Game(s) of the Year 2023: Rules and What Didn’t Make Top 10
Introduction
It’s the end of the year, and that means that it’s time for everyone to talk about what they think their game of the year is. And I guess that means I’m no exception. I’ve already had the GOTY discussion with some friends and I’ve found that my list is rather different than others, or there are at least a few notable omissions, so hopefully what I’ve come up with is unique enough to warrant writing about. If not, well, I write on this blog mainly for myself, so if other folks strongly disagree with my list, then it’s no big deal.
This will be a (most likely) 3 part post, with this brief introduction, games 10-6 in the next part, and 5-1 in the final, with maybe a larger write-up on some of the games that I feel really stood out to me, or really deserve it.
Criteria
So first things first, how did I select my “games of the year?” Ten games total. I didn’t restrict myself too heavily here, my online overarching criteria were that it had to be a game that came out in 2023, and a game that I played enough of to form a decently strong opinion of, I had to play the game for at least a few hours, finish the intro, some or all of the tutorials and start what I felt was the “main” part of the game. The next piece I thought about a lot, and I know that some folks go one way, and some the other - when it comes to remasters, ports, where do they fall on the list? Are they eligible?
I’ve tended to leave ports out of this list, that is, if a game had been released in earlier years, but not on a platform that I happened to frequent, then was released for that platform, then I excluded it. This means that the 200+ hours I played on Persona 5 Royal on Switch, weren’t eligible for this years list (nor was the Switch port of Red Dead Redemption), and that’s ok by me. When it comes to games on the “remaster - remake” spectrum, I always like to take time to compile the list of all games that I played during the year, and if there are some that truly stand out and I can make a case for it, then I’ll include it, it’s my list after all! (In this case, I did include the remake of Super Mario RPG.)
Spoiler Alert: when I first came up with this criteria (or lack thereof), and my initial list in November, there was one big game of 2023 that was missing from my “Games Played in 2023”, a game that I have since played and may or may not make the list. Anyone that’s talked to me about games over the last 3-4 months most likely knows what this game is, but will it make my list? We’ll see…
Potential Games
I use the site backloggd to track the games I play throughout a year, both games I play in general, and games I completed. My list of games for 2023 can be found here and numbers 59 games in total. Given that a majority of the games on this list weren’t released in 2023, we can quickly whittle down this list to games released this year. This leaves us with 24 games, in no particular order:
Spider-Man 2
Starfield
Sea of Stars
Street Fighter 6
Super Mario Wonder
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Blasphemous II
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
Cassette Beasts
Advance Wars 1 + 2: ReBoot Camp
Tron: Identity
Resident Evil 4: Remake
Fire Emblem Engage
Lies of P
Baldur’s Gate 3
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
Persona 5 Tactica
Super Mario RPG (Remake)
Mineko’s Night Market
Dredge
Chants of Sennaar
Hi-Fi Rush
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!
The Legend of Zelda: Tiers of the Kingdom
Narrowing the List: Let’s Make Some Cuts
Some of the above games that I want to include on my list, or in some cases (cough Baldur’s Gate 3 cough) I feel almost obligated to include on my list, I truly didn’t spend enough time with, or feel like too recent to make a good call, so I left them out.
Advance Wars 1+2 ReBoot Camp
I removed Advance Wars 1+2: ReBoot Camp from the list, despite very much loving Advance Wars on GBA as a kid, and enjoying my time with the Switch version, I felt it didn’t stand out enough, it wasn’t in my top 10 either way, so I guess maybe a moot point.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
This game is gorgeous, I love the story so far, but I’ve truly only played the demo and about an hour past that, so I can’t speak to how well it plays over the run of the game. And I only started playing it in the last few weeks, and knowing how strong a recency bias can be, I’m going to exclude it from the list…for now. BUT given there is a demo, I do recommend that folks try it out, it’s one I’m definitely aiming to finish in 2023
Starfield
At the risk of repeating what many have said, it just wasn’t what I expected, and I bounced off pretty fast. Thankfully I was only playing it on Gamepass. Will I revisit in 2024? Honestly, most likely not, but time may tell a different story. (Probably not)
Baldur’s Gate 3
I didn’t start playing Baldur’s Gate 3 until December 21st. I installed it on my Steam Deck after telling all my friends that were loving it, that I was finally going to play it. And so far, after about 10 hours, I’m not loving it. Is it objectively a miraculous piece of game design, development, storytelling, craft, all of the above? 1000% it is! But perhaps diving into an intense CRPG so soon after wrapping 200+ hours in a sprawling JRPG (Persona 5 Royal) isn’t a good idea. Or maybe it’s just not for me. Either way, I can’t in good conscience include it on the list right now, I promise to play more in 2024 and come back with an update, I truly hope to love it like so many other people
Wrapping Up:
I’ve all but locked in my top 10 (he says, now doubting himself), with the subsequent numbers 11-20 a little more in flux, I’ll have the 10-6 post up shortly, as well as making my Backloggd GOTY list public! Thanks for reading and find me on Threads and share your GOTY lists! (Or tell me why I’m wrong for leaving BG3 off my list! Trust me, I want to love it!)
Honorable Mentions
Lastly, I wanted to leave a small section at the end here to shout out some 2023 games that I didn’t get to spend any time with this year, that I definitely will be looking to play in 2024! Some of them, like Venba or Octopath II - are games that I own, that are staring at me from my Steam library or my shelf of physical Switch games, glaring as I fire up my DS to play more Pokémon Heart Gold.