The immediate impulse is to say that 2023 is a terrific year for videogames. Development bottlenecks from the last few years of the pandemic eased themselves out and many great games were finally completed and made their way into our idle hands. Whenever there is this much content, there is also some underlying reason why, and that ties into the state of the industry, as we have seen just the beginning of a big wave of studio closures and layoffs for so many games workers. There continues to be a lack of serious integrity in the systems that provide people jobs to make the games we love. So, before we get deep into all the great things we have played, it’s worthwhile to remember that people make all of these games, that the process is long and arduous, and rarely provides ample enough job security for the amazing work being done. Honor game developers and pay them well. This is our biggest entertainment industry and the work being done is valuable.
All that said, we’ve collectively had some incredible experiences with games over the last year. We’ve played games to reflect upon birth, life, and friendship, we’ve played games because games are awesome, we’ve played games because people make games that deserve to be played and talked about. As such, our staff and a few community members have submitted some beautiful work about the best games they’ve played in 2023 — notably, we’ve allowed our friends to write about any game, franchise, or experience that defined their year, and not just products that have released within the last calender year. The other thing to think about with the present state of games, after all, is how to preserve the history of games while still investing in the games that benefit working developers.
Happy New Year’s from all of us at The Twin Geeks — please enjoy the following lists and let us know which games defined your year in our Discord.
Fading Afternoon — by Murph
Fading Afternoon was a sleeper indie release this year. Those in the know about developer Yeo’s immersive throwbacks to Rivercity-era beat em’ ups call it their best work. They’re the kind of games that have little pieces of interactivity for immersion’s sake. Fading Afternoon in particular has a dedicated button for lighting up a cigarette (which does nothing mechanically). I can’t lie and say that I’m familiar with Yeo’s previous two games, or that Fading Afternoon is my Game of the Year. I’m just playing it in these last weeks of the year and wanted to highlight a particular moment.
Fading Afternoon puts you in the shoes of Seiji Maruyama, a career Yakuza just being released from prison after an undisclosed number of years. Your former boss in the Azuma Family sets you up in a hotel and offers your old position, if you want it. Now that you’re out of the hoosegow your time is yours to do with as you wish…for the time you have left.
Seiji’s health bar goes up to 999, but you start the game at 550. You can’t get it back. It’s meant to show how much of his youth and vitality he’s left behind in this violent business. Your first day back he rolls out of bed and coughs up blood. Your maximum health ticks down to 546. Seiji is dying and you need to decide how he’s going out.
If you choose to fight to reclaim the Azuma Family’s lost glory, then be prepared to account for that dwindling health. This particular moment, towards the end of my first run of the game, I was down to 20 maximum health, barely enough to survive a kick to the gut. It was winter, snow covering the ground, and I was out there throwing hands against dudes that had brought broken bottles and katanas to a fistfight.
Last time I lost a brawl, the doctor told Seiji that his next trip to the hospital could be his last. I had to play perfectly. Knowing when to counter, when to grab, when to keep an eye on my six in case a dude with a handgun waltzed up. The enemies seem endless and all the while the jazzy soundtrack is building to a pitch as the dude on the saxophone goes crazy.
Then it stops. Enemy reinforcements stop arriving. The soundtrack fades back to the background, a piano and snare melody that wouldn’t be out of place in a Peanuts special. Seiji squats down in the snow. As a player, you can keep him in that position as long as you like, or you can dwell on where you’re at just like he is. I hit the dedicated smoking button. Seiji lights one up, but doesn’t move from his position. We both sit and watch the snowfall. It’s been a longer and harder year than I’d like to admit. We both needed that smoke break. — MURPH
Forza Motorsport — by Stephen
A couple of months ago everything fell apart. Or at least it felt like it had. Without divulging too much, I was placed in a powerless position where it seemed like a loved one could very much die. And things were not getting better.
Living with this person and being able to do nothing — and seeing that medical professionals could not only do nothing but had also been negligent to the point we were in this position — was completely soul crushing.
So, I played a lot of Forza.
This wasn’t me being absentee, I promise. While the majority of my time was now dedicated to care (even if I could ostensibly do nothing), I had many portions of trapped time – as rest was the best help for my loved one’s situation – where my default state was paranoid spiralling. So, I played a lot of Forza. Forza had the appeal of being Forza, and I like Forza. I also was fed up with the Horizon games (Forza Horizon, that is, I’ve never played those PlayStation games – make Killzone 4, you cowards (and let’s not talk about Shadowfall)), the do-anything openness became a flattening tick box wasteland to me where nothing really mattered. What I wanted was a proper, discrete racing game with specific races in which I had to learn a track. One race at a time, one cup at a time, every corner matters.
I like racing sims but I don’t know enough about them to properly evaluate them. Is Forza a good racing sim? I’ve no idea, really. I can’t tell you if the racing model is solid and I don’t engage with the really fiddly stuff enough to know if that is good enough. What I do is race. I pick my car and I dedicate myself to the track. It is an all-consuming thing, for me. One of my very favourite things in video games (it’s why I love Dark Souls so much) is repeating a space with mastery in mind. Go again, again, again and do it more right every time. That’s Forza for me.
But Forza for me was really about control. It was really a game where everything I did mattered and where I was completely in control. If I messed up a corner, it was because I wasn’t doing enough and I could get better. Through my effort and dedication I could, ostensibly, fix things. I could work on my car and make it faster; I could work on my driving and make it better. I could, through sheer tenacity, win and victory was always possible. I was worth it if I put enough work in. And I needed a space that let me do that. When everything else was spiralling, and where nothing I did could mean anything and my efforts felt wasted (even if they weren’t in some grander sense), Forza was there for me. One corner at a time. Forza gave me control. — STEPHEN
Dark Souls — by Calvin
Something awoke in me this year when I powered through Dark Souls while processing a familial loss. I had been banging my head against it for a couple of years. Which was like picking it up, engaging moderately, and then deciding to shelve it in favor of games that better suit the Dad Lifestyle. That all changed this year.
My beloved Grandma was in the hospital. And she wasn’t the same. Wasn’t coming out of this one. I do not wish to trivialize grief in this way but it unlocked something powerful for me.
I was finally on the right wavelength for Dark Souls. I had been picking it up often now, as I was processing this new trauma. I went to visit my Grandma and she wasn’t the same as she had ever been. The images are burned into my brain now. I will carry them with me forever, but I got to go and tell her that we love her.
In my brain, I rewound to my first living memories. At my Grandma’s house playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis / MegaDrive, the first game and console that were mine. This presented a kind of cyclical event. I had to go back. I had to tap into the very moment that I knew I loved games.
It happened early with Sonic. It was when I realized that the way to play Sonic, antithetically, was not to speed through the levels. That is not the design that rewards the player. These are not only left-to-right platforming levels. You should go right and then also go left and maybe twist through some pipes and bounce off some spheres and boost up to new heights. You didn’t need power-ups or nothing. The hedgehog just had that hog in him and he could do what the game required of him without any hedgehog-enhancing power-ups.
Here is where Dark Souls finally landed for me. I realized that the game was not a grind at all. I had every tool I needed to do what the game was asking me to do. I just needed to work out how to do it. I needed not to run straight, but also to go right, and then left, and maybe up, and work my way through the labyrinthian halls of Lordran.
What began to occur to me and inevitably proved itself to be true is that Dark Souls is also about the cycles of life. This playthrough, which took two years and a couple of weeks of serious effort, was just one way that I would move through the game. I understand with a deeper capacity for its design, exactly what the game was trying to show me.
The deaths became… not punishments anymore but instructive lessons about how I was engaging with the mechanical design of the world. I had to stop playing the game with the instincts I picked up from thirty years of playing games and had to play the game like a newborn. I had to unwrite all of the rules and the lingo of videogames from my brain and process it differently. I had to get through Ornstein and Smough, even if it took me fifty tries because everything else in life was feeling harder than losing that battle again and again.
I had to go back to my Grandma’s house, playing Sonic the Hedgehog. I had to revert back to my Child Brain. I had to unwrite my entire life of learning and become willing to honor this new system of codes and beliefs. For these and many other reasons, Dark Souls is one of the most profound videogames I’ve had the honor of playing. I also came to this realization that the way I played it wasn’t wrong.
Dark Souls had been there waiting for me all this time. It just took grief for me to meet the game on its own terms. This can tell us something intrinsic about videogames and how they operate. How we connect to them over time and how our entire context of understanding them is informed by what we play and how we play it. If you want to understand how most videogames work, play everything else first, and then unlearn everything you know, and play Dark Souls.
It’s waiting for you. It’s only a matter of time. — CALVIN
Splatoon 3 — by DD
Even though it released in autumn of last year, Splatoon 3 has been, perhaps remained, or, even more likely, has become only this year a game of some importance for me. Curiously, this cannot be credited to the game itself; if anything, Splatoon 3 has remained relevant despite itself, despite embodying disappointment like few other titles in recent memory. Of course, disappointment is a relative phenomenon, one only as potent as the launchpad of expectations wound up by previous successes. Whether it’s the murky balance of weapons and abilities which has sped up the splatting over the years in ways in which the netcode never could keep up with, whether it’s the plethora of half-steps that should have been full strides forward already in the previous iteration, whether it’s the insipid, one-dimensional map design, the trickling pace with which the game tries to remain exciting, the dubious DLC offerings, or the largely unmemorable soundtrack – the game gets by on parts of what it always was and on being the most recent manifestation of that. However, it also has kept its head high as the game I could always fall back on to play with a group of friends in a time where my capacities and energy for this beloved interest of mine has become scarce. And more than that, Splatoon 3 hosted a most unlikely story of a random teammate online contacted on a whim (thanks to their display name being a Discord tag) who promptly joined and since then completes a wonderful group of international knuckleheads always ready to curse and cuss together at snipers and brushes, useless teammates and busted specials, and any other given thing that can be blamed from afar. To have met this person in Rome this year was a particular joy, and if the Atlantic can be overcome next year for a meeting with the other half, it will be a great year on that merit alone. Finally, it will likely be another year in which Splatoon 3 remains a constant in my life – and that prospect is in equal parts surprising, annoying, and delightful. — DD
Street Fighter 6 — by Bro
Street Fighter 6 may or may not be the cause but it has heralded the next generation of players. With its accessible and innovative systems and features that still provide stylish depth and fast-paced action, it reminded me why I loved the genre in the first place. In a way, these are games at their most…game. It’s a sport, of equal skill and player opportunity. No overproduced cutscenes or obnoxious marketing gimmicks. It’s like any other great sport, you can play it casually with your friends and goof off or explore one of the most profound things any art or experience can do: encourage you to grow. Do not be scared of the genre, do not be scared of the game or the people playing. Once a fighting game connects with a player, you’ll be a fan forever. — BRO
Alan Wake 2 — by Nick
There’s a moment early on in Alan Wake 1 (2010) where writer Alan Wake finds himself trapped in a nightmare. Alan was behind the wheel of his car, driving fast. He didn’t see the hitchhiker on the road. He had come to a sudden stop, and now the hitchhiker was dead and copies of his latest book, The Sudden Stop, were scattered across the pavement. Except the hitchhiker wasn’t quite dead, and stood back up, corrupted by darkness. The hitchhiker called out to Alan and demanded to know what right Alan had to play around with the lives of the characters in the books he wrote all for the sake of the drama.
It’s a cute moment that came across as a meta joke, a neat little bit of flavor to fuel the anxiety-driven nightmare, establishing Alan as a man who’s used to controlling the world within a story. It was also an early glimpse at the main threat in the plot, that being the story Alan himself had written while trapped in the dark place that had become real, controlling the lives of the people living in Bright Falls and manipulating them for the sake of the drama. The plot felt less like a meta-narrative, and more of an extension of an idea, disconnected from the story by a set of immediate objectives in which Alan chased kidnappers and escaped a gaslighting psychiatrist in search of his missing wife.
In Alan Wake 2 (2023) there’s a moment later on in the game where writer Alan Wake, famous for writing a series of books about a detective named Alex Casey, is sitting inside a motel with an FBI agent named Alex Casey. Sam Lake, the creator of Alan Wake, stars as the image of Alex Casey, along with James McCaffrey as the voice (a dual role that played a heavy nod to Max Payne (2001)). Alex accused Alan of using the suffering of others to further his own plots, manipulating their tragedies into the story for the sake of the drama.
The choices for casting and character design, for plot threads nodding to previous Remedy games were very specific, making the story of Alan Wake 2 a constant gift, especially to their fans. It should be said that Alan Wake 2 isn’t a sequel that survived entirely on references and Easter Eggs, but used these call backs as a means to create something new, to layer meaning and twist expectation. The meta aspect to the storytelling was no longer just a backdrop, a setting with an appropriate McGuffin for Alan to find for the sake of the drama, but its own narrative thread bound to the story. It was no longer a separate entity, no longer a plot device to drive the story forward but an idea embedded into the narrative itself and was absolutely brilliant for it. — NICK
Cassette Beasts — by Cody
Gaming in 2023 has been great for me. Nostalgia trips like Warhammer 40k: Boltgun and Bomb Rush Cyperfunk have contemporized their inspirations while wielding their own mechanical weight. Larian’s hit title, Baldur’s Gate 3, has pushed my favorite genre into the zeitgeist’s eye while highlighting what the developers excel at, constructing rich sandboxes where player autonomy is respected in a way that almost rivals authentic tabletop experiences. It’s truly liberating. Bethesda’s Starfield has been an uneven ride, but the moments where the stellar visual design marries the sonic diegetics have birthed genuine wonder. And, of course, none of this matches the amazement of actually getting a brilliant Pokémon game with Cassette Beasts. — CODY
Persona 5 — by Juno
Up to this year, I had never committed to a true JRPG; the time-to-complete always seemed so daunting. That was until by my dear friend Reinier’s recommendation I finally started playing his favorite game in August: Persona 5. On his initiative, we’d even set aside a couple of hours on our movie marathon days to have me play this with his guidance through the myriad of oblique mechanics. Aside from fighting in typical turn-based JRPG-fashion, the game also has a significant amount of slice-of-life story that greatly intertwines with the plot of saving the world.
Over the span of what is to become a 100-hour journey (a trait I would bemoan in the past), I would encounter some amazing friends, each with their own desires and struggles. Early on, I spent quite some time with Ryuji, who has been unable to pursue his calling in track team after a serious injury. In the first “Palace” (the Persona term for dungeon), I had to take down someone who also happened to have wronged Ryuji in the past. After this was done, I kept hanging out with Ryuji and saw him gradually recover. Despite empathizing with Futaba, an agoraphobic hacker haunted by trauma of losing her mother, it was hard acquiring her social trust for a larger part of the game. I wasn’t able to complete her full self-actualization, but I hope I was a good enough friend to her to help her be in a better place.
My largest obstacle came to me around the fifth palace, somewhere between 50 and 60 hours into the game. The boss battle at the end takes place on a half-hour countdown timer until the palace blows up. I had to battle my way through waves of disposable robot employees, which at one point are deemed so disposable the boss orders them to blow up and be replaced every 2 turns. Fighting the countdown, waves and turn limits all at once is what makes this known as the most frustrating boss battle in what is already the most frustrating palace. Failing this boss battle multiple times made me demotivated, and I stopped showing up for a re-match for a while. It took me another visit by Reinier with some in-person moral and tactical support to try it again. With a few minutes left on the counter it was not just me on the controller who had defeated the fifth boss. We did it together. This was what the game is all about in the end: overcoming adversity with friends. — JUNO
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — by Froo
I’ve never considered myself good at video games.
Or, more specifically, good at games that you can be good at. And outside of that? My skills are still middling by my standards.
I’m fine at Guitar Hero. I’ve only played The Sims with cheats enabled. I’ve historically preferred to explore Minecraft on peaceful difficulty. Just in 2023, I got frustrated with Kirby and the Forgotten Land when I realized the ending wasn’t really the ending and I haven’t picked it back up since.
I never considered that I’d enjoy any Legend of Zelda game for precisely this reason. My partner let me dink around in Breath of the Wild when he was finished with it, and I never even got to the first temple. In fact, after my third encounter with a Guardian, I politely popped the cartridge out of the Switch and returned it to my partner.
Too scary. Too difficult. I simply was Not Good at it.
Cut to summer 2023. I have my own Switch and I have beef with the hero of Planet Popstar, which means I’m back to obliterating hours of my life in Animal Crossing Happy Home Paradise, a game I’m also not allowed to consider myself good at. My partner pops out the cartridge for Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom upon completion and waggles it at me, an enticing gesture, and I say no.
But.
I think about it.
I’ve been peeking at my partner playing the game. We’ve been watching Let’s Plays. I like the creativity, I like the freedom. I like that I could dress Link up and craft food and ride a pony around Hyrule.
I ask if I can try the game and I approached it like watching a movie I’ve been looking forward to. On a morning by myself, I fixed myself a nice breakfast and some coffee, dimmed the lights, and began Tears of the Kingdom. I was transfixed. Hours went by in just the tutorial area alone as I learned my new skills and tackled every new problem in any way I could imagine. My partner came home from his morning shift to find that I’d been so engrossed that I completed no chores. I didn’t even walk the dog. I hadn’t moved from that spot since I began playing.
This only continued, for weekends on end (but with scheduled breaks to take care of chores). Every nook and cranny that I could shove myself into along my journey, I did, but this was also how I began encountering the dreaded sensation of being Not Good at the game. Even on that first day, I reached the point where Rauru asks Link to have a leap of faith, eventually leading him out of the tutorial area. I was–inexplicably and unequivocally–failing at this, and simply falling to my death. My partner helped me troubleshoot this very first problem, but my frustration only grew. I was Not Good at the game.
I couldn’t defeat a Lynel. I couldn’t figure out how to craft good food. I didn’t know how to confront Gloom Hands or find my way around the Depths under Hyrule. I wasn’t sure how to make good weapons or reliably defeat the Yiga warriors I ran into during my travels. I vented this to my partner one weekend, and I finally received the sage advice I needed.
“You’re not bad at the game. The game wants you to figure it out.”
Sure enough, if I kept tackling the problem, I figured it out, and usually only losing weapons or crafting materials in the process. The game wanted me to try different avenues to solve problems and shape my adventure. I began to notice that along the way, I’d catch glimpses of alternative methods I could’ve used: other pathways, maybe some crafting materials or a weapon. None of these different options were correct or preferred, they were simply there.
And I’m still going, just taking my time and figuring out the game.
I don’t know if I’m good at Tears of the Kingdom, but for the first time ever, I’m not worried about it. — FROO
Super Mario Bros. Wonder — by Vaughn
After languishing for the better part of two decades in the land of perfectly passable, side-scrolling Mario returns with a complete overhaul to drag the series out of mediocrity and nostalgia grabs. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is not just a refreshingly novel entry in gaming’s longest-running franchise, but a complete and total joy that proves the full scope of creativity that games allow, as stunning a vision of possibility as its originator was in 1985. Wonder is the kind of innovative, passionate game that has been almost exclusively reserved for the 3D, globe-trotting platformer half of the series since Super Mario 64. It’s colorful, vibrant, and vastly creative to a degree that almost seems impossible.
At its core, of course, is the kind of snappy and responsive platforming that never left, thoughtfully designed stages that encourage a breadth of gameplay styles, approaches to platforming and exploration. These core mechanics are now supported by a truly incredible new coat of paint, ditching long-running aesthetic ideas that had grown stale and ugly, reforming designs in a way that feels more lively and stylistically intentional, coupled with bespoke and perfectly tuned animation that is expressive and always a joy to unpick. After a lot of games that just felt like more of the same, no matter how well made, these new ideas about how Mario can look and feel give this particular Nintendo niche the same gravitas and impact as recent entries in its other storied franchises.
Though Wonder is a stylistic marvel, its true power lies in its mechanical expression, a truly staggering amount of specificity and care in its whimsical variability. Each level is its own innovation, reinventing the wheel every single time you enter a new space. Truly, you never quite know what you’ll be up against – dancing piranha plants, charging hordes of rainbow buffalo, inverting colors and lights and shadows to create new designs; completely flipping the conceptual design of a level by transforming you into an enemy, or a piece of scenery, or a block. There are no limits to what any new level can bring to the table, and there is never a point where you grow tired of the endless string of creativity it has to offer. Because each level is built with such care there is a baked in difficulty slider the game creates – challenging you to excel by discovering every tiny secret the level has to offer, or allowing you to simply slip through and enjoy the scenery, it’s all valid and it all carries you through its incredible worlds and spaces. A truly wondrous experience. — VAUGHN
Final Fantasy VII, Borderlands, & Neon White — Jack
Compared to many of the great game enthusiasts who contribute to this fine website, I don’t really play that many games. I don’t keep up with the new generations of consoles or titles, but I do find myself occasionally going back to some old favourites from childhood.
This year (mainly due to recording The STACKS: Office Hours so frequently) I decided to make the most of the Nintendo Switch I bought all those years ago, and have been actively playing more. These are my top three gaming experiences of 2023.
Final Fantasy VII (1997)
Having engaged with several turn-based role-playing games over the course of my gaming history, I have often found the narrative aspect to be of lesser interest within the genre. However, in the case of Final Fantasy 7, I deliberately invested time immersing myself in its meticulously crafted world. This involved appreciating the vivid soundtrack, exploring intricately designed landscapes, all the while embracing the tactically nuanced turn-based combat. The combat system, marked by its intricacy and satisfaction, is complemented by a delicately paced level curve. This ensured a balanced experience, preventing a sense of being overly empowered or excessively confident in approaching significant boss battles or pivotal moments in the storyline. Noteworthy is the game’s aesthetic, skillfully blending elements of science fiction and cyberpunk within the framework of a classic fantasy presentation.
BORDERLANDS (2009)
Here’s another game I should have played many, many years ago—Borderlands! It immediately captivated me with its post-apocalyptic setting, depicted in a quasi-comic book style, featuring a diverse array of eccentric characters and scenarios. The gun gameplay is remarkably satisfying, and the extensive variety of weapons at the player’s disposal provides a diverse experience, accommodating different play styles based on your chosen class. Opting for the sniper class, I derived simple pleasures from standing as far away as possible while still relishing the satisfaction of a well-timed headshot on a mutant…spider…creature…thing! The death mechanics do not dissuade players who are determined to try and try again at a specific mission or boss encounter, and folks, often I needed a good few tries to get through a certain storybeat.
NEON WHITE (2022)
Speedrunning has always intrigued me, and Neon White is a game that truly encourages fast-paced gameplay and a specific play style. During an 8-hour flight from London to New York in May, a substantial portion of my journey was dedicated to tackling the multitude of Neon White speed courses. The game offers a unique blend of action, aiming accuracy, timed maps, and a floaty, slightly bouncy movement style. Its fluid, addictive, and propulsive gameplay kept me engaged, and the challenge of streamlining routes to improve final times for a chance at earning a shiny new medal proved to be a great way to pass the time. While this is not an in-depth game review, consider it more as a log of my experience with the game. I must confess, dear Twin Geeks reader, that I couldn’t provide any insights into the game’s narrative, characters, or overarching story. After the initial cutscene, I consciously chose to focus solely on the enjoyable gameplay, disregarding the subpar anime aesthetics that seemed detached from the actively intense and streamlined gaming experience. — JACK
Earthbound — by David
I was always an avid gamer growing up, even if I was late to the scene. My parents got me a PS2 and a GBA as my first systems, the Slim and SP models respectively, to tell you how late in the generation I was introduced. As a result, my exposure to the wider history of influential games was limited by the variety of libraries my friends had access to, and what they were willing to show me. One friend, who impressed upon me many of my favorite games to this day, sat me down at a computer one day and pulled up a rom for Earthbound, insisting I play it while I was over. I didn’t get very far into the seminal SNES classic that day, progressing only as far as the game’s introductory episode and exploring the starting area thereafter, but the impression was strong enough that those images and feelings of playing for maybe an hour lingered in my mind for about fifteen years, despite feeling I was being forced to play something I had no interest in at the time. At some point in my early 20s, I made a conscious decision to stop playing video games. I decided that I needed to devote my time and interest towards one particular subject if I wanted to be truly dedicated to it. I continued to play games off and on over the years, but largely as a part of wider social interests, and rarely ever of my own accord. I was able to keep this up for about a decade, before I felt I had sufficiently exhausted myself on a singular hobby. I needed more interests, more activities, to stimulate my mind.
As often happens when searching for some enigmatic answers in life, I dove back into my past looking for a familiar sense of comfort. I began watching old Youtubers playing games I remembered enjoying as a kid. It wasn’t long before I stumbled across one Let’s Play of Earthbound, and with that concentrated memory of the game in my mind, on top of the mystique it’s garnered over time for its complex development history and prominent cult status as a Nintendo IP, I decided to check it out. I’ve often found myself enjoying games just as much as a spectator as I have a player, be it online in videos or streams, or on the couch watching and aiding a friend holding the controller. But after seeing Earthbound, and the breadth of emotion and experience it provided, I could see it was a game that needed playing to truly appreciate. As a turn-based RPG, it’s not so much the control or mechanics that make it this way, but the particular and singular means of storytelling video games possess in which experience is directly translated through interaction. It’s novel and indicative of the game’s irreverent humor to have you wait for three full minutes at one point without moving to progress, but it becomes profound when you’re sitting there, contemplating the purpose behind the decision, and reveling in how distinct it is as a design choice only a video game could bestow.
After thoroughly aweing at the depth and variety of experience offered by Earthbound, I dove straight into its predecessor to appreciate the groundwork it supplied for Shigesato Itoi’s masterful gaming epoch. After that, I had to know what its lauded sequel was all about, encased in a fog of mystery due to its Japan-exclusive release. By this point, I was back in the thick of it. In truth, I had formerly broken my moratorium on gaming back in 2021, when Metroid Dread had released, getting sucked into the hype of that long-awaited renaissance, but in actuality, I feel like it wasn’t until this year that my attention truly shifted back towards this most modern of mediums, thanks primarily to Earthbound. I’ve played a lot of great games this year, new and old alike, but I suspect it’ll be a while before I encounter another title that possesses the same gravitational-shifting prowess as Earthbound. I’ve got my eyes open, though, should one happen across my radar in the meantime. — David
Final Fantasy — by Trav
I started SquareEnix’s (then SquareSoft) long-running RPG series back on the PS2 with Final Fantasy X. It wasn’t exactly a favorite at the time, but I still kept up with a good chunk of the releases as it moved forward. Jump a few decades into the future to about a week or two after the release of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker and I’ve just completed what might be considered the principle saga of XIV after a whirlwind run through its story over the preceding few months. It’s not a perfect thing, by any means, but XIV’s big-hitting arcs and themes resonated with me in a way none of the series prior ever did. Having been exposed throughout the ride to numerous references, some more deftly integrated than others, I was then drawn to the idea of going back to experience the franchise in its entirety from the beginning. I procrastinated for a bit, but then the impending arrival of XVI this past year finally convinced me to get off my butt and knock one of the largest franchises in gaming out of my backlog.
The pixel remasters provided an accessible and easy way to play through the first six, which still hold up better than might be expected at least in this semi-modernized form. (and in fact, introduced me to my favorite of the lot- the charming and delightfully customizable Final Fantasy V) The PS1 era is a bit rougher by comparison, both in terms of how dated the games are naturally and in how their most recent ports/”remasters” feel significantly lower effort. That brought me up to the point in time I joined the franchise, where I did some replaying and checked off the one “modern” FF I’d missed- XIII. (Full disclosure, XI remains a gap as I did not put in the time to go through its entire, multiple expansion-spanning storyline yet) There’s far too much to cover across a series as vast as this is, so instead here are some highlights and some low points that stick with me even now at the end of the year.
FF1’s definition of so many iconic elements is even right here at the start.
FF2‘s innovative, bizarre, and not exactly successful take on conversations with keywords. Also, that incredible Pandemonium theme.
FF3‘s introduction of jobs. It’ll be done better later but this is the real beginning of the system compared to FF1s handful so respect where it’s due.
FF4’s best for its time- maybe even still series best?- marriage of game mechanics to storytelling, whether its scripted job changes, using the battle screen for story beats, or even something as small as the presence of an uncastable Meteor spell sitting in one character’s arsenal as a Chekhov’s gun.
FF5’s job system and series of encounters encourage you to break said system in multiple different ways. Also gaming’s best splinter of wood and a certain villain’s clever use of monologuing to buy him time to throw up buffs.
FF6’s World of Ruin. Not a title that hit for me as hard as its reputation might have suggested but the structure of the back half of this game is truly impressive coming off the rest of the series.
FF7’s Midgar. The best realized setting by its time in the series and for quite a while after. Shame the meaty thematic content and worldbuilding of this title get punted to the side as it goes on.
FF8’s….. Example of a progression system that should never be attempted again? Not much positive to say here although there is a far more refined use of “minigame” sections in this after their rough introduction in 7. Also a totally killer soundtrack, even in a series where that is the norm.
FF9’s tone and balanced handling of a war-torn world and sorrow with a sense of adventure and optimism.
FF10’s coherent whole and willingness to take dramatic strides in its battle system. The most satisfying narrative work of the series if each is looked at in its entirety, examining theme, use of symbols, characters, and the actual plot beats.
FF10-2’s worthy successor systems to FF5 and a story/cast that get way too much flak, especially in an already male-centric franchise. Yuna earned this.
FF12’s gambit system, well-drawn villains, and optional hunt challenges.
FF13’s…. Willingness to hold up the rear. Because one of them had to. (There is some actual promise to its shot-calling over micromanagement approach to combat, but a wiser game would have dialed up the character count/their capabilities to make up for the already simplified level of input rather than actually simplifying that too)
FF14’s best in series story moments and music. A long hike through some fairly bland MMO leveling awaits those interested in seeing it though.
FF15’s male camaraderie and a killer Shimomura score…. That sadly doesn’t play as much in-game as it deserves. A very weak arpg combat system, especially in direct comparison to its peers in the kingdom hearts series or even….
FF16’s combat system. The main redeeming element of the one actual FF from 2023. While it lifts the game above the last two mainline single player FFs for me, the game’s ill-advised plot elements and tone, blatant filler content, and mere lip service to its RPG elements unfortunately weigh down the level of positive impact it could have.
If it seems that my feelings got a bit more negative as the series entered the HD era, well, that’s because they did. One gets the distinct sense that a series that once led or at least carved a vision separate from following trends primarily has instead shifted position and become a follower. With the level of production values the series will always insist on chasing, being a follower means showing up 5 to 6 years late to the party. But for whatever my disappointments with its most recent incarnations, the one thing I will give the series as a whole is this: no other series with any sizable number of entries- and certainly no one with this many- has threaded the needle between constantly braving new grounds for itself and retaining a strong sense of its own identity better than Final Fantasy, and that is truly impressive.
Final Fantasy 16 won’t be my game of the year, but when I look back on this year, the journey through Final Fantasy: the Franchise will be my defining gaming experience for 2023. I look forward to whatever its future may bring, both with some trepidation earned from its recent outings but also a hope that comes from seeing that there are still talents behind the wheel and new ones at that. Let’s change it up, Square, and give the more stylized worlds and looks of earlier FF a shot again, maybe put Ishikawa at the helm on the story side of the next mainline one, and define a new path in vision rather than chasing what others have done. Forge ahead! — TRAV
Thanks to all of our friends and staff for their valuable contributions. See you next year, Gamers.