiece that already felt feature complete. And that’s in addition to a ton of free updates which further augment the experience.
I’ve taken my Steam deck with me on several trips, spending hours at the airport or some other form of transit. And every time I turn it on, one of the first games I reach for is Vampire Survivors. It’s just so easy to get lost in a run and pass the time while listening to a podcast or something else.
It’d be insidious if I wasn’t having a blast the whole time.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns
I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how Marvel’s Midnight Suns is one of the most underrated and underappreciated games of the past few years. There was a point in time where I mistook my distaste for the MCU and the direction it took post-Endgame with a general distaste for Marvel as a whole. But this, combined with Insomniac’s Spider-Man games and Marvel Snap, has shown me that my love for these heroes is far from gone.
Through the first half of this year, Firaxis released four DLC packs for the game, each introducing a new character and a new chapter for a secondary story involving a vampire invasion. Naturally, one of those DLC packs was Venom, and as a consummate fan of the lethal protector I had to add him to my ranks.
Not only did they do my favorite anti-hero justice, making him one of my favorite characters to play, but they did the same for Deadpool and Storm (Morbius was even there too, but no one cares about Morbius). And together, each chapter formed an excellent story that kept me coming back for each installment, culminating in a finale that wrapped up nicely.
It’ll look for any excuse to return to Midnight Suns, and this was as good as any. And with New Game Plus now adjusted to allow me to keep my cards and decks, it might even warrant a replay.
Magic: The Gathering: Arena
Trust me, you’re not the only one surprised that I’m no longer playing Legends of Runeterra and once again playing Magic Arena. I can barely believe it myself, especially since Standard is no more fun or interesting now than it was last year. So what changed?
A friend of mine recommended that I branch out and try some of the other formats on offer, specifically Historic Brawl and Explorer. Arena might not ever support Commander as a format, but Historic Brawl is a fine enough substitute that I’m happy to play it. The fact that it’s an unranked casual format is another huge plus.
But what’s mostly kept me coming back to Arena is Explorer. Though I’ve mostly become a Commander player in paper, and the current Standard hasn’t satisfied me in a long time, I’ve missed 60-card formats, and this one is the one that’s closest to the power level I’m interested in playing. Since I’ve been playing Arena for so long, I’ve had ready access to a ton of different decks and archetypes. And while there is a ranked queue, unranked is all the fun I need.
That’s been the story of my relationship with Magic in 2023. I’m still heavily invested, but I’ve stopped sweating about it the way I used to. I have nothing to prove to anyone, so I’ll just happily take out my Abzan Amalia list and see if I combo off. And if I don’t, I’ll just scoop and move on.
Cyberpunk 2077 (and Phantom Liberty)
I, like many people, completely wrote off Cyberpunk 2077 when it was first released, plagued with so many technical issues it had to be removed from the PlayStation Store. In the summer of this year, friends of mine informed me that the game had started turning itself around, and it went on a deep enough sale that intrigue outweighed my desire to keep my money.
Between my original run this summer and my second run for Phantom Liberty, I have invested 109 hours into Cyberpunk according to Steam. It’s a shame that the technical issues and the story behind the “rehabilitation” of the game overshadow the actual story within the game itself because it’s still one that I think about from time to time. It’s thoughtful, dissecting how our actions can cause damage that we didn’t intend, and what we can do to amend or otherwise make up for that damage, assuming that is even possible in the first place when the world itself seems hell-bent on kicking us in the teeth if we give it a chance to. There’s meat on the bones of this plot. Phantom Liberty even further expands on that, with choices that are truly tough to make, without clear outcomes.
And if that wasn’t enough for me, slicing a bunch of corpo goons open with a katana certainly was.
Hitman: World of Assassination – Freelancer
I’ve been openly fanboy-ing about the Hitman franchise on the blog since 2016. I’ve also made no secret of my love for roguelikes like Hades. No one should be surprised to hear that I played a ton of the Freelancer mode when it was added to Hitman 3, now called Hitman: World of Assassination since it’s become a packaged product.
As Prey: Mooncrash and Deathloop from Arkane have successfully proven, the mechanics of the immersive sim can slide elegantly into the framing of a roguelike campaign. The masters at IO Interactive did a phenomenal job adapting Hitman to this model as well. Though it was not easy, I plucked away at it, attempt after attempt, playing for at least one or two hours every few days to make progress.
I remember the first time I realized that there was a Silenced SMG in Dubai that I could reliably get to at the start of my campaign. I remember the times I barely escaped a level or killed a target before they could get away. I remember the countless losses that each had me starting my campaign over from the beginning.
But more than all of that, I remember getting on the motorboat in Bangkok, guards on the prowl, unaware of who I was but acutely aware of the piles and piles of bodies I left in my wake in a prolonged shootout. That was the first, and thus far only campaign I have finished in my time with Freelancer. I was in a Discord voice chat at the time, and I spooked my friends with a sudden burst of excitement.
I have a third-party client on my Steam Deck to access my Epic Games Store account, just to have Hitman Freelancer installed. And when I want my fix, I’m happy to know that it’s right there.
Citizen Sleeper
In the first few months of the year, Citizen Sleeper released three free updates to the game, each adding a new storyline and set of characters to the Eye to further out both the world the dev team was building and the themes set forth by the game.
By this point in my time with Citizen Sleeper, I had already integrated myself into the Eye and the society inhabiting it, becoming a fixture. Even on a bad day, I knew that I could scrounge up the stabilizers and food I needed to make it through whatever came next. But even then, it was a life of uneasy complacency, as the new storylines would show me.
Sure, I was settled, but I was far from the only face, or even the only new face around. Recontextualizing this struggle for the common man to survive in the face of overwhelming indifference from the powers that be the way they did in these updates added even more texture to the original game, and thoughtfully at that.
It makes me look forward to the sequel.
Destiny 2
Unlike a lot of the other live-service games on this list, I didn’t stick with Destiny 2 for very long. While I was certainly enjoying my time with the game and the few campaigns I purchased, two major roadblocks stopped me from truly getting into it.
The first was the horrendous lack of onboarding. Were it not for the good graces of people I know who are really into Destiny, I would have been lost, without knowing what content the game has to offer, or how any of the myriad currencies work. Though, having said that, the truth is even now if I was asked what players can do in the game I wouldn’t be able to give a good answer to that question. During my time with the game, I had the distinct impression that it was focused solely on the active player base, so much so that new players were little more than an afterthought.
That feeling extended to the story and content as well. As someone who consumes a lot of media, I generally expect all of the information and character-building I need to understand a piece of creative work to be contained within said work. Because of the seasonal release structure, where story content outside of the base expansion is added through updates, and then removed when the next expansion drops, there are large portions of the story and lore of Destiny 2 that are just gone from the game with no way to replay them.
I cannot, and will never be able to, have the full Destiny 2 experience. Years of raids, special events, lore, character development, and storytelling have been routinely wiped clear from the game. For someone like me, going through all of that myself, discovering that narrative, is what draws me in. Even more than terrible onboarding, this knowledge that much of what I would want to see is forever lost shattered any further interest I had in Destiny 2.
And given the current state of Bungie, I doubt there’s much they could do to change my mind.
Fortnite
Let me just open this section on Fortnite by saying that Tim Sweeny is a piece of shit and what he did to Bandcamp and the other employees and businesses shut down for his avarice is disgusting. He should be ashamed of himself every waking minute of his life for using people that way.
Having said that, Fortnite has become a mainstay in my daily gaming, rarely for more than an hour on a given day, but just that small amount is more than when I’m on my own. But unlike many other games, I’m not always playing on my own. My friend group has started to meet up semi-regularly on Friday nights to jam a few hours together, always Zero Build because none of us are fond of the building mechanics. And when we do we always have a blast. Even on the rare occasions where we get blasted early, we can always just queue up to try again.
That said, I’m not sold on this transition to Fortnite as a platform. Though I enjoy the new Rocket Racing mode, the changes made to this Season seem wholly intended to get people to invest increasingly larger amounts of time on Fortnite, and if that becomes a continuing trend it will give me pause to reconsider my relationship with the game.
Final Fantasy XIV
Despite the untold hours that my PS5 has logged onto Final Fantasy XIV, the greatest thing I can probably say about it is that it’s cozy. I probably spend no more than half an hour most days playing the game. I do a daily, maybe a hunt train or a raid for the weekly rewards, and a few misc chores that can be completed in five minutes at most.
However, even now as I write this piece, I have it on in the back, my Hrothgar sitting by the docks outside of Old Sharlayan, though on another day he might be outside the Aftcastle in Limsa Lominsa. Something I didn’t understand until I started playing FF XIV was that it can be enough just to exist inside a space, listening to a calm background track while doing work or another project, occasionally glancing over to see other people wandering around and going about their own daily business.
Of course, I look forward to the next expansion coming out next year, and maybe critics are right to call out the general dearth of new content in Endwalker’s patch cycle, but none that matters to me.
What does matter is that a small, understated smile crosses my lips when I go to log in. That’s enough.
Armello
Back when Armello was first released in 2015, almost ten years ago, I was almost immediately hooked. I didn’t know about it back when it was Kickstarted, but I was the person in my friend group who would always ask if anyone was down to play a round of it, though it quickly became abundantly clear that most of the others were less enthused about the game than I was. As new characters and updates would come to the game year after year until development was completed in 2019 with the Dragon Clan and 2.0 updates, I would always be more than happy to dip my toe in for another game.
For a long time, I thought that was how my time with Armello would end. It sat that in my Steam library, always taunting me for not having a large enough group to get the most out of it, until an entirely different friend group from the first one expressed an interest in going back. And of course, how could I possibly refuse?
Though I lament that the team at League of Geeks, who developed Armello, was yet another victim of the tight squeeze happening in the industry, resulting in yet more layoffs, my enthusiasm for their game has been reignited.
So what do you say? Care to play a match of Armello or two? I already have it installed.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Since Larian Studios is responsible for my favorite game of the year by a landslide, I felt it was only right to finally, after having it trapped in my Steam library since 2017, go back and play the game that first put them on the map in my circles. Even better, since it was Steam Deck compatible, I could play it straight from the comfort of my recliner chair.
And while the game is certainly rough, and far from perfect, I can see why people had faith in Larian when it was announced they were going to be the team taking on a modern Baldur’s Gate game. The quality of their writing and worldbuilding is plain to see, with enough twists and intrigue to hold my attention for the whole game.
In particular, I find the idea that only one of the four characters in the player party is capable of completing the quest for godhood. Though that didn’t come to much in my solo run since I gained the respect of my party members, in a 2-4 player co-op run I can see how such a premise would create an uneasy tension as the campaign progressed.
That said, I also won’t deny that the combat system and encounter design almost had me quit the game more than a few times. Enemies, especially in the later half of the game, rely heavily on some of the most irritating status ailments like charm. The final boss in particular feels needlessly vindictive.
Additionally, I’m not fond of the linear progression system either, where most character and equipment upgrades boil down to pure number increases. In the context of CRPGs like this, I’m much more fond of upgrades that come with new abilities and skills that can increase the number of different things one can do in combat.
It’s a mixed bag, but the bones were all there. The foundation was solid. Given where Baldur’s Gate 3 ended up, it’s clear that Larian has continued to improve upon that foundation and refine it in dramatic ways. If they go back to Divinity, I’ll be eager to see how they further refine the systems they have in place.
Golden Idol Mysteries: The Spider of Lanka/The Lemurian Vampire
I must make a confession. When I played “The Case of the Golden Idol” originally, I had a walkthrough at the ready in a browser tab on the side from about the mid-point onward, when the game started to noticeably ramp up in difficulty. I’d like to say that I could have finished the game without it, but I know some of the logical leaps needed to fully piece the puzzle together would have not occurred to me naturally.
I won’t say that I avoided the same fate in the DLCs, but I noticed that I was less reliant on walkthroughs and guides than I was the first time around. I can’t tell if that’s a product of self-improvement or the developers growing more skilled at the art of creating cases and puzzles, but either way, there’s nothing like watching all of the details of the case lock into place to put a smile on my face. That’s especially true when someone like me can solve the finale of the DLC completely on his own without any support at all.
I look forward to what this team can do with this franchise in the future.
Echo/Echo: Route 65/Arches
Little by little, I’ve been delving deeper into the world of furry visual novels, and I had heard the name Echo come up often enough in passing that I was intrigued. Truthfully, I was expecting another game where you pick among a suite of romance options and maybe culminate in a sex scene or something of that sort.
I did not realize I was about to start playing a horror game. By the time I did, I was already far too deep in to do anything but continue, blindly compelled and fascinated by the story unfolding before my very eyes. With each route, new information is revealed adding new context to previous events and routes.
And this continues today. Even though the game is completed, new works from the team at Echo Project are still being produced, which further the tale of the dark, small town of Echo located in the middle of nowhere. I’ve included two such games, Route 65 and Arches because I was able to play them to completion as well. Another one, The Smoke Room, is still in active development. Should it be finished in 2024, I imagine I will finally tackle that one as well.
Considering that I still reference Echo months after playing it, it’s certainly something I can recommend if you need a good scare and aren’t afraid of a bit of NSFW content.
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I’ve long let go of the backlog as a concept. I have works that I would like to get to, but I also recognize I could spend every waking moment of my life watching, reading, or playing something and still not get everything done. As a result, I’m comfortable letting things go if I can’t find the time to get to them.
But I still like to make sure that I tackle the ones most important to me when timing permits, and so this column will probably continue to be as rich as the highlights/disappointments list. Here’s to a new year, and I hope that yours is a good one.
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