[archived from a cohost post, originally made on december 30, 2023]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.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3: unbelievably, the force that motivated me to get through XB2 was seeing if this game was any good, and, amazingly, it was almost enough to justify it. the systems could really use some little QoL tweaks that add up to some annoyances but... the characters are good, the narrative has a through-line with a lot of really strong moments, and it's the sort of thing I could see myself coming back to replay in a few years
Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed: they thought they could repeat the Torna success by making another standalone prequel DLC, and y'know what? they kinda could. it's a lot more interested in the connections between XB3 and the other Xenoblade games and it does a lot to bridge the gap. kinda just lovely, though after just going through so much XB3 I was less eager to sit down for another couple dozen hours of the world.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog: cute little visual novel released by SEGA on April 1st, with a bunch of little character moments in a murder mystery setting. cute, free, short, hard to complain about that.
The Starship Damrey: I modded my 3DS and the only thing I've played on it since doing so was this, an adventure game that specifically warns you that it won't hold your hand with solving the puzzles. I had a decent time of things, though I ended up having to look up what to do at one specific spot because I didn't pixel-hunt hard enough. got through it in one sitting! solid little time.
Hi-Fi RUSH: this game came out like a bolt from the blue and damn it just kinda fucks. my attention is bad at sticking to games to the degree that I'll go back for repeat playthroughs on higher difficulties, but I could see myself doing that in the future. hell of a game.
Mega Man Battle Network: fascinating game played via the legacy collection, which helped mitigate some of the pain of doing the endgame grinds. not all. it was still a pain. some of the enemy tuning is really twitchy because you can tell they didn't have all of their ideas ironed out, but that was fixed in...
Mega Man Battle Network 2: a much-improved sequel with its own fiddly bits, but at least the enemies' speed is something that ramps up over time, and there are myriad little tweaks that make the system actually function in some really fun ways that MMBN1 just didn't, * codes chief among them.
Doom (1993): finally played through doom 1! really fun, I can see why this brainwormed so many people so hard that people still keep making things for it to the current day. haven't finished doom 2 yet though
Yakuza 0: absolutely ridiculous that it took me this long to finish this game when I was basically sitting one session from the credits for two years but I did in fact finish the game and will probably go back and do the side content before I hit other yakuza games (of which I have Several waiting)
Final Fantasy XVI: I played this over the course of five days almost entirely in the company of my fiancee and it was a hell of a week. really fun character-action-adjacent RPG, though the skill ceiling is, admittedly, quite low for people who really want a challenge, and it's still a pretty long game all told, so I haven't done the replay on Final Fantasy mode which did seem rather fun.
Vagrant Story: fascinating object of a game with so many little QoL tweaks missing that I was going crazy by the end, and it was full of impenetrable systems, but I had a good time, mostly, with the help of a guide. if a game was made like this but it actually explained all its systems, I'd probably love it even through all the pain it causes.
Unpacking: cute, short, gay, I love it
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon: I was expecting this to be rough on me because I'm not really a fan of mech media, for the most part, nor am I usually enthusiastic about beating my head against a wall of a boss until I crack it in two, but I kinda went off with this game. I got described as "going sickos mode" on this game by one gf, and "fucking feral" by another. something hit with this game and I love it. I'll go back for the 100% trophies eventually but lord do I not have the time right now
The Caligula Effect: Overdose: this game is aggressively shitty and whatever value can be gleaned from it is tainted by the headache the rest of the game will inflict on you. it's best enjoyed as close to a visual novel as you can get it, and even that will be a dull pain you don't need. transphobic, fatphobic, containing truly very little worth the short playtime
Even the Ocean: a bleak reminder of what lies in wait when the world has had enough of humans. the earth and its environments will survive, as will some life. but our life, especially as we know it, doesn't get to persist if we keep disrespecting the balance of things. ....also balancing horizontal/vertical zoomies is a fun mechanic but offered very little challenge to me. were there some more challenging levels I'd have enjoyed the kit slightly more, but I accidentally got the speedrun achievement on my first (single-sitting) run through. good game, just didn't scratch my kind of masocore-leaning platformer craving