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

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Resident Evil 4 Remake - PC - 10/10

 

They took one of the best games ever and made it even better. I really couldn't have asked for more.

 

2023 games:

 

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - PC

Fire Emblem Engage - Switch

Resident Evil 4 Remake - PC

[TheLeon]

This week I finished off Wo Long and Fire Emblem Engage. Two great games! 

[best3444]

RE4 - 9/10 

 

One of the better horror games I've played and I had a good time.

[best3444]

Beat the TLOU part 1 on PS5 in litteraly a day and a half. I change my rating from before in this thread to an incredible 10/10. It's now in my top 5 games I've ever played. Simply remarkable in every way. Now I'm playing part 2. 

[best3444]

@stepee  I've put 19 hours into TLOU 2 in 2 days!

 

I consider both part 1 and 2 one package and they are both 10/10 and in my top 5 games of all-time. It's the perfect gameplay experience for me in every department and the characters and story are absolutely on another level.

 

What ever Naughty Dog has in store next while taking full advantage of the PS5 will be simply mind blowing. 

 

I hope you're enjoying your PC version for part 1.

[TheLeon]

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap- a lesser game in the franchise, but still enjoyable. The Kinstone system was annoying-  it actually discouraged me from exploring, and it takes up one of your extremely limited buttons. It looks pretty good for a GBA game on a TV. It was a nice little taste of Zelda to get me primed for the new one. 

[Fizzzzle]

I attempted a replay of GTA V. I got about 35 hours in, then my save file got corrupted. I lost a solid 15 hours or so of progression.

 

You can't really mentally recover from that.

 

I think I'm going to try out Middle-earth: Shadow of War next.

[best3444]

Beat TLOU2 for the fourth time now. There is no game on the market that competes. It's simply stunning. 10/10 and in my top 5 games I ever played. Maybe top 3. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Resident Evil VIIlage: Shadows of Rose - 7/10 - A decent follow up. Now gimme the next RE.

 

2023 games:

 

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - PC

Fire Emblem Engage - Switch

Resident Evil 4 Remake - PC

Resident Evil VIIlage: Shadows of Rose - PC

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Pentiment - PC - 10/10

 

This was a little gem I'm glad I found. The story, the art style, the ambient sound...all so great. Perfect game for someone like me.

 

2023 games:

 

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - PC

Fire Emblem Engage - Switch

Resident Evil 4 Remake - PC

Resident Evil VIIlage: Shadows of Rose - PC

Pentiment - PC

[dualhunter]

Finished Final Fantasy Dimensions. I rage quit it almost 10 years ago after an update lead to the loss of my saves. I figured there wouldn't be anymore updates now so I decided to give it another try. Also, there's now an option to back up saves to the cloud. I enjoyed it except for the grind. It's a lot like Final Fantasy V, both regarding the job system and the world but more grinding. I finished the main story last weekend and did some more grinding and fought some post game bosses which level up as you fight them but now I don't feel like doing that anymore so I'm done.

[stepee]

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

Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe

Gal Guardians

Hi Fi Rush

Resident Evil 4 Remake

Rocky Rodent

Last of Us PT1 w/ Left Behind

 

Beat Last of Us Pt1 last night and Left Behind today. Amazing game as ever, I’m glad they did the remake, this version is still going look good for a long time since it looks so much like concept art now. Hopefully they release PT2 on pc in the next year or two after they finish patching this up, I imagine they should learn a lot and get it right next time.

 

[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

 

—————————

 

Nier Replicant some decimal or another

 

This is a kind of sort of finished it impression.  
 

I mostly remembered PS3 Nier as a weird cult game that some people loved and not much else.  Nier Automata was such a favorite of mine that once it was rereleased and seemed more playable, I put it on my lift of things I would get to if I ever had a system to play it on.  
 

To start with the good parts, the main characters in Replicant are excellent and the voice acting for them is equally good.  Incidental characters are hit or miss, but the main crew does a great job of providing weight and emotion, which is a good thing because a lot of the time they’re just standing there not animating to deliver their lines and the performances are doing all the work.  The main story itself is interesting and keeps you invested throughout even if you know where the ending is going in advance, which I did.  The soundtrack is more Keiicho Okabe so while it isn’t as bombastic or otherworldly as Automata by design for its story, it still adds tremendous depth to the experience.  
 

For the average stuff, like Automata the combat here is… fine.  You’re given a wealth of weapons and spells, almost none of which are necessary to beat the enemies or bosses.  Pick one you like the looks of and keep the two first spells you get equipped and you’ll breeze through the game without much effort.  This is also, very clearly, a PS3 game with a new coat of paint, and one that clearly didn’t have a large budget to begin with.  Outside of specific cutscenes, characters do not emote or even move their lips.  They stand there gently doing their idle animation while dialog spits out.  The game has maybe a dozen or so areas that you will have to visit repeatedly in order to beat it, and most of them are largely empty.  The game doesn’t have fast travel for 3/4 of its run time, and after you get it the game disables it randomly for some vague story reason or another repeatedly.  
 

The worst part, and the part that’s causing me to potentially abandon it, is the multiple endings.  Like Drakengard and Nier Automata, Replicant has multiple endings to see the entire story.  Unlike Automata however, you’re replaying the back half of the game almost unchanged.  There’s a few scenes of added context and a “novelization” of back story for your colleagues, so you’re basically just reading text for ten minutes or so.  This added context is fine, but if you put aside the reading part you’re getting maybe 20 minutes of new information over five to six hours of game.  That would be bad enough on its own, but you have to do that THREE TIMES in order to get the “true” ending, but wait, it gets worse!  The new content of Replicant only begins with a new additional ending so after replaying the back half of the game four times you start replaying the game again from the very start!  The combat encounters do not change for any of these so you will be going through the same dungeons cutting through everything like a hot knife through butter.  One dungeon you have to go through twice in the back half alone to beat the story, so you will have gone through this place ten times before you even hit the “new” content.  All of this replaying would be easier to swallow if you were getting a decent amount of new context each time, but you aren’t, or if it streamlined some of the cruft, which it doesn’t.  Some of the mandatory storyline quests involve nothing but running all over the world to talk to one person once only to run back, and then do a dungeon with no combat but slow exploration that you cannot in any way speed up despite this being your third or fourth time through.  It is tedium on top of tedium and who knows, maybe somehow it all ties together in a truly satisfying way but right now it’s just grinding on me.  I’ve gotten two out of five endings and I might throw in the towel and watch the rest on YouTube or just put it away until it’s no so painfully familiar to me anymore.  
 

 

[SaysWho?]

Man, so much of the year has been playing the original Starcraft online and playing user-made maps. It's been a while.  

 

I did get a few other games under my belt.

 

2023 Games

 

Starcraft (using SCII Mass Recall campaign)

Starcraft: Brood War (using SCII Mass Recall campaign)

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm

Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (arcade version from Cowabunga Collection)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade version from Cowabunga Collection. Tried the NES version but the pacing is worse due to extended levels)

Resident Evil 4 Remake

[best3444]

Horizon Forbidden West 8/10

 

I finished it in 17 hours. Story sucks and Aloy is annoying but the overall package adds up to an 8. 

 

Will play the dlc tomorrow.

[TwinIon]

Cyberpunk 2077 - 4/5

 

I haven't entirely finished Cyberpunk, but I'm close enough. I think I'm going to wait to finish it until the DLC arrives.

 

It's an extremely impressive game that I can easily recommend, but I still feel like there are some questionable choices that make it far from perfect. The pacing, both in the storytelling and in the moment to moment gameplay can be a bit of a roller coaster. Far too much time waiting for something to happen, only for the action to be over fairly quickly. The world is legitimately incredible though. The NPC AI is poor and there is plenty that breaks the illusion, but it's one of the very few game cities that feels anything like a city. There is also a real sense of gameplay potential that few games can match, even if I haven't found it the most fun.

 

 

2023 Games:

 

Hogwarts Legacy - 4/5

The Last of Us: Part 1 - 5/5

Doom Eternal - 4/5

Hardspace Shipbreaker - 3/5

[TheLeon]

Resident Evil 4 Remake - don’t have much else to say about it. Great update to one of the great games.

[dualhunter]

Finished Islets. Great Metroidvania. If you liked Hollow Knight but found it too long, Islets is much shorter. Some of the bosses are fought in your airship and are a bit bullet hell but most of the game is melee Metroidvania though you also have some ranged attacks. You can find 60 upgrade items that let you choose between 3 options to upgrade and it looks like it's not set. I only got 4 out of 5 arrow speed upgrades because of this but there's no achievement for getting all 5 and I mainly use melee attacks anyway. Had I known how it works I might have avoided the ones that give cash but then I used that cash for more melee upgrades from the shop and those upgrades seem to be unlimited though they get more expensive each time you buy one.

 

If you like Metroidvanias give it a try.

[Phaseknox]

I finished BloodRayne ReVamped, it’s the first game that I finished this year.

 

2023 games

BloodRayne ReVamped

[Brian]

2023:

Psychonauts 2 - 10/10

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

 

Good: Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the rest of world is beautifully recreated. The developer did a tremendous job taking this IP and putting it in game form. It’s very much inspired by the movies. Combat looks great as well.

 

Bad: Bloat. There is too much shit.  Ubisoft would be impressed by how many icons litter this map. The devs jammed everything in as if they didn’t expect to make a second game.
 

Ugly: Story and characters. You are a fifth year transfer student to Hogwarts, which is unheard of per the story, with ancient magic. You basically become the top student within a day. You master everything with no issues. It’s boring and uninteresting. You never feel like a student. You don’t really make any bonds with the characters which I guess is fine because they all stink. Then again maybe no one wants to be friends with a mass murderer. “That’s one less ranrok supporter!” Woah calm down with your raging boner after another kill.
 

Spoiler

Dark magic? Sure no problem. Use it freely. Doesn’t everyone?  You can still save the day even if you kill everyone using dark magic  

 

[Remarkableriots]

2023 Games finished

Tails of Iron 10/10 

Very fun game and I got the Platinum trophy!

[Remarkableriots]

2023 

Tails of Iron 10/10 

Far Cry 6 8/10

I enjoyed the story but didn't feel like finishing the DLC. I got the Platinum trophy though.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls 10/10

Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer

Finally finished the last two trophies I needed to Platinum the game!

[CastlevaniaNut18]

The Last of Us Part I + Left Behind - PC - 10/10

 

Shitty issues with the port aside, once they got some fixes in and I got a beastly rig to max it out, it's the same beautiful game I've loved since it first released in 2013.

 

 

2023 games:

 

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - PC

Fire Emblem Engage - Switch

Resident Evil 4 Remake - PC

Resident Evil VIIlage: Shadows of Rose - PC

Pentiment - PC

The Last of Us Part I + Left Behind - PC

[LazyPiranha]

Nier Replicant addendum:

 

————————

 

I bit the bullet and finished all of the endings because I knew I would almost certainly never come back to it otherwise.

 

The additional content and new ending are definitely worth seeing if you’re interested in the overarching story between Replicant and Automata.  It’s not a direct straight line kind of thing, but it does lay the groundwork for the state of the world and I’d argue that it’s a more satisfying ending than what you get in the original even if it leaves some unanswered questions still.  Trying to untangle the lineage from Drakengarde to Replicant to Automata is complicated at best and contradictory at worst, but that goes hand in hand with the story itself.

 

While the new content is worth seeing, getting to it is annoying.  There are plot reasons for why this is (sort of) but holy hell having to replay the back half of the game a minimum of three times and the first quarter of the game again after that is truly tedious.  If you had already played Nier for the PS3 and were in it purely for the new content, it’s a 50 hour plus commitment just to see maybe 90 minutes of new stuff.  

[Remarkableriots]

2023 

Tails of Iron 10/10 

Far Cry 6 8/10

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls 10/10

Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer

Burly Men At Sea 9/10

I kept putting this off for a long time but finally played it and it was fun.

[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
Nier Replicant some decimal or another

 

————————————-

 

Stray

 

I didn’t intend for my next game to have spiritual similarities, but sometimes these things happen.

 

Stray is a pretty and fun little game that doesn’t overstay its welcome or overextend its reach.  You can pretty much sketch out the broad strokes of the plot the moment you encounter your first robots, but it doesn’t detract from the overall experience.  At the very end it aims for a little bit of pathos that might land harder if it wasn’t quite as predictable and formulaic, but it’s fine enough on its own.  
 

Mostly the game is just nice to look at.  The cat animates really well and manages to capture a lot of mannerisms of a house cat without being to cloyingly on the nose about look at our cute kitty.  The game knows how to frame things in order to get the right scale of being on the ground when you need that perspective while pulling out enough when you need to see your surroundings.  
 

Really the only problems are that it’s never around long enough to get you used to some of the more enemy focused encounters to make it feel anything other than clumsy.  Exploration and puzzle solving are all pleasant, but at some point the plot requires you to alert enemies and kite them to specific areas.  You never had to do this before and you’ll never do it again, so you’re just blindly fumbling with it to get it done.

 

All told, a fun little game that knows not to linger too long for its own good.  

[dualhunter]

Finished Supraland Six Inches Under. I didn't mind that it was shorter than the original. I got near where the chest detector was but missed it until I came back later so I ended up finding most of the remaining chests without it. One of the ones I was missing was the hardest one to get to and then my last 4 were all in the same area, so once I got there and the chest detector started beeping it didn't take long to get those.

[Brian]

2023:

Psychonauts 2 - 10/10

Fire Emblem Engage - 7/10
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe - 8/10
Hogwarts Legacy - 7/10
Cult of the Lamb - 8/10

 

Cult of the Lamb is a nice mix between Animal Crossing and the Binding of Isaac. You are tasked building a cult of followers. You must feed, shelter, please, and in general look after them. It’s a nice change of pace from the dungeon crawling. It isn’t super in depth but has enough to enjoy it. 
 

The dungeon crawling is typical fare. It isn’t hard which is nice. The dungeons are procedurally generated. There are small is size which makes the game a pretty good pick and up play 20 mins. I really enjoyed it. Easy recommend 

[Phaseknox]

I finished Fran Bow, it was a dark and surreal point-and-click adventure puzzle game. The art and animation were fantastic, and a lot of crazy shit happens throughout.

 

2023 games

BloodRayne ReVamped

Fran Bow

[Brian]

2023:

Psychonauts 2 - 10/10

Fire Emblem Engage - 7/10
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe - 8/10
Hogwarts Legacy - 7/10
Cult of the Lamb - 8/10
Case of the Golden Idol - 7.5/10

 

The game presents you with a static picture and you must deduce what happened. As you search each scene, you will come across highlighted words. These words will be used to fill out a sentences that are missing words that explains what happened. It isn’t a hard game. The story is overall ok. If you pay attention, you can figure out the twists. I still really enjoyed it. 

[Phaseknox]

I finished Little Misfortune, it was a somewhat short cartoonish 2D side scrolling interactive story that was sort of ambiguous with a lot of dark humor. I enjoyed it for the most part since it had some good humor, but it didn’t offer much in terms of actual gameplay.

 

2023 games

BloodRayne ReVamped

Fran Bow

Little Misfortune

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Metroid Prime Remastered - Switch - 9/10

 

My first time with this game. It was great. Now I’m just sad there’s no updated versions of 2 and 3 because it’ll be hard for me to go back and play them without the better controls. 
 

2023 games:

 

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - PC

Fire Emblem Engage - Switch

Resident Evil 4 Remake - PC

Resident Evil VIIlage: Shadows of Rose - PC

Pentiment - PC

The Last of Us Part I + Left Behind - PC

Metroid Prime Remastered - Switch

 

[best3444]

Star Wars Jedi Survivor 9/10

[Brian]

2023:

Psychonauts 2 - 10/10

Fire Emblem Engage - 7/10
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe - 8/10
Hogwarts Legacy - 7/10
Cult of the Lamb - 8/10
Case of the Golden Idol - 7.5/10
Dead Island 2 - 8.5/10

 

Dead Island is a great example of developing with limits. Everything is well designed and thought out. I won’t add to much since I put my thoughts in the main thread. All I will say, this game is definitely worth your time and may be my sleeper GOTY 2023. GotG and Ghostwire Tokyo were my sleeper GOTY the two previous years. 

[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
Nier Replicant some decimal or another
Stray

 

—————————

 

Immortality

 

There are two halves to Immortality, figuratively and literally, and my feelings on the game split neatly down the line between the two.  
 

Without getting into spoilers, the technical craft of Immortality in terms of the FMV is incredibly impressive.  The actors, particularly Manon Gage, are given what I imagine is a huge task.  They have to act in several different modes, across generations, seamlessly.  The video clips you scrub through to piece together the story aren’t just pure clips of a finished whole, but rather unedited takes of a film making process.  In one scene, a person has to act as a character in a role but also as an actor trying to get into that character, and then that actor being themselves.  The amount of role shifting in every scene must have been a tremendous challenge.  It also has a clear love for the art of film making, recreating the aesthetics from late sixties lo-fi schlock up to digital film making.  Mechanically the game fluctuates between ingenious and frustrating.  You navigate between scenes by focusing on objects or people in the frame and then it match cuts to another scene featuring that exact object or a thematically similar one.  This can either be an intriguing puzzle as you try and imagine where the films are going and what trail of items can lead you there, or a completely tedious checklist of focusing in on every god dammed thing in frame to maybe be brought to something new.  
 

As for the story?  Eh.  After a short while if you’re scrubbing through footage you will inevitably stumble across the “real” story.  Your mileage may vary, but I found the meta story to be far less interesting than trying to piece together the motivations and relationships behind the scenes of the films themselves.  
 

I played it on iOS as it was free through Netflix, and if you have the option it’s at least worth a look.  Whether the story within a story hooks you or not is a matter of taste, so it’s entirely possible it will land better with you than me.