This is my annual list for my personal favorite and disappointing games of the
year. To clarify, these are not the "best and worst" games of the year.
They are titles I enjoyed or was letdown by based on my own preferences
and expectations. Most of the titles on my disappointing list are not
even what I would consider bad games, they just weren't for me, or were
not what I was expecting.
All the games on this list I have
either played to completion or abandoned. I have ordered the list based
on my overall enjoyment (one being the best) of games I played in 2023.
Most of the games listed here will not be brand new 2023 releases. They
are games I played in 2023 that were new to me.
Anything that could be considered a spoiler has been blocked out. Highlight to reveal.
The world is stuck in a perpetual loop of war, death, and suffering where colonies of child soldiers are ruled over by a Moebius monster with fealty to a Queen. Sounds dark, right? Well... its not. The 'power of friendship' is emphasized heavily, everyone is obsessed with smiling, and a certain villain (Shania) who commits genocide - twice - is forgiven because they have mommy issues. The story keeps telling you how bad things are but it doesn't feel that way. Characters talk in circles constantly, explaining and reexplaining the very obvious themes of the game like you're a 5 year old. Noah (the protagonist) is the most generic "good guy" and the Moebius villains are literal immortal children playing with their 'toys'. They all have the same wacky mannerisms and will throw a tantrum whenever things don't go their way, so they never come off as a serious threat.
Most of the story beats are broadcast too early or the big plot reveals are too obvious. Before the game was released for example, fans had already guessed that the letter of each Moebius' name corresponded to their full name, and that Noah and N were connected in some way. Then you have moments like where Eunie finds her old body, revealing a system of reincarnation similar to what was seen in XBC2 (except it is possible for people to retain the memories of their past lives). A Moebius then reveals himself to be a childhood friend (Joran) of the main cast in Chapter 3, alerting the player to the fact that anyone going forward could be a Moebius. So, scarcely halfway into the story, the stakes of death have been removed and the identity of every Moebius can now be ascertained by the letters of their names and the characters who match.
For the first time ever in a Xenoblade game I found the exploration to be mundane. The world is intentionally washed out of color and five times larger than its predecessors (according to producer Koh Kojima), but doesn't add any meaningful content to fill that additional space. Remnants from the worlds of XBC1 and XBC2 are visibly present, but seem to exist purely for the sake of nostalgia as they have no bearing in how the player navigates the world or engages with it mechanics. In fact, the biggest defining trait of XBC3's world is that it is circular like a clock - a recurring element, but it isn't very noticeable and if you do notice it, it doesn't have the same impact as navigating a giant humanoid body.
I don't mind cameos and a little bit of fan service, but if you're going to try to connect things in a big way, show me you have something interesting to say about it. Like, why are Melia and Nia here? Since when is Nia royalty? How did they establish contact each other? Neither one is a person of science, so why are they at the helm of the "Origin" operation? Who actually made the blueprints and how did they figure out how to do it? The entire thing is poorly explained. The game also clearly wants to say something with its focus on existential philosophy, but the execution is sloppy and too drawn out. The constant revival of dead characters cheapened the message of making the most out of the limited time you have. And I get that the Moebius are a manifestation of peoples lack of ambition and their willingness to let the world persist as it is, while the heroes are concerned with moving forward, but where did it intend to go with all of this? The story just kinda ends and loops back to where it began. Everything that happened occurred in a sort of simulation, so the entire adventure technically wasn't real, and Rex has a harem now(?).
The mysterious black fog is made out to be a bigger deal than it is.
It struck me as odd that none of the colonies opposed destroying the flame clock, or questioned the necessity of the queens, especially after finding out that the previous ones were Moebius controlled fakes. On the whole XB3 tells far more than it shows; important plot points, events, and characters are shown in flashback cutscenes instead of being experienced organically. So big emotional scenes with dramatic deaths for NPCs like Joran, Ethel, or Cammuravi - NPCs I know nothing about and have zero attachment to, end up falling flat. I guess it has its audience, but as much as I love the Xenoblade series, this one just didn't click for me.
I was really looking forward to this dino ranching game; unfortunately
first impressions are important and this one did not launch in a
polished state. I installed some of the patches but the bugs continued
to be a detriment to gameplay and I inevitably lost interest.
The focus in this 'cozy game' is more about creature collecting than farming, which is done primarily to earn money. To tame a dino the player needs to lure it near by playing its 'Friend Song' - a series of colored bubbles. The player needs to not only get the color order right but the 'loudness' of each note as well. The player then needs to move the needle on a 'Friend meter' into the green zone by feeding and soothing. Too far in either direction and the tame will fail. Once in the green, the player then needs to feed the preferred Poppin (cake) type or the tame will fail. Even feeding the correct Poppin will not always result in an immediate tame, so the process may need to be repeated several times. I imagine children may struggle with this system. Every animal has two skills: wild (Sprinter, Slasher, Discoverer, Smasher, Stomper) and farm (Waterer, Tiller, Clearer, Harvester, Tender) - that help with different elements of gameplay. The Wild variety are useful when you venture out from your ranch, and Farm ones assist with farming duties.
You have to feed and interact with your dino's everyday to keep their friendship level up or they'll run away.
Farming can be a frustrating enterprise because of finicky movement and placement that makes it hard to hit the correct tiles or pull up a fence post. When ploughing with a dino like styracosaurus, there will often be a missed square or two that I would have to go in and fix by hand. Dino's also spray water in an erratic pattern that makes it hard to tend to crops without making multiple passes. On a positive note, this is the only farming sim that I have seen implement a convincing crop rotation mechanic by having each crop prefer a different soil type - soft, sticky or firm, and when harvested leave behind a soil type different from the one they were planted in. It is a beautifully simple system.
There are repeating quests you can complete, although they are all the same "fetch X item/material/food" type filler. By doing enough of these your bond with an NPC will increase, opening up unique character requests and main story missions. Sadly, NPCs are merchants first, people second. There are a host of little annoyances such as there being no hotbar or item wheel, so you have to click through multiple menus to build or interact with anything. Not a big issue, just increasingly tedious the more you play.
The narrative is a straightforward tale about a samurai fighting back against Mongolian invaders. It is fairly compelling, but not terribly deep and I'd be hard pressed to recall the names of any of the main cast. Too often it falls into the trap of having someone die in almost every mission - whether it makes sense or not, so you just start expecting it and emotionally distance yourself from the characters because you know they likley aren't going to be around for very long. This made 'shock events' like the deaths of Taka and the horse expected, so they didn't surprise me in the slightest. The story does a fairly good job though, of touching on morality in war and the challenges of adapting to a changing world or stubbornly clinging to tradition. The Shogun are shown as acting to preserve the aristocracy of the Samurai over defending Japan in a manner not dissimilar to how the Khan rewards obedience and punishes defiance. On the other hand, the methods used by Jin and the Mongols can be ruthless and without limits. The ending in particular was a standout moment for me, encapsulating many of the themes and challenges faced by Jin over the course of his journey: He has to battle his uncle Shimura and either kill or spare him. Sparing could be seen as Jin demonstrating how finding one's own code can save lives, and lines up with how Jin protected the lives of his people and his family by defying tradition. Alternatively, Jin killing his uncle for an honor code that has stripped him of his home and family legacy could be seen as Jin remembering where he came from, as a warriors death would spare Shimura from grief and his peers, who seem to view him increasingly as a failure. In this way, Jin makes another sacrifice to protect those he cares about. There are just so many ways to interpret the motives behind each ending and it is refreshing to have a story conclusion with no definitive 'right' or 'best' outcome.
The environmental design and art direction for Ghost of Tsushima is so breathtaking that a lot of the game's flaws, particularly at launch, seem to have been ignored. It makes for an interesting case study in how much aesthetics can elevate an otherwise average game. It isn't even that detailed, just very visually pleasing. Cloth and metal for example are ultra realistic, while skin and plants are almost textureless by comparison. Not really a complaint, just an observation.
Ghost of Tsushima had the most bloated open world I have experienced in the last few years with roughly 90% of the map being populated with the same copy/paste activities: shrines, fox dens, bamboo strikes, and haikus (my favorite). Mongolians are the only dynamic world encounter and buildings have the same interior. There are only a handful of resources to collect and animal species to encounter in the wilderness as well. I have read that Ghost of Tsushima is best when you ignore everything but the main questline, due to how much of the side content repeats. I didn't do this and greatly regret it. If the development team didn't have the time or resources to make a proper open world with meaningful side content then they should have just made it a linear experience or leaned into the minimalist 'Shadow of the Colossus' approach to world exploration.
I seem to be in the minority on this, but I hated the wind mechanic which functions as a sort of quest marker. It is suppose to make the world feel more immersive, but I could never for the life of me determine where the wind was pointing me. I would've preferred the option to toggle on or off traditional quest markers.
Fenyx Rising is a departure from Ubisoft's usual style of gameplay, which is why I think I ended up liking this one more than I expected. It's basically a more forgiving version of Breath of the Wild: weapons don't break, you can tame wild horses, complete vaults, climb and glide for longer without being interrupted, etc. I love the art direction they took and the unique narrative direction of Prometheus recounting Fenyx's tale to Zeus while criticizing and poking fun at Greek mythology. As soon as I started having fun though, one of the games many annoyances would dampen things for me. The same buttons are mapped to multiple actions, so they will occasionally trigger the wrong action or take several seconds to respond to a button press. There are not nearly enough fast travel points for how large the world map is. Puzzles are more often than not, tedious rather than clever, and after a while they start feeling samey; more to do in the world or a smaller map would have been ideal. Nearly all of the Vaults (which increase stamina) use platforming - a genre I immensely dislike, to varying degrees. They cannot be avoided either because several are mandatory for main questline progression. I have a very love/hate relationship with this one.
Rune Factory is a fantasy farming sim series with combat and dungeon crawling. You tame monsters and then put them to work on your farm or ride them around town and into battle. Rune Factory 5 is the series first foray into 3D, and it ended up being a downgrade from its predecessor; almost a clone of Rune Factory 4 in the best and worst ways possible. Fundamentally RF5 is the same game - dungeons, fighting, farming, socializing, dating, and learning new recipes are all here and mostly unchanged, but the mechanics are more awkward in 3D. The camera auto-sets to a top-down perspective when farming, which wouldn't have been so bad if I could use the D-pad to move the farmer. Instead I am forced to use the analogue stick, which causes the player character to 'slide' a short distance forwards rather than coming to an immediate halt; I lost so many valuable crops to this. Time also moves much slower in RF5 than is typical for the genre, presumably to make it a more relaxed experience. This left me with so much excess time each day that after checking in with the shops, conversing/gifting, and tending to five different farms I was still finishing most days at around noon. Leveling is less grindy than in RF4, to where I rarely upgraded my gear and could finish an entire dungeon in a single day with time to spare; not necessarily a bad thing as RF5 doesn't have a New Game+ feature, so the relaxed combat makes replaying the game easier. The main storyline is significantly shorter than RF4 as well, with some gamers reportedly beating the game as early as the first week of summer year 1. I beat the game by the end of the first year and spent the second year finishing up town events and unlocking new crops. By year 3 I had done everything except fully upgrading the town because resource gathering is tedious and unbalanced. Each building requires nearly 5,000 stone and wood. Stumps/boulders give 3 to 9 pieces each. With $10 million in my pocket I wish there was a way to just buy the raw materials like in Stardew Valley.
The 3d environments can look "off"
at times due to some objects being too smooth and colors being too
uniform, especially in the grass.
Menus are easier to navigate now, and there are a lot of cool weapons to
pick up and different combat styles to try out. The color temperature
of the whole game and the way it shifts as the day progresses is very
well done. The night skies in particular are gorgeous. The new cast of
characters were all well written and varied. I really like how they kept
some of the character backstories, such as Beatrice's reason for being in town or what Ryker
gets up to at night, locked behind their romance events. There is not
nearly as much unique dialogue as RF4 though, and the cast oftentimes
felt too similar to the one from RF4: Reinhard = Vishnal, Beatrice = Arthur, Scarlet = Forte, Elsje = Clorica, and Cecil = Illuminata.
The townsfolk do not play an active role in the narrative like RF4's
Guardians or even interact with one another all that much, so I
constantly forgot that Lucy was the daughter of Simone and that Cecil
and Martin were brothers.
Despite my gripes, I still had a blast with this one. Rune Factory 5 isn't the best game in the series, but its far from the worst. The rough transition to 3D and releasing after what is generally regarded as the best game in the series just doesn't make it look good. There are also a lot of technical issues that really drag this release down, like furniture always leaving a large gap from the wall or the frame rate dropping every time you enter or exit a building. For the first few hours of gameplay the erratic frame-rates actually made me physically ill. Eventually I adjusted to it, but I wouldn't recommend picking this one up on the Switch.
I still had a reasonably good time despite the bugs and unfinished state of the game.
I am still very new to Fire Emblem, with Three Houses being my first foray into the franchise. Initially I wasn't interested in Engage at all. The gameplay in the trailers looked fun, but there didn't seem to be a storyline and the new art style was too ostentatious for my tastes. First impressions are often wrong though, and after watching some YouTubers playing Engage, I decided to pick up a copy as an impulse buy.
One thing Engage does really well over Three Houses is balancing the various units and encouraging diversity on the team. Armored units have better movement for example, while magic users are good for support. The various infantry units each have unique traits and roles now, such as halbediers having guaranteed follow-ups while heroes give the party damage boosts. The weapon triangle from past titles makes a return: sword > Axe > Lance > sword / Martial arts beats thief, mage, and archer. The triangle further discourages class homogeneity by inflicting a "break" status effect on units that are attacked by one they are weak against. Units suffering from "break" cannot counterattack, which encourages planning and mindfulness of enemy compositions. Engage's main gimmick - the 'Emblems' (heroes from past games), whose power can be called upon for a set number of rounds, plays into the player power fantasy and are fun to use while still being limited enough that they do not let you plow through levels.
My biggest issue with Engage is the focus on 'bonds' and 'friendship' as a theme while Alear's (protagonist) relationships are based almost exclusively on people worshiping them for their status as the "Divine Dragon" rather than that trust having to be earned. Everybody, including rival kingdoms, just get along. Loyalty is never tested because Alear is the only path to avoiding the apocalypse. Non-villains (mostly parents) get about 1 chapter before they are offed or forgotten about. Actual villains have the opposite problem in that they are recurring and get a big sob story dump right before dying rather than revealing it organically through gameplay and interactions over the course of the game. The player is also expected to have pre-existing emotional connections to the Emblems, so Engage doesn't bother to flesh them out beyond one-note cutouts. Support conversations with allies aren't much better and typically boil down to something about cuteness or muscles that just isn't fun to listen to. The writing on the whole is goofy and I can't tell if this was intentional or not. The game seems to take itself seriously for the most part, but then the characters say and do things so silly that it has to be some attempt at comedy. For example, Alear has two caretakers that start a literal Alear fan club. Two other companions regularly make animal noises and another man keeps trying to lick and smell sauce off of Alear's clothes. Perhaps there is just some cultural difference in humor I am not getting. The narrative also suffers from contrived storytelling, juvenile dialogue, plot induced stupidity, and telling rather than showing. The narrative tries very hard to pull off plot twists, but they all end up being pointless, such as having Alear die and revive twice in the same mission, or Sombron (the Big Bad Evil Guy) dispersing the Emblems just so Alear can call them back seconds later. Sombron's goal keeps changing as well. First it's to conquer Elyos, then it's to raise his kingdom Gradlon from the sea, then it's to leave Elyos to conquer all other worlds, and finally it's to locate the Zero Emblem. Paralogues also felt disjointed from the rest of the world because they just appear on the world map with no context. It is not clear why you should go there or why you're fighting or how this "strengthens your bonds" with an Emblem. The Emblems make the fight out to be a mock battle but then they kill your units for real. It would've made more sense to have the Emblem fight on your side against some evil from their world. For comparison, in Three Houses the relevant characters tell you about their paralogue and you go to the location indicated because you care about this person. You understand why you are there, why you are fighting the enemies you are, and why you get the reward you do.
Apparently the team that worked on Engage is not the same one that made Three Houses, hence the wildly different styles, and I enjoyed Engage for different reasons than Three houses. One is colorfully flamboyant, silly, and has good gameplay mechanics and balancing. The other is bleaker with a more serious narrative and deeper characters. Very different beasts. Three houses is the type of game I derive more enjoyment from playing; enough to sink 300+ hours into it. While I had a good enough time with Engage, after my first playthrough I feel no desire to replay it anytime soon. Maybe in a few years time I'll get the itch to return.
Engage's art direction has spawned many toothpaste and "popstars playing warriors" memes.
I have no idea why the publisher gave this game the same name as an unrelated 2006 game they own, but I remember them cracking down hard on any indie game with "prey" in the title (I'm still a bit miffed at Bethesda
for that). I skipped over Prey (2017) at launch due to the mixed
reception it was receiving, which stemmed largely from game breaking
bugs, including one that would wipe entire save files. Six years later
reception seems to have improved, although a few glitches still remain
even with the latest patch installed. I didn't know very much about this
game going in, other than the story had something to do with dark
creatures.
Right off the bat, the opening is one of the best twists I've seen done in a game recently and the moment when you smash the glass in the simulation
will always be a memorable one. As is typical with immersive sims, the
gameplay gives the player a variety of options and tools in how to
approach objectives, such as reaching higher platforms by hacking a
door, finding the key card, or building a staircase with hardening goo.
Sections of the map are unavailable until the player has the right skill
or item, requiring a bit of backtracking. This becomes exasperating
near the end of the game due to having to travel through multiple
sections, each with its own loading screen, and then having to take a
lengthy elevator ride to reach mission goals; really killed the
momentum. The world felt generic compared to other immersive sims like Dishonored and Bioshock
but that largely comes down to my personal tastes I think. I tend to
prefer the fantastical to the ordinary. Enough hints were also dropped
about Morgan's experience being a simulation that I wasn't surprised by the after-credits reveal. The typhon thing was unexpected though, and left me wondering:
- Is the real Morgan still alive? Was there ever a Morgan?
- How much of the simulation was what the real Morgan experienced?
- Is the handshake at the end a test in another simulation?
- What happened to make key NPCs Operators? Or were they never real people to begin with?
I went back to Borderlands 2
after finishing 3 just to compare the two and couldn't believe how much
better BL3 looked and felt. Gunplay is smoother and punchier. I loved
the design direction, new customization options, and being able to
switch between elements on the same weapon. Each brand has its own
gimmick and enemies have more of a reaction to getting hit. The
environments are gorgeous and more varied compared to its predecessors. I
had put off playing BL3 for years after hearing about its abysmal
characters and poor performance. Apparently Gearbox
managed to salvage this one with patches, although my play-through
wasn't without a few hiccups here and there, and at least one crash.
After producing a legendary villain like Handsome Jack,
I knew whatever came afterwards probably wouldn't be as good, and the
BL3 twins are... unique. They are purposefully written to be cringe
streamers that went from a life of complete isolation to being worshiped
as Gods by a cult of literal psychos. They're decent enough villains
that are never properly utilized, if that makes sense. What I mean is, Tyreen and Troy
never face "you", the player, only your allies. They have no personal
involvement with the player, and the Vault Hunter (player character) is
never rendered in any of the cutscenes or included in pivotal moments.
The only personal interaction the Vault Hunter ever has with either of
the twins is with Troy at the Jakobs Estate on Eden-6 when he
Phasegrasps them. Unlike Handsome Jack, the twins agenda isn't really
against the Vault Hunter - its with Lilith, a character (among many recurring ones) that BL3 assumes you already have some familiarity with. I had played BL2 and the Tales series
of games, but that was so long ago that I had a hard time recalling who
many of these characters were, and likewise didn't much care when they
died. I imagine a complete newcomer to the series would have an even
harder time keeping up than I did. The inclusion of a new child NPC
called Ava, also gets a lot hate from the fandom for replacing her mentor Maya, who is a much more beloved NPC and former player character that gets killed off because Ava disregarded orders.
Ava then blames Lilith (who wasn't part of that mission) for the
incident. It wouldn't have been so bad if Ava grew as a person, but she
never walks her words back or expresses regret. Instead, Ava gaslights
Lilith into accepting full responsibility for the death of Maya.
Lilith's sacrifice(?) at the game's conclusion is then framed as a
redemption arc for what happened to Maya, and Ava is rewarded with
something she hasn't earned. The story also hinges on every Siren being
an idiot:
- Maya, who can stick people in unbreakable bubbles, decides to restrain someone with physical force.
- Lilith, who has the ability to teleport, gets restrained.
- Tannis, who can act as an AI to manipulate technology, somehow can't keep track of two kids who do nothing but live-stream.
That said, the dialogue for FL4K and Zane Flynt was quite amusing. Typhon, Balex, Clay, and Wainwright
were great new additions to the roster of eccentric Borderlands
characters. I also liked the power imbalance between Troy and his
sister, and how that affected their relationship. When the scales were
finally balanced, allowing Troy to be more assertive, I was expecting a
divide in the cult or a betrayal. One was set up during the Eden-6 content and Tyreen straight up said "you're killing me!" during the Troy battle. It felt like something was at stake and it would have been a good time for Troy to kill Tyreen,
either unintentionally or on purpose. Towards the end I was even
entertaining the idea that their dad might talk them down when their
actions increasingly appeared to be nothing more than a cry for
attention. But someone higher up must have stepped in at some point
because that doesn't happen. Tyreen remains the BBEG and only traces of a
different narrative with Troy are left behind. Lots of hints of him
turning on his sister and becoming the Big Bad, or a reluctant villain
that changes sides are there. I am not even sure how Tyreen felt about
Troy. Is she sad to have lost her brother? Happy to be rid of the "Leech"? Did she care about her blood-relatives at all?
It isn't clear. I still had a way better time with Borderlands 3 than I
was expecting, and the gameplay is so smooth that I am more likley to
replay this over BL2.
For anyone that cares, my lingering questions after beating the game:
- Tyreen's powers are only capable of draining vault keys, not charging them. So why did the Crimson Raiders (Lilith's group) charge and open the vaults to begin with? By now the crew should know whats inside a vault. Why not break or safeguard the non-charged keys?
- Why didn't Tyreen and Troy destroy the Sanctuary ship? They broadcast to it and so must have at least a vague idea of where it is located.
- Why was Troy able to kill Maya, but Lilith just lost her powers? And why didn't Tyreen leech every Siren of their powers when she downed them at Nekrotafeyo?
- Why did Tyreen half-fuse with the Destroyer? Did something go wrong?
- What did Lilith even do at the last vault, besides putting a picture on the moon?
This is a short one at roughly 3 hours long, but I love the unorthodox
presentation and cartoonish absurdity of Renaissance paintings brought
to life in the comedy style of Monty Python. Basically, Bellona (painted
by Rembrandt) is bummed because the holy war has ended and she really
enjoyed murdering. The tyrant Heavenly Peter has escaped however, so she
sets out on a point-and-click adventure to claim his head.
There is a story to this game but it is murky. From what I could gather:
Space
people wielding cannabis-powered guns, travel to a desert planet where
they are worshiped as gods by the native people for introducing cannabis
to the planet. At some point everyone has to evacuate to Earth because
sand worms have become too much of a problem. The protagonist may be a
native that rediscovered the portal, or they may be a time traveling
space-person. It's unclear.
The player starts out as a marathon runner caught in a sandstorm (likley inspired by Mauro Prosperi).
They take shelter in an old building and emerge to an alien desert with
Earth animals. It's an odd mix of survival game and walking simulator
that tries to imitate the feeling of being stranded in the desert by
having nothing but sand all the way to the horizon. Landmarks are rare.
There is no compass. The only save points are the ones the player
crafts, and the map is a blank sheet of paper you have to draw out
yourself. Travel from one location to the next can take minutes to
hours, but the player character or their mount can be set to auto-run,
making it possible to look around, manage hunger/thirst, and craft basic
items while covering ground; and the absence of points-of-interest or
objectives to complete removes the worry of missing something important.
Referencing the map while relying on my memory and the scant few
landmarks, often obscured by tall dunes or sandstorms, to navigate the
world made exploring the barren landscape strangely rewarding. It was
also punishing. Without a save-point bed, there is no way to record
progress, making it easy to loose hours (real-world time) of travel
because of heat, animal attack, a misstep, or game crashes. The UI and
controls are awkward and difficult to learn because the tutorial tells
you what to do but not how to do it. After a few hours of fiddling I had
most of it worked out, but simple quality of life improvements like a
tool-tip or icon showing what button to press for various actions would
go a long way.
I had a good bit of fun with this odd indie game until I reached the final oasis and boss area. This is where Starsand transitions from a decent open-world survival game to a terrible linear platformer. The whole final area is a confusing mess of corridors with poorly defined pathways that force the player to make long jumps across chasms that deal enough damage upon landing to insta-kill, and to crawl through maze-like tunnels with insta-death potholes. To complete the game, you will need to backtrack to the starting location in order to gather the resources required to fight the final boss. But this whole final area seems to be designed only for the player to go further into the endgame zone instead of out. When I first got to this area I genuinely thought it was impossible to get back out (I had to turn to an online guide). I died over 20 times and had about 7 game crashes while trying to find my way out, and almost gave up; according to the trophies/achievements only 2% of players owning the game have actually beaten the final boss and left through the portal.
Starsand strikes me as very niche. There just aren't many survival games quite like it and despite it's nightmare of an endgame zone, I ended up loving the first half. I honestly wish the game was longer and had more content because it left me wanting more. If I ever replay it, and I often get the longing for a similar experience, I'll probably just stay in the desert.
Placing this one as high on my list as I did has a lot to do with my love of the Dishonored
series and my desire for additional experiences in its universe. I know
this game is generally not as loved by the fandom as the mainline
entries. On the one hand DotO demystifies the most interesting bit of
lore in the franchise, but on the other, they have opened up countless
new narrative possibilities for themselves going forward. With no one to
oversee the Void, it may start to leak into the real world. According
to the Heart from D1: "when the last leviathan is gone, darkness will fall." This could refer to either the increasingly rare whales or to the Outsider
himself, who is sometimes called the "Great Leviathan". How will the
existing cults and religious organizations be affected? In what ways
will the world change? The treatment of Daud
is another point of contention in the fan base. I haven't played any of
the Dishonored DLCs, so I don't actually know all that much about him
beyond what was shown in D1, but it did strike me as odd that a
professional killer would try to blame his actions on the Outsider;
especially if Corvo and Emily, with the same power, can complete two games without killing anyone. Arkane Studios really had to reach to justify why this man would suddenly want the Outsider dead. And Billie goes along with it because she really likes Daud(?) and maybe has something against the Outsider after the events of D2.
Regardless,
I found Death of the Outsider to be the most intriguing entry in the
series so far, despite its short length. Billie's powers are fewer in
number but fun to use, and the new mana system encourages their use. The
new contract system was a welcome change that provided additional
objectives and challenges to complete. And though controversial, I
really liked the freedom to approach a mission however I liked without a
black and white morality (chaos) system steering me towards playing a
certain way for the sake of "replay value". Although it was a bit
odd for there to be no consequences, not even small ones like guards
apprehending gang members during the raid if you played non-lethal.
Instead the guards will kill everyone regardless of your approach.
Harvestella is a visual novel-RPG hybrid with strong thematic influences from Nier: Automata and a tiny bit of the farming sim genre mixed in. The storyline isn't terribly complex, but is an odd mix of fantasy, science, and religion whose logic can be hard to follow, particularly near the end when several plot threads come together. Adding to the confusion is inconsistent wording, such as referring to the planets archaically as stars and at other times just as planets. For those interested in how strange the lore can get and don't mind spoilers, here is a summary of the plot, or at least the best I could make of it:
AI (called Seth or
Omens) were entrusted with the salvation of the dying human race
(because humans couldn't figure out how to save themselves or
something). All the humans were put into hibernation aboard a
space-station while the AI abandoned Earth (called Lost Gaia in-game) to
focus on terraforming the moon (called ReGaia) using four Seaslight
(giant crystals). In addition to the AI, the humans also created
blond-haired little girls to act as "operating systems" for dragons
(some kind of super-weapon) and the planet itself (which may have its
own DNA, soul, and memories or something). The girl/system in charge of
the planet discovered the internet and came to the conclusion that
humans wanted to destroy themselves (despite humans creating AI to do
the exact opposite). So she created the original Seaslight (called Red
Queen) to emit "gaia dust/Quietus" that is toxic to anyone who inhales
it, similar to the effects of real-life Lunar dust. She also ripped a
scientist's (Aria)
soul from her body - to stop her research or something - and held onto
it for 2,000+ years before releasing it (somehow with a physical body)
onto the moon via the four Seaslight off-shoots/clones created by the
AI.
Meanwhile the moon, with its own girl/system or soul(?),
created imitation humans (called Abels) to confuse the AI. She also
created the player character by copying or transferring their real-human
(called Cains) consciousness or soul from the space-station into an
Abel body (where the body came from is never explained) to combat the
dust. Fantasy creatures such as faeries, unicorns and sirens were
created by the planets and AI for various reasons unrelated to the main
plotline.
The game was a bit light on the farming aspects - you have a predefined field and barns with only 2 types of livestock, but I loved the innovations it brought to the genre. More farming sims need a watering mechanic like Harvestella's. Most of the food produced on the farm isn't sold for cash, but converted to dishes/drinks that replenish health and stamina in battle. I was initially surprised by how fast the days moved, but in typical farm sim fashion, the player can take as many days or years to complete objectives as they need. Sprinklers, an upgradable steed and eventually an airship, make daily tasks go faster, freeing up more of the day as well.
The daily gameplay loop of farm work, socializing and questing was addictive, but I was disappointed by how disjointed the party members felt because they never interacted with each other. There is a food/rest/chat mechanic in the dungeons that may have solved this, but I forgot it existed. I also thought for sure that Ein's (the protagonist) immunity to the Quietus would factor into the story somehow eventually, but it never does. Instead Aria is the real main character and Ein is just there to support her. In fact, Ein came across as more of a therapist for the group during their personal stories, and in the case of Brakka, as a pest butting into business they had no good reason to be getting involved in. The personal stories for your companions are generally very good. Some are a bit on the nose, like Istina's "shadow of the past" being a literal shadow person, while others were concerning, such as Shrika subjecting an innocent man to religious persecution. But I can look beyond the blemishes to see what the writers wanted to communicate, which are mostly very positive messages.
Dredge is a sort of fishing simulator that tasks the Fisherman (player) with upgrading their tiny fishing vessel to catch new and ever freakier aquatic lifeforms. It isn't long before things start to turn creepy - fish with mutations start cropping up, weird infections "slither" aboard, and odd illusions are seen at night. A mysterious "Collector" also enlists the Fisherman's help in dredging up relics from an incident in the town's not-so-distant past. I don't want to give away too much, but this was one of the few games in recent memory that made me feel a sense of wonder and excitement from exploration. I wanted to know what the Collector was up to and what would happen next.
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