[archived from a cohost post, originally made on december 30, 2023] I played quite a few games in 2023. here are the ones that I cleared for the first time in the year, with some thoughts on them in rough order of completion: Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ the Golden Country : a reduced scale for both the game world and the amount of time it expects you to spend on the plot would've been enough to make this more tolerable than the base game of Xenoblade 2 but the writing is also a lot better and there's no goddamn gacha mechanics so it's honestly just straight up superior in my eyes. actually made me laugh, actually made me feel bad for how badly Jin was treated by the main game's plot. Rituals : a cute little puzzle game I've had in my steam library for, frankly, way too long. 100%'d it in 69 (nice) minutes of playtime which included two playthroughs for both endings and achievements. not much depth there, but a pretty alright little jaunt. Xeno