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MrCropes

I think a day of Twitter is more than enough for 2019. My feed is dominated more by what people are liking than wha… https://t.co/bswW8ikEMt

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2023 Game of the Year

Like last year, I am not going to base my 2023 list solely on the 2023 games I completed. There were simply too many games and not enough time, and at the end of the day I wouldn't have 10 games from this year but also a few from the past. This year was a good year for video games, but a bad year for the games industry, and for those tired of hearing or reading that fact it is truly something that needs to be acknowledged as we appreciate this medium of entertainment. While 2023 will arguably go down as one of the best years in gaming history so too shall it be considered as one of the hardest. IT would be hard to leave this on a sour note; as I said this was a great year for video games and to have games like Alan Wake 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Super Mario Wonder, or Dave the Diver, Dredge, and, yes, Baldur's Gate 3 is truly a feat.

Unlike last year, my Switch got a lot of hours put into it from four of those games already mentioned. What a great time to have a Switch after these last few years. One cool thing about this year was I was able to get my wife into games beyond Stardew Valley, as we played Super Mario Wonder, Venba, Dredge, and Dave the Diver together. My Playstation 5 maybe had the least amount of hours thrown at it this year while I relied on the latest Xbox Game Pass releases even if not right at launch or when they were added to the service.

Games I wish I played more of:

  1. Baldur's Gate 3
  2. Sea of Stars
  3. Jusant
  4. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Top 10 Movies:

  1. The Holdovers
  2. Oppenheimer
  3. Asteroid City
  4. When Evil Lurks
  5. John Wick Part 4
  6. Leave the World Behind
  7. Evil Dead Rise
  8. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
  9. You People
  10. Saw X

List items

  • Xbox Series X - 66/66 Achievements- 11/11/2023

    Show me the champion of light, I'll show you the herald of darkness.

    As a fan of the original Alan Wake from 2013, it is hard to deny how rough of a game it is to play. The game's story and general premise of a gameplay concept were both so good, though. Alan Wake II comes in and blew the minds of everyone. The mechanics were solid (save for a few glitches in key puzzles) and the story was so engrossing with crazy characters and a plot that'll keep anyone gripped. Graphically, this game is a marvel and a feat with lighting and overlaying full-motion video interweaved seemingly effortlessly. What a spectacular game. Truly top-tier.

  • Nintendo Switch - Completed

    If Alan Wake II had not released this year, this would have been my number one for the year. Like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom consumed so much of my time. While the story is clunky in how it rolls out its plot through Dragon Tears or not adhering to the fact that players can explore in any order thus leaving them seeing a similar Champion video after each dungeon. The ability of Ascend is a technical powerhouse that changes the gameplay loop for the better, and although it may be forgotten as a puzzle solution when that mental lightbulb turns on it becomes all the more satisfying.

  • Xbox Series X - 20/42 Achievements - Have Not Completed, three bosses left

    I slept on this game too long and should have started it much sooner. No way did I expect this to live on my list anywhere, let alone this high. I am not a major Soulsborne guy, and I say that knowing Elden Ring was my number one game of 2022; while that inspired me to play through Demon's Souls I gave up on Dark Souls at the same spot hundreds of players do. Something about this game made it excel, it could be the fact that while it desires to be Bloodborne it also wants to not be too cruel to the players and offers a fairly straightforward story, and aims to teach the player throughout. While the game is mysterious in its plot, it is not a mystery of a game in mechanics and what it wants to convey. I am so close to finishing it, that I may just wrap it up after completing this list.

  • Playstation 5 - 37/50 Trophies - 8/26/2023

    As one of two Final Fantasy games I have completed, I have a high appreciation for this game. A tale of brothers and chosen family was beautiful while being a political-fantasy drama at the same time made it something to behold. The story may not have always been great, but in the moments it needed to excel it sure did, there was an emotional weight that did not often feel forced. Gameplay-wise, the game was sufficient enough and felt much like a mix of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake and God of War Ragnarok or Devil May Cry.

  • Nintendo Switch - Completed

    This title lives so high on the list as it was a merriment of Lovecraftian horrors and a good gameplay loop. Most of all, this is one of the aforementioned games I had my wife hooked on as we would often trade the day and night cycles as our dedicated play-times. While the ending may have left something to be desired, with neither truly feeling great, I felt it was a good sum of the overall terror or discomfort the game aimed to exude. The fishing mechanic when I first looked up a Youtube video did not look like something I would enjoy, but I think the variety between fishing poles or types of fish aided the game in not feeling horribly rote. I need to play the DLC for this one.

  • Nintendo Switch - Completed all but the Special World

    Super Mario Bros. Wonder was one of my favorite experiences in playing the game with my wife. While the Character Crown in multiplayer does make it a pain to play sometimes, it is hard to let go of just how good this game feels to play compared to the last couple of 2D Mario games. My family was never able to get into the New Super Mario Bros. games with all the colliding and bouncing off of each other, I think this game perfectly remedied that. While the Wonder Seeds may not have been the exact design path many of us would like to have seen or how they didn't revolutionize in the way Nintendo expected, I cannot ignore how much I smiled playing through the final level of the main path. What an ending. And for as unsure of the visual aesthetic I may have been at first, I truly came to appreciate and adore the art style quicker than I'd have expected.

  • Xbox Series X - 15/46 Achievements - 4/7/2023

    What a brilliant remake. There is a lot to appreciate in a remake that isn't afraid to turn the tide from familiarity and instead attempt to be something of its own. There isn't a lot to say about a game that has generally sat on over a decade of accolades, but this remake does stand in the pantheon of Resident Evil titles as something spectacular.

  • Playstation 5 - 42/42 Trophies/Platinum Trophy - 12/11/2023

    This game could have been higher, but the open-world fatigue does set in from time to time. What holds it on this list was that it just felt so damn good to play and I'm a sucker for a good Spider-Man story. This was a blast to play in feel and combat, but this is one of those games that I am afraid to see get larger come a sequel.

    Also, the Mysterio tapes being bound to a menu was a bad design choice. The podcasts being constantly interrupted by street crimes or what have you was disappointing.

  • Xbox Series X - 8/17 Achievements - Have Not Completed

    Cocoon is such a special experience and one of those, like Alan Wake II, that could only be experienced on this new generation of consoles. The world-hopping feels so incredible and while my sometimes anti-puzzle brain gets lost sometimes it feels awesome to finally nail a solution for something I was stuck on. I know I am near the end of this game, and I want to see it through to the end. A non-combat game living on this list is special, I think.

  • Xbox Series X - 19/50 Achievements - Have Not Completed

    The more I thought about not including Starfield and maybe having it as solely an honorable mention I thought harder on the amount of hours I put into it upon release. Because of Game Pass, I dropped the money for the Premium Upgrade and started it early. This game was like comfort food for a while, it stuck so close to the Bethesda formula we all loved that I loved it for that. Until I didn't. Until I realized fast-traveling from place to place was a hassle and that the planet exploration was pretty lame and that the lack of a map is an unforgivable sin on behalf of the developer. With that being said, I did enjoy a large part of my time with it during the good parts of the story and the faction side quests. I will come back to this game after the upcoming patch adds in more means of traversal, city maps, and that first DLC.
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