To end off 2023, I’m going to be going over some of my favorite things in the entertainment world that I experienced this year. For starters, we’ll be going over the ten games that I would consider to be my most favorite in 2023. Over the next two weeks, we’ll get to two other major topics, but for now, let’s jump into the video games!
10) Everhood
This quirky little indie game launched a few years back to unfortunately little fanfare, but I finally got the chance to know it existed when it released on PS5 a few months back! While it wears its Undertale inspiration on every possible sleeve, Everhood still manages to eke out its own identity through the surprisingly deep philosophical arguments it poses, and its very unique Guitar Hero styled nature of battling. The soundtrack is phenomenal (it kinda had to be considering it’s a Rhythm RPG), and it’s got plenty of extremely charming and memorable bits (like when your menu cursor comes alive and fights you). A criminally overlooked little gem.
9) Civilization 6
I, of course, knew of the Civilization series for years, but I never gave it a chance until the Steam Summer sale brought out the big guns with an all-DLC package for only, like $10. And while I’m not as obsessively hooked as the most diehard Civ-heads out there, I’ve still been having a lot of fun conquering the world through battle, religion, and science (haven’t tried culture yet, I like being alone too much to socialize with other nations). It’s a game with practically endless replayability, and a dizzying amount of customization options to make each run feel like a brand-new experience. I know understand the meaning behind the oft-quoted phrase “Just One More Turn!”.
8) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC
The base game may have launched last year, but nearly all of its stellar DLC released this year, including the incredibly substantial Future Redeemed campaign. I don’t absolutely love the plot of Future Redeemed, but I really enjoyed its characters, side quests, and secrets! It was a blast running around this content-stuffed world as the likes of A, an aged up Shulk and Rex, and even their kids. There’s plenty of nods to the games that came before it in the series, and a tantalizing teaser that both hints at what could be next, or could also be a perfectly suitable conclusion should Xenoblade find itself at the end of a long journey at last. Outside of Future Redeemed, the new DLC characters were fun to mess around with, and the roguelike battle mode was a surprisingly addicting addition!
7) Rogue Legacy 2
In the grand cosmic scale of things, I’ve had a relatively muted reaction to the release of the sequel of my favorite roguelike game of all time. Still, it’s very good! It essentially took the formula of the original game and dramatically expanded it across the board. More upgrades, more classes, more biomes, and more structured storytelling (the original game’s plot isn’t bad and I quite like the ending, but it’s obtuse and easily missable). It might not have the spark of “newness” that the original did (Rogue Legacy created an entire genre after all), but I’ve been having a blast with it nonetheless, and still find myself hopping on from time-to-time to crank out another run. It’s as addicting as ever, I can guarantee that!
6) Mass Effect
Yep, I finally jumped on the Mass Effect bandwagon by trying out the Legendary Trilogy Edition, thanks to it being free on PlayStation for subscribers. And while I might be struggling a bit to get into the second game, this first installment absolutely consumed my gaming time for the three-ish weeks it took me to explore every inch of the galaxy, complete every side quest, and do my level best to be the goodest Paragon to have ever lived (look, it’s hard being a mean person in games, okay?). Newer and arguably better RPGs may have come out in the wake of this game’s release all those years ago, but it truly isn’t hard to see why Mass Effect became the genre-shaking phenomenon that it did. The writing is top-notch, the world design is phenomenal, and all the mechanical systems just click perfectly to craft this unforgettable space-faring adventure.
5) Honkai Star Rail
I bounced off of Genshin Impact for a few reasons, but I decided to give the next major studio release, turn-based RPG Honkai Star Rail, a try and I’m super glad I did! This game is fantastic, and packs in a truly absurd amount of content for a totally free experience. On the surface, the turn-based battling is evocative of other pretty but mundane mobile RPGs, but the added nuance in the Break System combined with the crazy production values pumped into this game keep you hooked. The story, characters, and music are all top-notch too. But, if you want my opinion, it’s the little things that elevate this game.
The consistently laugh-out-loud writing and dialogue choices. The endless out-of-nowhere references that would seem groan-worthy if they weren’t so earnest and committed (like a bevy of Fight Club jokes during a boxing match quest, or exploring an old hotel and bumping into The Shining twins). The incidental flavor text is pure joyful madness too, like how in the one city you can optionally interact with no less than thirty trash cans that all have multiple pages of text to read through, like the one that sends you on a hallucinatory journey, or the one that plays out like a classic adventure game (approach lid, move lid, stick hand in, dig for treasure, etc.). Why are these things here? I have no idea, but I love it!
4) God of War: Ragnarok
I wasn’t a part of the praise and accolades for the first modern God of War back in 2018, and as such I wasn’t on the hype train for this sequel. Nevertheless, the perfect reviews, endless praise, and really cool looking bosses and story won me over, so I gave it a try! Surprise, surprise, it’s fantastic. It’s no wonder why it was one of the big contenders for Game of the Year last year, and I honestly wish either it or Xenoblade Chronicles 3 had instead of Elden Ring.
Regardless, as I talked about in my little review of this game way earlier this year, Ragnarok is incredible in basically every single way. It visually stuns, the voice work and cinematic direction is some of the best I’ve ever seen in a game (it does this really neat thing of never “cutting” from Kratos for the entire journey by fading to black, which is super immersive). The combat is weighty and fun, the boss fights are super engaging, and I had a lot of fun exploring the world for loot and completing puzzles. The soundtrack is top-tier too. It’s basically perfect, and it only lands here because the next three game appealed to me on more personal levels by just a smidge.
3) Trails Into Reverie
I’m a sucker for the Trails games even with their mountain of issues, so it’s no surprise that this year’s entry would find its way onto my list. And honestly, despite being a thinly-justified midquel in an already bloated world of stories, Reverie somehow still manages to be kinda super incredible? Like, way better than it has any right to be? Across an enjoyable campaign and a mind-boggling amount of bonus content, Reverie just never stops being fun!
At every step, Reverie proves that it knows what it’s doing even when you might have doubts. Introducing new characters in a supposed “epilogue” chapter of this universe? They end up being the stars of the show! Stacking the optional content with silly minigames and randomly generated dungeons? Can someone say hours and hours of awesome fun? And I truly, sincerely, cannot give this game enough love for what they did with my least favorite character in the series. They didn’t just make me tolerate him, or mildly enjoy him, they made me cry for him during the ending! I’m still quietly bitter about it…but in a good way.
2) Spider-Man 2
PlayStation’s first-party studios know how to knock it out of the park, simple as that. Even when it seems impossible, they release one near-masterpiece after the other with no signs of losing their touch, and Spider-Man 2 follows in this grand tradition. It was, to be fair, basically destined to be a good game given that both of the previous installments were fantastic accomplishments in their own right. Still, in every area but main story (which, mind you, is still exceptional), this game blows the previous two entries and all other superhero games out of the water.
Until you’ve tried it for yourself, it is impossible to understand just how exciting and liberating it feels to swing around New York City as Spider-Man. It’s an endlessly joyful experience elevated even higher by the inclusion in this game of the wingsuit, wind tunnels, and a few extra fancy maneuvers. The combat has also been improved with a slew of new techniques for both Peter and Miles, and a beefier and less monotonous pool of baddies. The side quests are a real treat too, each telling their own engaging story and ending in a worthwhile confrontation or reveal. Speaking of confrontation, the boss fights are amazing, and stand proud alongside series like Dark Souls when it comes to memorable boss battles.
1) Fire Emblem Engage
I love it, okay? I love it a lot. More than about 99% of the Fire Emblem playerbase, if online discourse is to go by. I can’t help it. Engage just has that magic touch that ticks basically every single box I could want ticked from a video game. It’s to the point where (similarly to my opinions on Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X), if Engage had come out before Fates, it would probably be Engage that stands on my Top 10 Favorite Games of All Time list instead. This game is, beat-for-beat, practically the perfect Fire Emblem for me.
I love the vibrant and zany cast of characters that feel like they pop even more in this game than it others, thanks to fully-voiced support conversations, distinct designs, and the simple fact that every character is viable for once thanks to the Emblem System. The soundtrack, par for the course for Fire Emblem, is phenomenal, and the aforementioned voice acting is super good. The plot has some great twists and turns that shift what could’ve been a rote cliched story into something you genuinely won’t expect, and there is never enough praise I could levy towards the best combat mechanics and moment-to-moment gameplay we’ve ever seen from this series.
This game utterly consumed my Switch playtime earlier this year, and I’ve revisited it frequently for the super fun DLC drops, the new and very challenging bonus campaign, and the start of a second playthrough. It’s a game with so much customizability that it’s got basically infinite replayability, and I can’t wait to spend a few more hundred hours replaying this gem in the years to come. If only those cowards would finally add Framme to Fire Emblem Heroes…
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 