Game(s) of the Year 2023: Games 10 - 6

This post is a continuation of my Game(s) of the Year 2023 series, and will cover games 10 through 6. The first post covered my criteria and candidates, as well as touching on some of the games I left out (and the reasons why.) If you don’t want to read it (but I hope you do!) you can see my full list on Backloggd!

10: Super Mario RPG

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Mallow, Mario and Geno celebrate another star

Super Mario RPG is a game that I think some folks will leave off their list given it’s “remake” status versus being a completely new IP or sequel, but for me, I devoured Super Mario RPG so quickly (rolling credits within 4 days of its release) and completely, that it definitely earned it’s spot rounding out my top ten! I never owned a Super Nintendo growing up, so I didn’t encounter the original game until a few years later, and while enjoying it at the time, it was during a time of dry spells in gaming for me, so before the remake, I’d never seen it through to the end. I’d been meaning to go back for some time, going so far as to get halfway through a playthrough a couple years back. So when I heard there was going to be a remake, I was ecstatic, this was my time to finally get all the way through Super Mario RPG, and this remake was amazing, I loved every second of it.

Aside from how good it looks, and the music (Yoko Shimomura does it again!) - I think one of the reasons that Super Mario RPG clicked with me so much was that it landed at the perfect time this year. The game I spend the most time with this year was the Switch port of Persona 5 Royal, which as anyone who has played can contest, is a dense game. Super Mario RPG was light enough yet still engaging to keep me playing, and such a welcome change to the myriads of decisions that Persona 5 kept me buried under (don’t get me wrong, I still loved P5R.) I think moving forward, for those looking to explore turn-based RPGs, the Super Mario RPG remake will be one of the best introductions to the genre for years to come. It’s short and sweet, not overstaying it’s welcome. Would I have liked more content? Sure! But I also respect the team for not shoehorning in hours of new content to keep up with the “I won’t pay $60 for a game that’s only X hours long” crowd. (Geno for Smash?)

9: Chants of Sennaar

Platform: PS5

I remember hearing about Chants of Sennaar on one of the gaming podcasts I listen to (forgive me for not remembering which one) and I was definitely intrigued. Then I looked it up online and saw the cover art and was even more curious. Who are these three figures? Does the middle person have a face? Do any of them? Is the left figure praying for rain? Shrugging? Does the right figure have a sword? How does the helmet not hurt their neck and shoulders? Are they priests? Warriors? Both? And what does the tagline “EXPLORE. DECODE. LEARN. CONNECT.” mean? I saw there was a demo on PlayStation, I downloaded it and played for about 10 minutes and then immediately bought the full version, I had to see through this world to the end. (Spoiler Alert: I have not rolled credits on Chants of Sennaar but again, it’s on the 2024 to-do.)

Chants of Sennaar tells you very little about it’s world and characters, at least it doesn’t tell you in obvious ways. But as you progress through the story, for every question you may answer, and for every word you translate, it opens up more questions. I’ve played similar puzzle games (similar is a very loose term here) in which you’re trying to decode or identify something, but Chants of Sennaar’s olive branch of telling you when you’ve entered all the words correctly on a page of your journal had me ecstatic, it was just enough of a hand hold to get further into the game, without running off down a rabbit hole based on nothing but assumptions. I would have loved to place this higher on my list, but one part bumps it down for me a few spaces - slight spoilers incoming - the second area has a stealth based area that brought all my progress and elation of solving the first area to a grinding halt, I enjoyed the stealth for story reasons, but I very quickly wanted to get back to translating and solving puzzles.

For those with any interest in language, or just looking for a unique puzzle experience, I highly highly recommend Chants of Sennaar.

8: Hi-Fi Rush

Platform: PC

I think everyone was surprised by the sudden drop of Hi-Fi Rush, I know I was! I also think that for people that were going to like this kind of game, it hit in just the right way. As a musician, I’ve always kept an eye on rhythm games, but I’ve never been a huge fan of them, but combining the rhythm/timing mechanic, with a beat ‘em up, with as wild of an art direction as Hi-Fi Rush was a match made in heaven. I’ve not rolled credits on it yet, but I put a ton of time into it when it first dropped (thank you Gamepass) and have revisited it a few times throughout the year, it’s definitely on my 2024 gaming to-do list to see this one through. I think games of this nature will be a great introduction to rhythm games for those that don’t normally play them (it was for me) and I can’t to see more from Tango Gameworks - just the shock to see the studio behind The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo making a rhythm game was wild! (I also feel like one of the few that enjoyed Ghostwire Tokyo, but maybe that’s a larger crowd than I’m aware of)

Hi-Fi Rush would have been a little higher on my list except for some slightly odd mechanics where certain moves don’t land on beat, and the story gets a little weird when you’re helping to overthrow an evil corporation by assisting another…corporation? That aside, the absolute gall to start a trailer with “uh…yeah, that’s me - you’re probably wondering how I got here” in 2023 is just bananas! (And in my opinion, it works) and once you get into it, I bet Chai will start to grow in you just as he did me.

7: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Platform: PS5

I’ve never been a huge Marvel fan. Or a fan of superhero comics in general. I think if you asked me what my favorite (non-manga) comic was, I would say Hellboy. (This isn’t the right place to litigate whether Hellboy is a superhero or not.) Aside from that, I always enjoyed the X-Men, I have found memories of playing the X-Men beat ‘em up years ago. But I never really engaged with much else, Spider-Man included. I owned the Spider-Man 2 game for PlayStation 2, and remember enjoying it at the time. But when I heard that Insomniac was taking a swing (pun intended?) at Spider-Man, I was on board to give it a shot! I put over 50 hours into the first “Marvel’s Spider-Man” on PS4, and played a good chunk of Spider-Man: Miles Morales as well, and it was a blast, swinging on webs, beating up bad guys, (although looking back on it, busting drug dealers and helping out NYPD hasn’t aged well,) I was definitely hungry for more Spider-Man in the sequel, if it was just more of the same? Give it to me!

Spider-Man 2 has taken everything I enjoyed about the first game, and just ramped it up. The swinging feels better (and it was already fun in the prior entries), the combat is great, and this feels like one of the only games to really put the PS5’s hardware to use. Fast travel anywhere in the game and you come swinging in as Spider-Man at the point you clicked on the map, in no time flat. I think I would have bumped this up my list a little higher had I not felt that the stories were a little uneven, I wanted to play more as Miles, (and you can switch back and forth at almost any time) but some of the scenes where you’re walking around as Peter Parker had me itching for a fast-forward so I could back to web-swinging and kickin’ ass! That’s not really a knock on the story as much as it is I think an example of how good it feels to be a superhero in this world! I’ve not seen through all of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, I’m a little over halfway, and while it’s not as high on my list of “must complete games” for 2024, I’ll try my best! If you enjoyed anything in the first Marvel’s Spider-Man or Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the sequel is a must!

6: Blasphemous II

Platform: Nintendo Switch

I’ll be honest here, I’m not the best at video games. I play a lot of them, but I die, a lot. I struggle with almost every “souls-like” that I’ve played. And often find myself much more willing to dive into a turn-based JRPG than something frenetic like a bullet-hell or a Dark Souls where every dodge and parry can be the difference between life, and respawning on the other side of the map, needed to navigate back to your dropped souls, hopping you don’t beef it on the way. The first Blasphemous was a game I bought on a whim, mainly for the aesthetic, as someone raised Catholic (and now an atheist,) I loved the lore and vibe of the game, the trailer had me hooked immediately. I wasn’t playing many games of this style at the time, and was browsing the Nintendo Switch e-shop looking for something new, and settled on Blasphemous. I gave myself a goal of no new games until I beat Blasphemous, or it beat me. And within a week, I’d climbed the Mountain of Ash (and promptly sank, I’d not completed all the side dungeons).

All that to say I put in work on the first Blasphemous entry. If I recall correctly, I was isolating away from home during the initial pandemic lockdowns, so I was in a room all day, only stepping out to grab food real quick, with nothing but my laptop and my Nintendo Switch. So Blasphemous occupies an interesting place in my history with games, and I waited with bated breath for any news of the sequel, I wanted more! And Blasphemous II delivers on almost every front. (I say almost because I haven’t beaten it yet, it’s kicking my ass and I’m loving it.) I think the biggest gameplay point to call out for both Blasphemous games is how good they feel to play. Every weapon swing, every dodge or slide, just feels so responsive. And much like Spider Man 2 above, it seems like the team behind Blasphemous just took everything that felt good in the original, and made it better. New weapons, tighter controls, all of it rocks.

I’ve found in my limited window of gaming, that many times folks call something “souls-like”, they just mean its difficult, as in punishingly difficult, throw your controller difficult. And as someone that thinks games should be fun first and foremost, those types of games are at the bottom of my list to play. And I think what Blasphemous does so well (and what the team at FromSoft has fine tuned for years) is that boss fights, as well as general combat in these games feels fair. When I die in a boss fight in Blasphemous (I or II), almost every time I can tell you why - I tried for two swings instead of just one, I missed a block, something. Do I still get frustrated? I 1000% still get frustrated, but playing Blasphemous II this year was an exercise in patience, just like my time spent with the first game, and I think that the fact that they made a game that feels as good as it does, while expanding on the lore of the first game, is incredible, and I can’t wait to play more from the team!

Wrap Up

So there it is. Games 10 through 6. Did something you play make the list? Have I left anything out? In fact, I know I have, 2023 was a year full of so many crazy games that compiling a list was a difficult exercise, and even while writing this post, I was thinking about rearranging my list. I think part of this blog post’s purpose was just to help me lock in at least part of my top 10, as well as remind me about games from earlier in the year I need to get back to (I’m lookin’ at you Hi-Fi Rush!)

Find me on Threads if you want to talk games! And follow on Backloggd, I’ll be tracking my games in 2024 much better than I did in 2023. Feel free to share your GOTY lists, and/or games you think I left off the list that deserve a spot! The top 5 post will be up soon!