Three Months In, What's Your Game of the Year 2023?

We are a quarter into 2023 (Jeepers creepers, I had the thought earlier today wondering if I had bought my dad a birthday present yet, because I thought it was January). What's your game of the year so far?
For games that released in 2023, it looks like it's Elderand so far for me. However, I'm still working on RE4R, Metroid Prime Remastered and Like A Dragon: Ishin. I have not even picked up Hogwarts Legacy yet.

I'm partially curious, because I can't help but feel I'm forgetting some game releases.

The only 2023 release I've played so far has been The Last Spell. I guess it'll win by default, even though it's kinda just fine. Good strategy layer let down by the worst aspects of run based games where you have to lose several times in order to progress, like you don't even unlock defensive structures until after you've died once. It's way too much of a grind, but I'm still having fun with the combat.

Hi-fi Rush

Haven't touched much of anything that came out this year. Played a little bit of Hi-Fi Rush, but I'm not dying to get back to it. I bought the newest DLC for Get In The Car, Loser, but never got around to starting it. The thing I've probably played the most is MLB The Show 23. They've got a documentary style game mode this year about Negro Leagues baseball. It's the only mode I've been interested in checking out, but it's pretty cool. The "playing the video game" part of the mode is kind of whatever, but they put together a bunch of videos highlighting some of the best players which is a fun way to learn about some of the history that usually doesn't get much attention in a lot of media.

Honestly? It's Tchia, and it's gonna take a lot to knock it off the top. That game isn't the biggest or most varied, but it is 100% what it wants to be and add so many small, expressive, empowering touches to movement, ambience, customization, and style. It's been years since a game has enveloped me the way Tchia has.

Crime Boss Rockay City! It's so GOOD! JK JK It looks like RE4 remake will dethrone Hi-Fi rush right now but I probably need to sit with it more before making that swap.

I've played and beaten Forspoken, touched a little bit of Hogwart's while the girlfriend does way more of that, and I'll be done with RE4 remake fairly soon. I actually do like Forspoken, but RE4 remake for sure so far and I think watching the original RE4 looks pretty rough these days and never finished it back in the day.

I want to get to Hi-fi Rush, I will definitely be getting to FFXVI and if ff7r2 releases? I'm blanking on other 2023 releases I know of and care about right now.

Resident Evil 4 like it is 2005 all over again.

Actually I've thought harder and longer than anyone with a life should have. So go and read about it, would you all kindly?

Hi-Fi Rush is definitely at the top spot for me at the moment. Some other highlights for me are Fire Emblem Engage, Spin Rhythm XD (1.0 Release), and the grip of great remakes/remasters (RE4, Metroid Prime, Like a Dragon: Ishin).

I'm about halfway through both A Space for the Unbound and Paranormasight, and I'm really liking both of them as well.

Dredge or Lunark

Playing RE4 this weekend though
BUT have high hopes for metal slug tactics

Trails of Cold Steel 1 so far. Yeah. I know. Not a 2023 game.

Probably Octopath Traveller 2. My partner finished Hogwarts last night after 50 hours and said its the best game she's ever played.

Resident Evil 4 remake pretty handily so far, although I’ve enjoyed Like A Dragon: Ishin a lot so far. I’m in the classic birthday holding pattern before I check out Terra Nil and Dredge, which seem like potential contenders, and WarTales hits 1.0 next week. 2023 is already a damn good year for games, and it’s only going to get better.

Did Pentiment come out this year? I played it this year, at any rate.

Final Fantasy Theatrythm Final Bar Line is a strong contender for GOTY for me.

There are games coming out in the back half of the year that I'm very keen on playing, though.

I've been in an Older Game Hole most of the year. Gran Turismo 7 came back to me heavy at one point. I've got 50 hours in Yakuza 7, though as much as I anticipated the much hyped gridlock of its later chapters I still wasn't prepared and I'm sad about it. The Witcher 3 on PS5 is wild, but in a bizarre way they've somehow patched the game into running worse the same way the original release was patched into running better (I'm playing it on GRAPHICS MODE because that's the point, and of course once I made it into the DLC it started running like mud for some reason). I'm chugging through Jedi: Fallen Order in anticipation of the new one, and I mean chugging.

I really, really enjoyed this game coming off of yet another lovely time with Bloodborne leading into a horrific experience with Sekiro, but much like a brief dalliance with Ghost of Tsushima last year when I first got a PS5 I'm finding the parry mechanics to be kind of...awful using a DualSense controller. It's really disheartening and I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. I've also played Norco and Return to Monkey Island this year in anticipation of a Game of the Year blog I'm more and more certain I'll never write, let Heather-Anne Campbell, the Unreal 5 aesthetics and Witcher 3 cosmetics convince me to finally give Fortnite a go and I get it, but also didn't actually play enough to unlock Geralt despite dumping $10 into the battle pass fully intending that $10 to result in a Geralt.

I played Mafia for the first time and was a little stunned by how lost in the sauce it was. The hot, hot heat of Resident Evil 4 convinced me to go back and play Resident Evil 4, if that makes sense, though after dying repeatedly on the rope bridges just after meeting the merchant I realized... ultimately it's also April which means I'm really only interested in using MLB The Show 23's Diamond Dynasty mode as an excuse to grind out podcast episodes I'd lost track of once I dropped MLB The Show 22 back in September and spent more time playing games that didn't make sense to listen to podcasts during. Which means I also haven't even touched the Negro Leagues stuff that's incredibly enticing on paper (including its implications for Diamond Dynasty) so the game is likely even better than I usually give it credit for.

So my answer, I suppose, is MLB the Show 23? I played about an hour of Tchia and I'm not sure when I'll go back. I want to play Resident Evil 4, but I'm already playing Resident Evil 4, so...I'm also very interested in the samurai Like a Dragon, but I'm technically still playing Yakuza 7 and RGG/Sega have basically trained me to expect their games to eventually be free on Playstation so the frugal side of me wants to wait...the story-addict in me wants to give A Space for the Unbound and SEASON a go except, y'know, podcasts and if I were being honest it was Forspoken and Wild Hearts I was most looking forward to early this year except, y'know, reviews, so fuckin' I dunno...

MLB the Show 23! With a bullet! By default! Ugh!

Pizza Tower and Hi-Fi Rush share the number one spot for me, with Pizza Tower being just a little above.

I've not played many contenders so Wo Long stands above by default.

No one's mentioned Chained Echoes yet, which will likely end up pretty high for me. I haven't played a 2D, SNES style RPG in decades, so I wasn't expecting it to hit, but that game's a ton of fun. It's very smart about what it modernizes design-wise vs what carries on an older-school mentality. It's on game pass too!

Does this mean you were under leveled or the story wrecked you? I recently started Y7 and wish I had played it during quarantine, so I could just dedicate time to it.

Resident Evil 4, although I haven’t played Lunark, Dredge, or HiFi Rush yet.

So far its Hi-Fi Rush.

I haven't played the RE4 Remake yet, but if its as well done as many people are claiming, it might make it to the top. Even Jeff G likes it and he always complained about the original game, not understanding what the big deal was. Diablo 4 based on the beta is just more Diablo, which is a good thing. But not enough to make a GOTY winner, unless Blizzard is really holding back and the full game is shockingly a huge improvement on the formula. I also haven't gotten around to playing Wo Long yet, even though I have Game Pass. I liked the demo, for it being basically Sekiro-lite or diet-Sekiro, but I'm kind of burned out on Soul-likes at the moment. Will likely check it out later in the year. Haven't played many other 2023 based games yet, but I will soon enough. I guess the next game I'll try is Tchia. Hearing good things about it.

+1 to Hi-Fi Rush

@ginormous76: There’s a boss fight near the end of chapter 12 that you couldn’t possibly be over leveled for unless you were a teen with endless summer hours to kill. You almost certainly can’t even be properly leveled for it. It sucks the air out of the room.

Hey that Marvel Midnight Suns ain't bad. It was on sale with all the DLC for 40$. It's like Persona and XCOM had a baby and they lived in the Mortal Kombat Krypt. Might be worth checking out if you're looking for a change up? The combat feels good and looks great. I am playing on Steam Deck and I don't care about the MCU.

So far 2023 has been the year of disappointing or broken PC ports for me, so there's not exactly a lot of competition.

It'd probably be Fire Emblem Engage so far, as I'm somewhat loathe to give it to a remaster/remake/re-release.

I'd say Fire Emblem Engage at the moment, the gameplay is pretty fun and the story is okay to me, so I will wait to see more & more games by fall 2023 so we can finally decide on our personal favorite game of the year.

Lost Judgment is pretty damn good.

Probably got to be Hi-fi Rush. It's been a meandering Q1 that I wouldn't put much stock into were it not for all the nostalgia bait.

I haven't played any 2023 games yet so Death Stranding.

Pizza Tower. Effortless charm, fantastic gameplay, has convinced me that gimmick based platforming can work, the soundtrack rips, and Peppino Spaghetti is one of the most complex and nuanced characters in the history of video games.

Just complete the Sotenbori Battle Arena. Only a few of those fights are really even challenging, it can be done in well under an hour, and you come out of it in perfect condition to be able to win that fight provided you have some good lightning magic

At this point it’s either Wo-Long, Hi-Fi Rush or Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Some remakes like: Dead Space, RE4 and Metroid Prime get lower priority from me since they are not exactly new experiences to me.

I finished Atomic Heart and well.. it was something

Alsoplayed an afternoon of Tchia and dropped it soon after they made you do alot of combat (in the factories). The exploring is fine, but its combat is just awful.

Now I’m back to finishing Horizon FW. Until games like Jedi Survivor, Redfall and Zelda start dropping

hmm- so far the only thing i've played that's released in 2023 is Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania.

but that's alright- turns out Dead Cells still rips!

tbh this is feeling like a backlog year for me. well, at least until Diablo 4, Baldur's Gate 3, and TotK come out.

but i'm also that sicko that just completed an ultra hard run of Horizon Forbidden West, so that Burning Shores DLC is likely to be EXACTLY my kinda bullshit (and likely highlight for the year).

somewhat of a non-sequitur- that PS5 Demon's Souls remake also rips, buds.

Sad state of affairs when most goty winners this year will be remakes of game of the year winners before. Shows we haven't improved as people like to think. I'll throw out a controversial popular one and say i think starfield will be my goty...i assume most will hate and nitpick it but like skyrim it will be a fun janky time.

There are just so many great games out there, it can be hard to keep track of them all. But it sounds like you've got quite the gaming lineup going on right now! Elderand seems to be a standout for you, but it's always exciting to dive into some classic remastered games like RE4R and Metroid Prime. And don't worry about forgetting some game releases - sometimes it's nice to be pleasantly surprised by a game you didn't even know was coming out!

1. dredge

2. Like a Dragon Ishin!

3. Hi-Fi Rush

4. Tchia

Game I wish was better but is over hyped: Hogwarts Legacy

So far it's Octo 2. But then that's the only new one I've played. For myself this year, it's going to be between that, TOTK, Pikmin 4 and Advance Wars.

Still too early in the year, so I do hope I get to play a game that dethrones Hi-Fi Rush from the top spot.

I haven't really played anything from this year...I kinda got caught up with Doom mapping. The only thing I played to completion was Missing Hiker, which is less than half an hour long and kinda ehhhh.

My list looks like this right now

1. Resident Evil 4 Remake
2. Hi-Fi Rush
3. Fire Emblem Engage
4. Dead Space
5. Metroid Prime Remastered

I knew Hi-Fi was going to get knocked down for me eventually, I didn't think it would happen so soon with RE4R. That game might have replaced Max Payne 3 as my favourite TPS ever made. I'm on my 4th run of the campaign and still loving it.