There’s been a lot of talk about how amazing 2023 has been for games. That is to say, 2023 has been a fantastic year for games released. But 2023 has also been a dreadful year for the people who actually work on games. Between the companies laying off thousands of employees, despite profiting like crazy, and companies like Embracer Group shutting companies down because of their own stupidity, it’s sometimes hard to celebrate the industry when the industry is collapsing on itself. The industry is broken. I didn’t want to get started on this post without acknowledging that up front.

2023 has had a legendary amount of games that many would call “bangers”. Between Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Pikmin 4, Resident Evil 4, Spider-Man 2, Hi-Fi Rush, Final Fantasy XVI, Street Fighter 6, Octopath Traveler 2, Lies of P, F-Zero 99, and Metroid Prime Remastered, there was no shortage of incredible, big deal games to play. Unfortunately, I didn’t play a single one of those!

Yeah, but that said, it was a really interesting year for me and video games, and I’m excited to talk about them. That’s why I wanted to come back and do another one of these blog posts (after only 4 years, oops).

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe

I did not expect Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe to win me over as much as it did. I played this game originally on the Wii, and back then I didn’t think much of it. For awhile, any other Kirby game I’d try, I wouldn’t really get. Finally, last year I got around to Kirby’s Triple Deluxe, which I thought was fine, and Kirby: Planet Robobot, which I loved. Then Kirby and the Forgotten Land came out, and I really, really, really loved that game. From the excellent levels, to the boss fights, to the lore teases and reveals, at this point I felt like I finally understood the appeal to Kirby games.

This brings us to this year and Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe. Going back to 2D gameplay after Forgotten Land, this was the more classic gameplay I’d already experienced a bunch of via Triple Deluxe and Robobot, but it hit even better. The levels were fun to play through, the bosses were satisfying to beat, I loved the art style, and the whole game was just pure fun. Plus the whole side game selection and the extra story via the Magolor Epilogue added to the impressive main game make this whole thing quite a package.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

After Breath of the Wild, this was one of those games where the wait for it since announcement felt agonizing. Breath of the Wild felt like a once in a lifetime kind of experience that I knew couldn’t be replicated by a sequel, but I looked forward to having an excuse to be back in the world again, with new things to discover, and that alone was enough to have me excited for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. When they finally showed off some of the new stuff they added to the game, I was beyond stoked to play.

So when it finally came time to play, of course I spent a significant chunk of my time building vehicles and travelling across the overworld. It satisfied the desire to explore in that world again while giving me a fun, creative, and sometimes goofy new way to go about it.

Then you factor in that this game added the Depths, which is a whole world below the surface, plus islands in the sky, and this game is packed. But I definitely felt overwhelmed by the Depths and ultimately didn’t spend that much time there. Oops.

My feelings are mixed on Tears of the Kingdom because on one hand, it’s a 10/10 for me and it’s my game of the year, but on the other, there are some things I wish that had been fixed since Breath of the Wild that are still here, or even made worse. For example, the “memories” in Breath of the Wild were discovered at particular locations and those locations were relevant to the memories you saw in the resulting cutscenes, so you could find them in any order. The equivalent in Tears of the Kingdom, the “tears” themselves, operated the same way. But the scenes you saw with the tears were pieces of an overall, linear story, so finding them out of order sort of spoils the later elements if you find those ones first. It’s a little awkward. Plus, the dungeons are meant to be done in any order, but the plot that you get after each dungeon tells the same story each time. That’s 4 times, same story plays out. It gets repetitive and doesn’t really offer much drive to do the dungeons for story reasons.

These things aside though, the game design achievement that is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom cannot be understated. It’s an incredible feat, and the culmination of the new direction that started with Breath of the Wild. I can’t wait to see what we get next.

Tinykin

Tinykin was a smaller title that really surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. It actually made me think of the Banjo-Kazooie formula more than you’d think. The conciseness of each level, the collectables, these were the elements that had me vaguely thinking back to my favourite Nintendo 64 platformer.

The controls were buttery smooth. Sliding around on a bar of soap made getting around a breeze. On top of that, using Tinykin to get around the rooms and solve puzzles made for some extremely interesting new platforming challenges that never felt too difficult, just fresh.

The whole game pleasantly surprised me this way, and it didn’t even come close to overstaying its welcome.

Final Fantasy IV

My first Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy VII Remake in 2020. My second Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy IV. I didn’t play any of the series before, and for awhile I was convinced that a lot of JRPGs were “too long” and that I hated random encounters. I was spoiled by games like Earthbound and especially Chrono Trigger, so I thought that any game that didn’t quite meet those criteria, I wasn’t going to have the patience for. I don’t think any of that’s as true anymore, though there’re definitely limits (I’ll always get frustrated going through caves in early Pokémon games).

But what really made a difference for me was the release of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, specifically when they came to Switch. I played a lot of Final Fantasy IV on my Nintendo Switch OLED, and this alone was a motivator as I loved how it looked on there. The real clincher, however, was the boosts. XP boost and gil boost helped so much to save me a LOT of time. Every battle being 4 battles essentially saved me from ever having to really do much grinding. Mostly.

Setting the QOL features aside for a moment, the game itself I loved. The story was enticing and enjoyable, a fun medieval tale (a setting that I’ve always adored) that’s anything from typical. Characters you come to love, story beats that keep you wanting to see what happens next, and an art style that I’m pretty fond of. Plus the soundtrack, wowie. The orchestral versions of the classic soundtrack really shine. The only downside was that a few of the bosses, even with boosts on XP, were a little too difficult for my liking, bordering on unfair. But in the end, it didn’t take too much more time to best them.

All in all, a lovely introduction to the classic games in the series.

Final Fantasy VI

So, I played IV first on purpose because I knew Final Fantasy VI would kick it all up a bunch of notches. And wow, did it ever.

Right from the iconic intro scene, this game was cinematically a big step up from IV. Terra’s theme is legendary of course, but hearing it for the first time, starting up the game and seeing those Magitek soldiers march to the music, it gave me chills. It had me hyped from square one. Even now typing this, I just had a chill. It’s a beautiful moment.

And the game is filled with other impactful moments too. I think about the Phantom Train plotline, for example, or even the famous opera scene. I won’t say more here. Cinematically, this is peak SNES era Final Fantasy storytelling from what I’ve seen.

I mentioned it already, but the soundtrack is on another level here. I knew going in that I was going to experience “one of the greats” when it came to this soundtrack, and I wasn’t disappointed. Again, the orchestral renditions here are a beautiful treatment of these fantastic, iconic tracks. I’m going to put on Terra’s Theme again now.

This game is a masterpiece.

Persona 4G

Here we go. So I mentioned before that I’d learned that I wasn’t as impatient with long games as I thought I’d been, so I think it’s time to give this game a shot. I’d tried Persona 4G twice before, both times on PlayStation Vita, and while I didn’t necessarily dislike the game, it wasn’t sticking. But now, with a bit of a refresh on the kinds of games I was playing, and a Nintendo Switch port to try out instead, I gave it another shot. And I did it! I finished the game, I got the true ending, I saw as much as I wanted to see of the game.

And it was incredible. This game was an amazing ride. The dungeons remain the low point for me, but they’re usually pretty quick to storm through, and then you get back to the real meat of the game. The story and the social links are the heart of the game, and they don’t let up. Despite being such a long game, every moment feels like it matters. I loved that about it. The gameplay loop was satisfying and you’re constantly rewarded with story, character development, or even just small stats increases after short tasks. It felt great.

I’m glad I finally got to this one, because it was on my radar for a long time. After I’ve put enough time between, I’ll definitely play Persona 5 Royal as well.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder

After getting 4 New Super Mario Bros. games in what felt like a pretty short period of time, many (myself included) definitely felt saturated on the series. As much as they were extremely solid 2D platformers, it didn’t feel like much exciting was happening with them. So with a new Mario game, we needed something fresh. Something that didn’t just look different, but also played a bit different, with new mechanics and stuff on top of the classic, solid Mario platforming. That’s what we got with Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

This game manages to reinvent 2D Mario while still keeping it classic. It’s constantly throwing new ideas at you to keep you guessing, and it manages to make the whole experience feel new. Adding all of those new elements alongside a cool new art style (including much more expressive character animations) and a quirky soundtrack leaves us with a presentation that makes it feel like 2D Mario is new again, surprising us in a way that we haven’t been since as far back as Super Mario World. Incredibly impressed.

I do wish they wouldn’t insist on throwing a crazy gauntlet of challenges at you, without enough checkpoints, as a “final challenge”. That’s not why I enjoyed the rest of the game, and it stopped me just short of 100%ing the game. Still incredible, but that last bit I passed on.

Super Mario RPG

Super Mario RPG is a remake that stays mostly faithful, and that works to its benefit. I own the original game on SNES, but that’s only been true for a few years. I played most of the game sometime in 2016, and I didn’t quite finish it then but I enjoyed it. Replaying it now, it’s lovely to be back, and I think I’m glad that I waited this long to finish. As of this writing, I’m almost done the game, and I’ve loved almost every second of it. You can definitely feel some classic Square obtuseness in this game, like the way some secrets are hidden, or how I got beat up pretty easily in some of the earlier areas before I got a full party. It’s interesting though, to see how the JRPG format is “simplified” to some extent in Super Mario RPG, all while still having plenty of challenge in the game, especially (as I hear) in the late/post game parts that I haven’t quite reached.

Also, as I’ve made somewhat clear in this post so far, I’m big on great video game soundtracks. And this one is one of the best. Yoko Shimomura, who would go on to compose for series like Mario & Luigi, Kingdom Hearts, and Xenoblade Chronicles, crafts a mastepiece of a soundtrack here. To my ear, she manages to combine elements of Square JRPGs with the personality of Mario soundtracks into something that’s perfectly silly, jolly, and flat out riveting. I’ll be singing these songs to myself still for awhile.

LEGO Fortnite

A last minute gem this year, LEGO Fortnite came out of nowhere and surprised me. A LEGO version of Valheim, perhaps? I’m really impressed so far.

At times this game feels like the dream LEGO game. Build a world out of LEGO buildings, with a relatively free building system, while playing and surviving as LEGO characters. It’s great! I’m still early in my playtime of it, so it’s hard to find a lot to say on it, but stick around for this one. I think it’ll get some good updates and has a lot of room to grow, despite having a pretty solid foundation of a game to start with.

A Few Shout Outs

I wanted to give a few extra shout outs to Digimon Survive, for being a Digimon-anime-quality story that I wish had a bit more budget, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, for being a great and silly rhythm game that I hope we see more of in the future, and Nintendo Switch Online, for letting me revisit Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World with rewind - I love QOL features.

2023 has been an interesting year. Great for games, not so great for the people making those games. I hope that going into 2024 we can start to see some efforts to improve on the latter.

I do look forward to entering 2024 and seeing how my gaming tastes evolve again over the next year.