Kyle’s Top Games of 2023
It's been an absolutely insane year for video games. It feels like every month has at least one juggernaut release, no matter what your tastes are.
At the start of this year, I told myself that this was going to be the year that I branched out and tried games that I otherwise wouldn't have. And honestly, I don’t think that I could have picked a better year to do that for. It was such a banger year, that I barely had time to play games from my backlog.
In the spirit of the Game Awards, I’m gonna be looking at my top six games from this year. These are the six games that had the biggest impact on me this year, and these are the games that I will look back on fondly over the coming years.
In a year as stacked as this, some games inevitably had to be cut. Fortunately, Ethan and Hunter will also be making their own lists, so be on the lookout for those in the coming weeks.
6. Super Mario RPG Remake
Image Credit: Nintendo
Let’s start off nice and simple. The original Super Mario RPG is a classic. I grew up playing this game on the Wii’s Virtual Console, and I absolutely loved it. It was a game that I would replay constantly, and it’s something that I know forward and backward. It’s one of those games that I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve actually played it.
Mario RPGs have been in an awkward spot in recent years. Paper Mario has been floundering for over ten years, and the Mario and Luigi series is essentially dead at this point. However, the Super Mario RPG Remake has been a nice return to form, and it reminded me why I loved these games in the first place.
If you enjoyed the original game, then you’ll be right at home. And if this is your first time playing it, this remake does a great job of onboarding new players, teaching you how your characters’ timed hits work, and when to guard enemy attacks.
I still believe that the original Super Mario RPG still holds up well today, and this remake is just as good as it’s ever been. Plus, there’s an actual post game this time around where you can challenge some superbosses, including fights with some characters that weren’t in the main story. Seeing how well this Remake turned out gives me a lot of hope for the Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door Remake coming in 2024.
5. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon
Image Credit: FromSoftware
I haven’t had a lot of experience with FromSoft’s backlog. Obviously there’s all of the Souls-Borne games, but they were a lot more than that once upon a time. Back in the PS1 era, they had quite a few niche Action RPGs with the King’s Field Trilogy. They also had the Armored Core series; something that ran parallel with the Souls games in the PS3 era, but never seemed to get the same acclaim.
I’ve beaten two FromSoft games, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, so they built up a lot of goodwill with me. And I’ll admit that I had never heard of Armored Core until Armored Core 6 was announced, However, a big robot game will always get me hyped!
The gameplay loop of Armored Core is very simple. You build your robot, do some missions, and earn money for new parts to upgrade your robot. It’s a very easy game to play, and is good for short burst play sessions.
Now, I think that Armored Core is a lot more accessible to newcomers than any Souls-Borne game would be. If you’ve ever been intimidated by Souls-Borne games, Armored Core never hits the same difficulty as something like Elden Ring or Sekiro. This game gets hard, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not Dark Souls with mechs.
If you’re looking for a fun game where you blow some stuff up with a giant robot, then give Armored Core 6 a look.
4. Resident Evil 4 Remake
Image Credit: Capcom
Capcom has been on an absolute tear over the last few years. Between Devil May Cry 5, and the string of Resident Evil Remakes, the quality of their games have only gone up, and they’ve had a tremendous bounce back from the 2010s when it felt like they didn’t know what their fans wanted. You’ll see Capcom on this list later, but for now, let’s focus on Resident Evil.
The Resident Evil 4 Remake has been something that I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced. I played the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 last year, and was floored at how much fun they were.
This game is the perfect example of how to properly do a remake. Modernize the controls, keep what people loved about the original, and trim down or remove the stuff that didn’t really work the first time around so that the experience is as smooth as possible.
I really think that this game managed to check all of the right boxes, and could easily be played by anybody thanks to its accessibility options (mainly aim assist). Newcomers to Resident Evil can jump in and have a good time, while people like myself who only played the recent remakes will feel right at home as well.
There’s also the “Separate Ways” DLC, which is a side story that focuses on Ada Wong’s adventure that runs parallel with Leon’s, and foreshadows what’s to come for the next Resident Evil Remake. There’s also the Mercenaries Mode, which is a time-based score attack mode. There’s a lot in this game to keep you entertained.
Capcom also runs sales for their games all the time, so if you’re interested, keep an eye out for any discounts.
3. Baldur's Gate 3
Image Credit: Larian Studios
Man, talk about an out of nowhere smash hit. In a year where most people expected Game Awards talk to be dominated by Legend of Zelda and Spider-Man 2, Larian Studios finally released Baldur’s Gate 3 from early access and completely turned the whole industry on its head. To see an Indie dev studio release a massive RPG of this size quality was absolutely unheard of.
During my playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3, I realized that I was playing something special. While I was going through with my Dragonborn Paladin build (his name was Grimlocke), I began to have thoughts about what repeat playthroughs could look like. “What if I played a Rogue class?” “What if I played a fully evil character?” “What if I sided with some villains?” When you think about what you could do on your next playthroughs while you’re still in the first act of your first playthrough, that’s when you know that you’re playing something special.
The only reason why I can’t put it any higher is that I don’t think this game is for everybody. Obviously RPGs are already a hard sell for most people, but now they have to get their heads around Dungeons and Dragons dice rolling combat. The people that like that stuff are really going to like this game, but for the average consumer, something like this could be a hard sell. It also doesn’t help that the game is massive, and that can be a turn-off for people with lives.
Still, there’s no denying that this game will have a massive ripple effect on the gaming landscape in the coming years, as AAA Publishers try to replicate what made this game so beloved. And if nothing else, it was just nice to see the Role Playing aspect of RPGs at the forefront of this game.
2. Street Fighter 6
Image Credit: Capcom
So, I’m still a relative newbie when it comes to competitive fighting games. Like most people, I grew up playing Smash Bros, and sank a lot of time into Smash 4 when I was in high school. But I didn’t get into traditional 2D fighting games until the Pandemic in 2020. That was when I started playing BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, which led to me playing Guilty Gear Strive a year later, and now I’m hooked on the genre.
Street Fighter was never a series that seemed particularly interesting to me. Every time I would watch it on the EVO livestreams, I always thought that the game looked too slow, and it just wasn’t enjoyable to watch. But, sometimes you have to play the game to realize how wrong you were. Street Fighter 6 is an absolute master of its craft, and to me stands as the paragon of modern fighting games.
If you’ve ever looked at fighting games and thought “I could never do that” I implore you to give this game a chance. A fighting game has never been more accessible to newcomers before, thanks to the addition of Modern Controls. Using Modern Controls will give you access to 1-Button special moves (like Smash Bros) in exchange for not having your character’s full moveset.
In addition to that, there’s also the World Tour mode, which acts as the single player campaign. This will teach you the basics of fighting games, as well as the mechanics of Street Fighter 6 in a safe environment. The game will teach you about combos, the parry mechanic, and how to play defense.
And if you’re really feeling up to it, the online in this game is near-perfect! If you queue up in Training Mode, you’ll be in and out of matches in seconds. And the Rollback Netcode puts every other modern fighting game to shame. In the hundreds of matches I’ve played, I’ve only had a handful of matches with what I would consider “bad connections”.
Fighting games are rad, and there’s a reason why Street Fighter will continue to be the face of the genre. If you’ve ever been interested in playing a fighting game, now is the best time. There are so many resources available, and so much information being shared every day between players. And given the popularity of this game, there will always be someone for you to play against online.
EDIT: I wrote this at the end of November. I just want to add on to this by saying that Capcom’s monetization of this game is absolute crap. $100 for all of the characters 3rd costumes is a total joke. Street Fighter 6 does a lot of things right, and does a lot to push Fighting Games forward, but the DLC monetization is indefensible, especially for a game that already has a $60 entry fee.
1. Octopath Traveler 2
Image Credit: Square Enix
Over the course of doing this show, I’ve always maintained that my Game of the Year is the game that brought me the most fun while playing it. While I enjoyed my time with Baldur’s Gate and I’ll always boot up Street Fighter to play a couple of rounds online, it took me a while to find the fun in those games. However, Octopath Traveler 2 hooked me right from the start!
The original Octopath was my game of the year pick back in 2018, and this game does what any good sequel should do. Take what worked about the first game, and fix the issues that people had with it.
The HD-2D graphics are the best they’ve ever looked. Every character has a compelling story that made me want to see them all succeed. There’s an Epilogue story that ties all of the characters’ stories together. And the music is some of the best I’ve heard all year. Yasunori Nishiki is back as the composer for this game, and he absolutely crushes it.
After everything that’s come out this year, no other game has come close to giving me the experience that Octopath Traveler 2 gave me. While everyone else had Tears of the Kingdom or Spider-Man 2 as their most anticipated sequels, this was what I was looking forward to, simply because I never thought that Octopath 1 would have ever gotten a sequel.
A couple of years after Octopath 1 was released, Square Enix put out an Octopath Mobile Game (Champions of the Continent). Something like that is usually the kiss of death for a franchise. Fortunately, Octopath got to live, and it came back stronger than before! And if Final Fantasy is going to move away from turn-based combat, I’m glad that this series can pick up the mantle.
I have also done a full review of this game if you are interested in seeing my full thoughts and a proper breakdown of the game. You can find that over here.
Closing
And that’s my list. Obviously in a year as stacked as this, some games had to be cut. And while I enjoyed games like Tears of the Kingdom or the Dead Space Remake, they just didn’t leave enough of an impact on me to make my list. Be sure to check back next week when one of my partners posts their lists!