The Nesta & Z’s Game of The Year 2023 Edition
Hello. Against all odds I somehow survived this year. This hasn’t been the worst year for me, but it’s been a rough one for sure. Too many personal details to get into about what’s been going on. But both my wife and I have struggled with a great many things this year, and we’re just hoping when we hit reset on January 1st 2024 we can look forward to a better year.
However, with that said it’s hard to deny that 2023 has been an incredibly strong year for gaming. There have been some colossal games that have come out this year and built up such a following. And a lot of those games happen to be wildly different.
The same can’t be said about the industry itself, as this year saw upwards of 9000 people who helped bring us these amazing games laid off from their jobs. We also just had The Game Awards 2023 where award winners were rushed off stage if their acceptance speech went longer than 30 seconds.
We also have the advent of AI which threatens to stomp out actual real human creativity, and try to cut jobs. A gross disrespect of the talented actors who bring these beloved characters to life. There’s also things like the Unity incident which would have sunk a lot of smaller developers just because we’re still stuck in a corporate nightmare where the rich are only concerned with getting richer and cutting every corner imaginable to get there.
And on top of that Elon Musk has effectively killed Twitter. And while you can argue that it’s been highly entertaining to see this dude show how incredibly fucking stupid he is to the whole world. Or the fact that Twitter has been on the decline for a long time anyway. We still find ourselves being forced out of a space online for communities of fans, creatives, and friends. All the while the rest of the internet is stuck in some sort of low rent AI powered clickbait content mill.
Phew… I guess I had more to say about this year than I originally thought. Sorry about that.
The one positive thing I said earlier still remains. Video games were good this year. And on a personal note they helped my wife and I through some pretty shitty times this year. And looking ahead to 2024 it seems like we’re in for what could potentially be one of the strongest years in gaming we’ve ever seen, and that’s only counting the first three months of the year.
So like most things in life, we find the silver lining, and focus on that. Rants about our dystopian present aside, this is my time of the year to heap praise on the thing I’m the most passionate about, so let’s leave the baggage in the introduction and let me tell you about 10 truly amazing games worth your time.
A couple notes before we get into the list. I’ve once again decided to give individual awards to different games based on the 10 different categories. And I will place those at the end of the list once you’ve seen what my Top 10 is.
A new addition this year is that since my wife and I have played every game on this list together I thought it would be neat to give her a little space to offer a summary of her thoughts on the games too. So I’ll include short italicized sections to each entry on the list with her thoughts.
Alright, let’s get started!
10. Pentiment
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. Which is to say that despite loving Pentiment for its wildly unique presentation and setting, I have yet to finish the game. This game, as you may know, actually came out late last year, but we didn’t really start playing it until near the very end of last year, if not the beginning of this one.
And despite getting a stone’s throw away from the ending, something happened in our lives that caused us to get away from finishing the game. And despite desperately wanting to go back and finish it, we never managed to.
I fully intend to see Pentiment through to the end, sometime sooner rather than later. But for the purpose of this list I’m including it in the #10 spot based on a playthrough of roughly 90% of the game.
Pentiment is such a fascinating game for a number of reasons. I had previously mentioned its unique setting and presentation. The game takes place in the 1500s and is heavily steeped in Catholicism, something that I haven’t seen many games really attempt to do.
As for the presentation it’s really something better seen than said, but imagine a point and click style adventure game made up to look like art on pages during that time period. With little touches like the way the game’s text is scrawled out by a quill in the earlier sections of the game, but eventually imitates a printing press later on complete with messy ink.
It’s also worth noting that Pentiment is a new game by Obsidian Entertainment and it was kind of the only exclusive game of note that Microsoft released last year. Which probably wasn’t great for them since Pentiment is the kind of game that you’re either going to be into, or you’re going to bounce completely off of it immediately.
The entire game takes place around the small town of Tassing, and each of the game’s three acts are broken up into different time periods between the years of 1518 and 1545.
The biggest strength of Pentiment is of course Obsidian’s renowned talent for writing incredible characters and stories. Except instead of a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, or a high fantasy epic, you’re just normal people living during a specific era.
There’s an ongoing, and highly engaging mystery that underlines the events of the game, but for the most part you’re simply interacting with the people of Tassing and the surrounding areas.
My wife and I found a lot of comfort in this game this year. It helped reconnect my wife with her Catholic upbringing, and it allowed me a better look into a religion and beliefs that I’ve always had an interest in.
I think the fact that I actually learned real world history from this game, and found it to be every bit as entertaining as anything else I played this year speaks volumes to how special this game is. And it really was the right game at the right time.
I promise I’ll see it through to the end Obsidian, but I believe you made something really special here.
Z’s Take: Pentiment meant a lot to me and it really comforted me with its Catholic theme. And I think it portrays the religion perfectly, as being not absolute. It shows that it is beautiful and holy, but it has its flaws, it’s not perfect, like everything in this world. I was raised Catholic and went through some changes of my beliefs during my teenage years, and then in the recent ten or so years, built my own faith on multiple religions, but it’s still based in Catholicism. I really enjoyed Andreas’ bullshit and the other characters were interesting and great too. Lorenz was an asshole but I loved him. And man, he certainly had a crush on Andreas. Ofc I shipped them. The time period it takes place in is so unique and fascinating, the atmosphere is absolutely beautiful, and the sound effects were so calming. Loved having it on in the background when we were doing other stuff. I also want to mention Brother Rudeger‘s hymn, it was absolutely beautiful and really made me nostalgic for church. I just love how the game felt and it helped me through a hard time.
9. Alan Wake II
Um. Okay, so here me out. Pentiment might not be the only game on this list that I haven’t actually finished, BUT I can assure you that I’ve finished everything else on the list after this point. I’m sorry! Life really got in the way of a lot of things this year.
I would consider myself a fan of Remedy’s games. I loved Max Payne 1 & 2 back in the day. And I also included the original Alan Wake on my game of the year list back in 2010. I never played Quantum Break because I didn’t have an Xbox One (I know I could play it now on PC though). And I’ve only gotten about halfway through Control. So I’ll stick with “fan” I suppose.
Last Halloween my wife and I played Alan Wake Remastered which was a great time, and she got really into it too. So when they announced a sequel to a game from 13 years ago not only was it surprising, but also exciting as hell.
In the time since the original Alan Wake, Remedy has gotten A LOT weirder, and they’ve also honed their craft for storytelling and never is that more apparent than in Alan Wake II. Also very much unlike the first game, this game is actually pretty fucking scary.
Being so scary probably didn’t help when it came to finishing this game in time for GOTY. I’m a huge scaredy cat and even while playing the game on easy I find it to be a very tense experience. So since I haven’t really felt well since the middle of November, I didn’t have a lot of opportunities where I wanted to sit down and stress out.
That’s not a knock against the game mind you, I just think Remedy has done an incredible job in making what I would consider to be one of the best AAA horror titles we’ve seen in quite some time.
The game’s shift to a more “survival horror” nature also lends to the tension and the game isn’t shy with jump scares, which normally I’m not a big fan of, but I think they’re done pretty well (and sparingly enough here).
The duo protagonist setup in this game makes for an interesting experience as Saga’s Chapters play out quite differently than Alan’s Chapters. The ability to pick whose chapters you want to play opens up after a certain point in the story and allows for the game’s progression to be way more nonlinear which just feels appropriate for how twisted and meta the narrative Remedy is spinning here.
As an aside, I found it amusing that some people online think the game’s writing is “bad” because Alan Wake is a “bad writer”. Which is just another example of how little comprehension people have of fiction these days, but hey, what can you do?
I wish I had more to say, other than I’m really eager to get back to the game and see how the rest of the story unfolds. We most recently played The Herald of Darkness chapter, which is prime “Best Moment of The Year” material. The timing on it worked out to our benefit too because shortly afterwards we got to see that amazing performance at The Game Awards.
With a newly released New Game+ mode, a new ending, and DLC on the way, I’ll probably be spending quite a bit more time with Mr. Wake in the coming year.
Z’s Take: Alan Wake II is an interesting one. I played Max Payne way back in the day when it came out and its imagery stuck with me, for years. I would still make references to Sam Lake’s “Max Payne face” all the time. And I still vividly still remember the TV playing the “Lords and Ladies” show, and the Twin Peaks reference about the pink flamingo. Last year we played Alan Wake Remastered, and I loved it. I was very excited when 2 was announced and so far, I’ve loved my time with it. I hope we can finish it soon. The Herald of Darkness was amazing and blew me away. I watch it a lot on YouTube. Mr. Wake, you captivate me with your bad writing and great dancing.
8. Fire Emblem Engage
Welcome back once again to the GOTY list Fire Emblem.
Fire Emblem is a near constant factor in my wife and I’s lives. It’s one of our main “fandoms”. The release schedule for Fire Emblem games have been generous over the past decade, and the ongoing mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes helps keep the series fresh in our minds at all times.
Fire Emblem Engage is an interesting one though. For those unaware, Fire Emblem has been a subject of many Nintendo rumors for quite some time now. The primary one right now being that they’re sitting on a remake of Fire Emblem 4, Genealogy of The Holy War. A Super Famicom game that was never released outside of Japan. And while I continue to pray for it every time a Nintendo Direct rolls around, only to ultimately be disappointed every time — there’s still a ring of believability about the rumor.
For the 30th Anniversary of the series Nintendo released a Nintendo Switch port of the original Fire Emblem game, apparently due to the pandemic their plans for this release got delayed longer than they should have, and they had in fact had the release ready to go for a time probably close to, if not the actual 30th Anniversary of the series.
It’s also highly speculated that Fire Emblem Engage was supposed to be a part of this celebration too. Which considering the fan service nature of that game makes sense. Also there was a very prominent leak online sometime well before Nintendo actually announced Engage showing off some of the game’s new characters including the highly polarizing appearance of the game’s main character Alear, who some people refer to as being “Pepsi” or “Toothpaste”.
The character design was so outrageous that people were calling bullshit right away, but the fact of the matter was the leaked looked real. Even if some people didn’t want to see it. And so I began to dread the eventual announcement of this Fire Emblem game.
When it finally was officially revealed, I was disappointed. The game’s character designer Mika Pikazo likes to use loud colors and eccentric designs for their characters. Something that felt very jarring within the context of Fire Emblem. Many of the characters looked more like VTubers than FE characters, which is funny because Mika Pikazo has actually designed VTubers such as Hololive’s Hakoz Baelz.
The premise of the game seemed inherently less serious than I would have liked too. The characters in this game summon protagonists from previous Fire Emblem games like JoJo Stands (or Personas, take your pick). It didn’t sit well with me. Especially since I’ve been pining for a remake of what has to be the darkest game in the series history.
So overall, pretty negative first impressions of the game. However as the game grew closer and closer to releasing I ended up buying into the hype anyway. Despite the eccentric character designs, the game admittedly looked very colorful and beautiful. Easily the best looking Fire Emblem game to date.
More importantly though was the revelation that this game would be a little more in line with previous Fire Emblem games than Three Houses was. And this was very exciting to me, as someone who does genuinely like Three Houses, but did NOT enjoy it’s gameplay and felt like your schedule and maintenance at the monastery was a massive drag, especially spread across three (four!) playthroughs (Which I still haven’t finished all of them by the way)
So how did Fire Emblem Engage turn out in the end? Pretty damn good, actually!
Admittedly there is a decent amount of that same busy work to be done in the game’s home base The Somniel. But it’s relegated to a single playthrough and the game isn’t divided into weeks and months like Three Houses, so it’s really more like the standard “in between missions” fare you had in the earlier games of the series.
I also ended up really enjoying a lot of characters and appreciated the story for what it was. It’s not a great, or even very good story, but it’s fun and gives you a chance to hang out with these characters as you make your way through the game’s narrative.
Additionally I actually did end up loving the fact that the “Emblems” were such a cool throwback to all the characters I loved from the series history. There are tons of little references and things for fans to pick up on, without actually requiring newer fans to know any of it to appreciate the game.
More than anything though. It’s the battles. Holy shit, it’s the battles! Engage has got to be my favorite Fire Emblem game to play in the series now at this point. Previously it was a pretty close tie between the Tellius games which are still my favorite, and Echoes which at the time I felt had perfected the formula for these games. But Engage goes even further than that!
The class system returns as well as a number of other ways to customize your characters, along with the same RNG based level ups the series is known for. It’s incredibly fulfilling to put together a team of your favorite characters and see how they stack up to the game’s toughest battles.
The addition of the Emblems, which allowed for characters to bond with the heroes from Fire Emblem’s past worked out incredibly well. The level of customization here is almost unparalleled by any game in the series.
And the battles are a blast to play. Gone are the tedious, soulless, mediocre battles from Three Houses, here to be replaced by some of the best tactics based gameplay I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.
I fucking love this game.
Engage also has arguably the best DLC in the series as well, with additional Emblems you recruit on entirely new maps which are usually super difficult compared to stuff found in the normal game. And the new DLC campaign is a very cool parallel take on the characters and events of Engage’s base game.
Is this my favorite Fire Emblem game? Far from it. For as much as I love its combat, it’s undeniable that despite being enjoyable the other aspects of the game simply don’t hold up to the better games in the series. And that’s perfectly fine.
Let’s hope and pray to the Gods that we get an announcement for the Genealogy of The Holy War remake at the next Nintendo Direct.
Z’s Take: Fire Emblem Engage was a pretty wild Fire Emblem entry. When I first saw the game I absolutely hated it. The character design disgusted me and I had no interest in it. I was just pissed that it was a canon FE game and that the Genealogy remake was not coming out. (yet? I hope..) Upon playing the game, I learned to love most if not all the characters and their designs grew on me as well. Especially Alfred and the Brodian brothers, and Fogado. Ivy and Timerra were great too. I love Ivy and Alear’s supports, and how she is so not perfect like she pretends to be. Overall, I’m very happy with this game and I love it as a Fire Emblem. I really changed my view on it! I uh, stuffed my pants with lots of jerky… Would you like to feed the wolf?
7. Lies of P
Ever since Lies of P’s announcement I knew I was onboard for its twisted take on Pinocchio Bloodborne. I mean, for one that’s just a killer concept. For two, Sony is never going to do anything with Bloodborne again, so someone might as well give it a shot. And lastly, you get to play as the prettiest Pinocchio out there. More like Lies of Bussy. Anyway…
Lucky for us the folks at Neowiz Games and Round 8 Studio cooked up this year’s best Soulslike, and actually it might be one of the best Souslikes we’ve seen. It ranks up there with the likes of the Nioh series for sure.
Lies of P is heavily influenced not only by Bloodborne, but a bit of Sekiro’s Parry & Stagger style combat as well. But that doesn’t mean the game is lacking in fresh ideas. My favorite among them being the weapon customization system.
Aside from the boss weapons in the game, which are not modifiable. Every other weapon in the game can be divided into two parts. The “blade” and the “handle”. And you can mix any combination of blade and handle in the game.
For me I played through the game with a Technique build (Skill, or Dex if you prefer) and started off with quick, but weaker weapons. Further in the game I found a massive Bone Cutting Saw Blade that had a ton of reach and hit like a truck. But it was also slow, and didn’t scale well with Technique by default.
In this scenario I could have used an item called a Technique Crank to change the handle to scale better with Technique, but why not go a step further and change up the handle to something a little bit faster and with a more preferable moveset for my style of play.
I ended up settling on the Dancer’s Curved Sword handle and instantly knew I found my favorite weapon combination in the game.
It’s awesome that you can experiment around and do something like that, and I don’t think I’ve seen another Soulslike do something quite like that.
It’s a good thing I was able to find a weapon I liked so much, because Lies of P is hard. Like, really, really hard. Probably one of the hardest ones I played. A lot of it has to do with the erratic attack pattern of enemies that make it much harder to predict how to react. On top of that almost every boss in the game has multiple phases so it’s a test of your endurance and ability to conserve healing.
It also didn’t help that the game puts a lot of emphasis on Parrying or “Perfect Guard”. Not too dissimilar to Soulslike games, but more like Sekiro than anything else. The timing on the Perfect Guard is so precise that I could rarely ever pull it off. Which sucks because if you can I have to imagine it makes the game so much easier because of the huge advantages you gain by being able to do that.
Not me though, I just rolled my way to victory like usual. With some blocking thrown in there too.
Lies of P has plenty of great boss fights, one of the primary things you want in a Soulslike, but something that sets Lies of P apart from some of its peers is that the developers seemed to understand the importance of level design.
Some may argue that Lies of P is a pretty linear path all the way through, and it is for the most part. But I think the actual layout of the game’s many areas leaves an impression. A sense of place, and a great arena to fight these battles in.
In contrast you have something like the 2023 reboot of Lords of The Fallen. A terrible, terrible fucking game. Take everything I said about how smartly the Lies of P developers designed their game and then the opposite of all that is what the Lords of The Fallen developers did.
One of the worst offenders in that game is how unremarkable the areas are. They’re huge and lack anything of interest aside from way too fucking many enemies. It’s so easy to get lost, and you’re just getting assaulted at all times.
The Soulslike genre has become so successful and there’s no shortage of developers who want to take a crack at it. Look no further than Iron Pineapple’s Souls-Like games you’ve never heard of series where he plays a handful of Soulslikes he finds on Steam in an attempt to shine some light on really cool, but lesser known stuff.
I think it’s easy to see what these games are like, and use that as the framework for your game. But I don’t think people realize that a lot of developers learn the wrong lessons from From Soft’s series of games.
That’s why I think Lies of P is so impressive. The developers knew what they were doing, they understood the assignment. And they made a damn good game. I love that they’re still supporting the game after launch with significant patches and even free goodies. I can’t wait for the DLC, or the teased sequel at the end of the game.
I’m all in on the P, baby.
Z’s Take: Lies of P excited me from the very first look at it. Pinocchio with a Bloodborne-esque theme to it? Hell yeah. The story was so intriguing and I love soulslikes. P is so beautiful… I love to look at him all the time. He’s just so pretty. I also loved how much of the actual Pinocchio lore is in the game! It really impressed me and probably is my favorite soulslike that’s not From Soft. I think the weapon customization is very creative, and I also love his Legion Arm. Reminiscent of Sekiro. The world is so fucked up and beautiful, and there’s a handful of other charming characters as well. I particularly loved The Hound. I also just thought the animal masks were really cool. Can’t wait for the DLC/Sequel!
6. Chained Echoes
Now, I don’t really need to try and start a bunch of shit here, but considering Chained Echoes came out at the end of last year when games released in that time frame are considered candidates for GOTY awards the following year then I really think it’s bullshit that anyone is even talking about Sea of Stars instead of this game.
Much like Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes is an indie game that pays homage to the classic JRPGs of the 90s. Unlike Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes actually has not one, but two amazingly well designed battle systems. And unlike Sea of Stars, the writing in Chained Echoes isn’t dog shit. Also unlike Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes didn’t have to get one of the greatest video game composers of all time to write some of the game’s soundtrack so more people noticed the game and were reminded of infinitely better games.
With that out of the way…
Chained Echoes is a labor of love from sole developer of the game Matthias Linda who used their extensive familiarity and knowledge of the JRPG genre to craft a modern take on the genre and heavily taking inspiration from such classic games as Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy XII, and many more.
It’s great that Chained Echoes heavily features mech based combat when your characters aren’t running around on the ground, much the same way Xenogears did. And it’s also great that an early part of the game has you playing mini-games like The Millenium Fair from Chrono Trigger.
But it’s the game design sense that went into this game that Matthias Linda absorbed from playing so many JRPGs over the years. Like I said the combat is brilliantly designed featuring a balancing act with a gauge that is central to the flow of combat, and being able to utilize the different character’s innate abilities alongside selected sub jobs with complimentary abilities to allow for a more specialized or hybrid character.
Also as I previously mentioned the combat inside the mechs plays out differently than the ground combat in some interesting ways, and just like Xenogears you’re kind of dealing with two different styles of battle throughout the game.
There are so many smart quality of life features, and design choices that show a firm understanding of what came before it, and how to improve it within a modern context.
The game’s characters and story are also extremely well written. Chained Echoes is pretty long for an indie game, but that didn’t stop my wife and I from binging the game with a thirst to find out what happens next.
Some of the characters like Egyl the adorable bird knight. Tomke the game’s resident Blue Mage who literally cans and eats enemies when they’re low on health to learn their spells. Ba’Thraz the incredibly sick armless lizard man metal mage. Viktor the jovial bard who is much more than he lets on. Magnolia is a fairy in disguise and ends up being of the best party members in the game. And my personal favorite, Sienna the red lady samurai who trades honor for crime.
Chained Echoes is also quite a beautiful looking game featuring some really high quality sprite work and some quirky and charming monster designs.
The only real downsides to Chained Echoes are the soundtrack which isn’t bad, but I guess it can’t compete with fucking Yasunori Mitsuda. And the two main characters of the game are actually the worst of the bunch, but that’s okay cause they’re still a thousand times better than the cardboard clowns in Sea of Stars.
The thing is Chained Echoes reviewed incredibly well, so I don’t know why it didn’t have more attention on it. But at least I’m here to tell you it’s the indie JRPG inspired game you should be playing, and I hope we see more from Matthias Linda in the future. Take your time buddy.
Z’s Take: Chained Echoes. Or as I like to call it, Chain of Echoes. It also helped me through a hard time, like Pentiment. I’m having trouble remembering a lot of the game, but I know I absolutely loved and enjoyed it. Most of the characters and the world and combat were just so awesome! The sprite work was also absolutely stunning. Again, a really relaxing and comforting game. It really felt like we were playing a SNES jrpg.
5. Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
People like to joke about the frequency of the releases of the Like A Dragon, formerly Yakuza, series and I get it, they’re not wrong. We got a remake of LaD Ishin at the beginning of the year, and LaD Gaiden at the end… and in a month’s time we’ll have the next mainline game in Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios long running and recently revered franchise.
We’re in a post Nagoshi era now that he’s gone off after the promise of that sweet, sweet NetEase money. And the new Director/Executive Producer for the series Makayoshi Yokoyama has some big shoes to fill.
While Ishin left me feeling disappointed after such a long wait for its localization (I guess they were onto something with that, huh?) Gaiden has me feeling pretty god damn positive about the current team at RGG. So I think the series is in good hands.
But let’s talk about Gaiden.
The Man Who Erased His Name sees the return of series main protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, only now he’s going under the name Joryu in an attempt to (very badly) hide his identity after the events of Yakuza 6.
Gaiden, as the name implies, is a side story that helps tie the events of Yakuza 6 to Yakuza 7. The game actually takes place during the same time period Yakuza 7 is happening, and the game gives some much better context for why Kiryu makes an appearance in that 7.
It’s my understanding that Gaiden was developed in a relatively short amount of time, and that doesn’t exactly go unnoticed here. The game is much shorter and condensed than the mainline games and a large portion of its runtime consists of side content. Which isn’t entirely new to the series, but the ratio of story to side content is much more skewered here.
That’s alright though because I found a majority of the side content to be entertaining, even if some of it is a bit mindless. There are some good sub story sized missions in there and they’re pretty entertaining.
If you’re unaware Like A Dragon Gaiden returns the series beat-em up style action combat that the series started out as. I feel like this is appropriate considering we’re playing as Kiryu again, and doubly so since RGG actually made it so that Kiryu is able to break the turn based combat rules in Like a Dragon 8 to just start beating on dudes again.
Kiryu, or Joryu as the case may be, has two different fighting styles in this game. One of them is “Yakuza” style which is similar to the ways he’s traditionally fought in the past with the Komaki style. And then there’s “Agent” style which is just nuts. Kiryu employs the use of several wacky spy gadgets including a wire that can Spider-Man swing around enemies. A swarm of drones, rocket boots that let him slide around at insane speeds, and an explosive cigarette.
One of the main draws of the game (aside from the story of course, which we’ll get to in a minute) is the game’s Colosseum. Again, nothing new for the series, however it’s much more pronounced in this game since it plays a pretty pivotal role in the overall story of the game.
There are a number of one on one battles you can do which has been a staple of the series for quite some time. But an exciting new addition here are the group battles. Kiryu starts recruiting people for the Joryu Clan and you can bring up to 10 of these guys with you into some of these battles. The recruits include a bunch of quirky weirdos, some fan favorite NPCs, and even some old friends.
Not only that, but you can fight any of the Colosseum battles as any member of the Joryu Clan instead of just Kiryu himself. Which is pretty nuts honestly since a lot of the characters have unique movesets and fighting styles. It’s especially fun to play as some of those old friends I mentioned.
As fun as all of that is, I think the main reason any fan of the series should play this game is for its story. Gaiden introduces some fun and charismatic new characters and it’s as entertaining as always to see where the story ends up. Which I ended up really liking.
More than that though, this is the proper ramp up to Kiryu’s finale. I know not everyone liked Yakuza 6, but I did because Kiryu is one of my favorite characters of all time and it seemed like a fitting end to his story including an ending that had both my wife and I crying in each other’s arms.
I would have been fine with that ending, but they decided to bring him back in Yakuza 7, which I also didn’t mind because again, I really love Kiryu. During his brief appearance in Yakuza 7 they try to impress upon the player that Kiryu is passing on the torch to Ichiban being the new lead for the series. But… it could have been better. And by all accounts it is going to be better.
The ending of Gaiden is one you absolutely should not miss. It is powerful, and meaningful, and does a lot to convey where Kiryu is at going into 8. It also made my wife and I full on ugly cry during its final scenes.
I don’t know what will happen to Kiryu in Yakuza 8. I mean, considering the cancer… I can take a guess. I don’t really want to think about that happening, but… either way I’m ready to see the conclusion to his story, and we’re starting off with that first thing next year.
Z’s Take: Yakuza Gaiden. Ok, so I’ve been hyperfixated on Yakuza since 2018, when Joel moved in here and we got together. All of the games in the series have meant very, very much to me and to see this story of Kiryu (or Joryu, excuse me.) during the events of Yakuza 7 was very interesting and overall, I totally enjoyed the game. Even the grindy stuff I just loved watching. Dressing up Kiryu was such a treat, especially in the wetsuit? Jesus CHRIST. It was a wonderful calming experience again and I just love comfy games. And man it broke my heart at the end just like every other Yakuza game. I’m looking forward to Y8 and probably my eyeballs will fall out from crying so much.
4. Honkai Star Rail
miHoYo, or rather Hoyoverse now, pretty much has the gacha genre on lockdown at this point. Genshin Impact has been a phenomenal success for them, and continues to be one of the more popular games out there currently.
I love Genshin Impact. Or it might have been more accurate to say I loved Genshin Impact until the release of Fontaine earlier this year. The Sumeru arc of Genshin was horrendous. I hated almost every second of it, didn’t really like any of the Sumeru characters all that much, and *hated* Nahida. Not as much as fucking Dunyarzad who has to be one of the worst characters in a game I’ve played in a while. Point is, the game sucked for a good year there. And I fell off the wagon.
I mentioned Fontaine because it seems like Hoyoverse has gotten the game back on track, and from the bit I’ve played so far it’s like a night and day difference.
However, this year we also saw the release of Honkai Star Rail. The new sci-fi turn-based RPG from them. HSR as well as Zenless Zone Zero have been on my radar pretty much since they were announced. I’m admittedly a little concerned with ZZZ at this point after finding out it’s a roguelike, but we shall see!
HSR on the other hand I was always pretty sure I was going to be into. I love turn-based combat after all. The only problem is I didn’t know how well I’d take to the sci-fi setting. Sci-fi is fine and everything, I don’t dislike it, but it seemed like it would be a less interesting setting than Genshin’s fantasy. And I also incorrectly (sort of?) assumed it was related directly to Honkai Impact 3rd which is a game I’ve tried to get into, and appreciate from a far, but never really took the plunge on in any meaningful way.
When the game finally came out in May of this year, I was disappointed that they were staggering the release of the PlayStation version, but I knew for damn sure I was going to jump in on PC. So I did.
Very first thing you see when you start that game is Kafka. And by the end of the short tutorial she had already become my most wanted character in the game. I love her. So it made for an interesting time because after summoning for a bit early on I eventually just… stopped and saved up for Kafka. Fortunately I got her by the way, twice.
Honkai Star Rail exceeded any expectation I had for it. Much like when Genshin first released I found myself glued to my PC every chance I could get to play it. miHoYo has not only created another masterclass game that defies the very laws of gacha games, but they also made one of the best RPGs I’ve played in a while. And for a little while at least it was gunning for the number one spot on this list.
Upon release HSR had a generous amount of content to play, including the first major world you visit in your travels which felt like an entire (albeit on the shorter side) RPG. The game’s writing is genuinely amazing with some outstanding characters, supported by a very clever and talented localization team that isn’t afraid to have fun with the dialogue. And the characters are brought to life by the same stellar voice acting people have come to expect from Genshin Impact.
As much as I love Lumine (Aether not so much), Caelus (Stelle not so much) is arguably a much better MC. He’s a freak who loves to dig in the trash, and actually has conversations with the characters instead of just having Paimon converse for you. He’s even voiced much more frequently than Lumine, though to be fair she’s hardly voiced at all.
The Belobog part of the story is still probably the strongest point of the game so far, including an epic final boss fight with an incredible vocal track that brought tears to my eyes just for how cool it was. But the latter half of the Luofu story is actually crazy good too.
The game’s combat is also smartly designed. I know some people were initially upset that your characters only really had a normal attack, special attack, and an ultimate. But I feel like this is a smart choice as not to bog down the battles too much in such a grindy game, not to mention how much more complicated it would be to put together teams with characters you’re at the mercy of a gacha for.
I also know that a lot of people still scorn gacha games as being predatory and scams. Which you know, there’s at least some truth to that. But it doesn’t have to be that way as was the case with Genshin; you can clear most if not all content without having to pull for a ton of limited 5 star characters, their Eidolons, and signature Light Cones.
Whether you can resist the allure of the very attractive anime characters is another matter entirely.
Of course the characters are the biggest selling point for most gacha games, especially miHoYo’s games. The characters do not disappoint. In terms of writing, the actual character designs, and their kit.
All of this is enough to make Honkai Star Rail a gacha game worth playing, but I was surprised by how much more I liked HSR than Genshin. Part of it is the combat, though Genshin’s combat is fine, a huge part of it is that it’s not open world (I’m so tired of this in Genshin), and another huge factor is just how much of a better game HSR is.
The amount of quality of life features and refined systems in the game is staggering when you compare it to Genshin. Some of this stuff is so drastically improved that it’s hard to believe that they haven’t gone back and added more of this stuff to Genshin.
I’m invested enough in Genshin that I don’t think I’ll ever drop it for good. But Honkai Star Rail is my main Hoyoverse game now. And I’m very much looking forward to Penacony.
Z’s Take: Honkai Star Rail. I wasn’t big on it at first because of the sci-fi setting and liked Genshin’s fantasy more. I fell in love with it pretty quickly upon playing it. I love the characters so much, especially Sampo, he is just so cute and I love him and Gepard together. And then there’s Svarog. He really sparks my Robo-phelia… Like, damn.. There’s many other characters I love as well… almost all the boys and most of the girls. There’s not actually any characters I dislike whereas Genshin has a lot of characters I don’t feel great about. I can’t wait to see what the game goes forward with and I’m very excited to pull on new, interesting characters!
3 Final Fantasy XVI
Well this one should be easy enough. I already wrote a review for Final Fantasy XVI earlier this year after I finished it. You can go ahead and read that here if you’d like, instead of me just rehashing the same things.
In case you don’t want to do that though, in summary: I loved the game. It’s an extremely high quality game that looks insanely good, and has an amazing soundtrack. The action based combat is great. Though I enjoyed playing as Clive more than I did the Eikons despite how flashy those fights are.
The story and the characters were the real highlight though, but there are aspects of the main plotline that fell a little short for me. Too many villains, and not enough good ones. I also never really bought into Clive and Jill’s relationship because it didn’t seem like they had any genuine chemistry between them.
And what has to be a pretty unpopular opinion: my favorite part of the game is the side quests. Despite most of them feeling like very standard MMO style quests, I was constantly impressed with the amount of work that was put into making these quests. You really get to know the NPCs and it’s actually really neat that you can actively feel the influence you’ve had on these people, and the areas in which you find them.
I don’t think my feelings about FFXVI have changed all that much. If anything, after spending some time away from it I realized that the things I didn’t like about the game bothered me more than I originally thought. And as the year went on I realized that this wasn’t going to be my Game of the Year. Mostly due to the fact that the two games above made a much larger impression on my wife and I’s lives.
I also mentioned this in the review, but I can’t shake the shitty feeling I get when I think about a lot of people’s reception of this game. FFXVI reviewed extremely well and has been nominated and won some awards. So it’s not like it hasn’t gotten recognition.
But I get the sense that a lot of people just did not care for this game all that much. And that really sucks! At the same time I know that any sort of “Ranking of Final Fantasy games” list is always a hotly debated topic. And for good reason, most of those 16 mainline games are fucking amazing.
If I were to rank FFXVI I would probably put it somewhere in the middle? It’s much better than 1, 2, 3, 12, and 13 in my mind. But it doesn’t live up to the greatness that is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 14. So that’s a ton of games ahead of it by my count. To round things out I think 10, 15, and 16 sit nicely somewhere in the middle, all being roughly equally as good as one another for different reasons.
It shouldn’t matter what other people think, and ultimately it doesn’t. I’m pretty stubborn about my opinions and there’s not much people can do to change my mind. But it still makes me sad to think of people shitting on this game.
I dunno.
Like I said, I don’t have much to add beyond that. I’m very much looking forward to the DLC when I can afford it. Especially the Leviathan DLC when that comes out because that’s exactly what my wife and I wanted.
I think Final Fantasy XVI is an amazing game, and I’m happy to have it so high on this list.
Z’s Take: FFXVI, I was hype for it for so long and playing it did not disappoint me with a few exceptions. As Joel said, the villains are very lackluster and the romance absolutely awful. Well, the main canon one at least. The other romances between characters are beautiful. I resonated with Dion especially and he was such an absolutely wonderful character and many of his scenes made me choke up. And his final scene made me cry so much.. The game actually made me cry a lot more than I thought it would, but I should know better. It is a Final Fantasy. Just like Yakuza, FFs hit me a lot emotionally. Also, I love the side quests, again, very comforting and just love the music and character interactions, and the little side stories. You start to feel like you really know these people you are saving, and they aren’t random NPCs. Also. Torgal is super cute. As mentioned earlier, I wish to feed the wolf.
2 Faith: The Unholy Trinity
Despite the following it has gained, I still wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard about this game. It’s an indie game developed by Airdorf Games, and published by New Blood Interactive. The Unholy Trinity is actually a trilogy of games released by Airdorf Games, with Faith Chapter 1 coming out all the way back in 2017, and the sequel Faith Chapter 2 coming out in 2019.
Faith: The Unholy Trinity came out last October and with it a brand new third Chapter in this series of horror games that pay homage to the Atari 2600. But it wasn’t until early this year when my wife and I found out about it.
Faith is a deceptively terrifying game despite its minimalist graphics. Set in 1987 a Priest named John Ward struggles to come to terms with a failed exorcism and takes it upon himself to return and finish the job. That’s the story for the first Chapter at least. What follows is John’s crusade against a devil worshiping cult and a host of nightmarish creatures.
Now, I’ll be honest here. Faith is not the kind of game I would enjoy playing. I mentioned above that Alan Wake II is stressful enough for me to play, but I honestly do not think I could handle Faith. You might look the game up and see some screenshots, or a trailer for the game and come to the conclusion that it’s nothing to be afraid of. But I’m gonna go out there and say despite the retro dated graphics that this might be one of the scariest games I’ve ever seen.
I don’t know how relatable that is to people younger than my wife and I. But we grew up in an era where video game hardware was limited, and you sometimes had to use your imagination to fully visualize what you might be seeing at any given moment.
I said I’m a big scaredy cat, so it shouldn’t surprise you to know that I generally tend to avoid the horror genre altogether. But sometimes I feel like if you know what you’re getting into it’s a lot more manageable.
But back in the day you’d be playing an otherwise “un-scary” game but then you’d encounter something that felt eerie and uncomfortable. And it’s the juxtaposition between what you’ve come to expect as a comfort game, and then the sudden switch to something that felt far more dangerous.
Obviously Faith is a horror game, and you’d have to be going in completely blind not to realize that. But I hope my little explanation might help explain why something abstract can feel just as, if not more terrifying than something rendered in ultra realistic 4K.
The other thing about Faith is that it seems like an incredibly difficult game, as anyone I saw played it struggled quite a few times with the game’s various bosses. Checkpointing is pretty generous, but I still feel like I would get aggravated with it.
So you’re probably wondering after all this. If I didn’t think I’d like to play the game, and in fact didn’t play the game at all, why is it on my Game of The Year list?
Maybe this is a bit controversial and I can understand if you don’t agree with me on this, but hey this is my list so here we go.
For a long time I kind of turned up my nose at the idea of people watching games and then treating that basically the same as if they played it themselves. And while I do still hold to the fact that playing a game is entirely different than watching a game… I have spent the last five years playing games with my wife watching me from the couch in the same room.
Seeing how she connects with the games I play. Not only when it comes to lore, story, and characters. But she has a firm understanding of the game’s mechanics. Don’t believe me? Here’s a recent example.
My wife started watching me play Dark Souls back in January of 2020. She fell in love with the series, and the other From Soft games we played together. That even managed to transcend just those games, and branched out into Soulslikes. Like Lies of P from earlier in the list. Or Nioh 2 which helped her get through a very difficult point in her life.
We weren’t even through Dark Souls 1 when she started picking up and actively suggesting things I should do. Like actual boss strats, tips, and advice. She surprised me a number of times with how perceptive she was at little details.
We started playing Sekiro for the first time last week, and at one point randomly she wanted me to load up Dark Souls 3 and attempt to beat Sister Friede again. Sister Friede is a notoriously difficult boss at the end of the first of Dark Souls 3’s two DLCs. And unfortunately I’ve never actually managed to beat her. I did get her one hit away from death one time though, but it’s a three phase fight and a war of attrition. It’s hard for me to consistently get to that point. And eventually after trying so many failed attempts I gave up.
So I tried fighting her a couple more times. I didn’t do very well, not even making it past Phase 2. But that’s hardly surprising considering I haven’t played the game since 2020. Before I turned the game off my wife asked me to let her try the fight.
This is especially noteworthy because aside from fiddling around with the controls randomly at some point in time, she has never played one of these games. At all. And yet despite this, she managed to beat the first fucking phase! Like, holy shit. I couldn’t believe it, I was so insanely impressed.
So if you’re going to tell me that something like that can happen from someone diligently watching a game be played for hours and hours. Then there’s no way I can accept the fact that people who watch games aren’t experiencing those games in a way that is similar to playing them.
So with that massive explanation out of the way. Why bring all this up? It’s because this is how I experienced Faith this year. Not just once, but several times. It’s a great watch if you can find a good streamer, or… VTuber as the case may be to watch play the game.
My wife and I actually found our favorite VTuber because of his Faith playthrough. Holostar’s Josuiji Shinri. He was the perfect way for us to be introduced to this game because he *loves* horror and is always very thorough and obsessed with figuring out the lore for things.
So across three different streams Shinri played Faith: The Unholy Trinity. Despite several technical difficulties these streams were some of the best I’ve ever seen. Shinri fully explored all three chapters, making sure to get every ending and finding as many of the notes he could find (which was most of them.)
Ironically enough, we watched this Faith playthrough back in February. A very similar time frame as Pentiment. So it was pretty wild that we were dealing with two, *very* different games featuring Catholic imagery.
This also happened to be one of the roughest times in the year for us, and somehow watching this very chill dude play an extremely fucked up game was comforting. We became obsessed with the game after the playthrough. Admittedly my wife is a little more than me as she was very adamant about it being Game of The Year.. until it wasn’t.
The gameplay of Faith is simple enough, though challenging as I mentioned. Obviously I can’t speak to playing it personally, so this may come across as disingenuous, but I think the fear and apprehension was pretty god damn palpable during an extended section of the game where you’re completely defenseless walking around a creepy ass apartment complex in total darkness with nothing but a camera’s flash to momentarily light the way.
The way things appear and disappear in between the “whines” of an older camera’s flash going off made for a truly unsettling experience. And the game only gets more disturbing from there leading up to the climax of the trilogy.
I feel like now is a good time to mention a couple of other neat aspects about Faith that are not only unique but help accentuate the sense of unease. The game’s soundtrack is appropriately chiptuned to fit the game’s aesthetics. I would not say the music is the most prominent aspect of the game, but it’s an equally important part of the game’s ambience.
Speaking of which, the sound effects used throughout the game are oftentimes cacophonous noises coming from the game’s selection of deranged bosses and creatures. There’s a comforting little “ta-da!” when you pick up the game’s many notes. And the pulsating sound of your crucifix excorising the demons.
Best and most notable of all though is the use of text to speech that is used for the bits of dialogue throughout the game. The disjointed, unnatural voice of Microsoft Sam is used to great effect here. It’s distorted and uncomfortable. Not to mention memorable. Such as a line from the first chapter that became a bit of a meme “A Gun With One Bullet”.
The final piece of the puzzle comes in the form of actual rotoscoped cutscenes that are brilliantly executed and punctuate some of the game’s best, and creepiest moments.
Faith’s writing is another slam dunk with a narrative that is largely told through hand written notes that the player may or may not discover, but they’re definitely worth the effort since they give a lot of additional context to the events of the game. Also the game is very open to interpretation. The constant foreshadowing of a guy named Gary who’s “just a normal human being like you and me” is among some of the best, as well as that character himself.
The three chapters of Faith don’t take terribly long to finish. No more than six or seven hours if you’re being thorough with getting all the endings. Which I highly recommend checking out. The endings for Chapter 1 include four “bad ends” including a joke one, and one “true” ending. I believe Chapter 2 only has two endings depending on if you save a certain character’s life during the final boss of that Chapter. But Chapter 3 is something else entirely.
Chapter Three effectively has three (four, I guess?) endings depending on certain factors during the playthrough. There’s a “normal” ending that you can get just for finishing the Chapter. There are the two versions of the “true” ending which require you to hunt down three optional bosses, resulting in a chance to fight the game’s true final boss. And then there’s the “bad” end which you get if you neglect to do ANYTHING the entire Chapter and the ending can change your entire perspective on the trilogy. It’s fucking wild, and brilliant, and I love it.
So yeah, even though I didn’t actually play Faith: The Unholy Trinity, it’s an experience that has stuck with me for the entire year. My wife and I both follow Airdorf on Twitter and have shared countless amazing fan arts and hilariously out of character memes. We even changed our Twitter handles and avatars to be Faith themed for the month of October.
Airdorf has already announced plans to release another Chapter in the series, and neither my wife or I can wait until that day finally comes. And I hope to God that Shinri is around to play that for us to watch too.
Z’s Take: Faith The Unholy Trinity. Okay so this game like, changed my life. I’ve been hyperfixated on it for almost a year now. I am still so into it. I love John Ward, with all my heart, he is such a good boy, and Gary Miller. Of course I ship them together. For Halloween, I really wanted to do some shitty closet cosplay with Joel, but we didn’t get around to it. But occasionally, I will put the sheets over my head to look like Gary and then tell him about how much Gary loves him, or how he is a normal human being just like you and me, or just yelling RAIN OF SPIDERS SPIDERS SPIDERS over and over again. Oh, man, this game, just everything about it. Absolutely love the rotoscoping, it’s one of the things that make the game so unique. The story is unbelievable, and all the endings and notes, how the story is told is actually very From Soft-ish. The bad end of the third chapter is absolutely fucking wild! The whole feel of the game is really one of the most horrifying games I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying a lot because I don’t scare easily. PT is actually the only game to make me drop the controller and turn it off because I was so scared that I thought I was going to have a heart attack when I turned around. There is a really cute fandom for this game on Twitter, with gorgeous and horrifying art. Not to mention the silly memes. I love it all so much. Overall Faith was gonna be my GOTY but something else came up…
1 Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Two years in a row? That’s pretty good From Soft!
Wow, where do I even begin with Armored Core VI?
Well, for starters I will preface all of this by saying that From Soft is probably my actual favorite studio at this point in time and despite my mixed feelings about Sekiro I think they have a pretty fucking phenomenal track record going for them. It’s me, I’m the guy obsessed with Souslikes.
So when they announced Armored Core VI at The Game Awards last year I was initially very excited, but unsure of what form Armored Core would take. I think I was in a similar line of thinking as a lot of people in wondering if From was going to repurpose their classic hardcore Mecha series into “A Souslike but with Giant Robots”.
I was already aware of Armored Core before this announcement. In fact Armored Core 2 was one of my PS2 launch games that I actually spent a long time playing the Arena mode in that game, so I had an idea of what these games have been like, but I wasn’t sure that’s something I’d necessarily be into at this point in time since I never really clicked with that series in a major way.
As 2023 went on, it started to become clear that AC6 was not going to be a Souslike and that it would stay true to the series identity as a highly customizable mech based action series. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed about this, and wasn’t sure if I was even going to be able to play the game, let alone like, or even love the game.
I follow several From Soft / Souls content creators like Iron Pineapple, VaatiVidya, and Zullie The Witch who all have different levels of experience with the franchise. And thanks in no small part to their content, by the time the game was coming out I had made the decision to pull the trigger and give it a shot, because it did seem pretty awesome.
Boy, am I glad that I did.
I pre-ordered Armored Core VI on PSN less than an hour before it was released. I fired up the game eager to see what it had in store for me, and proceeded to pretty casually get through the tutorial mission before getting my mechanical ass served to be by the game’s first boss, a helicopter.
The Helicopter quickly became notorious in the community alongside a few other really challenging bosses in the game as brick walls for player progression. And here was one of them as early as the first 20 minutes of the game.
So yes, I did die quite a few times to the helicopter. But it didn’t discourage me. Because already I could tell that this game was going to be something special. From Soft had once again thrust me into the deep end of a game genre that is relatively unknown to me and expected me to swim.
The thing was though, that as soon as I started playing the game I could feel how amazingly the game controlled. Even as a clumsy rookie pilot I was shocked to realize how fluid and natural the game felt to play.
Sure there was a learning curve, and I certainly didn’t instantly master all the nuances of controlling an AC. But that first impression was enough for me to feel like I could play this game. And so I did.
It probably took me half an hour to beat that helicopter, but I was able to figure out what the game expected me to do as a rite of initiation. And off I went from there.
Armored Core VI is probably one of the best action games I’ve ever played. Full stop. The thrill of getting new AC parts, slapping them together with a build in mind, then experimenting until you found something that fit your playstyle just right was so addicting.
Yes, I’m the kind of person that gets hung up on what build I want to play in a Souslike because so many of the options sound appealing. I’m also the person that spent hours in Monster Hunter trying out every weapon until I found the ones I liked. Until I didn’t like them anymore, and wanted to try something else for the first time, or again in some cases.
At the heart of the Armored Core franchise you are living out the fantasy of building and piloting your own mech and if you’re even tempted by that thought you should give it a try.
…or maybe you don’t really care about that, well I have news for you, you might still wanna check out AC6.
Early on in the game I started to realize there was more to AC6 than just the masterclass gameplay. The game’s story is told in between missions via voiced dialogue from faceless characters whose appearance is entirely up for you to decide since the only thing the game provides for you is an emblem, sometimes an AC, but more than that how the character is written and acted.
Now I know that some reviews of the game criticized the game’s storytelling for this very reason, which I think says more about a reviewer’s lack of imagination and attention span to somehow NOT become attached to these characters, because holy shit the game’s writers and the incredibly talented English voice cast sold me on these characters so hard.
Some standouts among the cast are V.IV Rusty who manages to charm his way into the heart’s of most players by being 621’s closest friend/rival. He’s responsible for some of the best moments in the game like the Ice Worm mission (“I Won’t Miss”). and dialogue in the game such as such “There’s only one person who can keep up with me” which actually made me blush. He also always refers to you as “Buddy” (Affectionate).
Handler Walter voiced by Patrick Seitz is your gruff yet smooth sounding operator who sends you out on missions with his iconic “Got a job for you, 621.” You might find him cold towards the player character in the beginning but as the game progresses it becomes apparent that Walter actually does genuinely care about you.
G5 Iguazu who is the resident asshole of the game who has a serious hate hardon for 621. Griffin Burns does an amazing job getting across just how much of a little punk ass this kid is and I don’t want to spoil anything but this character becomes significantly more relevant in future playthroughs.
There’s the boisterous leader of the Red Gun’s G1 Michigan who is one of the game’s funniest characters. DC Douglas does an excellent job of portraying that military drill sergeant persona, and you can easily see why some of his own men would have reason enough to hate him.
For the Vespers we’ve got V.II Snail as the acting leader of the group since his superior officer is too busy fucking off in the arena. Jon Lipow delivers a perfectly accurate performance for Snail’s personality, that is to say he is the type of slimy, hifalutin person who’s disdain for others is only outmatched by his god complex.
And finally ALLMIND, the AI that exists for all mercenaries. ALLMIND starts off simply enough as a way to access the game’s tutorials and the arena mode, however once again throughout repeat playthroughs she becomes so much more than that. And voice actress Stephanie Kerbis gets that aspect of the character across so hard, really she’s amazing.
I realized I wasn’t alone in this when I started to see fan art for the game pop-up. Many talented artists have come up with their own idea of how these characters look, and it was fascinating to see that over the past several months.
The most impressive thing about that is that nine times out of ten I would see a fanart of a character and instantly recognize them. Because that’s how much heavy lifting the writers and the actors did. They used words and dialogue to paint such a vivid image of what these pilots might look like that a lot of people tended to visualize them in a similar way.
There’s also no shortage of head canons, and memes, and all the other things that go along with something that a community of people are really passionate about.
Let’s not forget though, this game is a challenging mecha based action game. But it still attracted this much interest from people who normally wouldn’t be interested in such things.
Such as, my wife..
Her only experience with Armored Core was being in the same room with her ex-boyfriend while he played one of the earlier games in the series. And the experience was miserable for her because not only has From Soft come a long way since then in terms of both budget and craft, but also he was probably raging about the game because he was an asshole.
Back in 2020 I got my wife so invested in From Soft’s Souls games that it quickly became one of her main obsessions. But when they announced a new Armored Core, she couldn’t be any less interested not to mention disappointed.
From the time AC6 came out in late August until sometime in October I played A LOT of Armored Core VI. Making my way through the game’s three different playthroughs. And along the way I would tell her about the game of course.
Plus she started seeing stuff on Twitter since she follows the From community pretty closely. The promise of “gay robots” was a tempting one indeed. And I even managed to show her a few cool moments in the game like the Ice Worm fight that further chipped away at her resentment towards the game.
When I finished my third playthrough of AC6 and was watching the true final credits scroll, it was at that time I noticed one of the game’s main characters V.IV Rusty was voiced by Chris Hackney.
This was the tipping point that finally convinced my wife to sit down and watch me play the game for three more playthroughs.
Not only was she already interested in Rusty, but Chris Hackney who has become her favorite voice actor ever since his role as Dimitri in Fire Emblem Three Houses who is one of her main “husbands”.
Everything fell into place after that.
Before long she was coming up with her own headcanons for the characters, even designed an OC and AC of her own named Red Hospital who is one of the Vespers. And has been trying to help me come up with my own OC.
We both changed our phone themes and wallpapers, as well as our shared PC’s wallpaper to AC6 related stuff. We’re still currently doing the same thing on Twitter we did with Faith and changed our names and avatars.
She’s also drawn some lewd fanart for the game, continuously watches a super cut video of the best Rusty lines in the game. Keeps wanting me to call her “Buddy” and roleplay 621 and Rusty. You know, she’s been completely normal about the game. Obviously.
Jokes aside, her obsession with Armored Core VI became so incredibly potent that after an entire year of championing Faith as her game of the year, she conceded and agreed with me that Armored Core VI is The Game of The Year for 2023.
Hell, it’s worth mentioning that against all odds, an Armored Core game was one of the only games that made us cry this year. With the other ones being Like A Dragon Gaiden, and Final Fantasy XVI. It sounds absurd at first, but then again we are talking about From Soft here. So I never should’ve doubted their ability to make things really *sad*.
Anytime I can share something I love with my wife like that, it becomes substantially more impactful, and important. Because it’s our shared interest in things we like that brought us together in the first place.
And yeah, we’re talking about an Armored Core game here. A franchise that From seemed content on leaving dormant after the wild success they’ve seen with Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. You knows “Soulslikes”. But against all odds they gave it another shot, and it seems to be paying off for them.
I feel like there’s a very real possibility we see more Armored Core in the future, and I sincerely hope we do. There were so many amazing games this year, but AC6 is the one that hit ALL the buttons. It’s been a constant presence in my life since the end of August. And it doesn’t seem like that will be slowing down anytime soon.
So congrats From Soft for claiming GOTY from me for the second year in a row. Now let someone else win next year.
Z’s Take: Armored fucking Core VI. Joel mentioned I absolutely hated the series because of my ex-boyfriend, he was a big child and could not play the earlier games very well. Had tantrums and threw shit. So I was just like, I don’t want to fucking see this game. I even blocked it on my Twitter. I don’t exactly know what happened, but one time when I was doing some things on Final Fantasy XIV Joel was playing it behind me and it piqued my interest a lil. I really loved hearing the garage music in the background. That’s the first thing that hit me and then Joel would show me little things like the mechs, and I do love mechs. That further enticed me. He showed me the Ice Worm fight and compared it to the Evangelion railgun scene. That got me a little bit more interested. Then there was the badass and cute art I would see on Twitter. (I obviously unmuted it at this point.) I would retweet it for him and gradually I just started really actually liking the characters. I believe it was Joel explaining Rusty more to me and then.. that he was voiced by Chris Hackney.. His voice drives me crazy. So then I was like, I want to fucking play this game. And it overtook me like the tide of the ocean. It just swept me away. I’ve rarely become fixated on something so fast and the turnaround of just like, hating it into loving it. But this game means so fucking much to me. The story, the voice acting and the characters all are incredible and so memorable. V.IV Rusty is my favourite of course, but also Handler Walter, G1 Michigan, ALLMIND, Carla, and Ayre.. And fucking V.II Snail and G5 Iguazu are such assholes but I LOVE them. V.VIII Pater is so cute as well. And Chatty Stick!! I love 621 too of course, and I want to explain how much I love @iuciferics’ (on Twitter and tumblr) designs of the pilots. They all are pretty much the same as my own head-canons. And I am always fiending for more of their art. I have such a crush on Rusty.. I’m absolutely obsessed with him.. Yet I made an OC not to pair with him, which is rare for me, but it’s because I love him and 621 together. So my OC is of course, based on my doctor bullshit, my AC is named V.IX Red Hospital. It’s a white and red light weight AC. I want to write up the bio at some point about its pilot(s). Yes, pilots, it’s interesting. At least I think it is. I want more of it so bad, hoping hard for DLC. Please. Anyway this game totally wrapped me up inside of it and even after finishing it weeks ago it still heavily lingers with me so much, like Faith did. Any sort of media that lingers with me like that instead of just moving onto the next thing is very special to me. And that’s why it’s my Game of the Year, buddy.
And The Award Goes to..
Game of The Year 2023: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Best New Character of 2023: I.IV Rusty (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon) — The battles on Rubicon felt a little less lonely with Rusty at our side, always willing to watch our back. Except when we had to fight each other. Which was always some of the most upsetting stuff in the game. What can I say? Chris Hackney did an amazing job at getting Rusty’s personality and camaraderie with 621 across. His AC Steel Haze is one of the coolest looking in the game. Always making flashy entrances legs first. And whether he was firing a giant railgun into the head of a massive mechanical worm, or helping you climb the wall Rusty was the best bud you could ask for.
Best Soundtrack of 2023: Alan Wake II — This was a very competitive year when it came to amazing soundtracks, but I have to give this one to Alan Wake II. The game’s suitably creepy and ambient background music and effects set the right tone for the game. But it’s the Intermission songs that play in between each chapter as well as the fucking incredible Hearld of Darkness Musical segment that earn the win here. Aside from a playable musical being one of the coolest moments of the year, the Intermission songs really struck a chord with me each time I finished a chapter. It was a moment of rest, and a chance to process things. And I always look forward to them.
Best Voice Actor 2023: Chris Hackney — V.IV Rusty (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon) — I’ve sung Chris’s praises enough at this point I think, but damn considering some of the other performances this year, many of them *also* being from Armored Core VI, it’s a really impressive win. He’s just too damn charming.
Best Story 2023: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon — AC6 is a story about corporations trying to take things for themselves and aren’t afraid to wage war to do it. It’s not hard to see why the Armored Core series has such an oppressive and bleak tone considering this is a recurring theme throughout the series. While I can’t speak for the other games, I know that a major factor of my enjoyment of AC6’s story was seeing the outcome of 621’s actions. Each playthrough gives you a different perspective on the characters. And more often than not you’ll find yourself fighting against old friends in a subsequent playthrough. The additional meta layer of the final route, the ALLMIND one is the most impressive of all though. And makes AC6 a game that everyone should play all the way to the end.
Biggest Surprise 2023: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon — Look. I really like Armored Core VI, okay? But I never could have imagined I would like it *this* much. There’s not much more to add at this point, it showed up and stole the show.
Biggest Disappointment 2023: Like A Dragon: Ishin! — After many years of hoping Sega and RGG would release this Yakuza spin-off game in the west, we finally got our wish. But was it worth the wait? Sadly not. I don’t think Ishin! Is bad by any means, but it’s easily the weakest RGG game in the series they’ve released here with the exception of Dead Souls. I still enjoyed my time with it, but I’m glad Gaiden came along as a palate cleanser before the next main course.
Best Moment 2023: Finally confronting Gary Miller at the end of Faith Chapter 3 (Faith: The Unholy Trinity) — Alright so *SPOILER WARNING* ahead, but I kind of have to spoil the best moment to actually talk about it. After dealing with the cult for the entire game, and the many messages left behind either by Gary or about Gary it’s only towards the end of the game where you finally see the man. The final section of the game involves John coming face to face with him. Surprisingly he’s just this bald dude wearing sunglasses.
You’re then presented with an opportunity to ask Gary different questions pertaining to some of the lingering questions and mysteries throughout the trilogy. As Gary answers you his face twists and distorts into increasingly more demonic imagery to go along with the chilling things he has to say.
When Gary decides the conversation is over, you’re thrust into a battle with him. He’s wielding a giant golden trident that he chucks at you before, and I shit you not, summing a torrential downpour of spiders while crying out “RAIN OF SPIDERS!” that echoes throughout the boss arena in the same Microsoft Sam voice the rest of the game is voiced by.
Suddenly a cutscene starts to play where Gary gets his face blown off by another character, a priest named Father Garcia who steps into the room pumping a shotgun. And this is all without getting into the true ending where even more crazy shit happens. It’s *such* a good finale for this game, and takes the win in a year full of equally amazing moments.
Best Gameplay: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon — Yes, more awards for Armored Core 6, but as I mentioned above playing this game feels like a dream. Despite the extremely fast paced and frantic combat, I always felt in control of my AC. It’s just damn good.
Best Boss Fight: Ice Worm (Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon) — Alright, I won’t spend too much time on this, it’s much better to see this for yourself. But one of the coolest missions in the game is when you and The Boyz all get together to take down the colossal worm that is keeping everyone away from their destination. This mission honestly reminds me a lot of the Radahn flight from Elden Ring, in that you’re riding into battle against a powerful foe with a squad at your side. There’s some great back and forth dialogue between the characters, and more opportunities for Rusty to be a badass. Definitely a highlight for me this year.
Z’s Award for Best “Hyperfixation” — Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon & Faith: The Unholy Trinity. — Not much to say here, if you read Z’s quips about these games you will understand, buddy.
Welcome back to long lists. You’re… welcome? Either way, if you somehow managed to stick around this long. Thank you so much, I truly appreciate it. I hope you got something out of it, whether that be a new game recommendation or just found it entertaining. Either way, that’s it for me. See you all next year!
