2023 First Time Plays Ranked
Alright. Thats it. Roll credits. Interesting year in life for me rebuilding myself into an adult man. Not so interesting in games. Katamari was the highlight fr fr. Started getting into some crpgs, game passed on a whim, more indie games which were often mid, and game passed around.
Heres about three sentences about every game i played for the first time this year. There are some games floating around that I started or continued this year that I didn't feel confident in writing on yet so those will show up in a future list. Have a good year folks!
Heres about three sentences about every game i played for the first time this year. There are some games floating around that I started or continued this year that I didn't feel confident in writing on yet so those will show up in a future list. Have a good year folks!
106 Games
Katamari is a perfect game from start to finish. The scaling from stage to stage feels like a symphony gathering more instruments as your scope and idea of size changes throughout the whole experience. Deserves a full write up but that's in due time.
God Igarashi I'm a sucker for you. A smooth, creative, world hopping adventure with some of the rawest moments in the whole series. A castlevania for real castlevania sluts like myself.
3
Dandori, dandori, dandori and how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. The key piece that this entry focuses on in the Pikmin ethos is how satisfying it is to complete a set of objectives in as timely a fashion as possible. Throughout all this games fluff and faults this fact reigns true and for that I applaud this wonderful game.
So many of the excellent parts of katamari damage except with a focus on more content rather than the well scaled adventure of the first. Some parts with this change are fantastic, like the different princes you can collect and play as, though I just simply prefer the musings if the original. Still a true classic in its own right.
5
Maybe I just like art exhibits idk. This album/art gallery is just lovely, exposing me to a wonderful artist I hadn't seen before through a creative interpretation of his works through an interactive landscape. Love how much passion there is here made by someone who clearly adores this painter!
God so much content. The manwa RPG version of xcom we didn't know we needed. Very copaganda but God do I lose hours just going through builds and grinding up side content to transform my characters play styles. Very fun mind goop.
Really peaks in the endgame challenges to synthesize translations through the implicit teachings of syntax. While learning the definitions can have a simple plug and chug method a la return of the obra dinn, actually synthesizing the sentences you've read at the end is a really satisfying logical challenge. The story is quaint in overcoming the language barrier to find bonds in other groups, but I wouldn't say that element is as challenging or deep as the puzzles may get you to think it is.
The first monster tamer I'd probably recommend over pokemon to the common (not overwhelming involved in the genre type) people. Incorporates a divinity 2 inspired element interactions system into a type chart that makes attacking weaknesses have much more complex implications than just damage multipliers. The world is more adult or perhaps more YA but that's more fun than the kiddy conflicts of defeating terrorists in pokemon
Endearingly Midwestern. Not nostalgic in a sense of grabbing a person's attention with something they used to like. Instead a self reflective embrace of loving who you are and have been, instead of rejecting whatever cringe you may have had in the past. Good gameplay too.
Shadowrun is such a dorky setting but man they have fun with it in this game. Definitely a good cast that explores the aspects of the world well, really convinces you that it can be cool! The combat, writing, and character building is all quite good but I wish the companion quests didn't make me quit the game.
I have a craving for a single player card game all about collecting cards and using your own creativity to beat challenges. Less about a meta of symmetric possibilities for decks, and more about how you individually handle these challenges. This one is a great example of what I want, though early pokemon tcg is janky as hell.
12
Yes I do enjoy starfield more than tears of the kingdom. Both are defo busy work open world games but I really love the smaller intimate settings of starfields settlements. These small spaces that act as isolated pockets from one place to the next really keep me engaged in exploring the galaxy!
More Lego Sets to BOTW's Legos. I go back and forth on this but honestly the challenges are fun and there's tons more incentives to interact with all parts of the game, but with time it becomes tedious and repetitive. The tools you have give you much less meaningful ways to interact with different systems of the world, it's more just piece these objects together so you can move on. Still fun challenges, but not really a GOAT or even close.
I probably shouldn't like this as much as I do but God I love the developing town setting and the incredible cast that charmed me in a way most jRPG characters do not. I'll live with some grindy mechanics for this writing and setting, can't wait for the 100 heroes!
15
A great multiplayer experience of collaborative problem solving. Though quite frankly the end game is tedious, I still had a joy designing stuff for the first several hours of the game. One of the best games I've played with friends!
Glory be to this combat system, where elements interact in unique cause and effect ways creating a whole system of interactions for you to poke and prod your way through both in each combat scenario as well as in the party builder. Story's mid but damn if building characters for these unique situations isn't a ton of fun.
A point and click version of Lucas Pope's Return of the Obra Dinn that is much more condensed with smaller scenarios and overall is actually good. Quite enjoyable to piece things together though sometimes I found it a bit too obtuse to work through the mad libs style detective report. Still a delightful mystery game.
An absolute joy of a starter shmup for me. It's very easy but my ass still got beat at first haha. I love theres an easy mode to try out the first 3 levels out with before moving on to the main game! It's taught me a lot about what to look for in controls for these games and how to follow bullet patterns, so I look forward to playing more shmups!
19
Very magical when you explore with only your wits and some tidbits of information from the manual. Really modernizes the best parts of the exploration in 3rd gen games like Metroid, Zelda, and Castlevania 2. Still it's the type of game where fighting bosses doesn't test any skills you've practiced so far which makes the endgame fairly tedious.
Chunks up city building into such a digestible rogue like it really suits everything I like about both genres while being easy to pick up and put down. The asthetics are cool and I'm curious if there's any real narrative here but we'll see.
My frog detective this year. Fun narrative with good charm and humor that doesn't take longer than a couple of hours. If they turned sonic into an adv series then honestly I wouldn't be upset.
In the same vein as custom robo arena for me, it's a well rounded enjoyable ds romp! The battle system in particular is very interesting with managing the level of risk you're putting your best dinosaurs into while extracting the most damage output. If you like this sort of ds shtick I would recommend!
The more complicated of the two dlcs, but also the most wholly complete feeling one. The part two style conclusion gives the hardest challenges given by the game so far, though it from time feels unnecessarily complicated. Still I enjoyed this much more thoroughly than the last dlc.
A bona-fide hidden gem. A kitchen sink 3D platformer that has tons of inspiration from all over the history of platformers. There's rarely a dull moment and it does not over stay its welcome!
25
The children yearn for a briskly paced jrpg with a variety of interesting set pieces, and by the children I mean me. It's like the promise of chrono trigger but with engaging combat and excellent dungeons, or I guess chrono trigger but good. The blandness of the protagonists stifles the package but it's still a good time!
A reflective piece that is very gamey and aware of its nature. I like it as a great mood piece though quite frankly might be more fun to discuss than to play. A series of levels that can only exist within the tapestry of video games that hold no meaning without such context. Very cool!
NISs danganronpa except kinda not. The focus of the writing is less teenagers' hope vs despair and more what the role and meaning of a detective is in detective stories. Aka it's fun, but not sauced up. Very short, also God what an awful ending lmao
Really wants to be a refined sort of modern Xenogears but lacks a lot of the secret sauce. The cast of characters is good and the geopolitics is fun but thematically never really builds on much more than power is corrupting and bad, which is laid out pretty cleanly in the first act. A good combat system could really save this but while its very streamlined it ends up feeling thin, where every puzzle based encounter (think ff iv) is solved with a very bland set of tools that makes it tiresome halfway through the experience
29
I think I love this game? Or I hate it? Sits in my mind rent free and makes we want to play through different builds and what not, buuuut it's also the most unsatisfactory run based game I've ever beaten. Moment to moment is great but as soon it's over I'm left feeling kinda empty. Hella ambivalent about this one
What if we made chess but stupid is a concept I fuck with. There's a whole meta strategy on how not to lose in like 3 turns that comes down to the type chart, but there's not really much depth. Just make your queen offensive enough to destroy a bunch of stuff, it's fun.
31
Really cool potion making Recettear like with some of the best canned animations I've ever seen in a 3D game. Though it quickly turns into a stress simulator as you reload saves trying to figure out what you've done wrong. Tries to let you do a bit of everything then you realize you've done everything wrong and have to start over. A mixed bag
32
A game I was looking forward to a lot after playing the demo. Currently it needs a lot of tinkering (it's in early access), but I am disappointed by the single player adventure mode. While it sometimes shines with the challenges it really feels like there's a sequential order to the deck archetypes you unlock and there's no need for experimentation outside of the precons. It's a small team so let's see what this game looks like a year from now.
33
Bought this cuz of baseball. It's so weird to have a game that's just mid shovel knight. That game came out 9 years ago now, idk why there wouldn't be throwbacks to it. But yeah, time is currently linear.
Kinda like an early Racthet Clank, feels a bit more ps2 than psx. The level based design works a lot better than the semi open ended structure of the first game but it's more of it reminds me of things I like than me actually liking it.
An ys game where I want to avoid fights? There's a lot of ways you can slice this cake but at the end of the day it's pacing is messed up and there's too much back tracking. Combat can be fun but it also feels kinda pointless when you're fighting the same stuff over and over again.
I wrote my review, though still cool that this exists. I'm glad squenix funded this even though the narrative falls a bit flat.
It's got the gameplay loop tm so you get what you get. Gets a bit frustrating once combat gets introduced but nothing like a nice simplistic city builder to vibe with for a few hours.
Combat didn't do enough for me to want to see this game through to the end, tbh could make an interesting rogue like but the jrpg stuff is just kinda aight. Combat is good but just tedious enough to where I didn't feel like going off the deep end. Clearly made with love it definitely is cooking up something but it didn't resonate with me too much.
Understands one of the ten commandments: mushrooms are cool. A short hike for 3d platform enthusiasts, which is so close to being my thing. It honestly just felt too long for me and it was like 3 hours haha. Not dynamic enough to appeal to my sensibilities.
It's certainly cool how games like this can put small things in to encourage subconsciously the group playing to interact in unique ways. Still the silly spooky space proletariat simulator doesn't have much beyond that as a game. The monsters are cool to learn about and play against but just picking up trash in a hard to navigate proc gen environment is meh. Well see what this game looks like in a year but that's my take on the mess.
41
Chinese Silk Song? It gets hollow knight esque exploration quite well and is a good time. More of a satisfactory search action that shows how the genre is developing with grace rather than some standard of the genre
Have I become a northernlion Stan? Oh God. I always wanted to get into autobattlers, this one taught me what makes them fun but also why they really aren't worth it lmao. Good f2p model tho
I'll put this back to back with SAP. Autobattles are so interesting to puzzle through and doing a single player one seemed like a perfect for me, someone who does not want to study league enough to competently play an autobattler. Still no matter what combos I create there's no direct feeling to any of it, I beat three runs in a row and I can't describe you how any were different from one another. I find myself coming back to this only to end up unsatisfied.
Oh god, am I growing out of uchikoshi? Like the peaks of this were a lot of fun and I really enjoy modern uchikoshis more empathetic theming.... but this plot just lost me after the time skip. There wasn't some burning sensation to keep going at that point it just all slid apart for me. sigh now I'm scared to replay vlr
45
A game with enough spunk that deserves its fan base. Effectively the roguelite structure of dead cells mixed with arcady Overwatch-esque shooting, unfortunately I'm a overwatch hater so this is not for me. The vibes are certainly there tho.
A game full of decisions, just not very interesting ones. For example the customizability of the mechs that really only exists to obscure the preprogrammed optimum builds for each character. I dig a lot of it in concept though, look forward to diving into the sequels as their remakes come out.
47
Uhhhhhhhh, mid I guess. I don't really get any appeal for this game, like it's too easy to have any kind of tension outside of player invasion. And for a game about failure and adaption I don't really see what's going on here.
Maybe I'll change my opinion on this later but it's missing the mark for me. Incredible music and style but the level progression doesn't really enrapture me into engaging with the mechanics. Ultimately it falls a bit flat, I'll probably come back to it tho.
Out of all the singleplayer card games I've played this year this is certainly the most blase. Tbh gwent as a card game can only really work if you're able to play with many different strategies, this does not hold the attention long enough to get there.
Shit got no rigor. Surprisingly I like the art style a lot. I think if the characters were something different than just the p5 characters this could have been a lot more interesting. Still the tactics side is perfectly ok, its engaging and communicate p5 mechanics really well.
Its such an improvement on the first that the worn down feeling at the end made me realize how mid the first game is. This is mid too just less so, the writing is pretty much the sole improvement and it's good! However to play two games with the exact same classes and skill trees when they are both quite mid, oof no bueno.
52
For all the chaos left in the wake of gone home it's pretty innocuous. A girl discovers everything that led her "I'm not like the other girls" sister to run away from home. Pretty cute and tame, I not sure if it'd be remembered that much if it weren't for le gamergate.
Ignoring the core plot, much of the story found in here through Collectibles and what not is how cultural artifacts change with time depending on the circumstances of the current era. Though really the aspect you have to face first and foremost in Shibuya is gentrification and how commercialization has affected what culture remains of an area once rich with it. It's a pretty mid game if you break it into it's pieces, particularly when they force you into story missions, but I like exploring the lived in gentrification.
54
Short games that still struggles to hold my interest for that long. Its a cool concept that I certainly enjoyed for a bit there but ultimately it's fairly forgettable.
55
Wow asthetically cool! What a great soundtrack! My first Kojima game! God this guy is a dork, like the way he writes women is just uncomfortable af. This story is very mid, like yeah it's blade runner but without any of the humanity of bladerunner, some low key copaganda.
56
I kinda want to write a review on this. From a gameplay perspective it's wonderful but I think it's very uncritical of industrialization. Like it almost has a point but then instead it just points at and goes "wow isn't that just crazy, imagine if there was an alternative lmao".
Glad I gave it a shot but it's not for me. A pretty sound money/upgrade loop that goes very slowly to give it that cozy small town feel. Respect that, just not for me I think
A rather frustrating end to the second chapter kinda sinks the pacing of the whole experience. It's just kinda find, the length does not really lend itself to the interesting long form mystery of the main game. I'll see how the other dlc is soon.
It's a mechanically ok version of paper Mario. How much you like it depends on how charming you find it ig. Really wanted to love this one but it's just kinda flat to me unfort
Disappointed I don't like this at much but it really comes down to two things. One, I don't like the tonal whiplash of this game. I'm usually down for ffs comedy/melodrama but this leans to hard on the comedy side to work well imo. Two, it lacks any challenge to push you to experiment with the classes. If you do a Fiesta challenge I can see this being more fun but the game as is lacks the optimizing confidence for that.
A competent 90s western fighting game for moderate prices. Satisfactory!
Decidedly not for me. Not that team ninjas games don't appeal, I look forward to playing strangers of paradise and night, but the sort of personality less romance of the three kingdoms left me feeling vague and emotionless in my attempts to play this. Maybe if I become a three kingdoms buff this will appeal to me buy idk, I'll probably revisit it later in life.
I have no real fighting game experience and treasure was just like "get this man's ass." Too hard for me to play tbh but it's cool that it exists I think
Baseballs weakest soldier
65
This visual style speaks to me so often but if I had to play more of these generic dodge and slash aRPGs to completetion I might quit the medium. Good thing I don't!
It's addictive, and everybody hates that. Imo it's just an empty shell of a game. As a castlevania fan the asthetics are hella whack, dude who made this is a dork. Still as a game it's a time waster, nothing more, nothing less. We gotta acknowledge that the reason some people play games is just to kill time, anything deeper is secondary.
As an aside I unmatched with a gal on hinge for saying that was her chops. I ain't wasting my good dick energy on that smh
As an aside I unmatched with a gal on hinge for saying that was her chops. I ain't wasting my good dick energy on that smh
Horny vita dRPG? Horny vita dRPG. Focuses on being accessible by taking out any potentionally interesting game mechanics and replacing it with loot.
A very good opening that spirals into monotony quickly. Party members are cool... if only they had a personality or good gameplay balance. Def the least impressionable game of my DQ journey so far.
I was looking forward to this after playing shadowrun Hong Kong and seeing what they were cooking up asthetically here. Unfortunately even if you get past the plethora of glitches and crashes you're only really left with an ok xcom like. Feels like this could've definitely used some more time in the oven, sigh.
Perfectly fine battlefield like. I think the map design really lacks the personality to make it shine. Going into places really has that this is building A vs B kinda vibe. Proximity chat is grand tho.
It aint pushin p, some rogue games hit, some do not. Like I see all the strategy and its complex and accessible, but I'm not engaged with it at all. Maybe it's the weak art style, idk
Broo what??? Larian needs to hire a good writing team on God, what a boring set up for a boring plot and lemme tell divinity 1 combat ain't carrying it.
Oh god! Not persona pacing in a Musuo game! Anything but that!!
On God I'm hitting my mech glow up phase. This one is serviceable but I'd rather dig into some of the more interesting mech games out there rather than this
Too much fluff, not enough engaging stuff. The jobs seem like they could be good but idk there wasn't much holding my attention after a certain point.
I thought this was ok. Very straight forward man capitalism really sucks the soul out of you with an eldritch murder horror kinda thing. It's pleasant but it doesn't elevate me or anything.
Nice try. Love that ai mafia stuff a la gnosia, but this def feels like unpolished license game.
78
As a known hyper lighter hater, this is solid at points. It's bogged down in its dorkiness, like reading a 13 year Olds fan fiction library. Wish there was something interesting to talk about with this one but eh.
1 v 1 except instead of it being tense it's about whiddling down an exaggerated health bar. Conceptually interesting, very tedious in practice.
Yeah I don't vibe with this. Very of it's time but it doesn't do anything I'd want out of a sports game. I find it hard to get excited in a two button game ig. Also never look into Karl Malone and John Stocktons politics, big yikes there
81
The action of watching through all these clips doesn't vibe with me unfort. Intriguing in its ambition but I won't see it through to the end.
82
Compelling asthetic that doesn't build to much. The gameplay is just some basic lock and key / flip the switches type of puzzles that require minimal thought. Kinda hard to motivate myself to finish it even though it's only 4 hours long.
83
A gameplay loop game. If any individual element was a standout this might be decent little thing but it instead the loop is more of a tedious mind melter. Not insidious or anything just unenthusiastic.
84
Its catan on discord, a solidly made game about gaming probabilities but id rather just bet on horses tbh
85
Idk it's small scale hitman ig but it's not really narratively or mechanically engaging. It took me little time to figure out what the path I was supposed to go on is and I was like "damn now I have to do all that over and over again til its perfected, sounds like work." I'm sure this hits for plenty people but I thought it was bland
We watched one too many episodes of lain and all the sudden the Russians are trauma posting in a viral video game. Someone could something out of this probably. That person is not me
Oooof, the vibes are off. This game has always stood as a "I should probably play this" even if I've gone back and forth on whether I think it'd be fun or not. The brawler mechanics are quite good but if I have to hear the word furtizen one more time I might die.
As an aside, the furry action hero/femme Fatale really hits different, idk how they do it.
As an aside, the furry action hero/femme Fatale really hits different, idk how they do it.
Maybe I'm becoming an aRPG purist? This shit controls like you're trying to roll a log through mud by yourself. I dig a lot of the stuff going on with day/night etc. but it's just not enjoyable to play moment to moment.
Too janky. Too boring. Too flat. Too mid.
90
Conceptually very interesting, but it's nit very good. A lotta hoopla where the core gameplay loop is just tedium at nauseum
91
Euro Trash deragatory
It's either cringe or just not for me I can't tell. Very invested in South Asian Americans and queerness in a scott pilgrim esque package but idk if this will ever be something I get into.
Nothing says an arcade laundromat quite like a nepotism baby doing some gentrification. Also you get to actually do laundry, yay.
Boring writing. Dorky setting. Sequels are worth playing tho
So saccharine I'm gonna vomit. I can enjoy some cutesy stuff like the rest of the homies, but this is too much for me. Elsewise it's kirby. It's fine.
I think the ending where you have sex with her enough to where she becomes a sex addict and only wants to sleep with you is emblematic to why I don't really like this. Like I get it, she's self destructive. Trying to put social media in this tries at some kinda statement about "society" but the work is really just a self indulgent mess that feels pointlessly jaded at its core.
MMO combat? On my DS? Begone wench
A really horribly made game that drops frames even though it could run on a potatoe. Nothing in any gameplay sense really makes up for what can be a very draining "comedy writing" experience. Some on going bits fill me with the thoughts that the creators could improve their writing in the future, but it's definitely too self referential, 4th wall break, and memey.
99
This is like a 5 hour game where nothing happens for the first 3, it's crazy.
100
Loves the smell of its own farts.