So, gaming in the year 2023, what a ride, right? It was concurrently the lowest lows for the industry, but some of the highest highs for the gaming audience, in recent memory. From January on, it felt like an inundation of great games from every corner, very much tempered by the constriction of the game development space concurrently.

My own slice of life got a lot of turbulence this year, and games and my gaming community as a whole helped keep me afloat through a vast majority of it. This very distinct community kept my spirits up, even as I made some bold for myself career decisions, and games helped fill the time between.

If there’s one thread in my games this year that I immediately notice, it’s definitely along the lines of separating myself from others, even as I leaned on the Giant Bomb discord community. You won’t really find anything in the way of multiplayer madness in this list, but all of them very much have a vibe.

Anyway, enough with preamble, let’s get to the lists, starting from the bottom and working our way up.

10. Hitman: World of Assassination

Hades was just my favorite thing for a very long time, and adding a lot of those elements into Hitman was just the best idea. This is only lower on the list because I had encountered so many bugs and game-crashing glitches on PC that I had to cut my game time short. However, whenever I got the itch, it really filled the time up quickly. Seeing levels again in a very different light because of the limitations given to you by just changing the target, let alone secondary objectives made each run immersive and intense.

9. Metroid Prime Remastered

I’ll be the very first to admit, I have very slanted feelings about all things Nintendo from the N64 to about the Wii. Why? Something about the controls and how Nintendo decided against standardization really rubbed me the wrong way. From Ocarina of Time all the way to Mario Galaxy, I never meshed well with how Nintendo tried to solve or make 3D gaming work. And it’s not for lack of trying. I attempt a play of either Metroid Prime or Ocarina at least once a year, but 2023 was finally the year it really all clicked. This game is pure Metroid vibes, a humming engine of storytelling through environments and level design and music, while feeling absolutely great to play. I didn’t even notice, until Meta Ridley that I basically defaulted to the default controls rather than the more modern controls that it introduced. I’m beyond happy that I finally understood the appeal of this game, and I was entranced all the way through.

8. Sea of Stars

Sabotage wowed a lot of people in 2018 with The Messenger, and decided to go completely the other direction of a IGAvania-meets-Ninja-Gaiden-who-can’t-decide-between-Blast-Processing-or-Mode-7 side scrolling adventure and just went full in on the late 90’s to early 00’s RPG from Japan. Nearly every little thing in this game is an homage to either games you might remember or their own universe of lore. One thing that really made the game shine is that there is zero grinding, you’re always going from one adventure to the next, backed by amazing music. The only thing that held it back from Top 5 is Sabotage’s penchant to slow the game down in the latter half, which in ways made the game feel longer than it ought to be, considering it’s shorter length.

7. Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Small disclaimer, I have never finished a Yakuza/Like a Dragon game. Mostly due to it not being great for my well being as a person who wants to do as much as possible. So every year, I pick a Yakuza game, try it out for a few hours, then immediately stop and pick a new game. However, TMWEHN completely took over my gaming time when it hit GamePass. Thinking back, I think it’s due to the faster combat, but what really helped was that the story moved along quickly. Almost too quickly. But what really granted it space on my list was two-fold: it was short at 30ish hours even when I took my time, and the ending really hit me even not knowing much of what happened. The acting was superb, and Joryu was an engrossing lead to an adventure that never felt like it was stretching it out too far.

6. Hi-Fi Rush

This was one of those early hits this year. Tango Gameworks brought this banger of a game out in January this year, seemingly eons ago. If we’re talking about vibes this game has it in spades. And aces. And diamonds. And even clubs. What really hits hard is the soundtrack, both in the original soundtrack and streamer mode. Just bangers of music all around. Since everything goes to the beat, you see the world really just vibe and live, even if it’s to a beat on Chai can hear. I will admit though, outside of a few times, what kept me going was that the game for all its focus on rhythm, was that it wasn’t strictly necessary to progress in the game. Certainly it’s the fastest and most efficient way to keep going, but my own to left thumbs didn’t hold me back too much from enjoying the experience. Plus 808 just rules.

5. Lies of P

This will come up later, but I’ve been reborn as a gaming aficionado these past two years. Starting in late 2021, I suddenly found the appeal of Soulslikes. From Dark Souls 1 to Elden Ring to Sekiro, I finally found what made these games so appealing. So imagine my surprise with Jan Ochoa said that Lies of P is real damn good. Like enough that he blitzed through most of the game, and then on the heels of that Tamoor saying it’s the best From game that’s not from…From. And man, this game is just way better than it has any real right to be. My only real demerit, if even that, is that every single person in this game is somehow ungodly attractive or a caricature. It just reminds me so much of a Korean character creator that it sometimes throws me off. But otherwise, it’s a super-competent and engaging game that really takes from the games that gave it life. You want an aggressive Parry like Sekiro or even Bloodborne? You got one. Dodge rolls from DS1? They’re there. Heavy aggression like Sekiro? Sure does, in spades, even. Plus, the trappings of using fairy tales like Pinocchio makes for such an fun type of lore, as I’m always trying to compare what is being presented with what I know of this folklore.

4. Super Mario Wonder

If you told me that Nintendo, outside of NSO hits like Mario 35, made a fantastic online game last year, I probably would have laughed you out of the building. But Nintendo did just that, and not only that, made it mostly seamless. It’s been said by nearly everyone, but they took a lot of the tension and antagonism in multiplayer by making the other three players in the level you’re playing ghosts. And you help each other rather than hinder each other, which is such an amazing change coming from the New Super Mario Bros. series. However, the best feature of Wonder is Nintendo basically looking at “Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy” from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, and expanded that to an entire game. Seeing the creativity, then revisiting the level to play it out as normal, then repeating it is just a treat. And, of course, being a side-scrolling Mario game, platforming is just a sublime experience.

3. Resident Evil 4 Remake

So, first things first, I was absolutely not into the Survival Horror thing. But that changed this year, somehow, with cautious first steps into Capcom’s remakes. Something about the heavy tension and somewhat oppressing natures of these games finally stuck its hooks into me, and I absolutely ran through the Remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3. And then, this gem came out. The pacing, the environments, the one-liners, and the gunplay were addicting. While I can see there’s something to people saying that this is where the series started trending too much towards action, but it felt like a nice progression from the previous remakes to this one. It also feels good to have this type of game, but the protagonist being overtly capable from previous experience. Leon’s cocky attitude made the game feel lighter against the adventures he went on, which balanced each other nicely.

1. Alan Wake II

So, one might notice we skipped my second entry. And there’s good reason here. I can’t decide between these next two choices which I liked more. My love for this game, and Remedy by extension, started with Control. Which was then bolstered by the above mentioned new interest in the horror genre, which was further pushed along by how much Lucy James seemed to look forward to this. And this game did not disappoint. Remedy was firing on every storytelling cylinder, so much that it overshadowed whatever shortcomings I had with the game. Those shortcoming usually came at what I thought was a mediocre gameplay loop outside the Mind Place/Writer’s Room loops. However, the meta narrative, the music, and settings and visual fidelity and techniques pushed the story so far beyond those limits. And it features so many great moments, the best I think happens with the second protagonist’s resolving themselves near the end, which spoke volumes to me about both them and how it hit myself. Sam Lake and the gang just made a stellar storytelling experience in a lot of ways, and hopefully that means more of this style from both this developer and others.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The second first place finisher was easily the newest Zelda game. While, I’ll be the first to admit that it does not quite hit the opener the same as Breath of the Wild, it’s mostly an upgrade in every other measurable way. What really hit points with me in this game versus its direct predecessor was that the world was both lonely and also very much crowded at the same time. Link still goes, for the most part in my games, being a very solitary person. Everyone knows him, but he still accomplished essentially every task in his own isolation. He has friends, but I played him pretty introverted, even the optional followers were mostly all turned off for the massive bulk of the game. And that’s why I rated it so high, it’s so open to how you want to play, without really holding anything back from the player at any point. And the story, for what little is actually presented up front, was powerful. Granted, a lot of that was due to the powerful musical cues, along with the Ghibli-adjacent artistic direction, but it hit powerfully nonetheless. Couple that with building on top of the elemental physics from the first game, and the new powerful abilities that come with Link’s arm, and you get an adventure that was both compelling and however short or long you want it to be.