My 2023 Ranked

Notable games I played the majority of during 2023!
A great great year. I think it marks the beginning of my turn-based RPG honeymoon, playing quite a few, both older and modern. The highlight of this in particular are the fantastic Trails games which I never would have got into if it wasn't for the friends I made this year (shoutout).
I also spent a lot of time addicted to two particularly standout rogue-likes, slay the spire and necrodancer. These two games alone took up more than 500 hours of time for me this year and it's all thoroughly deserved.
Finally it's a massive year for visual novel-esque games as I played a fair few, 3 of which becoming some of my all time favourites: Ghost trick, VA-11 Hall-A, and Umineko (which I hadn't even finished).

So unbelievably fantastic and it's only one half.
I really liked it, then I replayed it and it became an all time favourite. Jill Stingray is my favourite character ever.
Probably the best JRPG I've played up to this point.
This deckbuilder will never be topped.
So charming, completely blew my expectations out of the water.
Didn't think it was as good as the first but still sits right next to it, this world is amazing.
So uniquely addictive, loved grinding for aria low% then kinda said goodbye.
Awesome improvement on the first game in many aspects, absolutely rocking.
It hit me quite hard, really knows how to connect to the player.
A decent story with an amazing and charming atmosphere given the clear budget constraints.
A true classic that I'll always appreciate.
I didn't love the main story of this yakuza entry but surprisingly everything else made up for it big time.
Amazing art, a HUGE amount of decisions, absolutely delivers what it promises.
Despite a bit of an underwhelming story that's very clearly setting up a sequel, this had lots of fun to offer with great attention to detail in many aspects.

15

I don't give a rats ass about the story that's being told but these puzzles are exquisite and, in some places, mindblowing.
Good game, just didn't stand out.
More of an insight than a game, but is well written and eye-opening.
Coming hot off persona 4 golden this felt fairly lackluster in comparison but still a very good time overall. Gameplay was great but there was loads of boring filler and the characters just weren't all that.
Very awesome puzzle concepts that ultimately felt under-utilised. The world and themes were still enjoyable.

20

Extremel innovative gameplay and some beatiful scenery.
It's aged horribly but I still had a lot of fun with it as a lara croft fanboy.
Rare return to soulful Sonic writing, but it is just a meme game in the end.
Honestly, way cooler than it looks.
The first playthrough wasn't very fun, all subsequent playthroughs were much more enjoyable.
Great presentation, good themes, story and gameplay (for an rpgmaker walking sim). Just a shame that personally I find storytelling through symbolism very difficult to engage with.
Fun game. Can see how it was a classic, it's aged alright but playing it for the first time in 2023 didn't hit very hard.
I really have no clue what this was but it was creepy and I liked it for that at least.
Cool rhythm game, just extremely short and the user made stuff didn't look as good (could be wrong but I didn't feel that compelled to investigate).
It's alright, too horny.
I spent more playtime on this than tomb raider 1 and I didn't even get 70% through the game (I then dropped it), it was so much less fun, needed to look at guides constantly.

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