General Gaming ~*D1P's Games of 2023*~

[dualhunter]

Finished Kena: Bridge of Spirits. I really liked it except for the combat (especially trials and bosses). I started off on standard difficulty but got fed up with things like getting hit from off screen because the camera is too close to Kena. Dropped down to Story Mode difficulty and enjoyed it enough to play it again via new game plus.

[TheLeon]

Metroid Prime Remastered: still holds up incredibly well, modern controls make the exploration so much smoother. Great trip down memory lane, reminded me of so many articulate, worthwhile debates on the IGN boards, such as “is Metroid Prime an FPS or a First Person Adventure?”

[LazyPiranha]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!

Bayonetta 3
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (GBC)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

 

—————————

 

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

 

I haven't played a Ratchet and Clank since the very first on the PS2 and I remember enjoying it but not being blown away.  

 

First things first, this game is gorgeous.  Probably one of the best looking games I've ever seen, I was consistently amazed by how good the characters looked and how well they animated.  Even having played other PS5 games, this is the first time that I was actually impressed by how something looked and was confident that something like this could not have been pulled off on the older hardware.

 

Other than that, a perfectly fine game otherwise.  It definitely feels toned down on the childish double entendre humor from the past for the most part.  Honestly the biggest problems for me were that the arsenal was so large that I mostly stopped using most weapons the moment I couldn't upgrade them any further and had little reason to revisit them.  A few of them are largely the same thing but with a minor reskin on them so one is wrapping animals in plants and the other is freezing them in ice, things like that.  It's also probably a couple of hours too long as you've basically seen every single enemy type within the first quarter of the game.   Even on the harder difficulties the game never really posed much of a threat.  

[dualhunter]

Finished Axiom Verge 2 except for a few items I'm missing. Early on it was really annoying and I often had a hard time finding out where to go next (the marker on the map isn't much help if you can't find out how to get to it) but once I got the hang of it I enjoyed it.

[LazyPiranha]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!

Bayonetta 3
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (GBC)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

 

—————————————-

 

Link’s Awakening (Switch)

 

A great game remade faithfully with an awesome art style.  Yes, the frame rate is a bit of a downer, but it still looks really interesting and fresh throughout.  Really my only gripe is playing the game mostly on memory and completely blanking on where the next step was from time to time by thinking too far ahead for my own good.  

[Brian]

Fire Emblem Engage: the combat is the draw. It’s still really good. I played on normal and I found it a bit too easy.  The emblem mechanic felt too OP.
 

Outside of combat, the rest is mediocre. Story is anime dumb. Characters are flat. Somniel is a chore. If you play this, I recommend focusing on the emblem and main missions and nothing else. It’s a much better game when you streamline it. 
 

2023:

Psychonauts 2 - 10/10

Fire Emblem Engage - 7/10

[XxEvil AshxX]

2023

Assassin's Creed Rogue Remastered

Agents of Mayhem

Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest

High On Life

Sacred Gold

 

Yes, i realize most of these games are old as shit, but they're the ones I'm playing for my Youtube channel, which focuses on my backlog and old ARPGs.

[dualhunter]

Finished Arietta of Spirits. A bit short but mostly fun. It sucks that the end game escape was a bit of a pain and I spent a fair bit of time trying to find the last spirit cub with out success as a it makes for a rather negative end to what was mostly a positive experience.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - 8/10

 

My first time playing through any version of this game and I was happy with it. Looked great on my Steam Deck. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Fire Emblem: Engage 8/10

 

One of my favorite series and this was a really solid entry. Story was lacking, but the combat was top notch. Love the addition of emblems to the battles. 

[brucoe]

I'm kind of on a rehash/update kick with games recently. Been mostly looking for a space sim game but haven't really found anything that does anything for me. A few days ago, I bought Distant Worlds 2 and tried to start it up, but so far it's feeling a lot like an overly complicated Galactic Civilizations 3. Still too new to really make a decision yet.

 

My other rehash that I finally put into the queue is Master of Magic, which is a rehash they made a year or so ago.

 

Unfortunately, finding something awesome to play with a top notch system can sometimes be hard. Might just play through backlog until Starfield finally comes out, and then I probably won't emerge again for months to come.

[LazyPiranha]

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!

Bayonetta 3
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (GBC)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Link’s Awakening (Switch)

 

———————————————-

 

No More Heroes 3

 

Yet another third sequel with diminishing returns.

 

The first NMH was a pretty average game that made up for it with style, wit, and lunacy.  As the games have moved forward, the combat remains passable at best, but unfortunately you can only rely on being out of your mind so far before it gets predictable in its own way.  
 

NMH 3 feels a little bare in a lot of ways.  I’ve always felt that NMH was empty partly as a joke, poking fun at “living” open world games by making it clear that Liberty City is just as empty as Santa Destroy, there’s just a bunch of weirdos yelling shit at you as you walk by.  That joke works, but it only works once.  Desperate Struggle realized this and basically got rid of it entirely.  Now it’s back and… why?  
 

For example, the map of Santa Destroy looks like a big star with islands, a fun little touch.  By the time you beat the game, probably about half of the map will be red and inaccessible and you will never be able to get to those sections.  They exist as part of the map, but they’re blocked off for race side missions and you will never get to them otherwise.  There aren’t stages anymore either, you travel to random spots on the map, hit an icon, fight maybe five dudes, then go back to the main map.  That was better when all you did was select them from a menu instead of driving to the middle of nowhere to fight the bad level geometry to find the spot and then have to travel back.

 

The boss fights are largely still fun, the meta jokes are still funny, Travis remains a delightful piece of trash, but that’s kind of it.  It feels like it’s trying to be a love letter to the series and brings back old favorites, but it’s all too disjointed and random to matter.  Also if you didn’t play Travis Strikes Again, you’re going to be very lost about some characters popping up and some dead characters being alive again.

 

Rip out the fluff, make the battle system a little deeper, and it would be a great sendoff to an oddball series, but it mostly feels like a whiff.  

[stepee]

Beat Dead Space Remake and Uncharted 4 today, both still hold up wonderfully. 

 

New Super Luigi U Deluxe

F.I.S.T

Huntdown

Forspoken

Grim Guardians 

Kirby Return to Dreamland

Hogwarts Legacy

Dead Space

Uncharted 4

[stepee]

Beat Super Mario Land 2, I still love that game, it’s what Id like to see a new side scrolling Mario game be like, kinda weird like this.

 

New Super Luigi U Deluxe

F.I.S.T

Huntdown

Forspoken

Grim Guardians 

Kirby Return to Dreamland

Hogwarts Legacy

Dead Space

Uncharted 4

Moss

Super Mario Land 2

 

 

[best3444]

Just beat Hogwarts Legacy (PS5) - 8.5

TLOU 1 (PS5) - 8.5 

TLOU 2 (PS5) - 9.5

Dead Space Remake (PS5) - 9.0

 

Not sure if I'll complete Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or not. Working on that. Metroid Prime, and RE2 Remake. 

 

 

[Biggie]

28 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Just beat Hogwarts Legacy (PS5) - 8.5

TLOU 1 (PS5) - 8.5 

TLOU 2 (PS5) - 9.5

Dead Space Remake (PS5) - 9.0

 

Not sure if I'll complete Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or not. Working on that. Metroid Prime, and RE2 Remake. 

 

 

Wo me love you Long time

[best3444]

4 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Wo me love you Long time

 

Just can't. The first boss owns my ass. 

[Brian]

2023:

Psychonauts 2 - 10/10

Fire Emblem Engage - 7/10
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe - 8/10

 

Beat Kirby. It is a great game. Nothing brings more joy to life than playing as Kirby.
 

Magolor Epilogue is ok. The levels aren’t as tight. The final boss is designed to force you to get more upgrades which means repeating levels that aren’t great. I appreciate the added content but it brings down the package. 8/10

[crispy4000]

On 3/15/2023 at 3:28 PM, best3444 said:

Just beat Hogwarts Legacy (PS5) - 8.5

TLOU 1 (PS5) - 8.5 

TLOU 2 (PS5) - 9.5

Dead Space Remake (PS5) - 9.0

 

Not sure if I'll complete Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or not. Working on that. Metroid Prime, and RE2 Remake. 

 

 

Finish it.  You’re close!

[best3444]

22 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Finish it.  You’re close!

 

How many chapters are there? I'm 25 hours in. 

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

How many chapters are there? I'm 25 hours in. 

7.  You’re on Chapter 5 with only 25 hours put in???

[best3444]

10 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

7.  You’re on Chapter 5 with only 25 hours put in???

 

Yea. Pretty much finished the prison section. 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

Yea. Pretty much finished the prison section. 

You’re really beelining it!  Howlongtobeat says a straight first run should take over 60 hours.  You’ll get there much earlier.

 

The through plotline of the game is a less satisfying than 1 or 2.  Unlike those two games, the side stuff is waaaay better, and fleshes out the characters and lore a lot.

 

On one hand, that means that if you want to play more after you finish you’d have tons of great content left, without much pushback since you’d be overleveled.  
 

On the other hand, the way you’re playing this is more how I’d recommend playing 1, where the side content sucks.  That could be the better game for you, granted the combat system is much less developed.

[best3444]

6 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

You’re really beelining it!  Howlongtobeat says a straight first run should take over 60 hours.  You’ll get there much earlier.

 

The through plotline of the game is a less satisfying than 1 or 2.  Unlike those two games, the side stuff is waaaay better, and fleshes out the characters and lore a lot.

 

On one hand, that means that if you want to play more after you finish you’d have tons of great content left, without much pushback since you’d be overleveled.  
 

On the other hand, the way you’re playing this is more how I’d recommend playing 1, where the side content sucks.  That could be the better game for you, granted the combat system is much less developed.

 

I'm fine skipping side quests because I'm not fully invested in this series. I'll beeline it and just enjoy what that provides me. If I feel compelled to play more after I finish it then that's cool the side content is still available. 

[best3444]

On 3/15/2023 at 4:28 PM, best3444 said:

Just beat Hogwarts Legacy (PS5) - 8.5

TLOU 1 (PS5) - 8.5 

TLOU 2 (PS5) - 9.5

Dead Space Remake (PS5) - 9.0

 

Not sure if I'll complete Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or not. Working on that. Metroid Prime, and RE2 Remake. 

 

 

 

Beat Left Behind just now. Yes, that counts! 

 

Naughty Dog is just so talented. 8.5 and it was nice to flesh some story out. 

[BloodyHell]

2023 so far:

Tactics Ogre-9.5 One of my favourite SNES games 

Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core 8.0

Dead Space Remake 9.0

Call of the Mountain 7

Star Wars Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge 8

 

[crispy4000]

 

The literal perfect game for me right now.  As a first time parent, I've been able to play it with split joycons while my daughter naps on my lap.  It's the type of mindless fun I can boot up and enjoy in a perpetually sleep deprived state.

 

It's also my first mosuo game.  It’s kind of like a beat'em up with more cannon fodder and more mini-bosses.  Strategy doesn't matter at all here, you can order members of your team around, but it's mainly to save you time.  True to Breath of the Wild, enemies become much too repetitive by the end.  The thing that saves it from tedium is the variety of character playstyles, and eventually, the ability to stun lock tougher opponents, which becomes a game in itself to keep your combo going.  The game definitely encourages you to switch around characters.

 

Performance is bad.  Nothing can justify that.  However, the game is jank enough, in a kitchen sink sort of way, that I'm not sure higher framerates would dramatically help.  The game doesn't test your reaction speed much.  There's ample opportunities to enter slow mo to use attack items, runes, or heal.  Movement is quick, even when framerates are not.  All said, I actually think they struck an okay balance here between trying to pull off a game like this on the Switch that feels epic enough for the concept.

 

The camera issues bugged me a lot more honestly.  There's this nasty depth of field effect that will activate on enemies close to the camera, which is problematic in pretty much every big encounter.  It's commonplace to be backed up against a wall and not being to able to see what's happening.  There's a wall jumping mechanic that is also super jank with the camera.  The flying characters feel terrible because the perspective used on them sucks.  There's also this huge character I played on a level with tight corridors ... no bueno.

 

I also dislike the weapon systems here.  Instead of breaking, you fuse weapons to level them up.  Sounds like an improvement on the surface.  But there's a convoluted upgrade system with status effects that's poorly explained in-game.  I might actually prefer BoTW's approach on the whole, at least in that game I felt better about throwing weapons away.

 

Do you need to play it before BoTW2?  Probably not.  It does more with story than BoTW, but not in a way that is consequential unless Nintendo spins-off from a spin-off game.  One thing I will say is that while BoTW's bosses felt like a cakewalk, the ones here give a little bit more pushback.  And I can appreciate the ways the last few encounters differentiate themselves from the source material.

 

7.5/10

 

Better camera and performance could have brought it up higher.

 

2023 Games

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - 8/10

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - 7.5/10

 

[best3444]

On 3/15/2023 at 4:28 PM, best3444 said:

Just beat Hogwarts Legacy (PS5) - 8.5

TLOU 1 (PS5) - 8.5 

TLOU 2 (PS5) - 9.5

Dead Space Remake (PS5) - 9.0

 

Not sure if I'll complete Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or not. Working on that. Metroid Prime, and RE2 Remake. 

 

 

 

On 3/17/2023 at 12:51 PM, best3444 said:

 

Beat Left Behind just now. Yes, that counts! 

 

Naughty Dog is just so talented. 8.5 and it was nice to flesh some story out. 

 

Just beat Ghost of Tsushima. This is an incredible game and a very, very strong 9/10. I honestly have no complaints and it took me only 18 hours to beat. Such a beautiful story with memorable characters. Combat kicks ass and the open world is absolutely mesmerizing and very well designed. I cannot fuckin wait for this sequel. 

[Fizzzzle]

Just beat Red Dead Redemption 2. It took me about 85 hours.

 

10/10. What a masterpiece.

 

When I finished, the game said I was 85.9% complete. I know there were a few missable character-based sidequests that I missed. Someday I might go back to the game and use a guide so I can make sure to not miss anything, as well as complete the game as "evil Arthur."

 

The only thing that kind of disappointing about the game is that they added the whole region of New Austin, it's gorgeous, it has two settlements, yet there really isn't anything to do there except for a couple bounty missions, hunting, and some random character interactions. But it's also cool that they added a massive area of the game that's just there in case you want to explore it.

[best3444]

13 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Just beat Red Dead Redemption 2. It took me about 85 hours.

 

10/10. What a masterpiece.

 

When I finished, the game said I was 85.9% complete. I know there were a few missable character-based sidequests that I missed. Someday I might go back to the game and use a guide so I can make sure to not miss anything, as well as complete the game as "evil Arthur."

 

The only thing that kind of disappointing about the game is that they added the whole region of New Austin, it's gorgeous, it has two settlements, yet there really isn't anything to do there except for a couple bounty missions, hunting, and some random character interactions. But it's also cool that they added a massive area of the game that's just there in case you want to explore it.

 

Finally someone else thinks this is a masterpiece! Glad you enjoyed it! 

[Phaseknox]

3 hours ago, best3444 said:

Just beat Ghost of Tsushima. This is an incredible game and a very, very strong 9/10. I honestly have no complaints and it took me only 18 hours to beat.

I agree that it’s an incredible game, it’s in my top 10 of all-time. But you must have skipped a lot of the side content if you finished it in 18 hours. You often mention that you skip the side content in games, but sometimes the side content is as good if not even better than the main content so I feel like you’re missing out on some good stuff by doing that.
 

3 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

Just beat Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

10/10. What a masterpiece.

[Fizzzzle]

13 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I agree that it’s an incredible game, it’s in my top 10 of all-time. But you must have skipped a lot of the side content if you finished it in 18 hours. You often mention that you skip the side content in games, but sometimes the side content is as good if not even better than the main content so I feel like you’re missing out on some good stuff by doing that.
 

I know there are divided opinions on it, but I had a blast from start to finish. I was disappointed when all I had left to go was hunting/fishing. Every mission was fun. I didn't want it to be over.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Sometimes I think I'll give RDR2 another go when it's on a deep PC discount. Then I recall the 3-4 hours I played on PS4 at launch and  remember how it felt like a chore.

[best3444]

44 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I agree that it’s an incredible game, it’s in my top 10 of all-time. But you must have skipped a lot of the side content if you finished it in 18 hours. You often mention that you skip the side content in games, but sometimes the side content is as good if not even better than the main content so I feel like you’re missing out on some good stuff by doing that.

 

I initially beat it when it launched and put in like 35 hours. I did most of the side content. This run, I just wanted to see the story again and play on PS5 with a higher resolution and in 60fps. It's so much better than I remembered and it could easily make a top 10 of all-time list. It's incredibly well done.

[Phaseknox]

5 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I know there are divided opinions on it, but I had a blast from start to finish. I was disappointed when all I had left to go was hunting/fishing. Every mission was fun. I didn't want it to be over.

I’m glad that you enjoyed it so much, it just failed to really click with me like the first game did and most third person open world action adventure games in general. The story, characters and world are all really good, but I found the core gameplay of shootouts and horseback riding to be a bit repetitive and not all that exciting. I still enjoyed it for the most part, but it’s not up there with my favorites in the genre.
 

5 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Sometimes I think I'll give RDR2 another go when it's on a deep PC discount. Then I recall the 3-4 hours I played on PS4 at launch and  remember how it felt like a chore.

I never really found it to feel like a chore, but its slow pace and repetitive mission structure did make it dull at times IMO. I mainly played it for its story and characters because I didn’t find its core gameplay all that exciting or fun, it played a bit sluggish and there wasn’t much more to it than shootouts and horseback riding.

 

5 hours ago, best3444 said:

I initially beat it when it launched and put in like 35 hours. I did most of the side content. This run, I just wanted to see the story again and play on PS5 with a higher resolution and in 60fps. It's so much better than I remembered and it could easily make a top 10 of all-time list. It's incredibly well done.

It makes sense that you would go through it quicker on your second playthrough. I would like to play through it again myself, but I have so many other games that I haven’t played yet that they take priority over replaying games that I’ve already played and finished.